The Genealogical Adam and Eve– Part One

Last updated on: October 26, 2021 at 1:31 am by Ben Witherington

The Genealogical Adam and Eve– Part One 2021-10-15T10:47:17-04:00 Ben Witherington

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Having first read William Lane Craig’s fascinating book on the The Quest for the Historical Adam, that book kept mentioning a computational geneticist named Joshua Swamidass as a dialogue partner. I decided I’d better read his book as well about a genealogical Adam and Eve. Let me say right off the bat as a Biblical scholar that both books are excellent, and both, in my view, have some significant exegetical deficiencies which is not entirely surprising since Craig is a philosopher, and Swamidass a scientist. In regard to the ethos of each book, Craig is more definitive and certain about his conclusions, and Swamidass more open to a variety of possibilities though he takes a definite position on the genealogical as opposed to the genetic ancestry we all have, in particular in regard to Adam and Eve. Both books affirm that yes there was an historical Adam, with Craig thinking it must have been hundreds of thousands of years ago, and Swamidass showing that it could have been much more recently, say 6 to 12,000 thousand years ago. Let me first share the statement on Amazon crafted I presume by IVP about Swamidass’ book—

“Evolutionary science teaches that humans arose as a population, sharing common ancestors with other animals. Most readers of the book of Genesis in the past understood all humans descended from Adam and Eve, a couple specially created by God. These two teachings seem contradictory, but is that necessarily so? In the fractured conversation of human origins, can new insight guide us to solid ground in both science and theology? In The Genealogical Adam and Eve, S. Joshua Swamidass tests a scientific hypothesis: What if the traditional account is somehow true, with the origins of Adam and Eve taking place alongside evolution? Building on well-established but overlooked science, Swamidass explains how it’s possible for Adam and Eve to be rightly identified as the ancestors of everyone. His analysis opens up new possibilities for understanding Adam and Eve, consistent both with current scientific consensus and with traditional readings of Scripture. These new possibilities open a conversation about what it means to be human. In this book, Swamidass:

untangles several misunderstandings about the words human and ancestry, in both science and theology
explains how genetic and genealogical ancestry are different, and how universal genealogical ancestry creates a new opportunity for rapprochement
explores implications of genealogical ancestry for the theology of the image of God, the fall, and people “outside the garden”

Some think Adam and Eve are a myth. Some think evolution is a myth. Either way, the best available science opens up space to engage larger questions together. In this bold exploration, Swamidass charts a new way forward for peace between mainstream science and the Christian faith.”

That is a good summary of the book, and throughout the tone is irenic and friendly and various options of interpretation are fairly aired. Perhaps the most important point the book makes is that there is a difference between genetic ancestry and genealogical ancestry, and that in assessing Adam and Eve it is the latter which needs to be focused on, not the former. This being the case, a book like Adam and the Genome previously discussed on this blog, is likely barking up the wrong tree, and comes to the wrong conclusions. I will not spoil the fine way Swamidass carefully lays out his evidence for the difference between these two things, but the main thing to observe is that he definitely shows that all human beings by the period A.D.1 to A.D. 30 could indeed be the descendants of Adam and Eve, provided there was interbreeding between those who were outside of the garden of Eden (namely Cain and Seth) and those who already existed outside the garden of Eden.

There are two other points he necessarily makes to support this conclusion: 1) the genetic evidence of all of humanity sharing a common ancestor with apes is real and evolution should not be denied its place in our considerations (something Craig and Swamidass agree on), and 2) none of that evidence in any way denies or refutes that God could have also created de novo Adam and Eve as well. In short, Swamidass argues evolution of humans outside Eden, supernatural creation of Adam and Eve inside Eden. He makes an excellent case, pointing out that with interbreeding between Adam and Eve’s progeny and those outside the garden, something Genesis itself suggests, by the time we get to Jesus’ day human beings all provide genetic evidence of a long evolution and sharing a common ancestor with the higher primates but also genealogical evidence that the human race comes from Adam of Eve. There is no slight of hand or pulling a rabbit out of a hat in this argument. The real strength of Swamidass’ book is his careful scientific discussion about genetics and genealogy, laying out the evidence in detail.

There are however some exegetical weaknesses, but none of them are fatal to his case. The first I will point out is that Gen. 2-3 not only mentions Adam and Eve’s sin, but God’s curse on both humans and creation itself in response to the sin. You cannot talk about the Fall just in terms of human sin. As Paul later says in Rom. 8– the whole of creation was subjected (by God) to futility and is groaning for release. This was caused by the curse, not in the first instance by human sin, though every human sin has continued to mar, misuse, and even destroy parts of creation and many creatures along the way. Secondly, the other part of the curse falls not just on the labor pains of Adam dealing with the soil, but also the labor pains of Eve both in the danger of bearing children but also ‘your desire will be for your husband and he will lord it over you’ (cf. the LXX translation of this key verse and its use of kyrios). Patriarchy then is a result of not just the Fall but of God’s judgment on humanity as a result of sin. To love and to cherish degenerates into to desire and to dominate. And Swamidass is right to emphasize that nothing at all in Gen. 1-3 talks about human beings dominating or even destroying other human beings using violence and war. The creation mandate was to fill the earth and subdue it— not subdue or subordinate or destroy other human beings.

One more thing. The Gen. 2 creation story does indeed say Eve was created because of the deficiencies in Adam— he needed a suitable partner to be able to fulfill the creation order mandate and ‘it was not good for man to be alone’. Nothing in that account suggests the necessary subordination of women to men, or wives to husbands. The word ‘helper’ here is also used of God himself in the OT as the helper of Israel and certainly does not necessarily imply the subordination of Yahweh to Israel!! The old King James’ ‘a help meet’ that is a suitable helper is an appropriate translation. The subordinate of wives and woman comes as a result of the judgment on Adam and Eve’s sin— your desire will be for your husband and he will rule/lord it over you. This is in no way the original blessing or the original creation order plan that is enunciated in Gen. 1-2—male and female he created them in his image and after his likeness.

Swamidass does no detailed exegesis of Gen. 1-2 paying attention to the particulars of the Hebrew. Another place where this causes some issues is in regard to the tree of life. There really is no reason to think that mortality was the punishment for human sin. The tree of life in the garden strongly suggests that positive immortality was within the grasp of Adam and Eve and they could have eaten of that tree, but alas chose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The death they experienced was spiritual death, and this is the death Paul later says came to us from Adam as a result of the first sins. You can see the evidence of this spiritual death in the ‘heart turned in upon itself’— Adam and Eve become narcissists, self-conscious about even their lack of clothing and afraid of the God who made them— in short very self-centered and self- protective, hiding from God. They did not physically die after eating the fruit. Indeed, they lived a good long time thereafter. Probably one reason Adam and Eve are cast out of the garden is so they won’t eat of the tree life, and be everlasting fallen creatures who cannot die (much like the famous story in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels of the man who asked for everlasting life but not everlasting youth… and so he kept getting older without the ability to die).

In any case, these sorts of exegetical possibilities are not pursued in Swamidass’ book. He is however right that the ethos and social setting of the story in Gen. 2-3 favors the conclusion that we are not talking about what Craig insists on— Adam and Eve living hundreds of thousands of years before agriculture or tools or religious sacrifices show up on earth. Swamidass shows this conclusion is not necessary either scientifically or historically. We will probe more about this in our dialogue with Swamidass which follows this post.

One last thing to ponder which Swamidass points out— if we don’t have a problem with the virginal conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary as a miracle, which is clearly a de novo sort of creation, we should have no problems with a de novo miraculous creation of Adam and Eve in the garden. He is right about this. Consider me convinced by the scientific part of Swamidass’ arguments. In short, we don’t need a young earth theology, we don’t need an anti-evolution polemic, and we don’t need an Adam that was like Heidelberg man. Rather Adam and Eve showed up hundreds and thousands of year later than such humanoids or homo sapiens, or whatever you want to call them. Also, we don’t need to deny that the people outside the garden were created in God’s image just as Adam and Eve were. Indeed, I would say that Genesis 1 is the universal account about the creation of all human beings, and Gen. 2 is more specifically the account of the creation of the direct ancestors of God’s people. After all, the Bible is overwhelmingly just the story of God’s people and salvation history, not primarily the story of everyone. More on this in the following posts.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

October 25, 2021

Memory's Child

Next Post

October 27, 2021 The Genealogical Adam and Eve-- Part Two

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz