The Evolution of Adam (2)

Peter Enns' The Evolution of Adam provides a brilliant unpacking of the Old Testament origin narratives.  This is Enns' burden in the first half of his book, and the critique is pretty much unanswerable.  That he is addressing a predominantly evangelical audience as an insider is remarkable.  On the strength of this alone he needs to be taken seriously.

The second half of the book moves out into the New Testament, and here the star of the show, for good or ill, is Paul.  Enns maintains (rightly!) that Paul's approach to the Eden story is - let's choose the adjectives carefully - innovative, creative and unique.

The role that Paul assigns to Adam in [Romans 5] is largely unique to Paul in the ancient world, and it moves well beyond what Genesis and the Old Testament have to say.

Which is a polite way of saying that he doesn't have anything textually solid to hang his case on.

Again:

[A]fter Genesis 5, aside from 1 Chronicles 1:1 Adam makes no explicit appearance in the Old Testament.  Further, the Adam of Paul's theology - as the explicit cause of human sinfulness and death - does not seem to be found in the Old Testament either.

Which is a polite way of saying that Paul made it up.  Why?  Well, Paul is a complex thinker...

Paul's handling of his Scripture is notoriously creative and complex, not simple and straightforward.

Which is a polite way of saying that Paul is either confusing, confused, or both.  In one sense, however, Paul was not unique.

Ancient interpreters were not neutral observers of the text ... they read selectively, capitalized on ambiguities in the text, and brought it all to bear on some pressing concerns of their community.

Which is, dare one say it, a polite way of saying that Paul, but not Paul alone, happily manhandled and shoe-horned the Old Testament to suit himself, and, glory be, this was perfectly okay.

Enns goes on to provide five illustrations of Paul's fast and loose approach to the Old Testament.

1. Isaiah 49:8 as used in 2 Corinthians 6:2
2. The misreading of "Abraham's seed" in Galatians 3:16 and 29
3. Habakkuk 2:4 as used in Galatians 3:11 ("Paul calls upon Habakkuk 2:4 to make his point, a passage that, in its Old Testament context... seems to make the opposite point.")
4. Isaiah 59:20 as used in Romans 11:26-27
5. Genesis 15:6 as used in Romans 4.

This hardly inspires us with confidence in Paul's abilities, a man who is often held to be the finest, most profound theologian of all time, bar none.  Enns is blunt on Paul's singular but literal reading of the Adam character; after all this is the roadblock he wants to clear so likeminded Christians can embrace a scientific understanding of origins.

That's a worthy goal; may the force be with him.  But:

Admitting the historical and scientific problems with Paul's Adam does not mean in the least that the gospel message is therefore undermined.

Do you feel reassured?

Enns' wants us to see Paul as a child of his time, which is quite reasonable.  He was however a shoddy interpreter of scripture, and anchored his gospel in multiple misunderstandings, but, hey, no worries, relax, it's all good.  Paul may have been a third rate exegete, but...

Paul came to understand that the human plight was far deeper and more widespread than his own Jewish  worldview thought.

Oh, okay, so after all that Paul was indeed the deep, profound, insightful bloke we thought he was all along.  Those darn Jews were just too dull to understand that.  No wonder he had to play fix-it with the Old Testament. Sorry guys.

His reading of the Old Testament in general is creative, driven by both hermeneutical conventions of the time and - most importantly - by his experience of the risen Christ.

There is a problem here, apart from the arrogant supercessionism.

Enns' Paul is, in effect, the real 'revelator', not Jesus.  He pays no attention, for example, to the fact that Paul was regarded as a dubious character by non-Pauline Christians, as evidenced within the New Testament itself.  Paul's interesting but flawed expositions of scripture are driven by his own visions ("his experience of the risen Christ") and arguably his towering ego.  Why is this acceptable for Paul but not for Reverend Moon?  Enns appears to stand in the camp of those who would claim that Paul is the real founder of Christianity, making the historical Jesus - along with the original Jesus movement - largely irrelevant, or peripheral at best.

And while we're flushing down Paul's opposition within the early church, we can apparently also feel free to marginalize Judaism and treat Paul's 'creative' use of the Hebrew Bible as the new gold standard.

Convinced?  Not likely.  Christianity was far too diverse right from the outset to make this a credible reconstruction.

Another problem: if Paul could legitimately play fast and loose with the scriptures, why not Benny Hinn?  If anyone can explain that without indulging in circular reasoning, please let me know.

So, at the end of the day, I both admire The Evolution of Adam and am thoroughly discombobulated by it.  Enns succeeeds brilliantly in identifying some key issues then, in my opinion, charges off up the wrong path entirely in his haste to put out possible brush fires.

The Evolution of Adam is hopefully just an opening shot in an ongoing conversation that evangelicals desperately need to get involved in.

Original Sin and Sin of Origin

Across at Sansblogue Tim Bulkeley has some interesting thoughts on the intimidating doctrine of 'original sin'.  Seeing those comments are in part related to Peter Enns' book, maybe the following quote might be relevant.

George L. Murphy

[I]t is helpful to keep in mind the crucial theological distinction expressed succinctly by Lutheran theologian George L. Murphy.  This distinction is between "original sin" and "sin of origin."  The former, as bequeathed to us through Augustine, refers to an event at the beginning of history and requires a historical Adam as the first human to sin and transmit that sin to all subsequent humans.  The latter affirms the absolute inevitability of sin that affects every human being from their beginnings, from birth.  In other words, Murphy and others counsel that we must remain open on the ultimate origins of why all humans are born in sin (original sin) while resting content in the observation that all humans are born in sin (sin of origin)... the notion of "original sin," where Adam's disobedience is the cause of a universal state of sin, does not find clear - if any - biblical support.

It's a subtle distinction - but then, hey, this is theology.  As Enns points out earlier in his book, there is no such doctrine derived from the Genesis story in Judaism.

As for Murphy, who'd have thought you could be a Lutheran theologian with an Irish surname... isn't there some kind of rule about that?  He also apparently has a doctorate in theoretical physics; I just bet he isn't LCMS!

And I'm also led to wonder, not for the first time, whether the world would have been a much better place if that old reprobate Augustine hadn't converted from Manicheanism.

The Evolution of Adam - a view from the Cheap Seats (Part 1)

I have a lot of time for Peter Enns, a man who has endured much at the hands of apologetic nincompoops like Norman Geisler.  Enns recognises that, if Christianity is to survive, it must lift itself out of the biblicist, literalist cesspit - natural home of American evangelicalism - and get to grips with reality.  It's quite a mission.

In The Evolution of Adam Enns is blunt when it comes to the genesis of the biblical origin stories.  We learn about the post-exilic dating of the Pentateuch and are introduced to Wellhausen.  Those in the megachurch pews are going to be dragged past a raft of exhibits - from Atrahasis to Enuma Elish - that clearly demonstrate the human origins of Genesis stories.  Was Adam an historical character?  Of course not.  In fact, Adam is a peripheral figure within the Old Testament.  He pops up in Genesis then disappears without trace (the exception is a passing reference in 1 Chronicles 1:1).

All this is great stuff, and a much needed corrective to the usual bumf that sits on the shelves in Christian bookstores. But, to be absolutely clear, Enns isn't a Bible debunker, but a committed Christian of evangelical hue.  His reading of the Eden stories is, unsurprisingly, a theological one.  The symbolism has (Enns maintains) everything to do with the "Israel's temple and the Sabbath rhythm," and nothing to do with the origin of humanity.

If all we had was the Hebrew Bible, this might not be such a camel-sized gnat to swallow.  But for Christians there's Paul.  Paul, for whom Adam is not just a peripheral figure, but a lynchpin in his theology.  As in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive.  Jesus' death is contingent on Adam's sin; he is the "second Adam."  For many [most?] Christians "it is theologically necessary for there to be some sort of Adam somewhere in human history who is personally responsible for allienating humanity from God."

It's a logic that's hard to refute if you've bought into the assumptions.  Enns' task is to find a way through: Jesus as saviour minus an historical Adam; Genesis as scripture without a rejection of modern science and evolution.  You've got to admire his fortitude.

Does he succeed or fail?  In my view 'yes' to both.  But make no mistake, this is a significant book and, perhaps, a harbinger of much needed change among twenty-first century evangelicals.

To be continued

Rag FM

Internet radio?  Gotta love it.  Number one in an occasional series of personal favourites is Rag FM, based in Raglan, a small seaside community on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island.  While my poison is invariably classical, this is an oldies, country format that provides light relief.

The guy who designed their website should be shot for crimes against web design, but if you look past that, it's all good.

What does this mean?

All beard, no balls?

"...God in His gracious wisdom has chosen to have Himself addressed in gender specific terms all the while reminding us that this does not presume all the freight of human anatomy -- except with respect to the Incarnation."  Source.

From this we can know that...

1.  Yahweh doesn't have a penis, but is still a bloke.
2.  Jesus was God and had a penis while doing a convincing impression of a regular bloke.
3.  God is a wannabe bloke with penis envy.
4.  Sheilas are beside the point.
5.  Asherah?  Waddaya mean Mrs Yahweh!?
6.  This quote comes from a bloke who wears a dress on Sunday.
7.  All of the above.

If you haven't already guessed, the writer is moaning, whining and whinging about the use of gender inclusive language in church (not his own church of course, oh heavens no.)  He doesn't say what his wife thinks, but I think it's pretty likely the dear lady is expected to joyfully embrace Kinder, Küche and Kirche.

Honest Faith

How do we deal honestly with the ancient scriptures in a world so very different from that which brought them forth?  How do you continue to be a Christian in the twenty-first century without castrating your intellect?

Putting aside the lame apologetics of individuals like John Piper, it isn't hard to find men and women struggling with these issues, often enduring merciless sniping from extremists of both biblicist and atheist persuasions.  Three books currently illustrate this centre-ground of integrity.

James McGrath's The Burial of Jesus is one, and while I've mentioned it briefly in an earlier post, I'd like to return to it later with a few more detailed observations.

A second is Christian Smith's The Bible Made Impossible, which is top of the stack in my 'books to read' pile.

But right now I'm working my way through Peter Enns The Evolution of Adam, which is sometimes breathtaking in its candor.  Enns tackles the elephant in the exegetical room: Paul's use of parallelism between Adam and Jesus to demonstrate the necessity for the Atonement.  If Adam is a fictive character, carved out of nothing more substantial than myth and imagination, does this shatter the whole rationale behind Jesus as saviour?

I'm not convinced by everything these authors say - and nor should you be.  But they certainly deserve to be heard rather than dismissed out of hand, as so often seems to happen, by the monochrome zealots at either end of the faith continuum.

Canon article updated

With John Petty kindly linking to my article on the canon, describing it as "a fine piece," I decided I'd better get my act together and give it the once over.  Here is the (slightly) updated text.