Am not concluding, but may I speculate .. I think the use of the word "Adam" was deliberate and genius, because the writers could use it to describe one historical man, but again use it to encompass humanity over a lengthy period of time, and generations .. "Adam" was a word that was used to describe one historical individual "the first man", but also the word "Adam" was used to encompass many generations of human beings who lived after that "first man" and those many many generations of humanity were all referred to as "Adam" .. Who after many many years had children, and other sons of a particular topic, mentioned as "Cain" and "Abel" and "Seth" .. It may not necessarily mean that those children of "Adam" mentioned above, were a second generation after the "first man" but were rather a unique topic amongst the children born after the many years and many generations of "human beings" all referred to as "Adam", with a unique story .... As I wrote earlier, am not concluding, am just theorising .................. Those are some thoughts from a Christian with African Bantu heritage
All the parents that lived before Cain, Abel, and Seth, could be referred to as "Adam" .. All the many generations of parents that lived before Seth, could be referred to as "Adam" .. And all the mother's that lived before then, could be called "Eve" .. Nevertheless, there existed one historical individual who was the "first man" .. That "first Adam" is the historical man who and his wife "Eve" lived in the garden of Eden and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.. And from this couple, descends all human beings
I really do wish that modern intellectual christians would start treating the book of Genesis and speaking about it the way that Jesus and the rest the apostles in the New Testament did. The book of Genesis either tells us what did happen or it does not.
@@TheSnowstormz All of the modern day theological conjecturing is non existent in the New Testament. The concept that the book of Genesis was anything but historical simply does not exist in the New Testament. That is the very reason why modern scholars have to conjecture and reason about it because there isn't a single example of it that they can point to in the New Testament. When asked about divorce, Jesus spoke of Adam-and-Eve and their marriage at the beginning. He spoke of them the very same way that Genesis describes them. He treated the events as real and used them as the basis for his teaching. All of Paul's references to Adam treat Adam as a real man and his sin as real and the curse that came from his sin as real. One might ask why the book of Genesis contains so many genealogies if it's not meant to be understood as speaking of really Real people? I tend to believe that these are real people which is why there is a genealogy. Both Matthew and Luke draw from Old Testament genealogies going back to the book of Genesis and again, these are treated as real, historical people. 2nd Peter is particularly pertinent to this conversation because Peter flat out says that in the last days scoffers would arise who would deny both that God created everything and God's judgment of the world in the flood. It would seem a little bit of a red flag if Peter warns us that in the last days people would basically deny the true historicity of these things, and then turn around and toy with the idea that they're not to be taken literally as having happened how the Bible describes them. When reading how Jesus and the other apostles in the New Testament talked about these things, they talked about them as though they are reliable, real, true historical events. If they thought of them that way, I have no basis to think of them any other way.
@@TheSnowstormz ……It’s not about what we think…….The truth is in the text…….You can open your bible and read what Jesus and the apostles had to say about scripture……..in fact that’s the whole driving point behind this whole conversation……..it is not about what WLC thinks about scripture.
@@ryanadams5719 you're distorting Jesus view of Genesis from 1800 AD theological interpretations that He and other 2nd temple period Biblical Hebrews didn't teach including Paul. WLC is getting back to the authentic view of Jesus and the Apostles including Paul about Genesis 1-11.
So many people in the comments are equating Dr.Craig’s use of “myth” as false/fiction but thats not what hes saying. The genre is telling of past literal events, but in a literary form that should not be taken word-for-word literal as we would read in modern historical accounts.
Bp. Barron has several good videos on this topic as well. I believe he and Dr. Craig discussed it in one of their joint forums. Here's one of the videos, "Understanding Genesis". ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_s2OTo4wuKY.html
I like the hypothesis Dr. Craig is proposing. However i have a question: What are the relations between the mytho-history of genesis 1-11 and the geneology of Adam which is referred to a few places in the bible?
Dr Craig is not a Bible scholar. He's running with a hypothesis formed by someone else. I recommend watching this ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3txmpHQJ520.html
@@Ryan-rh8rn He is a theologian of the highest degree, and has been rated as one of the top ten theologians of the last three centuries by an analytics company using algorithms that measure impact - in other words a very objective analysis. He is considered the single best christian apologist in the world, and has defended christianity from the most sophisticated and the malevolent attacks from intellectuals, scientists, scholars and laymen alike. He does not lack merit. He is both the most brilliant philosopher i know of, with in dept knowledge in a wide arrange of topics - including contemporary science, and a warm and kind hearted human being and follower of christ.
@@Ryan-rh8rn By the way, what scholar are you referring to who have placed Adam 750 000 years ago in the species of Homo Heidelbergensis? I am pretty sure it is WLCs hypothesis.
@@AleInBywater I never said anything about his Theological specialties. I said he's not a Bible scholar. He marries secular world views with biblical narratives. Those two don't go together. Additionally, although I respect him greatly on his well defended cosmological argument, I disagree with his old earth perspectives in light of faulty dating methods, speculative uniformitarian thought, and of course, the Bible.
My two cents worth: the Hebrew word for “father” _(ab)_ used in Genesis 5 can be used as father, grandfather, great-grandfather, etc. The Hebrew vocabulary is limited to only about 3,000 words (unlike English: tens of thousands), so the same word often has multiple meanings. Hope that helps.
Swedenborg’s magnum opus, Heavenly Secrets, provides the most enlightened understanding of Genesis 1-11 that I have found. The first two of fifteen volumes of the recent New Century Edition translation covers Genesis 1-15 before continuing on through the remainder of Genesis then all of Exodus. In brief, the creators of those storylines were the remnant from before the Fall who preserved the spiritual history of humanity not only so future generations would know what happened but also so the enlightened state of being humanity is created for is not forgotten and can be pursued. Craig is correct in that they used the qualities of natural phenomena representatively. This allowed them to describe the shifts in humanity’s state of mind and the consequent accommodations to human physiology e.g. expanding frontal lobe, type of breathing, even the end of a need for the mysterious Eustachian Tubes, so humanity could remain connected with God’s Love and Wisdom albeit in a much shallower manner. Moses in fact recorded these chapters from a collection of texts while in Egypt some of which are mentioned in the Bible, The Wars of Jehovah and Book of Enunciations. Unfortunately that vast collection remains lost though the similar themes found around the world, Paradise, Flood, Ark, etc. give testimony to this genre.
This for me is the most confusing part about trying to understand the Bible. Is it real or just a figurative story? Because if the latter is true - while one would solve a lot of the problems that arise when looking at Genesis 1-11 from a scientific point of view - there still remains the issue of the genealogy that connects Adam to the historic characters of Abraham and Jesus. I pray that I will find more insight on this topic in the future.
The genealogy is not an exact list of every single individual, it is abridged, meant to highlight central figures that connect the specific individuals. We see this with the use of alternative ancestors between Matthew & Luke’s account of Jesus’ genealogy.
Also, I think you should step back and understand figurative does not equate to false. Jesus used much figurative language to relay His parables to us, does that make the message any less true? No. Just because the literary style does not match our modern standards of how we record historical information does not make it false, only different.
So the “mytho” refers to the narrative……and the “history” refers to actual historical persons…… Like “Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer” Am I understanding the genre correctly?
@@ryanadams5719 I wouldn't say that he is not be a real christian because of that. I didn't see the arguments for why he believes it, but if he's wrong, it may be an honest mistake, not an heresy.
@@samuelcallai4209 ……..I made no such claim,either…..Just that WLC has taken a postmodern stance…….Which in My opinion is a problem for Christian apologetics.
"Myth" comes from the Greek "mythos" which simply means "account", as in one's account or recollection of events. So Dr. Craig's point, as I understand it, is that Genesis could be rethought as an ancient myth, that is, a telling of events from a different time and place that must be read with that lense instead of our modern, literal understanding.
It is and it isn't. There was no literal fruit eaten from a tree, that is a symbolic image to represent something we desired. Genesis is layered and interesting. Do you not see that it can be both true and non-literal? People do it all the time in novels and stories. Objects or events in any story can be given to mean something in the overall picture. It stands to reason God wouldn't tell us an entire history of the world or our origins or the book would be even bigger than it is. The geniusness of it is that it condenses what we need to know in relation to everything that happens from there. We are given symbolic images to represent a truth. Let me ask you this. If the world is round then why is it not described as being round when God creates the world in Genesis 1? But we know today the world is round. But in Genesis it is described as an expanse between the waters above and below. It's both true and not true. We would be mad to say the Earth is flat because of this. It goes against all reason and evidence. But it isn't to say God didn't create the world or that man didn't fall.
I think this josh guy is cause dr Craig to look at things really weird. This josh dude has some weird ideas. Em any time I hear him speak I’m bothered by it.
I like Craig on philosophical issues.. not much on theological and historical parts... He seems to philosophize everything.. Kent hovind and turek.kem ham and are best at it
What about actual scholars like John Walton? We need to read these Hebrew texts with the ancient context. Remember that the Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek primarily, not English.
I think that the Creation story in Genesis isn't literal and shouldn't be taken literally. I view at as a story and that it is symbolic and poetic in nature. The same goes for the creation of Adam and Eve, however I acknowledge that they might've existed. But not as the first humans and the parents of mankind, that's scientifically impossible. The Bible is not a science text book! Mythohistory also can apply to Gilgamesh and Homer's Illiad with the Trojan War.
The Jews and the Christians in the Bible ( even including Jesus ) would have understood Genesis as being literal truth. Craig is really stating that they were wrong. If they can be wrong by believing Genesis to be literal truth, then it follows that they can be wrong in others parts of the Bible as well. And they were wrong. Jesus, the Apostles, and the Church all believed that they were living in the last days of the World. They all believed that the end of all things was at the door. They were wrong, Even C.S. Lewis ( whom Craig mentioned in the video ) says that Jesus was by wrong in believing that He would return again in the lifetime of the Apostles and early Church.
Unless one receives an understanding or vision that informs one's perception such that the "end of all things" has occurred for them, and that's what they see in precursor form when they look at the material world. In large part, Metaphysical Idealism is philosophically correct. Reality is the perception of it in one's consciousness, that they form from the (non-existent) "objectively viewed world". But then, this reply is to theists, not soon-gone and wholly irrelevant hominids.
