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I haven’t really done a book review here on the blog in a while. But this book was too thought-provoking, and my review which I was typing out for Amazon and a Facebook post started getting way too lengthy, so here we are. After having it sit in my Logos library for around 2-3 years, I finally got around to reading Dr. William Lane Craig’s “In Quest Of The Historical Adam”. This was an exciting book to read, and I believe that it has earned it place among the top books I’d recommend to people wanting to investigate Theistic Evolution. For me, personally, the question of what to do with Adam and Eve was the number 1 stumbling block to my own acceptance of Theistic Evolution. In most cases of Theistic Evolutionists (TE) I would read, they either took an a-historical view of Adam or they adopted historical views of Adam that I felt were were shoehorned attempts by the author to make Christianity and evolution fit. More often than not, I felt like TE-s were trying to explain away Genesis 1-11, rather than explain it. In my reading of many TEs, Genesis 1-11 seemed like it was being treated as an embarrassing thing in The Bible that we had to deal with rather than a part of God’s word to treasure and study.

A Short Review Of The Book’s Contents

Eventually, I came across John Walton’s “The Lost World Of Adam and Eve” and while I still think it’s a great work, I don’t think it goes quite far enough. For example, some of his Walton’s takes concerning Eve’s being “the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20) or concerning philosophical/theological issue of the humanity and moral culpability of Adam and Eve’s parents ^[1]because evolution doesn’t work by coughing up an entirely new species in a single generation, but species development occurs from multiple generations slowly changing with mutations and time either seemed al little strained (in the former) or not addressed (as in the latter). Of course, Walton is a biblical scholar and tries to stay in his lane (even recruiting N.T Wright to comment on the New Testament’s treatment of Adam). William Lane Craig’s work feels more complete.

First, Dr. Craig rightly argues that we should take The Bible on its own terms and not try to use science to lead us to our interpretive conclusions. Science can be an occasion to look at the biblical data anew and ask whether we’ve been understanding it correctly, but it cannot dictate our interpretation. The biblical authors must speak for themselves. We must ask how the original author and audience would have understood the text. If that leads to concord with modern science, that’s wonderful! If it leads to conflict, then we must ask whether the science is really as solid as it seems to be. Those familiar with Reasons To Believe and BioLogos will recognize this as the “Two Books” view of interpretation.

Dr. Craig makes the case that Genesis 1-11 belongs to a genre known as “Mytho-History”. This genre label is not new to him as it is a genre of literature recognized by scholars like Bill Arnold and Thorkid Jacobson. In my own words, I would describe Mytho-History as a hybrid blend of mythology and historical reportage. This can be kept in mind by reminding oneself that there is a dash in between “mytho” and “history”. Accordingly, Dr. Craig spends 2 chapters each making a case for the mythic nature of Genesis 1-11, and another two chapters making a case that Genesis 1-11 has “historical interests” and was intended to be read by both the author of Genesis and by the New Testament writers as not just fables with moral lessons, but stories of real people in a real past. Mytho + History = Mytho-History.

He argues for the mythic nature of Genesis 1-11 by drawing comparisons between this section of scripture and “paradigmatic examples of myth” both from the Ancient Near East (ANE) and other cultures. He says that we should be on the lookout for “family resemblances” among paradigmatic examples of myth because the term “Myth” is a slippery one. There is a lengthy section where Craig interacts with the literature of mythologists and folklorists, and the takeaway is that the term “myth” is quite slippery and hard to pin down. Neverthtless, Dr. Craig argues, we know a myth when we see one. We know things like the stories of Hercules or The Enuma Elish, or stories of Zeus coming down and impregnating women are obvious cases of myth. So although defintions fluctuate from scholar to scholar, we just seem to know a myth when we see one. And so, he argues that Genesis 1-11 has the following “family resemblances” of myths.

Dr. Craig writes “In sum, family resemblances among myths include the following:
1. Myths are narratives, whether oral or literary.
2. Myths are traditional stories handed down from generation to generation.
3. Myths are sacred for the society that embraces them.
4. Myths are objects of belief by members of the society that embraces them.
5. Myths are set in a primaeval age or another realm.
6. Myths are stories in which deities are important characters.
7. Myths seek to anchor present realities such as the world, mankind, natural phenomena, cultural practices, and the prevailing cult in a primordial time.
8. Myths are associated with rituals.
9. Myths express correspondences between the deities and nature.

10. Myths exhibit fantastic elements and are not troubled by logical contradiction or incoherence.” ^[2]From William Lane Craig’s “In Quest Of The Historical Adam.
    After a lengthy couple of chapters, Dr. Craig concludes, “In summation, the narratives of Gen 1–11 exhibit, sometimes dramatically, the family resemblances that mark the folklorist’s genre of myth. They are traditional, sacred narratives set in a primaeval age, featuring a deity as a central character, that seek to anchor realities present to the pentateuchal author in a primordial time. Sometimes fantastic, but untroubled by inconsistencies, they were objects of belief for ancient Israelites.” ^[3]Craig, William Lane. 2021. In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

This section was, as I said, quite extensive. Even the footnotes contained lengthy sections of discussions between Dr. Craig and other Old Testament scholars he had read on the issue of Genesis 1-11. I tend to be a footnote reader anyway, but this drastically slowed me down. But the foonotes are well worth taking the time to read.

I did not agree with Dr. Craig on everything in this section (or even in the whole book, for that matter). For example, in defense of his 10th point, I disagreed on many of the points he deemed “fantastic”. By fantastic, Craig doesn’t mean something miraculous or supernatural. It is something that would strike one as weird even on a supernaturalist worldview. And even more importantly, it would have struck even an Ancient Near Eastern hearer/reader as fantastical. However, I did concede about 4-5 points in this subsection. Of those being (1) That you have light on Day 1 of creation in Genesis 1, but the sun, moon, and stars aren’t created until Day 4. (2) There are two trees that seem to be imbued with magical or mystical properties that, if you eat from them, you will either gain immortality or knowledge of good and evil. (3) On day 3 of creation, God decrees for THE EARTH to bring forth fruit trees and other vegetation, and this is all said to take place within a 24-hour day. Now, it should be noted that God is not said to supernaturally “poof” fruit trees and other seed-bearing plants into existence. He tells the Earth (I.e, natural processes) to do it. It is not fantastical that God should create a full grown fruit tree ex nihilo within a 24 hour time span. However, it does seem fantastical that “the earth” could do it in that time. (4) That people could live to be hundreds and hundreds of years old before passing away. This surely would have struck even an ANE person as fantastical. Ancient people weren’t stupid. They knew how hard it was to even live to be 80, much less 930! And the possible (5th) example would be the serpent. A talking snake? Now, here, in this section, I was not completely sure I interpreted Craig correctly. Depending on how one takes him will depend on whether I agree here. I don’t know if Craig was arguing that either when Genesis was initially written, prior to the writings of later books in the biblical canon, the Edenic villain would have been understood as an ordinary talking garden snake (and once we got Isaiah, and Ezekiel, and John wrote the book of Revelation, we now know not only was the Edenic villain a seraph or cherub, but specifically Satan) OR whether he thinks even in light of the full canon, we should understand the serpent to just be a regular garden snake. If Dr. Craig means the former, then I think I can agree with that. However, if he means to argue the latter, then I strongly disagree. I think biblical scholars like the late Dr. Michael S. Heiser and Ben Stanhope make a strong case for the Satanic identity of the Edenic adversary in light of Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28, and the many comparisons between those chapters and Genesis 3, ancient iconography of seraphim being winged serpentine beings, and, of course, Revelation 12:9 where the revelator John tells us point blank that the serpent was Satan. ^[4]To see a full defense for the Serpent being a serpentine divine being, and ultimately Satan, see “Chapter 10: Trouble In Paradise” of “The Unseen Realm: Recovering The Supernatural … Continue reading But if we’re just speaking of how people might have viewed this thing prior to The Holy Spirit breathing out more scripture, then I can plausibly see ancients imagining the odd picture of Eve talking to a snake.

After a thorough discussion on the mythic elements, Dr. Craig goes onto argue that Genesis 1-11 cannot be consigned soley to the realm of myth, but that it has historical interests. He argues that the genealogies in Genesis evince historical interest, but that it isn’t merely the existence of the genealogies, but the fact that the genealogies lead up to Abraham and his father Terah. No one, not even the most liberal of Christians, thinks that Abraham was a mere literary figure and not a real person of history. That Genesis 11 connects to Genesis 12 in this way indicates that the author meant for us to understand the preceding stories as, in some sense, historical. In Chapter 7 of the book, Dr. Craig surveys what the New Testament has to say about Adam. Craig thinks that most cases of Adamic mention don’t necessitate seeing Adam as a historical figure, but can be read as purely illustrative. In 1 Timothy 2:12-13, for example, Paul says “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve;” (ESV). Paul’s point can go through even if Adam and Eve weren’t historical figures. And he thinks most can be read in that manner. Just as if I’m teaching a child about responsibility and I say “As Spider-Man’s uncle once said, ‘With great power comes great responsibility.” That doesn’t commit you to the existence of Ben Parker and Spider-Man! However, there are passages that don’t make any sense if Adam were a mere literary figure. 1 Corinthians 15, Romans 5, and Luke’s genealogies in Luke 3:23-38 are among these places. Craig argues, as I have in the past, that however one interprets the effects of the fall, what one cannot escape is Paul’s teaching that Adam’s actions had ramifications on the human race. Adam broke it, Christ came and fixed it. And he said that while one could compare a historical figure (Jesus) with a mere literary figure (Adam), what Paul says in Romans 5 would be akin to me saying “The reason why there is winter is because of the White Witch.” That would be nonsense. The White Witch is a fiction of C.S Lewis. With Luke’s genealogy, we have Luke tracing the genealogy of Jesus back through David, and it ends with Adam. If Adam weren’t a historical figure, this would make no sense. We should have expected Luke to stop at Abraham as Matthew did. While the genre analysis for the most part does not depend on any religious commitments, I do think these arguments for historicity from New Testament usages presuppose the inspiration and inerrancy of The Bible. That’s totally fine as I share that commitment, and I think it just adds more force to the second half of that dash. The history of Mytho-History. And as Protestant Christians, we believe that The Bible has a right to interpret itself.

In the final section of the book, Dr. Craig looks at the scientific evidence for when we can say that humanity arrived on earth in the evolutionary process. He talks about how we should properly define humanity; which he does not take to mean exclusively Homosapien. what is a human? He wants to define human as those hominids that are the most anatomically similar to us, as well as having modern cognitive human traits, such as the capacity for abstract thought, symbolic communication, and so on and so forth. He shows how the evidence from anthropology and archaeology and other sciences show that Homo Heidelbergensis has these traits, and therefore we should probably prefer to date Adam this far back. He also, with appeals to the scientific work of Swamidass, pushes back on the argument that population genetics shows that there could never have been originally two humans from whom we all descend. Craig argues that this is only true if we limit the term “human pair” to mean “Homo sapien pair”, but if we go far enough back to Homo Geidelbergesis, and given that we know homo sapiens, homo neandertalis, et. al. interbred, it really would be possible. The discussion is too lengthy and technical to unpack in the review, so I recommend just getting the book to see the full line of argumentation and reasoning. If Craig is right, then verses like Genesis 3:20 and Acts 17:26 need not be explained in a different way (as John Walton tries to do). Eve really could have been the mother of all humans (including modern homo sapiens, neanderthals, homo neledi, and homo heidelbergensis of which their immediate descendants, Cain, Abel, and Seth would undoubtedly have been on this proposal). I don’t think Dr. Craig is positing that at some point in the distant past, we somehow ended up with only two humans, that some catestrophic extinction event wiped out most members of homo heidelbergensus, just leaving an individual man named Adam and an individual woman named Eve. ^[5]Actually, we don’t know what their historical names would have been. As John Walton points out, which would be even more pointed on Craig’s hypothesis, Adam and Eve/Chavah are Hebrew … Continue reading Craig’s proposal seems to be something else. Something that, while strange, is not something I haven’t encountered before. Dr. Craig writes “God’s creation of Adam and Eve plausibly required both biological and spiritual renovations, biological to equip their brains with the capacity to serve as the instruments of rational thought and spiritual to furnish them with rational souls different from any sort of soul that nonhuman animals might be thought to possess. Thus, Adam and Eve were something radically new.

How would Adam and Eve consort, then, with their nonhuman contemporaries? We can plausibly conjecture that as bearers of a modern human consciousness and linguistic capacity, Adam and Eve would increasingly feel themselves at a distance from their nonhuman contemporaries and, as their descendants multiplied, their tribe would be naturally inclined to increasingly self-isolate. If there were sexual encounters with nonhuman hominins, these would be cases of bestiality, contrary to God’s will for humanity, though not entirely surprising for a fallen race. Eventually, as Adam and Eve’s descendants superseded the other hominin species, the possibility of such liaisons disappears.” ^[6]William Lane Craig, In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2021), 378.

Basically, I take Dr. Craig to be positing that at a certain point, God took two individuals and miraculously bumped them up a little higher than their contemporaries so that they would be fully human, completely equipped with all rational, mental, emotional faculties needed to adequately image Him, and He didn’t do this for their Homo Heidelbergensis contemporaries, rendering them essentially non-human and non-image bearing despite being physically identical to Adam and Eve in every way! This is a bizarre scenario that I like to call a “Planet Of The Apes” scenario. In the original 1960s Planet Of The Apes film, chimps and gorillas had evolved intelligence while humans de-volved to be dumb apes. The protagonist named Taylor (portrayed by Charleton Heston) essentially pairs up with a woman who is dumb as an animal. In the more recently made prequels, though, it was shown that this happened due to some virus that was released. In this TE scenario though, these humans just never get these imaging qualities to begin with. God just, for some odd reason, just doesn’t endow them with reason and free will. Dr. Tim Stratton of FreeThinking Ministries has proposed this in his “back pocket” Theistic Evolution scenario ^[7]See Dr. Tim Stratton’s article “Should Christians Oppose Evolution?” FreeThinking Ministries, October 18th 2016, –> … Continue reading And Billy Graham has alluded to such a scenario on his famous quote about evolution. Graham said “I don’t think that there’s any conflict at all between science today and the Scriptures. I think that we have misinterpreted the Scriptures many times and we’ve tried to make the Scriptures say things they weren’t meant to say. I think that we have made a mistake by thinking the Bible is a scientific book. The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of Redemption, and of course I accept the Creation story. I believe that God did create the universe. I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man. […] whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man’s relationship to God.” ^[8]Frost, David. Billy Graham: Personal Thoughts of a Public Man. Chariot Victor Pub., 1997. p. 72 (emphasis mine in bold). Although I find this “Planet Of The Apes” scenario odd, it isn’t impossible. I take it that Craig (along with Stratton and Graham) posit this scenario because if we concede the full image bearing humanity of Adam and Eve’s immediate ancestors, then we have a problem with moral culpability, and human death coming into being before the fall. Although Old Earth Creationists and Theistic Evolutionists have beat the dead horse for years that Romans 5 does not rule out animal death before the fall ^[9]For my take on this, see my article “Why Pre-Fall Death Isn’t A Problem For Old Earth Creationism”. It seems theologically problematic to say that there were any humans who were susceptible to sin and death before Adam and Eve came to be. This was, in fact, one of the lingering nagging questions about TE that I had which prompted me to return to this topic and which prompted me to finally take Dr. Craig’s book off of my digital shelf. I have learned by now not to reject a view just because it’s strange. I mean, it doesn’t get any weirder than angels having sex with humans to make giant babies ^[10]See my article “Genesis 6: The Nephilim – Descendents Of Cain, Neanderthals, Ancient Kings, or Angel-Human Hybrids” if you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about. And it’s not as though we can disprove this idea through science or a Bible verse. My only objection to this idea is the weirdness of it, which, as I said, isn’t really sufficient grounds for rejection, and if it solves the problem of pre-fall human death, perhaps we should take it at least a little bit seriously.

Positive, Yet Concerning Takeaways – Separating Mythical Wheat From Historical Chaff

This book was really great and helpful. While John Walton’s work was really helpful to me in reconciling the biblical issues, and Aaron Yilmaz’ “Deliver Us From Evolution” is what ultimately persuaded me on the scientific side of things, I still didn’t have as much figured out as I would have liked. Recently, in light of some things said on The Divine Council Worldview Podcast (they are going through the book of Genesis), some of the things the host said made me wonder how I could hold to a sufficiently ancient view of Adam. So, given that I preferred an ancient Adam view and knowing Craig’s conclusions (that his ancient Adam model is REALLY ancient), I figured that he probably would’ve thought about these things and had a way to deal with them. I decided to give Craig’s book a read after having it sit in my Logos library for a couple of years. My opinion is that I think his is even better than Walton’s “The Lost World Of Adam and Eve.” Walton didn’t really deal with dating Adam in history. For years, I kept going back and forth between whether to go with a recent or ancient Adam view. One of my problems with S. Joshua Swamidass’ recent Adam proposal (which he talks about in “The Genealogical Adam and Eve”) was that it required millennia upon millennia of humans living and dying without God ever revealing Himself. It seemed to me that we should date Adam as far back as modern human cognitive faculties seem to have developed, as Craig wanted to do. But certain features of Genesis 4 seemed too recent to go back too far. Things Adam and Eve’s children and grandchildren seemed to do seemed far too modern to date them back more than about 10,000 years ago. But I thought “I’ll bet Craig has thought of this.” And his Adam model is the only one that I had not looked into yet. Thus, I decided that I would read the book. And as it turns out Craig’s synthesis is the best one of all. And resolves some of those lingering questions I had. With it being mytho-history rather than literal history, these modern looking details are not a problem.

As Dr. Craig writes “It is probably futile to try to discern to what extent the narratives are to be taken literally, what parts are historical and what parts not. Therefore, I think that the objections of Kenton Sparks, for example, to taking the primaeval history to be a combination of history and theology are unfair. If the author of Genesis uses mythical imagery, Sparks demands, then which images are mythic symbol and which are closer to historical representation? Did a serpent speak in the garden? Was the first woman made from Adam’s rib? Was there a worldwide flood? I see no reason to think that the viability of a genre analysis of Gen 1–11 as mytho-history should imply the ability to answer such questions. The author does not draw such clear lines of distinction for us.” ^[11]Craig, William Lane. 2021. In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

But while this may alleviate the lingering problems I had, it does seem to raise a new concern. Isn’t the end result here a rather loose historicity where the details don’t really matter? What implications then, does this have on certain matters of exegesis and theology? What about the Nephilim and the Sons Of God mentioned in Genesis 6:1-4, or the Babel event which becomes the origin of idolatry and to which both Deuteronomy 32:8-9 and Psalm 82 look backwards? What about the days of creation? I am quite favorable to the idea that the number 7 is a literary device being used in two different ways (1) Days 1-3 being depicted as days of realm forming, days 4-6 being days of God filling those realms, and day 7 being the day God ceases from His creative activity. This is commonly known as The Framework Hypothesis. And (2) 7 is a sacred number and is tied to a temple inauguration motif. Can these types of interpretations go through on Craig’s thesis?

When I posed this concern in The Divine Council Worldview Facebook group, several people misunderstood my concern. I’m not a fundamentalist, and I have no problem with taking symbolic and non-literal interpretations of things in the primeval history. In fact, I probably wouldn’t be as favorable to Craig’s thesis if I were. Indeed, since around 2018, when I became a Theistic Evolutionist, I’ve thought for nearly a decade now that Genesis 1-11 was doing something different from chapter 12 onward. Even adopting a Framework Hypothesis-Temple Inaguration view already commits one to at least the first chapter not being straightforward chronological literal history. I have no problem with thinking that Genesis 1-11 not the same kind of straightforward history reporting that we find in books like, say, 1 and 2 Samuel or the gospels. In fact, I think Dr. Craig successfully defends the idea that Mytho-History is the correct genre designation of Genesis 1-11. Insofar as it being a highly mythologized history, that doesn’t seem to threaten biblical inerrancy as long as that’s what the Bible intends to teach. The Bible is inerrant in all that it intends to teach. If The Bible only meant for core historical points to be conveyed, then we can’t charge the text with error anymore than we can charge it with error for containing a solid firmament over a solid disk earth supported by pillars. ^[12]There is a point in the book at which Dr. Craig disputes this, pages 176-188 of his book. However, this is one of areas in which I disagree with Dr. Craig. Biblical scholar Ben Stanhope wrote a great … Continue reading However, there is a real epistemological concern here with what precisely we can know about this primal time of biblical history.

If I must revise some of my views, so be it, but unfortunately, some of my theology traces back to the primeval history chapters (especially, as I said, divine council worldview stuff). And that should not be a surprise because Genesis 1-11 is meant to be a sort of prologue to the entire redemption narrative that culminates in the book of Revelation.

And although I am starting to have doubts about John Walton’s function-only view with regard to Genesis 1, I still think that his Cosmic Temple Inauguration view is probably true. I think that is probably the strongest part of his book (The Lost World Of Genesis One) and his thesis is also accepted by biblical scholars such as Ben Stanhope, Carmen Imes, and J. Richard Middleton. Can I use details of Genesis 1 to make the case for the cosmic Temple view such as the fact that the number of days the world is said to be created is seven? Or is that just a detail that evolved and doesn’t really matter because the point of the passage is that God created everything? The point of concern is not, as some of the people in the aforementioned Facebook group thought, of literal details VS. non-literal details, for we have to make that judgment all across the canon (Jesus is not literally a sheep gate). Rather the concern is shifting between historical and non-historical details. And from the above quote, Dr. Craig doesn’t think we can do that. He says it’s probably futile! I have several commentaries on Genesis I hope to read soon (such as Tremper Longmann III’s commentary in the Story Of God Bible Commentary series). When I read these verse-by-verse commentaries, am I free to agree or disagree with the commentator, or should I say “We don’t even know if it happened this way, so it doesn’t even matter?”

I would love to send this to Dr. Craig and ask him himself, but as far as I have been able to tell, he has never responded to any of my emails for his Question Of The Week section on ReasonableFaith.org. I don’t resent him for it. After all, he’s one of the world’s most preeminant Christian philosophers/theologians. He probably gets hundreds of these per week. I simply consider myself unlucky. I don’t take it personally.

John Walton and Tremper Longmann III themselves seem to agree with Dr. Craig on the genre analysis, it’s just that they don’t use the term “mytho-history”. Walton prefers the term “Imagistic History” while Longmann prefers “Theological History”. This is due to the fact that people cringe at the word “myth”. Indeed, many people I’ve read in Facebook comments have bafflingly thought Craig took an ahistorical view of the primeval history! No one reading this book, or heck, even paying attention to the podcast interviews he does, could come away with that impression. But I digress. One would think that if I’m so privy to views espoused Walton and Longmann, I was technically already on board and shouldn’t be worrying myself like this. But in footnote 52 on page 155 of the Logos edition of the book, Dr. Craig basically says that Walton and Longmann exegete inconsistently. They recognize Genesis 1-11 as mytho-history, but then proceed to exegete the text as if it were literal history. Dr. Craig writes “Similarly, in a brief excursus on myth/mythology, Walton confesses that ‘I am uncomfortable applying the genre label ‘myth/mythology’ to these biblical narratives. The designation has too many definitions, and therefore the words lose their ability to communicate clearly” (Lost World of Adam and Eve, 136). He observes that some might suggest that the Israelites were historicizing myth—i.e., presenting real events using imagery as a rhetorical means to capture the full range of truth as it was commonly conveyed in the world in which they lived. ‘Since the concept of myth (mythic/mythical/mythological), however, is so volatile and diversely understood, we need to use it in connection with other qualifying terms’ (137). Walton does not consider Thorkild Jacobsen’s term mytho-history. Instead, he recommends the word group ‘image/imagery/imagination/imaginative,’ which unfortunately does not include the word “history.” But he says that Genesis preserves ‘imagistic history.’ ‘Some might consider the trees, the garden and the snake to be examples of imagistic thinking without thereby denying reality and truth to the account’ (138). This makes all the more bewildering the sort of wooden literalism characterizing much of Walton’s exegesis—for example, his view of six literal days of functional creation in the recent past or his bizarre interpretation of Eve’s formation by God’s splitting Adam in two—which he takes to be a vision given by God to Adam (78–80). If Walton is right that we can recognize language as figurative by how hard interpreters have to work to provide a nonfigurative reading of a passage (Tremper Longman III and John H. Walton, The Lost World of the Flood: Mythology, Theology, and the Deluge Debate [Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2018], 25), then just as Adam’s creation is deemed “patently figurative” (28), so should Eve’s. By neglecting myth, Walton is forced into such desperate expedients.” (emphasis mine in bold). ^[13]William Lane Craig, In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2021).

So, what am I to do with this? Craig does think that certain things in Genesis 1-11 can be confidently dubbed historical, but these are in the primary main aspects of the narratives. Dr. Craig writes “What are, then, some of the central truths expressed in the primaeval history? The following come readily to mind:

1: God is one, a personal, transcendent Creator of all physical reality, perfectly good and worthy of worship.

2: God has designed the physical world and is the ultimate source of its structure and life-forms.

3: Man is the pinnacle of the physical creation, a personal, if finite, agent like God, and therefore uniquely capable of all Earth’s creatures of knowing God.

4: Mankind is gendered, man and woman being of equal value, with marriage given to mankind for procreation and mutuality, the wife being a helper to her husband.

5: Work is good, a sacred assignment by God to mankind to steward the earth and its creatures.

6: Human exploration and discovery of the workings of nature are a natural outgrowth of mans’ capacities, rather than divine bestowals without human initiative and effort.

7: Mankind is to set apart one day per week as sacred and for refreshment from work.

8: Man and woman alike have freely chosen to disobey God, suffering alienation from God and spiritual death as their just desert, condemned to a life of hardship and suffering during this mortal existence.

9: Human sin is agglomerative and self-destructive, resulting in God’s just judgment.

10: Despite human rebellion against God, God’s original purpose to bless all mankind remains intact, as he graciously finds a way to work his will despite human defiance.” ^[14]William Lane Craig, In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2021), 201–202.

But is that all the takeaways we can glean from Genesis 1-11? I am tempted to respond to my own concerns in the following ways;

(1) To say that given what the genre of mytho-history seeks to do, that if a detail contributes to some theological point that the author is trying to make, then we can confidently say that this is a detail worth examining. If it isn’t exclusively a mundane historical detail (e.g Jubal’s invention of the lyre in Genesis 4:21 or the types of animals Noah brought on the boat in Genesis 6:18-22) but is theological in nature (e.g The 7 days of creation and in which one might conclude a Framework/Temple theme, the imago dei related to the former, The Sons Of God and The Daughters Of Men begetting giants, the origin of idolatry), then we can graft these into what we can know in addition to the 10 things Craig listed.

(2) Perhaps remembering that we don’t believe in what the late Dr. Michael S. Heiser called “The Holy Stapler” can also be of aid here. ^[15]See the article “Deuteronomy 34:5-6: The Holy Stapler” by Gary Ritter, March 19th 2021 –> Deuteronomy 34:5-6 – The Holy Stapler | Gary Ritter. The Holy Spirit ensured that whatever plastic change the Adam and Eve, Noah, and Babel stories underwent, they arrived in the written scriptures exactly as He intended. Genesis 1-11 being mytho-history was not a mistake. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17, ESV) I believe in verbal plenary inspiration, and so does Dr. Craig. In his Defenders 3 Podcast, William Lane Craig said “So inspiration of Scripture cannot be taken to be just a sort of general ideas of Scripture being inspired – that what God has inspired is the sort of idea in a verse or a passage – but it doesn’t extend to the very words. I think we have seen that the argument that is often given is sometimes dependent upon a single word or verbal form, therefore it cannot be treated as simply the general idea that the author is sharing as inspired, but the author was able to pick whatever words he wanted to express it.” ^[16]William Lane Craig, In “Defenders 3, Doctrine Of Revelation (Part 14) – The Inspiration Of Scripture.” December 3rd 2014 –> … Continue reading. In context, Dr. Craig is referring to the single word Jesus bases his theological argument on in John 10:34-36, and the theological argument Paul makes in Galatians 3:16. This hightens the previous point in which if there is something theological about the recorded narrative, The Holy Spirit wanted it in there, and he wanted us to take it seriously.

(3) Much of what the primeval history does is to explain the origins of things. Indeed, as Dr. Craig points out, this is one of the purposes of myth; to explain the origins of why things are the way that they are in the modern day. Even minute things like Genesis 3:21 may seek to explain where clothing came from and why. And as Dr. Michael S. Heiser has argued in his book “Reversing Hermon: Enoch, The Watchers, and The Forgotten Mission Of Jesus Christ”, both Genesis 6 and 1 Enoch seem to be repurposed stories of the Babylonian Apkallu traditions. ^[17]See Dr. Michael S. Heiser, “Reversing Hermon: Enoch, The Watchers, and The Forgotten Mission Of Jesus Christ”. But he also talks about this to some degree in “The Unseen Realm: … Continue reading Dr. Craig does not think it can be as well established that Genesis 1-11 is purposefully interacting with specific Ancient Near Eastern literature, and to some extent Heiser’s specific proposal that the Nephilim are a polemic against the Apkallu stories depend on a post-exilic dating of composition. Nevertheless, regardless of one’s views on The Bible’s interaction with ANE literature, it seems indisputable that the author is trying to answer the question “Where did all these giants come from?” I mean, after all, David famously killed one named Goliath in 1 Samuel 17, and even before that, Joshua’s spies reported that there were descendants of Nephilim in the land that made them feel like grasshoppers in comparison (see Number 13:33). Moreover, when Moses said “When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.” (Deuteronomy 32:8-9, ESV), he was referring back to the time when God divided the nations and set the Sons Of God over them as their inheritance. Even the hyperlink in my ESV in my Logos Bible App links this verse to Genesis 11 as a cross-reference. This is the only time in the biblical canon when God divided the nations. In the course of the oral tradition of the ancient mythological history, this crucial origin point for where the gods of the nations came from should surely not be written off as an unnecessary detail, whatever one thinks about the rest of the Babel story. ^[18]For people unfamiliar with The Divine Council Worldview and this whole thing about lowercase g gods ruling over the nations after the Babel event, see my essay “Genesis 10-11: The Tower Of … Continue reading Moreover, Genesis 9:1-6 seems to provide the institution of the death penalty and links the imago dei with the rationale for why murder is such a heinous crime. This could be seen as an origin story, “And that, kids, is why murderers are put to death” we can imagine an Israelite grandfather saying around a campfire. It also gives us an explanation for why wild animals flee from us and the seeming origin of meat-eating. Genesis 9:20-25 can be seen as a story for the origin of the hostility of Canaan and Israel. We might posit that if the story (as God meant for us to have it in the text) teaches theology or provides the origin story for some feature of modern Israelite society, we can take it as basically historical, even if every last detail isn’t historical or to be literally understood. The name of the book “Genesis” does mean “Beginnings” after all. So the origin story of so many things shouldn’t be that surprising. And there isn’t anything fantastic or unscientific about, say, Noah’s son raping his mother and this being the reason why Caanan and Israel are forever at odds ^[19]I make the case that the sin of Noah’s son was maternal incest, not mere voyerism in my essay “Genesis 9: Noah’s Nakedness, The Sin Of Ham, and The Curse Of Canaaan” There is, however, at least a scientific problem with saying Jubal was the father of all who played stringed instruments if these stories occurred approaching nearly a million year ago! And there is something fantastic, even to the mind of an Ancient Israelite, about people living for hundreds of years, or light being created 3 days before the sun would be.

If these 3 responses to my own concern are sound, then I think Genesis 1-11 can be the source of much conversation, exegesis, and theologizing even if every last nitty gritty detail doesn’t have a basis in reality. Of course, one might say I’m simply expanding Craig’s list on what “core historical points” are being made. After all, the Nephilim and the origin of the gods of the nations are not by no means mere footnotes in biblical history. The former might seem to be, but they show up again and again in the biblical narratives. T.J Steadmann, in his book “Answers To Giant Questions: How Understanding The Biblical Nephilim Will Enlarge Your Faith” is a great treatment on the theological importance of the Nephilim. On the other hand, I don’t know if details such as what leaves Adam and Eve used to cover their nakedness can be pinned down. But, certain theological points have been made even from this seemingly minor detail. For example, I saw a video a while back on YouTube from a channel called MudWalkers reacting to Egyptologist David Falk, and they made the point that Genesis 3 specifically mentions that Adam and Eve tried to cover themselves with fig leaves rather than just leaves in general. ^[20]David Falk, a PHD Egyptologist and biblical scholar wrote “In the moment after eating from the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, the two humans seem fine but something is happening all … Continue reading Fig leaves have an oil in them that actually causes rashes and burning. Can anything really be drawn from this? Did Adam and Eve even try to cover their nakedness at all? If so, was it specifically fig leaves? The author of Genesis isn’t really telling us why it was fig leaves and not some other kind of plant. Admittedly, this is reading between the lines. Can we do this with a detail so seemingly trivial? On the other hand, perhaps I am forgetting verbal plenary inspiration and the fact that The Holy Spirit wanted the story to be told like this. Even if the historical Adam covered his crotch with a bonzai plant, The Holy Spirit wanted the story to involve fig leaves. This would be, as one woman in The Divine Council Worldview Facebook Group suggested, exegeting/applying it as a narrative. If Dr. Craig were to read this and talk about it on The Reasonable Faith Podcast, he might say that it’s there for illustrative purposes, and so we can appeal to these verses to make those points as Peter and Jude appealed to 1 Enoch to make their points from those passages.

Conclusion

I thoroughly enjoyed going through Dr. Craig’s book. It was intellectually stimulating, challenging, and in some cases, troubling. Dr. Craig has done extensive research in preparation for this book and it shows, especially in the lengthy footnotes. Dr. Craig has read pretty much all of the relevant Bible scholars who have written on this subject, including but not limited to John Day, John Walton, Tremper Longmann III, Gordon Wenham, C. John Collins, and Peter Enns. He has also read the works of scientists such as S. Joshua Swamidass and others. While I didn’t agree with Dr. Craig on all of the particulars, these particulars I speak of refer to individual points as part of a cumulative case for each of his premises in his argument ^[21]Such as the 10th family resemblance Genesis 1-11 shares among myths; fantastic elements. I have not mentioned these as this article is pretty much an endorsement of Dr. Craig’s book, and, moreover, this article is already getting pretty lengthy as is. I don’t want to spend copious amounts of space beating up on Dr. Craig on minor points. I do think that Dr. Craig is most likely correct that the genre of Genesis 1-11 is mytho-history, that the Adam and Eve who walked the Earth in real space and time were likely members of Homo Heidelbergensis, and that they, along with Homo Neledi, Homo Neandertalis, and Homo Sapiens are all members of this thing we call “the human race”. In the final chapter of Dr. Craig’s book, titled “Putting It All Together”, Dr. Craig talks about the theological side of the historical Adam being Homo Heidelbergensis. One of the things he talked about was the “Planet Of The Apes” scenario mentioned earlier, but he also talked about the eschaton. It may seem odd to think about it; but if Craig is right, then we shall likely encounter members of Homo Heidelbergensis and Neanderthals in New Eden ^[22]This is my term for The New Heavens and New Earth that John talks about in Revelation 21-22. See my essay “A Treatise On The Christian’s Eternal Home”. Dr. Craig writes “This realization raises the difficult question of the accessibility of salvation for those who, like Job, lived outside the orbit of the OT covenant with Israel; but any solution to that problem, such as appeal to God’s general revelation in nature and conscience, can be applied mutatis mutandis to Neanderthals and other archaic humans. We may well see some of them, therefore, in the eschaton, and I think that we shall be delighted to do so.” ^[23]Page 365.

If you are someone who, like me, feels the force of the scientific arguments for an old universe and earth, and for universal common ancestry, but you also are persuaded that God exists and Christianity is true, and you want to make sense of how it all fits together, then Dr. William Lane Craig’s “In Quest Of The Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration” is a book you definitely should check out.