In this post I pose a number of questions regarding the eternal issue of Genesis vs. science. I don't claim to have any solutions here. Many parts of the Old Testament have always struck me as rather primitive and problematic for the modern believer. A particularly thorny issue for the modern believer is how to reconcile the fact that the Book of Genesis strongly implies that human beings are only 6,000 or so years old, with the fact that the best current scientific estimates say that homo sapiens sapiens began as a species approximately 200,000 years ago? I suspect that many of the Christian intelligentsia simply ignore this question and sweep it under a rug. The world class Christian theologian and philosopher William Lane Craig has admitted that this is what he has done in a recent podcast, and that thorough research into the "scary" issue may lead him to conclude that the Genesis account is simply factually incorrect.
I should point out that this issue is logically distinct from, albeit still associated with, the evolution debate.[1] After all, even if one denies that humans have common
ancestors, the science simply precludes humans' being ~6,000 years old -- our
species is much older. I suppose one could simply deny the validity of all the
science that leads to this conclusion, but that seems to be completely indefensible. Multiple strands of scientific evidence coalesce to demonstrate that human beings are far more ancient than 6,000 or so years. Even if one grants that there
are gaps in the genealogies of Genesis, which seems plausible, the gaps are
going to give you a few thousand years extra at best (perhaps dating Adam and Eve c. ~10,000 years ago); they're not going to bridge the
huge gap between 6,000 and ~200,000 years. And most scholarly
commentators on Genesis seem to think that the the genealogies were meant to be
taken more or less in a historical sense. They seem to be correct to me; even if many
aspects of Genesis are not meant to be taken literally, which doesn't seem implausible, the idea that the
genealogies are not meant to be taken more or less literally strikes me as
far-fetched. Perhaps the longevity of some of the people in the genealogies are exaggerated, but certainly the genealogies as a whole are meant to be more or less historical. From what I have read, it seems safe to infer that the Christian tradition has overwhelmingly viewed them as historical. So the burden of proof is on the exegete who claims otherwise.
Some Christian theologians and philosophers have tried to
reconcile recent science and Genesis by saying that homo sapiens sapiens go back ~200,000 years, but souls were only infused in two individuals of the
species, viz., Adam and Eve, about 6,000 - 10,000 years ago. While this is a
creative solution, it honestly strikes me as the machinations of delusional rationalizing theologians. There are multiple problems with this narrative, but
I will just list two. First, since we would have inherited harmful mutations from our
common ancestors we wouldn't have been initially created free from death,
disease, etc., as the Christian tradition has always claimed was the case prior
to the Fall of man. Second, we have evidence of tools being used and pictures
being drawn considerably earlier than 10,000 years ago, but the use of tools
and especially artwork suggests that there were minds roaming the Earth considerably
earlier than 10,000 years ago. So the idea the idea that Adam and Eve were the
first humanoid persons or creatures with minds on Earth (around 6,000 to 10,000 years ago) seems to be incorrect.
So what is the solution for the Christian or Jewish believer in Genesis? I don't know. I personally believe that the genealogies are meant to be largely historical, that modern science is correct that the human species are far more ancient than 6,000 - 10,000 years old, and that the aforementioned ensoulment theory is hopeless.
-------------------------------------------
[1] For what its worth, I personally think that Michael Behe's position is the closest to the truth -- viz., that random mutations and natural selection are certainly not the motor of evolutionary change, but that common ancestry is still true to some extent (though I confess to have only devoted any substantial time to studying the former; I adopt the latter position because that is what the scientific consensus says is true, and the prima facie case for common ancestry -- as distinct from the bolder claim of universal common ancestry -- seems decent).
