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The Quest for the Historical Adam: Genesis, Hermeneutics, and Human Origins
William VanDoodewaard
Reformation Heritage (2015). 359 pp.
Playing off of the title of Albert Schweitzer’s controversial book, The Quest for the Historical Jesus, William VanDoodewaard of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary flies over at 30,000 feet to survey a vast historiography of views not on the last Adam, but the first. In this no less controversial book, VanDoodewaard nevertheless sets for a very different course than Schweitzer: rather than challenging traditional interpretation, the author wishes to recover a literal reading of Gen 1 and 2. Here he is not a mere cool, objective observer of the past and present landscape. He throws down the gauntlet on trending “alternative hermeneutics” of nonliteral readings among evangelical scholars, warning that they are driven by conclusions of the scientific community and sliding down the slippery slope towards liberalism. Albert Mohler adds in the foreword that the stakes are high: “a false start to the story produces a false grasp of the gospel” (p. viii).
The flyover takes off with brief summaries of what he believes are key passages in the Old and New Testaments. VanDoodewaard then reflects in the end that there is nothing in Scripture that seems to suggest any other kind of origin than a “special, temporally immediate creation of Adam and Eve as the first humans on the sixth day of creation” (p. 18). In Chapters 2 and 3, VanDoodewaard then surveys various important thinkers from the Patristic, Medieval, Reformation, and Post-Reformation eras. Although there are some divergent views, the author is intent to show that the prevailing view was a literal reading. So then why are there significant differences among interpreters today? He moves on in Chapters 4, 5, and 6 to explore the rising challenge to young earth creationist views during the Enlightenment period to the present. His narrative points to the rise of science, and in some cases naturalism, as the main culprits as to why many scholars began to second-guess or abandon altogether a literal reading of Gen 1 and 2 and to move into conceiving wholly different possibilities for the origins of the universe and humanity. But never to let them have the last word, he weaves in and out voices of the same era, who opposed these new propositions and defended the claimed mainstream literal view. Finally, VanDoodewaard devotes the final chapter to asking what difference does this makes. In this he evaluates three varying models of theistic evolution and compares their consequences versus literal origins. His conclusion is that making attempts to synthesize Genesis 1 and 2 with biological evolution results in multiple versions of Adam, none of which resembles the Adam of the Bible; thus he exhorts readers to maintain the literalist tradition.
What readers ought not miss is the historiographical reason why the author emphasizes the history of literal interpretations, admittedly ad nauseam. This is unveiled in the latter part of the book when he begins to interact with Ronald L. Numbers’ The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism. Among many books that have covered the history of the evolution debate in the church, this one stands out as the most devastating to the narrative of young earth creationism. Numbers identifies John Whitcomb and Henry Morris’ The Genesis Flood as the main catalyst for the resurgence of young earth creationism. Prior to their book, the two men were previously sympathizers of old-earth theories, which Numbers claims was common among evangelicals and fundamentalists in the early twentieth century. It all changed for the two men when they ran across the works of Seventh-Day Adventist George McCready Price. Thus young-earth creationism today enjoys resurgence ultimately from an Adventist and questionable science. For VanDoodeward, who quickly dismisses science of any stripes if its conclusion contradicts his interpretation, this offense is too much to let slide. Shots were fired across the bow. Numbers is said to lack “thorough scholarship” (p. 157) and showed “weak historiography” (p. 236), but if one quickly glances over the dozens and dozens of manuscript collections Numbers combed through, as well as the herculean endnotes, one would just as quickly see that those passing comments were cheap shots. This is unfortunate and unfitting to the excellent call to humility and doxology VanDoodewaard makes in the epilogue.
Another problem, very briefly, includes VanDoodewaard making a habit of declaring sweeping statements throughout the book without backing them up with evidence. For example, he acknowledged that openness increased among PCA and the OPC members to figurative interpretation compatible with theistic evolution. However he quickly added that they would remain in the minority (p. 226). He is probably right, because those are conservative denominations, but real figures or numbers would strengthen his claim. This is lacking throughout.
This book has already received praise and will no doubt receive more from those who hold to the literalist view. The list of endorsements in front of the book testifies to that. Because the stream of literalist intellectual history flows down to a narrow circle of certain Protestants, one gets the sense that he is not just writing a polemic. But he is also writing pastorally, encouraging literalists—who might be discouraged with recent trends in scholarship—that they are in a long line of tradition. Readers who hold to a nonliteral interpretation will not be impressed. They will no doubt wonder what would key thinkers in the past conclude had they access to modern science? They will be disappointed that there is very little analysis of hermeneutics despite its subtitle, especially since the author curiously says nothing about the fallibility of humans interpreting Scripture but makes much in the fallibility of interpreting the book of nature. They will complain significant thinkers have been left out. Whether one agrees with the book or not, the author is still to be commended for undertaking this neglected task of examining the history of interpreting Gen 1 and 2.
Nathan Chang (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is the Academic Dean and Registrar at Kansas Christian College, Shawnee Mission, KS. He is a member of the St. Augustine Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
