Recent Views of Adam and Eve

by | Jul 12, 2022 | Bible and Creation, Early Man, Jesus and Science

Select Adam and Eve to view video:

                                                                      YouTube link: https://youtu.be/bWFvpBKfOPA

Genesis begins with creation, including two people Adam and Eve.  Christians have many views about who they were and when they lived. Today skeptics are fair to ask about them. Did they really exist? Scientists have found fossils and artifacts of ancient Homo sapiens going back perhaps 500,000 years, but were they human?  How should we understand how the truth from the Bible fits into the chronology recognized in science?

In this post, we will look at some of the data discovered by science and look at five views of the historical Adam as proposed by Christian scholars over the last 10 years.

  1. Did Adam and Eve Really Exist?     by C. John Collins
  2. Navigating Genesis      by Hugh Ross
  3. Who was Adam?      by Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross
  4. The Lost World of Adam and Eve      by John H. Walton
  5. The Genealogical Adam and Eve      by S. Joshua Swamidas
  6. In Quest of the Historical Adam      by William Lane Craig

 

All of these consider a historical Adam and Eve to be clearly taught in the Old and New Testament.  They also believe that science and the Bible are not in conflict. 

We will compare these books to several proposed hypothesis.  We will briefly discuss them as “multiple working hypothesis”. 

In my opinion, any of these might be considered possible, but not equally likely.  In the end, I will provide my own probabilities.  You can make up your own mind.  You may have other options that you consider valid and want to add.  Perhaps, you consider some of these as having zero probability, but that is your choice.

 

BTW, I have not drawn this to include a couple of hypotheses that I don’t consider viable.  For instance, I did not include the option humans were not created, that they are just random accidents in a purposeless universe.  I am quite persuaded this is not viable.   I also did not include the possibility that the Earth was created a few thousand years ago.  I find this not viable based on may lines of evidence.

Also, I do have to apologize for the length, but I hope it will be worth your time.

 

07/13/22  Note:  I have not explicitly dealt with Noah’s flood, though it must be referenced.  If Adam and Eve were the sole progenitors of the human race, then it is possible that Noah’s flood was universal in terms of all of humans coming from Noah’s family.   If Adam and Eve were recent, then the flood would not have affected much of the human race, but still represented a stark reminder that God does judge sin and yet by His grace does provide a means of redemption and escape.  If man apparently interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovans, then perhaps despite a sharp bottleneck in human population some non-spiritual Homo sapiens also existed to contribute genetic material.   Any option that includes sole progenitors of Adam and Eve and a route through Noah must recognize that human remains around the world as shown in the map in the video must postulate very rapid dispersal after Noah’s flood around Africa and Eurasia.  Again, I see these as options where all options have challenges and strengths.