The Historicity of Adam: how important?

[Yeshua1]

You do not speak the truth!

"These are seven twenty-four-hour days. This has always been the best reading of the Hebrew text. Those who have tried to alleviate the tension for the age of the earth commonly suggested that the days should be understood as long eras (the day-age view). This has never been convincing" Walton, LWOG1 p. 90

"When we identify Adam and Eve as historical figures, we mean that they are real people involved in real events in a real past. They are not inherently mythological or legendary, though their roles may contribute to them being treated that way in some of the reception history. Likewise they are not fictional" Walton, LWOA&E, p. 101

“If Genesis 1 is not an account of material origins, then it offers no mechanism for material origins, and we may safely look to science to consider what it suggests for such mechanisms. We may find the theories proposed by scientists to be convincing or not, but we cannot on the basis of Genesis 1 object to any mechanism they offer.” Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One. p 162

Rob

Thanks for corrdting me on that aspect of His views regarding genesis.

 

[Yeshua1]

Walton's Adam is not the biblical Adam—progenitor of the humans race. And his six days are not the creation of the actual universe. He believes it's all literary myth. So long as we're being honest.

he fits it into a Framework of using myth to tell real events...

 

[just-want-peace]

IMHO, if you dismiss the B-E-G-I-N-N-I-N-G of "whatever" as not true (by whatever means - fable, allegory, too "complicated for the audience", distorted oral history, or whatever destroys the literal meaning) when there is no given indication to not accept as literal truth, then you have just destroyed any future worth of that "whatever" as nothing is exempt from "un-literalizing" the rest of it!

 

[Yeshua1]

IMHO, if you dismiss the B-E-G-I-N-N-I-N-G of "whatever" as not true (by whatever means - fable, allegory, too "complicated for the audience", distorted oral history, or whatever destroys the literal meaning) when there is no given indication to not accept as literal truth, then you have just destroyed any future worth of that "whatever" as nothing is exempt from "un-literalizing" the rest of it!

Bottom line is that both jesusand paul spoke of it as being true historiacl account of real history and real events and persons...

 

[Aaron]

“If Genesis 1 is not an account of material origins, then it offers no mechanism for material origins, and we may safely look to science to consider what it suggests for such mechanisms. We may find the theories proposed by scientists to be convincing or not, but we cannot on the basis of Genesis 1 object to any mechanism they offer.” Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One. p 162

Rob

LOL. He's just saying he doesn't know science well enough to refute the arbitrary presuppositions and the debilitating weaknesses in the scientists' own Naturalistic theories to argue with them, so he tries to render Genesis 1 irrelevant to natural history.

If the mechanism they offer requires the falsification of a point in the Genesis account we can safely reject it. If their mechanism requires the heavenly bodies to be formed before the earth is formed, then it can definitely be discounted on the basis of Genesis 1. If their mechanism requires Adam and Eve to have progenitors, then it can on the basis of Genesis 1 be discounted.

The problem doesn't lay anywhere in Genesis.

 

[Yeshua1]

LOL. He's just saying he doesn't know science well enough to refute the arbitrary presuppositions and the debilitating weaknesses in the scientists' own Naturalistic theories to argue with them, so he tries to render Genesis 1 irrelevant to natural history.

If the mechanism they offer requires the falsification of a point in the Genesis account we can safely reject it. If their mechanism requires the heavenly bodies to be formed before the earth is formed, then it can definitely be discounted on the basis of Genesis 1. If their mechanism requires Adam and Eve to have progenitors, then it can on the basis of Genesis 1 be discounted.

The problem doesn't lay anywhere in Genesis.

The basic problem is that he wants to have the scriptures be able to teach to us evolutionary process and extreme old age, so he wants "accepted scientific facts" to override scripture!