Natalie's Narrative

Did Neandertals have the image of God?

A few months ago I shared why I can't believe that Adam and Eve literally existed.  One of the pre-modern-human species I mentioned were Neandertals, who are thought to be an evolutionary dead end.  Pinpointing a literal Adam and Eve after the Neandertals, or leaving their species out of those who would have the image of God, is problematic to me because Neandertals left flowers at burial sites.  They had some understanding of the meaning of death, so to consider them soulless is troublesome.

I recently discovered a great blog by Jim, a self-described "Christian, librarian, palaeoanthropologist, and evolutionary biologist with an all-consuming interest in apologetics and controversies in science and religion."  At Science and Religion: A View from an Evolutionary Creationist, Jim linked to an intriguing new finding on the Neandertals.  Researchers found that this species lived in house-like structures.  The report says: 

Researchers from the Museum National d'Histories Naturelle in Paris said it suggests the early human ancestors settled in areas where they built structures to live for extended periods of time.

The circular house was made up of 116 large bones, including mammoth skulls, jaws, 14 tusks and leg bones.

And inside at least 25 hearths filled with ash were also found, suggesting it had been used for some time, the Mail said.

Jim adds that the Neandertals "were every bit as intelligent as we are, just very environmentally-challenged."  This discovery complicates the notion that two individuals were suddenly infused with God's image.  That a group of not-quite-human beings had the capacity to build homes, albeit crude, makes a bright-line rule with regard to who has a soul seem arbitrary.  

 

Mohler and MacArthur are not part of a long line of church leaders defending creationism

Southern Baptist Archbishop Al Mohler (thanks to Slacktivist for that term) uses dramatic rhetoric when arguing against evolution.  He stated Christians "now face the undeniable truth that the most basic and fundamental questions of biblical authority and gospel integrity are at stake."  Evangelical Archbishop John MacArthur also employs dramatic language. 

Mohler and MacArthur place themselves in a long line of Christians who have defended six-day creationism.  Their language makes one think the church has always supported a literal creation account.  To reconcile Scripture and evolution, then, would be the church's first--and dramatic--capitulation to "secular" thinking.

But throughout history, not everyone affirmed six-day creationism.  Not all church fathers furthered a dichotomy between Scripture and science.  The origins issue was not the controversy some have made it today; in fact, it was often a non-issue. 

Robert Letham's Westminster Theological Journal article, In the Space of Six Days: The Days of Creation from Origen to the Westminster Assembly, argues that some church fathers did not spend time defending a literal Genesis reading.  To counteract some modern church leaders' misconceptions, here are some thoughts from Letham's article, which I read for my human origins class in college.

Third-century Origen didn't believe in a literal six-day creation, as it is impossible to interpret the creation account literally when the sun wasn't created until the fourth day, per Genesis 1.

Augustine believed in a simultaneous creation, so Genesis' days were actually one day repeated seven times.  "God accommodated himself to the capacity of weaker intellects and presented creation as if it were a process" (157).  

Up until the 1200's, most exegesis centered on the perfect number of creation's days and debates about when angels were created.  Whether creation occurred in six literal days wasn't important.

Calvin's Genesis commentary doesn't discuss the days of creation, which Letham thinks is significant in itself.  Like Augustine, Calvin believed in divine accommodation.  God accommodates his works to human capacity, to our level, "speaking to us in the prattling babble of baby-talk" (166).

Calvin believed Genesis did not teach astronomy or other sciences.  He didn't dismiss science, but valued it.  To Calvin, Genesis was written in a popular style for ordinary people, while astronomers dealt with more complex knowledge.  Astronomy was "very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God" (167).

None of the sixteenth-century Reformed confessions state earth was created in six literal days.  It was simply not an issue in the Reformed church at that time.

Moving on to English Puritans up until the Westminster Assembly, Letham says their theology has a "virtually complete absence of interest in creation" (173).  They never attempted a serious interpretation of the creation accounts - it was not a matter of controversy.

If the creation account is clear-cut and vital to the gospel message, why were there so many divergent interpretations--or none at all--pre-Westminster Assembly?  When Mohler and MacArthur defend a literal reading of Genesis, they fail to realize they're defending a relatively new interpretation, which differs from early church fathers' interpretations.  "Claims that a literal reading of the days of Genesis 1 is obvious fall down when the history of interpretation is taken into consideration" (174).

Even past North American Christians would disagree with Mohler and MacArthur: Mark Noll points out in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind that theologically conservative Christian and Harvard botanist Asa Gray was the person most active in bringing Darwinism to the U.S.

Lastly, those who reject evolution and read Genesis literally still selectively interpret based on scientific developments.  Genesis 1:6-8 states:

And God said, "Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water."  So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it.  And it was so.  God called the vault "sky."

Thanks to modern-day astronomers and space exploration, we view this separation of waters as an ancient Near East understanding of the atmosphere.  Hardly any literalists today believe an ocean is above the sky, because science and simple observations prove otherwise.  Why, then, do literalists insist those who accept evolution disrespect the gospel's integrity?  Aren't literalists also allowing "secular science" to influence their interpretation of Genesis 1:6-8? 

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Why I don't believe in a literal Adam and Eve

Although I'm not a scientist and have taken only one physical anthropology course, I feel compelled to share what I've learned about human origins.  In the same way complementarians tie traditional gender roles to a faithful reading of Scripture, I've seen some evangelicals assert that a truly serious reading of Scripture requires a belief in a literal Adam and Eve. 

I echo Peter Enns' recent criticism of Al Mohler's claim that the only way to respect the Bible and have a solid faith is to read Genesis literally:

I am writing [...] for the sake of those who are living with the consequences of what Mohler says they must believe–those who feel trapped in Mohler’s either/or rhetoric, that to question a literal interpretation of Scripture concerning creation puts one on the path to apostasy.

Driven by his precommitment to biblical literalism, Mohler leaves his audience with an impossible false choice between a Christian faith that must remain in intellectual isolation in order to survive and an intellectual life that has no place for Christian faith.

I consider myself a follower of Jesus and a serious reader of Scripture, so it's painful to be told I don't take my faith seriously because I do not believe Adam and Eve literally existed.  

To me, the fossil record shows Adam and Eve could not literally exist.  My brief summary touches on the gradual cultural and cognitive developments, because those may indicate where to place a literal Adam and Eve.  Here is an excellent, more in-depth interactive website from the Smithsonian.

"Hominids" are species after the last common ancestor of humans and living apes.  They walk upright, do not use their teeth as tools, and have bigger brains.  A "genus" is one taxonomical level above "species," and Australopithecus is the first hominid genus we know included species that developed tools.  First found in Kenya, they existed an estimated 4.2 to 1 million years ago, but show no evidence of culture.  Australopithecus even coexisted with our genus, Homo.

Homo appeared roughly 2 million years ago.  Homo habilis, discovered in Tanzania, were the first stone toolmakers.  Homo erectus were the first travelers beyond Africa.  Experts don't think they developed language, but evidence shows they cared for their elderly and weak.  

Early archaic Homo sapiens appeared about 500,000 years ago.  Their culture is more sophisticated, with structures, stone industries, and exploitation of natural resources.

Late archaic Homo sapiens, the last group before modern humans, in­cludes European and West Asian Neandartals.  There is evidence of flowers placed at burial sites.  However, language development is doubtful.  Interestingly, Neandartals lack descendants; they're an evolutionary dead end.  

Modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens, appeared about 120,000 years ago, and I'm sure we're well aware of our own capabilities.

The line from the first hominids to modern humans is not clear, though.  The below "family tree" notes the transformation wasn't linear, but rather a multi-faceted, meandering process.  Tracing a direct line even within our own genus isn't even possible yet.

Where do we place Adam and Eve?  They could be Homo habilis, the first species to make stone tools.  However, there's little evidence of advanced culture.

What if they were Homo erectus,  with brain size comparable to modern humans?  But, Homo erectus didn't develop language, and this disregards earlier hominids who were toolmakers.  Or, Adam and Eve could have been Neandertals, but Neandertals were an evolutionary dead end.  However, do their burial rituals mean they had an understanding of death?

If we designate Adam and Eve as Homo sapiens sapiens, our species, what about Neandertals and the early archaic Homo sapiens, the latter having structures and stone industries?

It's hard to pinpoint a literal Adam and Eve in the fossil record, as cultural and cognitive abilities emerged gradually.  Culture does not suddenly appear; rather, as we have seen, it develops over time.

Did God suddenly infuse a species with His image?  With gradual fossil evidence, some lines seem arbitrary.  Or did the capacity to bear God's image develop gradually like culture?  What about those on the continuum? 

Another problem is that Genesis 4:1 says, “Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil.”  The first evidence of agriculture was around 8000 B.C.E., and genetic changes required to domesticate plants took 2,000 to 3,000 years.  

If Cain were the first agri­culturalist, this leaves too little time for all humans to be Adam and Eve's descendents.  Also, based on the emergence of agriculture, Cain would have been alive 10,000 years ago, yet modern Homo sapiens appeared 120,000 years ago.  What about those before Cain?  And was his wife, also mentioned in Genesis 4, created ex nihilo?

A literal reading of Genesis 2:19 brings another impossibility.  Don­ald Miller, in Searching for God Knows What, estimates Adam named up to 50 million species:

It would have taken nearly a year just to name the species of snakes alone.  Moses said that Eve didn't give birth to their third child till Adam was well into his hundreds, which means they would have had Cain and Abel some thirty or so years before, which also means either it took Adam more than a hundred years to name the animals, or he and Eve didn't have sex for a good, long, boring century.  

How do Christians handle problems in pinpointing a literal Adam and Eve, like fossil records, agricultural history, and naming millions of animals?  What are the theological implications?

I don't have a clear answer, and honestly it's often unsettling.  However, I do know that all truth is God's truth, even (especially) science.  I trust God reveals Himself through nature.  I cannot continue to insist Adam and Eve literally existed in the face of glaring logical inconsistencies and a continuum that raises disturbing moral issues.  I wish literalists would be willing to engage with me and others in this camp, rather than summarily label us heretics.

Any thoughts?  Anyone know why every depiction of Adam and Eve is a lily-white couple, even though evidence shows they probably had very dark skin?  Interesting...

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Evolution and Pauline theology

On Sunday I caught part of BBC's Science in Action on NPR.  One of the topics was "Evolution of language."

photo © 2009 Blatant News | more info (via: Wylio)The segment reminded me of some resources that Dean Arnold, one of my anthropology professors at Wheaton, shared in our Human Origins class.  This article discusses how scientists have pinpointed the gene that provides the blueprint for language acquisition and rapid articulation.  This gene developed around 120,000 years ago, so at that time humans had the cognitive ability to communicate with each other--identical to how we communicate now.

50,000 years later, humans began exhibiting artistic behavior, without any additional physical evolution.  Scientists think that acquiring language skills jumpstarted the culturally-creating process.

Putting aside the debate about the interpretation of Genesis, this evidence can present a theological problem for Christians who find it imperative that Adam and Eve were all of humanity's ancestors.  Otherwise, how is God's image--as well as sin and death--passed down?  The concept of salvation is linked with the literal nature of Adam, too, because of the analogies that Paul draws with Christ.  Also, if we have beings who are not quite fully human, but may have some rudimentary cognitive ability, what of their salvation?

Gilbert Bilezikian, in Community 101, points out that when God creates in his image, he creates community.  Genesis 1:26 states that God, when creating humans, said, “Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness."  Just as God himself is always in community in the trinity, humans too are always in community with each other.

When casting Adam as a literal, historical person, evolution's continuum may not present such a theological challenge when put into the context of community.  And perhaps the reason evolution is viewed as a challenge to our theology stems from our individualism.  The image of God was not meant to be thought of in individual terms only.  Perhaps in order to truly to have the image of God, humans need to be involved in a community.  

This would make sense especially in light of scientists' discoveries about the language gene, because a sole human being would have no need to develop culture or a verbal language.  Dr. Arnold thought that, if forced to choose who on the evolutionary continuum would be Adam, the most language-capable people would be a good starting point.

photo © 2010 Johan Hansson | more info (via: Wylio)

Although I'm certainly no theologian, I wondered how this communal take on the image of God plays out in Pauline theology because of Paul's reliance on analogies with Adam.  John Howard Yoder viewed Paul’s writings in a more communal, rather than individualistic, way.  Yoder believed that the righteousness Paul discussed had a social dimension.  Paul’s concerns were not at the individual level, such as personal guilt, but instead were at the social level.  To be justified, then, deals not with being declared blameless and absolving all guilt, but with the social reality of the church, the establishment of community:

The work of Christ is not only that he saves the soul of individuals and henceforth they can love each other better; the work of Christ, the making of peace, the breaking down of the wall, is itself the constituting of a new community [...] (The Politics of Jesus, p. 219)

With a pray-the-sinner's prayer brand of Christianity, you individually must pray the prayer and "ask Jesus into your heart" as a counter to Adam's literal, individual fall.  Yoder's view may see no problem with the lack of a historical Adam.

As a side note, I recently came across the Biologos Forum website, where there is a series of posts titled, "Was Adam a  Real Person?"  I especially found part 3 helpful, because it addresses how the lack of a literal Adam does (or does not) affect Paul's analogies.

"...bullet points that will fit into your gun..."

photo © 2009 Ed Schipul | more info (via: Wylio)

It's finals time, which means lots of procrastination, which means lots of catching up on blog-reading!  I wanted to share a recent post from Slacktivist, regarding evolution and ultimately the way many inerrantists brandish scripture as a weapon.  He provides a great explanation of why a literal reading of Genesis--and thus a literal Adam and Eve--does not make sense.

A literal reading requires a literate reader. A literate reader is one who is able not only to discern what a text says, but what kind of text it is. A person might be able to pronounce and define every word they're reading in the phone book, but if they are not able to discern the difference between that phone book and a collection of sonnets then we really cannot consider them literate. A reader who cannot tell the difference between such things or why it matters is a reader who will not be able to apprehend any text, literally or otherwise.

And the text of the early chapters of Genesis is not a text that requires or asks or even really allows for the reader to interpret it as speaking of a "historical" Adam and Eve. Insisting on a belief in a "historical" Adam and Eve is like insisting on a historical rainbow crow or a historical Dives.

He also explains why literalists insist on only their interpretation of scripture, or rather, their "tidy little domesticated propositions":

The bizarre young-earth creationist reading of Genesis is not suggested by the text, it is a reading brought to and imposed upon that text -- a reading predetermined by the use to which such readers seek to put scripture. They regard scripture as a weapon, as a tool to be used to prove others wrong, thereby forcing those others to submit.

[...]

If you can't control the text, you won't be able to use that text to control others. That means stories must be turned into facts, psalms into proverbs, prophecy into augury, parables into epigrams. Everything must be reduced to bullet points that will fit into your gun.

Either/Or

From my human origins reading for this week, "'In the Space of Six Days': The Days of Creation from Origen to the Westminster Assembly," by Robert Letham:

In recent years the idea has gained ground in conservative circles that [the six days of creation] are to be understood as days of twenty-four hours. The books of John Whitcomb and Henry Morris have been instrumental in the popularity of this view. Many argue that to adopt any other interpretation is to capitulate to evolutionary theories. […] This, we must confess, is an "arid question" but one forced upon us by strident attitudes implying truth is on one side only.

One value of (white) US American culture is the tendency to look at things in an exclusively binary way. Our world is either/or, us/them, black/white, good/evil. I can see how such a value has influenced evangelicalism, as well. Looking back as I have grown in my faith, I can sense that I have moved to a place where now there are blurred lines where I once thought solid un-crossable lines existed, gray area where I once thought black and white were neatly separated, and more questions where before were tidy answers. I still believe that non-negotiables exist, but I am trying to find a way to live out the gospel so that my beliefs do not ossify and stagnate and neatly fall into my either/or categories I create. Truth isn’t "on one side only"—and that statement seems to apply not only to evolution and Genesis, but also to many other things. To be honest I don’t like such nuance! Things were so much easier before…

The Literary Framework View

photo © 2007 Alessio Maffeis | more info (via: Wylio)

Here are my notes from class when we discussed a very brief summary of the literary framework interpretation of the creation account:

In the Hebrew world, they didn't think of "creation" as we post-Enlightenment people do. John Walton's (NIV Genesis commentary author) view of the creation account is that it is not an ontological account, but a phenomological one. It's not exact and technical; the language is loose. Literary terms such as "figurative,""literal," or "poetry" are too simplistic for OT genre.

In Hebrew culture, something existed when it had a function. It's not a physical issue, but a functional one. Being brought into existence meant:
(A) Being given a name
(B) Being separated from other things
(C) Being given a function

In 49 instances in the OT that the word "create" is used, the object is not physical, for example: purity, Zion, or darkness. God said, "Let there be a period of light," which according to Walton means He created time.

Maybe we aren't supposed to asked questions like, given the literary framework, "Did Adam and Eve literally eat an apple from a tree?" The fact that we say they ate an apple could testify to influences outside of the Bible that affect our interpretation of the creation story. The Bible never said it was an apple.

I don't know as much as I would like to know about this literary framework view, but it does sound like a good alternative to 1) throwing out science, 2) throwing out the Bible, and 3) using the Bible to fill in the gaps that science leaves.

Besides the political chapter in

photo © 2008 Tony Tony | more info (via: Wylio)

Besides the political chapter in Scandal, another chapter I liked is titled "Thinking about Science." Noll focuses mainly on creationism, since over time American evangelicals have expended a lot of energy on this issue. His perspective on the rise of creationism is interesting; he believes that "the intellectual debate over evolution was also a debate over the role of Protestantism in a culture that had foresworn tradition" (181). The battle was [and maybe is] not necessarily over scientific vs. Biblical accounts of human origins, but more so over what force would prevail in American culture.

Noll points out that Asa Gray, a Congregationalist who was theologically conservative, was the person who did the most to bring Darwinism to North America. There were other theologically conservative evolutionists who "thought it was possible to affirm evolution within the boundaries of historic Christian doctrines" (180). The attitude change regarding evolution came about because of fundamentalist/dispensationalist influences (and other more complex things) in evanglicalism, and Noll calls creationism "scientific dispensationalism."

The implications for such a shift are that evangelicals no longer have the capability to examine nature as it is, therefore we have "lost out on the opportunity to understand more about nature as it is" (199). Also, Noll remarks:

millions of evangelicals think they are defending the Bible by defending
creation science, but in reality they are giving ultimate authority to the
merely temporal, situated, and contextualized interpretations of the Bible that
arose from the mania for science of the early nineteenth century. (199)

"Unlike their spiritual ancestors, modern

photo © 2006 Stevan Sheets | more info (via: Wylio)

"Unlike their spiritual ancestors, modern evangelicals have not pursued comprehensive thinking under God or sought a mind shaped to its furthest reaches by Christian perspectives." p. 4 The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, Mark Noll.

In Social Research today, we discussed how, if the Western church were to have continued its stifling of scientific discoveries that contradict Scripture, we would still hold to the ideas that the earth is flat and is the center of the universe. During our discussion, we did not even venture into the realm of gender roles or race, both of which Christians can misinterpret when lifting verses from the Bible. Anyway, my mind started wandering to the issue of creation vs. evolution. Is the church once again stifling science, and will we once again look back 200 years from now and shake our heads at how silly we can be? Will we have a high price to pay for not cultivating a Christian mind, as Noll warns?

The first chapel for this year at Wheaton centered around our year verse: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. Our president, Dr. Litfin, emphasized loving God with all your mind. He asked, why pay hefty tuition and put yourself under strenuous academic conditions? His answer: We are loving God when we are cultivating our minds for the glory of God. (Although I do wonder where the tuition part comes in!) Imagine what cultural change we could bring about--worldwide change--if American evangelicals start to value the mind. Let's take the wheel instead of continuing to allow deeply lost, secular-minded intellectuals influence the direction of our country and world.