People Before Adam

I'm reading an interesting book (primarily science) called,

The Genealogical Adam and Eve, the Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry.
by S. Joshua Swimidass.
InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2019

Swimidass makes a strong scientific case for the decent us all from Adam and Eve... this while affirming that there is plenty of data to confirm a human population outside the garden (from which we also descend). BTW, the author refutes polygenesis (the origination of a race or species from a number of independent stocks).

Here is a little blurb of historical theology that the author includes about racial theory, with a bit of background on it's participant:

Isaac La Peyrère (1596–1676) was a French-born theologian, writer, and lawyer, best known as a 17th-century predecessor of the scientific racialist theory of polygenism in the form of his Pre-Adamite hypothesis, which offered a challenge to traditional understandings of the descent of the human races.

The theological challenge of antipodeans [someone who lived in or came from the opposite side of the globe] was on Isaac La Pyrere’s mind when he visited Greenland. He could not imagine any ancestral connection with the people he found there, concluding that they did not descend from Adam and Eve. Starting from this conclusion, La Pyrere proposed a theological solution; God created humans across the globe in different geographical locations with different origins. He published Prae-Adamitae in 1655, and then Men before Adam in 1656, with the subtitle, Exercise on Romans 5:12-14, from Which It Can Be Infered That Humans Existed Before Adam. He supposed each region was home to a distinct human lineage that persisted to the present day as different races. … This model of origins is the first version of polygenesis, and it was a creationist proposal. Evolution would not be proposed for another 200 years.…

LaPierre made his case primarily from Scripture, arguing that Genesis 1 and 2 were obviously sequential stories, taking place one after another. God made people across the globe in Genesis 1 in the image of God, but then specially made Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. To make sense of original sin, La Peyrere argued that Romans 5:12-14 explicitly acknowledged that there were people in the world before Adam.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.​

From this passage LaPierre argues that there were people before Adam.​

(pp 122 to 123)

Rob

 

The Genealogical Adam and Eve, the Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry.
by S. Joshua Swimidass.
InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2019

This is the most groundbreaking science/theology book I’ve read in years.
The author has vetted his theory among numerous theologians in discussions and conferences and has included critical reviews in the Appendix.

~~~~~~

from the book…

Genealogical ancestry requires no scientific knowledge to explain. It traces the reproductive origin of people, matching the common use of ancestor, descendent, parent, and child. Our fathers, mother, and grandparents are our ancestors. Going back into our history, all their grandparents are our ancestors too. In this sense, genealogical ancestry matches an ordinary understanding of ancestry. p. 31​

The Genealogical Hypothesis
The genealogical hypothesis is that Adam and Eve are universal genealogical ancestors. They need not be our genetic ancestors. This is not an overly clever loophole derived from modern scientific understanding. Rather, genealogical ancestry is a return to a more traditional reading of Genesis, which cannot possibly be talking about DNA.

First, historical claims in theology are understood using ordinary meanings of words, consistent with understanding long before modern science arose. Scripture discusses ancestry, often recording genealogies, but it is entirely silent about DNA. Ancient authors make no mention of the double helix, or a genomes.

Second, all claims about DNA and Adam and Eve that arise in theology, therefore are inferences, not the direct claims of scripture. The inference that Adam and Eve are our universal genetic ancestors depends on the assumption, often tacit, that there are no people outside the Garden. The genealogical hypothesis, however starts with the opposite presumption, so the inference that Adam and Eve are our genetic ancestors is not valid. At the outset we do not know if they are genetic ancestors or not. Scripture does not tell us one way or the other.

For these two reasons, the genealogical hypothesis states that Adam and Eve are our universal genealogical ancestors, but not necessarily our universal genetic ancestors. If our purpose was to disprove the traditional account, we would gloss over the distinction between genetic and genealogical ancestry. page 41​

Rob

 

I was introduced to the “The Genealogical Adam and Eve” through a series of Systematic Theology texts that I have been reading [the collection is the Foundations of Evangelical Theology, the of title of the particular book is “Against God and Nature, the Doctrine of Sin” by Thomas H. McCall (John S. Feinberg, general editor). In the book’s appendix, in a section discussing “The Original Sinners”, a subsection deals with a topic I’ve never heard of, “The Hyper-Adam Proposal”. There McCall introduces S. Joshua Swamidass, writing:

“in addition to the various versions of refurbishment and the hyper-Adam proposals, another option has recently emerged, one that is well-informed by the contemporary science. S. Joshua Swamidass offers an interesting proposal. He argues that genealogical science is relevant and important in this discussion. The often overlooked, genealogical science has much to offer for our understanding of these matters. He argues that​

[m]ost are convinced that genetic and archaeological science answer the question “Do we all descend from a single couple? with an equivocal “no,” [for] it appears that [we] share common ancestors with a great apes and arise as a large population, never dipping in size to a single couple. Without contradicting the findings of genetic science, genealogical science gives a different answer to the question. There are many couples, pairs of universal genealogical ancestors, each individually from whom we all descend. These ancestors stretch from our distant past to very recently in our history. Consistent with the genetic and archaeological evidence, therefore, it is possible that God could have chosen, or specially created, one of these couples for a special role….such a couple could be among the ancestors of all those alive today.​

[snip]

This raises the possibility that there could be a historical Adam and Eve— and a historical “fall” that brought death for humans—without any rejection of the genetic (and archaeological) evidence for the large initial population thesis and a common ancestry thesis. On this proposal, one could believe in the standard evolutionary history as it is commonly told. Life develops, that is, through the common means of descent with modification, and this includes the emergence of hominids and their primate cousins. But then, at the appropriate moment, God either selects a preexisting couple (thus perhaps intersecting with the “refurbishment proposal” but now with more scientific sophistication and plausibility) or creates one de novo— first male from “the dust of the ground” and then the female from the male. This couple is in the image of God, and their lives are decisive for those who follow. They are, in the relevant sense, the first real humans. They are, then, at the “headwaters” of the human race. As Swamidass argues, nothing in this proposal forces one to reject either the common ancestry thesis or the initial large initial population thesis. As he puts it, “Nothing in the genealogical science undermines these two conclusions.” Moreover, if Adam and Eve are historical persons, then the notorious problem of intermarriage… [of] his descendants is avoided; their descendants mixed with the larger population of biologically-compatible beings. (p. 395-398)

Rob​

 

Adoni ???

The theory presented in the book is that Genesis chapter 1 describes the creation of MAN on day 6.
Chapter 1 uses the generic name for God (Elohim). This creation occurred over a long period of time. It would have involved evolutionary development. Death was a part of their world.

Genesis chapter 2 describes the special (de novo) creation of ADAM. In chapter 2 we are introduced to Yahweh (the covenantal, personal name for God). Through Adam’s access to the Tree of Life Yahweh provided a path way for mankind to gain access to eternal life.
Instead, Adam chose the Knowledge of Good and Evil… necessitating a Second Adam, Jesus Christ.

(I shortened the author’s presentation and may have misrepresented it but this is the gist of it).

Rob