Observations from the First 23% of The Evolution of Adam

One of the great things about science and technology is the elegance of the solutions that emerge out of innovation.   I’m reading The Evolution of Adam by Peter Enns on a Kindle. Like other e-readers the Kindle allows for font and text size changes which makes page numbering problematic. As the texture of the text changes so does the number of pages in the book. Yet the total length of the book never changes, just the number of swipes required to read to full resolution.  So what magical methods do the makers of tech texts devise? Fractions! Well specifically percentages.  

Maybe I’m goofy for liking stuff like this but I do.  I’m also enjoying The Evolution of Adam and today I’ll share a few observations from the first 23%.

I was fortunate to participate in a call with Peter Enns last month in which he discussed some of the central issues in his latest book. In a previous post I shared some notes from that call.  My notes covered two main areas; the purpose and place of the Genesis text and Paul’s treatment of and relationship with Adam. The first 23% of The Evolution of Adam deals with the perceived conflict between Genesis and the science of Evolution and also begins to shed light on Genesis in terms of authorship, genre and its role in defining Israel’s national identity.

The first thing I was impressed by, at the time of the original phone conversation and in the introduction of the book, is Dr. Enns’ respect for Christian tradition and especially opposing points of view.  He makes it clear that the Bible is the inspired Word of God but also that as long as it has been read it has been discussed and has incited questions and disagreement.  I’m grateful for the example provided for confidently expressing convictions while still respecting opposing points of view.

It is made clear within the first 5% however that not all Biblical interpretation is equal. The limitations of these views are described in the following quote.

These other views, rooted in a precommitment to read the Bible literally at virtually every point despite evidence to the contrary, avoid engaging science by reinterpreting it to conform to that conviction. To the contrary, it is clear that, from a scientific point of view, the Bible does not always describe physical reality accurately; it simply speaks in an ancient idiom, as one might expect ancient people to do. It is God’s Word, but it has an ancient view of the natural world, not a modern one.

Much of the first 23% describes Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch as a declaration by ancient Israel of their National Identity and their role in the world as God’s chosen people.  In this description the authorship of the Pentateuch is fleshed out as a compilation of several authors over centuries of time. As Enns points out, this is not a new conclusion but is as old as the Old Testament itself.

The discussion around the Bible’s beginnings is described as self generating as there are internal conflicts within the text itself.  When I read this section the questions and conflicts resonated so deeply with my own experience with the Scriptures that I’m confident I would have audibly expressed my agreement if not for being on the train and surrounded by strangers. 

Enns remarks that questions and discussions around Genesis should be expected because Genesis generates its own questions. Why are there two completely different creation accounts? Where did Adam’s offspring’s wives come from? Why does God need to ask where Adam and Eve are in the Garden? Why is Genesis so repetitive?  The presence of these conflicts, repetitions, parallelisms and stylistic deviations are evidence that Enns and centuries of Biblical scholarship point to when claiming multiple authors and the nationalistic purpose of the texts.

This is an important point because it takes Genesis and the Pentateuch out of the realm of pure historical account (and therefore out of conflict with modern science) and into a complex assemblage for the shaping of Israel’s relationship with God and the world.  

The book returns often to the impact of reading Genesis well on our view of science and as I move toward the 24^th% and beyond a discussion of genre and calibration with similar ancient texts is taking shape.  I’ll continue to process the book and report more as the fraction of the total book read approaches 1/1.