"The Search for the Historical Adam"

The cover story of the June 2011 issue of Christianity Today addresses the latest challenge to the historicity of Adam, one that emerges from "unnerving new genetic science" and argues that only a "tiny group of homonids . . . several thousand individuals at a minimum" and no single individual can account for the genetic diversity that we now see in humans.

The same magazine issue has an editorial entitled "No Adam, No Eve, No Gospel," which seems to suggest where CT stands on this question; but not so fast. The subtitle of the column states, "The historical Adam debate won't be resolved tomorrow, so stay engaged." A careful reading of the editorial suggests that at least someone on the editorial board wants to consider further the thesis that "Adam" may refer to a collective group. "Scripture often calls groups of people by the name of their historical head." That approach would reconcile "Adam" with the "complexity of the humane genome [a complexity which], we are told, requires an original population of around 10,000."

Pretty interesting.

But cuidado, CT.