Peter Enns - The Evolution of Adam (Book Reviews)

This book may be 2012's Love Wins.  So get in on the conversation.

Lots of digital ink has been used this week to discuss the release of Peter Enns' The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn't Say about Human Origins. Here are some of the reviews that I have read:

• Kurt Willems at the Pangea Blog (check out his list of Christian leaders who have expressed an openness to evolution, including Billy Graham and CS Lewis)
• RJS at Jesus Creed (1, 2)
• Rachel Held Evans

For a whole lot more, go to The Brazos Blog. It's worth checking out Peter's response on why he wrote the book.

I agree whole-heartedly that the Bible never intended to be a scientific book. Yet, I do feel that it aspires - by the author's intent and God's direction - to be a historically and theological accurate composition. Even this is a tricky statement since it must be understood within the various genres found in the Bible. For example, how should songs, poems, and parables be determined to be historically and theologically accurate? We grade and evalulate each portion and genre of the Bible according to it's form and intent.

I'm not sympathetic to the theistic evolution view. I don't believe that God used evolutionary means to bring humanity into the world - though I believe he could if He wanted to, does that make sense? For me - whether the starting point is a cell or a hairy, dump, standing-upright mammal - it all comes down to being made in the image of God. 

At what point - if evolution be true - did the soul enter the human condition? At what point did God breath into humanity, making it the pinnacle of creation, utterly unique to all that came before it? 

Because I can't past this fundamental truth - that we are made in God's image - I'm unable to concede to evolution. 

But this is more than just an evolution vs creation debate: it's myth vs historical fact, early composition vs post-exilic, and much more.

That all said, I really want to buy this book. I'm eager to learn, eager to engage in the conversation, to listen and to reply.

--------------------

I don’t think that there’s any conflict at all between science today and the Scriptures. I think we have misinterpreted the Scriptures many times and we’ve tried to make the Scriptures say things that they weren’t meant to say, and I think 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 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. ~ Billy Graham in “Doubt and Certainties” (1964)

(source)

G&P

- Andrew