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Since I was a child I was able to use reason and figured out the Adam and Eve story was allegorical.
However, it seems many actually believe in a real Adam and Eve. Some go through complicated hoops to explain different racial groups on the planet (white, black, asian, etc). This is difficult to explain within the context of just a few thousand years.
Sola Scriptura fundamentalists do not believe in evolution and yet they want people to believe Adam and Eve evolved into different racial groups over a very short time?
Dennis Venema, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Senior Fellow, BioLogos Foundation
Biology Department
Trinity Western University
7600 Glover Road
Langley, BC V2Y 1Y1
Researching The Human Genome
Venema says there is no way we can be traced back to a single couple. He says with the mapping of the human genome, it's clear that modern humans emerged from other primates as a large population
John Schneider
Calvin College
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
Department: Theology
Another one is John Schneider, who taught theology at Calvin College in Michigan until recently. He says it's time to face facts: There was no historical Adam and Eve, no serpent, no apple, no fall that toppled man from a state of innocence.
"Evolution makes it pretty clear that in nature, and in the moral experience of human beings, there never was any such paradise to be lost," Schneider says. "So Christians, I think, have a challenge, have a job on their hands to reformulate some of their tradition about human beginnings."
Intellectual Rift
That's only true if you read the Bible literally, says Dennis Venema at Trinity Western University. But if you read the Bible as poetry and allegory as well as history, you can see God's hand in nature — and in evolution.
"There's nothing to be scared of here," Venema says. "There is nothing to be alarmed about. It's actually an opportunity to have an increasingly accurate understanding of the world — and from a Christian perspective, that's an increasingly accurate understanding of how God brought us into existence."
This is simple for me. Adam and Eve were real people. The first. God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. There's no reason for me to believe that God didn't start out with one man, and then one woman. I believe that the infinite being that God is, created man from the dust (the atomic structure) of the earth. I have no problem with creation, and I personally think that it would be an insult to God to say that He couldn't make things from nothing, or from any other thing that He wished. It is a FAR greater stretch of faith to believe that the human race came from an evolution and believe that God, or even some coincidence, had to wait for the process of natural selection, which is very close to a mathematical impossibility. There's also no reason for me not to believe that there was a flood, especially with the evidence that I have all around me where I live, that the geological formations were formed by that flood. I smile at people that think that I have no intelligence by believing such things. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't change a thing.
God said it through Paul, (and yes, I also believe the scriptures), that man has all the evidence of God that they need. The swelling of the head is a blinding experience. There is no lack of people that have "evidence" to the theory of evolution. Their evidence, in no way, is proof of anything. It's their opinion. I wish them the best!
Yes. They were real. Jesus affirmed a real Adam, and so did the apostle Paul. I don't see why I shouldn't.
As for human genome study? All that tells me is that we have a common creator with primates.
So you think Adam and Eve were real people. But, you have no problems in saying Jesus is not present in the Eucharist and that Jesus was speaking allegorically.
Why do you get to choose when the bible is allegoric and when it is not allegoric?
Since I was a child I was able to use reason and figured out the Adam and Eve story was allegorical.
However, it seems many actually believe in a real Adam and Eve. Some go through complicated hoops to explain different racial groups on the planet (white, black, asian, etc). This is difficult to explain within the context of just a few thousand years.
Sola Scriptura fundamentalists do not believe in evolution and yet they want people to believe Adam and Eve evolved into different racial groups over a very short time?
Dennis Venema, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Senior Fellow, BioLogos Foundation
Biology Department
Trinity Western University
7600 Glover Road
Langley, BC V2Y 1Y1
Researching The Human Genome
Venema says there is no way we can be traced back to a single couple. He says with the mapping of the human genome, it's clear that modern humans emerged from other primates as a large population
John Schneider
Calvin College
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
Department: Theology
Another one is John Schneider, who taught theology at Calvin College in Michigan until recently. He says it's time to face facts: There was no historical Adam and Eve, no serpent, no apple, no fall that toppled man from a state of innocence.
"Evolution makes it pretty clear that in nature, and in the moral experience of human beings, there never was any such paradise to be lost," Schneider says. "So Christians, I think, have a challenge, have a job on their hands to reformulate some of their tradition about human beginnings."
Intellectual Rift
That's only true if you read the Bible literally, says Dennis Venema at Trinity Western University. But if you read the Bible as poetry and allegory as well as history, you can see God's hand in nature — and in evolution.
"There's nothing to be scared of here," Venema says. "There is nothing to be alarmed about. It's actually an opportunity to have an increasingly accurate understanding of the world — and from a Christian perspective, that's an increasingly accurate understanding of how God brought us into existence."
Adam and Eve were real people, and so was everyone else in the recorded genealogies which are given in detail. A genealogy does not consist of people who never existed in reality. At which point in a genealogy can it transition from metaphorical people to literal people? Adam is in the genealogy of Jesus (Luke 3:23-38). If Adam was not a literal person, then one must conclude that Jesus was not a literal person.
If Adam never existed then there was no original sin, no fall of man, and no need for Christ to die for the sins of the world.
Man was specially created by God and did not evolve from previously existing life forms. Jesus Himself confirmed that Adam and Eve were real people.
Matthew 19:4 And He answered and said, "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female; 5] and said, ''for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become on flesh''?
You have to decide whether you believe Jesus or not. And contrary to your claims, while there is allegory in the Bible, the Bible as a whole is NOT to be understood as allegorical. That which is plainly literal is to be understood literally, and that which is clearly symbolic or allegorical is to be understood in that way.
Skeptics are always attempting to discredit the literalness of Genesis which is the seedpod for many of the doctrines of the Bible, because if they can discredit Genesis then they can discredit the entire Bible.
You can slap yourself on your round yellow smiley head as much as you like. It changes nothing.
This is simple for me. Adam and Eve were real people. The first. God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. There's no reason for me to believe that God didn't start out with one man, and then one woman. I believe that the infinite being that God is, created man from the dust (the atomic structure) of the earth. I have no problem with creation, and I personally think that it would be an insult to God to say that He couldn't make things from nothing, or from any other thing that He wished. It is a FAR greater stretch of faith to believe that the human race came from an evolution and believe that God, or even some coincidence, had to wait for the process of natural selection, which is very close to a mathematical impossibility. There's also no reason for me not to believe that there was a flood, especially with the evidence that I have all around me where I live, that the geological formations were formed by that flood. I smile at people that think that I have no intelligence by believing such things. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't change a thing.
God said it through Paul, (and yes, I also believe the scriptures), that man has all the evidence of God that they need. The swelling of the head is a blinding experience. There is no lack of people that have "evidence" to the theory of evolution. Their evidence, in no way, is proof of anything. It's their opinion. I wish them the best!
It is OK to believe in the magical stuff of the bible. But, why not simply say that evolution developed naturally under the guidance of God. In that manner you can have a more reasonable argument with those that say the Adam and Eve story is allegoric.
Christian scientist and biologists cannot back up Adam and Eve with scientific data. The observed racial divergence cannot be explained in a few thousand years which is less than the blink of an eye in terms of Earth history.
I am an Atheist and I believe in evolution. I believe my direct ancestors were non-human.
At one point in history, I believe a non-human female gave birth to a human, who may have been male or female. It is fine with me to give that human the name Adam or Eve.
I believe that human mated with non-humans and fortunately had human offspring. Eventually that led to you and me.
Adam and Eve were real people, and so was everyone else in the recorded genealogies which are given in detail. A genealogy does not consist of people who never existed in reality. At which point in a genealogy can it transition from metaphorical people to literal people? Adam is in the genealogy of Jesus (Luke 3:23-38). If Adam was not a literal person, then one must conclude that Jesus was not a literal person.
If Adam never existed then there was no original sin, no fall of man, and no need for Christ to die for the sins of the world.
Man was specially created by God and did not evolve from previously existing life forms. Jesus Himself confirmed that Adam and Eve were real people.
Matthew 19:4 And He answered and said, "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female; 5] and said, ''for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become on flesh''?
You have to decide whether you believe Jesus or not. And contrary to your claims, while there is allegory in the Bible, the Bible as a whole is NOT to be understood as allegorical. That which is plainly literal is to be understood literally, and that which is clearly symbolic or allegorical is to be understood in that way.
Skeptics are always attempting to discredit the literalness of Genesis which is the seedpod for many of the doctrines of the Bible, because if they can discredit Genesis then they can discredit the entire Bible.
You can slap yourself on your round yellow head as much as you like. It changes nothing.
Adam and Eve can be allegoric. That does not change the message of Jesus or his works. What really matters is what Jesus said. The other stuff is man made religion.
I am an Atheist and I believe in evolution. I believe my direct ancestors were non-human.
At one point in history, I believe a non-human female gave birth to a human, who may have been male or female. It is fine with me to give that human the name Adam or Eve.
I believe that human mated with non-humans and fortunately had human offspring, and eventually that led to you and I.
We are primates! We are apes with a larger better brain.
One day humans will become extinct and the descendants of humans will be called something else. They will look at photos of the human primate and wonder how could their ancestors be so primitive.
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