William Lane Craig: Searching for a Historical Adam in the Genre of Myth (Part 3: A Book Analysis of “In Quest for the Historical Adam)

We now come to Part 3 of my book analysis series on William Lane Craig’s book, In Quest for the Historical Adam. In this post, I will cover Chapters 5-7. Let’s do this…

Chapter 5: Is Genesis 1-11 Mytho-History?
Here in Chapter 5 is where WLC introduces the concept of Genesis 1-11 being “mytho-history.” Up to this point, WLC has convincingly made the argument that Genesis 1-11 is in the genre of ANE myth. In this chapter, he adds a twist to it—it’s myth, but it’s more of a historical myth: “mytho-history.”

The long and short of his reasoning for insisting that there is a historical element to Genesis 1-11 is the genealogies found in Genesis 1-11. They “move seamlessly into the historical period of the patriarchs, where the historical interest is obvious and not in dispute” (137). WLC first though discusses the work of Robert Wilson, in which Wilson argues that, for the most part, genealogies in the ANE do not have the primary function of acting as actual historical records. They actually have more of a sociological function in the life of the society. In other words, Wilson argues that the genealogies aren’t so much “doing history,” as they are teaching tools for some function in that society.

WLC, though, is not convinced of Wilson’s argument and says that since Adam found in the ancestor lists (i.e. the genealogy of Luke, in particular), that Scripture treats him as a historical person, therefore he must be.

It is at this point that WLC introduces the concept of mytho-history, that he got from Thorkild Jacobsen. He acknowledges, along with Gordon Wenham, that “myth” tends to be a loaded term that leads to misunderstanding. Some scholars prefer to use “proto-history” or “worldview story” to describe Genesis 1-11. WLC settles on “mytho-history,” and argues that although Genesis 1-11 is in the genre of ANE myth, it is also historical, sort of like how Homer’s Iliad is both myth and about the actual historical event of the Trojan War.

Two Problems
Since WLC’s argument for Genesis 1-11 being “mytho-history” really boils down to his take on the genealogies in Genesis 1-11, I feel the need to point out two problems with his reasoning. First, his argument that since Adam is in the genealogical lists, he must be historical is extremely weak. Wilson is right, and for WLC to essentially say, “Yeah, but Adam’s in a genealogy, so…” isn’t exactly impressive. And to be honest, the depth of such an argument really is about as shallow at the typical YECist argument.

In my study of Genesis 1-11, I have shown that the genealogies serve to highlight the “war of the offspring” that was begun when God cursed the serpent and said that there would be a war between the offspring of the serpent and of the woman. Those genealogies ultimately serve to describe who Israel’s enemies are: all of the “bad guys” in the OT go back through the lineage of Ham, back to Cain, and (metaphorically) the serpent. Even in the NT, in Revelation, John draws upon this idea by stating in Revelation 12 that once the dragon failed to destroy the woman’s child, that he went to “make war with the rest of her offspring.” And who is that? The church—the followers of Jesus.” And who is the “dragon’s offspring”? Well, who comes out of the sea in Revelation 13? The beast.

The second problem with WLC’s argument that Genesis 1-11 is “mytho-history” is simple: it’s ultimately an oxymoron. By very definition (as I noted in my previous post that Brevard Childs argued), “myth” is not concerned with linear historical time. Myths are typically not historical. Yes, Homer’s Iliad is about the Trojan War in history, but I think his work is an exception, and quite frankly, is dated to a good 1,000 years after ANE creation myths. So, for WLC to state that Genesis 1-11 is like the Iliad is problematic. That would be like equating a literary work written in AD 1000 with a modern literary genre.

Besides, the reason why we have come to realize that Troy in Homer’s Iliad was an actual ancient city is because we actually found historical evidence to show that. No one would find an argument that “Troy much be historical because later writers after Homer reference Troy.” All that would show is that they are referring to the city Homer mentioned in the Iliad. That’s not historical evidence. Yet, that is basically what WLC is arguing with Adam—he must be historical because he’s in genealogical lists. If you’re going to argue something like Genesis 1-11 is actually historical, you need to provide historical evidence. WLC doesn’t. He ignores what is generally believed about the function of ancient genealogies and gives a rather simplistic argument that since Adam is in genealogical lists, he must be historical. Sorry, that’s not convincing.\

Chapter 6: Are Myths Believed to Be True?
In chapter 6, though, WLC seems to shift gears back to arguing that ANE myths should not be taken literally. In fact, they can be figurative and metaphorical and still be accepted as authoritative and true. In fact, it is illogical to think that ancient people read these myths literally. For example, WLC writes, “No ancient Babylonian looking to the sky expected to see the desiccated flesh and bones of Tiamat overhead, nor did he expect to find the Tigris and Euphrates flowing out of Tiamat’s eye sockets” (173). Of course, these myths are not to be read as literal events in history.

WLC then takes considerable time discussing what he thinks is a major mistake by many Biblical scholars when they say that people in the ancient world viewed the earth as a flat disk floating on underground waters and ringed by the cosmic sea, with a solid-domed sky above. He writes, “Modern Western OT scholars, when they assert that the ancient Mesopotamians thought of the earth as a flat disk in a circumferential sea covered by a solid dome, are thus, despite their claims to understand ANE culture, guilty of importing a wooden literalism that is foreign to the Mesopotamian texts” (182).

He argues that the description we find in ancient texts were not taken literally, and quotes Othmar Keel to make his point: “People in the ANE did not conceive of the earth as a disk floating on water with the firmament inverted over it like a bell jar, with the stars hanging from it. …The textbook images that keep being reprinted of the ‘ANE world picture are based on typical modern misunderstanding that fail to take into account the religious components of ANE conceptions and representations” (188).

WLC’s ultimate point is that since Genesis 1-11 is in the figurative language of myth, that we shouldn’t read them literally. Much of what we read in Genesis 1-11 metaphorical, figurative, and often fantastic. On this point, he is correct. Concerning his critique of the scholarly description of ANE cosmology, though, I have to confess I am a bit perplexed. I think it is without question that that is how people in the ANE pictured things. But at the same time, I never took that to mean they literally thought the earth was a flat disk, etc. It is clearly a poetic/metaphorical cosmological description that was used in many poetic/religious texts. Perhaps I’m naïve, but I never got the impression that OT scholars claimed the people in the ANE thought there was a literal solid dome in the sky, or that Sheol was a literal place in the sea. Maybe I just missed that somewhere!

In any case, despite all that, WLC ends this chapter by stating that since the author of the Pentateuch has an interest in history, he must intend Genesis 1-11 to be historical on some level. Thus, WLC says, even though Genesis 1-11 is about real people and events, those people and events “have been clothed in the garb of the metaphorical and figurative language of myth” (201). I’m sorry, but that assertion isn’t really convincing. Assertion isn’t evidence or solid argumentation.

Chapter 7: Adam in the New Testament
In chapter 7, WLC turns his attention to how the NT writers used the figure of Adam. It is a rather lengthy chapter, but I’ll do my best to be brief.

First, he correctly notes that outside of Genesis 1-11, Adam is hardly mentioned anywhere else in the OT, and only briefly a few times in the NT. He also correctly notes that the argument that just because a NT writer refers to Adam, that alone does not mean he is asserting Adam was a historical person.

WLC spends the most of his time on the treatment of Adam in Romans 5. He notes that it points both to Adam and each person as the “reason” for sin and death in the world. He briefly mentions the argument that the “imputation of Adam’s sin to his posterity” requires a historical Adam, but questions whether or not Paul is actually making that argument. In fact, he notes that NT scholar Douglass Moo points out that nowhere in Romans 5:12-21 does Paul actually make the argument that Adam “imputed original sin and a corrupted human nature” to the rest of humanity. I remember sitting in class at Regent College under Gordon Fee, where Dr. Fee was emphatic that Paul was not talking about “original sin” in Romans 5.

So yes, WLC is correct on that point as well. He’s also correct to point out how in the Jewish text of 4 Ezra 7:116-129, the author, just like we see Paul doing in Romans 5, balance Adam’s failure in Genesis 3 with people being responsible for their own sin as well.

WLC ends the chapter by looking at NT scholar Joseph Fitzmyer’s take on Romans 5:12-21. Fitzmyer says that in Genesis 1-11, Adam is a symbolic figure, denoting humanity, but Paul uses Adam in Romans 5 as a historical person. In effect, he has historicized the symbolic Adam of Genesis. As WLC puts it, “In Fitzmyer’s view, Adam in Paul’s (mis)interpretation of the story of Genesis is an individual, not a symbol” (240).

So, basically, Fitzmyer is saying Adam in Genesis 1-11 is a symbolic figure, but Paul is treating him as a historical individual to make his theological points that (A) all humanity is “in Adam,” in the sense that we all sin and we all die, and (B) that the work of Christ goes over and above the effects of sin and death. Does that automatically mean that Adam must be a historical individual? I don’t think so, and WLC ultimately acknowledges this as well. You simply cannot get to, “Adam must have been a historical person” from Paul’s comments. As WLC mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, merely alluding to Adam in Genesis 3 does not automatically mean one is claiming Adam is historical. Simply put, Paul’s argument in Romans 5 does not demand a historical Adam to make his point work.

WLC acknowledges all of this, but then says, “Our argument is not based on Paul’s contrasting Adam with Christ, a literary figure with a person of history, but rather on the real-world causal effects of Adam’s sin” (241). And he goes on to, again, point to the genealogies in Genesis 1-11 as indication that Adam was a historical person. So, as far as I can tell, WLC (1) acknowledges Genesis 1-11 is in the genre of ANE myth, (2) acknowledges that Genesis 1-11 shouldn’t be read literally, (3) acknowledges that the NT references to Adam doesn’t conclusively indicate that he was a historical figure…

…but he still is intent to argue that Adam was, in fact, a historical person, by claiming (4) that the genealogies in Genesis 1-11 indicate history (despite the fact that Robert Wilson shows that’s not the necessarily the case), and (5) that since everyone in the world is sinful, there must be an origin for it, namely Adam.

I, for one, do not find that argument convincing. Although I think WLC has gone further than most Evangelicals in openly acknowledging the actual genre of Genesis 1-11 (i.e. ANE myth), it is evident he still feels he must hold on to the idea of a historical Adam, despite the reality that the argument for it simply isn’t strong. Like I said before, if you are going to make an argument that something or someone is historical, you have to have historical evidence of some sort. WLC has made a good argument that Genesis 1-11 is in the genre of ANE myth. He hasn’t made a convincing argument that it is “mytho-history” or that the Adam of Genesis 2-3 is a historical person.

In my last post, I’ll look at WLC’s “scientific exploration” for the historical Adam in chapters 8-12 of his book.