The Idols and False Notions have Taken Deep Root

[mark kennedy]

There are only two things a person really has to understand in order to make sense of the Bible, Adam sinned and Christ arose, everything hinges on those two defining events. Scoffers and skeptics have abandoned their seemingly endless barrage of attacks on the resurrection, the only reason I can find for it being, that the New Testament is invulnerable as history given the standards of internal, external and bibliographical testing. The only other way for the skeptic and the scoffer to go is further back into the dimmer and darker past, as far as their vain imaginations can take them and logic will allow. The pagan clerics did not evolve out of, and certainly did not repent of their dark mysticism and secret arts; their mythographers simply changed the story. In pagan mythology it is the elementals that gave rise to the gods, in modern times the blind naturalistic elements are seen as the artificer of order out of chaos with progressive complexity guided by pragmatic survivability it's only guide, whether elements or elementals the principle remains the same. In Genesis one there is a hymn of praise to the Almighty who formed the worlds from nothing, brought light from the darkness and ordered the natural world by the counsel of His will. Light and darkness are divided, land and water are separated, the expanse of the water below is raised into the heavens above and everything is created in a week and it didn't take all week. Each of the six stages of creation was complete in a day and not one of them took all day. By sunset of the seventh day, all life and the first man was formed by divine fiat, complete in all it's vast array.

There is only one theory of evolution that has any relevance to me as a Christian and there is not one but a multitude of speculative scenarios their mythographers write endlessly. The only one that it has any bearing on my theology, apart from sin there is no need for a Savior and apart from Adam and Eve, our first parents, there is no original sin. It would appear that there is no need for me to look long and hard for ways to discount and discredit common ancestry with regards to human evolution from prehistoric apes, if anything modern science has made that all too easy. In their zeal to produce the evidence for our transitional common ancestor they failed to provide the fossil evidence of the common ancestors of our chimpanzee and gorilla cousins to compare hominid fossils to. All of the evidence, they will tell you, points to a transitional ape giving rise to the Homo lineage but they have failed to produce a single one for the apes of Asia and Africa during the same time period. That is simply because all the ape fossils are in natural history museums marked Homo XXX. The fact that all the evidence is our ancestor should be telling us something, no other alternative was ever entertained, every ape fossil turned up in Asia and Africa was automatically declared the missing link. If they couldn't find a suitable candidate from genuine fossil finds a fraud would suffice as evidence until they could dig up enough ape bones to become the idols of the theater of the mind, as Sir Francis Bacon called it." The idols and false notions which are now in possession of the human understanding, and have taken deep root therein, not only so beset men's minds that truth can hardly find entrance, but even after entrance is obtained, they will again in the very instauration of the sciences meet and trouble us, unless men being forewarned of the danger fortify themselves as far as may be against their assaults." (Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man, "The Idols of the Mind" From Novum Organum)

The beginning of the annuls of the generations of mankind have been chronicled, the times and dates preserved within the limits of the language and calendars available in antiquity. Meticulously preserved and miraculously confirmed the Holy Bible has emerged from history to inform the candid and serious inquirer with regards to the genuine history of mankind:

"In requiring this candor and simplicity of mind in those who would investigate the truth of our religion, Christianity demands nothing more than is readily conceded to every branch of human science. All these have their data, and their axioms; and Christianity, too, has her first principles, the admission of which is essential to any real progress in knowledge. "Christianity," says Bishop Wilson, "inscribes on the portal of her dominion 'Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall in nowise enter therein.' Christianity does not profess to convince the perverse and headstrong, to bring irresistible evidence to the daring and profane, to vanquish the proud scorner, and afford evidences from which the careless and perverse cannot possibly escape. This might go to destroy man's responsibility. All that Christianity professes is to propose such evidences as may satisfy the meek, the tractable, the candid, the serious inquirer." (Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf)

It's not complicated; you don't have to unravel the riddle of the worldly wise, it's so simple a child could understand. Do you as a Creationist believe in Christ because of Moses or do you believe in Creation because of Christ?

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (ICor.15:21,22)

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (Romans 5:12)

Grab your Bible, put your theology brain cap on and let's compare TE to YEC as Christian doctrine. I have some good news for my fellow Creationists, the Bible is evidence, theology is science and if you have to choose between empirical knowledge and faith you are capable of grasping neither.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[Assyrian]

There are only two things a person really has to understand in order to make sense of the Bible, Adam sinned and Christ arose, everything hinges on those two defining events.

Surely what we need to understand is that I am a sinner and that Jesus died and rose again? Throughout the NT people preached repentance and the Holy Spirit brought conviction of sins. What we really need to understand the bible is the Holy Spirit.

You may feel the bible is simplified and made easier to understand by fitting it into a framework you call 'salvation history' which has a literal Adam eating literal fruit as a foundation. That doesn't mean your explanatory framework is the real meaning of the bible, or that the story of Adam and Eve is literal.

In pagan mythology it is the elementals that gave rise to the gods, in modern times the blind naturalistic elements are seen as the artificer of order out of chaos with progressive complexity guided by pragmatic survivability it's only guide, whether elements or elementals the principle remains the same.

Confusing Pagan elementals with chemical elements is simply a bad use of etymology. However If you want to look for parallels with Pagan mythology, the bible is much closer than science, with its dying and rising god, its creation stories and flood. Doesn't mean the bible is wrong, or science.

In Genesis one there is a hymn of praise to the Almighty who formed the worlds from nothing, brought light from the darkness and ordered the natural world by the counsel of His will.

If you recognise Genesis 1 as a hymn, why do you inisist on interpreting it as a rigidly literalist chronicle of events, rather than seeing it for the soaring poetry it is?

The only one that it has any bearing on my theology, apart from sin there is no need for a Savior and apart from Adam and Eve, our first parents, there is no original sin.

If Adam and Eve was a parable, what makes you think you would not still be a sinner? What makes you think the millions who have gone before you were not sinners?

Do not confuse Original Sin with the first sin. Some person (or persons) had to be first, even if it wasn't Adam and Eve. But that does not mean investing the first sin with all the doctrinal baggage of Original Sin. The key point in the bible is that all have sinned.

the Bible is evidence

The bible contains evidence, eyewitness testimonies of the wonders God performed. The bible also contains laws, teaching and revelation in many forms, including metaphor, symbolism, allegory parable and poetry. Simply saying 'the Bible is evidence' is meaningless unless you take it is evidence of seven headed hybrid monsters too.

theology is science

Theology was called a science long ago when Astrology and Alchemy were sciences. It is not modern science. Behe ran into the same problem in Dover when he wanted to change the definition of science to include ID, he ended up with a 'Science' that included Astrology.

 

[Melethiel]

To answer the poll (I'll read the OP later)...
neither. A special creation of Adam and his being the biological descendant of all humanity is not directly tied to the Gospel, but neither is Adam a "mythical symbol for humanity."

 

[Assyrian]

If it had said figurative or allegory or just symbol for humanity, but mythical contains way too many connotations. There isn't even a decent 'other' box.

 

[EnemyPartyII]

If it had said figurative or allegory or just symbol for humanity, but mythical contains way too many connotations. There isn't even a decent 'other' box.

I'd call him an "Everyman" representation of Humanity's shift from the Hunter/Gatherer Idyl to settled civilisation, and the cost/benefit thereof...

But thats just me

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

This is an unfair poll, mark kennedy, and I think you know it.

There's no option on there for theistic evolutionists who believe that the special creation of Adam's biological self is non-essential, while his historicity, special imbuing with the image of God, and historic fall are essential.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

There are only two things a person really has to understand in order to make sense of the Bible, Adam sinned and Christ arose, everything hinges on those two defining events.

This is one of those bold half-truths.

The thing a person really has to understand in order to make sense of the Bible is that Jesus Christ is the Risen Lord who died for our sins.

I believe that the existence of a historic Adam as the first homo sapien that could rightly be called a man- by fact of being imbued with the image of God- is quite important because of the doctrines of the image of God, original sin and fallenness, and imputed guilt.

However, those who do not believe in a historic Adam are quite capable of believing that all humans are conceived in sin and that all humans need to be saved through the substitutionary death and victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ. They are able to believe in universal sin because all sin, and they are able to believe in original sin since the human condition is naturally corrupted.

Scoffers and skeptics have abandoned their seemingly endless barrage of attacks on the resurrection, the only reason I can find for it being, that the New Testament is invulnerable as history given the standards of internal, external and bibliographical testing.

In no small part due to N.T. Wright and Wolfhart Pannenberg.

That said, I would say that if you think the barage against the resurrection is ended, then you should stop by your local Borders. Crosson, Borg, and Sprong are by no means through- Crossan and Borg just finished coauthoring The Last Week, about the last week of Christ's life, and Spong has just come out with Jesus for the Non-Religious.

And have you seen the bestseller list recently? Dawkin's The God Delusion, Harris' Letters to a Christian Nation, Dennet's Breaking the Spell, and Stenger's God: The Failed Hypothesis are all during quite well.

In Genesis one there is a hymn of praise to the Almighty who formed the worlds from nothing, brought light from the darkness and ordered the natural world by the counsel of His will.

Exactly. A hymn. A non-chronological, topical elaboration on the great themes of truth.

The only one that it has any bearing on my theology, apart from sin there is no need for a Savior and apart from Adam and Eve, our first parents, there is no original sin.

To reiterate, this is untrue. The fallenness of the human condition might very well be the natural state of humanity, out of which God will continually lift us.

Again, I believe in a historic Adam, a historic imbuing of the image, his vocation as mediatorial priest and federal head, a historic fall, original sin, and the imputed of his sin to all humanity. Yet you cannot out of hand dismiss original sin as impossible without a historic Adam. I think the rejection of Adam's historicity creates more problems than it solves, but it is not impossible.

 

[The Lady Kate]

There are only two things a person really has to understand in order to make sense of the Bible, Adam sinned and Christ arose, everything hinges on those two defining events.

And the rest of the Bible is what... filler?

"Adam sinned and Christ Arose."... God could've fit that on an index card, couldn't He?

Scoffers and skeptics have abandoned their seemingly endless barrage of attacks on the resurrection, the only reason I can find for it being, that the New Testament is invulnerable as history given the standards of internal, external and bibliographical testing.

None of which apply here. "Adam sinned and Christ arose," is pretty much impervious to any internal, external, or bibliographical testing.

The only other way for the skeptic and the scoffer to go is further back into the dimmer and darker past, as far as their vain imaginations can take them and logic will allow. The pagan clerics did not evolve out of, and certainly did not repent of their dark mysticism and secret arts; their mythographers simply changed the story.

And the Hebrew and Christian mythographers didn't do the same?

"Somehow the claims coming from non-Christian sources are just too obviously absurd. One does not have to travel far, however, to hear the Christian version of the claim stated with liturgical precision. -John Shelby Spong.

In pagan mythology it is the elementals that gave rise to the gods, in modern times the blind naturalistic elements are seen as the artificer of order out of chaos with progressive complexity guided by pragmatic survivability it's only guide, whether elements or elementals the principle remains the same. In Genesis one there is a hymn of praise to the Almighty who formed the worlds from nothing, brought light from the darkness and ordered the natural world by the counsel of His will. Light and darkness are divided, land and water are separated, the expanse of the water below is raised into the heavens above and everything is created in a week and it didn't take all week. Each of the six stages of creation was complete in a day and not one of them took all day. By sunset of the seventh day, all life and the first man was formed by divine fiat, complete in all it's vast array.

Right... "Our God is bigger and better than the pagan gods."

There is only one theory of evolution that has any relevance to me as a Christian and there is not one but a multitude of speculative scenarios their mythographers write endlessly. The only one that it has any bearing on my theology, apart from sin there is no need for a Savior and apart from Adam and Eve, our first parents, there is no original sin.

Right.... you wouldn't be a sinner if not for a litral Adam and Eve... is that it?

It would appear that there is no need for me to look long and hard for ways to discount and discredit common ancestry with regards to human evolution from prehistoric apes, if anything modern science has made that all too easy. In their zeal to produce the evidence for our transitional common ancestor they failed to provide the fossil evidence of the common ancestors of our chimpanzee and gorilla cousins to compare hominid fossils to. All of the evidence, they will tell you, points to a transitional ape giving rise to the Homo lineage but they have failed to produce a single one for the apes of Asia and Africa during the same time period. That is simply because all the ape fossils are in natural history museums marked Homo XXX. The fact that all the evidence is our ancestor should be telling us something, no other alternative was ever entertained, every ape fossil turned up in Asia and Africa was automatically declared the missing link. If they couldn't find a suitable candidate from genuine fossil finds a fraud would suffice as evidence until they could dig up enough ape bones to become the idols of the theater of the mind, as Sir Francis Bacon called it." The idols and false notions which are now in possession of the human understanding, and have taken deep root therein, not only so beset men's minds that truth can hardly find entrance, but even after entrance is obtained, they will again in the very instauration of the sciences meet and trouble us, unless men being forewarned of the danger fortify themselves as far as may be against their assaults." (Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man, "The Idols of the Mind" From Novum Organum)

All this bandwidth wasted for the old "no transitionals" PRATT...

The beginning of the annuls of the generations of mankind have been chronicled, the times and dates preserved within the limits of the language and calendars available in antiquity. Meticulously preserved and miraculously confirmed the Holy Bible has emerged from history to inform the candid and serious inquirer with regards to the genuine history of mankind:

"Meticulously preserved and miraculously confirmed"? Somebody hasn't been doing their Bible scholarship. The Bible is a historical hodgepodge of genres, styles, themes, and messages.

"In requiring this candor and simplicity of mind in those who would investigate the truth of our religion, Christianity demands nothing more than is readily conceded to every branch of human science.

"Candor and simplicity." This really isn't a message I'd want to spread to people investigating our faith... "Be simple."

All these have their data, and their axioms; and Christianity, too, has her first principles, the admission of which is essential to any real progress in knowledge. "Christianity," says Bishop Wilson, "inscribes on the portal of her dominion 'Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall in nowise enter therein.' Christianity does not profess to convince the perverse and headstrong, to bring irresistible evidence to the daring and profane, to vanquish the proud scorner, and afford evidences from which the careless and perverse cannot possibly escape. This might go to destroy man's responsibility. All that Christianity professes is to propose such evidences as may satisfy the meek, the tractable, the candid, the serious inquirer." (Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf)

Agreed to a point... our relationship with Christ need not be complicated... nor does it need to be saddled with artificial and arbitrary barriers... such as the kind produced by fundamentalism and literalism.

It's not complicated; you don't have to unravel the riddle of the worldly wise, it's so simple a child could understand. Do you as a Creationist believe in Christ because of Moses or do you believe in Creation because of Christ?

I'm not a Creationist, nor do I have to be... I believe in Christ because of Christ.

Grab your Bible, put your theology brain cap on and let's compare TE to YEC as Christian doctrine. I have some good news for my fellow Creationists, the Bible is evidence, theology is science and if you have to choose between empirical knowledge and faith you are capable of grasping neither.

In the same vein, compare evolution to Creationism as science. Reality should be what influences doctrine... to attempt the reverse is theological lunacy.

 

[shernren]

Explaining my post title: Where's Wally? ("Where's Waldo?" in America) is a series of books where a character, Wally (or Waldo), is hidden in a large picture full of busy people. Hamartiology is the theological study of sin, and soteriology is the theological study of salvation. I introduce these terms not only because people who wield hexasyllabic words inherently sound truthier but as a theological shorthand to avoid typing "the Bible's take on sin / salvation" multiple times.

So let's play Where's Adam?

There are only two things a person really has to understand in order to make sense of the Bible, Adam sinned and Christ arose, everything hinges on those two defining events.

If this were true, you'd expect the hamartiology and the soteriology of the NT to heavily reference Adam and original sin. If Adam really is so vital to Scriptural interpretation, and if everything hinges on him, then surely there's be oodles of exposition on Adam in the NT.

But where's Adam? He is cited 9 times in the the NT. In Luke he is named in Jesus' genealogy and in Jude as Enoch's ancestor, hardly soteriological or hamartiological citations. In 1 Timothy 2 Paul mentions Adam created before Eve - but he does it to insist that women must be gagged in church and saved through childbirth! And of course, in Romans 5:14 and 1 Corinthians 15 (both crucial passages of NT theology, I fully agree) Adam's sin is contrasted to Christ's righteousness. This has already been discussed to death; but in the rest of NT we must ask, "Where's Adam?"

Perhaps he isn't mentioned by name even though his original sin is referred to. So now let's search through the NT for traces of Adam, and the first stop must of course be at the theology of Jesus. But what did Jesus have to say about sin and salvation, and how often did it include Adam?

It is difficult to find a consistent hamartiology in the Gospels. But these are some indicative passages:

"For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean.' "
(Matthew 15:19-20 NIV)
​

Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. So watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.
(Luke 17:1-3 NIV)
​

Jesus simply didn't give a systematic presentation of sin; wherever He did talk about it, He mostly referred to individual sin and occasionally the communal sin of the Jews, never to sin imputed from Adam. What about salvation? The quintessential soteriological passage of the Gospels:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."
(John 3:16-21 NIV)
​

Again, where's Adam? "Whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed" - not because sin is imputed to him from Adam. "Men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil" - not merely because they were the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. Here as elsewhere sin is ascribed to the individual (and communal) sinner in both responsibility and consequence, and in other places salvation is not even referenced clearly to sin at all:

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.'" "Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy." Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!"
(Mark 10:17-23 NIV)
​

We move on in our whirlwind tour to the early Apostolic preachings in Acts. What did Peter preach on the day of Pentecost?

"Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off--for all whom the Lord our God will call." With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation."
(Acts 2:36-40 NIV)
​

In Acts, preaching to the Jews consistently involved showing that Jesus was the Christ, i.e. taking the concept of the Messiah, showing that Jesus fit that role, and thus exhorting the Jew to pledge allegiance to Jesus the rightful Messiah. This strongly alludes to the concept of the kingdom of God (which permeates Matthew) and repentance and forgiveness would have been seen within this framework. This is seen in Peter's speech at the Beautiful Gate:

"But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer. Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you--even Jesus. He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. For Moses said, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you. Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from among his people.'"
(Acts 3:18-23 NIV)
​

Stephen's speech, spanning nearly the whole of Acts 7, also makes no reference to Adam's original sin, instead pounding home the point of Israel's communal sin and continual rebellion - again, without any exposition on the Adamic nature of it! Where is Adam? Why aren't the Jews being told that they were sinners in Adam?

One would protest, reasonably, that the Jews were already familiar with the concept of sin in Adam, and thus needed no exposition on it. But firstly, a similar tour of the OT will show that Adam is woefully absent there as well. (Interestingly, Moses' prophecy of the Messiah made no reference to sin either.) In fact, outside genealogies (and Adam the town in Joshua), and the account itself of creation in Genesis, there is only one hamartiological reference to Adam in the OT:

Like Adam, [1] they have broken the covenant--
they were unfaithful to me there.
(Hosea 6:7 NIV)
​

In fact, the translation is ambiguous there; the footnote in NIV states that it could also be translated as "Like men", or "As at Adam". Even if this were a clear-cut reference to the Fall, a single verse in a prophetic lament is hardly a well-developed hamartiology! As such, it would be fair to say that the Jews during Jesus' ministry and the early Apostolic era did not actually structure their hamartiology around the idea of original sin from Adam, given that the concept is virtually absent in the OT as well; and this means that it isn't fair to say that Jesus and the early Apostles didn't relate sin to Adam because it would have been an automatic connection in the Jewish mind - it wasn't!

Even if it was, we should ask: How then was the Gospel preached to the Gentiles? If Adam is pivotal to understanding the Gospel and the Bible, surely the preachers to the Gentiles would have found that the Gentiles could not have possibly understood them without discoursing on Adam, and as such the evangelistic speeches later in Acts should have significant references to Adam. Perhaps Peter's sermon to Cornelius should reference this apparently foundational fact?

"We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen--by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."
(Acts 10:39-43 NIV)
​

No Adamic hamartiology there! But Cornelius was a proselyte, reasonably familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures. The Gentile story of Acts really begins with Paul's first missionary journey.

At Pisidian Antioch in a synagogue:

"We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. ... Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses."
(Acts 13: 32, 33a, 38, 39 NIV)
​

Incidentally, this passage shows that justification by grace was a foundational part of Paul's missiology and theology from the very beginning. If Adamic hamartiology was similarly foundational, would he not have spoken of it?

At Lystra with farmers and peasantry:

"We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. In the past, he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy."
(Acts 14:15a-17 NIV)
​

To be fair, they were moments away from being venerated as deities, so this could hardly have been a good time for a profound exposition on Jewish hamartiology!

We move on to Paul's second missionary journey, where he started at Thessalonica, where

As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. "This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ," he said. (Acts 17:2-3 NIV)
​

Again we see that with the Jews, the appeal was mainly to the Mosaic concept of the Messiah and proof from the Scriptures that Jesus fulfilled that role. But at Athens! There Paul was given an open space at the Areopagus to speak of the religion which was strange, new, and hence attractive to the Athenians. Certainly, if Paul had ever wanted to emphasize the importance of Adamic hamartiology to a Gentile audience, and to ground his gospel presentation in Genesis as the creationists say we should, then he had a splendid chance! And yet what precisely does he say?

"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' "
(Acts 17:24-28 NIV)
​

Note that the text actually states "From one blood he made every nation of men", not from one man. Nevertheless, what do we see of hamartiology here? Practically nothing! In Paul's great chance to set the foundations right, he seems to reference Adam - but not as the first great sinner, but merely to make the point that history has a divine purpose and that we are God's children. Nowhere does he mention the apparently foundational truths that Adam sinned and that we participate in his sin. And he omitted it in a carefully prepared address at a public forum in plain sight of the leading philosophers of the day. Scripture never had a better chance to prove Adam's importance - and it doesn't even mention the man's name!

This is nearly the last great speech from Paul recorded in Acts (besides his two autobiographical defenses), but we read consistently in following passages that his main mode of evangelism was to declare that "Jesus is the Christ". He never wavers from this to the end:

They arranged to meet Paul on a certain day, and came in even larger numbers to the place where he was staying. From morning till evening he explained and declared to them the kingdom of God and tried to convince them about Jesus from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets.
(Acts 28:23 NIV)
​

Again, where is Adam and original sin?

The Gospels and Acts do a remarkable job of avoiding Adam, considering his "importance". I repeat Mark's claim here after this whirlwind "Where's Wally?" tour:

There are only two things a person really has to understand in order to make sense of the Bible, Adam sinned and Christ arose, everything hinges on those two defining events.

I'm extremely surprised that the "defining event" of Adam's fall, on which "everything hinges", is not once referenced in the evangelistic work of Jesus and the Apostles! Aren't you?

 

[mark kennedy]

Surely what we need to understand is that I am a sinner and that Jesus died and rose again? Throughout the NT people preached repentance and the Holy Spirit brought conviction of sins. What we really need to understand the bible is the Holy Spirit.

Paul preached Adam sinned and that we all sinned in Adam, this has been echoed throughout Church history. In Romans Paul makes a sweeping indictment against Jew and Gentile alike for two and a half chapters that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Chapter three begins the revelation of the righteousness of God in Christ, only after establishing that we are all sinners. The first cause of sin is not God's creation but Adam's disobedience, not a population or a parable but a person.

This is a doctrinal issue, not a philosophical one and the authority of the Scriptures is well established.

You may feel the bible is simplified and made easier to understand by fitting it into a framework you call 'salvation history' which has a literal Adam eating literal fruit as a foundation. That doesn't mean your explanatory framework is the real meaning of the bible, or that the story of Adam and Eve is literal.

Do you know the Scriptures you make such broad categorical generalities about because the New Testament is very clear on the Bible being redemptive history. Not just yours but the whole of humanity is included from the very beginning to final judgment. The New Testament does emphatically claim that Adam and Eve were our first parents and Church tradition is in perfect unison with this central fact. The story is an historical narrative and reducing it to myth is a secular practice based on naturalistic assumptions that are unknown in Christian theism.

Confusing Pagan elementals with chemical elements is simply a bad use of etymology. However If you want to look for parallels with Pagan mythology, the bible is much closer than science, with its dying and rising god, its creation stories and flood. Doesn't mean the bible is wrong, or science.

Theology is the science of scared doctrine, just as Biology is the science of living systems. Theology includes the divine attributes and eternal Godhead as it's primary focus, something natural science does not have the mental or physical tools to observe or characterize. A supernatural event like the special creation of Adam or resurrection of Jesus Christ is beyond the reach of naturalistic systems. Supernatural works of God known as miracles must be supernaturally revealed. That is why the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer is essential to graping sound doctrine.

If you recognise Genesis 1 as a hymn, why do you inisist on interpreting it as a rigidly literalist chronicle of events, rather than seeing it for the soaring poetry it is?

The Psalms are hymns and yet make up the bulk of detailed predictive prophecy in Scripture. An historical narrative can be told in highly figurative language and retain it's detailed distinction as a series of sequential events and specific physical locations. The Scriptures are not limited to past events and even give a detailed history of humanity that has yet to occur.

If Adam and Eve was a parable, what makes you think you would not still be a sinner? What makes you think the millions who have gone before you were not sinners?

Since when did I get the authority to decide what is and is not the primary cause of original sin? Why don't you read Paul in Romans 5 and II Cor. 15 and ask him why and how all sinned?

Do not confuse Original Sin with the first sin. Some person (or persons) had to be first, even if it wasn't Adam and Eve. But that does not mean investing the first sin with all the doctrinal baggage of Original Sin. The key point in the bible is that all have sinned.

I do not confuse them, they are the same thing as logically defined in Christian theology. Are we to assume that children yet to be born are sinners without some reason to conclude that they were created that way or made that way or their original nature was changed? You seem willing to accept that we are indeed sinners but fail to identify the actual cause. If it is universal then there is a reason it is true of all humanity, rather then certain individuals.

Paul says we all sinned in Adam, what do you say?

The bible contains evidence, eyewitness testimonies of the wonders God performed. The bible also contains laws, teaching and revelation in many forms, including metaphor, symbolism, allegory parable and poetry. Simply saying 'the Bible is evidence' is meaningless unless you take it is evidence of seven headed hybrid monsters too.

That is simple enough, the city upon which the Great Harlot sits is 'liken unto' seven heads. A figure of speech is generally indicated by the use of 'like' or 'as', this is basic Bible exposition.

Theology was called a science long ago when Astrology and Alchemy were sciences. It is not modern science. Behe ran into the same problem in Dover when he wanted to change the definition of science to include ID, he ended up with a 'Science' that included Astrology.

So you now want to dismiss Theology as science because you characterize it logically as the same as occultism? Surely you are not saying that, you must mean that it is beyond the limits of molecular biology as I am sure Professor Behe would agree.

By the way I read the transcript, no one was interested in the concept of natural theology in that Court room. Intelligent Design failed the Lemon test because it invoked God as the originator of Irreducibly Complex systems that cannot be explained from exclusively naturalistic causes. It also fails to demonstrate that it is a Christian theology, unlike creationism that focuses on the special creation of Adam and Eve supernaturally revealed in Scripture.

 

[mark kennedy]

To answer the poll (I'll read the OP later)...
neither. A special creation of Adam and his being the biological descendant of all humanity is not directly tied to the Gospel, but neither is Adam a "mythical symbol for humanity."

The idea that Adam was a biological descendant of anyone or anything other then God is unknown in the Scriptures.

 

[mark kennedy]

If it had said figurative or allegory or just symbol for humanity, but mythical contains way too many connotations. There isn't even a decent 'other' box.

Then simply vote neither and suggest an alternative. Your not tied into the polls choices I just want to know who I'm talking to in this thread.

 

[mark kennedy]

This is an unfair poll, mark kennedy, and I think you know it.

Adam is either our first parent specially created, a highly figurative mythical character , both or neither. That covers just about every alternative and you claim I am being unfair, How so GratiaCorpusChristi?

There's no option on there for theistic evolutionists who believe that the special creation of Adam's biological self is non-essential, while his historicity, special imbuing with the image of God, and historic fall are essential.

It's not my fault that Theistic evolutionists do not have a theological premise for rejecting Adam as our specially created first parent. I never told them to define their Origins Theology based on a secular theory that rejects any reference to God as creator. This is nothing new, indeed there is nothing new under the sun. Before there were Darwinians there were Epicureans, Platonic Grecian philosophy and Gnosticism:

"We will begin, then, with the creation of the world and with God its Maker, for the first fact that you must grasp is this: the renewal of creation has been wrought by the Self-same Word Who made it in the beginning. There is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation for the One Father has employed the same Agent for both works, effecting the salvation of the world through the same Word Who made it in the beginning.

(2) In regard to the making of the universe and the creation of all things there have been various opinions, and each person has propounded the theory that suited his own taste. For instance, some say that all things are self- originated and, so to speak, haphazard. The Epicureans are among these; they deny that there is any Mind behind the universe at all. This view is contrary to all the facts of experience, their own existence included. For if all things had come into being in this automatic fashion, instead of being the outcome of Mind, though they existed, they would all be uniform and without distinction. In the universe everything would be sun or moon or whatever it was, and in the human body the whole would be hand or eye or foot. But in point of fact the sun and the moon and the earth are all different things, and even within the human body there are different members, such as foot and hand and head. This distinctness of things argues not a spontaneous generation but a prevenient Cause; and from that Cause we can apprehend God, the Designer and Maker of all."(Athanasius On the Incarnation De Incarnatione Verbi Dei)

Intelligent Design is nothing new, the concept that behind the natural world was a mind is called Natural Theology. It was the philosophy of many Christian scientists for centuries before Darwinism formally rejected it.

 

[mark kennedy]

So let's play Where's Adam?

Oh I'm going to like this game once I learn the rules.

If this were true, you'd expect the hamartiology and the soteriology of the NT to heavily reference Adam and original sin. If Adam really is so vital to Scriptural interpretation, and if everything hinges on him, then surely there's be oodles of exposition on Adam in the NT.

That's a false assumption, it's not the number of references but the connection to the Gospel as a formal doctrine that is essential. No such assumption is made in hamartiology or soteriology, you are confusing both of them with Hermeneutics which is 'a theoretical backing for various interpretive projects.'

But where's Adam? He is cited 9 times in the the NT. In Luke he is named in Jesus' genealogy

Not so fast, let's take a look at these places where Adam is mentioned. Maybe you can shed some light on the Christian theological concepts involved in Theistic evolution.

Luke 3:38

Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.​

Maybe you would like to discuss what the expression 'son of God' means, how it is used elsewhere and why Luke uses it to describe Adam's place in the genealogy.

and in Jude as Enoch's ancestor, hardly soteriological or hamartiological citations.

How do you dismiss this without even quoting the text? You did realize that this was going to focus on Creationism as a formal Christian doctrine, I know you did. Now you don't even bother to identify the texts you have dismissed?

(Jude 1:14)

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,​

Do tell what do you make of the expression seventh from Adam?

In 1 Timothy 2 Paul mentions Adam created before Eve - but he does it to insist that women must be gagged in church and saved through childbirth!

Ok, since you choose to mock the Apostle Paul I am going to move on before I tell you what I think of this kind of foolishness.

And of course, in Romans 5:14 and 1 Corinthians 15 (both crucial passages of NT theology, I fully agree) Adam's sin is contrasted to Christ's righteousness. This has already been discussed to death; but in the rest of NT we must ask, "Where's Adam?"

Stop right there, I want to talk about this since you are being careless with things you are grossly misinformed about. If you are going to bring up these verses then at least quote them using the book, chapter and verse . If you know anything about Christian theology then you must realize that this is how the authority of the Scriptures is referenced as a proof text for formal doctrine.

I'm not playing verse tag with you and I'm not playing your theological game of Where's Adam. There will be a serious exegesis of these texts, I strongly suggest you become familiar with them because I Cor. 15 is cited repeatedly in the Nicene Creed.

 

[mark kennedy]

And the rest of the Bible is what... filler?

Is a door a filler for a hinge?

"Adam sinned and Christ Arose."... God could've fit that on an index card, couldn't He?

How familiar with the Gospel are you? You are a sinner in need of a Savior, Paul answers the question of how you became a sinner.

None of which apply here. "Adam sinned and Christ arose," is pretty much impervious to any internal, external, or bibliographical testing.

I was talking about the resurrection and the New Testament as history but you would have had to read it in context to realize that.

And the Hebrew and Christian mythographers didn't do the same?

Did you just call the Old and New Testament mythology, did you actually say that?

"Somehow the claims coming from non-Christian sources are just too obviously absurd. One does not have to travel far, however, to hear the Christian version of the claim stated with liturgical precision. -John Shelby Spong.

Do what?

Right... "Our God is bigger and better than the pagan gods."

Pagan gods were created out of chaos by elementals, in Christian theism God created the elements. Big difference.

Right.... you wouldn't be a sinner if not for a litral Adam and Eve... is that it?

That's right, unless you want to say that we were created to be sinners.

All this bandwidth wasted for the old "no transitionals" PRATT...

My scientific arguments are against the assumption of genetic mechanisms for the transition from ape to man. So far no refutation has even been attempted.

"Meticulously preserved and miraculously confirmed"? Somebody hasn't been doing their Bible scholarship. The Bible is a historical hodgepodge of genres, styles, themes, and messages.

This is what passes for a Christian message posting in a theological topic? I have news for you lady, I have done my homework and I don't get my theology from Talk Origins.

"Candor and simplicity." This really isn't a message I'd want to spread to people investigating our faith... "Be simple."

So Simon Greenleaf one of the founders of the Harvard School of Law and author of the Rules of Evidence for every court in the United States for half a century is too simplistic for you? Maybe you just don't like the philosophy of Sir Francis Bacon or Bishop Lightfoot either and would like to trample them under foot as well?

Agreed to a point... our relationship with Christ need not be complicated... nor does it need to be saddled with artificial and arbitrary barriers... such as the kind produced by fundamentalism and literalism.

It is not the fundamentalist or the literalist that is making this topic divisive or argumentative. So far only Theistic evolutionists have responded and yours in particular is highly satirical.

I'm not a Creationist, nor do I have to be... I believe in Christ because of Christ.

If you say so...

In the same vein, compare evolution to Creationism as science. Reality should be what influences doctrine... to attempt the reverse is theological lunacy.

I have done that on a regular basis for about two years now. What is your reading level? Maybe you would be interested in comparative genomics as representative of the evidence in favor of Creationist doctrine, I know I do.

At any rate, if you want to discuss Genetics then I suggest you start a new thread since its a little off topic in this one.

 

[Melethiel]

The idea that Adam was a biological descendant of anyone or anything other then God is unknown in the Scriptures.

Adam was a biological descendant of God? That is also a concept unknown to the Scriptures.

Maybe you would like to discuss what the expression 'son of God' means, how it is used elsewhere and why Luke uses it to describe Adam's place in the genealogy.

Well, let's look at the occurrence of the phrase "son(s) of God." I am leaving out the references to Jesus.

the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. (Genesis 6:2)

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. (Genesis 6:4)

When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,when he divided mankind,he fixed the borders of the peoplesaccording to the number of the sons of God. (Deuteronomy 32:8)

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. (Job 1:6)

when the morning stars sang togetherand all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:7)

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (Matthew 5:9)

the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. (Luke 3:38)

for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. (Luke 20:36)

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. (Romans 8:19)

And the ones I feel are the key:

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. (Romans 8:14)

for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. (Galatians 3:26)

Now, it can be easily seen that the phrase "son(s) of God" is referring to one of these things:

1. What appears to be angels.
2. The covenant community of Israel
OR
3. As it says in Romans, all who are led by the Spirit of God.

Given this, the phrase "Adam, the son of God" could very easily mean that Adam was the first human being endowed with the image of God, who worshipped God. In addition to that, it can be seen as a comparison of Adam and Christ, both referred to as "son of God," in much the same way that Paul does.

As a side note, mark kennedy, could you kindly stop the condescending tone? It's really annoying.

 

[The Lady Kate]

How familiar with the Gospel are you? You are a sinner in need of a Savior, Paul answers the question of how you became a sinner.

Paul addressed the question... using his own understanding of the OT to do so. But that's Paul's take on it, used to prove a point.

I was talking about the resurrection and the New Testament as history but you would have had to read it in context to realize that.

I've read it in context. Have you?

Did you just call the Old and New Testament mythology, did you actually say that?

You sound shocked. Do you need to sit down?

Are you saying that mythology is not one of the styles and genres used by the authors of the Bible to convey a message?

Pagan gods were created out of chaos by elementals, in Christian theism God created the elements. Big difference.

Major difference, and that's the point. Hebrew theism set itself apart from other competing belief systems by portraying God as master of nature, not a product of it. "My God is bigger and better than your God."... show me an ancient religion which didn't make this claim?

That's right, unless you want to say that we were created to be sinners.

Downside of free will, I'm afraid... everybody, without exception, tries the easy way at least once.

My scientific arguments are against the assumption of genetic mechanisms for the transition from ape to man. So far no refutation has even been attempted.

Because men are apes.
This is what passes for a scientific message posting in an Origins topic? I have done my homework and I don't get my biology from Answers in Genesis.

This is what passes for a Christian message posting in a theological topic? I have news for you lady, I have done my homework and I don't get my theology from Talk Origins.

Wow... deja vu, Mr. Kennedy.

So Simon Greenleaf one of the founders of the Harvard School of Law and author of the Rules of Evidence for every court in the United States for half a century is too simplistic for you? Maybe you just don't like the philosophy of Sir Francis Bacon or Bishop Lightfoot either and would like to trample them under foot as well?

Don't mind if I do... got any more authority figures for me to not idolize?

It is not the fundamentalist or the literalist that is making this topic divisive or argumentative. So far only Theistic evolutionists have responded and yours in particular is highly satirical.

The topic was a line drawn in the sand. You shouldn't be surprised when the tide comes in.

If you say so...

Thank you; I do.

I have done that on a regular basis for about two years now. What is your reading level? Maybe you would be interested in comparative genomics as representative of the evidence in favor of Creationist doctrine, I know I do.

I'm not all that interested in Creationist doctirine... I'd prefer to read up on some Creationist science... but I've learned to live with disappointment.

At any rate, if you want to discuss Genetics then I suggest you start a new thread since its a little off topic in this one.

Or perhaps I'll just look elsewhere.

 

[mark kennedy]

Paul addressed the question... using his own understanding of the OT to do so. But that's Paul's take on it, used to prove a point.

Paul's opinion on Redemptive history carries a lot of weight with Christians.

I've read it in context. Have you?

Then why did I have to tell you I was talking about the resurrection.

You sound shocked. Do you need to sit down?

Shocked? I'm not even surprised.

Are you saying that mythology is not one of the styles and genres used by the authors of the Bible to convey a message?

That's exactly right even when they are using mythical metaphors like the Leviathan.

Major difference, and that's the point. Hebrew theism set itself apart from other competing belief systems by portraying God as master of nature, not a product of it. "My God is bigger and better than your God."... show me an ancient religion which didn't make this claim?

That is God's claim in the Bible and furnishes proof of same unlike the pagan gods of antiquity.

Downside of free will, I'm afraid... everybody, without exception, tries the easy way at least once.

Being a descendant of Adam makes you a sinner not a child of perdition.

Because men are apes.
This is what passes for a scientific message posting in an Origins topic? I have done my homework and I don't get my biology from Answers in Genesis.

No they are not apes, that is absurd.

Wow... deja vu, Mr. Kennedy.



Don't mind if I do... got any more authority figures for me to not idolize?

You are a walking strawman, appreciate the help here.

The topic was a line drawn in the sand. You shouldn't be surprised when the tide comes in.

Grossly mixed metaphor.

Thank you; I do.

Your welcome and I know.

I'm not all that interested in Creationist doctirine... I'd prefer to read up on some Creationist science... but I've learned to live with disappointment.

Your not interested in doctrine period from what I can tell.

Or perhaps I'll just look elsewhere.

Good luck with that.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Are you saying that mythology is not one of the styles and genres used by the authors of the Bible to convey a message?

Well you see, apperantly, 'myth' must always must 'factually false,' and the biblical writers are confined to writing history as a 19th-century style account without any hyberbole, stylization, or epic grandure.

The idea that Adam was a biological descendant of anyone or anything other then God is unknown in the Scriptures.

And the idea that Adam was a biological descendent of God is also unknown in the Scriptures.

As if God possessed DNA!

Adam is either our first parent specially created, a highly figurative mythical character , both or neither. That covers just about every alternative and you claim I am being unfair, How so GratiaCorpusChristi?

How about the option that I just listed?

Adam as a historical figure, historically imbued with the image of God, historically serving as the federal head and mediatorial priest of all humanity, who historically engaged in open rebellion against God in a historic fall, and who historically condemned the entire human race by his actions, the guilt of which is actually and factually imputed to all the human race?

The option of 'both' implies that Adam's special creation and biological descent are essential doctrines, and yet he is JUST JUST JUST a mythical figure.

Well I don't think Adam is just a mythical figure! I might think that the account may be stylized and written in the genre of true myth and epic, but he is far from just a mythical figure.

The 'both' option is far from fair! There is no room in your poll for the historical Adam theistic evolution position, which is far from unknown on this board!

That is the unfairness.

 

[The Lady Kate]

Well you see, apperantly, 'myth' must always must 'factually false,' and the biblical writers are confined to writing history as a 19th-century style account without any hyberbole, stylization, or epic grandure.

Dreadfully dull people, these Biblical writers... it would seem that not even divine inspiration had the power to make them interesting.