Search for the Historical Adam

Was Adam real? Can we go to his tomb now? Our prior post dealt with survey results of Christian schools and the truth of Genesis. One pillar of Bible truth under attack is the existence of an historical Adam. Richard Ostling, former religion writer with Time, has written the cover article “The Search for the Historical Adam” for the June 2011 issue of Christianity Today.
Christianity Today has made a neat video on this topic. Thankfully, Wheaton College supports the statement "God directly created Adam and Eve, the historical parents of the entire human race."
In The Language of Science and Faith, Francis Collins (Human Genome Project) and Karl Giberson deny that Adam and Eve were the first couple in a historical sense. Giberson, Physics Professor at Eastern Nazarene College, claims that this is "a secondary or peripheral disagreement that shouldn't cause us to hurl accusations of infidelity at one another." We have responded to some of Collins’ errors here.

Collins claims that humanity came from a group of 10,000 ancestors around 100,000 to 150,000 years ago. That is, mankind came from a group and not Adam and Eve. Elizabeth Mitchell comments, “Search the Christianity Today article much as you will, it never explains how the conclusion that there had to be 10,000 original people was reached. Oddly enough, neither does the BioLogos website.”

According to A. Gibbons, writing in Science, “… researchers have calculated that ‘mitochondrial Eve’ - the woman whose mtDNA was ancestral to that in all living people—lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago in Africa. Using the new clock, she would be a mere 6000 years old.”

Ostling rightly points out what is at stake, “… Christian doctrine on original sin and the Fall, the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, and, perhaps most significantly, Paul's teaching that links the historical Adam with redemption through Christ (Rom. 5:12-19; 1 Cor. 15:20-23, 42-49; and his speech in Acts 17).” Orthodox Protestants who take Genesis as Historical Narrative (OPGHN, “opgane”) present “one option” according to Ostling. It is not one option, but is actually the Bible option:

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being (Ge 2:7).
All flesh would perish together, And man would return to dust (Job 34:15).
The first man [Adam] was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man (1 Cor. 15:47-49).
Genuine humanity was from made from dust, not a prior hominid (Lucy, Lucky or anyone else). Rather than refer to specific scholars who work with Answers In Genesis, many with Ph.D.’s, Ostling uses the nebulous term “writers with Answers in Genesis.”
Ostling tries to put James Montgomery Boice (d. 2000) into the anti-Genesis camp – this is a mistake. Boice, though not holding to all the tenets of Flood Geology, held that much geologic data “must be explained by a flood of worldwide dimensions.” He also said that, “a flood of that duration [377 days] is not a local flood!” Boice wrote a whole chapter on Flood Traditions and concluded that, “Hundreds of flood stories abound throughout the world in various cultures and are therefore evidence not merely of the historicity of the flood but of its universal extent.”

Ostling points out that Genesis doubters assume that starting with two people, “… would have required God's miraculous intervention to increase the genetic diversity to what is observable today.” Maybe Ostling does not know about Marc Kirschner’s and John Gerhart’s book The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma (2005) who proposed the theory of Facilitated Variation. [1] Modular regulatory mechanisms (switches) allow quick changes to occur.

C. John Collins (not related to Francis) has written Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? and takes a more conservative view. He points out that human language poses a serious problem for Darwiniacs. Evolutionary linguist Mark Seidenberg freely admits, “Humans acquire and use natural languages, and lower primates do not.” [2] Fred Field (Ph.D. Linguistics) points out a further problem with assuming that true humanity started many thousands of years ago: “… it is curious how writing could have suddenly emerged after 30 to 100 millennia of speech. And , if writing had been in existence prior to that of the Sumerians, where is the evidence?” [3]
Consider these powerful words from Lita Cosner, who is working on her M.A. (New Testament) at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and who was awarded the Carl F.H. Henry Scholarship (their highest award):

Scripture itself does not allow Adam to be taken non-literally; many passages in Scripture require Adam to be a historical individual. Among them is Romans 5:12 -21, where a historical Adam is contrasted with the historical Jesus. … Paul’s argument [in Rom. 5:12-21] depends completely on a historical individual man called Adam, who committed a real sin bringing real death. Otherwise, why believe in a real historical Jesus who brought justification from sin? No, it is clear from this passage, and many others in both the Old and New Testament, that Scripture itself takes Adam to be a historical person, and the Fall to be a historical event.19 Without these historical facts, the Gospel itself has no foundation (cf. Psalm 11:3).

Tim Keller, who spoke at a BioLogos workshop, provided counterpoint, “[Paul] most definitely wanted to teach us that Adam and Eve were real historical figures. … If Adam doesn't exist, Paul's whole argument … falls apart. … If you don't believe what he believes about Adam, you are denying the core of Paul's teaching."
The Ica Stones, made famous by Peruvian physician Javier Cabrera, provide a strong indication that man and dinos co-existed. The Travel Channel made a great video on this. Surely, the Darwinist timescale is wrong. Adam may have had dino pets. Doubt Darwin! Don’t Deny Divine Revelation!

If Adam was an actual figure from real history, what conversations did he have with the Intelligent Designer and what did he think about the age of the Earth?

Notes:
1) summarized in “Facilitated Variation: A New Paradigm Emerges in Biology” by Alex Williams, Journal of Creation, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2008, pp. 85-92.
2) quoted in “The Language Faculty: Following the Evidence” by Fred Field, Journal of Creation, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2008, p. 75.
3) Ibid., p. 74.

Already Compromised – Review

Ken Ham and Greg Hall, President of Warner University, present the survey results of Britt Beemer (America’s Research Group) in this highly recommended work. They asked questions of school Presidents, Deans, Science Heads and Theology Heads at Christian colleges and universities regarding biblical authority. A total of 312 people were interviewed (2.5% margin of error).

There are six Christian schools where the presidents accept AiG’s statement of faith:

Bob Jones University
Jackson Hole Bible College
Tennessee Temple University
Northland International University
Appalachian Bible College
Warner University

Out of Ham and Hall’s survey of presidents, VP’s and department chairs, 59.6% of these Christian educational leaders accept Creation In Six Days (CISD), that is 24 hour days. Incredibly, 10.9% of these institutions teach that evolution is true. The term “evolution” itself is confusing, but most commonly means Atom-to-Adam transformation or Universal Common Ancestry (UCA). Only 42.3% of these leaders adopt Young Earth Science (YES). [1] Just 74% of these leaders believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. [2]

Considers these answers from the leaders of the Religion (or Theology) Dept. and the Science Dept. on whether they are Old-Earth or Young-Earth [3]:

57% of the Science Dept. chairs support YES - could it be that there is evidence that supports recent creation?
There is a much needed emphasis on a Christian Worldview in the book. [4] Because Christians have a deficient worldview (WV) they hold to a weak view of Ge 1-11 (G111). Francis Schaeffer (d. 1984) helped popularize the importance of worldview. Doug Groothuis, Professor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary, said this about Schaeffer and worldviews:

Schaeffer taught that worldviews need to be compared on the basis of objective criteria. … [a good worldview] must be internally consistent. … a worldview needs to fit the facts of reality; it must be "true to what is," as Schaeffer put it. A worldview needs to match the external facts of history and science.

I spoke with Ken Ham a number of years ago about my research on Schaeffer that his writings, overall, fall into the creationist camp. Schaeffer held to a non-tranquil Universal Flood, the possibility of man-dino coexistence and that nuclear decay rates may not be constant. [5]

According to John Stonestreet,

… one who may have influenced Protestant Evangelicalism more than any other towards worldview thinking is Francis Schaeffer. Schaeffer’s most significant contribution was bringing the concept of Christian worldview out of the academy to popular Christian thought.

Already Compromised provides a welcome emphasis on knowing Jesus Christ personally. Ham and Hall also give a clear presentation of the gospel of grace. They include a helpful chapter of survival tips for college students. Ham and Hall focus on unity based on truth.

There is an excellent appendix refuting the Documentary Hypothesis (JEDP) by Terry Mortenson and Bodie Hodge. This critical theory was refuted in The Fundamentals edited by R. A. Torrey (the successor of Moody) which were first distributed from 1910 to 1916. George Frederick Wright wrote the article “The Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch.” Other articles also relate to the JEDP issue.

Why have so many Christian schools gone astray? They have been unduly influenced by the likes of Mark Noll, who wrote in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Eerdmans, 1995):

Creation science has damaged Evangelicalism by making it much more difficult to think clearly about human origins, the age of the earth, and mechanisms of geological or biological change. But it has done more profound damage by undermining the ability to look at the world God has made and to understand what we see when we do look. [6]

Christian schools have compromised, but what is the solution? Students and educational leaders should read the following to help restore Evangelical foundations:
Sacred Cows In Science challenges mainstream science with such worldview topics as Darwin, eugenics, animal rights, abortion, climate change, non-material nature of the mind, gay activism, the Global Flood and other hot topics. There are 17 authors, several with Ph.D.’s. Norbert Smith (Ph.D. Zoology) is the editor and has been a creationist leader for many decades. The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer covers much from theology and philosophy to the arts.

The Fundamentals shows the power of old arguments – the new challenges have not yet refuted these. Contemporary scholars reject conservative theology because of bias and false presuppositions. The Fundamentals was edited by R. A. Torrey who actually “met” H. M. Morris, the father of modern creationism, in 1919! R. A. Torrey held the infant Morris, just a few months old, in his arms and prayed for him and his future ministry. [7] Fundamentalist is not a bad word – read The Fundamentals online.

Joel Heck has written In the Beginning, God: Creation from God's Perspective which is a superb defense of traditional creationism from Scripture and science. It is short and economically priced – ideal for mass distribution (hint: college presidents!!).

A future project for this team might include a national (US, CAN, UK) survey like the following:
The results could be displayed on billboards in various parts of the country (e.g. 84% of Alaskans support Young Earth Science). Amazingly, 29% of Russians, formerly an atheist state, hold that dinos and Man lived together. A survey of 1,600 Russians was conducted in January of this year (3.4% margin of error). The response in Gallup polls for those who agree with the statement “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so” has changed little since 1982.

Now therefore, fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods [Darwin, Big Science, Old Earth Fallacies] which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the LORD! And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. (Josh. 24:14, 15)

Notes:
1) Already Compromised by Ken Ham and Greg Hall (Master Books, Green Forest, AR, 2011), p. 22-24.
2) Ibid., p. 30.
3) Ibid., p. 55.
4) Ibid., pp. 204-212.
5) Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer by Francis Schaeffer (Crossway, Wheaton, IL, 1982), Vol. 2, pp. 94, 95, 132, 134.
6) quoted in Head and Heart: American Christianities by Garry Wills (Penguin, New York, 2007), p. 550.
7) A History of Modern Creationism by Henry Morris (Master Books, San Diego, CA, 1984), p. 58.

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On a lighter note, maybe some visionary educational leaders will someday start International Creationist University (I-C-U). ;-) G111 = believe Genesis 1-11 (not just what comes after)