6. C. John Collins, see online appendix 3.
7. Some argue that he was guided by a mistranslation of Romans and an incorrect understanding of biology. C. John Collins disputes this characterization, suggesting instead that this is not how modern readers understand Rom 5:12-14, though it might well be a valid reason (see online appendix 3).
8. Our existence is also dependent on the precise timing of when conception occurs, due to randomness (from a human perspective) in gamete selection. The precise interpretation of this may depend on our conception of divine providence.
9. William Lane Craig, The Atonement (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018); James Beilby and Paul R. Eddy, eds., The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006).
Chapter 17: Ending at a Beginning
1. Fazale Rana and Hugh N. Ross, Who Was Adam? (Covina, CA: RTP Press, 2015).
2. Dennis Bonnette, “The Scientific Possibility of Adam and Eve,” Strange Notions, https://strangenotions.com/the-scientific-possibility-of-adam-and-eve/.
3. C. S. Lewis, “Religion and Rocketry,” in The World’s Last Night (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2011 [1960]).
4. This appears to be a dominant view among Old Testament scholars. An article by Greg Beale is an excellent primer. Gregory K. Beale, “Eden, the Temple, and the Church’s Mission in the New Creation,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48 (2005): 5-31.
5. For example, contemplating the Fall alongside civilization, there might be an interesting exchange with work by Jacques Ellul and Daniel Quinn. Jacques Ellul, The Meaning of the City (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011, first published 1951); Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society (New York: Vintage, 1954); Daniel Quinn, My Ishmael (New York: Bantam Books, 1997).
6. Kimberly Flint-Hamilton, “Gregory of Nyssa and the Culture of Oppression,” Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, 2010, www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/110976.pdf.
7. Nyssa as quoted by Flint-Hamilton, “Gregory of Nyssa.”
8. Gregory of Nyssa, “Fourth Homily on Ecclesiastes,” in Homilies on Ecclesiastes: An English Version with Supporting Studies, ed. Stuart George Hall (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1993), 74.
9. John Hilber, concerning the response at the Dabar Conference (see online appendix 5).
10. Andrew Ter Ern Loke, “Reconciling Evolution and Biblical Literalism: A Proposed Research Program,” Theology and Science 14 (2016): 160-74, https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2016.1156328.
11. Tentative title: The Generations of Heaven and Earth. This book expands on blog posts Jon Garvey has written over several years. See the “Genealogical Adam” category archive, The Hump of the Camel (blog), http://potiphar.jongarvey.co.uk/category/genealogical-adam/.
12. Denis Alexander, Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose?, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Monarch, 2014).
Chapter 18: Tolerance, Humility, Patience
1. This quote comes from John Inazu, my colleague at Washington University in St. Louis, founder of the Carver Project. See John Inazu, “John Inazu: Why I’m Still Confident About ‘Confident Pluralism,’” Christianity Today, August 13, 2018.
2. “Tolerance acknowledges that people should generally be free to pursue their own beliefs and practices. This is not the same as approval; it is much closer to endurance. We can usually respect people even if we don’t respect their ideas. Humility recognizes that we will sometimes be unable to prove to others why we believe we are right and they are wrong. Patience asks us to listen, understand, and empathize with those who see the world differently.” Inazu, “Why I’m Still Confident.”
3. Jerry A. Coyne, Why Evolution Is True (New York: Penguin, 2009).
4. See comments in the thread for our full exchange. Jerry A. Coyne, “AAAS Continues Its Incursion into Accommodationism and Theology,” Why Evolution Is True (blog), https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2018/10/08/aaas-continues-its-incursion-into-accommodationism-and-theology/.
5. Around this time, Peaceful Science hosted Randal Rauser in an online forum about his book. Randal Rauser, Is the Atheist My Neighbor? Rethinking Christian Attitudes Toward Atheism (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2015).
6. “Scientists cannot take the trust of their audience for granted.” The American Association for the Advancement of science recently published a booklet articulating best practices in engaging the public: Matthew Nisbet, Scientists in Civic Life: Facilitating Dialogue-Based Communication, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2018, www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/s3fs-public/content_files/Scientists%2520in%2520Civic%2520Life_FINAL%2520INTERACTIVE%2520082718.pdf.
7. To his credit, Coyne playfully proposes a contest to solve the Adam and Eve problem, coming up with an entertaining answer. Jerry A. Coyne, “Adam and Eve: The Ultimate Standoff Between Science and Faith (and a Contest!),” Why Evolution Is True (blog), June 2, 2011, https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/adam-and-eve-the-ultimate-standoff-between-science-and-faith-and-a-contest/.
8. Nathan H. Lents, S. Joshua Swamidass, and Richard E. Lenski, “The End of Evolution?,” Science 363 (2019): 590, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaw4056.
9. Benoit De Maillet, Telliamed, Or, Discourses Between an Indian Philosopher and a French Missionary, on the Diminution of the Sea, the Formation of the Earth, the Origin of Men and Animals, and Other Curious Subjects, Relating to Natural History and Philosophy (London: 1750) [Reprinted in 1968 by University of Illinois Press], as quoted by Richard Lenski, “Some Thoughts and Readings on the History and Philosophy of Science,” http://myxo.css.msu.edu/History.html.
10. Scot McKnight and Dennis R. Venema, Adam and the Genome: Reading Scripture After Genetic Science (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2017).
11. S. Joshua Swamidass, “The BioLogos Statement on Adam and Eve,” Peaceful Science, April 24, 2019 https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/_/5847. BioLogos has, since then, already made more than one revision to their position. Perhaps changes will continue.
12. He includes four more points, but these are not related to Adam and Eve, and even most of his coauthors would dispute them. These extra four points, nonetheless, are easily reconciled by keeping the contextual bounds of Scripture in mind.
13. Wayne Grudem, “Theistic Evolution Undermines Twelve Creation Events and Several Crucial Christian Doctrines,” in Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique, ed. J. P. Moreland and others (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 785-837.
14. S. Joshua Swamidass, “Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical and Theological Critique,” Themelios 43 (2018); Andrew Ter Ern Loke, “Reconciling Evolution and Biblical Literalism: A Proposed Research Program,” Theology and Science 14 (2016): 160-74, https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2016.1156328.
15. Daniel Quinn, My Ishmael (New York: Bantam Books, 1997).
16. This paraphrases Ajit Varki. I am not sure if all scientists would agree, but I think he is right. S. Joshua Swamidass, “More than Just Apes,” Peaceful Science, May 23, 2016, http://peacefulscience.org/more-than-apes.
APPENDIX: Evidence and the Resurrection
1. I recommend my personal entry point to this conversation: Josh McDowell, More than a Carpenter, rev. ed. (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2009). Other accounts may be more helpful to others. For example, N. T. Wright’s more recent explanations of the Resurrection (“Christian Origins and the Resurrection of Jesus: The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical Problem,” NTWright Page, http://ntwrightpage.com/2016/07/12/christian-origins-and-the-resurrection-of-jesus-the-resurrection-of-jesus-as-a-historical-problem/), which he expands into the book The Resurrection of the Son of God, were compelling to the philosopher Antony Flew before he died, even though he does not appear to have trusted Jesus in the end. Likewise, C. S. Lewis’s argument for the Resurrection in Mere Christianity convinced Francis Collins and, more privately, other scientists have responded similarly to C. S. Lewis
’s thoughts. I also thank Sean McDowell for his helpful comments on this list.
2. “The Christian Origins and the Resurrection of Jesus” by Wright in 1998 is an excellent exposition of this idea. The disciples themselves predicted this world-transformative impact of the gospel too (Acts 5:38-39).
3. Bonani and others, “Radiocarbon Dating of Fourteen Dead Sea Scrolls’ Radiocarbon 34 (1992): 843-49.
4. A good study on this is The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition by Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007). A related work is Did Jesus Exist? by Bart Ehrman (New York: HarperOne, 2013). The latter is by an atheist author and does not argue that Jesus is divine. I still include it here to demonstrate that the evidence is so strong that Jesus existed that we do not need to start with Christian commitments to see this truth.
5. The report of his death explains “blood and water” poured from his side when he was wounded (Jn 19:34). This is an unusual detail that is atypical of death by any means, including crucifixion. The “water” can be understood with modern medicine as the result of necessarily fatal wound that released clear fluid that had abnormally collected around his lungs or heart (William D. Edwards, Wesley J. Gabel, and Floyd E. Hosmer, “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” JAMA 255 [1986]: 1455, https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1986.03370110077025). Other than to accurately report what had been seen at his death, there is no reason to include this difficult-to-explain detail about his death that we only now can understand.
6. The actual history of the Bible is more interesting than the fiction. Sometimes it is messier than we imagine, but a God who raises Jesus from the dead can certainly preserve his message to us in history. Unlike fictional accounts of the Bible’s history (e.g., Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code), Reinventing Jesus by J. Ed Komoszewski (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006) covers the historicity of Jesus. “The Bibliographic Test” by Joshua McDowell and Clay Jones, August 13, 2014 (www.josh.org/wp-content/uploads/Bibliographical-Test-Update-08.13.14.pdf) gives a good overview the manuscripts in question, including recent new discoveries. For an updated manuscript count, see Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2017), 52.
7. The Fate of the Apostles: Examining the Martyrdom Accounts of the Closest Followers of Jesus by Sean McDowell (London: Routledge, 2015) is most complete historic account of their confidence. Apparently, not all died for their faith, but it appears all were willing to die.
8. For those curious about science, For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery by Rodney Stark (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003) explains Christian belief among early scientists and its foundational role in science. Even the “father” of modern science, Francis Bacon, was a Christian and explained in Novum Organum from Christian theology that science is an effort to take down intellectual “idols.”
9. This rule of avoiding appeals to God’s action in science is often referred to as “methodological naturalism,” but this is a misnomer. This rule that has been firmly established in modern science for hundreds of years, and was originally placed in science by Christians like Kepler, Bacon, Pascal, and Boyle for theological reasons. Their conception of science was not rooted in naturalism, but in their faith as Christians, so referring to this rule as methodological naturalism, as if it was a product of naturalism (and atheism), is not correct.
10. To be sure, Christians can correctly attempt dispassionate study in their academic work; see, for example, Michael Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010).
PRAISE FOR THE GENEALOGICAL ADAM AND EVE
“This book would be fascinating for its scientific content alone, establishing the surprisingly high probability of all human beings alive having common ancestral parents akin to the biblical Adam and Eve. But it also offers biblical, theological, and philosophical subtlety and precision, all saturated with hermeneutical charity on questions too often marked by polemics and hostility. It takes the reader on an intellectual adventure and reanimates our pursuit of one of the most profound human questions: Can sacred and natural history combine to tell us something essential about who we are and why we are here? I believe we are at an inflection point where the scientific plausibility of the core convictions of biblical faith is increasing after centuries of skepticism. This book may well be remembered as one of the turning points in that story.”
Andy Crouch, author of Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling
“As a secular scientist, I was seriously skeptical of this book. Nevertheless, Swamidass has ably shown that the current evidence in genetics and ancestry is compatible with a recently de novo–created couple as among our universal common ancestors who then interbred with the rest of humanity that descended through the established evolutionary processes. In doing so, Swamidass aims to bridge a centuries-old divide between faith and science. In a world at war with itself, the need for such common ground is most urgent.”
Nathan H. Lents, professor of biology, John Jay College, CUNY, and author of Human Errors
“I am one of the many scientists who have maintained that the existence of Adam and Eve as ancestors of all people on earth is incompatible with the scientific data. In this book, Joshua Swamidass effectively demonstrates that people like me, stuck in a specific genetic paradigm, were wrong. Ironically, I first learned the key calculation from Richard Dawkins, who wrote fifteen years ago in The Ancestor’s Tale, ‘I don’t know about you, but I find these dates [for the last common ancestor] astonishingly recent.’ I failed to appreciate the biblical ramifications of this fact. In writing this book, Swamidass removes our blinders. In a clearly written and highly accessible style, he shows how a traditional understanding of the Genesis narrative, including the sudden creation of Adam and Eve, is fully compatible with science. Creation through the evolutionary process is still central to the story, but the existence of two individuals—ancestors of us all—is now freed from what seemed like scientific inconsistency and placed, once again, purely into the realm of theology where it belongs.”
Darrel R. Falk, professor of biology emeritus, Point Loma Nazarene University
“In Judaism there is a blessing for almost everything. There is a blessing one should say upon encountering a religious scholar and a different blessing for encountering a secular scholar, as both types of scholarship are valued. In this book Dr. S. Joshua Swamidass earns both blessings. Dr. Swamidass is a scientist by profession and a devout Christian who thinks deeply about theological questions. He uses cutting-edge theory from population genetics concerning the difference between genealogical ancestors versus genetic ancestors (a small subset of the former) and applies it accurately and with rigorous scientific logic to the theological issues surrounding the biblical account of Adam and Eve. Many theological issues arise from Adam and Eve, such as race and racism, and Dr. Swamidass approaches these issues in a manner that values and incorporates both science and religion. Books dealing with science and religion often emphasize conflicts while others present them as non-overlapping methods of knowledge that are largely irrelevant to one another. Dr. Swamidass shows in this book how science and religion are both valuable methods of scholarship that can display a positive synergism in which neither discipline has to retreat from its fundamental principles in order to deepen our insight into the science/religion interface. Both scientists and people of faith should read this book to learn that conflict and irrelevancy are not the only ways in which science and religion can interact.”
Alan R. Templeton, Charles Rebstock Professor Emeritus of Biology and Statistical Genomics, Washington University in St. Louis, and Institute of Evolution and Department of Evolutionary and Environmental Biology, University of Haifa, Israel
“This is one of those rare books that changes the conversation. With equal parts candor, humility, passion, a
nd precision, Swamidass engages an incredibly controversial topic at the junction of biology and theology: the origin of human beings. Through the effective use of two key distinctions—the difference between genealogical and genetic ancestry, and the multiple meanings of ‘human’ across divergent areas of inquiry—he reorients and expands the space of possibilities while maintaining faithfulness and rigor with respect to traditional exegesis and contemporary scientific knowledge. The book’s primary virtue is not that it offers the strongest version of a particular position or provides answers to every question. Instead, its strength lies in how Swamidass demonstrates that there is more to talk about in conceptualizing what counts as a position or an answer in the first place, and that the tenor of those conversations should be peaceful rather than fractious. A definitive achievement. Tolle lege.”
Alan C. Love, professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota
“Swamidass proposes a genealogical Adam as a way to help resolve conflict among the competing creation and evolution models for human origins. He is to be commended for exhorting us all to ‘find that better way together’ to resolve our differences with patience and humility.”
Hugh Ross, president and founder of Reasons to Believe, astronomer, pastor, and author
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