★★★★★ 5
Peter Enns "Upends" Tradition!
Format: Paperback
One cannot but deeply admire what Peter Enns has managed to produce within the span of less than 150 pages - not counting his endnotes. Kudos as well for his penetrating exegetical insights...to say nothing as regards his courage: few conservative evangelicals (and even fewer fundamentalists) will find the title "The Evolution of Adam" something that warms the heart. And yet what Enns has produced here not only is revolutionary (in a very real sense - see below) but may well prove to be one of the more controversial books on the science/theology debate of recent years.
Why so? Primarily because (according to Enns - Part Two of his book) Paul's creative use (in Romans) of the Adam and Eve story in Genesis was primarily for apologetic purposes...a matter that will be discussed in greater detail below. But we begin with Part One.
Essentially Part One (four chapters) represents Enns' understanding of the crucial importance Ancient Near Eastern influences exerted upon the biblical writers - the writer/s of the Genesis creation account in particular. Enns (correctly in my view)hammers this point repeatedly for the reader to consider - i.e., the bible (the whole of it) was not written in a cultural vacuum unsullied by the surrounding culture/s of pagan religious thought, whether ancient Sumerian, Babylonian, or Greco-Roman. Indeed, to do otherwise would have been an impossibility - somewhat like trying to walk along the Tibetan foothills while refusing to breathe its polluted 'pagan' air. None of us ever fully escapes the surrounding influences of culture - and the bible was never intended to do so; rather, God (if one believes in biblical inspiration...as Enns does) works fully within the conceptual categories of culture. Hence, the two creation accounts in Genesis come to us fully embedded with the concepts of Ancient Near Eastern thought patterns. Perhaps the most we can say here is that the Genesis accounts represent (in varying ways) the "demythologizing" of prior Ancient Near Eastern accounts: the God of Israel is not to be identified with any aspect (sun, moon, stars, etc.) of the created order.
So far so good. There's nothing really new here that hasn't been said already by any number of conservative evangelical scholars. Part Two, however, is something entirely different. Here Enns focuses his attention on Paul's creative use of the Old Testament, seeing as how the death and resurrection of Christ has caused Paul to look at the OT writings from a radically different perspective - Romans 5:12-21 in particular.
These verses have a long, long history in the Christian Church as providing the church's understanding of how sin and death entered the world of human existence:
we all "inherited" sin and death in and through the disobedience of Adam back in Eden. Not so...says Enns. And here is where his account veers off in a direction entirely different from traditional orthodox belief - for, according to Enns, Paul gave a particular 'Pauline spin' to these verses that cannot be found either in the OT itself, or in the Second Temple Judaism of which Paul himself was a part. Because the death and resurrection of Christ radically altered Paul's understanding of God's redemptive work in the world he (Paul) "found" in the Adam story an ideal explanation for why it is all Jews and Gentiles alike share in the universal experience of sin and death. Therefore, Adam's disobedience in Eden is NOT the cause of the universal human experience of sin and death (per Enns); rather, the story of Adam's disobedience served Paul's apologetic purposes...quite apart from whatever the story's original intention might have been. The true "origin" of sin and death remains a mystery, for the answer is not to be found (indeed if it can be "found" at all!) in the early Genesis account of Adam and Eve.
And here is where we encounter the book's controversial nature, for Enns' view represents a dramatic departure from the traditional view - a traditional view that has a rich theological heritage that passes directly through the Reformation all the way back to Augustine.
As previously stated, I deeply admire and respect what Enns has done here. For the most part I think he is on the right track. Furthermore, he makes mention of the fact that recent developments in biology have strongly indicated that we cannot possibly trace all modern humans back to an original "Adam and Eve." However, we knew that already...quite apart from modern biology informing us of the fact. Anthropology and paleontology had already amassed considerable evidence that proto-humans and modern humans were spread across the earth long before any conceivable Adam and Eve could have existed. Apparently, however, modern biology speaks with a more powerful voice than anthropology; thus, we are seeing a spate of books recently on the topic of whether or not Adam and Eve were historical - Enns' book being only one of a growing number. (Due to the geneologies in early Genesis we are somewhat limited in "how far back" we can place an Adam and Eve. Placing them 25 to 40 thousand years into the past in order somehow to allow them to be the true ancestors of all modern humans does a grave injustice to the geneologies that plain and simply do not allow for this sort of radical time reversal - a matter that any number of evangelicals, who have done this sort of thing, seem unwilling to appreciate. The early Genesis geneologies, even allowing for some "gaps," serve as a control against such unwarranted time expansion. An Adam and Eve of perhaps 6 to 8 thousand BC appears to be about the limit of what we can reasonably expect). In any case, Enns has raised a thorny and difficult issue in a way previous books on the question have not, and I believe his book will contribute substantially to more open theological discussion (one hopes without heated rancor) on the debate. In the meanwhile, some final thoughts.
Personally, I find it more than a tad curious that David Rohl (a somewhat controversial Egyptologist) has recently authored a book (From Eden to Exile, Greenleaf Press) in which he strongly defends an historical Adam - and yet Rohl acknowledges that he is an atheist. All this is most strange: an evangelical scholar arguing against an historical Adam while an atheistic historian argues for one! ("What fools these mortals be!")
I happen to agree with much of what Enns writes. However, I think Rohl has a point- even though how he fleshes his historical Adam out is somewhat bizarre. For one thing, I'm not entirely comfortable (despite some of Enns' powerful arguments) with a geneology of Jesus in the Gospels that would include "fictious" characters who never even existed. (I might as well inform you that my great, great grandfather was Dr. Jekyll and my great, great, great grandfather was Mr. Hyde). I don't see why getting rid of an historical Adam is at all necessary. Enns himself offers the possibility that OT Israel viewed Adam as their senior partriarch - the man who originally started the "clan." I personally see great possibilities here via leaving Adam within historical existence as Israel's original, grand patriarch.
The origin of sin and death via the Adam and Eve story is another matter entirely. Biology and anthropology together appear to just plain and simply rule it out - and sticking Adam back into the age of the Cro-Magnons and Neaderthals in order to "save" the doctrine is a clear instance of an act of sheer desperation. But I see no reason why we necessarily have to conclude that the "origin" of sin and death (if that's the right word even to use...which I'm not even sure about) can only be regarded as lost in the misty past. I think there is a possible way forward here, and even via an historical Adam, while at the same time embracing what Enns is talking about. I think there may well be a way to retain a personal Adam (perhaps 6 to 8 thousand BC), while also showing how sin and death had their origin in him...but with an entirely different understanding that is informed by Enns' book. Unfortunately, spelling all that out is - like "The Evolution of Adam" - a book unto itself. And Amazon commentary is not the place where one is allowed to "write a book" - quite apart from how lengthy my own commentary here has been.
In the meanwhile...kudos again to Enns for his truly provocative and highly insightful contribution to the cause. His vigorous defense of the incarnation, the atonement, and the resurrection is profoundly gratifying. Because of his firm stance here no one can accuse him of being unorthodox!
(NOTE: Readers interested in a critical analysis of David Rohl's "From Eden to Exile: the 5000 Year History of the People of the Bible," and why this book is of such strategic importance for Old Testament studies - scholars in particular, can easily access my recent review of this book (titled "David Rohl: A "Maverick" in Search of History") by clicking on "See All My Reviews" directly above, or by going to the book's Amazon website.
Hope you enjoy the read!
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Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2012
