Or if I may spell it out in more clearly, is the story of Adam in the beginnings of Genesis a story of the beginning of mankind, or of Israel? Though I still think of it as a story of mankind, the BioLogos foundation is back to its job of making theology and modern scientific consensus fit together. Their article is here. Feel free to give it a peek.
I’ve already explored my views on this blog on several occasions (including this), so I won’t try to retread all that ground, but I would like to comment on a few things said in the BioLogos article.
First, the BioLogos article points out some interesting parallels between the Adam story and the foundation of Israel: in both cases God creates for himself a society in miraculous ways from a beginning of chaos, in both cases this new society is placed in a very specific and fertile tract of land to keep and cultivate it, in both cases there is a command from God given as a condition for staying in the land, in both cases the command is disobeyed, and in both cases the people are exiled from their homeland and scattered upon the face of the earth. And on top of those parallels, I’ve got a few more swimming in my head that the BioLogos foundation didn’t mention.
And although there’s some difficulty ‘proving’ textual parallels, I think there are certain clear parallels between the Adam and Israel stories. And I say this not as a point of argument but as something I hope people of various beliefs can agree upon–the existence of parallel ideas has a place in both literalistic and non-literalistic views of Genesis 1/2. The non-literalist who works from the viewpoint of ‘Adam is Israel’ can appreciate the Adam story as a universalization of the experience of Israel expressed in historical/mythical fiction. The literalist, who believes these things actually historically happened, can appreciate the emphatic repetition of certain points in history as a sort of creative history-shaping literary art of God. And so the existence of these parallels fits comfortably within a variety of literary and historical viewpoints on Genesis, and for this I am thankful that BioLogos published what they did.
And now a quote from Peter Enns:
If we see Adam as a story of Israelite origins, it will help us make sense of at least one nagging question that begins in Genesis 4:13—one that readers of Genesis, past and present, have picked up on. After Cain kills Abel, he is afraid of a posse coming after him, which casually presumes the existence of other people. So God puts a mark on Cain and exiles him to Nod, a populated city to the east. There he takes a wife and they have a child, Enoch, and Cain proceeds to build a city, named after his son, in which others can live.
Now here it appears to me, though I could be missing some crucial details, that Peter Enns is, I assume unintentionally, making stuff up to support his argument. In trying to support his view that Adam and Eve were only some of the people alive in the setting of early Genesis, Peter Enns tells us that Cain is afraid of a “posse coming after him.” This phraseology conjures up pictures of a sprawling world covered in little boom towns which send out teams of men on horseback to impose switch justice on the bad guys. Let’s compare this with what the biblical text says:
(4:14)[Cain said to God,] Look, you’ve driven me today from the surface of the earth, and I will be hidden from your face; and I will be fugitive and wanderer in the earth; and it will happen that any person who finds me will kill me.
No mention of a posse. Cain is not afraid of an angry mob, but rather ‘any person,’ any single person. And why would Cain assume that whoever he encountered would kill him? I propose that this is not consistent with a model of a fully populated world, with the Adamic family being only a small part. I propose that such fear of running into ‘any person’ is far more consistent with a world where only Adam and his descendents exist. So it seems to me that the verse Peter Enn’s erroneously and indirectly cites works against him rather than for him. The evidence suggests that it is Enns, and not Cain, who is ‘casually presuming’ things on this count.
Second on his list of problems with a humankind-story of Genesis is the issue of “Nod, a populated city.” Certainly, it would seem that the existence of a populated city would be a quick and simple proof that the Adamic family was only a portion of humankind at the time of Cain’s flight. But there are three problems with this argument. First, there is no indication whatsoever in the account that Nod was a city. Second, there is no indication in the text that Nod was populated. And third, it is not even clear that the pre-translation text of the story indicated that there was a Nod. (I’d like to blog about the existence of Nod in a little while, but for now, you can check the Latin Vulgate and Young’s Literal Translation and see if you can find Nod in there anywhere as a starting point for thinking about it.)
All that’s left after these two attempts is Peter Enns’ belief that there is a difficulty in Cain finding a wife and founding a city. He presents a simple solution but then dismisses it:
Some have solved this problem by saying that Adam and Eve had a lot more children that Genesis simply neglects to mention, and so Cain married his sister. I suppose if one must, one can take refuge in this explanation. But this scenario seems a bit desperate—not to mention uncomfortable. Plus, this explanation is completely made up.
Here again Enns does violence to the Biblical account. He believes, first of all, that the Biblical accounts “neglects to mention” “more children,” and that “this explanation is completely made up.” Again, he ignores a crucial part of the story in his attempt to make a point:
And the days of Adam after he had fathered Seth were 800 years, and he fathered sons and daughters. And all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.
The Biblical text explicitly tells us that Adam’s 930-year life included unnamed sons and daughters. It would go almost without saying that he would be expected to have a lot of them, given his lifespan. If I remember rightly, there is a tradition that there were 56 of them, but the number does not make any difference to me. Enough to say that Enns accusation of extra children being made up is in serious error.
Furthermore, Enns mentions the uncomfortableness of sibling marriage, as though this is an argument against the possibility of sibling marriage in a story. But regardless of how uncomfortable the topic is, the Bible mentions, without approval or condemnation, a number of very close marriages/relations. Take, for example, Abraham’s marriage to his father’s daughter Sarah. Or Isaac’s marriage to his cousin. Or Jacob’s marriage to his cousin. Or Lot’s fathering of his own grandchildren by his daughters. Or Amram’s marriage to his aunt Yokaved. Or Absalom’s infamous rape of his half-sister Tamar.
I will quote Enns again:
Genesis neither says nor hints that the residents of Nod are Adam and Eve’s offspring. They are just “there.”
The truth of the matter, as mentioned above, is that Genesis neither says nor hints that the residents of Nod (if Genesis does indeed include a Nod) exist. They just aren’t “there.” And while argues that the Biblical doesn’t at all hint at the concept that everyone was descended from Adam and Eve, he is skipping yet another important part of the story:
And Adam called his wife by the name “Eve,” because she was the mother of all living. (3:20)
Yet again Peter Enns uses the already dubious argument from silence with references to topics about which the Bible is not silent.
My conclusion: If anyone wants to argue a non-literal interpretation of Genesis, that perfectly fine. Scripture has all sorts of metaphor in it, and we shouldn’t automatically decide that Genesis can’t have metaphors. But if you’re going to argue a non-literal interpretation by selectively using only parts of the account, don’t twist those parts. And don’t pretend things that are said in the account aren’t. Especially if your account is based on the accusation that the pro-literal people are ignoring parts of the text.
5 Comments
Mitchell, I appreciate your careful attention to the details of the text. I suspect that my own view is somewhere between yours and that of Enns—but that’s neither here nor there (if you’ll forgive the pun).
Excellent post, Mitchell, and points.
One my lynch pins is to test a ‘new’ theory by what has gone on before.
It seems to me that while we can sit and speculate, to create radical new theories to fit science doesn’t do well for our faith.
Just my .34 cents
Mr. Pursiful: Thank you. I just want to repeat again that I don’t mind the Adam-Israel theory, so long as it’s not being argued in ways that misrepresent the biblical text to get there. The Adam-Israel theory might even be right to some extent.
Joel: Thank you too. And although your thirty-four cents are appreciated, they just make me long for the days before debt-fueled inflation, back when 2 cents would have done the job.
It’s not that Enns is just making a metaphor of this, it’s much more likely that he is drinking from a much wider well then you. Namely, Sumerian texts, which Genesis in many accounts is very obviously rewriting and partially derived from. Not to mention that the Sumerian texts are far older.
Dionysios,
I’ve been unable to find any reference to Sumerian texts in his work. Again, I’ve got no problem with there being metaphor in the Bible–it’s obvious that some parts are metaphor; even fundies like me know so. My problem is not that he thinks it’s a metaphor, nor is my objection that he draws a conclusion I disagree with. My only problem is with his misuse of what the text says in making arguments.
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[...] of inerrancy. Once out, he revealed that he no longer believes in a historical Adam and Eve (see this refutation of Enns’s post) and believes that most of the books of Moses began to be written after the [...]