Our Tuesday night Bible study has been going through the video series and Bible Study Is Genesis History? Last night, we finished lesson four on Adam, Eve, and the First Sin. As we wrapped up our study, one of the small group attenders asked, “Are there actually people out there who think Adam was just a myth? Why would they do that?”
I explained that yes, believe it or not, even many professing Christians deny that Adam was the first human being, created by God rather than evolved from some lesser species. I think the main reason for this is not because anything in Genesis hints at it, but because people feel the need to accommodate a “settled” scientific conclusion (that the earth is billions of years old) with statements the Bible makes about Adam and Eve.
A helpful book on this topic is Four Views on the Historical Adam published by Zondervan. It includes four different authors each sharing their view on whether Adam was real or not. Here’s a list of the four viewpoints as summarized by Richard Belcher in a Themelios article …
Denis Lamoureux sets forth the Evolutionary Creation View. This view assumes that biological evolution is true and that the debate whether Adam really existed is over. The evidence for evolution is overwhelming, which leads to the conclusion that the Adam the Bible presents never existed. Evolutionary creation asserts that God created the universe and life, including humans, through an ordained, sustained, and intelligent evolutionary process.
John Walton argues for an archetypal view of creation. He believes Adam and Eve were real people in a real past. However, the Bible does not give scientific information about human origins, but is concerned about Adam and Eve’s function as archetypes for all humanity. Thus Adam and Eve may or may not be the first humans or the parents of the entire human race.
C. John Collins presents the Old Earth Creation View, which allows for the biblical account of Adam but does not require that the biblical account be accepted if someone is convinced by evolution. Collins tries to carve out parameters of “right thinking” within the context of evolution, which consist of certain beliefs that must be accepted based on the biblical account.
William Barrick presents the Young Earth Creation View that argues for a historical Adam who was created in the way Gen 2 describes his creation. God took actual dust from the ground, formed a human being from it, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
Most of you can probably anticipate where I land, and that I agree with Dr. Barrick — that the early chapters of Genesis should be taken literally as history, not as legend, myth, poetry, or something else. It’s a fascinating discussion. You can read the rest of the book review here: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/review/four-views-on-the-historical-adam/. Or of course, you can do a deeper dive and read the full book.
Artwork by Antionio Tempesta, c 1600. This article contains Amazon affiliate links
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