Review of Reasons To Believe: On evolution (very non-exhaustive)
Preface
Originally published on Blogger, 20210801, revised 20251225.
Photo
Cologne, Germany, July 2021, I love my Germany, Facebook
(I was at Cologne Cathedral when I was eight years old. Extremely impressive building)
Reasons to Believe: Newsletter (2021),July/August Reasons to Believe, Covina, California.On the back page (4), Hugh Ross writes a very short article entitled 'Did God create us or did we evolve from a common ancestor with the apes?'
Dr. Ross immediately states 'I believe God directly intervened to create the first humans. Specifically, I hold the position that all humanity descended from a single male (Adam) and single female (Eve) whom God specially created. The writer of Genesis 1 and 2 uses Hebrew verbs (bara, asa, yatsar) for the origin of Adam and Eve, words that colorfully portray that God directly and miraculously intervened to bring about the origin of Adam and Eve. Genesis 3: 20 states that Eve would become the mother of us all. Acts 17: 26 declares that from one man, God made every nation of people.' (4)
When Dr. Ross states 'colorfully portray', this in my view connects to the biblical, theological concept that Genesis 1-3 is not written as mythology, as in fictional mythology. According to most scholarship, including many biblical conservatives, Genesis 1-3 does contain poetry and some degrees of figurative literal language.
William Sanford La Sor, David Allan Hubbard, and Fredric William Bush (1987) from what I deduced was a moderate conservative, evangelical position, reason the author of Genesis is writing as an artist and storyteller who uses literary device. La Sor, Hubbard, and Bush (1987: 72). They point out it is imperative to distinguish which literary device is being used within the text of Genesis. La Sor, Hubbard, and Bush (1987: 72).
Further, from what Dr. Ross wrote, using the New American Standard Bible (NASB), Romans 5 clearly requires a literal Adam, or at least first man, that would most reasonably be known as Adam. Romans 5: 12, through one man (Adam implied) sin entered the world and death to all of humanity. Romans 5: 14, death reigned from Adam to Moses. There was a universal corruption of humanity, see also Romans 1-3. Jesus Christ, the God-man, in Romans 5: 15, through grace covers sin.
Clearly, a literal, non-fictional, Adam, although admittedly described in figurative literal terms in Genesis 1-3, is described in more plain literal terms in Romans 5. Jesus Christ in comparison is the new Adam, last Adam, or second Adam. The existence and fall of Adam (and Eve) is biblically (Genesis 1-3, Romans, implied in Hebrews 2, as examples), theologically connecting the Adam of non-fiction and religious history, to the non-fiction and religious history of the death and resurrection, the atoning and resurrection work of Jesus Christ for his people (Romans 9, Ephesians 1-2, as examples).
Dr. Ross opines that 'Humans are truly exceptional.' (4). One example he cites is that human beings alone can advance technologically. (5). In my view, human beings alone (of the physical beings on earth) can ponder on the spiritual realm, on God, angelic beings, and demonic beings. Dr. Ross reasons that God created a 'sequence of bipedal primate creatures before creating human beings.' (5). Bipedal, as in an animal that walks on two limbs or two feet.
Bibliography from that article
'Tattersall, Ian; Schwartz, Jeffery (2000). Extinct Humans. Boulder CO: Westview Press. ISBN 978-0-8133-3482-0.
Larsen, Clark Spencer; Matter, Robert M; Gebo, Daniel L (1991). Human Origins: the fossil record. Waveland Press, Prospect Heights, IL. ISBN 978-0-88133-575-0.
"Smithsonian Human Origins Program". Retrieved 2006-08-29.
"Prominent Hominid Fossils". Retrieved 2006-08-31.'
Grine, F.E.; Jungers, W.L.; Schultz, J. (1996). "Phenetic Affinities Among Early Homo Crania from East and South Africa". Journal of Human Evolution. 30 (3): 189–225. Bibcode:1996JHumE..30..189G. doi:10.1006/jhev.1996.0019.
Cited
The following tables give an overview of notable finds of hominin fossils and remains relating to human evolution, beginning with the formation of the tribe Hominini (the divergence of the human and chimpanzee lineages) in the late Miocene, roughly 7 to 8 million years ago.
Cited
The early fossils shown are not considered direct ancestors to Homo sapiens but are closely related to direct ancestors and are therefore important to the study of the lineage.
I am not a scientist, but I side more so with evolutionary views of Dr. Ross and Reasons to Believe, than Darwinian Evolution. I can accept that evolution exists, not Darwinian type evolution with a secular, naturalistic, worldview, which of course includes considerable philosophy of science. But as a philosopher of religion and theologian, 'not considered direct ancestors', 'but closely related to direct ancestors' allows for debate and interpretations. Are these fossils demonstrating the same species, or similar species in regards to DNA and ontology? These creatures exist within same and similar ecologies and environments.
These can be the earlier bipedal primates as Dr. Ross suggests.
The Oxford Dictionary of Science
Cited
Evolution
The gradual process by which the present diversity of plant and animal life arise from the earliest and most primitive organisms...(304). This is believed to have taken place the last 3000 million years. (3 billion, my add). (304).
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Most controversial, however, and still to be clarified, are the relationship and evolution of groups above the species level. (304). In other words, evolution from scientifically reasoned species to species.
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Transitional forms
Fossils or organisms that show the intermediate states between an ancestral form and that of its descendants are referred to as transitional forms. There are numerous examples of transitional forms in the fossil record, providing an abundance of evidence for change over time.
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Our understanding of the evolution of horse feet, so often depicted in textbooks, is derived from a scattered sampling of horse fossils within the multi-branched horse evolutionary tree. These fossil organisms represent branches on the tree and not a direct line of descent leading to modern horses.
Similar.
Not a direct line. All horses or horselike?
Edited from my first comment in 2013 on that article, in regards to Genesis 1-3...
Even in light of reasoning a significant degree of literal, fall, within the Genesis 1-3 event, I admit, while I was studying theology of 'the fall' for my PhD, I did not find any evidence or argument that was biblically based or related that had me reason that Adam and Eve were not literal in Scripture, as in they were instead myth and fictional. The historical story does contain, it appears, figurative literal language as in, for example, the serpent 'on your belly shall you go' New American Standard Bible (NASB). Presumed to be Satan, and it is very doubtful, that as a fallen angel, and spirit, the entity crawls perpetually. Perhaps this is figurative language for being cast in the human realm and the physical universe in some sense.
But issues like that would still would not make Genesis 1-3 myth. It is still religious history. I did have a Professor at Columbia Bible that speculated that God could have created human beings more than once, perhaps explaining how different human beings differ in ethnicity and skin colour; and therefore he speculated that different human falls may have occurred (not my own view). Also, Adam from Genesis, in Romans 5, ties directly into the gospel message, as mentioned. With increasing study especially the PhD, I was made more aware of the key issue of being very aware using bible tools, of the type of language being used in Genesis 1-3, whether poetry or prose.
BRUCE, F.F. (1987) Romans, Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
COURSON, JON (2005) Application Commentary, Thomas Nelson, Nashville.
CRANFIELD, C.E.B. (1992) Romans: A Shorter Commentary, Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
DUNN, JAMES D.G. (1988) Romans, Dallas, Word Books.
FOULKES, FRANCIS (1989) Ephesians, Grand Rapids, Inter-Varsity Press.
HARPUR, GEORGE (1986) Ephesians in The International Bible Commentary, Grand Rapids, Zondervan.
HUGHES, PHILIP, EDGCUMBE (1990) A Commentary On The Epistle To The Hebrews, Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
LA SOR, WILLIAM SANFORD, DAVID ALLAN HUBBARD, AND FREDERIC WILLIAM BUSH. (1987) Old Testament Survey, Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
MOUNCE, ROBERT H. (1990) The Book of Revelation, Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
MOUNCE, ROBERT H. (1995) The New American Commentary: Romans, Nashville, Broadman & Holman Publishers.
