Four Views on the Historical Adam: Interview with Caneday and Barrett

Over at Books At A Glance, Fred Zaspel has interviewed Ardel Caneday and Matthew Barrett who are the editors of a new Zondervan book called, Four Views on the Historical Adam (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology).

The interview is two parts: Part 1 and Part 2. Here is the beginning of the interview to get you started:

It seems that each generation of Christians must face its own set of defining questions, and the question of the historicity of Adam is certainly one of those questions for our day. It is an enormously important question with far-reaching implications, and so it was inevitable that this book would appear, Four Views on the Historical Adam. Here editors Mathew Barrett (Assistant Professor of Christian Studies at California Baptist University and executive editor of Credo Magazine – www.credomag.com) and Ardel B. Caneday (Professor of New Testament and Greek at the University of Northwestern – St. Paul) bring together representatives of four leading approaches to the question. Each professes to be Christian, and each professes faith in God the Creator. But it seems that the commonality ends about there.

We are happy that Drs. Barrett and Caneday could speak to us about their work and, more importantly, about the issue it addresses.

Books At a Glance: Can you give us a brief snapshot of the current theological landscape that illustrates why a book like this necessary?

Barrett & Caneday: Thank you for this opportunity to comment on Four View on the Historical Adam. We’re delighted to be invited to feature this book, which we believe will provide readers instructive access to four competing views and does so for a time such as this when the historic faith of Christians is in need of renewed defense.

As we show within the introduction to Four Views on the Historical Adam, belief in Adam’s historicity, that Adam was the first human formed by the direct and immediate act of the Creator has been the historic Christian belief. To be sure, this belief has been significantly challenged since the rise of modern science, especially scientism. However, even though Christians, especially since the nineteenth century, have not agreed on the nature of the six days of creation as presented in Genesis, they have agreed that Adam was a historical man, the first human from whom all humans have descended. This is true of B. B. Warfield of Princeton Seminary, of James Orr (The Fundamentals), of C. I. Scofield (Reference Bible), of William Jennings Bryan (Scopes Trial), or of Henry Morris and John C. Whitcomb, Jr. (The Genesis Flood). Of these, only Morris and Whitcomb believed that the six days of creation consisted of six actual twenty-four hour days. Nevertheless, all resolutely believed in the historical Adam.

Of course, ever since Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species (1859) many have become attracted to the theory of evolution, even embracing it and mingling it, if this is possible, with the Christian faith and calling it theistic evolution. Some, such as Denis Lamoureux, one of our contributors, prefer to identify their view as evolutionary creation. All who embraced this notion found considerable encouragement in 2006 with the publication of Francis Collins’ The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, which would be better sub-titled A Scientist Endeavors to Make Evolution Acceptable to Evangelical Christians. The next year Collins, who was Director of the Human Genome Project, founded BioLogos, an organization that is devoted to call upon “the church and the world to see the harmony between science and biblical faith as we present an evolutionary understanding of God’s creation.” Collins coined the term, “BioLogos,” as a more palatable designation for “theistic evolution.”

It is reasonable to say that BioLogos has emboldened many to emerge from the shadows to declare openly and plainly their acceptance of evolution and to do so with withering and derisive rhetoric toward Evangelicals who persevere in their belief in the historical Adam. Perhaps no one is more emblematic in this regard than Peter Enns who published in 2012 The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say about Human Origins. He equates Evangelicals who believe in the historical Adam with poor, benighted souls who believe that the earth is flat, a dismissive, mean, and false characterization of fellow Christians, in our estimation.

As to the current landscape that illustrates why Four Views on the Historical Adam is necessary, there is no better illustration than what is taking place at Bryan College, named after William Jennings Bryan. The fourth affirmation in Bryan College’s Statement of Faith is belief “that the origin of man was by fiat of God in the act of creation as related in the Book of Genesis; that he was created in the image of God; that he sinned and thereby incurred physical and spiritual death.” Despite the clarity of this affirmation, various faculty members have either come to embrace evolution since they accepted appointments at the college or they surreptitiously joined the faculty. President Stephen D. Livesay and the Board of Trustees have found it necessary to draft a statement to clarify for the faculty that the fourth affirmation means, “We believe that all humanity is descended from Adam and Eve. They are historical persons created by God in a special formative act, and not from previously existing life forms.” This clarification has caused no small stir among faculty and alumni and various news media. However, if Bryan College is going to maintain its very reason for existence on Bryan Hill, overlooking the city of Dayton, Tennessee, and the Rhea County courthouse where the State of Tennessee v. John Scopes trial took place in 1925, then surely the action the President and Board have taken is proper and necessary, even if difficult and painful. Scripturally sound Christian affirmation is at stake.

Read the rest of this interview: Part 1 and Part 2. Additionally, here are two video interviews with the editors: