Adam and Eve: Clarifying What is at Stake

ADAM & EVE: Clarifying what is at stake [Excerpts]

Recent evangelical discussion concerning Adam and Eve has served at least one good purpose -- it has helped to clarify what is theologically at stake in the debate. The recent report by National Public Radio alerted the larger secular culture to the debate, but the debate is hardly new.

What is new, however, is the candid admission on the part of some that the denial of a historical Adam requires a new understanding of the Bible's basic story -- and thus of the Gospel as well.

The denial of a historical Adam means not only the rejection of a clear biblical teaching but also the denial of the biblical doctrine of the Fall, leading to a very different way of telling the story of the Bible and the meaning of the Gospel.

By the way, those who try to deny that Genesis requires the affirmation of a historic Adam as a real and singular human individual (arguing, for example, that the Hebrew word translated "Adam" means only "the man") must face the fact that the Genesis narrative clearly presents Adam as a singular individual who acts, speaks, marries, reproduces and is listed even in the genealogy of Jesus. Hebrew vocabulary offers no escape hatch from historicity.

(Mohler, "ADAM & EVE: Clarifying what is at stake," Baptist Press, 9/14/11).