One should also note that just because it is a myth, metaphor or allegory does not make it meaningless. Some of our greatest national stories on who we are as a people are centered around myths, metaphors and allegories.
Christianity Today recently had an article on Adam and Eve The Search for the Historical Adam NPR (National Public Radio) picked up the story and it went viral. Evangelicals Question The Existence Of Adam And Eve
NPR had this to say:
Polls by Gallup and the Pew Research Center find that four out of 10 Americans believe this account. It's a central tenet for much of conservative Christianity, from evangelicals to confessional churches such as the Christian Reformed Church.
But now some conservative scholars are saying publicly that they can no longer believe the Genesis account. Asked how likely it is that we all descended from Adam and Eve, Dennis Venema, a biologist at Trinity Western University, replies: "That would be against all the genomic evidence that we've assembled over the last 20 years, so not likely at all."
The OOZE (Evolving Spirituality) has an article up on this subject The Debate About Adam and Eve Has Nothing to do With Adam and Eve!
The NPR article, rightly calling this a Galileo moment, cites professor Karl Giberson: “When you ignore science, you end up with egg on your face… The Catholic Church has had an awful lot of egg on its face for centuries because of Galileo. And Protestants would do very well to look at that and to learn from it.”
The article goes on: “Asked how likely it is that we all descended from Adam and Eve, Dennis Venema, a biologist at Trinity Western University, replies: ‘That would be against all the genomic evidence that we’ve assembled over the last 20 years, so not likely at all.’”
Evolution isn’t the issue. Adam and Eve are not the issue. The science on origins is only becoming more solid- although there is an interestingly powerful myth that circulates in Christian subculture that there are tons of credible scientists that dispute the issue. Biblical scholarship isn’t the issue either- very few (any?) well-respected Biblical scholars take Genesis 1 and 2 as history (you can find creationists among biblical scholars at plenty of schools- but they have virtually no contribution to the field and trade credibility for tenure… it’s all about the money). The issue isn’t inerrancy or infallibility. Evolution is so contentious that most of my professors at seminary hesitate to admit to the class that they, along with pretty much everyone in the field of academic theology, believe in evolution (and it creates a firestorm when they occasionally do!). You won’t hear that in the pulpit either- because the study of the text is not the issue either. You also don’t generally hear that Genesis 1 and 2 are two different stories, written several hundred years apart in different parts of the world. You don’t hear that, even if you desperately want to take Genesis 1 and 2 literally, you cannot because of internal contradictions. That’s just a matter of reading the text, and when pointing that out is considered controversial and gets professors nervous about job security, we are reminded that the study of the text isn’t actually the issue.
So what is the issue that gets so many Christians wrapped up in such a tizzy? The OOZE article continues:
So what is the issue?
Fazale Rana, vice president of apologetics group Reason to Believe, opines: “From my viewpoint, a historical Adam and Eve is absolutely central to the truth claims of the Christian faith…But if the parts of Scripture that you are claiming to be false, in effect, are responsible for creating the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, then you’ve got a problem,”
Exactly. She gets credit for honesty. What undergirds this controversy is not a disagreement about the text or science; instead, it’s the belief that faith crumbles once you admit that the text has an error, isn’t historically accurate, or else it says correctly exactly what it means to say and you’ve simply misunderstood it all this time.
Philosophers Imre Lakatos and Thomas Kuhn described this phenomenon as epistemological webs and paradigm shifts. Lakatos described all our knowledge as interconnecting in a web, with more important, reinforced ideas consisting an epistemic core. Experiences hit the boundary of this web and force you to decide whether to incorporate new data or reject it. The knowledge within the web need not all cohere- it is only most important that the core ideas cohere well. When the web’s integrity breaks down due to dissonant data points, it becomes more parsimonious to think with a different core set of beliefs. This results in what Kuhn calls a paradigm shift in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
The text of scripture is very, very rarely the issue in theological debates.
The real issue is that we’ve decided to believe something and are desperately grasping for any way we can use the text to backward-engineer justification for our beliefs. This isn’t controversial. It’s just how we are wired…by evolution.
These concepts above are totally foreign to many hardliner evangelicals and to most in the Church of God. To dare to question, to really examine scripture and tradition in depth is NOT something that is ever done. To do so is heretical in the the eyes of most.
What does faith mean to you? Can faith be destroyed by questioning? Does not believing in a literal Adam and Eve undermine all the rest of the teaching in scriptures?
2 comments:
My faith is that for the one holding the keys to a particular belief system, it is about the power.
Retaining power is the all in all basis for any belief system.
If there is fact and evidence that the belief system is wrong and the foundation crumbles as a result, then the holder of the power loses big time.
All dissidents must be crushed and put out of existence. The Catholic Church did this with scientists who brought scientific proof that the earth was not the center of the Universe.
The establishment does not appreciate anyone questioning it. The controversy about evolution and Adam and Eve challenge the foundation of literalists: They must be right because they are right. They will fight to the death anyone who challenges the basis of their faith.
Followers become caught up in this. They rally to protect their leaders, no matter how inane or mistaken -- how silly or unscientific. They need an excuse and any one will do. The only expert they will accept is one which they create themselves because to admit error would cause the entire community of their belief system to collapse: All of their friends gone, their leaders debunked and defrocked, their whole social life center obliterated. They must fight to the death to maintain their life in a cult, no matter how wrong it is. They have incentive, because they will lose everything they think they have.
In fact, the only thing they lose is the delusion, but they fight anyway. I am discovering that at quite a personal level as people make excuses for British Israelism cults by saying, "but they are nice / good people". Anyone who chooses a delusion and then just sits there as a collaberating accessory after a fact when their leaders and associated compatriate congregation members commit crimes are not nice / good people as they sanction heinous crimes against nature in the name of maintaining an immoral, unethical and illegal venue. These are not nice / good people. They are rotten and evil -- they just seem good until the thin veneer of civilization is stripped away.
Worst of all worlds is when the leadership itself tacitly admits that it is error behind the scenes, but hides the facts because there is too much power to protect, which gives them license to lie and then take the money.
Let's interview the wolves about how best to protect the chicken coop! Let's show the enemy our plans and ask them for suggestions! Bad judgment apparently is illimitable.
The only error in faith is in whom you place it.
Some have faith in the Creator and some have faith in His enemies. Dylan was right, 'you gotta serve somebody!' Are you sure the 'black horse' will win?
All human reasoning is selfish, vain, and excremental by nature.
Truth is only revealed by the Spirit of the Messiah. It is withheld from those who hate and oppose Him and His purpose, but given liberally to those who love and trust Him.
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