The Genealogical Adam and Eve

by S. Joshua Swamidass

  From where did these objections arise? Venema was repeating several common objections to a historical Adam and Eve within a larger population.3 It has been commonly presumed that people outside the Garden entails racist polygenesis. As we will soon see, this is not true. Ironically, the genealogical hypothesis flows out of the exact theological tradition that rejected polygenesis in the first place.

  Before we go on, let me first clearly define some terms, as I will use them. These definitions correspond to the historical meaning of the words, which do not always correspond to the literal meaning.

  ■ Monophyletic (and monophylogeny) means a group is all the same biological type. Humans are monophyletic, meaning that we are all the same species and subspecies.

  ■ Polyphyletic (and polyphylogeny) means that a group is of multiple biological types. It was often, incorrectly, thought that different races were different species or subspecies.

  ■ Monogenesis means an origin by genealogical descent from one couple. As we have seen, monogenesis is consistent with people breeding into this couple’s lineage.4 Historically, there have been both polyphyletic and monophyletic versions of monogenesis.

  ■ Polygenesis, literally, means an origin from a large population, not a single couple. Historically, however, the term was always linked to the claim that humans are polyphyletic and that we do not all descend from Adam. The concepts traveled together, to the point now that polygenesis is understood to entail polyphylogeny.

  History is critical for understanding these terms. Rightly or wrongly, polygenesis was linked inextricably to polyphyletic theories of humanity, which deny the unity of humankind; polyphyletic theories of human origins, in turn, have been linked with racism. The full telling of this story is complex. Let me acknowledge up front that I am not a historian. This is merely a high-level telling of key acts in a multicentury story, focusing on the facts that are particularly relevant now.

  1. Polygenesis arises first in theology, long before Darwin. Polygenesis starts from the premise that all humans today do not descend from Adam. As a concept, polygenesis arose with and became synonymous with polyphylogeny.

  2. Polygenesis was rejected because it denied universal descent from Adam, thereby rejecting the unity of humankind.

  3. Science embraced polygenesis while it was being rejected by most of the Church. The Church resisted scientific racism by appealing to the doctrine of original sin.

  4. Monogenesis, nonetheless, was reworked into racist versions of polyphylogeny. This was the segregationist workaround.

  5. Science ultimately rejected polygenesis by affirming monophylogeny, a different reason than theology.

  6. The literal meanings of these loaded words obscure the historical meanings, creating confusion about both science and theology.

  This history is more deeply explored, for example, in Adam’s Ancestors5 by David Livingston and a book chapter by G. Blair Nelson.6 There is important work ahead in historical theology to tell the full story as it relates specifically to the genealogical hypothesis. At the same time, I want to fill in the story of how science came to reject polygenesis. This parallel history in theology and science, which I will tell at a high level, explains why the doctrine of original sin was connected to rejecting racism and evolution. It explains why the genealogical descent from Adam and Eve became so important in theology and large portions of the Church. It also clarifies why the genealogical Adam and Eve is nothing like polygenesis, and, instead, arises from the same concerns as this theological tradition, a tradition that justified (and justifies) resistance to evolutionary science for over a century.

  LA PEYRÈRE’S THEOLOGICAL POLYGENESIS

  The conversation begins in theology, not science. The challenge was not evolution, but the geographic spread of humans. Polygenesis was first inspired by the challenge of antipodeans: people living on the other side of the earth.

  Figure 10.2. Different ways of denying the unity of all humankind. Different theories of polygenesis have denied the unity of mankind, illustrated in these highly simplified cartoons.

  In 240 BC, the Greek philosopher Eratosthenes of Cyrene inferred the earth was a globe by measuring sticks and their shadows. Remarkably, he computed its circumference within 2 to 16 percent of the true size.7 If the earth was a globe, did people live on the other side? In City of God, from about AD 420, St. Augustine concluded no, because antipodeans would not descend from Adam.8 Over a millennium later, with the “discovery” of the new world, we found out that St. Augustine was wrong. At the beginning of the scientific revolution, in 1609, Kepler situates his Astronomia Nova within this theological conversation:

  I prove [scientifically] not only that that the earth is round, not only that it is inhabited all the way around at the antipodes, not only that it is contemptibly small, but also that it is carried among the stars.9

  The theological challenge of antipodeans was on Isaac La Peyrère’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 Peyrère 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 Inferred 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 (fig. 10.2, left). This model of origins is the first version of polygenesis, and it was a creationist proposal. Evolution would not be proposed for another two hundred years. The publication of La Peyrère’s book kicked off the “pre-Adamite controversy,” as many in the Church considered and soundly rejected his proposal.

  La Peyrère 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 Peyrère argued that Romans 5:12-14 explicitly acknowledged 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, La Peyrère argues that there were people before Adam. Richard Popkin explains the reasoning:

  So the crucial connection between Romans 5 and the pre-Adamite theory is that if Adam sinned in a morally meaningful sense, then there must have been an Adamic law according to which he sinned. If law began with Adam, then there must have been a lawless world before Adam, containing people.10

  This is not where La Peyrère’s reasoning stopped. He went on to argue, exclusively from Scripture, that there are many species of humans in the world today. As Popkin summarizes,

  Arguing his case entirely on interpretations of the biblical texts so far, La Peyrère contended that Adam was made differently by God than were Gentiles. Adam was made of the dust of the earth. The Gentiles were made by the Word of God. The Jews are the sons of Adam, and as such constitute a separate species of Gentiles, some of whom were unknown to ancient Jews.11

  La Peyrère argued that those who descended from Adam were a biologically distinct species, one recognizable today. These moves, together, solved the puzzle of people in Greenland.

  Thus La Peyrère’s interpretation of Genesis and Romans explained the origin of newly discovered peoples, and explained how they were connected to the story of Scripture.12 In his understanding, antipodeans did not descend from Adam and Eve. He still argued that the people outside the Garden were in the image of God, but m
any after him did not.

  DOCTRINE STOOD AGAINST POLYGENESIS

  La Peyrère’s Prae-Adamitae provoked an intense debate, the pre-Adamite controversy, that spanned centuries. In the end, most of the Church rejected polygenesis, because it denied the universal descent from Adam and Eve in present day. Implicating universal descent, the doctrine of original sin became the principal theological argument against polygenesis.

  The Catholic conclusion, which echoes those of non-Catholics, is well summarized in the 1950 papal encyclical Humani Generis,13 which appeals to our universal connection to Adam, implicated by the doctrine of original sin. The reference to original sin is important. This became the theological reasoning for rejecting polygenesis, emphasizing “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people” (Rom 5:12-14). Ironically, this is the same passage La Peyrère used to build his case. His logical error is clarified in the juxtaposition between “sin entered the world through one man” and “death came to all people,” sometimes translated “mankind” or “men.” Somehow, therefore, we all need to be connected to Adam to make sense of Romans. The way this connection has been understood was by natural descent from Adam (and Eve). For example, Humani Generis affirms natural descent from Adam with the term generation, explicitly rejecting the premise of polygenesis. Here, the doctrine of monogenesis was brought into sharp definition. “We all descend from Adam and Eve.” For much of the Church, this confession became one of the demands of orthodoxy (fig. 10.3).

  The mystery outside the Garden persisted, even as the doctrine of monogenesis solidified. In historical context, monogenesis is a statement of geographic universality, to include the antipodean, but it was not necessarily conjoined with temporal universality. From over 2,000 years ago, The Book of Enoch is an important test case. This book speculates about angels interbreeding with Adam and Eve’s lineage in the distant past, and it was never deemed to violate the doctrine of monogenesis. If confined to the distant past, interbreeding with Adam and Eve’s lineage was not ruled out by monogenesis.

  Figure 10.3. Different ways of affirming the unity of mankind. Polygenesis was a false theory of origins, but science and theology rejected it for different reasons (left). Much of the Church rejected polygenesis by affirming that everyone descends from a single couple, Adam and Eve (middle). Recent evolutionary science rejected polygenesis in a different way, by concluding that all humans are the same species. We are monophyletic (right). The genealogical hypothesis affirms both that all humans today are monophyletic and also that we all descend from Adam and Eve.

  SCIENCE EMBRACED POLYGENESIS

  After polygenesis was soundly rejected by theologians, it was taken up with enthusiasm by many scientists. Thomas Henry Huxley published Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature in 1863, applying Darwin’s evolutionary theory to human origins. Huxley rushed in where Darwin did not tread in Origin of the Species. Huxley’s book capped off several public debates with others about evolution, human origins, and polygenesis. Picking up where he left off, scientists would debate the merits of polygenesis for the next century.

  Evolutionary polygenesis, of course, did away with belief in Adam and Eve, and instead asserted that humans arise as a population. Certainly, all humans share ancestry if we went far enough back in time. The distinct claim of evolutionary polygenesis, however, is polyphylogeny: different lineages were isolated in different geographic regions for thousands, or even millions of years. During this time, we diversified into distinct biological types.

  Scientific polygenesis took many forms. In its most extreme versions, first proposed by Karl Vogt (1864), different races evolved from different apes.14 F. G. Crookshank wrote The Mongol in Our Midst (1924), arguing that Asians evolved from orangutans, Africans evolved from gorillas, and Europeans evolved from chimpanzees. In a more plausible proposal, still ultimately wrong, Thomas Griffith Taylor argued in Environment, Race, and Migration (1937) that Africans evolved separately in Africa, but everyone else descended from Neanderthals. Arguing against theories of polygenesis, Darwin had emphasized in The Descent of Man (1871) that different “races” can interbreed without difficulty, demonstrating we are all the same species. Taking this into account, Arthur Keith argued in A New Theory of Human Evolution (1948) in favor of an updated version of polygenesis in which races were all the same species but were nonetheless distinct subspecies with important biological differences.

  Polygenesis was often used to justify racism. At the time, racial distinctions seemed readily apparent, and now science seemed to demonstrate this to be true, explaining how these distinctions arose. Recognition of biological distinctions is not necessarily racist, but the distinctions of polygenesis were used to justify differences in moral and societal worth. This virulent combination of racism and polygenesis culminated in horrific human abuses. Yes, all humans were endowed with worth and dignity, but are we all human? Polygenesis encouraged some to conclude, with the illusion of scientific objectivity, that some populations were not fully human.

  Scientific racism horrified many Christians. It is worth noting, for example, that one of the earliest and most famous debates about human evolution took place between Samuel Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley, in 1860 at Oxford. Wilberforce’s father, William, was a politician whose life’s work was the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire. Scientists today might consider his son, Samuel, backwards for arguing against evolution. Much resistance to evolution, nonetheless, was and is rooted in desire to affirm universal human worth and dignity.

  The story in science, however, is not over yet. Soon, we will see how polygenesis met its demise in science. Given our shared history of ethical failings, it is a very good thing polygenesis turns out to be false.

  THE SEGREGATIONIST’S WORKAROUND

  Scientific racism was horrific, but many Christians who rejected evolution were also implicated. Even though theologians rejected La Peyrère’s polygenesis, Christian segregationists found new ways to deny the unity of all humankind (fig. 10.2). Commonly, the sons of Noah were argued to give rise to different races. Just sixty years ago, in 1960, Bob Jones Sr. insisted segregation was instituted by God, and protecting it was a matter of biblical inerrancy. He, paradoxically, quotes Paul’s affirmation of the unity of all humankind:15

  From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. (Acts 17:26)

  Emphasizing the “boundaries” that God set up, he interpreted this as a scriptural command against interracial marriage, against non-European immigration to the United States, and against racial integration. Appealing to Scriptural authority, Bob Jones University rejected evolution while it continued its segregationist policy. Anti-evolutionary understandings of origins can turn to racism as easily as evolutionary understandings. The segregationist workaround, unfortunately, continued for far too long. It was only in 2000 that Bob Jones University finally removed its policy against “interracial” dating. Credit is due to unlikely reformers. Ken Ham, a well-known young earth creationist, argued early and often that we all were one race, and that there was no biblical justification for segregation. Emphasizing the “one” in Acts 17:26, an indirect reference to Adam, Ham correctly insisted that there is just one race, the human race.

  This means that from a biblical and observational scientific perspective, interracial marriage is nonexistent. In fact, society should use terms like people groups, cultural groups, or ethnic groups, rather than races, when referring to humans around the world.16

  I am convinced Ken Ham is wrong about many things, but he is no racist. He pressed to end the legacy of segregation in his fundamentalist community.17 Ken Ham published One Race, One Blood in 1999, before Bob Jones University’s “interracial” dating ban was ended. Ham’s book is a polemic against evolution, but he acknowledged that fundamentalism also inherits a legacy of racism.

  THE FIND
ING OF MONOPHYLOGENY

  Polygenesis was first definitively rejected by theologians, by affirming monogenesis, the doctrine that we all descend from Adam and Eve. Polygenesis was eventually rejected in science too, but for a different reason: monophylogeny. Over the last fifty or so years, scientists concluded that polygenesis is false because all humans alive today are the same species, tightly interconnected to one another. At least in present day, we are all equally and fully human from a scientific point of view. We are all monophyletic; we are of the same kind.

  Recall how polygenesis is historically defined as both (1) humans arise from multiple disconnected sources, and also (2) humans today are of distinct biological types. Theologians rejected polygenesis by rejecting the first premise as they affirmed monogenesis. Scientists rejected polygenesis by rejecting the second premise, affirming monophylogeny. From either angle, we all should reject La Peyrère’s polygenesis. This also explains why scientists consider polygenesis a falsified theory of origins, even though we teach that our ancestors arise as a population.Several lines of evidence brought scientists to reject polygenesis. Each line of evidence builds the case that all people across the globe are of the same biological type, of the same race, the human race.

  There are genetic differences between us, but our genomes are extremely similar to one another. Supposedly different races can interbreed to produce fully fertile offspring. In contrast, horses and donkeys can interbreed to produce mules, but mules are infertile and cannot have offspring.18