It all starts with Adam and Eve. The story of Christianity that has laid hold of the world for 2,000 years begins with a single couple who find themselves intimately connected to their Creator. Although their paradise habitation is sweet, the pair trades it away for a chance at taking God\u2019s place as master of their own lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From that point on, Adam and Eve are spiritual nomads, loved by their Creator but hopelessly separated from His harmony and presence. Because of this, Jesus came to shed His blood, providing a way for Adam\u2019s actions to be undone. Our first parents created a \u201csin-debt\u201d that we inherited, but as the beautiful hymn puts it, \u201cJesus paid it, all to Him I owe.\u201d This is the Gospel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, it has become almost fashionable for many Evangelical scholars to try to snip the first half of the Gospel from our lives. People like William Lane Craig, Gavin Ortlund, Francis Collins, John Walton, and many others are intent on denying the historical nature of Adam and Eve. In almost Jordan Peterson-like fashion, they say the first 11 chapters of the Bible are allegorical \u2014 meant to convey symbols and archetypes but not real history. Although church leaders have, at times, had different opinions on the meaning of the days in Genesis, no one has ever questioned the historicity of Adam and Eve \u2014 until recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a red line<\/a> that Christians from many different interpretive backgrounds know is dangerous to cross<\/p>\n\n\n\n So why are more and more respected Christian leaders saying the history of Adam and Eve is, as Craig puts it, \u201cat loggerheads with modern science\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Craig and other theologians aren\u2019t scientists themselves, they seem to have sided with the narrative put forward by think tanks like BioLogos, whose main purpose is to teach that Christianity is compatible with evolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The allegedly scientific reasons for denying a historical Adam and Eve can be summarized into the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n These ideas are what really lie behind the shift away from a literal Adam and Eve. Although many will say they\u2019re simply reading the Bible in its original context, the truth is that they just assume Genesis needs to be reinterpreted to fit what \u201cthe science\u201d tells us. But the science isn\u2019t always as simple as people think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not a scientist; I study theology and its relationships with science and philosophy. But I\u2019m familiar enough with the landscape to know that many well-respected scientists and philosophers believe there\u2019s more than enough room for a literal Adam and Eve. Furthermore, some are confident that science actually points to the historical pair as well. In what follows today and in Part 2 tomorrow, I\u2019ll try to lay out a little of that landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today it\u2019s common to believe that humans and chimps are basically cousins separated by only a 1% difference in DNA. Whether it\u2019s Bill Nye or the Smithsonian, the genetic similarity claim has been widely used to make us believe we\u2019re related to chimps. But even though this idea has been entrenched in Western imagination, nothing could be further from the truth. Since at least 2007, even scientists from evolutionist backgrounds have been trying to debunk<\/a> the \u201c1% myth\u201d but their studies were seen as heretical. They claimed that the difference was more like 4-6%. But for many scientists in the Creationist and Intelligent Design community, even that margin seemed too small. They believed that the studies were still too biased to reflect a full comparison. The comparisons were made using \u201chuman guided scaffolding\u201d which assumed a common ancestor with chimpanzees even before the results were in. As of late it appears their claims are now fully justified.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Root of the Issue<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Responding to Objections<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Objection #1: \u201cEvolution tells us that humans descended from a common ancestor with chimpanzees and that our DNA is 99% identical.\u201d<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n