Adam and Eve: Fact or Fiction

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Hello everyone. This is my first posting. I was just at a Catholic Advent bible study today, and the subject of Adam & Eve’s existence came up. The leader of the group ( a former Catholic school teacher) stated that Adam and Eve did not exist, and that they were just used in the bible to illustrate evil entering the world. I had never heard this, nor been taught this in CCD. Can anyone out there give me the Church’s teaching on if Adam and Eve really did existed?
Thank you so much for your help & God Bless
 
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kellyham77:
Hello everyone. This is my first posting. I was just at a Catholic Advent bible study today, and the subject of Adam & Eve’s existence came up. The leader of the group ( a former Catholic school teacher) stated that Adam and Eve did not exist, and that they were just used in the bible to illustrate evil entering the world. I had never heard this, nor been taught this in CCD. Can anyone out there give me the Church’s teaching on if Adam and Eve really did existed?
Thank you so much for your help & God Bless
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As Catholics, we may interpret the Bible allegorically, as well as literally. It is therefore permissible to believe the story of Adam and Eve (which appears in two different versions in Genesis) is an allegory for the creation of Man.

There are similar issues throughout Scripture. For example, take Revelation 13,1:
1 1 Then I saw a beast come out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads; on its horns were ten diadems, and on its heads blasphemous name (s). ****************************************

Did John SEE this beast, as you and I see our computers? Or did he have a dream-like vision? Or is he using this as a literary device to make a point? All of these interpretations are permissible.

The footnote clearly leans toward the latter explanation:
1 [1-10] This wild beast, combining features of the four beasts in Daniel 7:2-28, symbolizes the Roman empire; the seven heads represent the emperors; see the notes on Rev 17:10 and Rev 17:12-14. The blasphemous names are the divine titles assumed by the emperors.
 
vern humphrey:
As Catholics, we may interpret the Bible allegorically, as well as literally. It is therefore permissible to believe the story of Adam and Eve (which appears in two different versions in Genesis) is an allegory for the creation of Man.
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I think you’re overextending the meaning of allegory a bit, but generally you’re on target. There is one qualifier, however: It is Catholic doctrine that the creation of humankind started with one man and one woman.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
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kellyham77:
Hello everyone. This is my first posting. I was just at a Catholic Advent bible study today, and the subject of Adam & Eve’s existence came up. The leader of the group ( a former Catholic school teacher) stated that Adam and Eve did not exist, and that they were just used in the bible to illustrate evil entering the world. I had never heard this, nor been taught this in CCD. Can anyone out there give me the Church’s teaching on if Adam and Eve really did existed?
Thank you so much for your help & God Bless
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Kelly, would you like to hear the non-catholic view on this issue?
 
vern humphrey:
As Catholics, we may interpret the Bible allegorically, as well as literally. It is therefore permissible to believe the story of Adam and Eve (which appears in two different versions in Genesis) is an allegory for the creation of Man.

There are similar issues throughout Scripture. For example, take Revelation 13,1:
1 1 Then I saw a beast come out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads; on its horns were ten diadems, and on its heads blasphemous name (s). ****************************************

Did John SEE this beast, as you and I see our computers? Or did he have a dream-like vision? Or is he using this as a literary device to make a point? All of these interpretations are permissible.

The footnote clearly leans toward the latter explanation:
1 [1-10] This wild beast, combining features of the four beasts in Daniel 7:2-28, symbolizes the Roman empire; the seven heads represent the emperors; see the notes on Rev 17:10 and Rev 17:12-14. The blasphemous names are the divine titles assumed by the emperors.
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I would like to offer the following: The Catechism of the Catholic Church in articles 112-117 gives us the following guidance for interpreting scripture. It requires that we must consider both the literal and the spiritual senses. There are three basic requirements for any interpretation: 1) it must consider the content and unity of the whole scripture, 2) it must be read within the living Tradition of the Church and 3) it must be “attentive to … the coherence of the truths of faith…”

We must understand the literal sense before we can pursue the spiritual sense.
 
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davidv:
I would like to offer the following: The Catechism of the Catholic Church in articles 112-117 gives us the following guidance for interpreting scripture. It requires that we must consider both the literal and the spiritual senses. There are three basic requirements for any interpretation: 1) it must consider the content and unity of the whole scripture, 2) it must be read within the living Tradition of the Church and 3) it must be “attentive to … the coherence of the truths of faith…”

We must understand the literal sense before we can pursue the spiritual sense.
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I agree with you David. In Vern’s example, he’s comparing Genesis with two other books that are prophetic. Adam and Eve are historical fact, at least as Catholics we believe, and Daniel and Revelation are subject to many interpretations.

For someone who appears to be relative new to the faith (I’m only guessing), Kelly deserves a more pointed answer then that. I apologize that I am not advanced enough to voice an opinion on this topic that could influence her faith for years to come.
 
This article at the Catholic Answers website may be helpful. An excerpt:

Adam and Eve: Real People

It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).

The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).
 
Bob Baran:
I agree with you David. In Vern’s example, he’s comparing Genesis with two other books that are prophetic. Adam and Eve are historical fact, at least as Catholics we believe, and Daniel and Revelation are subject to many interpretations.

For someone who appears to be relative new to the faith (I’m only guessing), Kelly deserves a more pointed answer then that. I apologize that I am not advanced enough to voice an opinion on this topic that could influence her faith for years to come.
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Adam & Eve belong to what is called “primeval history” - Genesis 1 to 11 is called by this name; I first came across it in the New Catholic Encyclopedia of 1967.​

That does not mean it is history in the sense in which 2 Samuel might be called historical. And neither is “history” of the same sort as was written by the Classical authors.

Whether they are meant by the author of the sections of Genesis which refer to them to be real individuals, or in what sense, is another matter.

BTW: Revelation is not a prophetic book - it belongs to what is called “apocalyptic”, as do some other parts of the Bible; most notably Daniel 7 to 12, Isaiah 24 to 27, and (in a rather novel way) Matthew 24 and Mark 13.

History is actually a rather elusive concept - for the Biblical authors, talk about past events is talk about the theological meaning of those events, talk about God has been at work in those events. This is supremely so in the gospels - for the gospels tell how God has taken part in the same events as ourselves, and has done so as one of us; as man. Events in the Bible are not important primarily because they happened, but because God was and is at work in them. That, is what makes history (when understood as the study and the record of past events) important for those Biblical authors who talk about it. ##
 
This is a question I’ve been working on a lot lately. I’ll throw my $2.75 in.

There are many views on this, especially when you add the question when they would have lived, and try to square that with the technology mentioned immediately after Genesis 1-3 in chapter 4. Genesis 4:2, 21, 22 clearly mentions bronze/metal tools, farming/agriculture, livestock raising, and sophisticated musical instruments.

Now when, according to anthropology and our technological time line, did these things first show up in the historical record? Around 4000-5000 BC or later. There were no bronze/iron tools, no musical instruments like the harp/flute even at 10,000 BC. Things were made from stone or wood at this time. Therefore, that puts Adam/Eve (if you take Genesis historically and literally) around 6000 years ago or later.

Now that obviously conflicts with modern paleoanthropology (study of human origins). For example, Cro-Magnons date at least 40,000-50,000 years ago, and they were our species (homo sapiens). We know that from the skulls and complete skeletons that have been found. Neandertals 100,000 years ago or more, other “homo” species date many hundreds of thousands of years ago or up to 2 million years ago.

Here are some of the major views I’ve discovered (Catholic and evangelicals) that deal with this question in some depth:

continued in next post…

Phil P
 
continued from previous…

John Haught – Responses to 101 Questions on God and Evolution (Paulist Press, 2001).

Haught implies – although he doesn’t come right out and say it – that Adam/Eve did not exist, they were not literal people, we do not trace ourselves back to them, and therefore we do not inherit a literal “original sin” from them. This was disappointing but perhaps I’m being a little too simplistic in my theology and I don’t totally understand him. Haught also has attempted to re-define original sin and the human soul (questions 19, 50, 58 especially) and work this all in a naturalistic theory of evolution. I should get his fuller book God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution so I may understand him better.

Glenn Morton – Adam, Apes, and Anthropology

Adam/Eve were literal and lived 5 million years ago since the early hominids clearly acted and behaved human – they buried their dead, had primitive religious rituals, had cave art, had primitive music, they showed human intelligence, they used and built their own tools, etc. Morton supplies all the evidence for this going back millions of years.

So Morton concludes Adam must have lived around 5 million years ago, well before the rise of our species homo sapiens. Adam was born a Australopithecine “mutation” with 46 chromosomes (rather than the usual 48 of his particular ape-man species mother). There – I just gave away his “punch line” but you can still get his book. 😃 I’m not sure how far-fetched this is, but he does present a lot of scientific data and at the end of the book tries to square Genesis with his well documented anthropology. Good effort.

Hugh Ross – The Genesis Question and other books

Adam/Eve were literal and lived around 50,000 years ago, they were the first anatomically modern humans. None of the other hominids had spirits/souls (although very well refuted in Glenn Morton’s book). He also puts Neandertals outside humanity.

Dick Fischer – In Search of Historical Adam

He accepts all the standard paleoanthropology and modern science but he asserts Adam/Eve were specially created (body and soul) and “inserted” by God into the “train of humanity” around 4000-5000 BC. This he says fits best with the references in Genesis 4, and the geneologies of Genesis 5 and 11. He also has a whole book on this The Origins Solution.

I’m also looking for other detailed Catholic books that lay all this out. And don’t forget the “standard scientific” view – The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey is very good.

Phil P
 
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kellyham77:
Hello everyone. This is my first posting. I was just at a Catholic Advent bible study today, and the subject of Adam & Eve’s existence came up. The leader of the group ( a former Catholic school teacher) stated that Adam and Eve did not exist, and that they were just used in the bible to illustrate evil entering the world. I had never heard this, nor been taught this in CCD. Can anyone out there give me the Church’s teaching on if Adam and Eve really did existed?
Thank you so much for your help & God Bless
Click to expand...
I’ve done a Degree in Theology. I was not suitably impressed with some of the opinions of some of the high-ranking scholars on the matter. I would say that they were Historical.
 
vern humphrey:
As Catholics, we may interpret the Bible allegorically, as well as literally. It is therefore permissible to believe the story of Adam and Eve (which appears in two different versions in Genesis) is an allegory for the creation of Man.

There are similar issues throughout Scripture. For example, take Revelation 13,1:
1 1 Then I saw a beast come out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads; on its horns were ten diadems, and on its heads blasphemous name (s). ****************************************

Did John SEE this beast, as you and I see our computers? Or did he have a dream-like vision? Or is he using this as a literary device to make a point? All of these interpretations are permissible.

The footnote clearly leans toward the latter explanation:
1 [1-10] This wild beast, combining features of the four beasts in Daniel 7:2-28, symbolizes the Roman empire; the seven heads represent the emperors; see the notes on Rev 17:10 and Rev 17:12-14. The blasphemous names are the divine titles assumed by the emperors.
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The allegorical meaning of a Biblical text comes in only after the literal meaning, not instead of it.

Adam and Eve were real people as described in the book of Genesis. Any other “interpretation” of that text undermines the entire Faith.
 
TomA << Adam and Eve were real people as described in the book of Genesis. >>

Okay, now the harder question is when would they have lived, and please square that with the anthropological evidence and strong scientific case for human evolution. One easy way to square it is to throw all science out and ignore the anthropology data, and accept a young earth believing Adam/Eve were literally the first human beings on the planet created from scratch about 6000 years ago.

Oh sure that neatly takes care of all the theological objections, and that’s how a lot of people handle it, but not me. I take the harder route accepting modern science. 😃

Phil P
 
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PhilVaz:
TomA << Adam and Eve were real people as described in the book of Genesis. >>

Okay, now the harder question is when would they have lived, and please square that with the anthropological evidence and strong scientific case for human evolution.

Oh sure that neatly takes care of all the theological objections, and that’s how a lot of people handle it, but not me. I take the harder route accepting modern science. 😃

Phil P
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PhilVas:

The fundamental crux of the problem is this: 1) and 2)
  1. Catholics must believe that a First Man and a First Woman existed. All human beings alive today find their origin in these “first two” and only these “first two”.
  2. Ernst Mayr says “Evolution is change in properties of populations of organisms over time”. In other words, the population is the so-called unit of evolution. Genes, individuals and species also play a role, but it is the change in the popultation that characterizes organic evolution."
How can there be a “first” of a species when there only is a "slow, statistically sporadic altering morph called a “population”. One cannot make a species/species distinction.

Thus I think it can be overcome this way:

A) Individuals make up a population.

B) Individuals are the OBJECT of selection.

C) Yet a population is the UNIT OF MEASURE for evolution.

D) Population corresponds to a “sampling measurement” of evolution.

E) Individual corresponds to the ‘organic object’ that is selected.

THUS the Population IS NOT the ‘organic object’ that is selected.
Maybe it can be squared like this.

The error occurs in philosophy and evolution when the individual is made as the “unit of evolution”. This error is seen in people like Dawkins who criticizes Pope John Paul II’s statement: “Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider mind as emerging from the forces of living matter or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man.” This relates to subjectivism, mind, thought, and consciousness in evolutionary history. G.K Chesterton also addressed this aspect in the first part of “The Everlasting Man”.

OR

When evolution treats the “unit of evolution”, the population, AS an individual (particularizing a population). This relates to a destroying of the distinction between a population as fluid and made up of individuals and not AS a closed system, IE. an individual.

Related to this second error is the need for a further clarification as to what a population is:

“A population is a group of organisms of the same species occupying a particular space at the same time…Populations have a birth rate and an immigration rate that add to the population and a death rate and an emigration rate that shrinks a population” pg. 161.

AND

"Few species populations are continuous. Such seperations of populations interconnected by immigration are called metapopulations."pg. 163 (Both quotes from "Ecology and Field Biology 6th ed. Smith and Smith.)

Yet as already demonstrated somewhat an individual is NOT the unit of evolution) THUS if this is done…the measurement of evolution is broken down.

One can then see that a populational view in itself of evolutionary change doesn’t conflict with the apparant individual first true “Homo sapiens” parents.

THEN…one more question thus arises surrounding the issue of evolutionary populations and Adam and Eve. You believe the fact that other individual very-‘like’-man species of hominids of the population Adam and Eve rose from do not exist today.

There are two solutions to this: There is the population-bottleneck solution, and the “genetic contribution solution”. The population-bottleneck solution would require the fact that every hominid in the population either became extinct or that the “Adam & Eve” left the population. Either way there can “only be two”. There is evidence for a massive bottleneck occuring in Africa to the Homo sapiens population in the genetic record. Yet there are two things I am not comfortable with here. A) “Adam & Eve” should not be hung onto any scientific theory, and B) A bottleneck down to two people doesn’t seem realistic and subsequent long term total population isolation of the first two humans and their progeny.

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST
 
CONTINUED:

Thus I think something called the “genetic contribution solution” may solve the problem. The short story of this goes like this: God creates the first Man and Woman, IN a population of very-human-like hominids. Adam and Eve (Man) have their progeny (Man). Now out of this progeny (Man) has relations with very-like-human hominids (Not-Man) their progeny is “Man” due to the progeny’s relationship to the first man. (Not-Man) is like a mere syringe of genetic contribution. Thus the population of Man continues to grow like a bubble within the hominid population. If a very-like-human hominid mates with another very-like-human hominid (Both Not-Man) then their progeny is (Not-Man). Following Pius XII we can say that no “humans” exist in our species that are not descendents of Adam and Eve and thus inheriting the privation of grace which is original sin. All “Not-Man” progeny is extinct. I think we can safely assume this by the fact there is yet to be found a human on earth who is not a Man.

This theory also allows for “The Fall” and “Original Innocence”. It also is compatible of course with the “Out of Africa” model. It surprisingly also compatible with “Multiple Regional” model.

It also does not allow for polygenism, that “Adam” was a population.

It also keeps with evolutionary populations and allows for the rejection that there are ‘Other “Men”’ existing today not ‘of Adam’.

Just some thoughts on this Phil,
 
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PhilVaz:
There are many views on this, especially when you add the question when they would have lived, and try to square that with the technology mentioned immediately after Genesis 1-3 in chapter 4. Genesis 4:2, 21, 22 clearly mentions bronze/metal tools, farming/agriculture, livestock raising, and sophisticated musical instruments.

Phil P
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Here is my $2.75
Interesting but I don’t think it is as clear cut as you do. You are right that it cleartly mentions bronze/metal tools, farming/agriculture, livestock raising, and sophisticated musical instruments but it is not clear as to when they existed. It says that they were the father of those who did those things in much the same way that Adam named his wife Eve, because she became the mother of all the living. What I am trying to say is that it is not necessarily saying that it existed then only that the descendants did these things.
Also I remember hearing that scientist had traced the human race back to one woman but not as yet to one man.
 
Brian E, thanks for the informative post. I have to think it over.

Ann Cheryl, its pretty clear from our study of anthropology and archeological finds that metal tools only show up around 4000 BC, perhaps 5000 BC at the earliest. Before this time we only have stone tools. The folks mentioned in Genesis 4 seem to have lived in the immediate years following Adam/Eve.

Stone Age – millions of years ago to about 5000 BC
Bronze Age – around 6000-3000 BC is the transition to metal

But I do need to study this in more depth, perhaps get a couple dozen commentaries on Genesis and see how they interpret.

If you want to know how Glenn Morton (former young-earther turned theistic evolutionist after being an oil geologist for many years) interprets this, here’s what he told me in Email. His book is very good, he believes, based on the strong scientific, archeological, and anthropological data, that Adam/Eve must have lived 5 million years ago (well before the first homo sapiens).

How does he square this with Genesis 4 and the references to metal tools and other technology? He says 5 million years ago they had that technology, but then lost it at the Flood (which he says was local and he also dates millions of years ago). Kinda far-fetched if you ask me…but that’s how he deals with it.

I agree no “dates” are assigned in Genesis, but we do have clear technology time lines based on archeological finds. References especially to metal means 5000 BC or later. Not 10000 BC, certainly not millions of years ago.

And I am clearly an old earther and theistic evolutionist lest people forget. :cool:

Phil P
 
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PhilVaz:
Brian E, thanks for the informative post. I have to think it over.

Ann Cheryl, its pretty clear from our study of anthropology and archeological finds that metal tools only show up around 4000 BC, perhaps 5000 BC at the earliest. Before this time we only have stone tools. The folks mentioned in Genesis 4 seem to have lived in the immediate years following Adam/Eve.

Phil P
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I am not sure that you understood what I meant. Tubalcain is listed as the **ancestor **of all who forge instruments of bronze and iron. What I am saying is that those things did not exist at the time of Adam and Eve but that the developement of those things were attributed to people who where there descendants.

As for the flood, I have contemplated what type of civilization existed. Perhaps they were very advance. Although like you, I have my reservation.
 
AnnC << Tubalcain is listed as the ancestor of all who forge instruments of bronze and iron. What I am saying is that those things did not exist at the time of Adam and Eve >>

All right, I guess that’s possible. I always understood that not a whole lot of time can be put between Adam/Eve and Noah, so the references to “metal working” in Genesis 4 cannot be too far separated from the “events” of Genesis 3 (the Fall, etc). But maybe I’m being too simplistic trying to interpret this too literally.

I’m learning not many modern Catholic theologians today interpret these things literally (John Haught, etc), I guess I don’t get out enough. 😛 My article on Original Sin is way too fundamentalist.

Phil P
 
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