Defending Adam

As some of you already know, we have had an on-going discussion with Dan Trabue and his pal, who remains anonymous, regarding the historicity of Adam, the nature of Scripture, the justice of God, etc. I have decided to pull one final post together on this subject before moving on to other issues. Dan insists that Adam is fictional, belonging to the genre of myth. It has been my position that Dan has a hidden motive for why Adam must be myth as opposed to history. In our discussions with Dan he has rejected the reliability of Luke, the binding nature of Scripture, the supernatural source of Scripture, divine judgment, and has defended gay Christianity. The profile of Dan at this point seems clear and it is this profile that I have said motivates and drives Dan’s interpretation of Scripture more than any other factor. The truth is that each of us come to Scripture with the same challenge and it is only with the help of the Holy Spirit that we can place our prejudices aside and allow Scripture to do its work on our heart as opposed to us imposing the sin in our heart on the text.

Before I dive into this final summary regarding a defense of the historic Adam, I should say a few things about the issue of theological or philosophical hermeneutics. No one comes to the Scripture with a philosophically neutral attitude. I have made this point with Dan Trabue repeatedly. A person already has adopted or embraced a view of the nature of Scripture and its contents before opening its pages. It is abundantly evidence that most modern approaches to Scripture are not themselves the result of biblical faith. Rather, they employ methods that are themselves principles of the autonomous man.

To put it very bluntly, the popular approach to the text is to read it on one’s own terms, as a product of human ingenuity. This modern critical approach creates a massive ditch between human reason and biblical faith. Additionally, it places human reason in a position of superiority over faith. Either one’s understanding of the nature of Scripture is informed by Scripture, which is the position of faith, or it is informed by human reason, which is the position of modern critical approaches to the Bible. 

My approach to Scripture is that Scripture has its origin in the mind of God, that it is divine revelation designed specifically to inform us of the God who is our great King, Creator, and Redeemer; that Scripture is clear on the main points of the revelation it expresses, that Scripture is self-attesting, binding, our final authority, and that all truth claims must be subject to the truth revealed therein. In short, Scripture is a divine artifact. Scripture is unique and not comparable to any other literary work that has ever existed in the history of man. That position is a faith position. I arrived at that position, like every other regenerate Christian arrives at it: through faith in Christ. In other words, once faith is removed from our approach to Scripture, and in its place a naturalistic approach from human reason is adopted, one can take just about any view of the text they wish. Moreover, it is impossible to demonstrate that Scripture is supernatural revelation by means of rational argumentation and historical evidence. The conclusion that the Bible is the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation is something that only the work of God in regeneration can produce. And so it does. Now, with that in mind, lets provide a Christian defense of the historic Adam.

Contrary to some schools of thought, Genesis 1-2 does not belong to the genre of ancient Hebrew poetry. The text follows the structure of ancient Hebrew narrative. In the interest of space I will point to the ten sections headed by the toledoth as evidence. We read in Gen. 2:4, “This is the account (toledoth) of the heavens and the earth. The author intends to provide the reader with a true account for how the heavens and the earth came to exist. This same language is used in Gen. 5:1 when we read about Adam’s genealogy, which takes us from Adam to Noah. In the context of that actual genealogy, we read that it was “In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. It seems that Moses may have been correcting some false ideas about how it all got started from the very beginning. We see the use of this toledoth in repeated in Gen. 6:9; 10:1; 11:10, 27; 25:12, 19; 36:1 and 37:2. All these sections deal with actual persons living in actual places at specific times. Adam and his offspring are listed alongside the rest of the individuals. The conclusion anyone should reach is that the writer portrayed Adam as historical because he included him alongside the rest of these historical figures.

In addition to this evidence, we must also not overlook the first gospel, given in Gen. 3:15. The promise to send a deliverer that would crush the head of Satan was not bound up in myth. It is far more reasonable to conclude that since Jesus Christ was the real seed that really crushed the head of Satan that the promise was historical top to bottom. Since the Christ event took place in time and space, we must conclude that the promise of Christ took place in time and space. If one is going to classify Adam as myth, they must classify the entire book of Genesis as myth.

Additional evidence that Adam was historical is located in 1 Chronicles 1. The author of this text provides a genealogy that begins with Adam and takes us all the way to David, Saul, and the people of Israel. The sheer volume of details spanning several chapters is more than staggering. It seems dishonest to adopt a contradictory opinion in light of the amount of evidence in this section of Scripture alone.

Job asks if he has covered his transgression like Adam? (31:33) Job was obviously familiar not only with Adam but with the details surrounding Adam’s sin. God, in His rebuke of Ephraim and Judah says that these have broken the covenant just like Adam had broken the covenant. (Hos. 6:7) If Adam was myth, so too was the covenant. But we know the covenant is real, historic, existing in time and space. Additionally in the New Testament we reference Luke’s tracing of Christ’s genealogy all the way from Christ back to Adam. (Lu. 3) Paul says that death reigned from Adam until Moses. (Rom. 5:14) The use of the Greek word mechri refers to a continuous extent of time up to a point. In order for Paul to employ this word, we meant conclude that he believed that Adam, like Moses, actually existed in time. Myths do not exist in time. Additionally, Jude describes the prophecy of Enoch, a man who lived in the seventh generation from Adam. Enoch, living seven generations from Adam indicates that Jude believed in a historical Adam.

Jesus Christ Himself gives us the clear indication that he believed in the historical account of Adam and Eve in the garden. Jesus’ view that divorce was not permissible under just any circumstances and that those who ignored those circumstances and remarried were committing adultery is grounded on His understanding of the historical creation account of Adam and Eve. We see this in Matt. 19:1-12. Jesus said that God created male and female from the beginning and that man would leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. Jesus’ reference is clear: Adam and Eve. The ground for biblical marriage is anchored in the historical reality of our first parents, Adam and Eve.

It is here that I believe Dan and his anonymous friend find their philosophy threatened by Scripture and therefore, insist that Genesis is myth. Dan attends a gay church over in Kentucky. These secessionists have left the Christian Church because they do not like the Christian ethic. In particular, they do not like the sexual ethic expressed in traditional Christianity that condemns any and all sex outside of biblical marriage and that includes gay sex in all forms. As a result, Dan is highly motivated to find a loophole around the historical Adam. And so he does. All the evidence above is dismissed and replaced with this: Genesis sort of sounds like other myths in how the sentences are put together, so it must be myth too. That is the extent of the evidence offered up by Dan and his pal anonymous.

Christians have to realize the men are not argued into believing that the Bible is literally the very Word of God, given to us supernaturally through the prophets of God and the apostles of Christ and their very close associates. This belief is not a scientific belief. It is not a belief that is the product of unaided human reason. Men do not examine the claim that the Bible is the Word of God by use of autonomous human reason, scientific investigation, and historic and rational argumentation, only then to embrace it as it truly is. Men can only embrace the divine word, as it is by faith alone. This is not to say that there is no rational defense for Scripture. There most certainly is and I make that defense often. But the rational defense and argument for Scripture rests upon the presuppositions of Christian faith. If we are to argue for Scripture, then our argument must be faithful to Scripture. How clumsy it is to abandon Scripture in our attempt to argue for Scripture. But men do this more often than not. We do not only end with Scripture, but we also begin with Scripture. The only way to defend Scripture while being faithful to Scripture is to begin with Scripture, and to argue from Scripture, and to end with Scripture. Someone will ask what is our evidence for our belief about Scripture as if we must have something external to Scripture in order to get to our starting position on Scripture. This is a mistake. Our evidence for Scripture is Scripture. Our understanding of Scripture, or the nature of Scripture, is informed by Scripture through the work of the Holy Spirit. And this fact, that the Holy Spirit is necessary to understand the nature of Scripture, is highly offensive to the autonomous man. He (men like Dan) insists that our criteria for our view of Scripture not only come from someplace other than Scripture, but also that it find commendations from men like him. To this we say, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Heb. 4:12)