ADAM AND EVE - The search for the true story V9.3

ADAM AND EVE
The search for the true story
By Tom Delbridge
Copyright © Tom Delbridge 2013 ADAM AND EVE: The search for the true story Copyright © Tom Delbridge 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ................................................................................................................................................... 4 PART I INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 6 Chapter 1 The Date and Location of the Adam and Eve Story .............................................................. 7 Chapter 2 The Cast of the Adam and Eve Story .................................................................................. 10 Chapter 3 The Framework of the Adam and Eve Story ....................................................................... 15 Chapter 4 Questions about the Adam and Eve Story .......................................................................... 20 PART II EARLY CHRISTIAN VIEWS OF THE STORY ..................................................................................... 25 Chapter 5 Jesus and the Adam and Eve Story ..................................................................................... 26 Chapter 6 Paul and the Adam and Eve Story ...................................................................................... 31 Chapter 7 Augustine and the Adam and Eve Story ............................................................................. 36 Chapter 8 Calvin and the Adam and Eve Story .................................................................................... 41 PART III NEW LIGHT SHED ON THE STORY IN THE ................................................................................... 46 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES ...................................................................................................................... 46 Chapter 9 Bible Scholarship ................................................................................................................ 47 Chapter 10 19th Century Science ........................................................................................................ 54 Chapter 11 20th Century Science ........................................................................................................ 59 PART IV EARLY 21ST CENTURY CHRISTIAN VIEWS ................................................................................... 71 OF THE STORY ............................................................................................................................................ 71 Chapter 12 The Response to the New Light Shed on the Story .......................................................... 72 Chapter 13 The Fundamentalist Christian Approach to the Story ...................................................... 77 Chapter 14 The Evangelical Christian Approach to the Story .............................................................. 84 Chapter 15 The Liberal Christian Approach to the Story ..................................................................... 91 PART V THE SEARCH FOR THE TRUE STORY ........................................................................................... 96 Chapter 16 Searching for the True Adam and Eve Story ..................................................................... 97 Chapter 17 An Earlier Version of the Adam and Eve Story? ............................................................. 109 Chapter 18 The Two Facets of the Present Adam and Eve Story ...................................................... 125 Chapter 19 The Actual Rewriting of the Adam and Eve Story ........................................................... 137 PART VI IMPLICATIONS FOR READING THE BIBLE ................................................................................. 147 AND GRASPING THE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE .............................................................................................. 147 Chapter 20 A Positive Approach to God ............................................................................................ 148 Chapter 21 A Positive Approach to the Bible .................................................................................... 157 Chapter 22 The Message of Jesus and the Christian Message .......................................................... 169 PART VII FACING UP TO THE CHALLENGES OF THE ............................................................................... 181 21ST CENTURY ......................................................................................................................................... 181 Chapter 23 Defending the Christian Message ................................................................................... 182 Chapter 24 Explaining the Christian Message ................................................................................... 194 Chapter 25 Getting the Adam and Eve Message out to Christians ................................................... 201 Chapter 26 Practical Challenges Faced by the Church Today ........................................................... 211 Chapter 27 The new biotechnology .................................................................................................. 222 Chapter 28 A 21st Century Supplement to the Adam and Eve Story ................................................ 229 Appendix Outline of the Case for Dating the Story at 487 B.C. ......................................................... 236 Books Cited .......................................................................................................................................... 238 Index .................................................................................................................................................... 240 Synopsis of the Book ............................................................................................................................ 248 All Bible quotations are taken from the Revised Standard Version, except where otherwise
stated. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- PREFACE You are, I am sure, familiar with the Adam and Eve story set out in Genesis 2-3
(Chapters 2 and 3 of the Book of Genesis) in the Bible. Your view of the story,
with its talking snake and Eve made from one of Adam's ribs, doubtless lies
somewhere along the following line: And if I asked you when the story was compiled, and where and by whom, you
would probably suggest some point along this timeline:
No one knows for certain when, where or by whom the story was written. But
since the middle of the 19th century, scientists and Bible scholars have shone a
great deal of new light on the story. Scientists, starting with Charles Darwin, have
produced a compelling account of the origins of Homo sapiens. And Bible scholars
have produced a persuasive case for Genesis having been put into its present form
in the 5th century B.C. Armed with this new light I aim in this book to search, along with you, for the true
Adam and Eve story: to paint a much more positive picture both of the story and of
God himself than many people have held in the past. If you are a Christian or Jew,
then I hope that what I say will help to deepen your trust in God. If you are an
atheist, then I hope that the account I give will remove any thoughts you may have
that science has "disproved" the Adam and Eve story. And I hope that you will
eventually agree with the view which I have reached, that the story is a parable and
was written in its present form 2,500 years ago, in 487 B.C. in Babylon. I am neither a scientist, nor a Bible scholar nor a Church figure. My qualifications
for writing this book are simply that I was a confirmed atheist until the age of 36
and have been a confirmed Christian from then until my present age of 69. That I
was a police officer for over thirty years, well used to conducting searches. And
that I have a wife who has argued with me incessantly about the Adam and Eve
story over the 15 year period that it has taken me to put this particular search onto
paper. PART I INTRODUCTION Chapter 1 The Date and Location of the Adam and Eve Story Let us start with the date and location of the story, beginning with the events
described and then turning to the actual writing of the story. The date of the events in the story In 1650 Archbishop Ussher published his famous date of 4004 B.C. for the
creation of Adam and Eve. He arrived at this date by studying the genealogies in
Genesis, coupled with things said in other Bible verses and the statement in
Ptolemy's Canon of Kings that Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon died in 562 B.C.
Jewish scholars arrived at the slightly different date of 3760 B.C. (or rather 3760
BCE, meaning "before the common era"). Either way, a literal reading of the Bible
dates Adam and Eve - and thus the arrival of mankind - at some 6,000 years ago. That last statement goes to the heart of the search for the true Adam and Eve story,
with science having shown that Homo sapiens emerged some 170,000 years ago.
But let us not be too quick to leap into controversial water. The important thing at
this point is that, on the face of matters, the events took place at the time of the first
human beings. The location of the events of the story Genesis 2 seems to pinpoint exactly the location of the Garden of Eden where the
events of the story took place: 10
A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which flows around the whole of Havilah, where there is gold; 12and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which flows around the whole land of Cush. 14And the name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The identity of the Pishon and Gihon rivers is unknown. But the Tigris and
Euphrates are the principal rivers in modern Iraq and merge today in the extreme
southern part of that country. Unfortunately there is some evidence that the Tigris
and Euphrates previously had separate outlets into the sea and that the coastline is
now further south than before. Either way, all that can be said is that, on the face of
matters, the Garden of Eden was located in what is now southern Iraq. The date of the writing of the story
When I read Genesis for the first time, I assumed that the opening pages (Genesis
1-3) were the very first part of the Bible to have been written, presumably in or
around 4004 B.C. I thought that God had given Adam the "six days" Creation
account in a dream, with the sequence and timescale simplified for a man who
would not have understood either the E = mc2 equation of relativity theory or the
figure of 10 billion years or so for the age of the universe. And I imagined that
Adam had made a note of the dream in his diary, in which he also kept a record of
everything that happened in the Garden of Eden. It was only later that I found out that writing was not invented until around 3200
B.C. and that, in fact, there is no certainty about exactly how or when the Adam
and Eve story came to be written. Many Christians see the story as Adam's and Eve's first-hand eye-witness account
of the events described, initially passed down the generations by word of mouth
and not written down until much later. Many other Christians (and all Orthodox
Jews) believe that God dictated the entire text of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers and Deuteronomy word-by-word to Moses on Mount Sinai in around the
13th century B.C. That last statement again goes to the heart of the search for the true Adam and Eve
story, with Bible scholars asserting that the Book of Genesis was not put into its
present form until the 5th century B.C. And also suggesting that the "six days"
Creation account in Genesis 1 came from an earlier document labelled "P",
whereas the Adam and Eve story came from an even earlier document labelled "J".
But for the time being let us just say that the story was probably not written down
until thousands of years after the events it describes.
The location of the writing of the story The question of where the Adam and Eve story was written depends on the view
taken of when it was written. If the story came ultimately from the lips of Adam
and Eve then it was composed, if not actually written down, in the vicinity of Eden
in what is now southern Iraq. If God dictated it to Moses in around the 13th
century B.C. then the location was Mount Sinai. And if Genesis was not put into its
present form until the 5th century B.C. then the location was almost certainly
Babylon, with important implications for several elements of the story. Chapter 2 The Cast of the Adam and Eve Story Let us look now at the cast of the Adam and Eve story: God, the snake and finally
Adam and Eve themselves. God The key member of the cast of the story is God and there are four things we can
say for certain about him. We cannot see him. We cannot adequately describe him
in words. We can, however, come to know him and to experience his love and
forgiveness. And we know exactly where to find him. Atheists will disagree with
the last two points and the final one will surprise even some Christians. So let me
explain what I mean. With English a fairly rare exception, most languages use the same word for heaven
and sky, including Hebrew and Greek (the original languages of the Bible). And
the idea that God lives in a heaven high above the sky goes back to the days when
almost everyone thought that the earth was flat and that the sky extended at most a
few thousand feet above the earth, hence the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11.
But even though we now know that the sky extends for billions of miles (and then
some) beyond the earth, many Christians still imagine that God is way out there
somewhere, prompting atheists to question how God can possibly communicate
with mankind without scientists "picking up the signals". In fact, though, both these Christians and these atheists are wrong. Let us look at
the following two diagrams, one from relativity theory and the other illustrating the
point that I want to make:
Heaven is not in a spiritual realm existing way beyond our galaxy but is rather in a
spiritual dimension which intersects with the four space-time dimensions deep
inside each of our minds (more on this in Chapter 22). God is not some remote
deity light years away from us in outer space. Instead he lives within the spiritual
dimension, never more than a nanometre away from us. The reason why we cannot
see God is not that he is too far away, but that he is too close to us. And the reason
why so many people do not know God is that they shut their minds to the very
possibility of his existence, just as I did for the first 36 years of my life. Now we can be sure that, whenever the Adam and Eve story was written, it was at
a time when no one envisaged four, let alone five dimensions. So the picture which
the story gives of God is understandably different from the one we have today.
Genesis 1 speaks of "man, male and female" created in God's image. But in
Genesis 2-3 we find God portrayed, wrongly, in man's image: "walking in the
garden in the cool of the day". If the Adam and Eve story can be wrong in one respect then we need to ask
whether the story may also be wrong when it talks about God's "greatly
multiplying Eve's pain in childbearing" as punishment for her eating the forbidden
fruit. We are so familiar with the story that we seldom stop to think what "greatly
multiplied pain in childbearing" means. But I will never forget my wife's screams
while I sat outside in the waiting room of the hospital where she gave birth to our
first child. Given that the idea of a pain-multiplying God conflicts so sharply with that of the
loving God recognized by Christians today, there seem to be only two possibilities
here. Either the Adam and Eve story's picture of a sometimes "cruel" God is again
wrong. Or, and more likely, the author of the story never intended that it should be
read as literal truth from start to finish, which would also explain talk of God's
"walking in the garden". The snake We need to bear that second possibility particularly in mind when we come now to
consider the second member of the cast of the story, the snake, which appears at
two points in Genesis 3. At the start, where it talks to Eve and persuades her to eat
some of the forbidden fruit. And later on where God punishes the snake declaring,
"Upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life":
meaning, presumably, that it still had legs when talking to Eve earlier. There seem to be three possibilities here. First, that the story is wrong again, that
Eve was not tempted by a snake at all. Second, and as above, that the story was
never intended to be read as literally true. And third, that there really was a talking
snake but that it was the devil in disguise. Many Christians opt for the third possibility, quoting Revelation 12:9 as their
reason for doing so. But many other Christians, Catholic or otherwise, will agree
with the statement in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that "Genesis 3 uses
figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the
beginning of the history of man." Adam and Eve This brings us finally to Adam and Eve themselves. As the old joke goes, one thing we know for certain is that Adam and Eve were not
Chinese. If a Chinese couple had come across the talking snake then they would
never have been tempted to eat the forbidden fruit. They would have eaten the
snake instead! On a more serious note, and as mentioned in Chapter 1, if Adam and Eve really
were the very first man and woman, created in 4004 B.C., then we have a conflict
here with science's date of some 170,000 years ago for the emergence of Homo
sapiens. But a possible solution comes from the statement in Genesis 1 that God
created mankind "in his image". Could it be that, for a long initial period, Homo
sapiens had similar physical attributes to our own but lacked the "image of God"
which we have? Could it be that they were at first little smarter than the
Neanderthals? This is actually a hotly debated subject among modern scientists. The journalist
Rod Caird writes as follows in his book Ape Man: It is clear, from a wealth of archaeological sites in Europe and elsewhere, that by about 40,000 years ago a whole new world had been born. People very much like ourselves had established settled living sites and it is from around that time that we begin to see evidence of the great explosion of creativity symbolized by the proliferation of extraordinary cave paintings and sculpture. [Rod Caird, Ape Man, p. 130] Some scientists have suggested that this was the result of a special gene that
"kicked in" 40,000 years ago, an idea rejected by other scientists as "unDarwinian". But the following statement about cave paintings in the LION
Handbook of Christian Belief hints at a different explanation: These vivid and realistic paintings show scenes of animals such as deer and bison, many of them riddled with the arrows and lances of hunters. No serious archaeologist believes we are looking at art for art's sake in these hunting scenes. Theories vary, of course, and in any case we are in the area of the unproveable, but it is generally agreed that the basic meaning of these pictures is ritualistic or magical. The view held by many experts is that religious ceremonies took place around these pictures before hunters left the caves to go and seek food for themselves and their families. [LION Handbook of Christian Belief, pp. 23-24] If the "great explosion of creativity" mentioned by Caird was as much religious as
secular, then an alternative explanation is that it was the result of God's planting his
image in Homo sapiens at that time. How? By moving that one nanometre along
the spiritual dimension to infuse our minds with his intellect and to implant our
souls. Atheists will naturally see that last suggestion as hard to swallow. So we can
hardly expect to find them enthusiastic about the two other main things said about
Adam and Eve in Genesis 2: that God created Adam from the dust of the ground
and then Eve from one of Adam's ribs. There seem to be three main possibilities here. First, that the story is again wrong,
that Adam and Eve were born in the normal way from parents of some sort,
perhaps members of some pre-human species. Second, that Genesis 2 was never
intended to be read as literally true. And third, that there is some deeper meaning to
the idea that God can when necessary create people out of the very dust of the
ground. We will come back to that last point in Chapter 18. Eve gets mixed reviews. Almost all early commentators saw her as the one mainly
to blame. She was the one who was deceived and, although Adam certainly sinned
with his eyes open, it was eyes clouded by his love for her, which was of course
again her fault. But not everyone agrees today and two things must be said in Eve's
favour. That she is the only one who comes close to repentance. And that the figleaf aprons to cover the couple's nakedness were clearly her idea and her
handiwork. Most people, however, do agree that Adam was the quintessential couch potato. He
soon gets bored naming the various animals that God creates and brings to him,
hence his "At last!" when Eve eventually appears. He leaves it to Eve to bring him
all his meals and, when she comes along with the forbidden fruit, he eats it without
asking a single question. When God confronts him, he not only blames Eve but
then blames God as well for having foisted her on him in the first place. Finally,
and even though his only punishment is that he will have to do some hard work in
future, unlike poor Eve who has to suffer "greatly multiplied pain in childbearing",
Adam never again has anything to say about God. It is left to Eve to thank God
when Cain and Abel are born. We might almost imagine that the Adam and Eve
story was written by a woman! Chapter 3 The Framework of the Adam and Eve Story Genesis 2-3 presents the Adam and Eve story in four scenes, preceded by a
prologue in Genesis 1 and followed by an epilogue in Genesis 4. Prologue The last part of Genesis 1, covering the sixth "day" of Creation, reads: 24
And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds:
cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it
was so ... 26
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth ..." 27So God created man in his own image ... male
and female he created them. 28And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be
fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it ..." 29And God said, "Behold, I
have given you ... every plant and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have
them for food." There are three things to note in this passage. First, the order of events: animals
before humans. Second, that the account does not specify "man, male and female"
as only one couple. And third, that the humans created here are permitted to eat of
"every tree with seed in its fruit", which clearly includes apples. Scene 1: The creation of Adam and God's warning about the fruit The first half of Genesis 2 reads as follows: 4b
In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 5when no plant of
the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up - for the
LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till
the land; 6but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the
ground - 7then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. 8And the
LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom
he had formed. 9And out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree
that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of
the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ... 15
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and
keep it. 16And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may freely eat of
every tree in the garden; 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you
shall not eat, for on the day that you eat of it you shall die." There are three things to note here. First, that only one man, Adam, is created.
Second, that God intends him to be a crop farmer. And third, that he is not
permitted to eat the fruit of one particular tree in the garden. Scene 2: The naming of the animals and the creation of Eve The second half of Genesis 2 reads as follows: 18
Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will
make him a helper fit for him." 19So out of the ground the LORD God formed
every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to
see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature,
that was its name. 20... but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him. 21So
the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took
one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; 22and the rib which the LORD
God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
23
Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she
shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." 24Therefore a man
leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one
flesh. 25And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed. There are two things to note in this passage. First, it is surprising that crop farmer
Adam does not leap at the chance to have a horse to pull his plough, or at least to
ride around on: far more "helpful" than a woman! And second, the order of events
in Creation contradicts that in Genesis 1: here man precedes the animals. I should mention here that all the Bible quotations which I use in this book are
taken from the Revised Standard Version. If using the New International Version,
then you will find the following subtly different (and in my view wrong)
translation of the Hebrew text of Genesis 2:19: 19
Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. Scene 3: The tempting of Eve and the effect of eating the fruit The first half of Genesis 3 reads as follows: 1
Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the LORD God
had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, 'You shall not eat of any tree of
the garden'?" 2And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the
trees of the garden; 3but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is
in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die'." 4But the serpent
said to the woman, "You will not die. 5For God knows that when you eat of it your
eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 6So when
the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the
eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and
ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. 7Then the eyes of both were
opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together
and made themselves aprons. 8
And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of
the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9But the LORD God called to the
man, and said to him, "Where are you?" 10And he said, "I heard the sound of thee
in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." 11He said,
"Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I
commanded you not to eat?" 12The man said, "The woman whom thou gavest to be
with me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate." 13Then the LORD God said to the
woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent
beguiled me, and I ate." Three things to note here. First, the fact that the snake can talk. Second, the
dramatic effect which eating the forbidden fruit has on Adam and Eve. And third,
the way that neither of them seeks God's forgiveness. Scene 4: God's punishment of the snake and of Adam and Eve The second half of Genesis 3 reads as follows: 14
The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you
above all cattle, and above all wild animals; upon your belly you shall go, and dust
you shall eat all the days of your life ..." 16
To the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain
you shall bring forth your children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and
he shall rule over you." 17
And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and
have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is
the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat ... plants of the
field. 19In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return." 20
The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
21
And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and
clothed them. 22Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one
of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of
the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever" - 23Therefore the LORD God sent him
forth from the garden, to till the ground from which he was taken. 24He drove out
the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a
flaming sword ... to guard the way to the tree of life. The key thing to remember here is the precise detail of the ways in which God
punishes Adam and Eve. Epilogue The first half of Genesis 4, the Cain and Abel story, reads as follows: 1
Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have
gotten a man with the help of the LORD." 2And again, she bore his brother Abel.
Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. 3In the course of
time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel
brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had
regard for Abel and his offering, 5but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.
So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell ... 8
Cain said to Abel his brother, "Let us go out into the field." And when they were
in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. 9Then the LORD
said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" He said, "I do not know; am I my
brother's keeper?" 10And the LORD said, "What have you done? The voice of your
brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. 11And now you are cursed from
the ground ... 12When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength;
you shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth." 13Cain said to the LORD, "My
punishment is greater than I can bear ... whoever finds me will slay me." ... 16Then
Cain went away from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, east
of Eden. 17
Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. Five things to note here. First, the identification of Abel as a herder and Cain as a
crop farmer. Second, the description of wheat as "the fruit of the ground". Third,
the extremely lenient punishment imposed on Cain (as compared with that meted
out to Eve). Fourth, Cain's fear that "whoever finds him will slay him". And fifth,
the mention of Cain's wife, raising the question of where she came from. Finally, let me ask you a question: Did you notice that in the prologue from
Genesis 1 God is called "God", that in Scenes 1-4 from Genesis 2-3 he is called
"The LORD God" and that in the epilogue from Genesis 4 he is called "The
LORD"? We shall return to this point in Chapter 9. Chapter 4 Questions about the Adam and Eve Story My search for the true Adam and Eve story began after the following conversation
I had with my wife in 1997: Wife:
Me:
Wife:
Why do you see the Adam and Eve story as literally true? Because it is in the Bible. But it doesn't make sense. Why did God decide to test Adam and Eve by planting that tree in the garden? Why did he not foresee that they would fail their test? Why, if he knew they would fail the test, did he still go ahead with it? And why, knowing that Adam and Eve would fail and yet still going ahead with the test, did he then punish them so harshly after they did indeed fail? If I had known then what I know now, I would have replied that my wife was
working from the wrong premise, that Calvin was mistaken when suggesting in the
Institutes of the Christian Religion that God's warning not to eat the forbidden fruit
was intended to "prove and exercise" Adam's faith. But all I could do at the time
was to sit with my mouth open as my wife smiled, stood up and walked out of the
room. My wife was, however, right in the broader sense that the traditional understanding
of the Adam and Eve story does raise questions. I shall begin with questions raised
by science and Bible scholarship and then look some common sense issues. But, to
ensure that we do not lose focus, I shall close this chapter and this Introduction by
explaining why, despite all this, I still insist that the story carries the signature of
God. Questions raised by science The first question raised by scientists is whether there was ever a very first man
and woman. If the answer to this is negative, then the conflict between the Bible
date of 6,000 years ago for Adam and Eve and science's date of 170,000 years ago
for the emergence of Homo sapiens becomes irrelevant. Or rather, as mentioned in
Chapter 2, date becomes relevant only to the question of when Homo sapiens
really took on the "image of God": 170,000 years ago or very much later? A second question raised by scientists relates to the evidence from DNA studies
that we share a common ancestor with chimpanzees, gorillas and orang-utans who
lived some 16 million years ago. Scientists see this as proving conclusively that
none of our human ancestors were created from the dust of the ground. A third question raised by scientists relates to the snake. Snakes have never talked
and have always "gone upon their bellies". There are some reptiles which have lost
their legs over the course of time, such as the slow-worm. But these animals are
legless lizards, not snakes. A fourth and final question raised by scientists relates to the statement that God
punished Eve by "greatly multiplying her pain in childbearing". Science gives a
very different explanation for the extreme pain which human mothers suffer when
giving birth. Rod Caird notes in his book Ape Man that walking upright and being
two-legged: requires changes in the pelvis which make childbirth more difficult and dangerous for humans than for any other known species. [Rod Caird, Ape Man, p. 55] Questions raised by Bible scholarship The first question raised by Bible scholars is whether Genesis was written by
Moses in around the 13th century B.C. or was put into its present form as late the
5th century B.C. Scholars have assembled a wealth of evidence for their view that
the first five books of the Bible as we have them today were all compiled in the 5th
century B.C. from four earlier and now-lost documents which they label "J", "E",
"D" and "P". A second question raised by Bible scholars relates to the contradictions between
Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, for example over the order of events in Creation: animals
before humans or humans before the other animals? I mentioned in Chapter 1 the
scholarly view that, when Genesis was put into its present form, the Genesis 1
account was taken from "P" while the Genesis 2 account was taken from "J". So
some scholars question whether the "man, male and female" of Genesis 1 should
really be equated to the Adam and Eve of Genesis 2-3. Common sense issues The first question raised by common sense relates to the obvious physical
similarities between humans, apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans and
gibbons), monkeys and lemurs. Why did none of the Bible authors ever pick up on
this point? We can only guess that this was because none of them ever saw any of
the other creatures. If they had, then surely one of them would have suggested, as
we find in the Jewish Midrash, that before Adam there were semi-human beings
"with tails like monkeys". This said, though, the issue of whether a very first man could actually have been
created from the dust of the ground is best left to science. So the second question
which common sense raises is whether God would really have created Eve from
one of Adam's ribs. Common sense tells us that being created from one of Adam's ribs would have
made Eve a "clone" of Adam. So she would not have been female. And even if she
was female, she would have been Adam's sister, making this a very strange way to
go about launching the human race. Laws against incest arose mainly because of
the observation, long before anything was known about DNA, that marriages of
very close relatives often led to serious problems for the resulting offspring. So
why did God not make things infinitely simpler by making Eve from "the dust of
the ground" in the same way as he had made Adam (and the other animals)? Still on the subject of incest, the third question which common sense raises relates
to Cain's wife, first mentioned after Cain moves to Nod following his murder of
Abel. There are two possibilities here. Either Cain married his sister and took her
with him, or he went alone to Nod and married someone there. The first possibility
involves incest. And the second possibility involves an even greater problem, one
hinted at by Cain's mention of his fear that "whoever finds me will slay me". If
there were already other, unrelated people living in Nod, then how could Adam
and Eve have been the very first man and woman? We will come back to the
matter of Cain's wife in Chapter 13. A fourth question raised by common sense is that of God's wisdom in planting the
tree of "the knowledge of good and evil" in the garden in the first place. No loving
parent deliberately puts a son or daughter within arm's reach of extreme danger. No
sensible parent tells a child, "Don't touch that!" and then walks away; to do so is to
invite disobedience. And if God is God, then who needs a tree of the knowledge of
good and evil? Still on the subject of the forbidden fruit, a fifth question raised by common sense
concerns the dramatic effect which eating the fruit has on Adam and Eve. Of
course, in mankind's earliest days of gathering nuts and berries, there must have
been times when the wrong sorts of berries will have harmed those who ate them.
But even though some plants do contain narcotic substances, common sense rejects
the idea that eating two pieces of fruit plucked directly from a tree could suddenly
have made the couple aware that they were naked. A sixth question raised by common sense relates to the way God punishes Eve.
Adam is punished with having to do some hard work for a change. Cain is
punished (for having murdered his brother!) by mere banishment. So poor Eve's
punishment seems both harsh and unfair. A seventh and final question raised by common sense asks why God did not
simply turn the disobedient Adam and Eve back into dust and start again with a
fresh couple. This could hardly have been because God was too kind-hearted to
destroy them. After all, in the Flood story in Genesis 6-9, he did not hesitate to
drown everyone apart from Noah and his immediate family. So why did God
persevere with Adam and Eve? "The Word of God" Regardless of what the answers might be to the above questions, whether those
raised by scientists and Bible scholars or those arising from pure common sense,
we should not imagine that the Adam and Eve story has been "disproved". As we
shall see later, what science and scholarship have done is to shed new light on the
story. And however much our common sense may be offended by some aspects of
the Adam and Eve story, common sense also leads us to a crucially important
point. The two likeliest ways in which the Adam and Eve story came to be written are
either that Moses wrote it (perhaps at God's dictation) in the 13th century B.C. or
that a Jewish priest in Babylon rewrote it in the 5th century B.C. from an earlier
version. Either way, the author of the story could not have been a total idiot. On the
contrary, he will have been one of the best-educated men of his time and (in the
latter case) part of a team of scholars engaged in tidying up the ancient Jewish
scriptures. It follows, therefore, that the author must have had good reasons for framing
matters in the way he did. Reasons which, if we can uncover them, will explain all
the oddities about Eve's being made from one of Adam's ribs, about the fruit, about
the snake and about the harshness of a God who so unfairly "greatly multiplies
Eve's pain in childbearing". Above all we must remember that, regardless of who wrote the Adam and Eve
story, the entire Bible carries the signature of God. We may not like everything we
read in the Bible and God himself probably sighs over some of the harsher
passages. But the Bible is "the Word of God" and the important thing is to read it
with hearts open to the true loving God. PART II EARLY CHRISTIAN VIEWS OF THE STORY Chapter 5 Jesus and the Adam and Eve Story In these next four chapters we will look at the views of four early Christians on the
Adam and Eve story. I begin, naturally, with the views of Jesus and here I need to
start by saying something about Jesus himself. That Jesus lived, roughly between 4 B.C. and 30 A.D., is not in dispute. Tacitus,
the Roman historian who lived around 55-117 A.D., records in his Annals that
after the Great Fire of Rome in 64 A.D.: Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus ... [Tacitus, Annals, 15:44] What is in dispute is who Jesus was. But all Christians firmly believe that Jesus
was the Son of God and that the words ascribed to Jesus himself in the Gospels
really did come from his lips. So what he is recorded as having said about the
Adam and Eve story is clearly of great importance. Jesus' sole reference to the Adam and Eve story Given the major role that the Adam and Eve story plays in Christian thinking, it is
surprising that Jesus referred to it on only one occasion, recorded in almost
identical terms in Mark 10:2-9 and Matthew 19:3-9: And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to put her away." But Jesus said to them, "For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." What is even more surprising is that this sole reference, shown in italics, is to
Genesis 2:24. Jesus made no mention of the Garden of Eden, the fruit, the
temptation, the sin or the punishment of Adam and Eve. And this prompts two
questions. First, whether Jesus' quoting Genesis 2:24 should be seen as his
authenticating Genesis 2-3 as a whole. And second, whether there is some reason
for Jesus' relative silence on this subject. For both these questions, a good starting point is the following passage in the
LION Handbook of Christian Belief: The attitude of Jesus to the Old Testament must be decisive for the Christian. It is clear that Jesus accepted it as a true and faithful revelation of God. The idea that the Old Testament shows a harsh God, different from the loving God of the New Testament, is denied by Jesus. We cannot reject his attitude here without undermining his whole moral and spiritual authority. In fact all the New Testament writers presuppose the validity of the moral and spiritual teaching of the Old. [LION Handbook of Christian Belief, p. 189] Was Jesus authenticating the entire Adam and Eve story? On the first question, the LION Handbook's implication here is that Jesus' mention
of Genesis 2:24 means that he was indeed authenticating the whole of Genesis 2-3.
And many Christians will go even further by quoting Jesus' words in Matthew
5:17-18: Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. They will say that "the law and the prophets" means the whole of the Old
Testament, every single word of which Jesus was thereby validating. These views call for two comments. On the one hand, even if we read Matthew
5:17-18 in the way suggested, Jesus was simply saying that the text of the Adam
and Eve story in Genesis 2-3 was exactly as its author wrote it. He was not saying
that the story was necessarily literally true. And on the other hand, we should take
account of the context both of Matthew 5:17-18 (where Jesus was commenting on
Moses' Ten Commandments) and of Mark 10:2-9 (quoted earlier on in this
chapter). What Jesus was really saying was that he had not come to abolish the
moral rules in the Old Testament but rather to reinforce them. Why was Jesus relatively silent on the Adam and Eve story? On the second question, whether there is some reason for Jesus' relative silence on
the Adam and Eve story, the above LION Handbook passage is somewhat
misleading. It is true that some books in the New Testament paint the same picture
of God as the one found in the Old Testament, that of a God who is both punishing
and loving. But the picture of God which Jesus presented in his own words in the
Gospels is very different. Jesus totally ruled out all suggestion of a God who
punishes people in this life. In the view of many Jews of Jesus' time, and many Christians today, God punishes
all serious sins with misfortunes of some sort. But Jesus dismissed any idea of a
link between sin and misfortune in two passages. First, Luke 13:1-5: Do you think that the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices, or those 18 killed when the tower in Siloam fell, were worse offenders than all the others? I tell you, No. Second, John 9:2-3: His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents". In this same vein, we find that Jesus also made no reference whatsoever to those
parts of the Cain and Abel, Noah Flood and Sodom and Gomorrah stories which
speak of God's punishing people, even though he mentioned all three stories at
various times. The fact of the matter is that, when referring to the stories in Genesis, Jesus was
not validating either them or their picture of a punishing God. Rather, he was using
them simply to get his point across. When speaking to the crowds and the disciples
he used these familiar stories to help them understand and remember his teaching.
And in debates with the Pharisees, he was beating them at their own game by
referring to passages in their scriptures to cut the ground from under them. Why am I highlighting Jesus' relative silence on the Adam and Eve story? Because
Jesus supplanted everything in Genesis 2-3, apart from that one verse Genesis
2:24, with a brand new story of his own. Jesus' parable of the Wicked Tenants Jesus' parable of the Wicked Tenants is found in Mark 12:1-9: A man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a pit for the wine press, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants, to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. And they took him and beat him, and sent him away empty- handed. Again he sent to them another servant, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. And he sent another, and him they killed; and so with many others, some they beat and some they killed. He still had one other, a beloved son; finally he sent him to them, saying, "They will respect my son." But those tenants said to one another, "This is the heir, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours." And they took him and killed him and cast him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants, and give the vineyard to others. The traditional view correctly sees the servants sent to collect the fruit as the Old
Testament prophets and the owner's son as Jesus himself. But when we compare
this parable with the Adam and Eve story several similarities - and one key
difference - make it especially significant. The similarities are obvious enough. In both cases a garden/vineyard is planted and
then "leased out" to people on strict condition that they meet certain requirements
with regard to the fruit. And in both cases the people involved break the terms of
the "lease", forcing God/the vineyard owner to take action. The one key difference
is that in Genesis 2-3 God seemingly comes storming into the garden and, because
Adam and Eve do not repent at once, he punishes them severely. Whereas in Mark
12 the owner gives the tenants chance after chance to repent. So the Wicked Tenants parable has a dual meaning. On the one hand, it indeed
refers to the sending of the prophets and then finally to the sending of Jesus. And,
on the other hand, it side-lines the Adam and Eve story: taking us away from the
apparent idea of a God who storms in and punishes; and portraying instead a God
who comes into our hearts quietly, touching our consciences and urging us time
and again to repent. These two separate meanings come together in the final words of the parable
(Mark 12:9): What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants, and give the vineyard to others. This is certainly what a human vineyard owner would do. But Jesus' real question
was: What will God do after his Son is killed? The early Church clearly thought that, like the vineyard owner, God would come
and destroy those who had killed Jesus. Or rather that, having raised Jesus from the
dead, God would soon send him back to wreak all the horrific mayhem spelt out in
the Book of Revelation. But the early Church had got things wrong. It had
overlooked the point that Genesis 2-3 and Mark 12:1-9 are both primarily about
repentance. And had misunderstood the nature of God: a loving Father God whose
sole purpose in sending Jesus was to urge everyone to believe and repent. Chapter 6 Paul and the Adam and Eve Story In the first decades after Jesus' crucifixion, the leading figure in the new Christian
Church was the apostle Paul. He seems to have regarded Genesis 2-3 as literally
true in every way and often referred to it in his Epistles, sometimes to support his
views on relations between the sexes and sometimes to draw a contrast between
Adam and Jesus. Paul's views on relations between the sexes The Illustrated Bible Dictionary's article on Adam subdivides the views which Paul
drew from Genesis 2-3 on relations between the sexes into two categories. On the
one hand, views which Paul drew from Genesis 2:24 ("Therefore a man leaves his
father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh"). And on
the other hand, views which Paul based on the claim in Genesis 2:7,21-22 that God
created Adam first and then Eve second. Views drawn from Genesis 2:24 Paul's Epistles refer twice to Genesis 2:24. First, 1 Corinthians 6:15-16: Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, "The two shall become one flesh." Second, Ephesians 5:31-32 where Paul quotes Genesis 2:24 and adds: This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. As noted in Chapter 5, Genesis 2:24 is the only verse which Jesus ever referred to
in the entire Adam and Eve story. And given that Jesus quoted this verse to
reinforce his condemnation of adultery in any form, talking specifically about a
man and wife becoming "one flesh", it would seem that Paul's use of it in both the
above passages was quite a stretch. Nevertheless, the Oxford Bible Commentary remarks as follows on 1 Corinthians
6:15-16 and Ephesians 5:31-32: Paul cannot concede that our present 'natural bodies' are irrelevant to Christian commitment. On the contrary, they are 'members' - literally limbs - of Christ (v. 15), so that the way we handle them inevitably draws Christ into our activities. Paul exploits this notion as far as possible by a novel application of Genesis 2:24 ('the two shall become one flesh') to all sexual unions, not just marriage. The idea of 'the two become one flesh' invites [in Ephesians 5:28- 33] a twofold corollary: that a healthy love of the other is inseparable from a healthy respect for oneself ... and that the love of Christ sustains the mutual love of husband and wife within the corporate context of the church, of their being individually and jointly members of his body the church. [Oxford Bible Commentary, pp. 1118,1177] Views drawn from Genesis 2:7,21-22 Paul used the claim in Genesis 2:7,21-22 that God created Adam before Eve to
support, above all, his idea of "male headship". He wrote: The head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God (1 Corinthians 11:3). The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church (Ephesians 5:23). The women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home (1 Corinthians 14:34-35). Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or have authority over men (1 Timothy 2:11-12). Paul's specific statements justifying these views are as follows: A man … is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man (1 Corinthians 11:7-9). For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty (1 Timothy 2:13-15). That last (and rather strange) remark suggests that Paul's thinking on "male
headship" was also based partly on Genesis 3:16: I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. Paul's contrast between Adam and Jesus On the Adam and Jesus contrast, the Illustrated Bible Dictionary writes: The principal use of the figure of Adam in the Pauline literature is in the contrast of Adam and Christ, [with] more emphasis on the unlikeness in the midst of the likeness of Adam to Christ. [Illustrated Bible Dictionary, p. 15] The first of the two key passages here is 1 Corinthians 15:21-23,45-49: For as by a man [Adam] came death, by a man [Jesus] has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being" [Genesis 2:7]; the last Adam [Jesus] became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. The Illustrated Bible Dictionary's article on Adam comments here: First, in vv. 21-23, Paul uses [the Adam-Christ contrast] to show that the resurrection of Jesus, which the Corinthians accept, is a pledge that 'all' will share a like destiny, just as all die 'in Adam'; it is not that all died when Adam died; rather all now die like him. Then the same contrast is picked up again in vv. 45-49; the contrast here is between the physical nature of Adam, which we all now share, and the spiritual body pledged to us at the end by virtue of Christ's resurrection. Some at Corinth, over-confident because of their spiritual gifts, needed to be reminded that they were still part of an age and a humanity dominated by death. [Illustrated Bible Dictionary, p. 15] Paul's second key passage here is Romans 5:12-21: Therefore as sin came into the world through one man [Adam] and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned - sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like those of Adam, who was a type of the one [Jesus] who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the effect of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. If, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Then as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous. Law came in, to increase the trespass; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace might also reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Illustrated Bible Dictionary's article on Adam comments here: V. 12 makes it clear that death has not spread automatically to all men as a result of Adam's sin but rather 'because/in that all men sinned' and thus received the sentence of death in their own right. In vv. 13ff. Paul deals with the problem of those who did not, like Adam, have an explicit command of God to disobey; yet sin they did, as the continuing reign of death from Adam to Moses and the coming of the Law shows. Adam is 'a type of the one who was to come' and yet the development of this typology shows that it is very largely antithetical and contrasting ... a negative use of Adam's story. Moreover, whereas Adam's sin and its aftermath form an all too purely human history of man abandoned to the consequences of his own actions (cf. Romans 1:24,26,28), the Christ side of the comparison contains a more than human element which far outweighs the negative side. [Illustrated Bible Dictionary, pp. 15-16] Complementing this, and clarifying an important point, the Oxford Bible
Commentary remarks as follows on Romans 5:12-21: Paul argues on the basis of Genesis 3 only that 'sin came into the world through one man'. He does not propound a theory ('original sin') concerning the conveyance of sin, biological or otherwise, from one generation to the next. The proof of the ubiquity of sin is the universality of its consequence: death (v. 12; Genesis 3:3). The resurrection of Christ thus overturns death introduced by Adam. [Oxford Bible Commentary, p. 1094] "Original Sin" We may not like or agree with everything Paul says about women (I shall return to
his views in Chapters 14 and 26). And we may question the way he contrasts
Adam and Jesus: Why, we may ask, does Jesus himself draw no such parallel? But
we must remind ourselves that, by virtue of their being in the Bible, all Paul's
views carry the signature of God. "Original sin" means different things to different people but, as we shall see in later
chapters, it is a doctrine accepted in some shape or form by all Christians. And, as
we shall see in Chapter 11, it in fact receives support of sorts from science, which
has pinpointed two occasions when mankind collectively took what proved to be
major turns for the worse. Chapter 7 Augustine and the Adam and Eve Story In this chapter and the next we deal with two men whose views on the Adam and
Eve story, and in particular on "original sin", were not formulated until long after
the Bible was written. Their ideas do not, therefore, carry the signature of God. But
the thinking of the man we meet in this chapter continues to hold the respect of all
Christians and, as we shall see in Chapter 11, even earns a respectful nod (in one
respect at least) from the great scientist Stephen Hawking. Augustine (354-430) became Bishop of Hippo, on the coast of North Africa, in 396
and stayed in post until 430. The historian Will Durant describes him as "the most
authentic, eloquent and powerful voice of the Age of Faith in Christendom" and
declares his book The City of God to "belong to the classics of the world's
literature". His views on the Adam and Eve story are found in Books XII, XIII and
XIV of The City of God and I shall quote from the Great Books of the Western
World translation. Augustine's views on Genesis 2 Augustine writes as follows in Book XII: The two cities [the earthly and the heavenly] originated among the angels ... It is easy to see how much better it is that God was pleased to produce the human race from the one individual whom He created, than if He had originated it in several men. For as to the other animals, He created some solitary, and naturally seeking lonely places - as the eagles, kites, lions, wolves and such like; others gregarious, which herd together and prefer to live in company ... ; but neither class did He cause to be propagated from individuals, but called into being several at once. Man, on the other hand, whose nature was to be a mean between the angelic and bestial, He created in such sort that if he remained in subjection to his Creator as his rightful Lord, and piously kept His Commandments, he should pass into the company of the angels, and obtain, without the intervention of death, a blessed and endless immortality; but if he offended the Lord by a proud and disobedient use of his free will, he should become subject to death, and live as the beasts do - the slave of appetite and doomed to eternal punishment after death. And therefore God created only one single man, not, certainly, that he might be solitary, bereft of all society, but that by this means the unity of society and the bond of concord might be more effectually commended to him not only by similarity of nature, but by family affection. And indeed He did not even create the woman that was to be given to him as his wife, as He created the man, but created her out of the man, that the whole human race might derive from one man ... God, then, made man in His own image. For He created for him a soul endowed with reason and intelligence, so that he might excel all the creatures of earth, air and sea, which were not so gifted. [The City of God, Book XII, pp. 396,412] We see here that, rightly or wrongly, Augustine equates the "man, male and
female" of Genesis 1 with Adam and Eve. But we can certainly agree with his view
that, when God created man "in his own image", he gave man a nature which "was
to be a mean between the angelic and bestial". Augustine's views on Genesis 3 Augustine writes as follows in Book XIII: We now discuss the fall of the first man (we may say of the first men) and of the origin and propagation of human death. For God had not made man like angels, in such a condition that, even though they had sinned, they could none the more die ... We must say that the first men were indeed so created that if they had not sinned, they would not have experienced any kind of death; but that, having become sinners, they were so punished with death that whatsoever sprang from their stock should also be punished with the same death ... Their nature was deteriorated in proportion to the greatness of the condemnation of their sin, so that what existed as punishment in those who first sinned, became a natural consequence in their children. For man is not produced by man, as he was from the dust. For dust was the material out of which man was made; man is the parent by whom man is begotten. Wherefore earth and flesh are not the same thing, though flesh be made of earth. But as man the parent is, such is man the offspring. In the first man, therefore, there existed the whole human nature, which was to be transmitted by the woman to posterity, when that conjugal union received the divine sentence of its own condemnation; and what man was made, not when created, but when he sinned and was punished, this he propagated, so far as the origin of sin and death are concerned. For neither by sin nor its punishment was he himself reduced to that infantine and helpless infirmity of body and mind which we see in children. For God ordained that infants should begin the world as the young of beasts begin it, since their parents had fallen to the level of the beasts in the fashion of their life and of their death ... Nay more, infants, we see, are even feebler in the use and movement of their limbs, and more infirm to choose and refuse, than the most tender offspring of other animals ... To this infantine imbecility the first man did not fall by his lawless presumption and just sentence; but human nature was in his person vitiated and altered to such an extent that he suffered in his members the warring of disobedient lust, and became subject to the necessity of dying. And what he himself had become by sin and punishment, such he generated those whom he begot; that is to say, subject to sin and death. [The City of God, Book XIII, pp. 415-416] Among other things, Augustine draws a distinction in Book XIII between "the first
death" - the normal death of universal human experience - and "the second death"
which later befalls all but those who are saved by God's grace. And this leads him
on to the following statement: God, the author of natures, not vices, created man upright; but man, being of his own will corrupted and justly condemned, begot corrupted and condemned children. For we all were in that one man since we all were that one man, who fell into sin by the woman who was made from him before the sin. For not yet was the particular form created and distributed to us, in which we as individuals were to live, but already the seminal nature was there from which we were to be propagated; and this being vitiated by sin, and bound by the chain of death, and justly condemned, man could not be born of man in any other state. And thus, from the bad use of free will, there originated a whole train of evil, which, with its concatenation of miseries, convoys the human race from its depraved origin, as from a corrupt root, on to the destruction of the second death, which has no end, those only being excepted who are freed by the grace of God ... Therefore it is agreed among all Christians who truthfully hold the Catholic faith that we are subject to the death of the body, not by the law of nature, by which God ordained no death for man, but by His righteous infliction on account of sin; for God, taking vengeance on sin, said to the man, in whom we all then were, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" [Genesis 3:19]. [The City of God, Book XIII, pp. 421-422] Finally, Augustine writes as follows in Book XIV about the nature of the sin of
Adam and Eve: [The devil] first tried his deceit upon the woman, making his assault on the weaker part of that human alliance, that he might gradually gain the whole, and not supposing that the man would readily give ear to him, or be deceived, but that he might yield to the error of the woman ... For not without significance did the apostle [Paul] say, "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression" [1 Timothy 2:14]; but he speaks thus, because the woman accepted as true what the serpent told her, but the man could not bear to be severed from his only companion, even though this involved a partnership in sin. He was not on this account less culpable, but sinned with his eyes open. And so the apostle does not say, "He did not sin," but "He was not deceived." For he shows that he sinned when he says, "By one man sin entered the world" [Romans 5:12] ... If anyone finds a difficulty in understanding why other sins do not alter human nature as it was altered by the transgression of those first human beings ... he ought not to think that that sin was a small and light one because it was committed about food ... As [God's] commandment enjoining abstinence from one kind of food in the midst of great abundance of other kinds was so easy to keep - so light a burden to the memory - and, above all, found no resistance to its observance in lust, which only afterwards sprung up as the penal consequence of sin, the iniquity of violating it was all the greater in proportion to the ease with which it might have been kept. Our first parents fell into open disobedience because already they were secretly corrupted; for the evil act had never been done had not an evil will preceded it. And what is the origin of that evil will but pride? ... The devil, then, would not have ensnared man in the open and manifest sin of doing what God had forbidden, had man not already begun to live for himself. It was this that made him listen with pleasure to the words, "Ye shall be as gods" [Genesis 3:5] ... Therefore ... as in his pride [man] had sought to be his own satisfaction, God in His justice abandoned him to himself ... to live dissatisfied with himself in a hard and miserable bondage to him to whom by sinning he had yielded himself ... Whoever thinks such punishment either excessive or unjust shows his inability to measure the great iniquity of sinning where sin might so easily have been avoided. For as Abraham's obedience is with justice pronounced to be great, because the thing commanded, to kill his son, was very difficult, so in Paradise the disobedience was the greater, because the difficulty of that which was commanded was imperceptible. And as the obedience of the second Man [Jesus] was the more laudable because He became obedient even "unto death" [Philippians 2:8], so the disobedience of the first man was the more detestable because he became disobedient even unto death. [The City of God, Book XIV, pp. 444-446] Common sense is obviously going to question some of this. Few 21st century
people are going to believe that human babies are helpless at birth solely because
of the sin of Adam and Eve. Or that, if the couple had not sinned, neither they nor
all the generations of mankind between them and us would have died. But
Augustine's analysis of the story is clear and thoughtful and serves as a useful
precedent for the way that we in the 21st century should conduct our search for the
true story. Chapter 8 Calvin and the Adam and Eve Story Augustine's views on Genesis 2-3 were unquestioned for over a thousand years
after his death. The only significant criticism of his views came in fact from his
contemporary Pelagius who argued that there was no original sin and no fall of
man and was condemned as a heretic in 431. In 1517 Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation and in due course John
Calvin (1509-1564) took a fresh look at Augustine's views. I therefore now quote
and comment on a number of passages in Chapter I of "Book Second" of Calvin's
book Institutes of the Christian Religion, using the Great Books of the Western
World translation. God's prohibition was "meant to prove and exercise" Adam's faith Calvin writes as follows in Section 4 of Chapter I: As the act which God punished so severely must have been not a trivial fault but a heinous crime, it will be necessary to attend to the particular nature of the sin which produced Adam's fall, and provoked God to inflict such fearful vengeance on the whole human race. The common idea of sensual intemperance is childish. The sum and substance of all virtues could not consist in abstinence from a single fruit amid a general abundance of every delicacy that could be desired ... We must therefore look deeper than sensual intemperance. The prohibition to touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a trial of obedience, that Adam, by observing it, might prove his willing submission to the command of God. For the very term shows the end of the precept to have been to keep him contented with his lot, and not allow him arrogantly to aspire beyond it. The promise, which gave him hope of eternal life as long as he should eat of the tree of life, and, on the other hand, the fearful denunciation of death the moment he should taste of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, were meant to prove and exercise his faith. Hence it is not difficult to infer in what way Adam provoked the wrath of God. Augustine, indeed, is not far from the mark, when he says that pride was the beginning of all evil, because, had not man's ambition carried him higher than he was permitted, he might have continued in his first estate. A further definition, however, must be derived from the kind of temptation which Moses describes. When, by the subtlety of the devil, the woman faithlessly abandoned the command of God, her fall obviously had its origin in disobedience. This Paul confirms, when he says, that, by the disobedience of one man, all were destroyed [Romans 5:17-18]. At the same time, it is to be observed, that the first man revolted against the authority of God, not only in allowing himself to be ensnared by the wiles of the devil, but also by despising the truth, and turning aside to lies ... Hence infidelity was at the root of the revolt. From infidelity, again, sprang ambition and pride, together with ingratitude; because Adam, by longing for more than was allotted him, manifested contempt for the great liberality with which God had enriched him. It was surely monstrous impiety that a son of earth should deem it little to be made in the likeness, unless he were also made the equal of God ... Nor was it simple apostacy. It was accompanied with a foul insult to God, the guilty pair assenting to Satan's calumnies when he charged God with malice, envy and falsehood. In fine, infidelity opened the door to ambition, and ambition was the parent of rebellion, man casting off the fear of God, and giving free rein to his lust. [Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book Second, Chapter I, p. 103] The reference to Moses reflects the supposition prior to the 19th century that he
was the author of Genesis. There are two important things to note from the above
passage. First, that Calvin clearly saw the whole of Genesis 2-3 as literally true.
And second that, in Calvin's view, "The prohibition to touch the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil was a trial of obedience ... meant to prove and exercise
[Adam's] faith". Original sin Calvin writes as follows in Section 5 of Chapter I: As Adam's spiritual life would have consisted in remaining united and bound to his Maker, so estrangement from him was the death of his soul. Nor is it strange that he who perverted the whole order of nature in heaven and earth deteriorated his race by his revolt ... This is the hereditary corruption to which early Christian writers gave the name of Original Sin, meaning by the term the depravation of a nature formerly good and pure. The subject gave rise to much discussion, there being nothing more remote from common apprehension, than that the fault of one should render all guilty, and so become a common sin. This seems to be the reason why the oldest doctors of the church only glance obscurely at the point, or, at least, do not explain it so clearly as it required. This timidity, however, could not prevent the rise of a Pelagius with his profane fiction - that Adam sinned only to his own hurt, but did no hurt to his posterity ... When it was clearly proved from Scripture that the sin of the first man passed to all his posterity, recourse was had to the cavil, that it passed by imitation and not by propagation. The orthodox, therefore, and more especially Augustine, laboured to show, that we are not corrupted by acquired wickedness, but bring an innate corruption from the very womb ... Surely there is no ambiguity in David's confession, "I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me" [Psalm 51:5] ... [Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book Second, Chapter I, p. 104] Calvin writes as follows in Section 6 of Chapter I: We must therefore hold it for certain that, in regard to human nature, Adam was not merely a progenitor, but, as it were, a root, and that accordingly, by his corruption, the whole human race was deservedly vitiated. This is plain from the contrast which the Apostle [Paul] draws between Adam and Christ, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned; even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord" [Romans 5:19-21]. To what quibble will the Pelagians here recur? That the sin of Adam was propagated by imitation? Is the
righteousness of Christ then available to us only in so far as it is an example held forth for our imitation? Can any man tolerate such blasphemy? But if, out of all controversy, the righteousness of Christ, and thereby life, is ours by communication, it follows that both of these were lost in Adam that they might be recovered in Christ, whereas sin and death were brought in by Adam, that they might be abolished in Christ. There is no obscurity in the words, "As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous" [Romans 5:17] ... As Adam, by his ruin, involved and ruined us, so Christ, by his grace, restored us to salvation ... Thus, too, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, when Paul would confirm believers in the confident hope of the resurrection, he shows that the life is recovered in Christ which was lost in Adam [1 Corinthians 15:22]. ... Therefore the only explanation which can be given of [Paul's] expression, "in Adam all died", is, that he by sinning not only brought disaster and ruin upon himself, but also plunged our nature into like destruction; and that not only in one fault, in a matter not pertaining to us, but by the corruption into which he himself fell, he infected his whole seed. Paul never could have said that all are "by nature the children of wrath" [Ephesians 2:3], if they had not been cursed from the womb. [Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book Second, Chapter I, pp. 104-105] Calvin writes as follows in Section 7 of Chapter I: It should be enough for us to know that Adam was made the depository of the endowments which God was pleased to bestow on human nature, and that, therefore, when he lost what he had received, he lost not only for himself but for us all ... Corruption commencing in Adam, is, by perpetual descent, conveyed from those preceding to those coming after them ... The Pelagian cavil, as to the improbability of children deriving corruption from pious parents, whereas, they ought rather to be sanctified by their purity, is easily refuted. Children come not by spiritual regeneration but by carnal descent. Accordingly, as Augustine says, "Both the condemned unbeliever and the acquitted believer beget offspring not acquitted but condemned, because the nature which begets is corrupt." Moreover, though godly parents do in some measure contribute to the holiness of their offspring, this is by the blessing of God; a blessing, however, which does not prevent the primary and universal curse of the whole race from previously taking effect. Guilt is from nature, whereas sanctification is from supernatural grace. [Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book Second, Chapter I, p. 105] Finally, Calvin writes as follows in Section 8 of Chapter I: Original sin, then, may be defined as a hereditary corruption and depravity of our nature, extending to all parts of the soul, which first makes us obnoxious to the wrath of God, and then produces in us works which in Scripture are termed works of the flesh. This corruption is repeatedly designated by Paul by the word sin [Galatians 5:19] ... We are, merely on account of such corruption, deservedly condemned by God, to whom nothing is acceptable but righteousness, innocence, and purity. This is not liability for another's fault. For when it is said, that the sin of Adam has made us obnoxious to the justice of God, the meaning is not, that we, who are in ourselves innocent and blameless, are bearing his guilt, but that since by his transgression we are all placed under the curse, he is said to have brought us under obligation. Through him, however, not only has punishment been derived, but pollution instilled, for which punishment is justly due. Hence Augustine, though he often terms it another's sin (that he may more clearly show how it comes to us by descent), at the same time asserts that it is each individual's own sin. And the Apostle [Paul] most distinctly testifies, that "death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" [Romans 5:12]; that is, are involved in original sin, and polluted by its stain. Hence, even infants bringing their condemnation with them from their mother's womb, suffer not for another's, but for their own defect. For although they have not yet produced the fruits of their own unrighteousness, they have the seed implanted in them. Nay, their whole nature is, as it were, a seed-bed of sin, and therefore cannot but be odious and abominable to God. [Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book Second, Chapter I, p. 106] That last remark is clearly poles apart from Jesus' statement in Mark 10:14, "Let
the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of
God". Just as Calvin's idea that God was setting Adam and Eve a test contradicts
Jesus' picture of a loving Father God. PART III NEW LIGHT SHED ON THE STORY IN THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES Chapter 9 Bible Scholarship I mentioned in Chapter 4 that modern Bible scholars have assembled a wealth of
evidence for their view that the first five books of the Bible as we have them today
were all compiled in the 5th century B.C. from four earlier and now-lost
documents which they label "J", "E", "D" and "P". In this present chapter I shall begin by quoting a number of extracts from The
Oxford Bible Commentary's Introduction to the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) which summarize how scholars came to
this view. And I shall then explain why I see their work as shedding important new
light on the Adam and Eve story. The logic of source-criticism My first extract from the Oxford Bible Commentary sets out three stages in the
argument which led to the formulation of Julius Wellhausen's account of the
origins of the Pentateuch, published in 1878 (there is also a fourth stage, to which I
shall come later): The first step was the acceptance that an enquiry into the sources of the Pentateuch was permissible at all i.e. that it was not ruled out by the tradition which regarded Moses as the author of the whole Pentateuch. This tradition goes back to the New Testament and contemporary writings, though it is probably not implied by anything in the Old Testament text itself. The reasons for questioning the tradition of Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch are broadly of two kinds: (1) the relatively late date of the first appearance of this tradition (not at any rate before the Babylonian exile); (2) various data in the Pentateuch itself which seem to be inconsistent with it: an obvious one is the account of Moses' death (Deuteronomy 34). The second step was the analysis of the text, the demonstration of its lack of unity in detail. In the eighteenth century, well before the formulation of the Wellhausen theory, theories had been developed to account for what seemed to be signs of composite authorship, or the use of sources. Some passages, such as the Flood story, appeared to arise from the combination of two originally separate accounts of the same event. In other cases it seemed unlikely or even impossible that two separate passages could have belonged to the same continuous account, the two creation stories for example. So on what basis is it argued that the Pentateuch is of composite origin? Four main kinds of criteria have commonly been used: (1) repeated accounts of the same action or story; (2) the occurrence of statements (or commands) that are incompatible or inconsistent with each other; (3) vocabulary and style - the use of different words for the same thing, including e.g. different names for God [YHWH, 'ělōhîm]; and variations of style; (4) the appearance of different viewpoints on matters of religion in particular, but also on other matters. The third step is the development of hypotheses about the major constituent parts of the Pentateuch and their inter-relation. Various models are possible: (1) that a number of independent source-documents have been combined, the classical Documentary Hypothesis of Graf, Kuenen and Wellhausen; (2) that the Pentateuch is simply a conglomeration of small units put together by an editor (the Fragmentary Hypothesis); or (3) that an original core was amplified by the addition of fresh material, either material that had previously existed independently as small units or new material that was composed for the first time for the purpose of modifying the existing core (a Supplementary Hypothesis such as that which was dominant in the middle of the 19th century). [Oxford Bible Commentary, pp. 15-16] Scholars' views of the Pentateuch prior to 1860 On the Supplementary Hypothesis, the Oxford Bible Commentary writes: Since about 1800 strenuous efforts had been made to discover the process by which the Pentateuch had reached its present form ... At the beginning of the 1860s the leading scholars held to the Supplementary Hypothesis. According to this, the original core of the Pentateuch was a document known as the Book of Origins put together by a priest or Levite in about the time of King Solomon [10th century B.C.] ... This core, it was held, was expanded [in the 8th century B.C.] by the addition of stories and other matter ... Later still, [in the 7th century B.C.], the work was further supplemented by the addition of the major part of Deuteronomy ... An important challenge to this theory had already been made by the publication in 1853 of a book by Hermann Hupfeld. Its main theses were: (1) that the so-called 'original core' contained some passages which were of later origin that the rest and represented a first stage of expansion of the core; and (2) that both these later passages and the passages which the Supplementary Hypothesis itself had distinguished from the core were not fragments picked up from all over the place but had been parts of large pre-existing narrative compositions which the compilers of the Pentateuch had drawn on as sources. Hupfeld thus did two things. He refined the analysis of the Pentateuch into its component parts, which were now seen to be not three but four in number, and he replaced the idea of an original core with a truly documentary theory of Pentateuchal origins ... His position can be represented in terms of the modern symbols for them as P-E-J-D.
[Oxford Bible Commentary, pp. 13-14] The contributions made by Karl Heinrich Graf and Abraham Kuenen On the laying of the foundations for the "classical Documentary Hypothesis" the
Oxford Bible Commentary writes: According to both the Supplementary Hypothesis and Hupfeld's theory, the oldest part of the Pentateuch was a Book of Origins that began with the account of creation in Genesis 1 and included most of the priestly laws in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. Doubts about the antiquity of the these texts had already been expressed in the 1830s, but detailed critical arguments only began to appear in the 1860s ... Abraham Kuenen held that the priestly laws in [P] were not in fact all ancient, but had developed over a long period of time, some of them being later in date than Deuteronomy. An even more radical conclusion had been reached by Karl Heinrich Graf who in 1862 wrote, 'I am completely convinced of the fact that the whole middle part of the Pentateuch [apparently Exodus 25 to the end of Numbers] is post-exilic in origin' [i.e. written after the exile to Babylon in 587 B.C.] ... In 1865 Graf published his views in book form and [following correspondence between Kuenen and Graf] the order P-E-J-D of Hupfeld was transformed into the J-E-D-P that became standard. [Oxford Bible Commentary, p. 14] The contribution made by Julius Wellhausen The Oxford Bible Commentary gives as follows the fourth stage in the argument
which led to the formulation of Wellhausen's account of the origins of the
Pentateuch: The fourth step is that of arranging the sources (or supplements) in chronological order and dating them. It is in this area that Graf, Kuenen and Wellhausen made a real innovation, in ... dating [the latest of the sources] to the post-exilic period. How are such conclusions reached, in general terms? Along two main lines: (1) the relative age of the sources can be considered in various ways: Does one source or layer take for granted the prior existence of another one? Is one source obviously more primitive in its way of presenting events, or its legal requirements, than another? (2) the actual or absolute dates of the sources can be fixed by reference to dates outside the Pentateuch. Such arguments can themselves be subdivided according to whether reference is being made to fixed points in the events of Israel's political and religious history (such as the Babylonian exile) as we know them from the historical books of the Old Testament, or to doctrines (such as the demand for the centralization of worship in Jerusalem) whose first formulation we can date by reference to these same historical books and the writings of the prophets. [Oxford Bible Commentary, p. 16] As a specific example here, the Oxford Bible Commentary writes: Wellhausen used two kinds of arguments to establish his view that P is the latest of the four sources. First he noticed the almost unbroken silence of the older historical books, Samuel and Kings, with regard to the distinctive institutions of the cult prescribed by P ... In view of the fact that these books have plenty to say about ritual, this must imply that these institutions were not yet known in the pre-exilic period. It follows that P could not yet have been written. The specific reference to 'the older historical books' is deliberate, so as to exclude the books of Chronicles. The force of this argument could only be felt when a true appreciation of the late date and largely fictional character of Chronicles had been gained ... Chronicles does relate the existence of institutions characteristic of P in the pre-exilic period, and it was only when it had been shown that these elements of the Chronicler's account were fictional that a clear view of pre-exilic religion could be obtained, and so the necessity of a late date for P established. The second kind of argument was based on the relationship of the laws and narratives of P to the laws in Deuteronomy and the final chapters of Ezekiel.
[Oxford Bible Commentary, p. 18] Implications for the Adam and Eve story In terms of suggesting what all this means for the Adam and Eve story, let me
begin with a further extract from the Oxford Bible Commentary: Pentateuchal source criticism seems to have begun with the observation that Genesis opens with not one but two different accounts of creation: 1:1-2:3 and 2:4-25. The second repeats a number of events already described in the first, but not exactly in the same order, and with some notable differences in presentation, [such as] the difference over the divine names: the fact that whereas the first account refers to God only by the word 'God' ('ělōhîm); the second used the compound phrase 'the Lord God' = YHWH 'ělōhîm, combining with the word 'God' the proper name by which Israel knew her God, YHWH. According to the word used to refer to God, the second account of creation was ... given the symbol J (because the abbreviations were worked out in Germany and the 'y' sound is represented by 'j' in German). The first account ... is known today as P, because of the prominent place given to priesthood and ritual in [this source's] later parts. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century a majority of scholars gradually came to accept the conclusion that the Pentateuch had been composed from four documents or sources, whose dates and places of origin were as follows: J 9th century, Judah E 8th century, northern kingdom of Israel D 7th century, Judah P 5th century, Babylon. Discussion [in the 20th century, in relation to the date of P] has been useful for two reasons: (1) it has emphasized that the P document did not emerge out of thin air, but in some passages is a compilation of older traditions, particularly laws; (2) it has brought to light one or two reasons for preferring a sixth-century date for the composition of P to the fifth-century one advocated by earlier critics. [Oxford Bible Commentary, pp. 16-17,19,31] The main conclusions from all of this are that the Creation account in Genesis 1
came from the 6th century B.C. document P, whereas the Adam and Eve story
came from the 9th century B.C. document J, and that Genesis was not put into its
present form until the 5th century B.C. As the Oxford Bible Commentary makes clear, the issue of names for God was one
of the starting points of Pentateuchal source criticism. The four documents J, E, D
and P mentioned above apparently used almost throughout the following Hebrew
names for God: J
YHWH
=
The LORD E, P e·lo·him
=
God D
YHWH
=
The LORD, and YHWH e·lo·he·ka =
The LORD your God On this basis, scholars divide up the various stories in Genesis 1-11 between P and
J as follows: Genesis 1:1-2:3 ("six days" Creation)
P Genesis 2:4-3:24 (Adam and Eve)
J Genesis 4 (Cain and Abel)
J Genesis 6-9 (Noah Flood)
P and J Genesis 11 (Tower of Babel)
J But let us now go back to the question which I asked you at the end of Chapter 3:
Did you notice that in Genesis 1 God is called "God", that in Genesis 2-3 he is
called "The LORD God" and that in Genesis 4 he is called "The LORD"? On the one hand this confirms the very point that the Bible scholars are making.
But it also it raises a further question. If the Adam and Eve story came from J then
why does it refer to God by the title The LORD God (YHWH e·lo·him) rather than
The LORD (YHWH) as in the rest of J? There are two main possibilities here. First, that J itself was compiled (in the 9th
century B.C.) from several earlier documents, most referring to God as The LORD
but one, at least, referring to him as The LORD God. And second, that the Adam
and Eve story was rewritten in the 5th century B.C., when it was being taken from
J into the new Book of Genesis, with God being given the new title of The LORD
God. The second suggestion, that the Adam and Eve story was rewritten by a Jewish
priest in the 5th century B.C. during the exile in Babylon, will be a major theme in
later chapters. But let me here make two initial points which argue in its favour. First, according to the Oxford Bible Commentary: The garden of Eden is nowhere mentioned in Old Testament texts before the time of the exilic Isaiah (Deutero-Isaiah, Isa 51:3) and Ezekiel (Ezek 28:13; 36:35).
[Oxford Bible Commentary, p. 42] Second, the title The LORD God is found in only two places in the entire
Pentateuch: in Genesis 2-3 and in Exodus 9:30. This suggests that the title The
LORD God represents a fingerprint of sorts left by the Jewish priests who put the
Pentateuch into its present form in the 5th century B.C. and also indicates that, in
the course of doing so, they paid particular attention to the Adam and Eve story. Chapter 10 19th Century Science The 19th century saw science shedding its first light on the Adam and Eve story,
both through the work of Charles Darwin and by discoveries made in
palaeontology. Charles Darwin Prior to Darwin most people still believed that mankind had emerged
comparatively recently, with the Church insisting that God had created both the
universe and the human race in 4004 B.C. So Darwin's suggestions that the Earth
was at least 306 million years old, and that all current species had evolved from
earlier forms, stirred up quite a storm. On the age of the Earth, Bill Bryson writes as follows in A Short History of Nearly
Everything: By the middle of the nineteenth century most learned people thought the Earth was at least a few million years old, perhaps even some tens of millions years old, but probably not more than that. So it came as a surprise when in 1859, in On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin announced that the geological processes that created the Weald, an area of southern England stretching across Kent, Surrey and Sussex, had taken, by his calculations, 306,662,400 years to complete [Gjertsen, The Classics of Science, p. 335]. The assertion ... proved so contentious that Darwin withdrew it from the third edition of the book. [Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, pp. 67] Darwin's most important suggestion in The Origin of Species was of course that all
current species, including mankind, had evolved from earlier forms. But since we
are concerned primarily with the Adam and Eve story, I wish to concentrate on
Darwin's later and even more directly relevant book The Descent of Man,
published in 1871. In Darwin's own words, quoted from the Great Books of the Western World
edition of The Descent of Man: If the anthropomorphous apes [the chimpanzee, gorilla, orang- utan, and gibbon] be admitted to form a natural sub-group, then as man agrees with them, not only in all those characters which he possesses in common with the whole catarhine group [also including the Old World monkeys], but in other peculiar characters, such as the absence of a tail and other callosities, and in general appearance, we may infer that some ancient member of the anthropomorphous sub-group gave birth to man ... No doubt man, in comparison with most of his allies, has undergone an extraordinary amount of modification, chiefly in consequence of the great development of his brain and his erect position; nevertheless, we should bear in mind that he "is but one of several exceptional forms of primates" ... As man from a genealogical point of view belongs to the catarhine or Old World stock, we must conclude, however much the conclusion may revolt our pride, that our early progenitors would have been properly thus designated. But we must not fall into the error of supposing that the early progenitors of the whole simian stock, including man, were identical with, or even closely resembled, any existing ape or monkey. [Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, pp. 335-336] We can sum up what Darwin has said so far in chart form: Darwin then continues as follows: We are naturally led to enquire, where was the birthplace of man at that stage of descent when our progenitors diverged from the catarhine stock? The fact that they belonged to this stock shews that they inhabited the Old World; but not Australia nor any oceanic island, as we may infer from the laws of geographic distribution. In each great region of the world the living mammals are closely related to the extinct species of the same region. It is therefore probable that Africa was formerly inhabited by extinct apes closely allied to the gorilla and chimpanzee; and as these two species are now man's nearest allies, it is somewhat more probable that our early progenitors lived on the African continent than elsewhere ... The great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or living species, has often been advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is descended from some lower form; but this objection will not appear of much weight to those who, from general reasons, believe in the general principle of evolution. Breaks often occur in all parts of the series ... But these breaks depend merely on the number of related forms which have become extinct ... With respect to the absence of fossil remains serving to connect man with his ape-like progenitors, no one will lay much stress on this who reads Sir C. Lyell's discussion, where he shews that in all the vertebrate classes the discovery of fossil remains has been a slow and fortuitous process. Nor should it be forgotten that those regions which are the most likely to afford remains connecting man with some existing ape-like creature, have not as yet been searched by geologists. [Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, pp. 336-337] Everything that Darwin says here about man's origins was confirmed in the 20th
century by discoveries of ancient skeletons in Africa belonging to a range of earlier
Homo species and by DNA studies of modern apes and humans. I shall cover this
in the next chapter. Darwin's ideas did not, however, sit well with the majority of 19th century
Christians. In 1860, soon after the first edition of The Origin of Species was
published, there was a famous public spat between the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel
Wilberforce, and naturalist Thomas Huxley. Bill Bryson describes the key
exchange of words as follows: Wilberforce ... turned to Huxley with a dry smile and demanded of him whether he claimed attachment to the apes by way of his grandmother or grandfather. The remark was doubtless intended as a quip, but it came across as an icy challenge ... Huxley declared that he would rather claim kinship to an ape than to someone who used his eminence to propound uninformed twaddle. [Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, p. 349] 19th century palaeontology On Darwin's conclusion in The Descent of Man that there is indeed a kinship
between humans and apes, Bill Bryson writes: The conclusion was a bold one, since nothing in the fossil record supported such a notion. The only known early human remains of that time were the famous Neandertal bones from Germany and a few uncertain fragments of jawbones, and many respected authorities refused to believe even in their antiquity. [Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, pp. 349-350] Bryson is referring here to the discovery, by workmen, of an ancient Neanderthal
(Homo neanderthalis) skeleton in 1856 in a cave in the Neander valley. He
comments on matters as follows: [The] workmen ... passed [the bones] to a local schoolteacher, knowing he had an interest in all things natural. To his great credit the teacher, Johann Karl Fuhlrott saw that he had some new type of human, though quite what it was, and how special, would be a matter of dispute for some time. Many people refused to accept that the Neandertal bones were ancient at all. August Mayer, a professor at the University of Bonn and a man of influence, insisted that the bones were merely those of a Mongolian Cossack soldier who had been wounded while fighting in Germany in 1814 and had crawled into the cave to die. Another anthropologist, puzzling over the Neandertal's heavy brow ridge, suggested that it was the result of long-term frowning arising from a poorly healed forearm fracture. [Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, p. 385] The next major step forward for palaeontology came in 1891 when Marie Eugène
Dubois discovered remains of a third and even earlier human species, Homo
erectus, in a cave on Java island in what is now Indonesia. The find, a skullcap,
produced an initial reaction similar to that of August Mayer to the Neanderthal
bones. Bill Bryson writes: Most scientists disliked both [Dubois'] conclusions and the arrogant manner in which he presented them. The skullcap, they said, was that of an ape, probably a gibbon, and not of any early human. Hoping to bolster his case, in 1897 Dubois allowed a respected anatomist from the University of Strasbourg, Gustav Schwalbe, to make a cast of the skullcap. To Dubois' dismay, Schwalbe thereupon produced a monograph that received far more sympathetic attention than anything Dubois had written [Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, p. 386] One way or another, then, the scientific study of the ancestry of the human race
ended the 19th century on a something of high note, with the following picture
having emerged (using today's terminology): Opinion was however divided then, as now in some quarters, between mankind's
having originated in Africa (as Darwin had suggested) or in Asia (as Dubois'
discovery of the skullcap in Java seemed to indicate). Chapter 11 20th Century Science The 20th century saw science shedding even more light on the Adam and Eve
story, in relation to our understanding both of the origins of the universe and of the
origins and history of Homo sapiens. The origins of the universe Stephen Hawking writes as follows in his book A Brief History of Time: The concept of time has no meaning before the beginning of the universe. This was first pointed out by St Augustine. When asked: what did God do before he created the universe? Augustine didn't reply: He was preparing Hell for people who asked such questions. Instead, he said that time was a property of the universe that God created, and that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe. In 1929, Edwin Hubble made the landmark observation that wherever you look, distant galaxies are moving rapidly away from us. In other words, the universe is expanding. This means that at earlier times objects would have been closer together. In fact, it seemed that there was a time, about ten or twenty thousand million years ago, when they were all at exactly the same place and when, therefore, the density of the universe was infinite. This discovery finally brought the question of the beginning of the universe into the realm of science. Hubble's observation suggested that there was a time, called the big bang, when the universe was infinitesimally small and infinitely dense ... As experimental and theoretical evidence mounted, it became more and more clear that the universe must have had a beginning in time, until in 1970 this was finally proved by [Roger] Penrose and myself, on the basis of Einstein's general theory of relativity. [Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time, pp. 8-9, 50] Science's current figure of 13.7 billion years for the age of the universe of course in
no way "disproves" the "six days" Creation account in Genesis 1, apart from
confirming the common sense view that "day" obviously never meant literally 24
hours. But while the "big bang" findings certainly shed new light on Genesis 1,
they also raise a difficult question in relation to Genesis 2-3. Why, after creating
the universe, did God then wait 13.7 billion years before creating Adam and Eve?
We will come back to this question in Chapter 13. 20th century palaeontology 20th century palaeontology has shed further light on the origins of Homo sapiens
and, therefore, on the Genesis 2 part of the Adam and Eve story. 1924 saw the first of a number of spectacular discoveries of "hominid" remains in
Africa. Bill Bryson writes as follows: In late 1924 Raymond Dart, the Australian-born head of anatomy at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, was sent a small but remarkably complete skull of a child, with an intact face, a lower jaw and what is known as an endocast - a natural cast of the brain - from a limestone quarry on the edge of the Kalahari Desert at a dusty spot called Taung. Dart could see at once that the Taung skull was not of a Homo erectus like Dubois' Java Man but from an earlier, more apelike creature. He placed its age at two million years and dubbed it Australopithecus africanus ... The authorities were even less favourably disposed to Dart than they had been to Dubois ... Above all, his conclusions flew in the face of accepted wisdom. Humans and apes, it was agreed, had split apart at least 15 million years ago in Asia. [Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, pp. 386-387] After this, and especially since 1959, came numerous other discoveries of ancient
hominid and human remains in East Africa. One of the best known finds was that
of "Lucy", classified as Australopithecus afarensis and dated at over three million
years ago. Other important finds have been of fossil remains of early Homo species
in the Lake Turkana region of Kenya, most notably remains of the Homo habilis
"Handy-man" (dated at around two million years ago) and the almost complete
skeleton of the Homo erectus "Turkana Boy", dated at around 1.5 million years
ago. Moreover, ancient skeletons of modern man, Homo sapiens, have been found
in East Africa dating back as far as 150,000 years ago. 20th century anthropology 20th century anthropology seems to have shed new light on the Genesis 3 part of
the Adam and Eve story. Specifically, two occasions have been pinpointed when
mankind collectively made major turns for the worse, providing support of sorts
for there having been a historical "fall". John Haywood, quoting post-World War II studies of the then few remaining
hunter-gatherer societies, describes in The Illustrated History of Early Man what
life would have been like in ancient hunting bands: The typical unit of social organization among generalized hunter- gatherers is the band. Bands are usually between 30 and 50 strong. A larger band than this would exhaust the local food sources so quickly that it would be forever on the move; a smaller band would find it hard to raise enough adult men for a successful hunting party. Archeological sites from many parts of the world show that this has been the average band size since at least Upper Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) times. Bands are always egalitarian and exhibitionist behaviour or attempts to coerce other band members against their will are always suppressed ... All food and property is shared within the band and if anyone asks for anything, it is always willingly given. This is not generosity but enlightened self-interest. A hunter will, on average, make a kill only once every 4-10 days. If a hunter kept the whole of his kill to himself, he would have more than he could eat some of the time and nothing at all at others. By sharing his kill with others, the hunter can be confident that others will do the same with him: if he has a run of bad luck he knows that he will not go hungry nor is he forced to compete for game with other band members, so reducing the chances of over-hunting. Some people inevitably contribute more food than others but anyone who abuses the system and tries to live off the labour of others will simply be excluded from the band ... Disputes within bands are usually settled by peer group pressure ... Crime is virtually unknown and there is no motive for theft as one only has to ask for something for it to be given and it is, in any case, impossible to accumulate more than can be carried. [John Haywood, The Illustrated History of Early Man, pp. 87-88] The first occasion when mankind took what proved to be a major turn for the
worse started some 20,000 years ago. John Haywood writes: The Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) in Eurasia ... was a period of transition between the big-game hunting way of life of the Paleolithic and the adoption of farming ... The Mesolithic saw the appearance of a wide range of technological innovations designed to make intensive exploitation of [alternative] food sources easier ... Nets, harpoons, pronged fishing spears, fish traps and boats made fishing an economical proposition for the first time. Nets could also be used for trapping seabirds and waterfowl. Specially shaped tools were used for prising shellfish off rocks. The bow and arrow came into widespread use, allowing fast and accurate shooting at elusive forest animals and birds, while snares and traps took most of the hard work out of catching small game like rabbits ... What the new technology of the Mesolithic did was to allow people to tap into these apparently limitless supplies of food. The human population began to rise and in certain favoured areas food resources were so rich that hunter-gatherers needed to move only once a season or could even become completely settled. Once hunter-gatherers settled down and it became possible for people to accumulate possessions, it became worthwhile to spend time and effort building permanent dwellings; food was so abundant, sharing was no longer necessary outside the family ... Under these circumstances, the absolutely egalitarian structures of generalized hunter-gatherer societies broke down. Because it was now harder to exhaust the local food supplies, people could live together in large groups or tribes. Individuals could now compete with one another to acquire prestige objects and to accumulate stores of surplus food ... In this way, a rudimentary class structure emerged in these sedentary communities ... Another consequence of sedentism was increased territoriality and it is from the Mesolithic that the first evidence of large scale violence appears. [John Haywood, The Illustrated History of Early Man, pp. 92-96] The second turn for the worse started some 10,000 years ago when crop farming
began. Michael Roaf explains matters as follows in his book Cultural Atlas of
Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East: Cereals differ from much other plant food in that they can be stored for long periods, provided they are kept dry and free from insects or rodents. Grain can also be heated or parched to prevent germination. These properties of cereals allow a delayed return on the energy invested in their collection, so that grain can act like money, having an accepted standard of value and a medium of exchange. The storage and, later, cultivation of grain thus allowed the possibility of wealth accumulation, promoting the development of a society in which status was based on wealth. [Michael Roaf, Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East, p. 27] And Will Durant provides the following further explanation in his book The Story
of Civilization: Hunters and herders had no need of private property in land; but when agriculture became the settled life of men it soon appeared that the land was most fruitfully tilled when the rewards of careful husbandry accrued to the family that had provided it. Consequently ... the passage from hunting to agriculture brought a change from tribal property to family property ... Agriculture, while generating civilization, led not only to private property but to slavery. In purely hunting communities slavery had been unknown: the hunter's wives and children sufficed to do the menial work. The men alternated between the excited activity of hunting or war, and the exhausted lassitude of satiety or peace ... To transform this spasmodic activity into regular work two things were needed: the routine of tillage and the organization of labour [which] depends in the last analysis upon force. [Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Volume I, pp. 18-20] DNA research DNA research, which has shed immense new light on the Adam and Eve story,
could obviously not get underway until after James Watson and Francis Crick had
identified the structure of DNA in 1953. The nature of this structure and the scope
which this knowledge provided for the research which particularly concerns us is
summed up by Rod Caird: DNA is made up of strings of four bases, represented by the letters A, C, G and T ... For DNA to be passed on to the next generation, it has to make copies of itself ... Sometimes, however, the copies are inexact, errors are made; an A might turn into a G or a C into a T. This is called a mutation.
[Rod Caird, Ape Man, p. 112] Molecular biology On the first key research area, molecular biology, Rod Caird writes: DNA and molecular studies since the 1960s have confirmed that the visible similarities between humans and chimpanzees are no freak accident. We and they belong to the same family tree ... Comparing the DNA structure of chimps, humans, gorillas and the other apes, [Morris Goodman] found that there is only a 1.7 percent difference between chimps and humans, and a 1.9 percent difference between a human and a gorilla, or between a chimp and a gorilla. The difference between all three and an orang-utan is about 3.7 percent ... It follows that the split between orang-utans on the one hand and humans, chimps and gorillas on the other must have predated the splits between chimps, humans and gorillas ... Dates can be attached to these evolutionary splits by working on the basis of some degree of consistency of genetic change, relating it to the fossil record ... in what is called junk or non-coding DNA the difference between species will accumulate at a constant speed, simply as a function of the rate of mutation. This is known as the molecular clock. Like any clock, it sometimes goes too fast or too slow, or even stops. But in general it gives a good estimate of when things have happened in evolution. The molecular clock can be calibrated from a known date in the fossil record. Palaeontologists reckon from the record now that the split between the orang-utans and the other species occurred about sixteen million years ago. If that represents a DNA divergence of 3.7 percent, it follows that a DNA divergence of 1.9 percent must have occurred about half that length of time ago. This is, in very simple terms, how Goodman arrived at the figure of around eight million years ago for the split between humans and chimps as against gorillas, and the date of around seven million years ago for the last common ancestor of the humans and chimps. [Rod Caird, Ape Man, [pp. 23, 112, 115-116] We can put all this in chart form as follows: Mitochondrial DNA The other key research area in the 20th century was that of mitochondrial DNA
(abbreviated as mtDNA). Rod Caird sets the scene here as follows: Inside every cell in our bodies is a nucleus, and the nucleus contains most of the DNA which scientists normally study. Outside the nucleus, however, lies mitochondrial DNA ... Mitochondrial DNA interests evolutionary scientists because it is relatively small and therefore easier to study, and it also has a very high rate of evolutionary change. So in studying closely related organisms like humans, the mitochondrial DNA can offer information about the differences between them. Another interesting property of mitochondrial DNA is that it is passed down only through the female line. This gives a less diluted view of inherited history than nuclear DNA, in which the father and mother both contribute to the next generation's DNA structure. We know, for example, that our mitochondrial DNA must have come intact from our mother; and from her mother, and from her mother before that.
[Rod Caird, Ape Man, p. 128] Stephen Oppenheimer, writing in Out of Eden, adds: When mtDNA is inherited from our mother, occasionally there is a change or mutation in one or more of the 'letters' of the mtDNA code - about one mutation every thousand generations. The new letter, called a point mutation, will then be transmitted through all subsequent daughters.
[Stephen Oppenheimer, Out of Eden, p. 38] From our point of view, the landmark piece of research here was carried out by a
team in California and published in 1987 in a paper in Nature entitled
"Mitochondrial DNA and Human Evolution". The team had studied the
mitochondrial DNAs of 147 women from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and had
drawn the following surprising conclusion: All these mitochondrial DNAs stem from one woman who is postulated to have lived about 200,000 years ago, probably in Africa.
[Rebecca L. Cann et al. Nature 325: 31-36] What the genetic scientists were claiming here was that this one woman, this
"Mitochondrial Eve", was the "common matrilineal ancestor" of all modern-day
women:
And that collating the 147 women's geographical origins with differences
(mutations) in their mitochondrial DNAs had revealed a pattern which, on a
standard assumption, dated this "Eve" at some 200,000 years ago. Rod Caird comments as follows: There is a curious resonance to the idea of being able to trace our ancestry back to a single woman living in Africa 200,000 years ago. It is no accident that she became known as "mitochondrial Eve" or "African Eve" ... The fundamental conceptual clash between evolution and the Biblical story of Creation seems to have found a sort of common ground: the emergence of a whole new species from a single woman. Of course in a sense any new species must eventually be traceable back to a single individual carrying the genetic mutation which thrived at the expense of previous patterns. And the individual was not alone in any physical sense: she was a member of a previous species as well as carrying the blueprint for a new one. So she did not come from nowhere; she emerged from an existing population as a result of the evolutionary process. [Rod Caird, Ape Man, pp. 130-133] John Haywood explains as follows how the researchers arrived at the date of
200,000 years ago: MtDNA mutates at an average rate of 2-4 percent per million years. By comparing the difference between the mtDNA of different individuals (or different species) it is possible to calculate the length of time that has elapsed since they shared a common [matrilineal] ancestor. For instance, if there was a difference of 0.1 percent between the mtDNA of two people we ought to be able to say that they shared a common ancestor 25,000 - 50,000 years ago. [John Haywood, The Illustrated History of Early Man, p. 44] The researchers had found that the difference between the mitochondrial DNAs of
the women of African background (where there was the greatest divergence) was
around 0.57%. This gave a sharply-defined date range of between 140,000 and
290,000 years, with a mid-point of around 200,000 years ago. The mitochondrial DNA findings naturally prompted a search for a comparable
result with the male line of descent. Stephen Oppenheimer writes as follows in
respect of research into the Y chromosome in men: Analogous to the maternally transmitted mtDNA residing outside our cell nuclei, there is a set of genes packaged within the nucleus that is only passed down through the male line. This is the Y chromosome, the defining chromosome for maleness. With the exception of a small segment, the Y chromosome plays no part in the promiscuous exchange of DNA indulged in by other chromosomes. This means that, like mtDNA, the non-recombining part of the Y chromosome remains uncorrupted with each generation, and can be traced back in an unbroken line to our original male ancestor.
[Stephen Oppenheimer, Out of Eden, p. 41] And when the results of this research were published, this original male line
ancestor was of course soon labelled "African Adam". Stephen Oppenheimer also gave, for the first time in popular literature, a clear
answer to those with honest questions about evolution theory. And he did this by
explaining how (as mentioned above by Rod Caird) Mitochondrial Eve could have
"emerged from an existing population". It would be a mistake to think here that Christian rejection of evolution theory has
always been a matter of blind faith. In the 20th century even Christians who readily
accepted that the universe was at least 10 billion years old had genuine doubts
about evolution. How can new species evolve, they asked, given that genetic
abnormalities either lead to infertile offspring or are swamped by the population as
a whole within a few generations? Science was in conflict with both the Bible and
common sense so there had to be something wrong with the science. After giving a more precise date of 190,000 years ago for Mitochondrial Eve,
Oppenheimer begins his answer in respect of human evolution with the following
statements: One of the more surprising insights has come from a growing understanding of the effects of repeated glacial cycles during the past 2.5 million years on human evolution and expansions out of Africa. Whereas severe climatic change generally causes widespread megafaunal extinctions, the appearance of new and more successful human species seems to have coincided with severe glaciations and expansions of the African savannah ... The grinding glacial cycle ... periodically squeezed local populations through the mangle of near-extinction to produce new, larger-brained humans ... Our own species, Homo sapiens, was born over 170,000 years ago, out of what was nearly a human extinction in which the total population fell to an estimated 10,000 in [the OIS 6 ice age]. [Stephen Oppenheimer, Out of Eden, pp. 4, 345, 16] Next, and given this, Stephen Oppenheimer explains as follows the process (called
"genetic drift") whereby Mitochondrial Eve became our common matrilineal
ancestor and how, in a parallel manner, African Adam became our "common
patrilineal ancestor": From time to time, some mothers' lines will die out because they have no daughters surviving to reproduce ... In a small isolated population, this will eventually leave a single surviving [female] ancestral line. Drift has strong effects in small groups. A common modern example of drift, seen through the male side, is that of small isolated Alpine or Welsh villages ending up after generations with just one family surname - Schmidt or Evans, perhaps - on all the shopfronts. [Stephen Oppenheimer, Out of Eden, pp. 64-65] Coupling what Stephen Oppenheimer says here with what John Haywood said
above about ancient hunting bands, a clear picture now takes shape to explain how
Homo sapiens emerged from within the presumed immediate ancestor species of
modern mankind (referred to by Oppenheimer as Homo helmei). What apparently happened is that a small hunting band of Homo helmei, perhaps
30-50 strong, became isolated from everyone else for thousands of years when the
OIS 6 ice age brought severe drought to Africa. Mitochondrial Eve and African
Adam were born early on in this period, probably centuries apart, each of them one
of only a dozen or so adult women and a dozen or so adult men in their respective
generations. And as the other women's and men's lines gradually died out, because
some mothers had no daughters and some fathers had no sons, this eventually left
theirs as the single surviving female and male ancestral lines. Also during this period, a number of band members were born with special traits.
And a process similar to the "genetic drift" that made Mitochondrial Eve and
African Adam the common matrilineal and patrilineal ancestors of everyone alive
today led to those special traits being passed down over many generations to the
entire band which, after the ice age ended, became the nucleus of the new species
Homo sapiens. In sum then, and especially in the context of the emergence of Homo sapiens from
within earlier species in the Homo genus, Christians have nothing to fear from
evolution theory's contention that we and chimpanzees share a common ancestor
who lived some 6 million years ago. Instead, we should now see all the DNA
findings as shedding important new light on the Adam and Eve story. So finally, and hopefully to make everything perfectly clear, let me summarize
these findings in the following chart (with Hunting Band 'A' referring to the small
hunting band which eventually produced the nucleus of Homo sapiens):
PART IV EARLY 21ST CENTURY CHRISTIAN VIEWS OF THE STORY Chapter 12 The Response to the New Light Shed on the Story The new light shed on the Adam and Eve story by Bible scholarship and science in
the 19th and 20th centuries has received a mixed reception from Christians. We
shall look first at the response to the documentary hypothesis of Graf, Kuenen and
Wellhausen - J, E, D, P and all that - and then turn to the response to the
"Mitochondrial Eve" findings. The Christian response to the documentary hypothesis Many Christians have taken a negative stance towards the scholars' findings. The
LION Handbook: The History of Christianity writes: As the nineteenth century wore on, the Old Testament came increasingly under fire. The most influential critic of all, Julius Wellhausen (1844-1910), held that Hebrew religion had undergone a development from the primitive stories of nomadic times to the elaborate, institutionalized ritualism of the period of the centuries before the birth of Jesus. He claimed to find various sources behind the Old Testament law, which he dated to different stages of the history of Israel. Scholars of this outlook saw the Old Testament as a patchwork of pieces which owed their shape and texture to outside influences. [LION Handbook: The History of Christianity, p. 544] That last sentence describes the outlook of much earlier scholars who, embracing
the Fragmentary Hypothesis, indeed saw the Pentateuch as a conglomeration of
small units put together by an editor (see Chapter 9). But Wellhausen's argument
was the exact opposite of this, namely that the entire Pentateuch was put into its
present form by re-arranging material drawn from just four pre-existing documents
J, E, D and P. Wellhausen may perhaps have gone too far when claiming that the entire text of
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy came from just those four
documents. But I see as unchallengeable the part of that claim which is relevant to
us, namely that everything in Genesis 1-9 came from just P and J: Genesis 1:1-2:3 ("six days" Creation)
P Genesis 2:4-3:24 (Adam and Eve)
J Genesis 4 (Cain and Abel)
J Genesis 5 (Adam-Noah genealogy)
P Genesis 6-9 (Noah Flood)
P and J How else can we explain the switching between the titles used for God, the
discrepancy between Genesis 1 and 2 over the order of events in Creation, and the
continual repetitions and contradictions in the Noah Flood story indicating that two
separate accounts have been interwoven? Christians who reject the suggestion that Genesis 1 came from P and Genesis 2-3
from J presumably see it as a challenge both to the Bible's status as "the Word of
God" and to the view that Adam and Eve equate to the "man, male and female,
created in God's image" of Genesis 1. But this is in fact not the case at all. What
the suggestion challenges is the idea that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2-3 constitute a
single, continuous account dictated word-by-word by God to Moses in the 13th
century B.C. and intended, by God, to be read word-for-word as literally true. The Christian response to the "Mitochondrial Eve" findings The Mitochondrial Eve findings only caught the attention of Christians after
Newsweek popularized the genetic scientists' work in its edition of 11 January
1988. Since then Christian viewpoints have developed in three phases: an initial
warm reception of the findings; then strongly-expressed doubts about the validity
of the science; and now, in some quarters at least, a recognition that the findings do
not undermine the Adam and Eve story but rather help to shed important new light
on it. Phase 1 To understand the initial warm reception in 1988 we need to remember that, up to
that point, palaeontologists had been claiming that skeletons they had found in
Africa and Asia proved that Homo sapiens had evolved from earlier species around
a million years ago. And molecular biologists had been claiming that humans and
chimpanzees shared a common ape ancestor which had lived some five or six
million years ago. All of this seemed completely irreconcilable with the traditional
Christian view of the Adam and Eve story, a view which dated the creation of both
the first apes and the first humans at 4004 B.C. Christians were therefore delighted with the news in 1988 that science, it seemed,
had finally come round to the view that there really was in the beginning a very
first man and woman. The Bible had been vindicated. Phase 2 Christian euphoria over Mitochondrial Eve ended after two things became more
widely known. First, that the scientists were not suggesting that she had come from
nowhere but rather that she had been born in the normal way to members of some
earlier Homo species. Second, that the date of about 200,000 years ago was not a
rough guess, but was based on earlier studies suggesting that mitochondrial DNA
mutates at an average rate of 2-4% per million years. The latest date of 140,000
years ago for Mitochondrial Eve (based on a 4% per million years mutation rate)
still totally contradicted the Bible date of 4004 B.C. for Adam and Eve. So Christians began to voice doubts about the science here and minds were soon at
work seeking ways of challenging the research project's two basic assumptions.
First, that mitochondrial DNA is passed on to the next generation exclusively by
the mother. And second, that the 2-4% per million years mutation rate is valid even
for relatively short time periods. The eventual "case" drawn up against the two assumptions was set out in a 2003
Apologetics Press Inc. article, The Demise of Mitochondrial Eve, now found at the
website trueorigin.org. On the question of whether mitochondrial DNA is passed on exclusively by the
mother, the article quoted medical research reporting rare cases where
mitochondrial DNA had been passed on from fathers, including: the case of a 28-year-old man with mitochondrial myopathy due to a novel 2-bp
mtDNA deletion … We determined that the mtDNA harboring the mutation
was paternal in origin and accounted for 90 percent of the patient's muscle
mtDNA. [Schwartz and Vissing, New England Journal of Medicine, August 2002] On the applicability of the 2-4% per million years mutation rate, the Apologetics
Press article in effect asked the very sensible question: Is an average mutation rate
arrived at by studying periods of millions of years valid for a period possibly as
short as 6,000 years? The article noted that: Until approximately 1997, we did not have good empirical
measures of mutation rates in humans. However, that situation
greatly improved when geneticists were able to analyze DNA
from individuals with well-established family trees going
back several generations. One study found that mutation rates
in mitochondrial DNA were eighteen times higher than previous
estimates. [Parsons, et al., 1997, Nature Genetics, 15:363] Researchers have calculated that "mitochondrial Eve" lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago ... Using [that higher mutation rate], she would be a mere 6,000 years old. [Ann Gibbons, 1998, Science, 279:29] In fact both of these points are easily refuted, the first on the basis that rare
exceptions very often prove a rule and the second by reference to statistical theory.
But the Apologetics Press article did make the fully valid point that some people
were claiming too much for Mitochondrial Eve. A specific example I shall give
here is Rod Caird's description of Mitochondrial Eve (in his otherwise admirable
book) as: a member of a previous species as well as carrying the blueprint for a new one.
[Rod Caird, Ape Man, p. 130] Phase 3 The year 2003 also saw the publication of Stephen Oppenheimer's book Out of
Eden, for the first time in popular literature putting everything into its complete
scientific context, as summarized in Chapter 11. Some Christians are still unconvinced. Fundamentalists in particular see science's
questioning of the idea of a very first man and woman created in 4004 B.C. as a
direct challenge to the Bible's status as "the Word of God" and to the doctrine of
"original sin". For them, the only way to read the Adam and Eve story, and the
Bible as a whole, is as strict literal truth. But other Christians, while certainly insisting that the Bible remains "the Word of
God" and that "original sin" remains a valid doctrine, are more receptive to
science's claims. Michael Green, for example, is emphatic that he does not "regard
all elements of Scripture as of equal value or literally true" (more on this in
Chapter 14). And in his Apostolic Letter of 11 October 2011, announcing a Year of
Faith, Pope Benedict XVI wrote: The Church has never been afraid of demonstrating that there cannot
be any conflict between faith and genuine science, because both,
albeit via different routes, tend towards the truth. Some Christians want to go further than this, reclassifying the Adam and Eve story
either as a sophisticated myth or, in the case of liberal Christians, as a poetic
account of the creation and "fall" of mankind. Finally, some Christians are prompted by the Mitochondrial Eve findings (as
clarified by Stephen Oppenheimer) to go back to an older view which identifies the
Adam and Eve story as a parable and gives it the same status as the parables of
Jesus. Combining the fresh light shone on matters by both science and Bible
scholarship, they have arrived at viewpoints which put the Adam and Eve story
into a new and much more positive context, which we will come to in PART V of
this book. Chapter 13 The Fundamentalist Christian Approach to the Story Fundamentalist Christians read every passage and every word in the Bible as literal
truth, including and especially everything written in Genesis. But we need to draw
a careful line between "mainstream" fundamentalism and its "creationist" fringe. Creationism Creationists see each of the six "days" in Genesis 1 as periods of 24 hours and so
believe that God created the entire universe in 4004 B.C. Clearly they are wrong
even on their own terms. Genesis 1:14-19 states plainly that God did not create the
sun and the moon until the fourth "day" so, at the very least, there is no reason to
see the first three "days" as having been just 24 hours long. And the scientific
evidence for the universe in fact being billions of years old is unchallengeable. "Mainstream" Christian fundamentalism We saw in Chapter 12, when dealing with the Apologetics Press article The
Demise of Mitochondrial Eve, one example of how fundamentalist Christians try
to defend their view that God created, if not the universe, then at least the very first
man and woman Adam and Eve in 4004 B.C. Another example relates to the question of "Cain's wife" mentioned in Chapter 4.
Most Christians today will say simply that, incest or not, we are all here today, so
Adam and Eve's sons must clearly have married their own sisters. But the
fundamentalist website christiananswers.net tries to bolster this argument with two
suggestions. First, that incest did not become a sin until God prohibited it at the
time of Moses. And second, that incest did not become a biological problem until
gene defects started to appear after the "fall" - Adam's sin - some 6,000 years ago.
Needless to say, science gives that last idea short shrift, pointing out that our gene
defects have developed over millions of years, such that incest would have been
just as likely to result in deformed offspring in Cain's time as it would be today. There are, however, of course many fundamentalists who take a rather more
careful approach to the Adam and Eve story. And here I need to mention the real
reason why, prior to Darwin, few questioned the date of 4004 B.C. for the creation
of the universe; and why, today, even mainstream fundamentalists are reluctant to
reject this date in public. The fact is that the following timetable of history is
beautifully neat: 4004 B.C.
God's creation of the universe and of mankind 1996 B.C.
The birth of Abraham 4 B.C.
The birth of Jesus 2000+ A.D.
The end of the world All of God's roles fit snugly into this timetable and the only question which arises
relates to the fact unknown to our ancestors that the universe is 13.7 billion years
old. And, as I mentioned in Chapter 11, it is this much older date which raises the
really awkward questions, namely: What was God doing during the enormous time
gap between creating the universe 13.7 billion years ago and creating Homo
sapiens a mere 170,000 years ago? And what was God doing during the long time
gap between then and the birth of Abraham in 1996 B.C.? A second point to make here relates to the date of 170,000 years ago for the
appearance of Homo sapiens. This date comes from the genetic scientists' studies
of mitochondrial DNA but some palaeontologists argue for a much earlier date,
say, around 800,000 years ago. So although no reputable scientists argue for the
date 4004 B.C., it is true that the jury is not yet in on the exact timing of the "first
humans". But the fact remains that all fundamentalists, by definition, regard every word in
the Bible as literally true. So they draw no line between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2
and, inevitably, equate the "man, male and female" of Genesis 1 with Adam and
Eve. And they hold unswervingly to the view that Adam and Eve were the very
first man and woman, with Adam made from the dust of the ground and Eve from
one of Adam's ribs.
Rick Warren's book The Purpose-Driven Life Rick Warren's best-selling book The Purpose-Driven Life was published in 2002
and gives a very good view of the fundamentalist Christian approach to the central
theme of the Adam and Eve story. Before I get into detail on Genesis 2-3,
however, let me first quote two passages from Warren's book to explain why I see
him as a fundamentalist. First, on the creation of the world, Warren writes: God was thinking of you even before he made the world. In fact, that's why he created it! God designed this planet's environment just so we could live in it ... The universe ... is uniquely suited for our existence, custom-made with the exact specifications that make human life possible. [Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life, p. 24] Second, on the Noah Flood story, Warren writes: One day God comes to Noah and says, "I'm disappointed in human beings ... so I'm going to flood the world and start over with your family. I want you to build a giant ship that will save you and the animals." There were three problems that could have caused Noah to doubt. First, Noah had never seen rain, because prior to the Flood, God irrigated the earth from the ground up [Genesis 2:5-6]. Second, Noah lived hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean. Even if he could learn to build a ship, how would he get it to water? Third, there was the problem of rounding up all the animals and then caring for them. But Noah didn't complain or make excuses. He trusted God completely, and that made God smile. [Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life, pp. 70-71] In the first passage Warren ignores everything that science has taught us about how
environmental changes led to the emergence of Homo sapiens. And in the second
passage, Noah had never seen rain? Rick Warren's views on the Adam and Eve story Warren's treatment of the Adam and Eve story begins with the following statement
about "life metaphors": What is your view of life? You may be basing your life on a faulty life metaphor. To fulfill the purposes God made you for, you will have to challenge conventional wisdom and replace it with the biblical metaphors. The Bible offers three metaphors that teach us God's view of life. Life is a test, life is a trust, and life is a temporary assignment. [Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life, p. 42] Life is a test Warren writes as follows about life being a test: This life metaphor is seen in stories throughout the Bible. God continually tests people's character, faith, obedience, love, integrity, and loyalty. God tested Abraham by asking him to offer his son Isaac. God tested Jacob when he had to work extra years to earn Rachel as his wife. Adam and Eve failed their test in the Garden of Eden, and David failed his tests from God on several occasions. But the Bible also gives us many examples of people who passed a great test, such as Joseph, Ruth, Esther, and Daniel. Character is both developed and revealed by tests, and all of life is a test. You are always being tested. God constantly watches your response to people, success, conflict, illness, disappointment ... [Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life, pp. 42-43] The key point for present purposes is the statement that "Adam and Eve failed their
test in the Garden of Eden". And what Warren is suggesting is that, in putting
Adam and Eve in close proximity to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and
in warning them not to eat its fruit, God was setting them a test which they failed
completely. Warren's idea here is, of course, identical to a point made by Calvin in
Chapter 8, namely that "The prohibition to touch the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil was a trial of obedience ... meant to prove and exercise [Adam's] faith". Now if Eve had eaten the fruit within a day or so of her being brought to Adam in
the Garden of Eden, then Calvin could just possibly be right that the fruit was
intended as a test of Adam's faith. And, under these circumstances, Augustine
could also just possibly be right that Adam was not deceived by the snake's words
but sinned by listening to Eve, with whom he had fallen in love, rather than to God. But Warren denies that Eve ate the fruit soon after she was brought to Adam. On
the contrary, he writes that, prior to the "fall": Adam and Eve enjoyed an intimate friendship with God. There were no rituals, ceremonies or religion - just a simple loving relationship between God and the people he created. Unhindered by guilt or fear, Adam and Eve delighted in God, and he delighted in them.
[Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life, p. 85] Presumably, then, Adam and Eve spent a considerable time faithfully obeying
God's command not to eat the tempting "forbidden fruit". So why did God not say,
after a fair period had elapsed, "Well done, you have passed the test", and then
demolish the tree? God's forcing Adam and Eve to confront that potent source of
temptation indefinitely was certainly in conflict with Paul's words in 1 Corinthians
10:13: God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. If Warren is right, then God left Adam and Eve no way of escape at all. And so,
unless we are to imagine that the snake was God's "trump card" to force Adam and
Eve to disobey, Warren must surely be wrong. But Warren sticks doggedly to the idea that one of the key lessons from Genesis 23 is that life is a constant test. Just as God took action after Adam and Eve "failed
their test" so too, Warren suggests, God takes action after we fail. He writes: You may have been passionate about God in the past but you've lost that desire. That was the problem of the Christians in Ephesus - they had left their first love. They did all the right things, but out of duty, not love. If you've just been going through the motions spiritually, don't be surprised when God allows pain in your life ... C.S. Lewis said [in his book The Problem of Pain], "Pain is God's megaphone." It is God's way of arousing us from spiritual lethargy. Your problems are not punishment; they are wake-up calls from a loving God. God is not mad at you; he's mad about you, and he will do whatever it takes to bring you back into fellowship with him.
[Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life, p. 98] Finally, and while acknowledging that, even for Christians, "there are many
unhappy endings on earth", Warren writes: None of your problems could happen without God's permission. Everything that happens to a child of God is Father-filtered, and he intends to use it for good even when Satan and others mean it for bad.
[Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life, p. 194] Clearly Warren is wrong in all of this. No loving Father God would ever "allow" or
"filter" pain, either to "test" us or as a "wake-up call". We are all going to suffer
pain at some point in our lives - it is one of the hazards of life - and what we
should do at that time is to pray to God to take the pain away or, failing which, to
comfort us and give us a new way of looking at matters. Life is a trust Warren writes as follows about life being a trust: Our time on earth and our intelligence, opportunities, relationships, and resources are all gifts from God that he has entrusted to our care and management. We are stewards of whatever God gives us ... When God created Adam and Eve, he entrusted the care of his creation to them and appointed them trustees of his property. [Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life, p. 44] No Christian is going to disagree with Warren's statement that life is a trust. Or
with the idea that we "owe it to God" to use everything we have received from him
for the betterment of those around us, instead of acting selfishly. But using the idea
of Adam and Eve's being God's first "stewards" of the earth to urge us to be
environmentally aware, to realize that we owe it to God not to pollute the
atmosphere and the oceans and not to destroy the rainforests, in a sense trivializes
the issue of environmental damage. The real sin in polluting the atmosphere is not
merely breach of trust, but the far more serious one of stealing our descendants'
clean air and leaving them to choke to death. Life is a temporary assignment Warren writes as follows about life being a temporary assignment: In order to keep us [Christians] from becoming too attached to earth, God allows us to feel a significant amount of discontent and dissatisfaction in life. We're not completely happy here because we're not supposed to be. Earth is not our final home; we were created for something much better. In God's eyes, the greatest heroes of faith are not those who achieve prosperity, success, and power in this life, but those who treat this life as a temporary assignment and serve faithfully, expecting their promised reward in eternity. [Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life, pp. 50-51] Life on earth is obviously temporary, the question is whether or not it is an
assignment. The danger for those who "serve faithfully, expecting their promised
reward in eternity" is that their service can become a chore and they often end up
treating those closest to them very badly. Indeed the "discontent" which Christians
sometimes feel stems from their wrongly seeing life as an assignment instead of
seeing it as a joyous opportunity to do all they can to better the lot of those around
them. Warren does not mention Adam and Eve themselves here but he returns to the
topic of "discontent" when commenting on Genesis 1:26 (Then God said, "Let us
make man in our image, after our likeness"): God's ultimate goal for your life on earth is not comfort but character development. He wants you to grow up spiritually and become like Christ ... Every time you forget that character is one of God's purposes for your life, you will become frustrated by your circumstances. You'll wonder, "Why is this happening to me? Why am I having such a difficult time?" One answer is that life is supposed to be difficult! [Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life, p. 173] Needless to say this answer is, again, a wrong one. Life has its hazards and is never
going to be easy for anyone, but God has certainly not deliberately made it difficult
for everyone as part of some master plan. Warren does not say what the other
answers are to the question of why life is so difficult. But clearly we should never
see our own problems as the result of "tests" we have failed or as our own personal
share of the hardships with which God supposedly punished Adam in Genesis 3. Chapter 14 The Evangelical Christian Approach to the Story Two of the best known evangelical Christians are Michael Green and John Stott, so
I shall in this chapter start with what they have to say. Michael Green Michael Green writes as follows in his book Adventure of Faith, published in
2001: Evangelicals ... are not fundamentalists, regarding all elements of Scripture as of equal value or literally true. There is room to differ on the edibility of Jonah or the carat-rating of the streets in the heavenly Jerusalem. Fundamentalism tends to see everything in Scripture as flat, literal truth. Clearly this will not do. The Bible is a most complex book, embracing a whole variety of literary modes - history, fable, poetry, letter, gospel, and so forth. It is not honouring God to assess each passage of the Bible without taking any account of the literary mode employed ... It is not piety but folly to interpret poetry as if it were sober prose ... There are, of course, Evangelicals who are fundamentalists, particularly in America, but it is no integral part of the Evangelical creed. The very loose way in which New Testament writers quote the Old should preserve us from any infallibilist literalism. Indeed, the word 'infallible' which is used in many Evangelical bases of faith has been taken in two different ways by reputable Evangelical scholars. A narrower interpretation sees the word as meaning that there is no possibility of the least error in any statement of Scripture. This view runs into enormous problems when you compare the same story in Chronicles and Kings, for example, or in the Gospel accounts. Moreover, the Bible never makes such a claim. The broader interpretation takes the word in the sense of its Latin root, as meaning, 'If you follow it, it will not lead you astray.' That is the sense in which I regard the Bible as infallible. [Michael Green, Adventure of Faith, pp. 235, 243-244] And Green writes as follows on the Adam and Eve story: [Genesis 1-2 shows that] Creation has a history, as science emphasizes, and the human family is meant to cultivate the earth with mutual consideration and in co-operation with God the giver. [Then comes] the terrible account of how we refuse that life of loving trust in God, how we insist on the rape of our environment and on our own determination of what is right and wrong, 'the knowledge of good and evil'. By our declaration of independence from God we have set in motion a rebellion which has corrupted the whole world and the course of every human life. And God comes to us, as Genesis so poignantly puts it, with his cry to Adam, 'Where are you?' It is an agonized cry, a cry of frustrated love. Here is a parent who so loves his child that anything which threatens that child's well-being and security evokes strong passions of love and wrath. [Michael Green, Adventure of Faith, pp. 165-166] This does not mean, however, that evangelical Christians see the Adam and Eve
story as a parable. On the contrary, they treat Genesis 2-3 as if it gives a factual
second account of Creation and a genuine eye-witness account of the "fall",
including the suggestion that there was once a very first man and woman and that
God really did punish Adam and Eve. John Stott To illustrate this I now turn to John Stott, who writes as follows in the Preface of
his book Issues Facing Christians Today, published in 2006: Some Christians [the fundamentalists], anxious above all to be faithful to the revelation of God without compromise, ignore the challenges of the modern world and live in the past. Others [the liberals], anxious to respond to the world around them, trim and twist God's revelation in their search for relevance. I have struggled to avoid both traps. For the Christian is at liberty to surrender neither to antiquity nor to modernity. Instead, I have sought with integrity to submit to the revelation of yesterday within the realities of today. It is not easy to combine loyalty to the past with a sensitivity to the present. Yet this is our Christian calling: to live under the Word in the world. [John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today, p. 10] Stott deals with the Adam and Eve story at length in his chapter entitled "Women,
Men and God", presenting his case by focusing on "four crucial words: equality,
complementarity, responsibility and ministry". Equality On the question of equality, and the statement in Genesis 1 that God created man
"in his own image ... male and female", Stott writes: It is clear that from the first chapter of the Bible onwards, the fundamental equality of the sexes is affirmed. Whatever is essentially human in both male and female reflects the divine image which we equally bear. And we are equally called to rule the earth, to cooperate with the Creator in the development of its resources for the common good. [John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today, p. 329] He then goes on to say, commenting on Genesis 3: This primeval sexual equality was, however, distorted by the fall. Part of God's judgement on our disobedient progenitors was his word to the woman [Eve]: "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." The domination of woman by man is due to the fall, not to the creation. [John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today, pp. 329-330] Stott then turns to Jesus' very positive attitude towards women (such as the
Samaritan woman whom he met at a well, John 4, and the prostitute who wet his
feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair, Luke 7) and to one of Paul's less
negative comments about women: Jesus terminated the curse of the fall, reinvested woman with her partially lost nobility and reclaimed for his new kingdom community the original creation blessing of sexual equality. That the apostle Paul had grasped this is plain from his great charter statement of Christian freedom: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for all are one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). [John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today, pp. 331-332] Complementarity On the question of complementarity, Stott writes: It is without doubt by a deliberate providence of God that we have been given two distinct creation stories, Genesis 2 supplementing and enriching Genesis 1: The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man ... But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep ... he took out one of the man's ribs and ... made a woman from the rib and ... brought her to the man (Genesis 2:18-22). [John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today, pp. 333-334] He comments on this as follows: What is revealed in this second story of creation is that, although God made male and female equal, he also made them different. In Genesis 1 masculinity and femininity are related to God's image, while in Genesis 2 they are related to each other, Eve being taken out of Adam and brought to him. Genesis 1 declares the equality of the sexes; Genesis 2 clarifies that "equality" means not "identity" but "complementarity" ... Because they have been created complementary to each other, men and women must recognize their differences and not try to eliminate them or usurp one another's distinctives. [John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today, p. 334] Responsibility On the question of responsibility, Stott writes: All students of Genesis agree that chapter 1 teaches sexual equality and chapter 2 sexual complementarity. To these concepts, however, the apostle Paul adds the idea of "masculine headship". He writes both that "the husband is the head of the wife" (Ephesians 5:23) and, more generally, that "the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God" (1 Corinthians 11:3). [John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today, p. 336] Stott continues by describing two attempts to "resolve the paradox between sexual
equality and male headship". First, the hard-line view that "headship" equals
"lordship". Second, the view that Paul's teaching is inapplicable to the issue in
question because it is either "mistaken, confusing, culture-bound or purely
situational". Stott disagrees with both these approaches. And in rejecting the
suggestion that Paul's teaching is culture-bound, he writes: [Paul] drew his readers' attention to the priority of creation ("Adam was formed first, then Eve", 1 Timothy 2:13), the mode of creation ("man did not come from woman, but woman from man", 1 Corinthians 11:8), and the purpose of creation ("neither was man created for woman, but woman for man", 1 Corinthians 11:9) ... It is essential to note that Paul's three arguments are taken from Genesis 2, not Genesis 3. That is to say, they are based on the creation, not the fall. And, reflecting the facts of our human creation, they are not affected by the fashions of a passing culture. [John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today, pp. 339-340] Finally Stott gives what he sees as the correct and far better way of "resolving the
paradox": If "the head of the woman is man" as "the head of Christ is God", then man and woman must be equal as the Father and the Son are equal. On the other hand, headship implies some degree of leadership, which, however, is best expressed in terms not of "authority" but of "responsibility". [John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today, pp. 343-344] This then leads on to what Stott wants to say about the implications of male
headship for the role of women in ministry: a topic I shall leave until we look at
21st century challenges to the Church in Chapter 26. The evangelical Christian view of the Adam and Eve story as a whole Of course Stott's above views on "women, men and God" are only part of what he
and his fellow evangelicals have to say about the Adam and Eve story. And let me
begin here by quoting the following charming passage: Commenting on the special creation of Eve, Matthew Henry wrote with great profundity more than three hundred years ago that she was "not made out of his head to top him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be loved". [John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today, p. 334] On the Adam and Eve story as a whole, the LION Handbook of Christian Belief
writes as follows in its chapter about "A flawed humanity": If God is perfect and he made humanity, why are we sinful and cut off from our Creator? This is one of the most basic questions Christianity has to answer. In reply to it, the Bible does not advance a theory or a philosophy of the origin of evil. Instead it tells a story: the story of how Adam and Eve fell from the perfect relationship with God which they originally had. This story, in Genesis 2 and 3, points to an event right at the beginning of our existence on earth. It goes back long before recorded history began. Adam and Eve represent people as God intended them to be. They had no desire to sin, no experience of disobedience, and lived in full and open fellowship with God, with each other, and with the rest of creation. God did not create them to be like robots, programmed to obey his every word of command. He wanted men and women to obey him by their own free choice, and so he gave them responsibility for making their own decisions. He told Adam and Eve that they could eat freely from any tree in the garden, except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they ate from that one, then they would die. God gave to people responsibility for obedience, and he also explained the consequences of disobedience. Clearly, he did not intend to keep humankind perfect by protecting us from every opportunity to sin. Yet also he had created Adam and Eve with the ability to remain completely free from sin and thus live their lives in obedience to him. In the event, the couple decided to disobey. They listened to the suggestion of the serpent and ate from the forbidden tree. As a result of this 'original sin', they were banished from God's presence. Nothing sinful can co-exist with God's holiness. No longer would they or any other human being experience the perfect freedom of God's creation. Apart from Jesus, no one since Adam and Eve has known complete and open fellowship with God. There are many other consequences of this original act of rebellion, but the heart of the human problem is this separation from God caused by sin. Since humanity's fall, everyone inherits an inclination to sin and a desire to go his or her own way rather than obey God. Human beings are sinful by nature. There is no need to teach a child to do wrong; it comes naturally to everyone. Jesus talked about us being slaves of sin [John 8:34]. He meant that we cannot free ourselves from falling into sin. We can try to do better, and we often succeed, but we cannot altogether escape the bias to sin which affects every one of us. The apostle Paul experienced this inability to live up to the standards which he desired for himself [Romans 7:15-25]. He was continually aware of being a more sinful person than he wanted to be. Theologians have described our condition since the fall as one of 'total depravity'. They do not mean that everything about us is totally corrupt or that we are as bad as we possibly can be. They mean that every part of human nature is affected by the pull towards sin. There is no area within human life where people can always think purely or act rightly ... Although we are all born with a sinful nature, we each remain responsible for every act of sin and disobedience which we commit. We like to think that, if we had been in Adam's place, we would have obeyed God. But every time we do wrong we confirm our solidarity with the step of disobedience taken by Adam and Eve. We show that we would have done the same. In fact the story of Adam and Eve is not just about how it all began; it also describes how temptation leads every human being into sin. The author of the story understood well the psychology of temptation. He was writing as much about himself as about Adam and Eve. He describes the doubt that comes into the mind: 'It won't matter this once, it is not really so bad.' The author knew about that persistent voice in the mind that convinces us to act against our better judgement. Once convinced, we concentrate on the attractions of the particular temptation: 'It would be nice ... Why not?' Finally, with our conscience suitably silenced, we go our own way. Then, unless we have become used to a particular sin, we feel pangs of guilt and shame. The experience of Adam and Eve is common to everyone ... When people are accused of sin, they have a distinct tendency to make excuses for themselves and, if possible, to blame someone else. This happened in the story of Adam and Eve. Adam blamed Eve and she blamed the serpent! The Bible later identifies the serpent with the devil or Satan, God's arch-enemy in the spiritual realm. But it never allows us to pass all the blame for sin to him. We sin because of our own evil desire. Satan merely works on this trait in us.
[LION Handbook of Christian Belief, pp. 247-254]
Chapter 15 The Liberal Christian Approach to the Story I mentioned in Chapter 14 that John Stott dismisses the liberal Christian approach
to the Bible with the words: [The liberals], anxious to respond to the world around them, trim and twist God's revelation in their search for relevance ... [and] surrender to modernity. Keith Ward replies to this in three passages in his book Christianity: A Short
Introduction, published in 2000. In the first passage he writes: One challenge to modern Christianity ... is to re-orient itself to the scientific revolution which has transformed the world since the sixteenth century. Like people in general, Christians may take many attitudes to modern scientific advances - perhaps welcoming the amazing advances in medical care, while fearing the equally amazing advances in developing weapons of destruction and techniques of genetic manipulation. Changes in economics and technology have freed women from economic dependency and an imposed vocation of child-bearing, so that new questions of achieving true human equality, in the light of the obvious male dominance of past centuries, need to be faced. Similarly, new scientific awareness of the fragility of our planetary eco-system and of the interdependency of all things in that system, necessitates fresh ethical thinking on how to sustain the earth as a habitation for living beings. Christianity ... has a commitment to human justice, to reconciliation with and compassion for friends and enemies alike, and to caring for the earth as God's creation and gift to humanity. In this rapidly changing world, the churches will have to change too, to think out a new vision of God's creation in the vastly expanded cosmic context of modern science, and in view of the quite new human ability to change the earth itself. [Keith Ward, Christianity: A Short Introduction, p. 5] In the second passage Ward writes: Some Christians would ... say that there is no reason to expect infallibility of the Bible, any more than of any other religious text. There may be errors of fact ... and even failures of moral perception - as when women are told to be obedient to men. The beliefs of the Biblical writers remained limited by the culture of their day.
[Keith Ward, Christianity: A Short Introduction, p. 110] And in the third passage he writes: Most Christians accept that contemporary science gives an accurate history of the universe. The two Genesis stories are then not taken literally, but are seen as poetic accounts with a spiritual teaching of the dependence of all things on God. [Keith Ward, Christianity: A Short Introduction, pp. 9-10] Ward already touches here on two issues relevant to Genesis 2-3: God's creation
and mankind's "failure of moral perception". The liberal Christian approach to Genesis 1 But before examining what liberal Christians say about Genesis 2-3, let us first get
a flavour of their thinking on Genesis as a whole by looking at what they say about
Genesis 1. Ward sets the scene as follows: All Christians believe that God created the universe. This is probably the most important of all Christian beliefs, because almost everything else will depend on how people understand the nature of God as creator ... Almost all Christians believe that the universe is not self-existent, but has been intentionally brought into being (created) by a being beyond it, which is self-existent. Most scientists today think that the universe is between 10 and 20 thousand million years old, and that it has expanded from a primeval dot of virtually infinite density and mass to its present complex state, consisting of millions of galaxies, themselves containing millions of stars and millions of planets. On most scientific accounts, the universe will go on expanding and cooling at the same time, until it runs out of heat and comes to a frozen stand-still. Or it may collapse in on itself again, and all things will end in an inescapable blaze of intense cosmic radiation. [Keith Ward, Christianity: A Short Introduction, p. 7] Ward then sets out two liberal views of Genesis 1. On the first view, that of
"Timeless Creation", he comments favourably on Augustine's view, quoted by
Stephen Hawking (see Chapter 11) that "time did not exist before the beginning of
the universe" and concludes by saying: The doctrine of creation ... reminds us that God is infinitely far beyond time, even if he can truly appear in time. As God is beyond time, the future is as present to God as the present or the past. We experience our lives as passing through a series of times, one after the other, but to God the whole of created being exists in one timeless eternal 'now'. God sees what is future to us as eternally present. So God decrees what is to happen in the whole of the universe in his one eternal act of creation ... It is as if God creates the whole of our lives at once, and so knows and decrees exactly what is going to happen to us at every moment of our lives. The future never slips from God's control, and all things are under the hand of God.
[Keith Ward, Christianity: A Short Introduction, p. 14] And on the second view, that of "Continuous Creation", Ward writes: Some Christians, accepting that God is continuously creating ... add that at each moment God is free to create in ways which he had not previously decided. God can, for example, call Moses to serve him, and then wait to see how Moses will respond. In view of the nature of Moses' response, God can then shape the future in an appropriate way. Creation will be a sort of continuing conversation between God and created persons, in which what happens will always depend partly on what creatures decide - though in the end, God remains in control. [Keith Ward, Christianity: A Short Introduction, p. 14] The liberal Christian approach to the Adam and Eve story Turning to the liberal Christian approach to the Adam and Eve story, the Illustrated
Bible Dictionary writes: Although retaining the conception of man as a fallen being, contemporary liberal theology denies the historicity of the event of the Fall. Every man, it is said, is his own Adam. [Illustrated Bible Dictionary, p. 499] Keith Ward expands on that last remark as follows: Christians talk about 'original sin', as the state into which we are born, which makes sin, and therefore spiritual death, almost inevitable. Traditionally there are two components to original sin. There is the fact that we lack clear knowledge of the presence of God. And there is the fact that, largely because of that, we lack the power to do what is right naturally and readily ... Over thousands of generations, so many human beings have made selfish choices that human society has been corrupted. We are all now born into a society where greed and egoism is encouraged by the structures of society, and where the sense of God has been so repressed that it has almost been lost altogether. We are not born on an equal playing-field, with an equal chance of choosing good or bad. We are virtually bound to choose bad, because so many things in society teach us to do so from the moment we are born, and because we lack that close relationship to God which would give us the strength to resist the temptation of egoism. That is the essence of original sin. The human race has cut itself off, by millions of selfish actions by our ancestors, from the power, wisdom and goodness of God ... The doctrine of original guilt simply states the truth that all humans are born with fatally weakened wills, which would lead them to destruction if it were not for the forgiving grace of God. [Keith Ward, Christianity: A Short Introduction, pp. 39-41] Ward then sets out two further liberal views on Genesis 2-3. He describes the first
in the following terms: A modified view is that held, for instance, by the twentieth-century philosopher F.R. Tennant. Consistent with evolutionary theory, it holds that the first humans ... were indeed innocent, not yet having made a moral choice. They were, however, subject to hardship, conflict and death, like other mammals. They might well have been lustful and aggressive, like most successfully evolved species. When the first moment of responsible moral choice came, it was perhaps only a sense that one should not kill so many enemies, or not torture all captives quite so much. What was in question was a slow, gradual moralisation of primal human desires. The first humans could have consistently chosen what they perceived to be good, however morally flawed it may seem to us. If they had done so, human history would have been very different. Perhaps the sense of God's presence would have grown in a strong and continuous way, and God would have helped them always to make good and creative choices. But in fact they chose egoism. This choice spread through the societies of their descendants, until the whole human race was locked into a course of egoistic choices. The sense of God's presence faded ... 'Original sin' is the state of estrangement from God and weakness of will which is caused by the failure of early [humans] to grow morally as they should have done. [Keith Ward, Christianity: A Short Introduction, pp. 41-42] Ward sets out the other liberal view of Genesis 2-3 as follows: A more radical interpretation, taken by theologians like Paul Tillich, is that estrangement from God is necessary to human existence in freedom. It might be said that humans cannot be truly free unless they are free from an intense, even overpowering, sense of the omnipotent God ... There is a necessary moral imperfection and a lack of God- consciousness in human society. This could be called 'original sin'. It is not due to something that happened in the past, but it is the present condition of being alienated from God. It is certainly a condition from which one needs to be delivered, if there is to be any possibility of a compassionate, just and equitable society. [Keith Ward, Christianity: A Short Introduction, pp. 42-43] I disagree with many aspects of the liberal view of Genesis 2-3, including the view
of Genesis 2 as a second "poetic" account of creation and of Genesis 3 as a poetic
explanation for mankind's fallen nature. But we must give credit for one point
which the liberals make, namely that as Ward writes in another book, God, Faith
and The New Millennium: The theory of evolution gives valuable new insights into the relation of God to the created universe. [God, Faith and The New Millennium, p. 122] PART V THE SEARCH FOR THE TRUE STORY Chapter 16 Searching for the True Adam and Eve Story Experts on conducting searches, whether army personnel looking for a terrorist
bomb or police officers looking for a dead body, follow two basic rules. Start the
search in the place(s) where you are most likely to find what you are looking for.
And if it becomes necessary to broaden the search area, then draw up and follow a
well thought-out plan. Any search for the true Adam and Eve story must obviously follow those same
rules. But the analogy here is not so much a search for a dead body as a search for
clues to the murder. And, as in any murder investigation, putting the clues together
will be like assembling a jigsaw puzzle where there is no picture on the box, where
some pieces are missing and where many of the pieces we have do not belong to
the puzzle at all. Murder investigations are of course highly complex but almost all involve three
basic elements: the crime scene, members of the public with information about
either the victim or the murderer, and expert witnesses like the pathologist who
examines the body or the "CSI" staff who deal with things like fingerprints and
DNA or fibre traces. One of the most important factors in any murder investigation is the approach
taken by the "lead" detectives. They show sympathy to the victim's family,
gratitude to members of the public who provide information and courtesy to the
expert witnesses. But they keep an open mind. On the one hand, they remember
cases where the grieving wife turned out to be the murderess, where the key eyewitness statement proved to be a pack of lies and where the experts either made
serious mistakes or worked from premises which quickly unravelled during crossexamination in court. And on the other hand, they keep a careful note of every
shred of information, well aware that a clue which initially seems trivial or
unlikely may eventually hold the key to the entire case. I suggest therefore that, as we conduct our search for the true Adam and Eve story,
we follow the same principles as detectives investigating a murder. First, that we
keep an open mind. Second, that we start our search by looking for clues in the
most likely places and by asking all the relevant questions. And third that, when
we have all the immediate clues and answers we seem likely to get, and if matters
still remain unclear, we start looking elsewhere and begin working out some
hypotheses. Keeping an open mind In urging that we keep an open mind about the Adam and Eve story, I am not
suggesting that we abandon either the view that the Bible is "the Word of God" or
the doctrine of "original sin". Sometimes Jesus said things which were literally true, while at other times he
spoke in parables, but this does not mean (I hope!) that we pay much less attention
to his parables. Similarly, as we saw in Chapter 12, viewing the Adam and Eve
story as a parable (or as a sophisticated myth or as a poetic account of how
mankind "fell") is just as consistent with the Bible's being the Word of God as
viewing the story as literally true. As for the doctrine of "original sin", I mentioned in Chapter 2 the view of the
Catholic Church that "Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval
event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man." I noted in
Chapter 11 the view of science that there have been two occasions when mankind
collectively made major turns for the worse. And I quoted in Chapter 15 several
passages from Keith Ward making it clear that even the most liberal of Christians
endorse "original sin". What I mean by "keeping an open mind" is that we need to set aside all our preconceptions about the exact nature of the Adam and Eve story. When detectives go
to a scene and find a dead body, an empty bottle of sleeping pills, an open bottle of
brandy and a typed suicide note, they might be tempted to jump to the conclusion
that it "must" be a suicide. But if they are good detectives they will wait for the
pathologist's report and, until then, handle matters as a possible case of murder. Starting the search So let us start our search for clues about the Adam and Eve story by approaching
matters like detectives working on a murder case: 1. "Visiting the scene": conducting a forensic search of Genesis 1-9 and, in particular, of Genesis 2-3 itself. 2. "Interviewing witnesses": examining what Jesus, Paul, Augustine and Calvin said about Adam and Eve and looking at the views of 21st century Christian writers. 3. "Consulting 'expert' witnesses": considering the views of Bible scholars and the findings of scientists. "Visiting the scene" Detectives attending a murder scene are looking for answers to a variety of
questions: Who is the victim and what is his/her background? Has the culprit left
behind anything (property, fingerprints, blood etc.) that might identify him/her?
How did the victim die? What was the motive for the killing? Where did it take
place (could the body have been moved from elsewhere)? When exactly did it take
place? And many other questions. Similarly, when we search through the relevant parts of the Bible, we need to have
our list of questions ready: Who were Adam and Eve? Has the author of Genesis 23 left behind any "fingerprints" that might help to identify him? What is the Adam
and Eve story really about? Why, where and when was the story written? And,
again, many other questions. On the basis of things touched on in Chapters 1-4, the key sources of possible clues
to the answers to our questions can be listed as follows: a. Adam and Eve: the very first man and woman, presumably the same as the "man, male and female, made in God's image" of Genesis 1 b. The title "The LORD God" in Genesis 2-3: different to the titles "God" in Genesis 1 and "The LORD" in Genesis 4 c. The difference between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 over the order of events in Creation d. The suggestion in Genesis 2:5-6 that, initially, God irrigated the earth from the ground up e. Adam's being made from the dust of the ground f. The detail about the location of the Garden of Eden: specific mention of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers g. God's intention that Adam is to be a crop farmer h. The animals, and Adam's rejection of them as "unfit" helpers i. Eve being made from one of Adam's ribs and then Adam's description of her as "flesh of my flesh" j. The talking snake k. The forbidden fruit: its identity and the effect eating it has on Adam and Eve (making them aware of their nakedness) l. The fact that Adam and Eve do not apologize to God and that God does not invite them to repent and seek forgiveness m. The picture of a harsh God and the way he punishes Eve ("greatly multiplying her pain in childbearing") and Adam n. The expulsion from the Garden of Eden, in order to deny the couple access to the tree of life o. The linking of the Adam and Eve story in Genesis 2-3 with the Cain and Abel story in Genesis 4 p. The mention of Cain's wife q. The genealogies in Genesis 5 and elsewhere giving a date for Adam and Eve of around 6,000 years ago. Even before interviewing witnesses and consulting experts, two things emerge
here. First, the title "The LORD God" (not used elsewhere in Genesis) seems to be
a "fingerprint" left behind by the author of Genesis 2-3. Second, the specific
mention of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (and of the Pishon and Gihon, even
though these names mean nothing to us) suggests that the account could perhaps
have been written in Babylon, during the Jewish exile there in the 6th and 5th
centuries B.C. "Interviewing witnesses" Further important clues emerge when we look at what Jesus, Paul, Augustine,
Calvin and 21st century Christian writers have to say about the Adam and Eve
story. Jesus' relative silence on the subject, quoting only Genesis 2:24, warns us that there
are a few "suspicious" things about the story. In addition, Jesus makes it clear in
his parable of the Wicked Tenants that God always gives everyone repeated
opportunities to repent and seek his forgiveness. And he also emphasizes, in Luke
13:1-5 and John 9:2-3, that God punishes no one in this life. Paul and Augustine tell us several interesting things about Adam and Eve
themselves and deal at length with the nature and implications of the sin committed
in the Garden of Eden. The doctrine of "original sin" emerges, along with the
possibility that what Adam and Eve did was so utterly wicked that God perhaps
had no choice but to punish them severely. But Calvin's unlikely idea that God
planted the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden as a test of
Adam's faith also emerges and warns us that, while "original sin" is a fully credible
doctrine, we should be careful not to wander away from Jesus' picture of a loving
Father God. Our 21st century Christian writers both help and hinder our investigation. Rick
Warren makes the strange suggestion, on the basis of Genesis 2:5-6, that it did not
rain before the time of the Noah Flood and also goes back to Calvin's notion that
God was testing Adam in the Garden of Eden. But Warren also makes some good
points as well. In particular, his picture of life as a test, a trust and a temporary
assignment encourages us to look for positive things in the Adam and Eve story,
instead of seeing it as a grim account of how even mankind's very first sin was
harshly punished. The evangelicals Michael Green and John Stott take us away somewhat from the
strict literal truth approach of the fundamentalists. John Stott stresses that the
relation between the sexes is a blend of equality and complementarity. And, in
respect of Genesis 3:16 (Your husband shall rule over you) and Paul's talk in
Ephesians 5:23 about "male headship", Stott helpfully emphasizes that this means
responsibility rather than authority. Finally, the LION Handbook's analysis of the
Adam and Eve story as a whole makes it clear that its author was a well-educated
person with deep insights into human nature and the psychology of temptation. Keith Ward gives the liberal Christian view of the Bible in general and of the
Adam and Eve story in particular: Most Christians accept that contemporary science gives an accurate history of the universe. The two Genesis stories are then not taken literally, but are seen as poetic accounts with a spiritual teaching of the dependence of all things on God .... The doctrine of original guilt simply states the truth that all humans are born with fatally weakened wills, which would lead them to destruction if it were not for the forgiving grace of God. [Keith Ward, Christianity: A Short Introduction, pp. 9-10,41] These views may or may not be correct but, again, they encourage us to "think
outside the envelope" when asking questions about Genesis 2-3. "Consulting 'expert' witnesses" Turning to "expert" witness, and before we come on to Bible scholars and
scientists, let us begin with the Church itself. The leader of the local church may or
may not know a lot about a murder victim, but he or she is certain to be a welleducated person with long experience in matters of faith and doubt. And here we
must be prepared to be surprised. A Roman Catholic priest will probably tell us to
read the relevant parts of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. But if we press
him to give his personal views, we just possibly might find him echoing the
following remarks made by Cardinal Pell during a debate with atheist Richard
Dawkins on Australian TV on 9 April 2012: [The Adam and Eve story] is a beautiful, sophisticated, mythological account. It's not science but it's there to tell us two or three things. First of all that God created the world and the universe. Secondly, that the key to the whole universe, the really significant thing, are humans and, thirdly, it is a very sophisticated mythology to try to explain the evil and suffering in the world. Bible scholarship brings further surprises. As I explained in Chapter 9, scholars are
now generally agreed that Genesis was put into its present form in the 5th century
B.C. and that Genesis 1 came from P while the Adam and Eve story came from J.
This provides corroboration for the idea that the Adam and Eve story might have
been written in Babylon during the Jewish exile, as also does the following remark
in the Oxford Bible Commentary: The garden of Eden is nowhere mentioned in Old Testament texts before the time of the [exile to Babylon in 587 B.C.]. [Oxford Bible Commentary, p. 42] We also now have an explanation for the differences between Genesis 1 and 2 and
can for the first time question whether Adam and Eve really equate to the "man,
male and female" of Genesis 1. Finally, science brings its own set of surprises. Chapters 10 and 11 summarized
what science has to say and made two points particularly clear. First, that there
never was a very first man and woman. And second, that Homo sapiens originated
(at least) some 170,000 years ago, far earlier than the 6,000 years ago suggested by
a literal reading of the Bible. Science also gives robust answers to the question of
how Homo sapiens could have emerged from within an earlier species (and thus
also to the question of where Cain's wife came from). Looking elsewhere and working out some hypotheses We now have all the immediate clues and answers we seem likely to get from our
investigations thus far. But several matters remain unclear, above all in relation to
Adam's being made from the dust of the ground, to the animals, to the snake, to the
fruit and to the punishment of Eve. So we need to resume our search and, on the question of the snake, Wikipedia
provides the following clue: In religion, mythology, and literature, serpents and snakes represent fertility ...
[Wikipedia, Serpent (symbolism)] To pursue this point we turn to the LION Handbook: The World's Religions where
we find the following statements: The snake was a fertility symbol in historical times in Europe, the Middle East, India and China (as the dragon) ... The original Creator-God was known among all the Indo- European nations. His first name was Dyaus Pitar ('divine father'). By metaphor and simile other names were added. Gradually story- tellers embellished their tales with love and jealousy and war and drunkenness, and so the mythologies appeared. The earth became God's bride, attracted worship to herself as 'the queen of heaven', and added sex to worship in her fertility cults. [The LION Handbook: The World's Religions, pp. 27,32] This at first seems strange. All the ancestors of the Jews - men like Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob - were herders. So why should one of the oldest stories in Jewish
scripture include mention of a snake, a key symbol in ancient crop farmer religion
where "worship" included sex aimed at encouraging the gods to make the land
more fertile? But it is a further clue and one which we need to keep at the front of
our minds. Wikipedia also provides some clues to the identity of the forbidden fruit which,
contrary to common supposition, is nowhere in the Bible stated to have been an
apple: In the Talmud, several opinions are proposed as to the identity of the fruit: Rabbi Meir says that the fruit was a grape ... Rabbi Nechemia says that the fruit was a fig ... Rabbi Yehuda proposes that the fruit was wheat ... In Western Christian art, the fruit of the tree is commonly depicted as the apple, which originated in central Asia. This depiction may have originated as a Latin pun - by eating the malum (apple), Eve contracted mālum (evil) - or simply because of religious artists' poetic licence.
[Wikipedia, Tree of the knowledge of good and evil] To pursue the reference to the Talmud, we turn to the Jewish website
halakhah.com which quotes as follows from Tractate Berakoth, Folio 40a of the
Babylonian Talmud: It has been taught: R. Meir holds that the tree of which Adam ate was the vine, since the thing that most causes wailing to a man is wine, as it says, And he drank of the wine and was drunken [Genesis 9:21]. R. Nehemiah says it was the fig tree, so that they repaired their misdeed with the instrument of it, as it says, And they sewed fig leaves together [Genesis 3:7]. R. Judah says it was wheat, since a child does not know how to call 'father and mother' until it has had a taste of corn. This presents us with three possibilities. First, that Genesis 2-3 gives the only
version of the story there has ever been, with the fruit's implied identity being
grapes and with Adam and Eve's sudden awareness of their nakedness explained
by their having become drunk and then having had their first sexual encounter.
Second, that there were originally three independent versions of the story - with the
fruit being grapes, figs and wheat respectively - which were telescoped together
when Genesis was put into its present form. And third, that there was only one
ancient version of the story, in which the fruit was specified as either grapes (the
most likely) or figs or wheat, and that this earlier version was rewritten at the time
Genesis was compiled, with the identity of the fruit deliberately left vague and thus
open to a variety of later interpretations. All this said, then, what sorts of preliminary hypotheses can we draw up? Let me
suggest six and, on the basis of what we have found out thus far, make some wild
guesses about their respective probabilities. First, that Genesis 2-3 is a literally true account of real events which took place some 6,000 years ago.Probability: 0% Second, that it is an ancient man-made myth to "try to explain the evil and suffering in the world" (Cardinal Pell).Probability: 10% Third, that it was dictated by God to Moses on Mount Sinai in around the 13th
century B.C. and that God intended it to be read as either poetry or parable, where
by "parable" I have in mind Jesus' parables on which John Drane writes as follows
in his book Jesus and the four Gospels: Jesus used parables in the same way as a modern preacher uses illustrations. They were not intended to convey a hidden meaning in every detail, but simply to illustrate and drive home a particular point.
[John Drane, Jesus and the four Gospels, p. 102] and where, if it is indeed a parable, God's "particular point" under this hypothesis would be the need to repent after we sin.
Probability: 20% Fourth, that Genesis 2-3 was written from scratch by Jewish priests at some time between the 13th and 5th centuries B.C. and was intended to be read as either poetry or parable.
Probability: 20% Fifth, that it was rewritten by Jewish priests who telescoped together as many as three earlier versions of the story, presumably when Genesis was put into its present form in the 5th century B.C.
Probability: 10% Sixth, that it was rewritten by 5th century B.C. Jewish priests from a single earlier version and was intended to be read as a parable about repentance and, perhaps also in part, as some kind of manifesto relating to a pressing issue facing the nation at that time.
Probability: 40% Old Testament parables I shall pursue that sixth hypothesis in the next three chapters, taking the view that
we should see the Adam and Eve story in Genesis 2-3 as being on a par with the
parables of Jesus in the New Testament. But I close this present chapter by saying
something about two Old Testament parables. The parable of the vineyard in Isaiah 5:1-7 reads as follows (and can be compared
with Jesus' parable of the Wicked Tenants, see Chapter 5): My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He digged it and cleared it of stones; and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked to it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? And now I tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste ... briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, a cry. The author of Isaiah 1-39 wrote this parable as a comment on the siege of
Jerusalem by the Assyrians in 701 B.C. Its message was that, while God had
spared the city on that occasion, if its people continued to yield "wild grapes"
(worshipping false gods) they would one day pay a high price. Following the final capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar
in 587 B.C., the Jewish priests will quickly have seen Isaiah 5:1-7 as a prophecy
about the exile to Babylon. So this parable will have been very much in the minds
of those who (under the sixth hypothesis above) later rewrote the Adam and Eve
story, and may well have been a factor in their decision to rewrite it too as a
parable. The very different parable in 2 Samuel 12:1-4, with which the prophet Nathan
reproved King David after he committed adultery with Bathsheba and then
arranged for her husband to die in battle, runs as follows: There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and his children; it used to eat of his morsel, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveller to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb, and prepared it for the man who had come to him. David is understandably furious at hearing this and vows to punish the rich man,
whereupon Nathan explains that the story is in fact about David himself. And just
as the previous parable from Isaiah 5:1-7 included the warning that God punishes
those who displease him, so too Nathan sets out in 2 Samuel 12:11-14 the
punishment for David's sins: Thus says the LORD, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbour ...' The LORD has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child that is born to you shall die. And the account goes on to say that God "struck" the child Bathsheba had borne to
David and that it became sick and died a week later. Even secular historians agree that 2 Samuel 11-12, giving the account of David's
dual sin and the death of his first son by Bathsheba, is genuine history. Except that
they point out, as 21st century Christians ought also to accept, that God did not kill
the child; indeed that Nathan already knew the child was dying when he went to
confront David. However those around David will doubtless have believed that the
child's death was no coincidence and was indeed punishment for his sins. Both these parables give us a window into the Adam and Eve story. With no notion
of resurrection until the 2nd century B.C., most of the Old Testament naturally saw
God as punishing sins in this life: usually punishing the perpetrator or, failing
which, punishing his or her immediate descendants. Hence the punishment of
Adam and Eve. But even in parables like these, God is shown as a God who forgives those who
repent. God must have pricked David's conscience many times during the months
after he sinned, but it finally took a coincidental tragedy to jolt him into
repentance. Yet he did eventually repent, as we see both from the latter part of 2
Samuel 12 and from Psalm 51. And those who later rewrote the Adam and Eve
story will similarly have wanted to make their new version in part a parable about
repentance. Chapter 17 An Earlier Version of the Adam and Eve Story? We shall in this chapter examine the hypothesis that the Adam and Eve story was
rewritten by 5th century B.C. Jewish priests from a single earlier version. And we
begin by taking a closer look at the view of Bible scholars that the present five
books of the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy)
were all compiled at that same time from four pre-existing source documents J, E,
D and P. We will consider two questions: Why was this work done? And how was
it done? Why did the Jewish priests re-organize the material in J, E, D and P? At first it seems strange that the Jewish priests would have re-organized the
material in J, E, D and P. We do not know exactly what was in these four
documents, but at least they were consistent in the titles they used for God. And we
may well think that they could hardly have been much more of a hotchpotch than
the present Pentateuch with bits of history strewn all over the place and almost
impossible to piece together. The best explanation for the priests' re-organizing the material in J, E, D and P
seems to be that they did so as part of preparations for the return from Babylon to
Jerusalem which took place around the middle of the 5th century B.C. And that
there were things in those documents which needed to be ironed out if the return
was not to be "back to square one" in terms of the Jewish nation's loyalty (or lack
of loyalty) to their God. I shall have much more to say on this later, but the following thumbnail sketch of
Jewish history might be helpful at this point: 20th century B.C. Abraham turns from the false gods of his ancestors to start worshipping the one true God. 17th century B.C. Abraham's descendants now in Egypt, where they are later enslaved. 13th century B.C. Moses leads Abraham's descendants out of Egypt and into the wilderness: they are still a herder nation at this point and (largely) loyal to the God of Abraham. 12th century B.C. Invasion and conquest of Canaan, the promised land, whose native inhabitants - the Canaanites - are crop farmers and worship false crop farmer gods. 10th century B.C. Kingdom of David splits after Solomon's death into separates states Israel (northern kingdom) and Judah (southern kingdom). By now, most people in both Israel and Judah have switched from herding to crop farming and some have abandoned God and started worshipping the false Canaanite gods, the Baals. 9th century B.C. J written in Judah. Israel's rulers (especially Ahab and his queen Jezebel) encourage Baal worship. 8th century B.C. Israel conquered by the Assyrians. Judah's people (who can now properly be called Jews) are by now also increasingly worshipping the Baals. 6th century B.C. Judah conquered by the Babylonians who, after capturing Jerusalem in 587 B.C., deport its entire population to Babylon to begin a long period of exile. 5th century B.C. Some Jews have returned to Jerusalem, but most remain in Babylon even though both cities are by now part of the Persian empire. So the re-organization of the material in J, E, D and P took place in Babylon at a
time when a thought uppermost in the minds of the Jewish priests involved must
have been to lay the groundwork for ensuring that the eventual return to Jerusalem
would not lead to a return to the Baals. How did the Jewish priests re-organize the material in J, E, D and P? The very fact that the five books of the present Pentateuch are such a hotchpotch
underlines the point that the 5th century Jewish priests in Babylon were not at
liberty to take a "root and branch" approach to re-organizing the material in J, E, D
and P. For one thing, they were as much in the dark about 13th century B.C.
history as we are today and had little choice but to copy exactly what they found
about it in their four source documents. And for another, what the Oxford Bible
Commentary says about the authors of the Gospels in the 1st century A.D. must
also have applied largely to the Jewish priests in the 5th century B.C.: The New Testament writers [when quoting Old Testament passages] were using techniques of scriptural interpretation current in Judaism at the time ... reading scripture as sheer words, God- given, with only a minimal sense of historical context. [Oxford Bible Commentary, p. 833] This explains why the material in the two original Noah Flood stories (one from P,
the other from J) is spliced together in Genesis 6-9 with no attempt to deal with the
resulting repetitions and contradictions. There is, however, a further parallel between the ways in which the "synoptic"
Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) and the Pentateuch were compiled. According
to New Testament scholars, Mark's Gospel was written first and then Matthew and
Luke drew most of their material from Mark and from another document labelled
Q. This certainly this explains why there are many passages common to all three of
these Gospels (often identical word-for-word) and many other passages common to
Matthew and Luke but not found in Mark. But these scholars also stress that
Matthew's and Luke's copyings from Mark and Q were far from being a matter of
"cut and paste". At times, for example, they chose to rearrange material to bolster
their own theological viewpoints: a clear case being Matthew's bringing together a
lot of material from Q (left scattered in Luke) into Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount"
to encourage his readers to liken this to Moses' receiving the Ten Commandments
on Mount Sinai. So the compilation of the Pentateuch was also unlikely to have been a pure matter
of "cut and paste". We can already see this in the way that the two clearly
unconnected stories in Genesis 2-3 and Genesis 4 are linked by making Cain and
Abel the sons of Adam and Eve, despite all the problems this raises, not least that
of "Cain's wife". But in terms of our hypothesis, the key issue is whether the Adam
and Eve story in J was radically rewritten when brought into Genesis. Evidence that changes were made to the original Adam and Eve story A number of things point to the 5th century B.C. priests' having made some radical
changes to the Adam and Eve story when taking it from J. There is the title "The
LORD God", not found elsewhere in Genesis. There is the Garden of Eden which,
as mentioned in Chapter 16, is not referred to by name in any pre-exile book of the
Bible. And there were four things in the original J version of the Adam and Eve
story (more on its probable content in a moment) which would have prompted the
5th century B.C. priests to give it special treatment in the context of laying the
groundwork for the eventual return to Jerusalem. First, the mention in the original J version of the story of God's expelling Adam
and Eve from their garden. The priests would (initially) have drawn a parallel
between this and the exile to Babylon in 587 B.C. And they would also have tied it
in with the parable of God's threat to destroy the vineyard (referring to Judah) in
Isaiah 5 if it continued to yield "wild grapes". The key to a successful Jewish return
to Jerusalem was for the priests to get their people to repent of their past sins worshipping the Baals - and to renew their pact of loyalty to the one true God. Second, the mention of increased childbearing: more on this below and in Chapter
18. Third, the mention in the J version of a snake, a major symbol of crop farmer
religion. This provided the priests with further ammunition in their condemnation
of every aspect of Canaanite religion, to ensure that their people would never again
be enticed away from their God. Fourth, the specific identity of the forbidden fruit in the J version. As we shall see,
this had in fact been one of the main reasons why so many Jews had turned away
from their God in the first place. And the Jewish priests realized that this was
something that definitely had to be changed. The exact identity of the forbidden fruit To explain that fourth point, let us now return to the Talmud's three alternative
identifications of the forbidden fruit: grapes, figs, wheat. I suggested in Chapter 16 that grapes seem initially to be the most likely type of
fruit in any single earlier version of the Adam and Eve story. We can imagine that
by the time Eve finally succumbed to the temptation to pick the grapes they were
already over-ripe, that as she and Adam ate them they quickly became drunk, and
that the inevitable then followed, after which they could hardly escape the fact that
they were naked. Indeed this is the predominant scenario found in Jewish
commentaries on Genesis 2-3. And even those Jewish commentators who prefer
the idea of figs as the forbidden fruit still see the first sin as partly sexual in nature. Wheat, on the other hand, seems initially an unlikely alternative. It does not grow
on a tree and is not what most of us would think of as a fruit. We might, when
young, have been tempted to steal an apple from our neighbour's tree on a hot
summer's day, but hardly an ear of wheat. And Rabbi Judah's explanation that "a
child does not know how to call 'father and mother' until it has had a taste of corn"
scarcely sounds convincing. Moreover, wheat seems a totally illogical candidate
for the role of the forbidden fruit. All commentators agree that Genesis 2-3
identifies Adam as a crop farmer, indeed as the very first crop farmer. So why
would God tell him not to eat wheat? But when we re-read the Cain and Abel story
in Genesis 4, wheat suddenly emerges as in fact the prime candidate. Crop farmers and herders The Cain and Abel story in Genesis 4 runs briefly as follows: Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD." And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell ... Cain said to Abel his brother, "Let us go out into the field." And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him ... And the LORD said, ... "And now you ... shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth." Four points emerge here. First, the identification of Abel as a herder and Cain as a
crop farmer. Second, the description of wheat as "the fruit of the ground". Third,
that God approves the herder's offering of lambs, but not the crop farmer's offering
of wheat. And fourth, that the herder and crop farmer, brothers or not, are clearly
on very bad terms. I mentioned in Chapter 16 that it is strange, with all the Jews' ancestors being
herders, to find mention in Genesis 2-3 of a snake, a key symbol in ancient crop
farmer religion where worship included sex aimed at encouraging the gods to make
the land more fertile. But now we can see why. The Cain and Abel story is clearly
an ancient herder myth about the wickedness of their crop farmer rivals. Crop
farmers are portrayed as violent thugs who insult the one and only true God, the
God of the herders, with their disgusting religious practices and paltry offerings. With Genesis 4 seen as an ancient herder myth about God punishing Cain, a
wicked crop farmer, we can guess that the Noah Flood story in Genesis 6-9 may
well also be an old herder myth. Noah is clearly a herder: at that time only a herder
would have bothered to rescue animals (his own livestock) during a flood. And the
people drowned in the Flood, destroyed because of their wickedness, are naturally
all crop farmers. Returning to Genesis 2-3, we therefore now have the possibility that the Adam and
Eve story is again an ancient herder myth. So, bearing in mind our hypothesis, we
have two issues to consider. First, whether there could have been an earlier herder myth version of the story,
with Adam forbidden to eat wheat, "the fruit of the ground". And with God
punishing Adam after he decides to become a crop farmer. Second, whether the present version of the story could be a 5th century B.C.
rewriting of the earlier myth designed to transform it into a parable about
repentance. A connected issue here is whether the rewritten version was also
intended to serve as a manifesto related to the future return of the exiled Jews to
Jerusalem. And my suggestion, either way, is that one of the main reasons for
carrying out the rewriting exercise was to remove the idea that God hated crop
farmers: a major cause of so many Jews' having turned to the Baals in the centuries
before the exile. An earlier herder myth version of the Adam and Eve story? When a notoriously immoral man dies at a comparatively young age or in a freak
accident, many Christians will think (and some will actually say) that this was the
hand of God reaching out to punish him. And there are even a few Christians who
will declare that this earthquake or that flood was divine retribution for sins
previously committed by the victims. So if nonsense like this can be talked even in
today's "enlightened" times, we can easily imagine how the ancient herders will
have viewed the misfortunes which befell the early crop farmers. On the subject of these misfortunes, John Haywood writes as follows in The
Illustrated History of Early Man: The discovery of agriculture was not an unmixed blessing. Surviving skeletal evidence shows that hunter-gatherers of the Upper Palaeolithic period were well-nourished and lived healthy lives, whereas early crop farmers suffered reduced life expectancy. [John Haywood, The Illustrated History of Early Man, p. 104] and then gives four reasons for this: 1. Malnutrition and stunted growth. The tendency to rely on a limited range of high-yielding crops plus the increased birth rate (extra hands to work the land) meant that when the crops failed, there were too many people to make a return to hunting and gathering a practical alternative. 2. Osteoarthritis of the lower back caused by hard manual work: especially with women who spent hours a day bent over grindstones, processing grain, and for whom increased childbearing also took its toll. 3. Infectious diseases, which spread more easily in the unsanitary conditions of the permanent settlements. 4. Tooth decay, caused by starch-rich diets; also teeth wore down more quickly as a result of eating flour containing grit from grindstones.
[The Illustrated History of Early Man, p. 106] We can safely assume that the herders will have seen the punishing hand of God in
every crop failure, just as Genesis 6-9 sees the hand of God in the Noah Flood.
And that the herders will have seen everything else in the above list as
punishments for the crop farmers' not being herders. So could there have been an earlier herder myth version of the Adam and Eve
story, featuring a herder God who hated crop farmers? There may be some nonbiblical evidence for this idea (more on this in a moment). And along with the
points that the Jews' ancestors were all herders and that the Cain and Abel story
and the Noah Flood story are still herder myths, three pieces of evidence in
Genesis 2-3 seem to support this view. First, the statement in Genesis 3:16 that God punished Eve by "greatly multiplying
her pain in childbearing". This dovetails exactly with John Haywood's mention of
the increased birth rate (extra hands to work the land) and of the toll this took on
the health of the crop farmer women. Second, the account of God's punishment of Adam in Genesis 3:17-23: And to Adam he said, "Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life ... you shall eat bread till you return to the ground." ... Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden. We can almost hear an ancient herder saying to a crop farmer he is driving away
from his land, "You want to be a man of the soil and eat bread all your life? Then
be one, and die one. But not in my backyard!" Third, and above all, the intriguing passage in Genesis 2:18-20: Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him a helper fit for him." So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field ... and brought them to the man ... but there was not found a helper fit for him. This passage makes little sense and is therefore crucial to understanding the Adam
and Eve story. As already mentioned, a horse would have been far more "helpful"
to crop farmer Adam than a woman. The only way Genesis 2:18-20 makes sense is
if there was indeed an earlier version of the Adam and Eve story with the fruit
specified as wheat and the story a myth about the herder God punishing the very
first crop farmers. Under this scenario, what Adam's rejection of the animals really
meant was that he was refusing to look after them, refusing to be a herder. And
God's real reason for telling Adam not to eat the fruit - the wheat - was because he
had planted it specifically and solely for the animals. John Haywood gives the following picture of the origins of crop farming and
herding in the Near East, both beginning at about the same time: Wild cereals have small grains which scatter on the ground when ripe. By selectively planting the grains from these plants, early farmers were able (between 8000 and 7000 B.C.) to breed high- yielding strains of cereals with seedheads which did not scatter when harvested. Grazing animals like sheep, goats and cattle, that instinctively follow a leader, are the most suitable for domestication. Probably the first step of domestication was restricting the movement of wild herds, perhaps by penning animals and keeping them
alive until they were needed for food. After this came selective breeding for desirable characteristics such as docility. [John Haywood, The Illustrated History of Early Man, p. 110] In contrast, we can imagine that an earlier herder myth version of the Adam and
Eve story would have run roughly as follows: Mankind started off as hunters, with the search for food a daily and dangerous struggle. So eventually the LORD taught mankind to be herders. First, he taught them how to bring water up from under the ground by digging wells. Then he put each family unit into enclosed gardens with specially- provided docile animals for them to look after. And finally the LORD planted wheat in each of the gardens for these animals to eat and told the herders not to eat it themselves, adding that if they disobeyed him then they would die. But one particular couple, Adam and his wife, could not be bothered to look after the animals. And a smooth-talking "snake" convinced Adam's wife that she would not die if she ate the wheat. So she gathered some, cooked it and shared it with Adam. Immediately their eyes were opened to the "benefits" of crop farming. Soon afterwards the LORD came into the garden, found the animals starving and became very angry. And he punished all the parties involved. The "snake" was punished by having its legs cut off. The LORD said to Adam, "You want to be a man of the soil and eat bread all your life? Then be one, and die one". And he drove Adam and his wife from the garden and condemned them to scratching a meagre living from the unfriendly soil of land elsewhere and to early deaths. And the LORD further punished Adam's wife by making her suffer the pain of childbirth much more frequently than if she had obeyed him and been content with life as the wife of a herder. The first point to make about this reconstruction is that Adam and his wife (not yet
given the name Eve) are here not the very first man and woman, but rather the first
crop farmers. A second point is that the couple's sin is here that of abandoning the animals and
then "stealing" their only food source, the wheat. A third point is that the "snake" was probably, in the very earliest version of the
herder myth, a fertility cult witchdoctor dressed in a snake costume to lead the crop
farmer "worship" (as mentioned above, the snake was seen as a fertility symbol).
The herders must have especially hated these "talking snakes", seeing them as
leading people astray, into crop farming. And a final point is that I have given God the title "The LORD" because, on our
hypothesis that an earlier version of the Adam and Eve story was rewritten into its
present form in the 5th century B.C., the priests involved in the rewriting would
have taken that earlier version from J. The present Adam and Eve story a parable about repentance? Thus far in this chapter I have set out a case for 5th century B.C. Jewish priests,
when re-organizing the material in J, E, D and P into the present five books of the
Pentateuch, having paid particular attention and made major changes to the text of
the original Adam and Eve story in J. I have argued that the original version in J
was an ancient herder myth about God punishing the earliest crop farmers, with the
snake representing a crop farmer witchdoctor and the forbidden fruit identified as
wheat, originally provided for the herders' animals to eat. And I have suggested
that one of the main reasons for changing Adam and Eve from the first crop
farmers to the first man and woman was to remove the idea that God hated crop
farmers and thus ensure that, after the eventual return to Jerusalem, the Jewish
people would remain loyal to their God. I also suggested above that, in rewriting the old Adam and Eve herder myth, the
priests reframed it as a parable about repentance: not as a myth, not as poetry, and
certainly not as literal truth. I now give five reasons for this suggestion, with some
of them relevant even if our hypothesis were instead that God dictated Genesis 2-3
to Moses on Mount Sinai. First, the use of the title "The LORD God" seems to mark Genesis 2-3 off from the
two myths in Genesis 4 and Genesis 6-9, emphasizing that the new version of the
Adam and Eve story is not to be read as a myth. Second, there is certainly a lot of poetry in Jewish scripture, especially in the Book
of Psalms. But there are several reasons for ruling out the idea that Genesis 2-3 can
be read as poetry. More on this later in the chapter. Third, the continuation of the human race would have required the couple's
children to commit "full sibling" incest (prohibited in Leviticus and Deuteronomy,
and not committed by anyone else in the Bible). This suggests that the author never
intended the idea that Adam was made from the ground and Eve from one of his
ribs to be read as literally true. Fourth, the mention of the talking snake clearly points to the author of Genesis 2-3
(especially if a well-educated priest) wanting it to be read as a parable: Balaam's
talking ass in Numbers 22 is in a different category; we all know what is being
"said" by a braying ass with its heels dug in. Similarly, the mention of God's
planting the mysterious tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life
in the Garden, and indeed of the Garden itself (with, later, "the cherubim and a
flaming sword ... to guard the way to the tree of life"), points to the story being a
parable. Fifth, it seems that one of the main reasons for the priests' rewriting of the earlier J
version of the story was to make God much more attractive to the Jewish people.
So it could never have been the intention that God's "greatly multiplying Eve's pain
in childbearing" was to be read as literally true. On the contrary, the whole point of
the rewritten version was to stress that God is loving and forgiving, but does insist
on two things: that we obey his commandments; and, when we break them, that we
quickly repent. Certainly the present Adam and Eve story makes best sense if read
as a parable with the message that the real mistake the couple make is their failure
to repent when God gives them the chance to do so. And let us not forget: viewing
the story as a parable in no way downgrades it; rather, it elevates it to the same
level as Jesus' parables. But having said all that, I have to admit that the present Adam and Eve story still
does not make complete sense even when read as a parable. Several questions still
remain unanswered, not least: a.
Why does God say that Adam will die if he eats the fruit? b. What do the snake's tempting words really mean? c.
d.
e.
Why does Adam call Eve "flesh of my flesh"? Why does God punish the couple in the way he does? What does the expulsion from the Garden really mean? So in the next chapter we shall examine the other side of our hypothesis: that the
Jewish priests involved in the rewriting had two sets of readers in mind. First,
future generations whom they intended should read the story as a parable. And
second their own generation, the Jews still in exile in Babylon in the early 5th
century B.C., whom they wanted to read the story as a parable and a manifesto for
their eventual return to Jerusalem. Other evidence for an ancient herder myth about Adam and Eve? Let me turn first, though, to a different question: Is there any non-biblical evidence
for an earlier herder myth version of the Adam and Eve story? The question arises from two considerations. First, that numerous copies of the
Gilgamesh Epic have been discovered by archaeologists telling the story of a major
flood in terms strikingly similar (at times) to what we find in the Noah Flood
account. And second that, if the herder myth went as far back as the time of the
early crop farmers, it should have been the common property of all early herders in
the Near East. On the first point, most cultures have myths about monster floods. So the
Gilgamesh epic was perhaps an urban myth rather than a herder myth. On this
basis the similarities with the Noah account may simply mean that, when the
Jewish priests arrived in exile in Babylon in 587 B.C., they came across the
Gilgamesh Epic and borrowed elements from it when writing their new P version
of the Noah story from the earlier J version. On the second point, nomadic herders would hardly have carried around written
versions of their ancient myths: they would have handed them on by word of
mouth. It was only those very few herder nations that eventually settled down in
lands of their own (usually through conquest) which would have preserved their
ancient myths. And, along with the ancestors of the Jews, two nations immediately
come to mind here. First the Arabs, who have their own version of the Adam and Eve story in the
Qur'ān, somewhat different to the account in Genesis 2-3. The garden is here in
heaven, with Adam and Eve's expulsion being the time that their lives on earth
begin. And Adam is here not at all a couch potato and is indeed quite a noble
figure. But there are also many similarities between the two versions and it would
be going too far to suggest that the fact that the Qur'ān has its own version of the
story supports the idea of an early herder myth common to all ancient herder
nations. Second, then, the Aryans who conquered India at much the same time as the Jews'
ancestors conquered their promised land. The LION Handbook: The World's
Religions provides the following historical background: If we could look down on the ancient world in about 1500 BCE, we would see ordinary men and women still offering animal sacrifice as their normal way of approaching God or the gods. The earliest literature in India, the Sanskrit Vedas, picture the nomadic Aryan tribes who fought their way eastwards across the Indus and Ganges plains. The head of the tribe offered animal sacrifice with the same simplicity as Abraham. When they settled in India, the Aryans developed a regular priesthood and the Vedas are the hymns which the priests chanted as the sacrificial smoke ascended to God. The later Vedic literature has certainly become polytheistic by, say, 1000 BCE, but the earliest Aryans must have been monotheists. [The LION Handbook: The World's Religions, p. 32] The later Vedic literature does not have an instantly recognizable Adam and Eve
story. But it does have a "Tree of Jiva and Atman" story, on which the relevant
Wikipedia article states as follows: The Rig Veda samhita 1.164.20-22, Mundaka Upanishad 3.1.1-2, and Svetasvatara Upanishad 4.6-7, speak of two birds, one perched on the branch of the tree, which signifies the body, and eating its fruit, the other merely watching. The first bird represents a Jiva, or individual self, or soul. She has a female nature, being a sakti, an energy of God. When the jiva becomes distracted by the fruits (signifying sensual pleasure), she momentarily forgets her lord and lover and tries to enjoy the fruit [a sweet fig] independently of him. This separating forgetfulness is maha-maya, or enthrallment, spiritual death, and constitutes the fall of the jiva into the world of material birth, death, disease and old age. The second bird is the Paramatman, an aspect of God who accompanies every living being in the heart while she remains in the material world. He is the support of all beings and is beyond sensual pleasure.
[Wikipedia, Tree of Jiva and Atman] Similarities with Genesis 2-3 here, the mention of a fruit tree and a "fall" and the
female being blamed for causing the problem, cannot easily be explained away. So,
given that the Aryans were a herder nation believing (initially) in just one God, is
the Jiva and Atman story evidence of there having been an early herder myth
version of the Adam and Eve story common to all ancient herder nations? Could it
be that, after they settled down and took up crop farming themselves, the Aryans
likewise rewrote the myth to remove reference to a God who hated crop farmers? We can ignore the superficial similarity of the names of the players: as mentioned
above, Adam's wife was not given the name Eve until Genesis 2-3 itself was
written. But the fact that the Rig Veda would not have been known to the Jewish
priests in Babylon certainly makes it possible that the same Near Eastern herder
myth had given rise to both stories. Ruling out the idea that the Adam and Eve story is poetry I close this chapter by explaining why I ruled out above the possibility that the
Adam and Eve story can be treated as poetry. My understanding is that there are two types of poetry. The first type uses things
like rhyme, rhythm, alliteration or parallelism to dazzle and delight us, while
(usually) still saying something meaningful. And the second type uses the format
of prose but states a truth or tells a story in words which (often by evoking a mood)
we find equally captivating. No one suggests that the Adam and Eve story is poetry of the first type. But many
Christians express the view that it is poetry of the second type. Keith Ward (Chapter 15), for example, sees Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 as: "poetic accounts with a spiritual teaching of the dependence of all things on God". So why does Ward put forward this idea? And is he right? Before answering these questions, let me make an important point by commenting
on a paragraph from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: [390] The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. and also on John Wyatt's (see Chapter 27) mention of: "the poetic imagery of the creation narratives". Using figurative language or poetic imagery does not automatically make a piece
of writing poetry. In the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16), and
sometimes even in his direct teaching, Jesus referred to hell and hades in terms
(fire, flames) which were clearly figurative. Liberal Christians suggest that Genesis 2-3 is poetry because they see this as the
default option: if the story is not literally true then it must be poetry. Moreover,
they see the Adam and Eve story as poetry rather than parable for the same reason
that many see Isaiah 5:1-7 as prophecy rather than parable: because neither is
"labelled" as a parable. The only "labelled" parable in the Old Testament is
Nathan's parable rebuking King David in 2 Samuel 12 (see Chapter 16). So much
so that the Oxford Bible Commentary makes a special point of stressing that Isaiah
5:1-7 is a parable, "a rare literary form in the prophetic writings". So are liberal Christians right or wrong in seeing Genesis 2-3 as poetry? I have
four reasons for believing that they are wrong. First, no one suggests that the Cain and Abel story or the Noah Flood story are
poetry. Why, then, should Genesis 2-3 be seen as poetry? Second, I concede that Genesis 1 (taken from P) uses the form of poetry, with its
refrains of "God saw that it was good" and "there was evening and there was
morning ..." But Genesis 2-3, taken from J rather than from P, contains no refrains
and is clearly a very different sort of writing. Third, when the Psalms are translated into English in Bibles they lose all their
rhyme, rhythm or whatever. But most of them still remain poetry of the second
type, uplifting us with their mood and passion. The Adam and Eve story, however,
makes no such impact on us. Fourth, Jesus delivered all his teaching in the format either of plain language or of
parables. These two formats do seem to be the Bible's preferred vehicles for
putting across important pieces of doctrine like the "fall", regardless of what might
be said about Genesis 1 and the Psalms. Finally, we can return to the statement by John Drane (Chapter 16) that Jesus'
parables were intended "to illustrate and drive home a particular point". The Adam
and Eve story certainly has "a particular point": the need to repent. But Drane
makes a further important statement: [Professors] Dodd and Jeremias emphasized the importance of understanding the parables [of Jesus] in their original historical context ... But other scholars are now beginning to realize that there is a hidden dimension in the parables which gives them a distinctive appeal not found in the rest of the New Testament. It is generally true to say that before we can be sure what the New Testament means for us today, we need to know what it meant to those who first read it. But this is not really the case with the parables. They are more like the work of a great artist than a self- conscious theologian, and their characters and situations have a correspondingly universal quality that can be understood by anyone, for they deal with the basic needs of human beings. [John Drane, Jesus and the four Gospels, p. 104] The Adam and Eve parable also has that universal quality, which loses nothing in
translation. And, provided they put aside the idea of a harsh God, most people see
readily enough what the parable is really about. Chapter 18 The Two Facets of the Present Adam and Eve Story The overall theme of this book is that the most positive approach to the Adam and
Eve story is to see it as having been written by Jewish priests in Babylon in or
around 487 B.C. and having two facets: a parable about repentance and a manifesto
for a return to Jerusalem. So let me begin with a summary of Jewish history in the
6th and 5th centuries B.C. Jewish history in the 6th and 5th centuries B.C.
597 B.C. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar captures Jerusalem. He deports King Jehoiachin and some other leading Jews and installs Jehoiachin's uncle Zedekiah as vassal king. 587 B.C. Zedekiah revolts. Nebuchadnezzar captures Jerusalem a second time, destroys its Temple and city walls and carries off its entire population into exile in Babylon. 539 B.C. Cyrus of Persia captures Babylon. 538 B.C. Cyrus gives permission for the exiled Jews to return to Jerusalem. An advance party of Jews returns soon afterwards and starts rebuilding the Temple, but Canaanite harassment forces the work to be suspended. 522 B.C. Darius comes to the Persian throne and, two years later, orders the Canaanites to stop harassing the Jews. 516 B.C. Temple rebuilding completed. 490 B.C. A Persian army invades Greece but suffers a humiliating defeat in the Battle of Marathon. 487 B.C. Egypt revolts against Persian rule. Jews in Babylon mark the 100th anniversary of the destruction of Jerusalem and the beginning of their exile. 486 B.C. Darius dies and is succeeded by Xerxes. 479 B.C. A Persian army again invades Greece but suffers an even more humiliating defeat in the Battle of Plataea. 465 B.C.
Xerxes dies and is succeeded by Artaxerxes. 458 B.C. Ezra leads the main party of Jewish exiles in Babylon back to Jerusalem. 444 B.C. Nehemiah rebuilds Jerusalem's city walls. Questions still unanswered even when reading Genesis 2-3 as a parable I gave in Chapter 17 a list of questions which even reading the present Adam and
Eve story as a parable does not fully answer. So can these questions be answered
by viewing the story as also, in part, a manifesto for the return of the main party of
Jewish exiles to Jerusalem? Why does God say that Adam and Eve will die if they eat the fruit? God's warning to Adam and Eve that they will die if they eat the forbidden fruit is
a problem for us because of course they do not die: indeed, according to Genesis 5,
Adam lives for a further 930 years! The child-friendly "Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden" lesson plan for Sunday
School teachers at dltk-bible.com states as follows: God did not mean that Adam and Eve would drop down dead the moment they ate the fruit from the tree. He meant that in time they would die without His Spirit dwelling in them. But this is clearly not the way that Adam and Eve would have understood God's
warning. And seeing Genesis 2-3 as, in part, a manifesto for the return to Jerusalem
provides a far better explanation of matters. When the exiled Jews first arrived in Babylon in 587 B.C. they must have had a
terrible time: treated as third class citizens and heavily taxed. But after Cyrus of
Persia captured Babylon in 539 B.C. matters would have become very different.
The Jews would have risen greatly in status and many doubtless quickly became
prosperous businessmen. For the Jewish priests, however, this must have led to two concerns. First, and
mindful of the way the Jews' ancestors in Egypt were enslaved after a new Pharaoh
came to the throne, the priests would have worried that one day a new Persian or
Babylonian king might come along who would enslave them all over again.
Second, and even if that never happened, the priests would have worried that the
longer the Jews stayed in Babylon, the likelier they would be to lose their distinct
national and religious identity; hence the priests' key role in leading the advance
party of Jews back to Jerusalem soon after Cyrus gave permission in 538 B.C. So
God's warning, "You will die ...", referred to the high probability that the Jewish
nation would disappear if it stayed in Babylon indefinitely. What do the snake's tempting words really mean? The biggest fools in the Adam and Eve story were clearly the couple themselves,
for following the snake's advice and then not confessing their sin to God and
seeking his forgiveness at the very first opportunity. But the snake was not all that
bright either. What it should have said to Eve was, "Look, first eat some fruit from
the tree of life to ensure that you will live forever, and then eat some fruit from the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil so that you will become equal to God".
Instead the snake simply tells Eve to ignore God's warning, assuring her that she
will not die and urging her to opt to become her own judge of what is right and
wrong. So the question here is: Does this make more sense in the context of a
manifesto for the return to Jerusalem? The Persians' humiliating defeat in the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C., and the
revolt which it triggered in Egypt in 487 B.C., will have brought the Jewish priests'
concerns into sharper than ever focus. Everyone must have realized that, under
these circumstances, Babylon was hardly the safest place for a large and
prosperous Jewish community. But businessmen always see danger as an
opportunity and most of the Jewish exiles will have been torn between two
choices. First, that of remaining in Babylon and hoping for continued prosperity.
And second, that of going back to a very uncertain future in Jerusalem. Having thus far talked mainly about the Jews who stayed on in Babylon, I now
need to say something about the advance party of Jews which returned to
Jerusalem in or soon after 538 B.C. Cyrus' decree permitting this return made no
mention of the need for the Canaanites to hand back the Jewish land which they
had seized in 587 B.C. from its departing owners. So the relatively small advance
party of Jews found themselves farming poor land and being harassed by the
Canaanites at every turn. And all thought of the main body of Jewish exiles in
Babylon returning to Jerusalem any time soon was quickly was put on hold. Matters improved after Darius came to the throne, although the best land must still
have remained in Canaanite hands. But the Greek victory at Marathon badly dented
Darius' prestige. And the revolt in nearby Egypt will inevitably have prompted the
Canaanites to resume harassing their unwelcome new neighbours. The only
solution to the Jewish predicament was for all the Jews in Babylon to return to
Jerusalem to use weight of numbers to force the Canaanites to hand back their
land. But this result would not be achieved easily or quickly and for an initial
period, perhaps decades, any Jew returning to Jerusalem would have a very
difficult time. It follows therefore that, even with region-wide chaos seemingly looming in 487
B.C., it was never going to be easy for the Jewish priests to persuade everyone in
Babylon to return home. Indeed it seems likely that having God create Adam from
the dust of the ground was intended to encourage everyone that the return would be
successful: that God would if necessary create more Jews out of the very ground
itself to ensure that his chosen people would eventually prevail (John the Baptist's
words in Matthew 3:9 come to mind here: "God is able from these stones to raise
up children to Abraham"). As we shall see in a moment, God had another plan for
achieving this as well. Either way, though, the snake's words refer to the
temptation facing the Jewish businessmen to ignore the priests' talk of God's
wanting his people to return to Jerusalem and instead to trust their own instincts
and stay in Babylon for the time being. Why does Adam call Eve "flesh of my flesh"? Adam's calling Eve "flesh of my flesh" in Genesis 2:23 is so familiar to us that we
rarely stop to wonder what these words really mean. The one thing we can be sure
of, however, is that the very next verse Genesis 2:24 ("Therefore a man leaves his
father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become flesh"), quoted by
Jesus in Mark 10:7, was a late insertion into the text. And in line with the
hypothesis we are examining here, we must now ask whether it was inserted by the
5th century B.C. priests who rewrote the Adam and Eve story. And if so, then
why? I shall begin my answer by quoting two fascinating Bible passages. First, Ezra 9:1-3 (written by the Ezra who led the main party of Jewish exiles in
Babylon back to Jerusalem in 458 B.C.): After these things had been done, the officials approached me and said, "The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations, from the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons; so that the holy race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands. And in this faithlessness the hand of the officials and the chief men has been foremost." When I heard this, I rent my garments and my mantle, and pulled hair from my head and beard, and sat appalled. Second, Nehemiah 13:23-28 (written by the Nehemiah who rebuilt Jerusalem's city
walls in 444 B.C.): In those days I also saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon and Moab; and half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, but the language of each people. And I contended with them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair; and I made them take oath in the name of God, saying, "You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. Did not Solomon king of Israel sin on account of such women? Among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved by his God, and God made him king over Israel; nevertheless foreign women made even him to sin. Shall we then listen to you and do all this great evil and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women?" And one of the sons of Jehoiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was the son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite; therefore I chased him from me. The dark hilarity of that second passage in particular, with a top leader completely
"losing his rag" in public, makes it clear that this real history. As the saying goes,
"You can't make this sort of thing up". And both passages strongly suggest that
Adam's description of Eve as "flesh of my flesh" was a 5th century B.C. insertion
related to the long-standing problem (referred to in Deuteronomy 7:1-4) of Jewish
men marrying foreign women and then being persuaded by their wives to worship
false gods rather than the one true God. If the priests preparing the groundwork for
the return to Jerusalem were to avoid a return to the Baals as well then they had to
do everything they could to get the point across that, in future, Jewish men should
marry only Jewish women. Why does God punish Adam and Eve in the way he does? That last point also has a bearing on why God punishes Eve in the way he does. I
mentioned in Chapter 16 that, in terms of the story's being a parable, God's
supposedly greatly multiplying Eve's pain in childbearing is simply a backdrop to
the real point that, while it is important that we obey God's commandments, it is
even more important that we repent after we break them. But there is a further
dimension as well, linked to the story's also being a manifesto for the return to
Jerusalem. The key to the success of the Jews' return would be their using weight of numbers
to force the Canaanites to give back the land seized in 587 B.C. And the key to that
would be a rapid expansion of the Jewish nation via a sharp increase in the
birthrate. So what greatly multiplied pain in childbearing really referred to in the
5th century B.C. was the need for Jewish women to "greatly multiply" the number
of children born to them. Adam's punishment is also easier to understand when seen in the context of the
story's being in part a manifesto for the return to Jerusalem: Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat ... plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Bearing in mind that the Canaanites were still holding on to all the best land, this
was exactly the scenario facing any Jew who returned to Jerusalem in the early 5th
century B.C. So Adam's punishment was really a call to Jewish men to join their
women in a decade or two of sacrifice which would allow their nation eventually
to re-assert itself. What does the expulsion from the Garden of Eden really mean? Finally, then, does the idea that the Adam and Eve story was in part a manifesto
shed any new light on the meaning of the couple's expulsion from the Garden of
Eden? We can be sure, as I mentioned in Chapter 17, that the Jewish priests would
initially have drawn a parallel between the expulsion from the Garden and the exile
to Babylon in 587 B.C.: painting the exile as punishment for the people's having
turned away from God to worship the Canaanite Baals. At that time, of course, no
one could have guessed that Cyrus of Persia would capture Babylon a mere 48
years later and issue a decree allowing the Jews to return home. But by 487 B.C., when the completion of the return to Jerusalem sooner rather than
later became a burning issue, it seems almost certain that the priests would have
drawn a different parallel. We all know about the hanging gardens of Babylon,
built by King Nebuchadnezzar to please his homesick queen, and we can imagine
that everyone saw them as an attractive feature of the city. So, from the perspective
of the story as a manifesto, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of
Eden now became a call to the Jews still in Babylon to leave the hanging gardens
there and return to their real, God-given home in Jerusalem. The case for the story's having been rewritten in 487 B.C. I have argued for there being two facets to the present Adam and Eve story: a
parable and a manifesto. But why do I claim that it was rewritten in 487 B.C.? Let
me begin by summarizing what I have said so far. The Adam and Eve story possibly originated as long as 6,000 years ago. But there
are indications that the story underwent major changes later: almost certainly
when, according to scholars, Genesis as a whole was put into its present form by
Jewish priests in the 5th century B.C. In Chapter 16 I identified six hypotheses as to how the story came to be written
and in Chapter 17, pursuing the sixth and most likely hypothesis, I argued that
there have in fact been two versions of the story. First, an ancient herder myth
(with wheat, intended for the animals, as the forbidden fruit) condemning the
religious practices of early crop farmers who saw the snake as a fertility symbol.
And second, the present version in Genesis 2-3 rewritten from the myth by the 5th
century B.C. priests to remove the idea that God hated crop farmers and to enable
the story to serve both as a parable about repentance and as a manifesto urging
Jews exiled in Babylon since 587 B.C. to return to Jerusalem. Where does this leave us? Clearly the idea of using a rewritten Adam and Eve
story as a manifesto for the return to Jerusalem must have arisen at some point
between 538 B.C. (when Cyrus of Persia gave permission for such a return) and
458 B.C. (when the main return actually took place). So the next thing to do is to
narrow matters down to a likely exact date. The rewriting of the story is unlikely to have taken place at any time between 538
B.C. and 490 B.C. First, an advance party of Jews returned to Jerusalem early on in
this period and, despite many problems, had been able to rebuild the Temple.
Second, the early Persian rulers and especially Darius I (522-486 B.C.) were
undisputed masters of the Near East during this period and treated the Jews
relatively benignly, so the problems in Jerusalem and the prosperity now enjoyed
in Babylon would have seen a "manifesto" fall on deaf ears. And third, most
scholars agree that Genesis was not put into its present form until the 5th century
B.C. But in 490 B.C. Darius sent an army into Greece and, instead of subduing the
Greeks, it suffered a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Marathon in one of the
great turning points in history. The Persians would hardly have publicized this
defeat, but the news eventually spread and in 487 B.C. prompted Egypt to revolt.
This was an even worse setback for the Persian empire. The Assyrians and
Babylonians had come to grief partly through conquering Egypt (just as Napoleon
and Hitler did through invading Russia). So with Darius by now 63 years old and
unlikely to live much longer (he died in 486 B.C.) a "perfect storm" came together:
externally, a serious threat to the survival of the Persian empire; and, internally, the
risk of a messy succession to the Persian throne at the end of Darius' long reign. There were thus four things to make 487 B.C. by far the likeliest date for the
Jewish priests in Babylon to decide to use a rewritten Adam and Eve story to call
on their people to prepare sooner rather than later for a mass return to Jerusalem.
First, the priests were marking in that same year the 100th anniversary of the start
of their exile. Second, they were at that time engaged in putting Genesis into its
present form. Third, they may well have drawn a parallel between the approaching
"storm" and the circumstances (whatever they may have been) which had seen a
new Pharaoh enslave the Jews' ancestors in Egypt many centuries earlier. And
fourth, the Jewish business community would now for the first time have been
likely to pay some attention to the call to return. The first of two questions here is: Why, if the Adam and Eve story was rewritten
partly as a manifesto in 487 B.C., did the return to Jerusalem not itself take place in
that same year? The answer is that the return would have taken time to organize
and that, with the smooth accession of Xerxes to the Persian throne in 486 B.C.,
the "storm" soon blew over. The other question is: Why, given that the mass return to Jerusalem did not take
place until 458 B.C., do I see it as unlikely that the story was rewritten at a date
later than 487 B.C.? I need to make four points here. First, a point about the date of 458 B.C. for the return. The date is taken from Ezra
7:7 which says that Ezra "went up to Jerusalem in the seventh year of Artaxerxes",
usually seen as referring to Artaxerxes I (465-424 B.C.). But a problem here is that
the list of Persian kings also includes an Artaxerxes II (405-359 B.C.). The Oxford
Bible Commentary writes: Contemporary scholarship has formed an uneasy consensus around the notion that Ezra and Nehemiah had their origin in two separate 'memoirs' from the two historical figures in c. 460-440 BCE ... The seventh year of Artaxerxes I would be the traditional date for Ezra of 458 BCE, before the date of Nehemiah's opening memoirs, which would be 446 BCE (there is little debate that Nehemiah served under Artaxerxes I). But if it is Artaxerxes II, then the major alternative argument suggests that Ezra arrived in Jerusalem years after Nehemiah, in 398 BCE. Arguments between these options are not decisive, but more recent trends have accepted that Nehemiah's actions make more sense following the precedent of Ezra's legal reforms, rather than preceding them. Nehemiah's reforms on mixed marriage, for example, seem more focused than Ezra's general actions, and tend towards heightening the severity of Nehemiah's judgement against local authorities who still did not comply with what the local population had already dealt with! Williamson (1985), too, notes that Nehemiah's actions did not raise the local controversies that Ezra's actions did, suggesting that by Nehemiah's time these were not generally perceived as controversial actions. [Oxford Bible Commentary, pp. 309-310] I therefore take 458 B.C. as the correct date for the return to Jerusalem, especially
since no one suggests that when Ezra refers to "Darius", he could possibly mean
Darius II rather than Darius I. Second, and coming on to the reasons for seeing the Adam and Eve story as having
been rewritten no later than 487 B.C., there were no more "perfect storms" after
that date. Xerxes quickly brought Egypt back to heel. His attempt to conquer
Greece in 480-479 B.C. was unsuccessful but there were no further major external
threats until Alexander the Great destroyed the Persian empire in 330 B.C.
Artaxerxes I's succession to the throne in 465 B.C. was messy, but he was fully in
command by the time the Egyptians next revolted, in 460 B.C. Third, then, the only plausible alternative timing of the rewriting of the Adam and
Eve story would seem to be the period 465-458 B.C.: 465 B.C.
Xerxes is murdered by Artabanus the Hyrcanian. Xerxes's son Artaxerxes succeeds to the throne, but the real power is in the hands of Artabanus. 464 B.C. Artaxerxes has Artabanus killed and takes full control of the Persian empire. His reign lasts until 424 B.C. 460 B.C. Egypt revolts against Persian rule. The Greeks send a large contingent to help the Egyptians and the revolt lasts for six years. But in the end Egypt is reconquered and the Greek contingent is destroyed. 458 B.C. Ezra leads the main party of Jewish exiles in Babylon back to Jerusalem. But I would suggest that the situation on this occasion was the catalyst for acting
on the manifesto in Genesis 2-3, rather than for writing it. With almost thirty years
having passed since the events of 487 B.C., the Jewish priests will have had time to
make everyone familiar with the rewritten Adam and Eve story and its underlying
dual message. So when Egypt revolted in 460 B.C., the priests could draw a
parallel with events in 487 B.C., with just enough time to prepare for the return in
458 B.C. Fourth, the impression from the Book of Ezra is that the Jews had continued to
prosper in Babylon after 487 B.C. and that the return of the main body of Jews in
458 B.C. was primarily the result of Artaxerxes' issuing a decree (Ezra 7)
authorizing Ezra to lead the return and to: convey the silver and gold which the king and his counsellors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem. This raises the question: Why was Artaxerxes so willing to assist the Jews to leave
Babylon? One factor was doubtless clever persuasion on the part of Ezra
(comparable to Nehemiah's later persuading Artaxerxes to let him rebuild the
Jerusalem city walls). But Artaxerxes' generosity could also have had something to
do with an event mentioned in the Book of Esther. The event in question was the
thwarting of a planned massacre of the Jews in Susa in 474 B.C., celebrated by
Jews ever since with the Feast of Purim. The villain of the piece, Haman the
Agagite, sent out letters in the name of Xerxes ordering every province in the
empire to carry out the massacre one month later, but Esther persuaded Xerxes to
rescind the order and execute Haman instead. Both the Purim event and the famous story of "Daniel in the lion's den" in the
Book of Daniel hint strongly at anti-Jewish feeling in some parts of the Persian
empire. So Artaxerxes' support for the Jews' return to Jerusalem in 458 B.C. may
have stemmed partly from a wish to defuse racial tension of this sort. However
there is no evidence of serious anti-Jewish feeling in Babylon up to that point.
Indeed, even in 458 B.C. not all the Jews returned home. Babylon continued to
harbour a sizeable Jewish population for the next thousand years and eventually
became one of the two great centres of Jewish scholarship, producing the
Babylonian Talmud mentioned in Chapter 16. A final question possibly in your mind is: Why speculate about an exact date for
the rewriting of the Adam and Eve story? Is it not enough just to say that the
rewriting took place in the first half of the 5th century B.C.? All I can reply here is that the Adam and Eve story deals with the second most
important event in all of human history. The Bible, amplified with what science
and scholarship tell us, points strongly to 487 B.C. as the likeliest date of the
story's writing. So there is good reason for seeing this date as worth remembering,
and its centenaries as worth celebrating. Chapter 19 The Actual Rewriting of the Adam and Eve Story Most of the best translations of the Bible have been undertaken by committees.
The task of re-organizing the material in J, E, D and P into the present five books
of the Pentateuch in the 5th century B.C. was also doubtless undertaken by a
committee of Jewish priests. That said, however, the work of rewriting the Adam
and Eve story was probably largely the work of one priest, whom I shall for the
rest of this chapter call "the Priest". He would certainly have had to follow
guidelines laid down by the committee and he probably had to write a number of
drafts as it chewed over the ideas he put forward - accepting some and rejecting
others - and brought forward ideas of its own. But the success of the final version
of the story now in Genesis 2-3 was ultimately down to him. The Committee's brief to the Priest The committee's brief to the Priest may well have come in the form of a copy of
the original herder version of the story in J (see Chapter 17), with wording to be
deleted or amended perhaps underlined as follows: Mankind started off as hunters, with the search for food a daily and dangerous struggle. So eventually the LORD taught mankind to be herders. First, he taught them how to bring water up from under the ground by digging wells. Then he put each family unit into enclosed gardens with specially- provided docile animals for them to look after. And finally the LORD planted wheat in each of the gardens for these animals to eat and told the herders not to eat it themselves, adding that if they disobeyed him then they would die. But one particular couple, Adam and his wife, could not be bothered to look after the animals. And a smooth-talking "snake" convinced Adam's wife that she would not die if she ate the wheat. So she gathered some, cooked it and shared it with Adam. Immediately their eyes were opened to the "benefits" of crop farming. Soon afterwards the LORD came into the garden, found the animals starving and became very angry. And he punished all the parties involved. The "snake" was punished by having its legs cut off. The LORD said to Adam, "You want to be a man of the soil and eat bread all your life? Then be one, and die one". And he drove Adam and his wife from the garden and condemned them to scratching a meagre living from the unfriendly soil of land elsewhere and to early deaths. And the LORD further punished Adam's wife by making her suffer the pain of childbirth much more frequently than if she had obeyed him and been content with life as the wife of a herder. The Priest would have understood from this that elements of the story which had to
be retained included the animals, forbidden fruit of some sort, the snake and the
punishments meted out to Adam and his wife. And that the key things to remove or
amend were the references to wheat having been the fruit in question and to God's
reason for punishing the couple having been their wanting to be crop farmers rather
than herders. Rewriting the story as a parable My guess is that the Priest would have preferred to leave out the snake, but that he
kept it for two reasons. First, because the committee felt that omitting the snake
would rob the story of one of its central characters. And second, because it allowed
him to rewrite the story as a parable. I shall in Chapter 20 set out a rather more positive view of God than that held by
many Christians today. My belief is that this more positive view goes right back to
Abraham and so may well have been in the mind of the Priest. He, I suspect, would
have felt that the problem with the original herder myth version of the story went
far beyond its picture of a God who hates crop farmers. For the Priest, the main
problem was probably that the story's picture of God was totally different to the
loving and forgiving Father God of his own personal experience. So rewriting the story as a parable enabled the Priest to make repentance the key
theme of the new version, with God giving Adam and Eve at least the one
opportunity to repent and seek his forgiveness. This took the edge off the harsh
punishments, which now served simply to underline the folly of not quickly
confessing our sins to God. And rewriting the story as a parable, and keeping the
talking snake, meant that no sensible person would ever see the account as literally
true. The committee doubtless queried the Priest's decision to rewrite the story as a
parable. But he would have quoted the parable in Isaiah 5:1-7 as a precedent and
would have argued that this was the best route to removing all reference to wheat,
to herders and to God's hatred of crop farmers. A new identity for the forbidden fruit and for Adam and Eve To get away from the ideas of wheat as the forbidden fruit and of Adam and his
wife as rebellious crop farmers, the Priest clearly had to come up with some
alternatives. Where the fruit was concerned, the Priest initially chose grapes, drawing his
thinking here from the way the Noah and Lot stories end in Genesis 9 and 19
respectively with the "hero" getting drunk and behaving grossly. Where Adam and his wife were concerned, the Priest chose their being the very
first man and woman on the basis that this was the best way to make the story
appear to be a continuation of Genesis 1 with its mention of "man, male and
female". But the Priest probably got the idea of Adam's being made from the dust
of the ground, the soil, from Adam's name (originally meaning "man of the soil" or
crop farmer). And with Adam's wife now the very first woman, the Priest gave her
the name Eve. In any event, the Priest's initial suggestion to the committee was that the couple
were put into their garden as young innocents and that, after eating the grapes, they
got drunk and had their first sexual encounter, this then opening their eyes to the
fact that they were naked. It would seem that the committee liked the new storyline in general, but baulked at
the idea of yet more talk of people getting drunk and behaving disgustingly. So
while accepting Adam and Eve's becoming the very first man and woman, they
told the Priest to come up with a better alternative for the identity of the forbidden
fruit. And the Priest's final choice was the fruit of the "tree of the knowledge of
good and evil" which enabled him to keep the sentence about the couple's suddenly
becoming aware of their nakedness, thus ensuring that any thinking person in the
future would realize that grapes were what he originally had in mind. A manifesto for the return to Jerusalem I have suggested that the rewriting of the Adam and Eve story probably took place
in 487 B.C. So in the middle of the work on the story, and just when the Jewish
priests were preparing to mark the 100th anniversary of their exile to Babylon,
there suddenly came the news of Egypt's revolt against Persian rule. The Jews in
Jerusalem will quickly have sent a letter (similar to the one mentioned in
Nehemiah 1) saying that the Canaanites had resumed harassing them. And,
inevitably, the debate will then have reopened on the question of all the Jews still
in Babylon returning home. For the Priest, this opened up fresh possibilities for his rewriting of the story. His
new version would still serve, for all time, as a parable about repentance. But now
it could also become, for his own generation, a manifesto urging his fellow exiles
to return to Jerusalem. And even more than that, a vehicle for ensuring that,
following their arrival there, they did not revert to the misbehaviour of their
grandfathers: marrying Canaanite women and worshipping false Canaanite gods. On that last point, it was at this juncture that the committee inserted the verses
(Genesis 2:23-24) in which Adam describes Eve as "flesh of my flesh". They
doubtless knew that some of the sons of the priests who had led the advance party
of Jews to Jerusalem after 538 B.C. had married Canaanite women. So there was a
problem even before the main body of exiles returned. And the best way to scotch
the problem would be to have a second clear statement in scripture (corroborating
Deuteronomy 7) that Jewish men were to marry only "flesh of their flesh", Jewish
women. While itself responsible for the Genesis 2:23-24 insertion, the committee would
have scrutinized closely the Priest's other ideas for introducing a manifesto element
into the rewritten story. Clearly everything, especially in connection with the
punishments, had to make sense both as parable and as manifesto. The last thing
the committee wanted was for the new version to be completely misunderstood by
future generations. For both the committee and the Priest himself, moreover, persuading their fellow
exiles to leave Babylon with its beautiful hanging gardens and immense
commercial opportunities was not going to be easy. Two conflicting pictures
somehow had to be out across. First, a re-affirmation that Jerusalem was still the promised land, not just of milk
and honey but now also of silk and money. If God's chosen people made the trip
sooner rather than later then he would smooth their way and ensure that they once
more became the dominant nation. They would wear the finest furs (Genesis 3:21),
be blessed with many children (Genesis 3:16) and always have bread on their
tables (Genesis 3:17). Second, however, tomorrow's affluence would only come after hardship today. The
many children, needed initially to swell the Jewish nation and enable it to wrest
back its best land from the Canaanites, would come at the price of the Jewish
women suffering birth-pains more often. And the bread on the table would initially
not be easily won: the Jewish men would have to start with land bringing forth
thorns and thistles. But there would be hardships if they stayed in Babylon too, if
the Egyptian revolt triggered the collapse of the Persian empire. And with God
now "telling" his chosen people to return home, did they really want to stay in
Babylon and risk an enslavement from which God might never rescue them? Chosen People, Promised Land We should not imagine that the Jewish view of themselves as God's chosen people
and of their homeland as the promised land was simply the typical view of people
in the ancient world. Let me explain why. Many people today are shocked by the suggestion in Deuteronomy 7:1-4 that the
"ethnic cleansing" during the 13th century B.C. invasion of Canaan, recounted in
the Book of Joshua, took place on God's orders: When the LORD your God brings you into the land which you are entering ... and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than yourselves, and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them; then you must utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them; and show no mercy to them. You shall not make marriages with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons. For they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. I referred to this same passage in Chapter 18, relating it to Adam's "flesh of my
flesh" words in Genesis 2:23. What we have here in both Genesis and
Deuteronomy is insertions by the Priest's committee. And even if that committee
did not invent the ideas of "chosen people" and "promised land", we can be sure
that they sharpened the tone of what the Old Testament says on the subject as they
undertook the work of using material from J, E, D and P to put the Pentateuch into
its present form. So while the invasion was real enough we should not suppose that God endorsed
(let alone ordered) the ethnic cleansing, or even that it took place on the scale
described. The priests were giving their nation a "vision" which would ensure that
"the people would never perish". Indeed, since then the Jews have had a remarkable history. The Perizzites etc.
mentioned above have all vanished, not because Joshua literally wiped them out,
but because they lacked the one thing without which nations really do perish: the
vision of a true God. Today's Egyptians are called Egyptians because they live in
Egypt: they are a very different nation to the Egyptians of the ancient world. In
contrast, today's Jews are the same as the Jews of the 5th century B.C. and have
survived for the 2,500 years since then because they believed firmly in the one true
God. Of course the 5th century B.C. Jewish priests had no idea what the long-term
future held for their nation. But they could point to three great events over the
previous 1,000 years which persuaded them that theirs was a chosen people with a
God-given right to the promised land. And which should convince even us that
God was definitely on their side. First, the Exodus from Egypt in the 13th century B.C. We may question things like
the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea. But on any reckoning, it really was
something of a miracle that they "made it" both out of Egypt and across the barren
wilderness to the borders of Canaan. Second, the Assyrian failure to capture Jerusalem in 701 B.C. The northern
kingdom, Israel, had been destroyed in 722 B.C. and its people exiled to Assyria
where they disappeared from history. The Assyrians planned to inflict the same
fate on the southern kingdom, Judah, but failed under circumstances which were
again something of a miracle. Third, the survival of the Jewish nation after the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar
captured Jerusalem in 587 B.C. and exiled its population to Babylon. Only God,
the priests would later think, could have arranged for Cyrus of Persia to capture
Babylon in 539 B.C., a mere 48 years later, and give permission for the Jews to
return home. It was with all this in mind, then, that in 487 B.C. the committee would have
scrutinized the Priest's drafts of the rewritten Adam and Eve story. And if the
committee was divided, then it would probably have been over the question of how
to present the capture of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. and how to tie this in with God's
expelling Adam and Eve from their garden. One party of priests would doubtless have wanted to emphasize the idea that
Jerusalem's fall was a matter of God's punishing his chosen people for having
turned to the Baals, of God's using the Babylonians to bring the Jewish nation back
to their senses and back to himself. In contrast, the other party of priests would
have wanted the rewriting exercise to concentrate on urging all the Jews in
Babylon to return home. The Priest's great achievement was that his rewriting not only set out a manifesto
which pleased both parties but also turned a myth about a nasty God into a parable
about a loving God whose concern is not so much that we are too quick to sin but
that we are too slow to repent. Why did so many of the Jews turn to the Baals prior to 587 B.C.? One of the main reasons for rewriting the old Adam and Eve myth was to correct
its mistaken picture of God and to ensure that the Jewish people would never again
turn to the Baals. But why, we may ask, did so many Jews (a chosen people led by
their God into a promised land) start worshipping the Canaanite Baals in the first
place? I suggested in Chapter 17 that Baal worship first became a serious problem in the
9th century B.C. in the northern kingdom of Israel and had spread to the southern
kingdom of Judah by the 8th century B.C. These dates indicate simply that one
factor in the rise of Baal worship in Israel was that King Ahab (874-853 B.C.)
allowed his pagan wife Jezebel to build an altar to Baal in the capital, and that one
factor in the "spread" to Judah was the marriage of their daughter Athalia to King
Jehoram of Judah (848-841 B.C.). Clearly there were several other factors as well. First, and just as with Ahab and Jehoram, those ordinary Jews who married pagan
wives soon came under their influence and (as mentioned in the extract from
Deuteronomy 7 above) started worshipping the Baals. Second, some Jewish men may have been attracted to Baal worship because of its
grosser aspects, such as cult prostitution. Third, the Jews' ancestors had originally been herders but turned to crop farming
after they conquered Canaan. They would then obviously have become obsessed
with the weather: when it would rain and how heavily. Only God's most loyal
servants would have been able to resist, at times of severe drought, the temptation
to pray to the Canaanite Baals as well. Yet none of this fully explains the scale of the turn to the Canaanite Baals. Surely
the Jews would quickly have realized that praying to the Baals for rain was a
complete waste of time. So there must have been a further factor as well that had
caused so many of them to abandon God. That further factor is likely to have been that, as the centuries passed in the
promised land, the Jews had gradually become less and less happy with the ancient
herder religion which they had followed since the time of Abraham. A harsh,
vindictive God was fine as long as his anger was directed against their enemies.
But after the Jews themselves took up crop farming they could no longer accept the
idea, set out in the J version of the Adam and Eve story, that God still hated crop
farmers. Moreover, human nature being what it is, as herders became a minority group they
came to be despised by the majority crop farmers. So the crop farmers would have
started to question both the old herder religion and what the Jewish scriptures said
about it. And many would have come to see the animal sacrifices, performed on a
factory scale in the Temple, as a grotesque way of worshipping God; a view
reflected in Hosea 6:6: I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings. Gradually, we may guess, more and more Jews began asking questions similar to
those which atheists today ask about the Old Testament. Was and is God really that
nasty? Were the herders perhaps guilty of having created God in their own image?
Had the way they spent their lives, on cold lonely hillsides gazing down on the
crop farmers' settlements and imagining all the wicked fun those people were
having, made the herders a vindictive lot and therefore their God harsh and
vindictive too? It would be wrong, furthermore, to imagine that this kind of doubt ended in 587
B.C. when the exile in Babylon began. The Jewish priests' initial message, painting
the exile as divine punishment for the people's having turned to the Baals, will
have pricked some consciences. But most of the Jews, having prayed earnestly to
God after the siege of Jerusalem began, will have felt badly let down. Nor would
their grandchildren have been easily persuaded that they had God to thank for
Cyrus of Persia's capture of Babylon in 539 B.C. So, far from the people having
rallied around their priests at a time of national crisis, the gap between priests and
people will have widened. And the prosperity which the exiles started to enjoy
after 539 B.C. will have widened that gap even further. This then was the scenario facing the Jewish priests who in the 5th century B.C. set
about compiling the Genesis which we have today. And we should recognize two
things. First, that their rewriting of the Adam and Eve story with its more accurate
picture of God will have played a role both in winning back their people and in
preparing the way for the eventual return to Jerusalem. And second, that there is an
important lesson here for the Church today. If it wants to win back its people, its
"lost sheep", then it too needs to provide them with a more accurate picture of God:
a loving and forgiving God, not a punishing God. PART VI IMPLICATIONS FOR READING THE BIBLE AND GRASPING THE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE Chapter 20 A Positive Approach to God The traditional view of the Adam and Eve story as literally true has meant that the
idea of a God who is a loving Father when he can be and a harsh punisher of sins
when he has to be is now entrenched in much Christian thinking. As Michael
Green puts it in Adventure of Faith: [The God of the Adam and Eve story] is a parent who so loves his child that anything which threatens that child's well-being and security evokes strong passions of love and wrath: they are, after all, the obverse and reverse of the same thing. [Michael Green, Adventure of Faith, p. 166] Moreover, Christian writers like Green and the author of the extract from the LION
Handbook of Christian Belief in Chapter 5 are invariably at pains to stress that the
God of the New Testament is just the same as the God of the Old Testament. And
since it goes without saying that the God of the Old Testament regularly punished
people, we are encouraged to note how Jesus too paints the picture of a God who
will be venting his wrath on the faithless and wicked at the time of the second
coming. But I object to this on two grounds. First, it does not "go without saying" that the
God of the Old Testament regularly punished people. And second, Jesus' picture of
God is, in my view, at all times that of a loving Father God. So in this chapter I
shall look at four key Bible figures, two from each of the Testaments, to argue that
they all took a far more positive approach to God than is generally realized. Abraham I begin with Abraham, about whom the Old Testament tells us five things of
particular interest: 1. Abraham had been brought up worshipping the "household gods" mentioned in Genesis 31:30-35 and Joshua 24:2.
2. God's first call to Abraham came when he was 75 years old: "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation" (Genesis 12:1-2). 3. When Abraham was 99 years old God made a covenant with him, promising that he would be "the father of a multitude of nations" and telling him that his wife Sarah would bear him a son, the future Isaac (Genesis 17:1-4,16). 4. Prior to the destruction of Sodom, Abraham pleaded with God not to proceed if a certain number of righteous people could be found in the city. After a lengthy "negotiation" on the necessary number, Abraham finally got God to agree on a figure of ten (Genesis 18:22-32). 5. To test Abraham, God told him to take Isaac to a distant mountain and offer him as a burnt offering. The following morning Abraham set off with Isaac and, on arrival, piled some wood and tied up Isaac and laid him on top. But as he took up a knife to kill the boy, an angel told him to offer instead "a ram caught in a thicket by its horns" (Genesis 22). The traditional Christian view is that these passages portray Abraham as a man of
great faith and God as really having destroyed Sodom and everyone in it (apart
from Lot and his daughters) and really having tested Abraham over the question of
offering Isaac. But there is another way of reading the passages, one that presents
an even more impressive picture of Abraham and also a much more positive
picture of God. Abraham's family owned large herds and flocks. So despite worshipping
"household gods" in his youth, he will also have come to know something about
the old herder religion. But its various myths (including the original herder version
of the Adam and Eve story) will have persuaded him to keep this religion and its
harsh God at arm's length. God's speaking to him in Genesis 12 and 17 forced Abraham to accept the reality
of the herder God. Yet even after that, Abraham continued to wrestle with the
notion of a harsh punishing God, as we see in Genesis 18 (the Sodom story) and in
Genesis 22 (the "testing" over Isaac). In reality, the destruction of Sodom was a natural disaster, probably a volcanic
eruption. But the herders saw the "fire and brimstone" raining from the sky as
punishment from their sky/heaven dwelling God: hence the herder myth now in
Genesis 19. Abraham, hearing the myth much later, will have struggled with the
idea of a God who could be so cruel and the "negotiation" in Genesis 18 over the
number of righteous people needed for God to stay his hand presents this struggle
in figurative terms. Similarly, the Genesis 22 story of Abraham's coming close to sacrificing his son
Isaac was certainly not, as Rick Warren suggested in Chapter 13, a test of
Abraham's faith. Rather it marked the point where Abraham, having earlier
rejected the false gods of his youth, now also finally rejected the false picture of
God in the ancient herder religion: where Abraham turned away from the idea of a
God who had supposedly punished Adam and Eve and who allegedly tests people
in outrageous ways, and embraced instead the true picture of a loving Father God. Moses The Book of Exodus tells us that Moses, born a Hebrew, had been adopted by
Pharaoh's daughter and brought up in the palace in Egypt. As a child and young
man, he had doubtless worshipped the Egyptian gods. But he later killed an
oppressive Egyptian official and fled to Midian where he married Zipporah whose
father, Jethro, was a herder and the local priest of the ancient herder religion. To
judge from what happened later, it seems that Moses hardly threw himself into this
new religion. Exodus 3-4 recounts Moses' conversion at the "burning bush" and its immediate
aftermath. And it becomes clear here that the herder religion of Midian was not
exactly the same as the religion of the Hebrews in Egypt. Surprisingly, it did not
involve circumcision: hence Zipporah's complaint about Moses being a
"bridegroom of blood" (Exodus 4:25-26). And Moses did not know God's Hebrew
name: YHWH (Exodus 3:14). Moses was plainly stunned by the task which God gave him: to persuade the
Pharaoh to release the Hebrews from enslavement in Egypt. After all, he knew
that, in Egypt, the Hebrews were far from all being faithful to the God of Abraham:
the fact that he had had to break up a fight between two Hebrews (Exodus 2:13)
showed that love for one's neighbour was in short supply. As suggested by the later
"golden calf" incident, some of the Hebrews in Egypt must have returned to the
"household gods" whom Abraham had rejected. And many of those still
worshipping the God of Abraham will have seen the hand of that God in their
enslavement and will have reverted to the ancient picture of him as a harsh
punishing God. In his first weeks back in Egypt, Moses too probably saw YHWH as a punishing
God, especially since there must be some truth to the account in Exodus 7-12 of
how Pharaoh was eventually forced to let the Hebrews leave Egypt. But when
everyone was safely in Sinai and he saw how God met their needs, Moses must
have started to rethink matters. And the mild Ten Commandments which God
issued at Sinai must particularly have opened Moses' eyes to the fact that God's
rules are intended for the benefit of mankind, rather than being some new form of
enslavement. So we need, I suggest, a much more positive view of God than the one most
Christians draw from the account of God's "punishing" his people during the
"wandering in the wilderness". For all the talk of "wandering", the reality is that
the people spent close to 40 years in "refugee camps" on the edge of the
wilderness, unable to gain a foothold in the promised land. This stalemate, and the
outbreaks of disease and the natural disasters which inevitably occur over so long a
period, had to be explained somehow. So to keep his people focused, Moses
painted all this as the result of the nation having sinned both over the "golden calf"
(Exodus 32) and by their constant "murmurings" (Numbers 14-16). But the real message even here was not about a punishing God. Rather, two points
were being made. First, that God never punishes anyone but, if the occasion
demands it, may temporarily remove his protective hand (just as the Jewish priests
at the time of the start of the exile in Babylon claimed that God had "allowed" the
Babylonians to capture Jerusalem because the nation had turned from the true God
to false gods). And second, that if God could be so insistent upon the loyalty of his
own people, they could certainly trust him to help them defeat their enemies. Jesus Both Abraham and Moses eventually became clear in their own minds that God is
a loving Father God. But for a fully positive statement of the true nature of God,
the world had to wait for the coming of Jesus. I mentioned in Chapter 5 that Jesus dismissed all idea that God punishes sins in
this life and that his Wicked Tenants parable in Mark 12 makes it clear that God
instead makes repeated efforts to urge sinners to repent. But I want now to go even
further than this. I shall argue below that the exclusion of the finally unrepentant
from heaven will not be a matter of punishing them. And also that Jesus' second
coming will not be a case of God's venting his anger on the wicked and faithless
alive at that time. To begin with, however, I need to clarify Jesus' words in John 5:14: Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you. The context here is Jesus' healing a paralytic and telling him to "take up his pallet
and walk". This gets the man into trouble with the authorities who accuse him of
"breaking the sabbath". So when Jesus meets him again later, the first thought in
the man's mind is to betray Jesus to them. Jesus senses this and warns the man of
the consequences: not that God will punish the man either in this life or the next,
but that such disloyalty and ingratitude will ruin his faith and that (unless he later
repents, which seems improbable) he will forfeit all hope of one day entering
heaven. Having said that, I come now to the question of whether exclusion from heaven
will be a matter of punishment. Most Christians think that Jesus portrayed hell as
punishment, apparently because many of Jesus' parables talk about angry kings and
masters imprisoning, beating and even killing their servants. So let me make four
points here. First, parables must be treated as parables. And the point of most of Jesus' parables
is to stress that there are things we must do in this life if we hope to enter heaven
after we die. Things like believing, repenting and learning to love, trust and obey
God. Second, Jesus points in some of his parables (such as that of the Unforgiving
Servant, Matthew 18:23-34) to a dual parallel between hell and prison. Both serve
on the one hand as deterrents to evil-doing and on the other hand as a means of
separating (and protecting) the obedient from the disobedient, the good from the
bad (Matthew 25:31-46). Similarly, in the parable of the Weeds in Matthew 13:2430 Jesus' key point is that just as weeds "choke" the wheat (Matthew 13:7) so too,
in this life, wicked people "choke" - and lead astray (Matthew 18:6-7) - some
Christians. But in the life to come this will be prevented by God's denying places
in heaven to those who, by their refusal to repent, have shown that they are
"weeds" and will never change their wicked ways. Third, Jesus stresses the need to obey the commandment that we love our
neighbour (Matthew 22:39). So it is to be expected that God will exclude from
heaven those who - judged from their past record and their failure to repent - are
certain to go on mistreating people in the next life, if given the chance to do so.
And Jesus gives an example of this in the parable in Luke 16:19-31 where, even
after death, the rich man still wants Lazarus to run around at his beck and call. Fourth, we must not misunderstand those parables which talk about people being
beaten or killed by kings and masters. We do not conclude from the master's praise
of the dishonest steward in the parable in Luke 16:1-9 that God applauds those
who "cook the books". Similarly we should not conclude that these parables are
talking about a harsh punishing God. Rather, Jesus' point is that just because God
(unlike earthly kings and masters) is loving and forgiving, this does not mean that
he will accept into heaven those who ignore him completely. In sum, then, the message from Jesus' parables of this sort is that God will exclude
the unrepentant from heaven, not to punish them, but solely to prevent them from
spoiling heaven for everyone else. We come finally, then, to the question of whether Jesus portrayed his second
coming as a time when God would vent his anger on the wicked. Certainly Jesus
had a lot to say about the end of the age, when the "Son of man" would come to
usher in the day of judgment. For example, he explains his parable of the Weeds in
Matthew 13:24-30 as follows: At the close of the age, the Son of man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth (Matthew 13:41-42). Likewise Mark 13 (and Matthew 24/Luke 21) interweaves an account of Jesus'
return with a prophecy about a Jewish revolt against Roman rule: In those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation which God created until now and never will be. And if the Lord had not shortened the days, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days ... In those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds. And Jesus' "sheep and goats" account in Matthew 25:31-46 reads: When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. Then the King will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world' ... Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels' ... And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. It would be easy to see all of this as evidence that God really will be pouring out
his wrath at the time of Jesus' second coming. But three important points need to
be made here. First, what we have in all these passages is a mix of prophecy and parable. So the
mention of "the King" and of "eternal punishment" in Matthew 25 takes us back to
what I said above concerning Jesus' parables about kings and masters punishing
their servants. Second, Jesus himself never mentioned "the wrath of God". This term appears only
twice in the Gospels: Matthew 3:7/Luke 3:7 (from the lips of John the Baptist) and
John 3:36 (which the Oxford Bible Commentary suggests is most likely editorial
comment by the author of John). The future "vengeance" and "wrath" referred to in
Luke 21:22-23 would be Roman vengeance and wrath, following the Jewish revolt
in 66 A.D. Third, Jesus made the poignant statement in Luke 18:18: When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth? This contradicts the suggestion in Matthew 24:14 that Jesus will return "when the
good news of the kingdom has been proclaimed throughout the whole world".
Instead, it seems to imply that Jesus will return at a time not of his own choosing,
and not even of God's choosing. And this, together with Luke 9:51-56 (where Jesus
rebukes James and John for suggesting that they "bid fire come down from
heaven" to punish a Samaritan village which had refused to receive him), hints at a
far better explanation for Jesus' second coming. Namely that with the human race
facing extinction at some point in the future, whether because of a natural disaster
or a nuclear war, Jesus will return to end the mayhem. In conclusion, then, I see Jesus as having consistently portrayed God as exclusively
a loving Father God. He does not punish people in this life, he will not be venting
his wrath at the time of Jesus' second coming, and he will not be "punishing" those
whom he eventually excludes from heaven. But it would be wrong to see this as in
any way downplaying the importance both of our deciding to do everything
possible to be chosen for a place in heaven and of our making that decision as soon
as possible. Jesus occasionally spoke of hell (figuratively, see Chapter 17) as a "furnace of
fire". But his usual picture of hell was the equally dreadful one of a place of "outer
darkness" - a very private hell of total loneliness - where people "will weep and
gnash their teeth" (more on this in Chapter 22). Either way, the decision to aim for
heaven is a vital one. And Jesus urged everyone to make this decision without delay. Not because he
expected to return any time soon after his death, but because each of us needs to
get our lives straight with God before our death. Believing, repenting and learning
to love, trust and obey God are things we can do only in this lifetime. And many of
us are already, knowingly or not, approaching "the night our soul is required of us"
(Luke 12:20). Paul I mentioned above that Jesus himself never referred to the "wrath of God". But
many in the early Church clearly believed that God punishes sinful people in this
life, as seen for example in Acts 5, 12 and 13. It is therefore surprising that Paul never once suggested that God punishes people
in this life, not even in Romans 1:18-32 where he writes: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men ... Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles ... For this reason God gave them up to dishonourable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty. We need to be clear here that Paul is not suggesting that the "penalty", presumably
disease, was one inflicted by God as a form of punishment. Moreover, and whereas Hebrews 12:6 says that God "disciplines and chastises
everyone whom he loves", Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:32: When we are judged by the Lord we are chastened so that we may not be condemned along with the world. which refers simply to God's pricking the consciences of Christians who sin so as
to encourage them to repent and seek his forgiveness. Finally, and while Paul did say that Jesus' second coming was imminent and would
be a time when God would pour out his wrath, there are three reasons why he had
no choice in this matter. First, because he genuinely believed that Jesus' return was
imminent. Second because, with many Jews living outside Palestine having joined
his "Gentile" churches (and in line with 1 Corinthians 9:20: "To the Jews, I became
as a Jew, in order to win Jews"), he had no option but to write to these churches in
familiar "punishing God" terms. And third, because he felt it would help him to
win believers and to discourage sinful behaviour among new converts. Chapter 21 A Positive Approach to the Bible My claim in this book is that the Adam and Eve story in Genesis 2-3 was rewritten
in 487 B.C., from an ancient herder myth about God punishing the first crop
farmers, and that it should be read today as a parable about repentance. But I have
also said that, regardless of when it was written or who wrote it, the story definitely
carries the signature of God. So why is it important to date it - and read it - in the
way that I have suggested? My answer to this question is in two parts. First, there are two sets of people who would particularly benefit from learning that
the story is a parable and that it was written in its present form in the 5th century
B.C. For many Christians, the story's apparent picture of a harsh God hampers both
their own trust in him and their ability to share their faith with others. And for most
non-churchgoers, the idea that the present story dates back to the dawn of time,
plus its mention of a talking snake and Adam's rib, downgrades it to myth status. Second, and more generally, the message people take from the Adam and Eve
story inevitably colours the way they then read the rest of the Bible. Taking up that last point, we shall in this chapter look at two slightly different
Christian approaches to the Bible. First, the approach taken by evangelical
Christians. And second, a complementary Christian approach to the Bible which
many people will (I hope) find both positive and helpful. But I want to begin by
considering how the Priest of Chapter 19 - and the committee of which he was a
member - would have viewed the scriptures available to them. The Priest's approach to the scriptures available to him The first point to make here is that the Jewish scriptures of the early 5th century
B.C. did not include the New Testament and were also very different to what we
now have in The Old Testament. When the committee started work, all they had
were the four documents J, E, D and P, together with the Book of Psalms, some
historical books (such as Joshua, Judges, 1,2 Samuel and 1,2 Kings) and some
prophetic books (including Amos, Hosea, Micah, Jeremiah and chapters 1-54 of
Isaiah). Also, we should not assume that, just because they had J, E, D and P in front of
them, the Priest and the committee were better placed than ourselves to judge
matters. All they knew was that P was the newest of the four documents and that D
had been discovered in 622 B.C. during renovations in the Temple. They had no
idea when or where J with its herder myth version of the Adam and Eve story had
been written, or who wrote it. And they certainly had none of the insights which
science has brought us today. So they were just as much in the dark as ourselves. Even more important, the Priest and the committee did not have the full Book of
Daniel, chapters 7-12 of which were not written (according to the Oxford Bible
Commentary) until the 2nd century B.C. So they were unaware both of Daniel 7:13
(which talks about the triumphant coming of "one like a son of man", taken by
Christians as a reference to Jesus' return at the start of the consummation) and of
Daniel 12:2 (which talks, for the first time in our present Bible, about a
resurrection of the dead). Accordingly, and in terms of John Stott's framework to which we will come in a
moment, the Priest and his committee had the accounts of Creation, in P, and of
the Fall (or, at any rate, the herder myth version of the Adam and Eve story) in J
and details of the initial phases of the Redemption (the covenants made with
Abraham and Moses and a few Messiah prophecies). But they had no clear
information about the final and crucial phase of the Redemption or about the
Consummation. And three further quite important points need to be made here. First, the Priest and the committee will have been fully aware of how the Creation
account in P had been written in the 6th century B.C. They will have known that
its primary purpose had been to combat the ridiculous Babylonian myths which the
Jews come across after arriving in Babylon in 587 B.C. And they will have known
that the priests involved had fasted and prayed at length during the several days
taken to write it. So while they were sure that the account was exactly as God had
wanted it written, they probably knew that it was not necessarily literally true. Second, the Priest and the committee would never have envisaged that the coming
Messiah would be the Son of God. Certainly he would be "a man sent from God"
(as John the Baptist is described in John 1:6), but his purpose would be to re-
establish the kingdom of Judah destroyed by the Babylonians and to restore the
Temple in Jerusalem as the focus of worship of the one true God: not physically (it
had been rebuilt by 516 B.C.) but in terms of what was in people's hearts. This
Messiah would have to suffer (Isaiah 53) just as the Jews in the advance party sent
to Jerusalem after 538 B.C. had suffered. But in the same way that God would
ensure that when the main party of Jews still in Babylon returned home they would
ultimately reclaim all their land from the Canaanites, so too God would ensure that
the Messiah would eventually succeed in restoring full independence for his
chosen people in their promised land. Third, the Priest and the committee will have known that their scriptures included
many things which were literally true, some things which were parables (Isaiah
5:1-7 and 2 Samuel 12:1-4), some myths (the Cain and Abel story and Noah Flood
story), some manifestos (the talk of "chosen people" and "promised land" and the
prophecies about God's destroying the Jews' enemies and sending the Messiah) and
a whole raft of legal and religious rules. And although much of this was of
uncertain date and origin, they were convinced that all of it carried God's signature. John Stott's creation/fall/redemption/consummation framework In setting out the evangelical approach to the Bible, John Stott speaks in Issues
Facing Christians Today of its having a "fourfold framework": 1. Creation: It is absolutely foundational to the Christian faith ... that in the beginning, when time began, God made the universe out of nothing ... Finally, as the climax of his creative activity, he made man, male and female, in his own image. 2. Fall: They listened to Satan's lies, instead of God's truth. In consequence of their disobedience they were driven out of the garden ... All our human alienation, disorientation and sense of meaninglessness stem ultimately from this ... "Original sin" means that our inherited human nature is now twisted with disastrous self-centredness. 3. Redemption: Instead of abandoning or destroying his rebellious creatures, as they deserved, God planned to redeem them. No sooner had they sinned than God promised that the woman's seed would crush the serpent's head (Genesis 3:15), which we recognize as the first prediction of the coming Saviour. God's redemptive purpose began to take clearer shape when he called Abraham and entered into a solemn covenant with him, promising to bless both him and through his posterity all the families of the earth - another promise we know has been fulfilled in Christ and his worldwide community. God renewed his covenant, this time with Israel, at Mount Sinai, and kept promising through the prophets that there was more, much more, to come in the days of the messianic kingdom. Then in the fullness of time the Messiah came ... Now today, through the death, resurrection and Spirit-gift of Jesus, God is fulfilling his promise of redemption and is remaking marred humankind, saving individuals and incorporating them into his new, reconciled community. 4. Consummation: One day, when the good news of the kingdom has been proclaimed throughout the whole world (Matthew 24:14), Jesus Christ will appear in great magnificence. He will raise the dead, judge the world, regenerate the universe and bring God's kingdom to its perfection. From it all pain, decay, sin, sorrow and death will be banished, and in it God will be glorified for ever. Meanwhile, we are living in between times, between kingdom come and kingdom coming, between the "now" and the "then" of redemption, between the "already" and the "not yet". [John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today, pp. 62-63] So the "fall" has become here one of the four cornerstones of the Bible message
rather than just a one-off story like the Cain and Abel, Noah Flood and Sodom and
Gomorrah episodes. And as noted in Chapter 20, the idea of a God who is by turns
loving and punishing has, because of this, now become central in a great deal of
Christian thinking. Evangelical Christians treat the Bible as "infallible" with Michael Green explaining
that this is not quite the same thing as strict literal truth (see Chapter 14). But most
evangelicals will justify the "infallibility" of the creation and fall elements of the
framework by quoting Matthew 5:18 ("not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law
until all is accomplished"), a suggestion which I questioned in Chapter 5. And John
Stott's framework certainly treats the Adam and Eve story as if literally true. A positive Christian approach to the Bible I now present what I see as a rather more positive approach to reading the Bible.
But let me stress that this is a complementary approach to Stott's. I have retained
his fourfold framework while trying to bring its detail more into line with the
thinking behind the rewriting of the Adam and Eve story in the 5th century B.C.,
with what science now tells us and with the positive approach to God which I set
out in Chapter 20. Accordingly, and in terms of the Bible as a whole, I have drawn up the following
table, with John Stott's four themes in the left hand column and what I see as
positive inferences (or messages) in the right hand column: Theme (Stott)
Inference/message 1. Creation
We are here because God has put us here. So we should honour God and respect (and be concerned for the welfare of) everyone else on the planet, all of whom are (like us) made in the image of God. 2. Fall
Because God is a loving God, he laid down rules of conduct framed to serve mankind's best interests. Sadly, mankind quickly began breaking God's rules. But because God is also a forgiving God, he pricks the consciences of those who break his rules, hoping in this way to encourage them to repent. Foolishly, though, we often ignore his promptings. 3. Redemption From the time of the very first sin, God formulated a plan to "redeem" fallen mankind, to bring them back into a proper, loving relationship with himself. a. Covenant with In the first step of this plan, God reached out to Abraham
Abraham with the message of a "chosen people" and a "promised land". b. Covenant with
Moses
After his people became enslaved in Egypt, God's next step was to rescue them from there and to prepare them for a return to the promised land. He reached out to Moses and, once his people were safely in Sinai, established a fresh covenant, including the Ten Commandments. c. Messiah
God's people conquered the promised land and later, prophecies under David and Solomon, the kingdom became
rich and powerful. But after that the kingdom split in two and the Assyrians finally destroyed the northern half in 722 B.C. This left just a small Jewish kingdom in the south, Judah, with its days seemingly numbered. And with many Jews now having turned away from God to worship false gods, God was faced with the difficult decision of what to do about matters. Of course God had no intention of breaking his covenants with Abraham and Moses: he would never let the Jews be wiped off the face of the earth. But how could he get his people to see that the thing they needed to do was, not to play their enemies off against one another, but rather to abandon the false gods and to trust him to preserve the nation, regardless of what might happen to the kingdom? God's only option was to inspire the Jewish prophets to deliver a twofold message: (i) If the people did not repent and return to him, he would destroy their kingdom (the vineyard of Isaiah 5:1-7) and the current generation would have to suffer the consequences; and (ii) If that happened, he would nevertheless renew his covenant with all future generations and would eventually send a Messiah to "restore the kingdom", a wonderful time when "the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped" (Isaiah 35:5). God was in fact more sad than angry about the way his people had let him down. But he gave his signature to what the prophets wrote, even to the idea that he intended to use the Assyrians or Babylonians to destroy the kingdom, because he knew that he needed to send out a tough message. After the Babylonians did indeed destroy the kingdom, in 587 B.C., and carried off the entire population of Jerusalem into exile in Babylon, God needed to send out a revised message: (i) He would eventually destroy all his people's enemies; and (ii) The Messiah would come as a humble king (Zechariah 9:9) and a suffering servant (Isaiah 53), the latter passage written by a different man to the author of Isaiah 5 and 35 above. d. 539-4 B.C. God was certainly quick to "destroy the Babylonians". And to judge from Ezra 1, Cyrus of Persia's capture of Babylon in 539 B.C. seemed to mark him out as a quasi-Messiah. Especially since, under Persian rule, the Jews in Babylon were permitted to return home and to enjoy a fair measure of autonomy. Alexander the Great's destruction of the Persian empire in 330 B.C. did not alter this. But things changed for the worse after 198 B.C. when the Jews came under Seleucid rule and especially after Antiochus IV came to throne and in 168 B.C. began persecuting the Jews. This triggered a revolt and the emergence of another seeming quasi-Messiah, Judas Maccabee, who established a semi-independent Jewish state in 165 B.C. However in 63 B.C. Pompey destroyed the Seleucid empire and Judea became a Roman protectorate. So the Jews began once again looking forward to the coming of their Messiah. e. Jesus
When Jesus began his ministry, the Jews had three pictures of the Messiah that God would send to them: (i) A Messiah who would come to end Roman rule and establish an independent Jewish kingdom; (ii) A Messiah who would come to punish the faithless: the view reflected in the words of John the Baptist in Matthew 3:7-12; and (iii) A Messiah who would come to bless the faithful: the view set out in Isaiah 35 and 61, albeit along with mention of God's vengeance. However Jesus made it clear that he was neither the first nor the second type of Messiah: (i) He emphasized that "his kingdom was not of this world" (John 18:36); and (ii) He stressed that he had come "not to judge the world, but to save the world" (John 12:47). Instead, Jesus portrayed himself (Matthew 16:21) as a "suffering servant" Messiah (Isaiah 53), one who had come to "save the lost" (Luke 19:10) and to enable people to "have life abundantly" (John 10:10). Redemption thus became a matter of accepting the message which Jesus had brought and of seizing the benefits of the new covenant (Matthew 26:28) to be established through his death and resurrection. (More on this at the end of this chapter). 4. Consummation Jesus will return to "raise the dead, judge the world and bring God's kingdom to its perfection" (Stott). a. Old Testament The only Old Testament reference to a consummation prophecy of the sort meant by Stott is in two passages in the 2nd century
B.C. latter half of the Book of Daniel: 7:13-14: And behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man ... and to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom; 12:2: And many who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. b. Jesus
The above quotations from Daniel are important because Jesus' referred to both of them when talking about the consummation (in Matthew 24:30 and John 5:28-29 respectively). But it would be wrong (see Chapter 20) to assume that Jesus saw his return as a time when God would vent his wrath on mankind. Rather, his view seems to have been that, with mankind one day facing extinction, perhaps because of some global natural disaster, he would be returning on a rescue mission. And it would also be wrong (again see Chapter 20) to assume that Jesus saw his return as imminent. c. The Epistles The early Church, however, played up Jesus' second coming both as imminent and as a matter of God's venting his wrath. First, to encourage suffering Christians that their persecutors would very soon be punished in full. Second, to encourage all Christians to live pure lives for the short period remaining. And third, as part of the message to non-believers that they needed to be saved and that time was running out. d. The Book of Revelation 1-3 speaks of how Jesus will deal with the Revelation churches just prior to his return, quoting as examples several churches in Asia Minor. Most notable is his supposed threat to punish a "Jezebel" at Thyatira for "beguiling my servants to practise immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols". This clearly reflects the deal which Paul struck with the Jerusalem Church in Acts 15 and the woman in question was probably a deaconess with aspirations to become the first female bishop. We may not like the picture of Jesus given in these chapters, but we should at least note that he is said to have given the woman "time to repent". Revelation 4-22 speaks of how God will punish non- Christians prior to Jesus' return. But with their talk of armies moving around on horseback rather than in tanks and helicopter gunships, these chapters can no longer be read as a literally true prophecy of coming events. Less still the talk of a dragon sweeping down a third of the stars of heaven and casting them to the earth which, if this happened, would be destroyed in an instant! Revelation 4-22 should today be read as a parable; especially since it paints the picture of a God unrecognizable from the God portrayed by Jesus. I made the point in Chapter 4 that, while even God himself probably sighs over
some of its harsher passages, the Bible is from start to finish "the Word of God"
and the important thing is to read it with hearts open to the true loving God. This is
especially the case with passages in both the Old and New Testaments which talk
of a punishing God. And there is usually a simple explanation for such talk: that
the passage is a parable or, in the case of some prophetic passages, that God
deliberately gave his message a sharp edge in order to galvanize his chosen people
into action. Redemption: a new covenant established by Jesus' death I close this chapter by going back to the point above that Jesus' death established a
new covenant. I start with one of Jesus' own statements on the subject of his
forthcoming death, made during the Last Supper, and I would ask you to bear in
mind that Mark's gospel was written first, with much of its wording later copied by
Matthew (see Chapter 17): Mark 14:24: This is my blood of the [new] covenant, which is poured out for many. Matthew 26:28: This is my blood of the [new] covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. The Oxford Bible Commentary remarks as follows on these verses: The final phrase in Mark ('poured out for many') is a clear indication that Jesus' death is being seen in sacrificial terms. However, Jewish sacrifice was very varied and by no means monochrome. What is not said here is that Jesus' death is a sin offering or a means of dealing with individual sins or sinfulness (Matthew adds 'for the forgiveness of sins' here, but this is clearly secondary). Rather, Jesus' death is interpreted here as a covenant sacrifice, the means by which a new community is created by God's own initiative (see too on Mark 10:45); by drinking the cup, the disciples share in all the benefits established by Jesus' sacrifice, i.e. they take their places as members of the new people of God, the new covenant community.
[Oxford Bible Commentary, p. 916] Next, and prompted by the above, we look at another of Jesus' statements about his
death, made rather earlier when on his way to Jerusalem: Mark 10:45: The Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to
give his life as a ransom for many. The Oxford Bible Commentary remarks as follows on this verse: [Mark 10:45] comprises the famous ransom saying and has given rise to intense debate. It is one of the very few verses in the synoptics where Jesus gives any kind of interpretation of his death. Its authenticity is much disputed, as is the precise meaning of virtually every word in the saying. The saying ... assumes that Jesus' death is unique, and yet Mark uses it in a context where Jesus sets himself up as an example to be imitated by others. The background is often taken to be Isaiah 53, with Jesus here setting himself up as the suffering servant of this Servant Song, offering his life as a sin offering for others. This is, however, unconvincing. The linguistic parallels between this verse and Isaiah 53 are virtually non-existent. Jesus is not here called 'servant'; nor is the language of 'ransom' the same semantically as that of 'sin offering'. The present verse does not even mention 'sin' as such. The word 'ransom' (Greek lutron) is in fact used very widely, sometimes in relation to prices being paid, e.g. as the price paid to compensate for a crime ... Hence the idea in later Christian theology of Jesus' death as some kind of price that is paid (e.g. for sin). But the word is also used without any idea of a specific price being paid: thus God's deliverance of his people in the Exodus is frequently referred to as his 'ransoming' or 'redeeming' the people of God, with no idea of any price being paid. This may be the underlying idea here: Jesus' death is presented as in some way the rescue, or redemption, of the new people of God. Why this needs a death is not spelt out. Strictly speaking, the preposition translated in the NRSV as 'for' (Greek anti) means 'instead of': hence ideas of substitutionary atonement which have been read into, or out of, this verse. But this is by no means necessary. The word may simply mean 'on behalf of', 'for the benefit of' ... Jesus' saying here thus evokes the idea of a new people of God to be created and formed as a result of his life and death. Further, it is by virtue of his role as Son of Man, as the one who must suffer but who will then be vindicated, that this will be achieved.
[Oxford Bible Commentary, p. 908] For me, the problem with the idea of Jesus' death as a "sin offering" is that many
Christians imagine that God deliberately put his Son through an unspeakably cruel
death on the cross in order to be able to forgive mankind's sins without detriment to
his position as a just God. Their supposition here is that God was "punishing" Jesus
on the cross for our sins because he would otherwise have been obliged to punish
us and therefore to exclude all of us from heaven since "all have sinned". However, I see a perfectly clear explanation for Jesus' words which has nothing at
all to do with a punishing God. Jesus came to bring a message about God's love
and forgiveness, a message which ran counter to every religion at the time. To be
fair to the Jews and the Romans, they left him unhindered for three whole years.
But eventually even their patience ran out, especially after he staged a
demonstration inside the Temple. So the inevitable finally happened. He died for
his message, paying the price ("ransom") for bringing the good news which
everyone needs to hear: that God is a loving Father who always forgives a truly
repentant sinner. So why did Paul (in Ephesians 1:7) and Peter (in 1 Peter 2:24) later speak in terms
of Jesus' death as a "sin offering"? My reply is that they were probably responding
to the Jewish question (reflected in Hebrews 9:22), "How can God forgive sins
without the shedding of blood?" Their response was, in effect, that blood had been
shed: the blood of Jesus. Chapter 22 The Message of Jesus and the Christian Message The Christian message is by definition the message brought by Jesus (in the
Gospels), set in the context of what God had revealed before Jesus came (in the
Old Testament) and of what God revealed through the Holy Spirit after Jesus died
(in the Epistles and the Book of Revelation). Unfortunately, however, some Christians see neither God nor the Bible in the
correct light and therefore miss some key elements of the Christian message. I set
out in Chapters 20 and 21 positive approaches to God and to the Bible. I now take
a closer look at the message of Jesus himself. Jesus the Son of God The first part of Jesus' message relates to his claim to be the Son of God. And three
comments by modern writers are well worth repeating here. First, C.S. Lewis' comment in Mere Christianity: Among the Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins [Mark 2:5]. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so often that we no longer see what it amounts to. I mean the claim to forgive sins. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic. We can all understand how a man forgives offences against himself. You tread on my toe and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men's toes and stealing other men's money? I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing that we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. [C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 51-52] Second, John Stott's comment in Basic Christianity: [The] self-centredness of the teaching of Jesus immediately sets him apart from the other great religious teachers of the world. They were self-effacing. He was self-advancing. They pointed men away from themselves, saying, 'That is the truth, so far as I perceive it; follow that'. Jesus said, 'I am the truth; follow me'. [John Stott, Basic Christianity, p. 23] Third, John Drane's comment in Jesus and the four Gospels: We must never forget that when we describe Jesus as 'the Son of God' we are using pictorial language to describe something that is in principle indescribable. Jesus was using an analogy. He took the human relationship of child to parent, and said: 'My relationship with God is rather like that'. He did not intend us to take the analogy literally. Nor was he suggesting that every aspect of our own relationship to our parents fits exactly the relationship between Jesus and God ... No human could ever say, 'I and my Father are one'. Indeed, the whole of Jesus' teaching, especially in John's Gospel, makes it clear that this relationship between Father and Son was unique. It existed long before Jesus was born in Bethlehem: Jesus was 'in the beginning with God'. [John Drane, Jesus and the four Gospels, p. 52] Jesus' manifesto The other part of Jesus' message is what I shall call his "manifesto" and which I
shall sum up as follows: 1. God is a loving Father who punishes no one either in this life or in the next (this point covered in Chapter 20). 2. If we want to enjoy meaningful lives on this earth and to enter into heaven at the time of the resurrection of the dead, then we need to do God's will (Matthew 7:21) by believing in Jesus, repenting and learning to love, trust and obey God. 3. Having done all this, we then need to safeguard our prospect of entering heaven by loving our enemies, forgiving others and not judging others. The resurrection of the dead As noted in Chapter 21, the idea of the resurrection of the dead goes back to the
Old Testament verse Daniel 12:2, written in the 2nd century B.C.: And many who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Understandably, and as alluded to in Matthew 22:23-32 and Acts 23:6-8, the
Sadducees and Pharisees were debating this subject intensely at the time of Jesus.
The Sadducees rejected the idea of any sort of resurrection of the dead. Whereas,
to judge by Jesus' words in Matthew 22:23-32, the Pharisees believed in a future
resurrection of both soul and body. In John 5:28-29 Jesus made much the same point as Daniel had earlier: The hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear [the Son of man's] voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment. But Jesus broke new ground in Matthew 22:23-32 when, in answer to the
Sadducees' question (about whose wife the much-married woman will be after the
resurrection), he said: You are wrong. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. What Jesus meant here was that the Sadducees were wrong in two ways. First, in
denying any sort of resurrection of the dead. And second, in presuming that he
shared the Pharisees' view that the eventual resurrection of all the dead will involve
both their souls and their bodies. Jesus' view was instead clearly that only the souls
of the dead will enter heaven. Any new body that they have there will be spiritual,
not physical. Heaven and Hell I mentioned in Chapter 20 that Jesus occasionally spoke of hell as a "furnace of
fire", but more usually as a place of "outer darkness" - of total loneliness - where
people "will weep and gnash their teeth". To understand matters here we need to
go back to something which I said about God in Chapter 2, and to expand a
diagram which I gave there. Heaven and hell are not spiritual realms, with the first
existing way beyond our galaxy and the second deep within the bowels of the
earth. Rather, they exist in separate parts of a spiritual dimension intersecting with
the four space-time dimensions deep inside each of our minds (the verse Luke
17:21: "The kingdom of God is within you" is relevant here and I shall have more
to say on this subject in Chapter 23): It is our souls (only) which will be in either heaven or hell and so two points
emerge here. First, that hell will not be a place of physical pain. And second that,
when in Matthew 5:29 (see below) Jesus speaks of "plucking out an eye that causes
us to sin, because it is better to lose one eye than that your whole body be thrown
into hell", we are not to take this in any way literally: Jesus is making a logical
point. Doing God's will Matthew 7:21-23 sets out one of Jesus' most important statements: Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord', shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers'. Jesus gives in John 6:28-29 the first of four answers to the obvious question here,
"What does doing God's will entail?": Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent". I shall deal with the question of "believing" a little later in this chapter. The second answer to the question stemming from Matthew 7:21-23 is found in
two of Jesus' well-known parables, the first in Matthew 7:24-27: Every one who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And every one who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it. Jesus' context here is a man building a beachfront house. And Jesus' point is that
the primary consideration is a proper foundation. A house built directly on the sand
will never survive a storm: it needs to be built on solid rock. And for people who
want to "have life abundantly" (John 10:10) and later enter heaven (Matthew 7:21),
the proper foundation is belief in Jesus, repentance and a determination to "do the
will of God". The other parable, that of the Sower, is an extension of the first. Matthew 13 gives
both the parable and Jesus' explanation: The parable itself [13:4-8]
Jesus' explanation [13:19-23] 1. Some seeds fell along the
When any one hears the word of path and the birds came
the kingdom and does not under- and devoured them.
stand it, the evil one comes ... 2. Other seeds fell on rocky
[Another] hears the word and ground, where they had not
immediately receives it with joy; much soil ... when the sun
yet he has no root in himself, but rose they were scorched;
endures for a while; and when and since they had no root,
tribulation or persecution arises on they withered away.
account of the word ... 3. Other seeds fell upon thorns,
[Another] hears the word, but the and the thorns grew up and
cares of the world and the delight choked them.
in riches choke the word ... 4. Other seeds fell on good
[Another] hears the word, under- soil and brought forth grain.
stands it and bears fruit. Of the four types of people here, the second equates to the foolish man in Matthew
7:24-27 who builds his house on the sand: with no foundation of belief and
repentance. And the third type of person here represents a man who wisely builds
his house upon the rock but then makes the mistake of not keeping it properly
maintained. A man who never learns to love, trust and obey God - and to love his
enemies and to forgive and not judge others - and ends up with his faith crumbling
from within. The third answer to the question stemming from Matthew 7:21-23 is given in
Matthew 7:12-14: Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets. Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Jesus' first point here is that while "Love the Lord your God with all your heart"
(Deuteronomy 6:5) is the greatest commandment in the Old Testament (Matthew
22:35-38), all its other commandments - including "Love your neighbour as
yourself" (Leviticus 19:18) - are summed up by the rule, "Whatever you wish that
men would do to you, do so to them". Jesus' second point is that, for the Christian, there is a wide gate and a narrow gate.
The wide gate is the worldly one of "Do not do to others what you would not want
them to do to you" and will never enable the Christian to reach the level of concern
for others that Jesus demands in Matthew 25:35-40 (I was hungry and you gave me
food ...). The narrow gate is the one Jesus wants us to enter, one whereby we "Do
for others what we would want them to do for us if we were in their position". The fourth answer to the question stemming from Matthew 7:21-23 is contained in
a number of Jesus' other statements in the "Sermon on the Mount" (Matthew 5-7),
many of them with a fairly hard edge. The hardest-edged things of all in the Sermon on the Mount are Jesus' so-called
"hard sayings" where he comments on the 6th-8th Commandments and explains
how we all break all of them at some points in our lives: [6th Commandment. You shall not kill]: Every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment ... whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be liable to the hell of fire (Matthew 5:22). [7th Commandment. You shall not commit adultery]: Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell (Matthew 5:28-29). [8th Commandment. You shall not steal]: Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you (Matthew 5:42). These sayings are strikingly different to anything outside the Gospels and there are
three ways of regarding them. We can take them literally. Or we can see them as
ideals which we can aspire to but never achieve in practice. Or, and most sensibly,
we can see them as a mix of logic (it is better to enter heaven with one eye),
common sense (we should avoid slippery slopes like gaping at women) and
command (as in the case of Matthew 5:42, Give to him who begs from you ...). Everyone recognizes that we should not take Matthew 5:29 literally: If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away. But if our problem is a roving eye then we must do what might seem to be equally
unthinkable, such as resigning from our job in order to get away from a particular
source of temptation. And Jesus clearly meant us to take literally both Matthew 5:42 (Give to him who
begs from you) and his preceding words in Matthew 5:39-41: Do not resist one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well ... "Turning the other cheek" is the sensible thing to do if we are victims of crime,
unless our loved ones are in immediate danger and we know something about selfdefence; under normal circumstances we should rely on brain rather than brawn. Believing, repenting and learning to love, trust and obey God Jesus' message can be summed up as believing, repenting and learning to love,
trust and obey God. So I shall deal with each in turn. Believing I mentioned earlier John 6:28-29, where Jesus says that "the work of God is that
you believe in him whom he has sent". We can tie this in with what Jesus says later
in John 14:6: I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. We need to be clear, however, about what Jesus is saying here. The best and only
means of coming really close to God in this life is by believing in Jesus. Without
Jesus, the gate and the way of Matthew 7:13-14 become even narrower and harder.
But Jesus never said that God would exclude from heaven even those who "love
God with all their heart", repent of all their sins and obey the rule "Whatever you
wish that men would do to you, do so to them", simply because they have never
believed in Jesus. John 3:18 ("He who does not believe is condemned already") is a
comment by the author of John, not a statement by Jesus. The purpose of Christian mission is to help people to believe in Jesus and to guide
them on their way to heaven. But it is not enough just to believe in Jesus and, as
we shall see later on in this chapter, many Christians today are putting their
salvation at risk by disobeying some key commands in the Sermon on the Mount.
And even though God has given his signature to Acts 4:12 ("there is no other name
under heaven given among men by which we must be saved"), it will ultimately be
God, not us, who decides whom he will eventually accept into his home. Repenting Jesus laid just as much stress on repenting as on believing: Matthew 4:17: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Luke 13:3: Unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Repentance is not just a case of saying sorry to God and to the person we sinned
against. Just as important is our striving in future to "do to others what we would
have them do to us" (Matthew 7:12). But the special encouragement that Jesus
gives us here (in the parable of the Wicked Tenants, see Chapter 5) is that God
urges sinners time and again to turn to him in repentance and always forgives those
who do so sincerely. Learning to love, trust and obey God One of Jesus' loveliest sayings is Matthew 11:28-30: Come unto me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Jesus is saying two things here. First, that we need to learn to love, trust and obey
God. And second, that obeying God is not at all a matter of our being subjected to
a crushing burden of rules and regulations. Indeed we can note that these points
also emerge from the Adam and Eve parable which, although primarily about
repenting, is also in part about the need to love, trust and obey God. Adam and Eve
saw God as an imposer of rules and a punisher of sins rather than a loving Father.
So they did not love him and this made it impossible for them to trust him and to
obey him. Something which Jesus himself made clear in John 14:15 when saying,
"If you love me, you will keep my commandments". Apart from one point which I come to next, I shall leave the rest of what Jesus says
about loving, trusting and obeying God until Chapters 24-25. Safeguarding our prospect of entering heaven Returning to the subject of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, we need to
look finally at three commands which all Christians must obey if they are to
safeguard their prospect of entering heaven. First, Matthew 5:44-46 reads as follows: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love [only] those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? There are three reasons why we should love our enemies. First, because common
sense tells us that holding on to hatreds serves no useful purpose and that sooner or
later we may get ourselves into trouble by saying or doing something which
breaches the law. Second, because we risk poisoning the minds of the next
generation. Third, because if we persist in hating our enemies then God will be
obliged to exclude us from heaven: so as not to spoil it for those of our enemies
who will be there! Second, Matthew 6:14-15 reads as follows: If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. There are four reasons for forgiving others, regardless of whether or not they seek
our forgiveness. First, because every one of us has at some time been forgiven by
someone else. Second, because holding on to our unforgiveness will take a
growing toll on our health and mind. Third, and especially for Christians, because
if we do not forgive others then God will draw the conclusion that we are not at all
grateful for his forgiveness and that our repentance was never real in the first place
(Matthew 18:23-35), which will oblige him to exclude us from heaven. And fourth,
because whatever terrible thing was done to us is (in Jesus' analogy in Luke 7:4142) a "bad debt". We are probably never going to be "repaid" and so the wise thing
to do is to "write it off", just as a bank would. Indeed this is part of the point Jesus
makes in Luke 16:8 when he says: The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their generation than the sons of light. Third, Matthew 7:1-2 reads as follows: Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Many Christians disobey Jesus' command not to judge others, perhaps in part
because they confuse it with what Jesus says in Matthew 18:15-17: If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. Of course we have to do something about blatant misbehaviour on the part of
fellow church-members, although even then we must do so in a way that gives
them every opportunity to repent: in exactly the same way that God treats us. But
judging people outside the Church is something that Jesus expressly forbids and I
shall come back to it in Chapter 25. The Christian Message I suggested at the start of this chapter that some Christians, seeing God and the
Bible in the wrong light, miss some key elements of the Christian message. I had in
mind particularly the way that some people treat passages about a harsh punishing
God as literally true rather than as parable. But of course the Christian message is
not confined to the message of Jesus, and I close this chapter with a few examples
where other Bible passages very helpfully supplement what Jesus said. James 2:14-17 is especially important because it serves as a bridge between what
Jesus and Paul said on the question of faith. In Ephesians 2:8-9 Paul emphasized the pre-eminence of faith in salvation: By grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God - not because of works, lest any man should boast. James 2:14-17 helpfully approaches matters from the opposite direction and,
without in any way contradicting Paul, stresses the need for "works" (things done
in furtherance of Jesus' words in Matthew 7:12) as well: What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works ... If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled", without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. 1 John 1:8-9 similarly supplements what Jesus said about repentance: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Two points emerge here. First, many Christians do sin - often quite deliberately subsequent to conversion. And second, it is wrong to suppose either that these sins
are already "covered" by the repentance made at the time of conversion or (as
Hebrews 10:26-27 suggests) that they cannot be forgiven. God chases after
Christian sinners and non-Christian sinners alike, offering forgiveness in return for
repentance. Finally, on the question of our learning to love, trust and obey God, we find
illustrations throughout the Bible. Negative examples include the Adam and Eve
story (as mentioned above), the misbehaviour during the "wandering in the
wilderness" and the Christians whom Paul criticizes in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 as still
being "babes in Christ". But there are positive examples too, ranging from
Abraham and Moses in the Old Testament to the many fine examples of Christians
in the New. Provided we adopt the right approach to the Bible, the Christian
message is the message of Jesus, neatly sandwiched between a prologue about how
the Jews and their ancestors did their best to understand God before Jesus came
and an epilogue about how the Church spent the first few decades after his death
getting to grips with the message and the legacy that he left behind. PART VII FACING UP TO THE CHALLENGES OF THE 21ST CENTURY Chapter 23 Defending the Christian Message Two of the main challenges facing the Church in the 21st century will continue to
be those of defending and explaining the Christian message. Defending the
message when confronted by atheists, whom we can liken to the Sadducees who
asked Jesus whose wife, in the next life, would be the woman who married seven
brothers in turn (Matthew 22). And explaining the message to people who, like the
man in Matthew 19, have sincere questions to which they want honest answers. I
shall deal in this chapter with the question of defending the Christian message. Defending the Christian message when confronted by atheists How do Christians respond to atheist doubts? Usually they either reply "God's
word says ..." or use a form of logic seldom convincing to people who think for
themselves. I begin, then, by suggesting an alternative approach which, although
perhaps stretching the envelope of orthodoxy, would certainly have worked better
with me when I was an atheist. Atheists have three main doubts. First, they doubt God's very existence. Second, in
relation to Genesis 1, they question the idea that God created the entire universe
and everything in it, including mankind, over a period of a mere six days. And
third, in relation to Genesis 2, they question the idea that God created the very first
man out of the dust of the ground. God All Christians believe in God. Indeed, with every creed, confession and catechism
stating clearly that Jesus was and is the Son of God, it would be impossible to be a
Christian and not believe in God. This said, however, not all Christians share the same picture of God. Some see him
above all as the Creator of the universe, a God now living way beyond our galaxy.
Others see him above all as a personal God, the one now living inside their hearts.
And many Christians try to have it both ways, giving the two very different
pictures equal weight. Christians also differ over the character they ascribe to God. Some see him as
loving Father who forgives them when they confess their sins to him and who
comforts them and gives them good advice when they take their problems to him
in prayer. Other Christians, however, regarding themselves as now saved and
guaranteed places in heaven, see God as a harsh judge who punishes the wicked in
this life and who will take further revenge on the finally unrepentant when they
eventually appear before his throne and are sentenced to eternal punishment in hell. Atheists are understandably offended and amused at the same time by all of this.
Offended by the implication that they are foremost among "the wicked". And
amused at the way Christians seemingly cannot decide whether God is "up there"
or "down here". For the atheist, Christian belief in God is like a child's belief in Father Christmas.
There is the Santa Claus the child meets in a department store. And there is the
unseen Santa Claus who, despite living at the North Pole, supposedly singlehandedly delivers every child's presents all over the globe in the early hours of 25
December. Children eventually see the nonsense in this, yet Christians still talk
about a God who is either in two places at the same time or able to communicate
with them from billions of miles away without any sort of "time delay" in the
conversation. Atheists are, moreover, shocked at the way the God of the Old Testament orders
his "chosen people" to carry out a thorough ethnic cleansing as they march into the
"promised land". And they are further shocked by the idea that the God of the New
Testament intends to bring the world to a equally bloody end when he sends Jesus
back in his vengeful "second coming". Who, they ask, would want to believe in
such an awful God? And this is even before they get on to the question of Creation. I gave in Chapters 19 and 21 respectively my answers regarding the account of the
ethnic cleansing in the Book of Joshua and the account of Jesus' second coming in
Revelation. And I shall give a full answer at the end of this chapter to the question
of whether God is "up there" or "down here". Accordingly, I shall devote the rest
of this chapter to the atheists' doubts about what is said in Genesis 1 and in the
Adam and Eve story. God's role as Creator of the universe Many Christians, convinced that the universe came about as a result of "intelligent
design" and was created exactly within the timescale set out in Genesis 1, reject
what science tells us about the origins of the universe and are unaware of what
Augustine tells us about time. Science tells us categorically that that Creation did not happen literally over a sixday period. Instead, science makes it clear that the universe (and time itself) began
with a big bang 13.7 billion years ago. Augustine did not have the benefits of modern science but, as mentioned in
Chapter 11, he deduced from reason "that time was a property of the universe that
God created, and that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe". He
also suggested that, as Keith Ward puts it in Christianity: A Short Introduction: God, as the creator of time, is beyond the limitations of time. God exists 'eternally' - that is, not in time as we understand it at all. It is from that timeless eternity that God creates the whole space-time universe.
[Keith Ward, Christianity: A Short Introduction, p. 10] Atheists, for example Richard Dawkins in his book The God Delusion, take up
science's point that time began at the moment of the big bang but discount
Augustine's suggestion that God is "beyond the limitations of time". So they argue
that, even if there is a God, he could never have brought about the big bang
because that would have required massive intelligence and intelligent beings take
time to evolve. Atheists therefore reject the view of many Christians that the perfection of the
universe (and, for example, our planet's location and orbit) is due to "intelligent
design". Instead, atheists point to the "anthropic principle" of science as providing
a far better approach to matters. I am not a scientist and although we will return to the anthropic principle later,
when looking at what atheists say about the origins of life on earth, I shall for the
moment make only four comments on Genesis 1. First, the six-days Creation account was brought into Genesis from the source
document P, itself written in the 6th century B.C. in Babylon. This makes it likely
that the account was written as a rebuff to the Babylonian myths which the Jews
came across when they arrived in Babylon in 587 B.C. at the start of their exile. Second, Genesis 1 sets out what is in several ways a remarkably accurate
thumbnail sketch of the origins of the world. The account of our planet's gradual
emergence from darkness and lifelessness ties in well with the picture from
science, as does the order in which creatures emerge. Third, the "intelligent design" view held by many Christians clearly does overstate
the case. As I noted in Chapter 13, Rick Warren's idea that "The universe ... is
uniquely suited for our existence, custom-made with the exact specifications that
make human life possible" ignores everything that science has taught us about how
environmental changes led to the emergence of Homo sapiens. Fourth, however, this does not mean that the atheists are right to treat Genesis 1 as
nonsense. The God I know is the God within the spiritual dimension, the God who
touched my heart at the moment of my conversion. For me the question is not,
"Did that same God create the entire universe 13.7 billion years ago?", but "What
does Genesis 1 mean when it says that God created 'the heavens and the earth'?" My answer to that last question is that Genesis 1 carries the signature of God and
so we return to the same question as with Genesis 2-3: Did its author intend it to be
read as literally true? And my response to the atheist views noted above is to make
two further points about Genesis 1. First, and regardless of who wrote Genesis 1, the fact is that it was written for
people who believed that the world had been created a mere 3,500 or so years
earlier. And given that the Adam and Eve story was never intended to be seen as
literally true (even if God was the author, he too would have wanted it to be read as
a parable), there is no reason to assume that Genesis 1 should be treated as literal
truth. Second, and having accepted that Genesis 2-3 is a parable, we can now read
Genesis 1 in isolation and recognize that the events of the so-called "sixth day"
divide into two parts: 1.
God's creation of the animals in Genesis 1:24-25, which will have included the apes, the earlier species in the Homo genus and finally Homo sapiens. 2. God's subsequent creation of "man, male and female" in Genesis 1:26-27 by implanting Homo sapiens with God's image, specifically giving them intellect and souls. The latter is the key event in Genesis 1 and is, for all practical purposes, the only
one that really matters. It was this event which, for the first time, opened people's
eyes to their surroundings. Only then did they really see the sun, moon and stars.
And only then, for better or for worse, did they see the possibilities for subduing
and changing the world. So, with all the above as background to be drawn on carefully if needed, what
would I actually say to an atheist who asks confrontational questions about God's
role in the creation of the universe? First, I would draw a sharp line between Genesis 1 and the Adam and Eve story in
Genesis 2-3, emphasizing that the latter is a parable. Second, I would point out that most Christians recognize that the "six days" of
Genesis 1 do not mean literally 144 hours. Third, I would say that Genesis 1 does not pretend to give a precisely accurate
account of how the universe and our planet came into being. The purpose of the
rough thumbnail sketch of events which it gives was partly to combat the "creation
myths" of the Babylonians and others and partly to make some important points
about God himself. On that last point I would explain that the Babylonians invested an enormous
amount of effort in studying the movement of the sun, the moon and the stars (they
saw the planets as "moving stars"), believing this to affect events on our planet.
The Jewish priests who wrote Genesis 1 in Babylon in the 6th century B.C. were
saying, above all, that this "astrology" was a total waste of time. We are here
because God has put us here and all the things we have are gifts from God: if he
had not planted his image within us we would not even know that we have them.
Stars cannot speak to us, only God can. And his absolute superiority over the stars
can be expressed by saying that God was there before them. Finally, I would say something about what Genesis 1:1 means when it says that
"God created the heavens and the earth" and about what the Gospels mean when
they say things like the following: John 1:10: He was in the world [Greek kosmos], and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. John 17:5: And now, Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world [kosmos] was made. Given that the Hebrew of Genesis uses the same word for heaven and sky, I would
explain that Genesis 1:1 is talking about the earth (thought to be flat) and the sky
(thought to extend a few thousand feet above the earth). So Genesis 1:1 is not
talking about the origins of the universe and there is no reason for anyone to
associate God with the "big bang". And when the Gospels use the term the world (kosmos), they do not even mean
earth and sky. Instead, as the Illustrated Bible Dictionary explains: The Greek word kosmos means by derivation ... the universe ... But, because mankind is the most important part of the universe, the word kosmos is more often used in the limited sense of human beings ... It is into this 'world' that men are born, and in it they live till they die (John 16:21). It was all the kingdoms of this world that the devil offered to give to Christ if he would worship him (Matthew 4:8-9). It was this world, the world of men and women, of flesh and blood, that God loved (John 3:16), and into which Jesus came when he was born of a human mother (John 11:27). [Illustrated Bible Dictionary, p. 1655] So I would further explain that when the Gospels talk about the creation of "the
world", as in John 1:10 and John 17:5 above, they too are in fact referring to the
creation of the world of men and women rather than to the creation of the universe.
And I would add that this takes us back to the same point as before. What makes us
"us" is the fact that God has implanted souls in each of us. And that process is one
which began when God started implanting souls into the (already existing) Homo
sapiens. I realize that I am contradicting Keith Ward's view that "All Christians believe that
God created the universe" (Chapter 15). But the Bible does not say this. And if I
seem to be bringing God "down to earth", then let us not forget that that is
precisely where he is: a nanometre away from the point where the spiritual
dimension intersects with the four space-time dimensions deep inside our minds.
More on this in a moment. God's role in the origins of today's living creatures Turning now to atheist doubts about God's role in the origins of today's living
creatures, we need to consider two things. First, what atheists say on evolution.
And second, what they say about the origins of life itself. Evolution Many Christians insist that God created all living things exactly as they are today.
They see only two possible explanations, chance and design, for the amazing
intricacy of every living creature. And they very sensibly reject the idea that
chance could have been responsible for such intricacy. Atheists reply by saying that, of course, chance cannot explain matters. But they
also reject the idea of design and suggest that there is in fact a third and infinitely
better explanation: evolution. On the basis of what I said about evolution in Chapters 10 and 11, I would make
three responses to the atheists' views here. First, that I accept what science tells us about the emergence of Homo sapiens from
within an earlier Homo species, so I too rule out the idea that the very first man
was created literally out of the dust of the ground. But I would add the point
alluded to above and in Chapter 2 that Homo sapiens did not become "us" until
God created us in his image. Second, and while I share some Christian reservations about the exact process of
evolution from very simple life forms, that I also accept the atheists' argument that
an accumulation of many successive small changes is a credible explanation for the
emergence - from earlier life forms - of the wide variety of life forms we see all
around us today. Third, however, that I agree with all Christians that none of this is relevant to the
completely separate question of how life actually began. The origins of life on earth The main questions about the origins of life on earth are what happened at the
moment of the very first spark of life and where it took place. Scientists date this event at around 3.85 billion years ago and Bill Bryson sets out
the problem as follows in A Short History of Nearly Everything: Creating [primitive] amino acids [say, from laboratory chemicals] is not really the problem. The problem is proteins. Proteins are what you get when you string amino acids together ... 200 is a typical number of amino acids for a protein [and] the odds against all 200 coming up in a prescribed sequence are 1 in 10260 ... [Even then] a protein is no good to you if it can't reproduce itself, and proteins can't. For this you need DNA ... [But] proteins can't exist without DNA and DNA has no purpose without proteins. Are we to assume, then, that they arose spontaneously with the purpose of supporting each other? If so: wow. And there is more still. DNA, proteins and the other components of life couldn't prosper without some sort of membrane to contain them ... it is only when they come together within the nurturing refuge of a cell that these diverse materials can take part in the amazing dance that we call life. Without the cell, they are nothing more than interesting chemicals. But without the chemicals, the cell has no purpose. As [Paul] Davies puts it, 'If everything needs everything else, how did the community of molecules ever arise in the first place?' [Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, pp. 253-255] Christians would see this as fully vindicating the Bible's claim that God was the
Creator of every life form and of life itself and they say to anyone who wonders
how life began, "God did it. Read Genesis 1". Atheists reply with three points. First, they fully agree that the chances of all the
proteins etc. coming together is vanishingly small over a period of, say, 24 hours.
But second, they note that for 50 million years or so (between 3.9 and 3.85 billion
years ago) our planet was a mass of chemicals interacting in all sorts of ways, with
no one totally able to rule out the possibility of primitive proteins and DNA having
emerged and then evolved during that long period. And third they say, on the basis
of the anthropic principle, that all the evidence we need for seeing this as a better
explanation than "God did it" is the fact that we are all here today. I would say two things in response to the atheists' last point. First, that the
anthropic principle was developed to deal with issues relating to the nature of the
universe and I query its relevance to the question of how life began on earth. And
second that the argument, "We are all here today, so ..." is the same one that most
Christians use to answer the question of whether Adam and Eve's sons married
their own sisters (see Chapter 13). It explains nothing in either context and
suggests that both parties are approaching their respective questions in the wrong
way. Anyway, life began 3.85 billion years ago. And as Bill Bryson writes: Whatever prompted life to begin, it happened just once. That is the most extraordinary fact in biology, perhaps the most extraordinary fact that we know. Everything that has ever lived, plant or animal, dates its beginnings from the same primordial twitch. [Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, p. 257] As to where life began, science does not yet have the final answer but Bill Bryson
notes that: Bubbling sea vents ... are now the most popular candidates for life's beginnings. [Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, pp. 258-259] So I and probably all other Christians will say: I told you to read Genesis 1 and, if
you had, you would have started your search at the bottom of the sea, especially
given the clear wording of Genesis1:1-2: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the water. Answering the question of whether God is "up there" or "down here" As mentioned above, atheists sometimes ridicule Christians over their inability to
decide whether God is "up there" or "down here". And many sincere questioners
are perplexed over the same point. So let me now expand on what I said about the
spiritual dimension in earlier chapters. The Nicene Creed speaks of God as the maker of "all things visible and invisible"
and David Konstant says in The Faith of the Catholic Church: Apart from the visible universe there is also an invisible world of angels and of human souls separated from the body by death ... A human being is a unity of body and soul. Faith affirms that the soul is created directly by God, and is immortal. [David Konstant, The Faith of the Catholic Church, p. 17] The view throughout the Bible is that, upon death, the soul goes initially to hades
(Hebrew sheol): decisions on final destination come on the day of judgment. So we
can expand the diagram in Chapter 22 as follows:
Early Christians imagined that the heaven in which God lives, and from which
Jesus "came down" (John 6:38), is somewhere high up in the sky. But this view
stemmed from the fact that, in the Greek of John 6:38 and all other relevant New
Testament verses, the word for "heaven" is ouranos, a term meaning both heaven
and sky. Jesus did not, of course, come down from the sky physically: there would
then have been no need for a virgin birth. So Konstant's mention of an "invisible
world" suggests that it was Jesus' soul which came down from heaven and that
heaven itself lies within a totally separate dimension to the physical ones. By the same token Jesus did not, at the time of his ascension into heaven, rise
physically into the sky. Rather, he moved back from the physical dimension to the
spiritual dimension. Bearing in mind that Jesus was a fugitive throughout his post-
resurrection period, it is likely that his final appearance to his disciples took place
either early in the morning or late at night. And that he walked off into either the
morning mist or the darkness of the night. The disciples would have stood there,
watching him go, walking up a steep slope on the Mount of Olives. And given
John 16:7 ("If I do not go away, the Counsellor will not come to you"), the
Pentecost experience which the disciples underwent a few days later would have
convinced them that Jesus had indeed returned to heaven. Let me give three analogies. The first is that of a government minister making an
official visit to a town in the English countryside. We would speak of him as
"coming down" from London; down, that is, to a place of lower political status.
Just as Acts 15:1 speaks of men "coming down" from Judea. So, similarly, Jesus'
"coming down" from heaven meant his having arrived in a place of lower status
than the heaven that is his home. A second analogy is numbers which, whether they be whole numbers or fractions
or decimals, most of us see as one-dimensional: But mathematicians speak also of two-dimensional numbers involving multiples of
"the square root of -1" (represented by the symbol i) and shown pictorially on what
are called "Argand diagrams", for example:
Malcolm Lines explains this in A Number for your Thoughts: These two-dimensional numbers are usually called complex numbers in mathematical texts, and the number 2 + 2i is said to be made up of a 'real part' equal to 2 and an 'imaginary part' equal to 2i. This choice of words is particularly unfortunate since there is nothing in the slightest imaginary about i. [Malcolm Lines, A Number for your Thoughts, p. 181] We can draw a parallel between the "invisibility" for most people of this second
dimension of numbers and the "invisible world ... of souls". Finally, a third analogy is string theory. Here scientists work with 10 or 11
dimensions, most of them "curved up into a space of very small size" [Stephen
Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 163]. Christians may feel that heaven must be
enormous, but let us remember that Jesus himself in Matthew 13:31 compared the
kingdom of heaven with "a mustard seed". Chapter 24 Explaining the Christian Message We turn now to the Church's second main 21st century challenge, that of
explaining the Christian message to sincere questioners. And I begin by quoting
Matthew 19:16-22: And behold, one came up to him, saying, "Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?" And he said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments." He said to him, "Which?" And Jesus said, "You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honour your father and mother, and You shall love your neighbour as yourself." The young man said to him, "All these I have observed; what do I still lack?" Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions. And Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." Jesus' initial answer to the young man's question comes as a surprise to us today.
He does not tell the man to believe in him, or even to repent. He simply tells him to
obey the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 and the Leviticus 19:18 rule, Love
your neighbour as yourself. It is only when the man presses the point that Jesus
tells him to give everything away and follow him. Moreover, we should not
assume that Jesus' initial reply was designed as a "lead-in" for him to invite the
man to become a disciple. The encounter came late in Jesus' ministry by which
time he already had all the disciples he needed (Luke 6:13; Mark 5:18-20). And so the final part of Jesus' answer also comes as a surprise. We might have
expected Jesus, when hearing that the man had lived a godly life thus far, to have
said, "If you would be perfect, believe in me" or "Keep on obeying all these
commandments!" Perhaps Jesus realized that the man was too attached to his
wealth ever to believe in him and that his possessions would eventually turn him
into the Rich Fool of Luke 12. But the thing we learn from this passage is that not all non-churchgoers are bent on
ridiculing the Bible. Many of them lead lives which put some Christians to shame
and many of them have sincere questions to which, when they put them to us, we
need to give honest, thoughtful answers. Explaining the Christian message to sincere questioners 1 Peter 3:15 gives helpful guidance on this very point: Always be prepared to make a defence to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Rick Warren, in his book The Purpose-Driven Life, says that the best way to "be
prepared to account for the hope that is in us" is as follows: Write out your testimony and then memorize the main points. Divide it into four parts: 1. What my life was like before I met Jesus 2. How I realized I needed Jesus 3. How I committed my life to Jesus 4. The difference Jesus has made in my life. Of course, you have many other testimonies besides your salvation story. You have a story for every experience in which God has helped you. You should make a list of all the problems, circumstances and crises that God has brought you through. [Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life, p. 291] I agree with all this but, in the case of some people at least, asking about the hope
that is in us will then lead on to perfectly sincere questions about our faith, about
how we reconcile some of the stranger things in the Bible with scientific
knowledge and with common sense. And I think that 1 Peter 3:15 is telling us to
"be prepared" with answers here as well. Explaining our hope and faith in the context of 1 Peter 3:15 My own prepared (and memorized) account of the hope and faith that is in me is as
follows: God does not promise us life-long happiness. What he does promise us is "having life abundantly" (John 10:10) which I understand to mean two things. On the one hand, a God-given new way of looking at life's problems. And on the other hand, the answer to the question, "What is the meaning of life?" What, then, is the meaning of life? As I see it, we are here because God has put us here. "We" meaning the spiritual element which God has planted in each of us and through which he now seeks to draw us to himself. God reaches out to us in two ways. Through the Christian message brought by his Son Jesus. And with his own direct overtures, whereby he offers help and comfort when we go through times of pain and misfortune, and he pricks our consciences and offers us forgiveness after we sin against others. From God's perspective, our present lives are designed to prepare us for eventual acceptance into heaven by giving us every opportunity, both through his own direct overtures and through whatever access we may have to the Christian message, to believe and repent and to learn to love, trust and obey God. In other words, if we want to "have life abundantly" on this earth and to enter heaven at the time of the resurrection of the dead, then we need to ... What I say after that will depend on what I see as the things which the particular
person questioning me (and anyone else listening to the conversation) most needs
to hear, whether about believing, repenting or learning to love, trust and obey God. Faith If I feel that the person questioning me most needs to hear about my faith, about
what and why I believe, then I will start with my testimony: In 1979 I made a bad mistake at a hostage-taking which almost got a colleague shot. This, added to existing problems, made me very depressed and feeling totally lost. Late one night, however, the thought came unexpectedly into my mind to "ask God for help". So, even though an atheist, I offered God a deal: if he would help me then I would follow him forever. The next day I went to the office, taking with me John Stott's book Basic Christianity which a friend had given to me years earlier but I had never opened. After the morning meeting I locked myself in my office and started to read. My initial reaction was that I could never believe this stuff, especially when it started to talk about sin (a police officer, I saw myself as one of the good guys). But I noticed a chapter on the evidence for Jesus' resurrection, so I thought I should at least read that. And when it came to the verse in John 20 about the disciples seeing the graveclothes in the tomb and instantly believing, then I believed too: in God, in Jesus and in the resurrection. And God soon helped me to see my problems in a much more positive light. Should I sense that I need to say more about faith, then I will mention some of the
things I said about God in Chapter 2, as well as some of the things I said about
Jesus in Chapters 5 and 20. And if the person talking to me raises doubts about the
Adam and Eve story then I will say that it is a parable, similar to those of Jesus,
and is not to be read as literally true. Repentance If repentance, rather than faith, seems to be key issue, then I will ask whether the
person questioning me is familiar with the Adam and Eve story. The answer will of
course be "Yes", whereupon I will ask what he or she sees as having been Adam
and Eve's biggest mistake. And this will then probably enable me to say that the
couple's real mistake was their failure to repent when God gave them the
opportunity to do so. I will then say that when people sin God is sad, not angry: sad both for the sinnedagainst and for the sinners. Sad because of the suffering of the injured parties; and
sad because the sinners may never repent, thus denying themselves all hope of
heaven. And I shall close by saying that all of us have hurt someone else at some
time and that repentance calls simply for three things. First, confessing matters to
God and seeking his forgiveness. Second, resolving in future to "do unto others as
we would want them to do to us" (Matthew 7:12). And third, if the opportunity is
still there, to apologize to - and compensate - the person we hurt. Loving God If my questioner's picture of God is the key issue then I will say that God is not at
all the fearsome person he is sometimes made out to be. I will stress that God loves
us and that what he really wants is for us to love him. I will quote Jesus' words in
Matthew 22:37, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart", noting that
when saying this Jesus was himself quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 in the Old
Testament. And, if appropriate, I will add one or two other things mentioned in
Chapter 20. Should the person talking to me raise the question of the way God punished Adam
and Eve then I will stress that Genesis 2-3 is a parable, not intended to be read as
literally true. But I will add that God's telling the couple not to eat the fruit was for
their own good and that their eating it was because they did not love God nearly as
much as he loved them. Trusting God If I sense that trusting God is the key issue, then I will make three points. First, that
we can trust that God will forgive us if we repent of our past failings. Second that,
if we take our problems to God in prayer, then he will comfort us and give us a
new way of looking at matters, often including advice on how to overcome the
problems. And third that, if we do love him and obey him, then he will eventually
accept us into heaven at the time of the resurrection of the dead. Obeying God Finally, if my questioner's main concern seems to be that of the need to obey all
God's "tiresome" rules, then I will say that there are not that many rules and that all
the most important ones were framed for our own benefit. I will add that, with
some of the rules in the Old Testament apparently laid down by human judges
rather than by God himself, the Christian looks primarily at what Jesus says in the
Gospels and, above all, in the useful check-list in the Sermon on the Mount in
Matthew 5-7. On the Ten Commandments, I will say that Jesus reiterates them in Matthew 5 and
elsewhere, stressing that the spirit and the letter of these commandments are
equally important. Thus being angry with someone already breaches the 6th
commandment (You shall not kill), looking lustfully at another woman already
breaches the 7th commandment (You shall not commit adultery) and refusing a
loan we can afford to give to a needy person breaches the 8th commandment (You
shall not steal). Even the Church admits that these are "hard sayings" but no one
can deny that they set before us an ideal which is certainly worth trying to live up
to. But I will also say that there are other rules elsewhere in Matthew 5-7 which are in
no way hard sayings and which we should definitely obey. Rules like "Do unto
others as you would want them to do to you" (Matthew 7:12) and three commands
which, Christians or otherwise, we really do ignore at our peril. First, love your
enemies (Matthew 5:44-46). Second, forgive others (Matthew 6:14-15). And third,
do not judge others (Matthew 7:1-2). Even common sense tells us that hanging on
to hatred and unforgiveness serves no useful purpose and damages our physical
and mental health. And Jesus adds to this the further point that disobeying any of
these commands will see us excluded from heaven. If the person talking to me raises the question of the Adam and Eve story then I
will say that the story is a parable. But I will add that, even if it is read as literally
true, the couple had so many other things to eat that the rule not to eat the
forbidden fruit was surely the "easiest saying" of all. An evangelical approach to explaining the Christian message I cannot leave this subject without saying something about the approach which
evangelical Christians take here; after all, I became a Christian largely through
reading John Stott's book Basic Christianity. The opening chapter of Stott's book is entitled "The Right Approach" and makes
the point that "God is seeking us and we must seek him". And Stott's advice to
anyone who comes with sincere questions is that we must seek God "diligently,
humbly, honestly and obediently". He writes: Be open to the possibility that ... Christ may in fact be true. And if you want to be a humble, honest, obedient seeker after God, come to the book which claims to be his revelation. Come particularly to the Gospels which tell the story of Jesus Christ. Give him a chance to confront you with himself and to authenticate himself to you. Come with the full consent of your mind and will, ready to believe and obey if God brings conviction to you. Why not read through the Gospel of Mark, or John? ... You could read either through at a sitting (preferably in a modern translation), to let it make its total impact on you. Then you could re-read it slowly, a chapter a day. Before you read, pray - perhaps something like this: 'God, if you exist (and I don't know if you do), and if you can hear this prayer (and I don't know if you can), I want to tell you that I am an honest seeker after the truth. Show me if Jesus is your Son and the Saviour of the world. And if you bring conviction to my mind, I will trust him as my Saviour and follow him as my Lord.' No-one can pray such a prayer and be disappointed. God is no man's debtor. He honours all honest search. He rewards all honest seekers. Christ's promise is plain: 'Seek and you will find.' [John Stott, Basic Christianity, p. 19] This approach is clearly tried and tested and I make only two comments. First, Stott suggests that the main obstacles to a person's seeking God are
"intellectual prejudice and moral self-will". He writes: We know that to find God and to accept Jesus Christ would be a very inconvenient experience. It would involve the rethinking of our whole outlook on life and the readjustment of our whole manner of life. And it is a combination of intellectual and moral cowardice which makes us hesitate. [John Stott, Basic Christianity, p. 18] But in my experience, misconceptions about the Adam and Eve story and above all
its apparent picture of a harsh and unfair God are also often a factor, especially
with people unfamiliar with anything else in the Bible. And these misconceptions
need to be corrected before these people are going to sit down and wade their way
through either Mark or John. Second, finding God and accepting Jesus is only the start of a long journey. And
some Christians (the subject of the next chapter) become "lost sheep" along the
way. Not physically lost - they are in church every Sunday - but lost because, after
reading Mark and John, they then read Genesis and fall foul of their own sets of
misconceptions about the Adam and Eve story and about our wonderful loving and
forgiving God. Chapter 25 Getting the Adam and Eve Message out to Christians The next challenge facing the Church in the 21st century is getting the true
message of the Adam and Eve story out to Christians. Of course there are risks in
quickly embracing new ideas about any passage in the Bible. But the Adam and
Eve story is not just "any" passage. It is one of few passages in the Bible with
which every Christian, young or old, is fully familiar and is certainly the passage
from which most Christians draw their abiding picture of God. In this chapter I shall therefore look first at two groups of Christians who have
developed completely the wrong picture of God, mainly through reading the Adam
and Eve story as literally true. Then, I shall look at how Sunday schools teach the
story to young children. And finally I shall look at the role that Bibles can and do
play in influencing thinking about the story, for worse at present but hopefully for
better in the future. Christians with completely the wrong picture of God Most Christians know that God has called them and has taught them to love and
trust him. They know that occasional twinges of conscience are God-given
reminders that he really does want them to live up to his standards. They know that
misfortunes, even those coincidentally following their having sinned, are not
punishments from God but are merely hazards of life and "the crosses they have to
bear". And they obey the various rules laid down in the Ten Commandments
mainly because they would never dream of breaking them. But some Christians are very different from this and there are two types of
Christians who badly need to know the truth about the Adam and Eve story and to
be "put straight" about their picture of God. First, those who fear God because of
what they read about him in the story. And second, those who revel in a God who
supposedly "punishes the wicked". Christians who fear God The first group of Christians are those who have a real problem with loving and
trusting God because they fear him. In saying in Matthew 22:37, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart", Jesus was quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 which itself stands in contrast with
Deuteronomy 5:29 where God supposedly wishes his people "would fear me and
keep all my commandments". In effect, then, Jesus was commenting on - and
indeed rejecting - the Deuteronomy idea that God wants his people both to fear
him and to love him. And here lies the reason why we need to learn to love God. Early on in our
Christian life, when we are only too happy to believe whatever the Church teaches
us, we readily accept the Old Testament idea that God really is to be loved and
feared. Even though, as the verse 1 John 4:18 (Perfect love casts out fear) serves
only to underline, it is in fact impossible to love and fear anyone at the same time. So learning to love God means coming to realize two things. First, that the Old
Testament idea of a God to be loved and feared is wrong. And second, that Jesus'
picture of God in the Gospels is the correct one: that of an exclusively loving
Father God who simply wants us to love him. A further problem for these particular Christians is that some of them are misled by
Hebrews 10:26-27: If we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries. At the start of our Christian life we imagine that we will never again have to go to
God in repentance. And if we sin after conversion, we may be afraid that we will
not get a "second chance" from God. But the truth, given that "the flesh is weak" (Matthew 26:41), is that most if not all
Christians sin after conversion. And that, as 1 John 1:8-9 says: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It may be hard to admit to God and to ourselves that we have failed to change our
ways since the time we first recognized our sinfulness and that we have let him
down badly. So if this further repentance is sincere then we will probably shed
even more tears than when we first confessed our sins. But we have Jesus' words in
Luke 15:7 to encourage us: There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance. On the question of learning to trust God, we need to make the most of two
promises which Jesus brought. First, freedom from fear and anxiety: Matthew 6:25-33: Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on ... Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well. John 14:27: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. And second, the promise of help and comfort in times of difficulty: Matthew 7:7: Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. Matthew 11:28: Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. If we do not ask for God's help, we cannot expect anything from him. But if we do
ask - if we take our problems to him in prayer - then we can trust God to respond in
one of two ways: either taking the problems away entirely or, at the very least,
making them a lot easier to live with by comforting us and by giving us a new way
of looking at matters. Yet even a minor problem can shake some Christians' trust in God. At the start of
our Christian life we imagine that God will immediately take away any
misfortunes that may come along. And if, later, we have a sudden problem and
urgent prayer fails to "move the mountain", we may begin to doubt that God
answers prayers. Or we may think that our faith is not strong enough to "move"
God. Or we may imagine, in line with what Rick Warren said in Chapter 13, that
the problem has been caused or "allowed" by God to test us. In fact, however,
misfortunes are simply a hazard of life which we all have to face sooner or later.
So the issue of trust is really one of what we expect from God. Jesus does not
promise us trouble-free lives and we cannot expect God to shield us from all
misfortunes: no one can expect to avoid eventual death! So what do these Christians need to be told about the Adam and Eve story? Three
things seem particularly important. First, that the story is a parable, on a par with those of Jesus, and so is not literally
true. The point of the story is not that we should fear God, but that we should, for
our own good, pay close attention to what he says to us both in the Bible and in
any advice he gives us when we pray to him. Second, that the story also makes the point that, while God will always forgive our
sins if we eventually repent sincerely (1 John 1:8-9), it makes good sense to
confess every sin to God at the earliest opportunity. Third that, with the Adam and Eve story now properly understood, the way
becomes open to reading the entire Bible in the light of the much more positive
picture of God which Jesus gives in the Gospels, namely that of a loving and
forgiving Father God. Christians who revel in a God who supposedly "punishes the wicked" There is also a second group of Christians who need to be "put straight" in relation
to their understanding of God. Typically, these people see themselves as
guaranteed places in heaven, view the Adam and Eve story as literally true in every
respect and revel in the picture of God punishing "the wicked" which this
viewpoint encourages. They ignore the advice in 1 Peter 3:15 to "account for the
hope that is in you ... with gentleness and reverence". And they endanger their own
salvation in two ways. First, these Christians often imagine that their initial repentance, at the time of their
conversion has covered them for life: that their subsequent misdeeds are not
"deliberate sins" (in terms of Hebrews 10:26-27 above) and so are automatically
forgiven with no need for further repentance. And as a result they block out all
God's efforts to prick their consciences and these misdeeds go unconfessed and
unforgiven. Second, many of these Christians disobey Jesus' command not to judge others and
defend doing so in two ways. They say that the Bible is full of people - priests,
prophets and apostles - who went around condemning people for their sins; and
that they are following their examples. And they say that they are obeying the
command to be the salt and light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16): that they are
simply educating society in what God sets out in the Bible as being the correct way
to lead godly lives. Jesus' reply to all of this is his parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in
Luke 18:9-14, where he warns of the danger of "trusting in one's own
righteousness and despising others". And this is precisely the message which the
Church needs to get across to these Christians today. So what do these Christians need to be told about the Adam and Eve story? Here
two things seem important. First, that the story is a parable, on a par with those of Jesus, and so is not literally
true. Accordingly, it is totally wrong for them to revel in the idea of a harsh
punishing God. And doubly wrong for them to mislead people into thinking that
God is someone who should be feared. Second, that condemning people for their "wickedness" is itself a sin and most
certainly not one which is "covered" by our initial repentance. Accordingly they
need to repent of it now, before it becomes too late. Teaching the Adam and Eve story to children In case you are unfamiliar with the way Sunday schools teach the Adam and Eve
story to their children, let me quote in full the child-friendly "Adam and Eve in the
Garden of Eden" lesson plan at dltk-bible.com: God took some clay from the ground and made the shape of a man. Then He breathed gently into the shape. The man's eyes opened and he began to live. God called him Adam. The Lord made a beautiful garden for him to live in. The garden, called Eden, was full of many wonderful things. Beautiful flowers grew everywhere. Birds sang in the trees, streams flowed through the valley and animals roamed across the fields. God had made the man in His image to keep Him company and look after the world. God brought all the animals to Adam one at a time to be given their names. "Elephant", he would say, or "Tiger", or "Porcupine". But God felt sorry for Adam. "None of these animals is really like him," thought God, "he needs someone to share his life. Someone who cares for him and who he can care for." That night, God took a rib from Adam's side and made a woman. When Adam awoke the following morning, he found a wife, Eve, lying asleep beside him. Adam was so happy. He took her hand and she woke up. She looked up at him and smiled. God told the man and woman that it was their job to take care of their new home. God blessed them, saying, "All this is for you. Help yourself to anything you like. But never touch the tree in the middle of the Garden. That tree gives knowledge of good and evil. The day you eat its fruit, you will die." God did not mean that Adam and Eve would drop down dead the moment they ate the fruit from the tree. He meant that in time they would die without His Spirit dwelling in them. One day, Eve was gathering berries for dinner when she heard a silky voice behind her. "Has God told you that you can eat the fruit from all the trees?" the voice asked softly. Eve turned around to see a snake talking to her. "God has told us we can eat all the fruit except for what grows on The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil," Eve told the serpent. "Oh come now, that's silly! I hardly think such a lovely fruit would do you any harm," the serpent lied. "God knows that if you eat from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you'll become just like God, and will be able to decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong." The woman looked at the fruit and thought how tasty it looked. She thought how wonderful it would be to be as wise and powerful as God. She believed the serpent's lie and ate the fruit. She felt a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. She fidgeted and wondered what was wrong with her. Suddenly she realized that she was feeling guilty -- she had disobeyed God and knew she'd done something wrong. Eve hurriedly picked some more fruit and took it back to Adam. They ate the fruit and sat in gloomy silence. As soon as they ate the fruit a change came over Adam and Eve. They became unhappy and fearful of God. Adam and Eve heard God calling them. Without thinking, they dived into the bushes, but God knew where they were. When God asked them if they had eaten from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that He had told them not to touch, they blamed each other for their sins. God was sad that Adam and Eve had disobeyed Him. He told them that they had to leave the Garden of Eden, "From now on you'll have to scratch a living from the soil. You'll need to make clothes and grow food. Nothing will come easily -- not even childbirth. And one day, you will die." There is of course a great deal of adult subtlety here. On the one hand, the picture
of God in Genesis 2-3 is carefully blurred, with the deliberate playing-down of the
punishment meted out to Adam and Eve. And it is doubtless right that young
children should be encouraged to concentrate on the positive side of the story, that
God is a loving Father who gave Adam and Eve everything they could possibly
want and that the couple's later misfortunes were entirely of their own making. On the other hand, however, the children are being led to see Genesis 2-3 as
literally true rather than as a parable. For many of the children, this will never be a
problem. But some will become the sort of Christians discussed above, whose lives
and ministries will be permanently blighted by the completely wrong picture of
God the story has given them. And others will eventually realize that mention of a
talking snake and so on cannot possibly be factual and will turn away from God
forever. With science getting ever closer during the 21st century to the full story about the
origins of mankind, the Church needs to start now working out ways to present the
Adam and Eve story in its true light instead of in the fanciful way it is being taught
to children at present. The role that Bibles play The final aspect of the challenge in getting the true message of the Adam and Eve
story out to Christians concerns the role that Bibles play. There are two issues here.
First, that publishers of Bibles do little to help anyone understand what they are
reading. And second, that some recent English translations of the Bible actually
obstruct proper understanding. In terms of helping readers to understand key passages, we can divide Bibles into
two types. Those which give simply the bare text. And those with detailed notes
designed for people preparing sermons or material for study groups. In neither case
is any help given to the ordinary reader of Genesis 2-3, who realizes that there is
more to matters than meets the eye but learns nothing from being told that bdellium
is an aromatic gum. Of course there are a few glorious exceptions. The Study Edition of the New
Jerusalem Bible gives an extremely helpful "Introduction to the Pentateuch",
explaining all about J, E, D and P. And one of my French Bibles, LA BIBLE,
Édition condensée de Sélection du Reader's Digest, provides a very useful
explanatory box alongside the text of Genesis 2-3. The English language Bible publishing community would do well to follow the
French example, perhaps with a box worded roughly: The story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2-3 presents them as the very first man and woman who disobey a simple command from God - not to eat the "forbidden fruit" - and are then punished. Certainly the story itself is very old. But scholars have shown that Genesis was not put into its present form until the 5th century B.C. and several features of the text of Genesis 2-3 suggest that changes were made to the story at that time. Accordingly, there are three ways of reading the account: as literal truth, as poetry or as a parable similar to those of Jesus. And, if read as a parable, its main message for us today is that Adam and Eve's greatest mistake was their blaming everyone but themselves after they sinned, instead of humbly asking God to forgive them. But the main problem with English language versions of the Bible today is that
some recent translations are at times misleading. Appendix 3 of Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life reads as follows: This book contains nearly a thousand quotations from Scripture. I have intentionally varied the Bible translations used for two important reasons. First, no matter how wonderful a translation is, it has its limitations. The Bible was originally written using 11,280 Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek words, but the typical English translation uses only around 6,000 words. Obviously, nuances and shades of meaning can be lost, so it is always helpful to compare translations. Second, and even more important, is the fact that we often miss the full impact of familiar Bible verses, not because of poor translation, but simply because they have become so familiar! We think we know what a verse says because we have read it or heard it so many times. Then when we find it quoted in a book, we skim over it and miss the full meaning. Therefore I have deliberately used paraphrases to help you see God's truth in new, fresh ways. [Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life, p. 325] Warren obviously makes some good points here. But I feel sorry for all the
medieval scribes who took great care to ensure that every single letter of the
original Hebrew and Greek was faithfully transmitted, only for some modern day
British and American translators to come along and change the entire meaning by
supposedly bringing out hidden nuances. In the specific case of the Adam and Eve story it especially worries me that, as I
mentioned in Chapter 3, the New International Version changes the wording of the
verse Genesis 2:19 from So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
[Revised Standard Version] into the subtly different Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.
[New International Version] There are only two obvious explanations for the change here. Either there was a
problem with either the original Hebrew or with the Revised Standard Version's
rendering (unlikely, given what we find at websites giving interlinear translations).
Or the English translation has been deliberately altered to blur the contradiction
between the orders of events in Creation in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, to support the
claim that Adam and Eve are identical to the "man, male and female" in Genesis 1
and to encourage everyone to read the Adam and Eve story as strict literal truth. If that second explanation is the right one, then the issue becomes that of Bible
publishers deliberately misrepresenting "the Word of God", a matter which the
Church needs to address with some urgency. Chapter 26 Practical Challenges Faced by the Church Today The 21st century Church also faces a number of practical challenges related in
some way or other to the Adam and Eve story. I shall in this chapter deal in turn
with the issues of abortion, women priests and bishops, homosexuality, gay
bishops and same-sex marriage. Abortion Christians usually take one of three views on abortion. Some Christians, especially those involved in counselling young girls for whom an
unwanted pregnancy is an overwhelming disaster, empathize with the woman.
Instead of judging her after she says she wants to have an abortion, they gently
encourage her to take the pregnancy to term and offer help to enable her to do this.
And they also encourage her or her family to "keep" the baby, or help arrange for
the baby to be adopted. Most Christians, on the other hand, take the view that God plants a soul in every
embryo at the moment of conception. On this basis they see every abortion, even
one where the pregnancy was caused by the woman's having been raped, as killing
a human being and thus as a breach of the 6th commandment, "You shall not kill". And finally a few Christians take an extremely hard line on abortion. They see
unwanted pregnancy as the price which immoral women pay for having had illicit
sex. They see abortion as these women's compounding their first sin by the further
one of avoiding the greatly multiplied pain in childbearing which God prescribed
at the time of Eve. And for these Christians the picture is that of wicked people
(women and doctors in abortion clinics) gleefully undoing God's work and of a
God who is forced to stand by and watch murder unfold on an industrial scale. Now I do not defend abortion. Having been put into an orphanage immediately
after I was born in 1943, I know that I would not be here today if abortion had been
legal in Britain at that time. But I do want to defend three of the "players" in the
abortion issue. First God himself, whom I see as misrepresented here. Second,
those women who did not consent to the sexual act which brought about their
pregnancy. And third, the criminal law which is a vital part of human society's
foundations. First, God himself. I feel that many Christians draw their thinking here partly from
the Adam and Eve story. Reading the story as literally true, they see God as having
created a perfect "man, male and female" only for the snake to come along and
undo his work, obliging him thereafter to stand powerless as he watched mankind
commit sin, sin and more sin. My response to this is that it is the wrong way to read the Adam and Eve story and
is absolutely the wrong way to picture God. We dismiss now the medieval idea of
"the limbo of infants": the place where dead infants went to spend eternity. And yet
we imagine that God today is powerless to the point where he cannot rescue a soul
from an aborted foetus and give it a fresh chance of salvation by implanting it in
another foetus. Second, the women. With a wide range of abortions up to the 24th week of
pregnancy now decriminalized, the question is whether these abortions should still
be seen as sins. And to set the scene here, we must first look at what Jesus says
about adultery in Mark 10:6-12 and Matthew 5:32: From the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' ... What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder ... Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. Every one who divorces his wife, except on grounds of unchastity, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. John Stott comments in Issues Facing Christians Today: 1. A man who divorces his wife, and then remarries, both commits adultery himself and, because it is assumed that his divorced wife will also remarry, causes her to commit adultery as well ... Further, a man who marries a divorcee commits adultery. 2. The only remarriage after divorce which is not tantamount to adultery is that of an innocent person whose partner has been sexually unfaithful, for in this case the infidelity has already been committed by the guilty partner. [John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today, pp. 371,373] I draw two conclusions from this. In Stott's first scenario, and while all three
adulteries - the man's, his former wife's and her second husband's - are sins, the
sole sinner is in every case the original husband who is "vicariously" liable for
everything that stems from his divorce. And in Stott's second scenario, the
responsibility for the "putting asunder" of the original marriage rests solely on the
shoulders of the unfaithful wife. Given what the 6th Commandment says ("You shall not kill"), abortion is again
always a sin; the only exception would be if the pregnant woman's own life would
be endangered if her pregnancy were not terminated. But the view just drawn from
what Jesus says about adultery should surely apply here as well. If a woman is
raped and becomes pregnant then she has every right to opt for an abortion: the
responsibility for the sin rests solely on the shoulders of the man who raped her.
Similarly, if a girl under 16 becomes pregnant then, as the victim of a criminal
offence under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, she too has every right to opt for an
abortion: once again, the sin rests with the criminal involved. A last point to mention briefly here is something written by Professor John Wyatt
in a specially contributed chapter in John Stott's Issues Facing Christians Today.
Wyatt writes: In India, pregnant women are often forced by relatives to undergo antenatal tests ... to identify the sex of their fetus. If it is found to be female, an abortion is performed. A report in the British Medical Journal estimated that at least 50,000 female fetuses per year were aborted in India for this reason ... Although legislation has been passed in the Indian parliament to outlaw the practice, it is difficult if not impossible for the government to control. [Issues Facing Christians Today, pp. 421-422] Here the sole sinners are of course the unspeakably callous relatives. Third, the law. No one should be fully happy with laws which in practice enable
any woman to "demand" an abortion up to the 24th week of pregnancy. For one
thing, they allow a woman who grows tired of her husband to end, whether he likes
it or not, what (under the "one flesh" principle) is their pregnancy. And Christians
are correct to point out that the unborn child has human rights as well. But where
many Christians are wrong is that they fail to realize that the Old Testament
approach to pre-marital pregnancies was to make abortion unnecessary by forcing
the man involved to live up to his responsibilities, as in Exodus 22:16-17: If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed, and lies with her, he shall give the marriage present for her, and make her his wife. If the father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay the money equivalent to the marriage present for virgins. In my view, therefore, Christians upset over abortion should do two things. They
should campaign for tougher enforcement of the provisions of the Sexual Offences
Act 2003. And above all, they should support Christian charities providing
counselling and adoption services. Women priests and bishops I mentioned in some detail in Chapter 14 John Stott's views in Issues Facing
Christians Today on the question of Paul's doctrine of "male headship", including
Stott's conclusions that: [Paul's views], reflecting the facts of our human creation ... are not affected by the fashions of a passing culture. Headship implies some degree of leadership, which, however, is best expressed in terms not of "authority" but of "responsibility". [John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today, pp. 340,343-344] This leads up to what Stott wants to say about the implications of male headship
for the role of women in ministry. He writes: That women are called by God to ministry hardly needs any demonstration. "Ministry" is "service" (diakonia), and every Christian, male and female, young and old, is called to follow in the footsteps of him who said he had not come to be served but to serve (Mark 10:45). The only question is what form women's ministry should take, whether any limits should be placed on it, and in particular whether women should be ordained ... Some Christians, anxious to think and act biblically, will immediately say that the ordination of women is inadmissible. Not only were all the apostles and the presbyters of New Testament times men, but the specific instructions that women must be "silent in the churches" and "not teach or have authority over men" (1 Corinthians 14:34; 1 Timothy 2:12) settle the matter. That is only one side of the argument, however. On the other side, a strong prima facie biblical case can be made for active female leadership in the church, including a teaching ministry ... I believe that there are situations in which it is entirely proper for women to teach, and to teach men, provided that ... the content of their teaching is biblical, its context a team and its style humble (yet these are also important for men). In such a situation they would be exercising their gift without claiming a responsible "headship" which is not theirs. [John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today, pp. 345-351] Stott should be given credit for his balanced stand here, but he is wrong when
saying that Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 14:34 and 1 Timothy 2:12 "reflect the
facts of our human creation and are not affected by the fashions of a passing
culture". Paul's statements in these verses were based on his mistaken view of the
Adam and Eve story as literally true. So while they carried the signature of God at
the time Paul wrote them, when few women received the benefit of education, we
can guess that these statements are one of the things God sighs about today when
anyone mentions them as a reason for denying women an equal role in ministry.
And with women now just as well-educated as men, and certain to remain so, Stott
is especially wrong in suggesting that if we overturn the rule that women must
accept male leadership in ministry then we are allowing ourselves to be "affected
by the fashions of a passing culture". Homosexuality Christian views on homosexuality vary from abhorrence, to sympathy, to the
realization that it is just a feature of some people, like red hair or blue eyes. That
third view is emphatically the way the law now sees matters, permitting
homosexual acts between consenting adults but quite rightly prescribing severe
penalties for those who commit homosexual rape or abuse children, in line with the
law on heterosexual behaviour. The question for Christians is therefore whether a homosexual act between
consenting adults is a sin, with two ways of seeing things. A first, simple approach is to say that since God creates each of us, he is the one
who has decided that "man A" will be heterosexual and "man B" will be
homosexual. So the only Christian who can logically say that all homosexual acts
are sinful is one who believes that God literally forced Adam and Eve to confront
indefinitely the tree bearing delicious forbidden fruit: an idea which I rejected in
Chapter 13 as being in conflict with Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 10:13. This should not be seen as a "lax" approach to matters. The "one flesh" rule in
Mark 10:6-12 (quoted above when dealing with abortion) applies as much to
homosexuals as to heterosexuals. So homosexual infidelity and promiscuity are
definitely both sins, especially now that the law (in Britain, since 2005) provides
for civil partnerships for gay couples. A second, less straightforward approach looks at what a very few Bible passages
say on the subject. The evangelical John Stott identifies these passages as follows
in Issues Facing Christians Today: 1. The story of Sodom (Genesis 19:1-13) [and] the very similar story of Gibeah (Judges 19). 2. The Levitical texts (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13) which explicitly prohibit [and prescribe the death penalty for] "lying with a man as one lies with a woman". 3. The apostle Paul's portrayal of decadent pagan society in his day (Romans 1:18-32). 4. Two Pauline lists of sinners, each of which includes a reference to homosexual practices of some kind (1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 1 Timothy 1:9-10). [John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today, p. 448] I shall deal with these four sets of passages in turn. The Sodom and Gomorrah story in Genesis 18-19 has been widely misunderstood.
First, it involves an attempted homosexual rape and so is irrelevant to the question
of whether or not consensual homosexual acts are sins. And second, the episode
involving Lot and the two "angels" in Sodom is a spy story on a par with Joshua
sending the spies into Jericho. We know from Genesis 14 that the Elamite king Chedorlaomer had recently looted
Sodom. So the city would have been extremely nervous. And news of two
unidentified men having entered the city and lodged with Lot, himself a
"sojourner", immediately sent the entire population rushing to Lot's house. The
crowd's suspicion was that the "angels" were spies, with everyone wanting to know
exactly who they were. And the suspicion was confirmed by the angels' "striking
the men with blindness": the act of spies who had come prepared with pepper
powder in their pockets to fling in the eyes of any would-be captors. The Gibeah story in Judges 19 is again about attempted homosexual rape and so is
also irrelevant to the issue at hand. Where the Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 laws against "lying with a male as with a
woman" are concerned there are two issues. Did God promulgate these laws at the
time of Moses? And does the fact that they are in the Bible and therefore carry the
signature of God mean that all homosexual acts, even consensual ones, are sins? We can be sure that God did not issue these laws at the time of Moses. First,
because of what Bible scholars tell us. And second, because it is unthinkable that
God would have omitted from the Ten Commandments something so serious as to
require his imposing the death penalty. Before considering the implications of the fact that the Leviticus prohibitions carry
the signature of God, I first comment on what Paul says in Romans 1:26-27, 1
Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10. Paul wrote these epistles after the 49 A.D. Council of Jerusalem and the passages
in question reflect the "deal" made at that time. Paul was given freedom to run his
"Gentile" churches on non-Jewish lines, but only in return for his promising to
ensure that church members "abstained from unchastity" etc. (Acts 15:29). So with
the Jewish Christian church headquarters in Jerusalem insisting upon compliance
with the Leviticus prohibitions, Paul had no choice but to follow suit. There is no denying that both the Leviticus and Epistles prohibitions carry the
signature of God. But that signature was given at a time when all homosexual acts
were illegal. The change in the law in 2005, bringing in the new civil partnerships
which most of the Church now endorses, coupled with the fact that the Ten
Commandments make no mention of homosexuality, means that it must be wrong
for Christians today to see homosexual acts by parties to a civil partnership as
sinful. Gay priests and bishops So far we have looked at Christian attitudes on homosexuality in general. We now
turn to the first of two specific areas where the Church faces a major practical
challenge: that of gay priests and bishops. It is one thing to expect a Christian to be perfectly comfortable with the fact that
the man or woman in the next pew is a homosexual or a lesbian. But what if we are
talking about the man or woman leading the worship in church or responsible for
the spiritual needs of an entire diocese? My own answer is that provided the priest or bishop is either in a civil partnership
or living alone, there is again no problem because there is no sin involved. But for
some Christians this is too simple an approach. On the one hand, they may be uncomfortable with the very idea of civil
partnerships, feeling that they directly breach the clear prohibitions against
homosexual practices laid down in Leviticus and in Paul's epistles. All I can do
here is to reiterate what I said above. On the other hand they may ask: How can anyone be sure that a gay priest living
alone is genuinely celebate? My reply to this is: If it comes to that, how do we
know that any priest living alone is celebate? Instead of asking stupid questions
like this, we should remember God's words in Genesis 2:18: "It is not good that the
man should be alone". Living alone is a great tragedy for anyone and we should
support all such priests and bishops, gay or not, as they devote their lives to serving
both God and us. Same-sex marriage Notwithstanding the change in law in Britain in 2005, providing for civil
partnerships, John Stott wrote in Issues Facing Christians Today in 2006: Every kind of sexual relationship and activity which deviates from God's revealed intention [the union of one man and one woman] is ipso facto displeasing to him and under his judgment. This includes polygamy ... cohabitation ... casual encounters ... adultery and many divorces ... and homosexual partnerships. [John Stott, Issues Facing Christians today, p. 458] Bracketing adultery (something which has been decriminalized) with civil
partnerships (now specifically provided for in British law) is quite strange. And it
was partly as a result of statements like this that pressure finally developed for the
law to extend the long-existing provision for (one man, one woman) civil
marriages to same-sex couples as well. Some sectors of the Church kept rather quiet as the "gay marriage" debate heated
up in Britain in 2012. But the Catholic Church in particular was highly vocal,
pointing out that the word marriage had always had one meaning and one meaning
only, the union of one man and one woman, and that it was totally wrong to misuse
language in this way. The Chinese philosopher Confucius warned against just this sort of thing back in
the 5th century B.C. saying, "If names not be correct, language is not in accordance
with the truth of things" (Analects, XIII.iii.5). And the Chinese language leaves
little room for confusion over the meaning of the verb "to marry" which in Chinese
is jiehun, coupling two characters jie and hun, where jie (結) combines a meaning
element 糹(silk thread) with a phonetic element and hun (婚) combines a meaning
element 女 (woman) with a phonetic element, thus giving the picture of marriage
as something which binds a man and a woman together. We shall return to the
question of the misuse of names in a different context in Chapter 28. Finally, though, let us look again at the words "one man, one woman". Most
people, I am sure, relate this to the Adam and Eve story and to Jesus' comment in
Matthew 19:5-6, where he quotes Genesis 2:24. But this is only one part of what
the Adam and Eve story has to say about marriage. Significantly, Genesis 2-3
mentions the word "wife" six times and the word "husband" twice. So the message
I draw is that marriage is not merely an arrangement whereby one man and one
woman become legally a couple. More precisely it is an arrangement whereby a
couple become legally husband and wife, both of these terms gender-specific. The Church and the world As of 2012, the same-sex marriage issue is one of the Church's trying to persuade
politicians to act sensibly and responsibly. But if the politicians succeed in carrying
through their plans to extend the word "marriage" to include same-sex couples, the
need will then become for the Church (and for individual Christians) to act
sensibly and responsibly. And the real issue here, with abortion and same-sex marriage as cases in point, is
that of the relationship between the Church and the world. The first problem here is that the Church is not a single entity. A great deal of work
was done in the 20th century (and continues to be done in the 21st century by
"Churches Together" bodies) to bring the churches closer together. And on
abortion, at least, the Church does speak with one voice. But on marriage-related
issues some individual denominations often, at best, remain silent or, at worst, vie
to be the first to do this or that, thus playing into the hands of the politicians who
can then claim that "many in the Church support the proposed measures". A second problem facing the Church here is that of striking a balance between "not
conforming to the world" (Romans 12:2) and risking becoming irrelevant to the
world. This is of course the very point which John Stott made in Issues Facing
Christians Today (see Chapter 14), although I do not agree with everything he said
there. Getting married in church is, for many people, the first time in their adult
lives that they enter a church and I sincerely believe that my church wedding
played a role, subconsciously at least, in my becoming a Christian 13 years later.
So if the law is changed to allow same-sex marriage, and if some denominations
start performing these marriage on church premises (as I am sure they will), then I
hope that the main body of the Church will think carefully about whether or not
God will want them to follow suit. The third and final problem for the Church here is that of striking a balance
between what its members want and what God wants. Many individual Christians
today are horrified by the way the world is changing around them and respond by
opposing all change and modernization, even within the Church itself. The Church
cannot totally ignore the views of its members, but two points come to mind here. First, Paul urged the early Church to "be subject to the governing authorities"
(Romans 13:1). So unless the UK legislative bodies and courts themselves decide
(or can be persuaded) to intervene, the Church is on firm ground in urging
Christians today to respect the judicial decisions coming out of the European Court
of Human Rights in Strasbourg. And the Church is on even firmer ground in urging
all its members to respect UK laws on abortion and homosexuality. Second, all professional bodies are keen for their members to be kept up-to-date on
the latest advances in their fields. So the Church similarly has the right (and the
duty) to keep its members "up-to-date" in two ways here. On the one hand,
informing its members about irresponsible proposed new legislation and spelling
out the biblical reasons for the Church's opposition. But on the other hand, if the
proposed legislation is passed, spelling out to its members the biblical reasons for
accepting it. The latter will include verses like Romans 13:1, mentioned above, but
also things like the Adam and Eve story where new light shed by science or Bible
scholarship has provided fresh understanding of God's Word. I single out the Adam and Eve story because the Church itself has made the "fall"
the second most important event in all of human history (the most important of
course being the ministry of Jesus in the 1st century). And because, if the proposed
same-sex marriage legislation does eventually pass into law, every Church member
(along with most other members of the British public) will wonder how the Church
will square this with the Adam and Eve story's picture of "one man, one woman". The best approach for the Church will be to point out that the Adam and Eve story
is a parable about repentance and that, where marriage is concerned, the main thing
the story is saying is that "marriage is for life". This, after all, was Jesus'
conclusion from the story (Matthew 19:6). But some denominations, especially those opposed even to civil partnerships, are
certain to continue beating the drum about "one man, one woman". There are two
points to make here. First that, by labelling even same-sex marriages between nonchurchgoers as sinful, these churches will be guilty of the very worst form of
judging others (Jesus in Matthew 7:1 and Paul in 1 Corinthians 5:12), especially
since none of the Ten Commandments are being breached. And second, that these
churches should make very sure that none of their members (in whose name they
speak) are guilty of adultery, which does breach the Ten Commandments, before
"casting the first stone" (John 8:7).
Chapter 27 The new biotechnology I mentioned earlier a specially contributed chapter by Professor John Wyatt in John
Stott's book Issues Facing Christians Today. The chapter is entitled "The New
Biotechnology" and begins as follows: Historically, the major bioethical issues confronting Christians have concerned the destruction of innocent human life, both at the beginning of life in abortion, and at the end of life in euthanasia ... Although abortion and euthanasia remain as topics of crucial significance at the beginning of the twenty-first century, a range of new and troubling bioethical dilemmas have arisen over the last twenty years. Instead of the destruction of human life, these concern the creation and the manipulation of human life. [Issues Facing Christians Today, p. 419] Recent advances in biotechnology Professor Wyatt wrote his chapter in 2006 and lists four areas which have seen
major technological advances since 1978: 1. In vitro fertilization (IVF): more than 1,000,000 children conceived as a result of IVF worldwide by 2006. 2. Sophisticated genetic techniques to screen embryos: [these] may be used to avoid the implantation of an embryo that carries a serious or fatal disease, but can also be used to select the sex of the future child. 3. Reproductive cloning: the creation of an embryo for implantation into a womb leading to the development of a new individual [the first being "Dolly the sheep" in 1997]. 4. Therapeutic cloning: the creation of a human embryo which can then be manipulated to produce stem cells [offering] the prospect of remarkable new treatments for a range of ... inherited, degenerative and cancerous diseases. [Issues Facing Christians Today, pp. 419-426] Wyatt identifies four themes behind the issues raised by these advances: 1. Biotechnology collapses the distinction between natural and artificial. We no longer have to accept the limitations of our bodies as they have been given to us. 2. Biotechnology changes the nature of parenthood. Perhaps before too long, selecting the best embryo will be seen as an essential part of responsible parenthood. "I owe it to myself and to my future child to give him/her the best possible start in life." 3. Biotechnology offers the possibility of solutions to the age- old problems of humankind. Many trans-humanists believe that ultimately ... technology may lead to a new form of "post-human beings", beings who may have indefinite health-spans, much greater intellectual faculties compared with current human beings, new types of sensory awareness and enhanced control over their intellectual and emotional functioning. 4. The prospect of spectacular future therapies trumps ethical concerns in the present. When the possible future benefits of research are weighed against ethical concerns about the manipulation of embryos in a simplistic utilitarian analysis, it is the prospect of new therapies, however speculative, that will always dominate. [Issues Facing Christians Today, pp. 426-429] Christian responses When turning to what he sees as the Christian response to all this, Wyatt begins
with two points drawn from Genesis 1, the first on "creation order" and the second
on "the image of God". He writes: God has not only created the physical structures of creation, including the physical structure of our bodies. He has also created a hidden moral order which directs how those structures should be used, in other words how we should behave. It is as though there is a hidden "grain" within all creation. In Christian thought the dignity of a human being resides not in what you can do, but what you are, by creation. Human beings do not need to earn the right to be treated as godlike beings. Our dignity is intrinsic, in the way we have been made. [Issues Facing Christians Today, pp. 430-432] Wyatt then turns to the "fall" in Genesis 3, suggesting that: Although the universe is fractured and broken following the fall, a crucial part of biblical understanding is that the universe still displays the moral order, the hidden grain. Its brokenness is the brokenness of order and not chaos. As God had warned them, the disobedience of Adam and Eve led directly to the entrance of death into the world: "For when you eat of it you will surely die." In the poetic imagery of the creation narratives, within the garden of Eden Adam and Eve, along with all the other fruit within the garden, had access to the tree of life. They could have chosen to eat the fruit of that tree and live forever. Instead they chose to disobey God and eat the one fruit of the garden that was forbidden. By giving access to the fruit of the tree of life, God showed that his original intention for human beings was everlasting life. In biblical thought the death of human beings, in all its horror and mystery, is not natural, it is not part of God's original design ... But ... for all its terror and mystery, in the biblical worldview death is not an entirely negative concept. It may be, in C.S. Lewis' wonderful phrase, "a severe mercy". At the end of the account of the fall, human beings are banished from the garden of Eden, precisely to prevent them from eating from the fruit of the tree of life and living for ever. And to prevent their return and capture of the fruit by force of arms, cherubim and a flaming sword are set to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:21-24). So in God's providential care of his creation, human beings are not meant to live for ever in their degraded fallen state. Human lifespan is limited, not just as a curse, but out of God's grace ... This biblical perspective helps us to retain a sense of the limitations of medicine and health care. For all our wonderful knowledge and technology, we are unable to redeem our physical bodies from the cycle of death and decay ... We cannot overcome ageing and eventual death by medical technology. In God's providential mercy, that route to the tree of life remains blocked by a flashing sword. [Issues Facing Christians Today, pp. 432-435] After making various other points, Wyatt closes his chapter with a "summary of
Christian responses": 1. The need to empathize with the deep and hidden pain of childless couples, of families devastated by genetic illness, of individuals facing degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. 2.
The need to challenge the mentality which is starting to pervade modern society [and to] demand democratic accountability, transparency and justice in the actions of those who control the technology. 3. The need to develop a more profound understanding of what it means to be a human being, created in God's image, contaminated by evil, yet affirmed and redeemed by the Christ event ... We need renewed input from theologians and biblical scholars who can reflect on the nature and implications of the natural created order and our role within it. At the same time we need the insights and practical experience of doctors, geneticists and reproductive scientists who can build a bridge between the biblical world and the world of modern science. 4. The need to present an alternative biblical worldview to our society ... [one which] respects the physical structure of our bodies whilst pointing to a greater reality, a deeper healing, and a hope which transcends the grave. 5. The need to strive for global justice in the application of biotechnology ... [spending our] billions of dollars ... on the hundreds of thousands of children dying in the poor countries of the world from conditions which are easily treatable with the minimum of medical technology [instead of] on sophisticated biotechnology research into the detection and treatment of rare genetic disorders ... [and] into the slowing of the ageing process. [Issues Facing Christians Today, pp. 440-441] My response to Wyatt's views John Wyatt is a professor of neonatal paediatrics so I obviously do not challenge
what he says about the science of biotechnology or the scope which it has for
profoundly changing many things in our world. But on the basis of the conclusions
I have come to about the true nature of the Adam and Eve story, the true nature of
God and the true nature of the Bible, I disagree with some of the other things
Wyatt says above. IVF Wyatt suggests that we need to empathize with the deep and hidden pain of
childless couples. I take this to be a perfectly correct criticism of some Christians
who will glibly say to childless women that their childlessness is God's will, that he
has more important things for them to do in life ... usually something like helping
out in the church crèche during services. But I feel that the appropriate Christian response here is to sympathize with
childless couples. The Bible repeatedly speaks of the great sorrow and indeed
humiliation which childlessness brings to married women, examples being Sarah,
Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah and Elizabeth. This is especially a problem in Asia,
where I spent most of my adult life and where the need to continue the family
name will "force" husbands to procreate elsewhere and even divorce their wives.
God's response in the case of the above five women was to perform a divine
miracle. Who are we today to deny such women a now readily-available human
"miracle"? The other point which Wyatt makes is that biotechnology "collapses the distinction
between natural and artificial", that we no longer have to accept the limitations of
our bodies as they have been given to us. If this is seen as an objection to IVF then
I reply that many standard "medical interventions" today are artificial: not least,
performing caesarean sections and putting babies born with breathing problems
into incubators. The screening of embryos Wyatt is of course quite right to deplore the screening of embryos purely to select
the sex of the future child. This is, after all, no different to the aborting of foetuses
"of the wrong sex" mentioned in Chapter 26 and is very definitely a sin. But just as
with abortion, the sin here will not always rest on the shoulders of the woman, who
may be either unaware that sex-selection has taken place or denied any say in the
matter. So in my view the Christian response ought to be sympathy for the woman
(in some cases at least) and empathy for a couple who, as Wyatt puts it, "choose an
embryo of the opposite sex to an older sibling". On Wyatt's other concern, that selecting the best embryo will one day be seen as an
essential part of responsible parenthood, I see only a relatively small number of
people in the world as being likely to pursue this option. I feel sure that the law, as
it develops in this field (with the benefit of input from people like Wyatt himself),
will take account of the relevant moral and practical considerations. And I regard
the sin involved here as not that much more wicked than the wealthy person's
sending his or her children to a ridiculously expensive private school instead of
using the money to help fund a rural school for children in a poor country
somewhere who would otherwise receive no education whatsoever. Global justice in the application of biotechnology That last comment brings us to what Wyatt said above about the need to strive for
global justice in the application of biotechnology. I take his point that the billions
spent on sophisticated research into the slowing of the ageing process etc. would
be better used to prevent children in poor countries from being "permanently
blinded for lack of a few cents' worth of vitamin A". But I feel the Christian
response here should be to support charities (like the Christian Blind Mission)
already combating blindness overseas, rather than pointing an accusing finger at
the drugs companies. Presenting an alternative biblical worldview to our society Given that my book is about the Adam and Eve story, my main concern is with
what Wyatt sets out as the first part of the "alternative biblical worldview" which
he wants to present to society. I quoted in some detail what he said about the "fall"
above, so here I simply summarize: Adam and Eve could have chosen to eat the fruit of the tree of life and live forever. By giving access to the fruit of that tree, God showed that his original intention for human beings was everlasting life. In biblical thought the death of human beings is not part of God's original design. But at the end of the account of the fall, human beings are banished from the garden of Eden, precisely to prevent them from eating from the fruit of the tree of life and living for ever. So in God's providential care of his creation, human beings are not meant to live for ever in their degraded fallen state. Human lifespan is limited, not just as a curse, but out of God's grace. This biblical perspective helps us to retain a sense of the limitations of medicine and health care. We cannot overcome ageing and eventual death by medical technology. In God's providential mercy, that route to the tree of life remains blocked by cherubim and a flaming sword (Genesis 3:21-24). This first part of Wyatt's "biblical worldview" is probably what most Christians
believe. But the real question is: What is "society" going to make of it? It is one
thing to talk to "society" about the reality of life after death (as Wyatt does in the
second part of his biblical worldview). And some non-Christians do perhaps
imagine that the Garden of Eden was a disease-free paradise, with death only
entering the frame after Adam and Eve were sent out into the real world with all its
thorns and thistles and all its bacteria and viruses. But the idea that human lifespan
is limited out of God's grace will inevitably be met with derision. If "society" as a whole is going to accept a "biblical worldview" then this needs to
be one which presents God in believable terms. And just as no one seriously
believes that either the medical profession or the drugs companies will one day
come up with the "elixir of life", so too no one outside the Church seriously
believes that a God who knows everything failed to foresee that Adam and Eve
would eat the forbidden fruit. The biblical worldview which society needs to be given can certainly begin with
the Adam and Eve story, provided the story is presented in its true light as a
parable about repentance. And Jesus' coming can then be presented in its true light:
that he came to bring the message of a loving and forgiving Father God and to
establish the Christian Church. A bridge between the biblical world and the world of modern science Finally, I comment on Wyatt's suggestion that: We need the insights and practical experience of doctors, geneticists and reproductive scientists who can build a bridge between the biblical world and the world of modern science. My response here is that one side of the bridge has already been built, by the
scholars and scientists whose work I set out in Chapters 9-11. The need now is not
for more input from doctors and reproductive scientists but rather for the Church to
start building its side of the bridge. And I hope this book may be of some help as
the Church draws up its blueprint. Chapter 28 A 21st Century Supplement to the Adam and Eve Story In this final chapter I present a 21st century supplement to the Adam and Eve
story. My aim is not to supplant the Genesis version of the story but to supplement
it by putting its underlying issues into a modern context. I use the same framework
as the existing version (see Chapter 3) but I also bring in points taken from the
original herder myth version (Chapter 17) and from Jesus' parable of the Wicked
Tenants (Chapter 5). And I close by commenting on how I see my new version of
the story as, once more, both a parable and a manifesto: a parable about repentance
and, here, a manifesto for a return to the idea of "enlightened self-interest". Prologue
After the Big Bang and the formation of the solar system, and after all today's plant
and animal species had emerged (Genesis 1), God created mankind by planting
souls in all members of Homo sapiens. Mankind were originally hunter-gatherers, living in fairly small bands. The men
hunted big game while the women gathered nuts and berries. Band members
followed the enlightened self-interest ethic of "share and share alike". But hunting
big game was dangerous work and so, around 20,000 years ago, God taught men
how to use nets, traps, the bow and arrow etc. to tap into less dangerous food
sources like fish, birds and small forest animals. And he taught women to expand
their gathering to include wild cereals. God intended this for good but, with people
now able to settle down and live together in large numbers for the first time, greed
began and enlightened self-interest became a thing of the past. Around 10,000 years ago God taught men to herd cattle and sheep, intending that
this would give them greater respect for all creatures and also a steady source of
milk, wool and meat. But some people were unwilling to look after animals and
instead struck upon the idea of crop farming: cultivating wild cereals instead of just
eating them. This led to a change in the way many people regarded God. Hunters
had always worshipped one God and herders still did likewise whereas crop
farmers, needing both sunshine and rain, now started worshipping a multiplicity of
heavenly gods as well as the very earth itself, seen as a goddess. But above all,
crop farming led to the sharpening of greed, to the emergence of private property
and to the beginnings of slavery. And with ways found to store them for long
periods, cereals like wheat eventually became a medium of exchange and thus the
first form of money. Scene 1: The "forbidden fruit" Money may not grow on trees, but it has always had the potential to become the
"forbidden fruit" (Genesis 2:17) of the modern era: hence Jesus' words in Matthew
6:24 (You cannot serve God and mammon) and Paul's words in 1 Timothy 6:10
(Love of money is the root of all evil). God is not saying here that money is evil in and of itself. Used properly it can do a
great deal of good. But if misused, in gambling or in greedy "get rich quick"
schemes, it can do an enormous amount of harm. Greed, as already shown, is not a
new phenomenon. But money only started developing its full potential, for good
and for ill, with the massive increase in overseas trade seen in the 17th century and
then the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. The need for money
rose so dramatically that banking changed for ever and the modern financial
madness began with the opening of stock markets around Europe. What God is saying in Jesus' and Paul's statements is that money is something we
should earn through honest hard work and should use to meet the genuine needs of
our own families and (to the extent we can) to help those around us and elsewhere
in the world who are in dire poverty. More than that, or less than that, is misuse of
money. Scene 2: The naming of the "animals" In the earliest times, God invited people to name all the many kinds of animals he
created and brought to them (Genesis 2:19). But in the 20th century the situation
was very different. Mankind took over the role of creating new "animals" (for
example, various computer gadgets) and began inventing or borrowing names for
them (like "mouse") which grew steadily more and more confusing for the average
person. An early philosopher, Confucius, had warned against misusing names in this way.
And a serious problem arose when the habit of giving things cute but rather opaque
names spread to banking as well. In what proved to be a fateful move bankers, and
indeed governments, redefined the word credit. Ordinary people knew that a credit
balance on their bank account statement or utilities bill meant that they were not
"overdrawn" or behind on their payments. But suddenly banks started introducing
"credit" cards which meant the very opposite: credit had now become debt. And
the idea that debt and greed were good inevitably had dire consequences. The
foolish began living far beyond their means and the smart began looking for even
cleverer ways of parting fools from their money and of luring them into loans they
could never repay. Credit cards limit the amount of unsecured debt that a holder can take on. So a
person wanting to buy a house needs to take out a mortgage secured by the house
itself: if there is a default, the bank can recoup the shortfall by selling the house.
Despite this banks were very careful when issuing mortgages, doing so only to
people with a high likelihood of completing repayment. But competition in the
mortgage market, and the scope for making even larger profits by charging higher
than normal interest rates, led to banks increasingly issuing cleverly-named "subprime mortgages" (so much nicer-sounding than "high-risk mortgages", which is
what they really were) to people whose ability to repay was very much in question. Scene 3: The snake and the eating of the forbidden fruit What the bankers did with sub-prime mortgages, which became the "forbidden
fruit" of the early 21st century, was similar to what the snake in the traditional
Adam and Eve story did to Eve (Genesis 3:1-5). They exploited the gullibility of
innocents, leading them into risky territory while lining their own pockets. Even
worse, they led a large number of other people in the wider investment community,
people who should have known better, into the equally risky territory of investing
in derivatives created by "bundling up" these sub-prime mortgages. How did the bankers manage to deceive the innocents? In much the same way as
the snake deceived Eve. The snake said, "You will not die"; they said, "House
prices will never go down". The snake said, "You will be like God, knowing good
and evil"; they said, "You will be like the rich, owning your own home". And how
did the bankers mislead the rest of the investment community? By playing on their
greed. There is of course nothing immoral about charging higher rates of interest on "subprime mortgages". After all, life insurance companies quite properly set higher
premiums for new policyholders with "impaired lives". But why did the banks who
provided the mortgages, and those who bought the derivatives, not realize that
higher interest rates made the likelihood of defaults exponentially greater? The
answer is that they did realize this but did not care: even if the housing market
dipped slightly, they would still make a profit. And they probably saw themselves
as doing a "good deed" by helping at least some poor people to own their homes.
But, as Gore Vidal said, no "good deed" goes unpunished. Scene 4: The consequences Retribution came as quickly and unexpectedly for the bankers as God's return to
the garden following the eating of the forbidden fruit in the existing Adam and Eve
story (Genesis 3:8). After reaching a peak in mid-2006 the housing market in the
U.S.A. suddenly went into a steep decline, triggering a banking crisis and then an
economic crisis. God gave Adam and Eve an opportunity to repent and seek forgiveness (Genesis
3:9-13). And, although not spelt out in Genesis, the picture from Jesus' parable of
the Wicked Tenants in Mark 12 is that God would in fact have given them many
opportunities to repent. But after 2006 those with sub-prime mortgages were
shown no such mercy and led a sorry parade of people defaulting on their house
loans: even in the good times, let alone the bad times which had now arrived, they
had struggled to keep up their mortgage payments. We can compare these people
to Eve, now suffering greatly multiplied pain in bearing the burdens of life. Those who had bought the derivatives can be compared to Adam. Just as he was
expelled from his garden and thereafter had to work much harder for his living,
they too found themselves in a very different, much harder investment landscape to
the one they had enjoyed previously. But just as the snake was punished by having its legs cut off, so too the key
retribution was reserved for the bankers. The sub-prime mortgages, which had
become the "forbidden fruit" for the poor, now became "toxic assets" for the banks
themselves. And with everyone now "gunning for" the bankers, further "sins" soon
came to light including the libor rate fixing scandal and several cases of large-scale
money laundering. Epilogue As we read in the final verses of Genesis 3 and in its sequel in Genesis 4, God did
not abandon the couple as they left their garden. Similarly, governments were
unwilling to stand by and watch their banks and economies collapse. Only time
will tell whether the steps taken, things like quantitative easing, will ultimately
prove to have been wise. Of course the motives of governments here scarcely match up to those of God. God
had warned Adam and Eve in the clearest possible terms that eating the "forbidden
fruit" would ruin their lives. But not a single government had warned its citizens
about the dangers of taking out mortgages which they could not afford. On the
contrary, successive governments in Britain had urged people to buy their homes,
had encouraged banks to make easy credit as widely available as possible and had
done nothing to discourage the gambling fever which had engulfed the nation.
Everyone had assumed that consumer borrowing and spending would fuel an everimproving economy. Naturally, too, governments geared their responses to the crisis to what their
electorates wanted and would accept. So the British government not only
"guaranteed" deposits in banks in Britain but even extended this protection to those
who, greedy for even higher interest rates, had put their money in banks as far
away as Iceland. But no government dared to do very much to help those who had
lost their homes and who were, in the view of most of the electorate, simply
victims of their own stupidity. My supplementary version of the story as a parable about repentance My supplementary version of the story is intended first of all as a parable about
repentance. Many of Jesus' parables spoke of angry kings and masters punishing
their servants and similarly, in my version of the Adam and Eve parable, the
victims of the "sub-prime mortgages" debacle found the full weight of institutional
retribution coming down on them. But the point made by Jesus, by the Priest (Chapter 19) and by myself is that, while
we cannot expect to escape the worldly consequences of our greed and stupidity,
God is someone we can always turn to in repentance. Whatever we do, whether
eating "forbidden fruit" or any of the other dreadful things that we so easily get
tempted into, God stands constantly ready to forgive and comfort those who turn to
him and to provide them with a way forward. With God, tomorrow really can be
another day. My supplementary version of the story as a manifesto Finally, my supplementary version of the story is also intended as a manifesto
appealing for a return to the enlightened self-interest, the ethic of "share and share
alike", which came to an end when, as I mentioned in the Prologue, hunting bands
coalesced into larger groups or tribes. Of course we can never return to the world of the stone-age hunter. But we should
at least reflect on how we lost our sense of enlightened self-interest and on what it
would mean in today's world. And above all, we should recognize that the present
economic crisis is the price we are now starting to pay for allowing greed to blind
us to the importance of enlightened self-interest as one of the basic rules of life. Seeing the terrible destruction caused today by earthquakes, tsunamis and
hurricanes, we are well aware that nature is an unconquerable force. Yet everyone
seems to have forgotten that our lives are subject to other powerful forces as well.
Economists may imagine that they are on top of their subject now that they have
reduced it to a mass of mathematical formulae. And it is certainly true that the
modern banking system is very clever in the ways it creates money. But the lesson
of the present crisis is that economic forces are not fully controllable, especially
when everyone ignores the simple rule of enlightened self-interest. So what exactly does "enlightened self-interest" mean? Its starting-point and
lowest level is "Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you". It
is plain common sense not to be over-greedy and not to treat others in a way which
will invite repayment in kind if ever the tables are turned. And this applies to
diplomacy, to commerce and to personal and industrial relations alike. The second level of enlightened self-interest is playing the role expected of any
decent citizen: striving to be loving children, siblings, spouses and parents;
following the ethic of "share and share alike"; and being patriotic in the broad
sense of obeying the law, paying tax in full (no tax avoidance) and supporting
charities for the needy. The third and highest level of enlightened self-interest is to "Do to others what you
would [be delighted to] have them do to you". Jesus says this in Matthew 7:12 and
then in Matthew 25:35-36 he spells it out: I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you
clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. This applies not only at the personal level but also in terms of global poverty issues
like disaster relief, foreign aid and justice in international trade. Whatever it costs,
it is in our own best interests to help those who have fallen to get back up on their
feet: instead of being a perpetual burden or threat they will become our future
allies and trading partners. God does not insist that we be perfect, and he readily forgives us when we repent
after we fail him and break his rules. But what breaks his heart is when we fail to
use the "image" he planted in mankind all those years ago to think things through
and see the merit of enlightened self-interest. Appendix Outline of the Case for Dating the Story at 487 B.C. The Adam and Eve story possibly originated as long as 6,000 years ago, but it
underwent major changes when Genesis as a whole was put into its present form
by Jewish priests in the 5th century B.C. The case for 487 B.C. as the date of the story rests on two assumptions. First, that
the story was originally an ancient herder myth (with wheat, intended for the
animals, as the forbidden fruit) condemning the religious practices of early crop
farmers who saw the snake as a fertility symbol. Second, that 5th century B.C.
Jewish priests rewrote this myth to remove the idea that God hated crop farmers
and to enable the story to serve as two things at the same time: a parable about
repentance and a manifesto urging Jews exiled in Babylon since 587 B.C. to return
to Jerusalem. Cyrus of Persia had captured Babylon in 539 B.C. and given permission for the
Jews to go back home. But any thought of everyone returning quickly was put on
hold after an advance party of Jews found all the best land in the hands of
Canaanites who harassed them continually. Things improved somewhat after
Darius I came to the Persian throne in 522 B.C. and ordered the harassments to
stop. But Darius' prestige was badly dented by Persia's defeat by the Greeks at
Marathon in 490 B.C. Egypt revolted in 487 B.C. and the Canaanites then resumed
their harassments. So the Jews in Babylon, marking the 100th anniversary of their
exile, re-opened the debate on returning home. Not least since the imminent
succession of a new Persian ruler (Darius was 63 years old in 487 B.C. and died a
year later) might see them enslaved again, just as in Egypt centuries earlier. And
with region-wide chaos seemingly looming, 487 B.C. was the perfect moment for
the Jewish priests in Babylon to write a combined parable/manifesto urging the
Jews there to return home. The snake's words reflected the temptation for the Jews still in Babylon to stay
there and hope to continue to enjoy the prosperity brought by Persian rule. Adam's
being punished by having to farm land bringing forth thorns and thistles reflected
the fact that Jewish men returning to Jerusalem would initially have to farm poorer
quality land. Eve's "greatly multiplied pain in childbearing" pointed to the need for
Jewish women going back home to have more babies: to swell the Jewish nation
and thereby strengthen its hand against the Canaanites. And the expulsion from the
Garden of Eden pointed to God's now wanting the remaining Jews in Babylon to
leave its hanging gardens and return to Jerusalem. Books Cited Augustine, The City of God, Great Books of the Western World [Volume 16]
translation, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1993 Holy Bible, Good News Version [French]: LA BIBLE, Édition condensée de
Sélection du Reader's Digest, 1990 Holy Bible, New International Version, Zondervan, 1988 Holy Bible, New Jerusalem Version: Study Edition, Darton, Longman & Todd,
1994 Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version, Collins, 1973 Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Doubleday, 2003 Rod Caird, Ape Man, Boxtree, 1994 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Great Books of the Western
World [Volume 20] translation, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1993 Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man [1871], Great Books of the Western World
[Volume 49] edition, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1991 John Drane, Jesus and the four Gospels, Lion, 1979 Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Easton Press, 1992 Michael Green, Adventure of Faith, Zondervan, 2001 Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time, Bantam Press, 1988 John Haywood, The Illustrated History of Early Man, Bison Group, 1995 Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Inter-Varsity Press, 1980 David Konstant, The Faith of the Catholic Church - A Summary, Catholic Truth
Society, 2001 C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Fount, 1977 Malcolm E. Lines, A Number for your Thoughts, Institute of Physics Publishing,
1986 LION Handbook of Christian Belief, Lion, 1982 LION Handbook: The History of Christianity, Lion, 1977 LION Handbook: The World's Religions, Lion, 1994 Stephen Oppenheimer, Out of Eden, Constable, 2003 Oxford Bible Commentary, Oxford University Press, 2001 Michael Roaf, Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East,
Checkmark Books, 1990 John Stott, Basic Christianity, Inter-Varsity Press, 1958 John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today, Zondervan, 2006 Keith Ward, Christianity: A Short Introduction, Oneworld, 2000 Keith Ward, God, Faith & The New Millennium, Oneworld, 1998 Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life, OMF, 2003 Index [Chapter numbers] 487 B.C.
4004 B.C.
Abortion
Abraham
Acts 15
Adam and Eve
Adam's rib?
Dust of the ground?
First ever man and woman?
Pain in childbearing
Adam and Eve story
Actual text of Genesis 2-3
Jesus' relative silence
Literal truth?
Parable?
Poetry?
Myth?
Manifesto?
Earlier herder myth version
Rewriting of
21st century supplement
Adultery
"African Adam"
Animals
Anthropology
Apes
Apologetics Press
Apple
Arabs
Artaxerxes
Aryans
Ascension: see Jesus Atheists
Augustine
Baals
Babylon, Babylonia
Believing
Bible (see also: Word of God)
Infallibility
Literal truth
18, 21, Appendix 1, 2, 10, 12, 13 26, 27 13, 17, 20-22 21, 26 2 2, 4, 13 2, 4, 7, 13, 16, 19, 23 2, 4, 12-14, 19 2, 4, 16-18 3, 14, 25, 28 3 5 2, 12, 13, 16, 17, 23, 25 12, 14, 16-19, 22, 23, 25, 28 12, 15-17 12, 16, 17 16-19, 28 17-20 17-19 28 5, 6, 22, 26 11 3, 16, 25, 28 11 4, 10, 11, 23 12, 13 3, 16, 17 17 18 17 2, 16, 19, 23 7, 8, 11, 15, 16, 23 17-19 9, 16-19, 21, 23 22, 24 21, 25 14, 15, 21 2, 13, 14, 21-23 Good News Version (French)
25 New International Version
3, 25 New Jerusalem Version
25 Revised Standard Version
3, 25 Bible scholarship
9, 12, 16, 18, 26 Big Bang
11, 23, 28 Biotechnology
27 Bryson, Bill
10, 11, 23 Cain and Abel
3, 16, 17, 21 Cain's wife
4, 13, 16, 17 Caird, Rod
2, 4, 11, 12 Calvin
4, 8, 13, 16 Canaan, Canaanites
17-19 Cann, Rebecca L.
11 Catechism of Catholic Church
2, 16, 17 Cave paintings
2 Childbearing: see Adam and Eve Chimpanzees
4, 10, 11 Chosen people
19, 21, 23 Christ: see Jesus christiananswers.net
13 Christian message
22-24 Church
16, 19, 23-27 Civil partnerships
26 Commandments
5, 17, 22, 24-26 Common ancestors
11 Consummation
21 Covenant
20, 21 Creation
3, 4, 9, 11-15, 21, 23, 27 Creationism
13 Crop farmers
3, 11, 16, 17, 19, 28 Cross: see Jesus Cyrus
18, 19, 21 Daniel
18, 21, 22 Darius
18 Darwin, Charles
10, 13 Day of judgment: see Consummation Death
7, 16, 21, 22-24, 27 Divorce: see Adultery
dltk-bible.com
18, 25 DNA
4, 10-13 "Documentary hypothesis"
9, 12 Drane, John
16, 17, 22 Durant, Will
7, 11, 21 Dust of the ground: see Adam and Eve Eden: see Garden of Eden Elohim
9 Enlightened self-interest
11, 28 Environment
13, 14 Epistles
21, 22, 26 Ethnic cleansing
19, 23 Evangelical Christians
14, 16, 21, 26 Eve: see Adam and Eve Evolution
10, 11, 15, 23 Exile
9, 16-19 Ezra
18, 21 Faith (see also: Believing)
12, 20, 22, 24 Fall
7, 8, 11-15, 17, 21, 27 Fear of God
25 Fertility cults
16, 17 Flesh, One flesh
3, 5, 16-19, 26 Flood: see Noah Forbidden fruit: see Fruit "Foreign wives"
18 Forgiveness, God's
16, 20-24 Forgiving others
22, 24 Fruit
3, 4, 16-19, 28 Fundamentalism, Fundamentalists
12-14, 16 Garden of Eden
1, 3, 16 Gay priests, bishops
26 Genesis 1
3, 4, 12-16, 19, 23, 28 Genesis 2-3: see Adam and Eve story Genesis 2:24
5, 6, 16, 26 Genetic drift
11 Gilgamesh Epic
17 Global poverty
27, 28 God
2, 23, 26, 28 Loving Father God
5, 8, 19-23, 25 Punishing God?
5, 7, 16, 19-23, 25 The LORD God
3, 9, 16, 17 Good News Version: see Bible
Gospels
17, 22, 24 Graf, Karl Heinrich
9, 12 Grape
16, 17, 19 Great Books of the Western World
7, 8, 10 Green, Michael
12, 14, 16, 20, 21 halakhah.com
16 Hawking, Stephen
7, 11, 15, 23 Haywood, John
11, 17 Heaven
22-24 Heaven/sky
2, 23 Purpose of exclusions from
20 Hebrews (nation)
Hell
Fire
Outer darkness
Herders
Herder myths
Holy Spirit
Hominids
Homo erectus, habilis, helmei
Homo sapiens
Homosexuality
Hope
Hunters
Hupfeld, Hermann
Hypotheses
Ice age
Illustrated Bible Dictionary
Image of God
Incest
Infallibility: see Bible Intelligent design
Isaiah
"J"
Jesus
Ascension
Death on the cross
Hard sayings
Message
Parables: see Parables of Jesus Second Adam?
Second coming
Son of God
Jews, Judaism
Jezebel
Jiva and Atman story
John the Baptist
Joshua
Judah, kingdom of
Judging others
Judgment: see Consummation
Konstant, David
Kosmos: see World Kuenen, Abraham
Law (see also: Old Testament)
Lewis, C.S.
Liberal Christians
20 20, 22, 23 20, 22 20, 22 3, 11, 16, 17, 19, 28 17, 20 18, 22 10, 11 10 2, 4, 10, 11, 23, 28 26 24 11, 28 9 16 11 6, 15, 23 2, 4, 7, 12, 14, 16, 21, 23, 27, 28 4, 13, 17 23 9, 16, 17, 19, 21 9, 12, 16 5, 14, 16, 20, 21, 24 23 21 22, 24 22 6, 7, 8 20, 21, 23 21-23 17-19 17, 19, 21 17 18, 20, 21 19, 23 9, 17-19, 21 22, 24-26 23 9, 12 26 13, 22, 27 14-17 "Life is a test"
13 Lines, Malcolm E.
23 LION Handbooks
2, 5, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20 Literal truth: see Bible LORD God: see God "Love God"
20, 22, 24, 25 "Love your enemy"
22, 24 "Love your neighbour"
20, 22, 24 Loving Father God: see God Male headship
6, 14, 16, 26 "Man, male and female"
2, 3, 4, 7, 12-14, 16, 19, 21, 23, 26 Manifesto: see Adam and Eve Marathon, battle of
18 Mark 10
5, 18 Mark 12
5, 16, 20, 28 Marriage (see also: Adultery)
26 Matthew 5
5, 21, 22, 24, 25 Matthew 7
22, 24, 28 Matthew 25
20, 22, 28 Messiah
21 Ministry
14, 26 Misfortune
5, 17, 24, 25 Mitochondrial DNA: see DNA "Mitochondrial Eve"
11, 12 Molecular biology
11 Money, wealth
11, 19, 28 Monkeys
4, 10 Moses
1, 4, 9, 12, 17, 20-22, 26 Mount Sinai
1, 16, 17, 21 Myth: see Adam and Eve story, Herders Names
3, 26, 28 Nature
11 Neanderthals
2, 10 Nebuchadnezzar
1, 16, 18, 19 Nehemiah
18 New International Version: see Bible New Jerusalem Bible: see Bible New Testament
5, 14, 17, 20, 22, 23, 26 Newsweek
12 Nicene Creed
23 Noah
9, 13, 16, 17, 19, 21 Obeying God
20, 22, 24 OIS 6: see Ice Age Old Testament
5, 14, 16, 17, 19-24, 26 History
17, 18 Law
5, 9 "One flesh": see Flesh Oppenheimer, Stephen
11, 12 Original sin
6-8, 11, 12, 14-16, 21 Origins of life
23 Origins of mankind
10-12 Ouranos: see Heaven/sky
Outer darkness: see Hell
Oxford Bible Commentary
6, 9, 16-18, 20, 21 "P"
9, 12, 16, 17, 19, 23 Pain (see also: Adam and Eve)
13, 24 Palaeontology
10, 11 Parables
16, 21 Genesis 2-3: see Adam and Eve Isaiah 5: see Isaiah 2 Samuel 12
16, 17 Parables of Jesus
16, 20 Coming of the Son of man
20, 21 Dishonest steward
20, 22 Housebuilder
22 Pharisee and tax collector
25 Rich man and Lazarus
17, 20 Sheep and goats: see Matthew 25 Sower
22 Unforgiving servant
20 Weeds
20 Wicked tenants: see Mark 12 Paul
6-8, 14, 16, 20, 21, 26 Pell, Cardinal
16 Pentateuch
9, 12, 17 Peter, 1 Peter 3
21, 24, 25 Pharisees
5, 22 Pictures of God: see God Poetry
12, 14, 15, 17 Pope Benedict XVI
12 Prayer
13, 23, 24 Promised land
19-21, 23 Prophecy, Prophets
5, 17, 20, 21 Punishing God?: see God "Q"
17 Qur'ān
17 Redemption
21 Relativity theory
1, 2, 11 Repenting, Repentance
5, 16-22, 24, 25, 28 Resurrection of the dead: see Death Revelation, Book of
5, 21-23 Revised Standard Version: see Bible Roaf, Michael
11 Sacrifice
19-21, 25 Sadducees
22, 23 Same-sex marriage
26 Scholarship: see Bible scholarship
Science
10-13, 15, 16, 18, 23, 25-27 Second coming: see Jesus Sermon on the Mount
17, 22, 24 Signature of God
4, 6, 23, 26 Sin (see also: Original sin)
5, 7, 8, 14, 20-22, 24-27 Sinai: see Mount Sinai Snake
2, 3, 4, 14, 16-19, 26, 28 Sodom and Gomorrah
20, 21, 26 Son of God: see Jesus Son of man
21, 22 Soul
2, 22, 25, 28 Spiritual dimension
2, 22, 23 Stott, John
14-16, 21, 22, 24, 26, 27 Suffering servant: see Messiah Sunday school
25 Synoptic Gospels
17, 21 Talmud
16, 17, 18 Temptation
13, 14 Ten Commandments: see Commandments Test (see also: "Life is a test")
8, 13, 16 Testimony
24 Trial of obedience: see Test trueorigin.com
12 Trusting God
20, 22, 24, 25 Truth, literal: see Bible Universe
11, 13, 15, 16, 23, 27 Vedic Hinduism
17 Vineyard: see Isaiah, Mark 12 Virgin birth
23 Ward, Keith
15, 16, 23 Warren, Rick
13, 16, 20, 23-25 Wellhausen, Julius
9, 12 Wheat
16-19, 28 Wikipedia
16, 17 Will of God
22 Women
6, 14, 26 Word of God
4, 12, 14, 16, 21 Works
22 World
23, 26 Creation of: see Creation Kosmos
23 "Wrath of God"
Wyatt, John
Xerxes
Y chromosome
YHWH
20 17, 26, 27 18 11 9, 20 Synopsis of the Book This book marks the 2,500th anniversary of the writing of the Adam and Eve story
in its present form in Genesis. A key occasion for the Church because the story
deals with the second most important event in all of human history (the "fall").
And a key occasion for everyone in the world because the story is by far the bestknown passage in the entire Bible. The book opens with an account of the present Adam and Eve story and with a
series of common sense questions. The comments of Jesus, Paul, Augustine and
Calvin on the story are then given, along with details of new light shed in the 19th
and 20th centuries by scholars and scientists. Coming to the 21st century, the book first sets out the views of leading
fundamentalist, evangelical and liberal Christians. It then argues the case for the
present Adam and Eve story having been rewritten in the 5th century B.C. from an
ancient herder myth about God punishing the very first crop farmers. The view put
forward is that the story as we have it now is two things at the same time: a parable
about repentance and a manifesto urging Jews in exile in Babylon in 487 B.C. to
return home. The preliminary conclusion is that many Christians misread the story and thereby
arrive at the wrong picture both of God and of the Bible as a whole. So ideas for a
more positive approach to God and the Bible are presented, along with an account
of the message brought by Jesus, emphasizing that he gave the picture of a loving
Father God totally different to the picture given by a superficial reading of
Genesis. At this point the book sets out frameworks, based in part on reading the Adam and
Eve story in the new light of 21st century knowledge, for defending and explaining
the Christian faith to non-believers and for helping Christians to grasp the story's
wider implications. And it continues with comments on some of the challenges
facing the Church today, things like abortion, women bishops, gay bishops and
same-sex marriage, often made unnecessarily complicated by issues arising
ultimately from a misreading of the Adam and Eve story. The book closes by putting the Adam and Eve story into a present day context,
drawing a parallel between the way the snake tempted Eve and the way financial
organizations marketed sub-prime mortgages in the years leading up to the
financial crisis of 2007, and urging a return to the long-lost common sense
principle of enlightened self-interest.
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