February 2015: Adam & Eve - Were they real? What does genetics reveal?

The Bible begins with Adam, Eve, and the Fall. The Bible ends describing how this age will end when the last Adam (Jesus), returns to reverse the Fall. The Bible carefully details the genealogy of Jesus, giving a very detailed listings of His ancestors, many of whom can be independently confirmed to be real historical figures. All these verifiable real historical figures, such as King David and Abraham, have genealogies in the Bible that trace ancestry back to Adam. Indeed the ancient Israelites generally all traced their ancestry directly back to Adam. A significant fraction of modern Muslims even now can trace their ancestry back to Adam (through Ishmael). A significant fraction of Europeans and Americans can even now trace their ancestry directly back to Adam (through the European medieval kings). Jesus and the other authors of the New Testament acknowledge the reality of Adam. Historically, until quite recently, all the major figures of Christendom acknowledged the reality of Adam. Adam, Eve, and the Fall have been essential elements of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faith for thousands of years.

 

But now many people, including many Christian leaders and Christian seminaries, insist that Adam never existed. It is claimed that we must view Adam as being either mythical, allegorical, or simply an ancient literary device - a poet’s abstraction. These claims are based upon alleged “scientific proof” that man evolved from apes, and that an ape population slowly morphed into a human population over roughly six million years. The claim is that there was never any Eden, or any “first couple”, or any literal Fall. These claims, if accepted, have enormous implications for Christendom.

 

But what if the “scientific proof” was in error? What if exciting new genetic discoveries strongly refuted the ape-to-man story, and strongly supported a literal Adam and Eve?   MORE...