News Coverage on Dr. Craig's Book

KEVIN HARRIS: Bill, this is amazing that this many people in the first 12 hours went to the Fox News article. Fox News has done an article.^[1] They’ve done a story. And 1.5 million views on this story concerning you, Joshua Swamidass, and your book In Quest of the Historical Adam. Isn’t it amazing that that many people? You know, it's probably up to about 3 million now. I haven't had a chance to check. But this is quite a number of people who have seen this.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. Clearly this topic arouses a great deal of interest.

KEVIN HARRIS: The Fox News article starts like this,

Many Christians have rejected the scientific theory of evolution in part because they think it rules out the existence of a historical Adam and Eve. Yet some scientists and theologians argue that recent breakthroughs in genetics make a historical Adam and Eve compatible with evolution, and that this development may help bridge what many see as a conflict between faith and science.

Do you think that that pretty much accurately sums up what your and Josh’s books are addressing and perhaps some of the conversations they're producing?

DR. CRAIG: Well, I think it's certainly true that we want to bridge the gap between faith and science so that there is not a conflict between these. But, in fact, Josh's book has almost nothing to say about breakthroughs in modern genetics. His contention is that the idea of a genetic Adam and Eve is really irrelevant and that's why he calls his proposal the “genealogical” Adam. He wants to focus on Adam and Eve as genealogical, not genetic, ancestors of us all. In my book, I do draw upon Josh's work in population genetics to show that if Adam and Eve are located far enough back in the past that they could in fact be the genetic ancestors of us all in addition to being the genealogical ancestors of every human being on the face of the Earth. So we are both trying to show that the existence of an original human pair is not incompatible with modern scientific theories.

KEVIN HARRIS: The article continues,

[Swamidass] argues that by 1 A.D., every person on Earth was descended from Adam and Eve.

Swamidass' model of a Genealogical Adam and Eve (GAE) claims that biological humans may still share a common ancestor with apes according to the theory of evolution, but God could have created Adam and Eve from the dust and a rib, without parents, and these two became the ancestors of all humans by 1 A.D.

How does Josh think those two things work together? That is, that we may share a common ancestry with apes but that Adam and Eve were specially created?

DR. CRAIG: This is somewhat confusing, and so let me try to explain Josh's view. His view is that in the history of primate evolution there were these pre-human hominids that eventually evolved into human beings, but he thinks that God created out of the dust of the Earth in the Garden of Eden a very special human pair, Adam and Eve, who were not the result of biological evolution but were special de novo creations by God. But outside the Garden, so to speak, there were thousands – masses – of these hominins running around who were not in any way related to or descended from Adam and Eve. Josh thinks that when Adam and Eve then fell and were expelled from the Garden their descendants began to interbreed with these people outside the Garden. Therefore the genetic material that you and I carry today includes not simply the human genetic material from Adam and Eve but also includes the genetic material from these products of biological evolution that existed outside the Garden. He hypothesizes that if Adam and Eve were created somewhere within 10,000 years ago that by A.D. 1 it's possible that every human being on this planet could be descended from Adam and Eve.

KEVIN HARRIS: The article points out that BioLogos, which was founded by Francis Collins, has reversed their position. They've deleted articles denying Adam and Eve and posted articles that echo this new model. Do you think this is significant?

DR. CRAIG: I do. For a while the BioLogos scientists were saying with the greatest emphasis possible that it is impossible that human beings could have descended from a primordial human pair. That has now been shown to be false. In my book on the historical Adam I do discuss these new breakthroughs in population genetics that show that so long as Adam and Eve existed prior to around 500,000 years ago you cannot show that the human race did not descend from such a founding pair. So it is good that BioLogos has come to recognize that their claims were false and exaggerated and so have deleted them.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next, the article brings up your work and also mentions,

Michael Murray, a Christian philosophy professor at Franklin and Marshall College, recently said at an evangelical conference that due to the work of Swamidass, Craig, and others, "we have arrived at the point where we can confidently affirm that the basic evolutionary story is not the threat to Christian orthodoxy that we once feared, and not because we had to compromise on orthodoxy." . . . He said the developments do not make Adam and Eve more or less likely, but they do show that, "for all we know, there might have been a pair that is the ancestor of all extant humans or extant Homo sapiens."

Murray noted that "there was an emerging consensus among both secular scientists and scientists of faith that the relevant empirical data was flatly inconsistent with an ancestral pair." Yet these recent developments have shown "that an ancestral pair is not flatly ruled out as was previously thought."

I wonder – is it important to note that much of this work is not necessarily to offer proof for Adam and Eve but merely to show that the account is not ruled out?

DR. CRAIG: Yes. I think that's quite correct. We mustn't exaggerate our claims. Neither Josh nor I is trying to prove that there was an ancestral human pair. What we're trying to show is that it's not ruled out by contemporary evolutionary science. You can subscribe to the theory of human evolution if you want to and yet also believe that there was a founding pair of the human race.

KEVIN HARRIS: Just expanding on that a little bit, followers of Christ have a range of options, and some of these things that people think would destroy the faith are not doing so. They're not ruled out.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. I think that's right. And I think that's a real strength of Josh and my approaches. We offer two different models of the historical Adam. Josh calls his the recent genealogical Adam, and I call mine the ancient genealogical Adam. The difference between the two is that Josh hypothesizes that Adam existed relatively recently and was not the ancestor of every human being that has lived on this planet. It's only by about A.D. 1 that all people alive at that time share a common ancestor. But prior to that there were untold thousands of people that were not descended from Adam and Eve. I'm unwilling to give up that theological motif from Genesis 1 and 2, and so instead I adopt the hypothesis of a very ancient Adam and Eve who existed earlier than 500,000 years ago. At that point it's so deep in the primordial past that the evidence from population genetics does not rule them out. It is perfectly possible that the genetic divergence that is exhibited by the human population on Earth today could have stemmed from a founding pair just so long as they lived prior to 500,000 years ago, as I argue in the book. So we have two different models, both of which we claim are consonant with the biblical data though they involve different interpretations of that data. So either one is an option for Christians.

KEVIN HARRIS: The article brings up Nathan Lents of Skeptic magazine. I want to get to the piece that he just wrote but first this article also interviewed Fuz Rana from Reasons to Believe, the Hugh Ross organization, and quotes him as saying,

the models of Swamidass and Craig "both suffer from theological problems, despite their agreement with mainstream science." Rana said that since the models do not consider Adam and Eve the sole progenitors of humanity, they "potentially put key Christian doctrines (such as human exceptionalism, the Fall, Original Sin and the Atonement) in harm’s way."

I didn't know Fuz thought that. Your thoughts?

DR. CRAIG: Well, I thought these statements were really sloppy on his part. It's evident that he has not read my book because my book defends the universal progenitorship of Adam and Eve – that every human being who has ever lived on the face of this planet is descended from this primordial couple. I defend the historicity of the fall into sin. So it's perfectly consistent with the doctrine of original sin if one wants to affirm that. I think that he was being very careless in these allegations.

KEVIN HARRIS: Let's turn to the article^[2] written for Skeptic magazine from Dr. Nathan Lents who's professor of biology at John Jay College of the City University of New York where he's also Director of the Honors Programs. He maintains the Human Evolution blog, hosts the science podcast “This World of Humans.” He wrote a very complimentary article. This article is very complimentary both to you and the book. You must be pleased at least with that.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. I was. I was afraid to read the review because I know Lents is a naturalist, not a Christian in any way. I thought, oh my, what is he going to say? But Josh Swamidass alerted me to the review and said, “It's really good.” So I screwed my courage to the sticking point and read his review and was indeed very gratified by Professor Lents' response to the book.

KEVIN HARRIS: You've sat on a panel discussion with Nathan Lents as well.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. It rather tickled me in this review that he tells an anecdote of his experience on this panel. He said, “Josh and I were brought in [that is, Nathan and Josh] to serve as scientific advisors to the discussion and Craig was brought in to provide theological and philosophical perspective. But as the discussion went on, Craig kept straying out of his lane and entering into the scientific discussion with us. It was evident that he really knew his stuff. Now I know why. He was working on this book at that time.” I'll tell you, for me to read that, that was just so gratifying to think that a professional biologist would pay that kind of compliment to me. I was deeply appreciative.

KEVIN HARRIS: It's okay to get out of your lane every once in a while. In the introduction of the article he says,

One of the most influential conservative Christian theologians goes all-in for evolutionary science and finds room for a Paleolithic Adam and Eve. This has left some schools of Christian orthodoxy scrambling to find a way forward. With any luck, they may start to reevaluate their opposition to evolution altogether.

You know, In Quest of the Historical Adam (your book) isn't really about evolution.

DR. CRAIG: I think that's a very discerning insight on your part, Kevin. It's not about evolution. The thrust of the book is to ask, “When did Adam and Eve originate, and is their existence compatible with modern scientific theory?” But I'm not interested in, or even addressing the question, about how Adam and Eve originated. My question is entirely about when it happened.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next he continues,

William Lane Craig is one of the most prolific and influential philosophers in the history of the evangelical tradition. . . .

I was therefore quite surprised when an advanced copy of Craig’s newest book, In Quest of the Historical Adam, arrived in my office with a request for an endorsement. What would I, an atheist and evolutionary biologist, find to endorse in a book about Adam and Eve? Quite a lot, it turns out. To be sure, evolution is not the main focus of the book. . . .

What I actually found was a penetrating literary analysis of the creation story of Genesis . . . It was satisfying to read Craig grappling with the fact that Genesis 1 and 2 recount completely different creation stories, that no one in the ancient near east thought snakes could talk, and that literal days and nights could not exist before the creation of the sun and earth. Craig therefore concludes that the creation account in Genesis is mythical.

However, Craig’s analysis goes further and argues that the creation story of Genesis is not pure myth, but rather a genre known as mytho-history, in which the author is indeed recounting real events but in a figurative way.

I think it's gratifying that he explains what you mean by mytho-history here rather than just leaving it at pure myth.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. Isn't it interesting that this secular scientist gets the genre analysis that I propose for Genesis 1-11 better than many Christian theologians and interpreters. But that's quite right. It is a narrative about historical events and people that actually lived and wrought but it's told in the metaphorical and figurative language of myth.

KEVIN HARRIS: The article goes on,

Importantly, Craig restricts this classification to the first eleven chapters of Genesis, declaring that much of the rest of the Bible does attempt to recount historical events with literal accuracy.

The classification of the biblical creation story as mytho-history provides Christians a means to hold on to the parts of Genesis that are essential to their faith without requiring them to believe the absurdities of a woman made from a rib or a piece of fruit that imparts knowledge upon consumption.

Nathan is essentially saying that any thoughtful Christian should applaud your treatment of these difficult elements in Genesis, and he acknowledges in the article that you maintain a high view of Scripture.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. He does see that. He recognizes that I am a conservative theologian and that I'm doing my best to defend the inerrancy of Scripture by giving this genre analysis that allows us to affirm the truths of the narrative but without these literalistic interpretations of these figurative elements.

KEVIN HARRIS: Nathan continues,

Emboldened by his confidence that Adam and Eve were real, but unbound by the literal placement of them in the Garden of Eden a few thousand years ago, Craig sets out to determine the earliest origins of humankind so that he can locate Adam there instead. . . . what follows is an honest exploration of the scientific evidence for what constitutes “the first” truly human being. Craig’s work here is sweeping and impressive. In just a couple hundred pages, he summarizes much of what is known from the archaeology and paleontology of ancient human relatives, and what we know of the brains, behaviors, and cognitive abilities of extinct hominins such as Homo erectus, Homo habilis, and Neanderthals. Leaving no stone unturned in his quest to identify when and where the first humans lived, there is even an entire chapter on paleoneurology!

Now there's a term we don't often hear – paleoneurology.

DR. CRAIG: Right. Most of us have heard of paleontology which is the study of ancient fossils (remains of creatures that are now extinct), but there's a whole range of these paleo disciplines in science that are relevant to human origins, and one of them is paleoneurology which is the study of ancient brains. It's highly significant because we want to find out whether or not these early hominins had a brain capacity that would lie within the modern range and so afford the possibility of having cognitive abilities that would be comparable to ours. It is shocking how deep into the past that kind of cognitive capacity goes. For example, Neanderthals were not slouching cavemen but rather they had a cranial capacity that is even larger than Homo sapiens. In fact, over the last 10,000 years the brain capacity or volume of Homo sapiens has actually been decreasing. So Neanderthals, in terms of their brain size, compare very favorably with modern human beings.

KEVIN HARRIS: Continuing the article, Nathan says,

In wrestling with the hominin fossil record, Craig declares that pretty much any way that you define “human,” Neanderthals and Denisovans meet the definition. His tour through the genomes of those two species bolsters this conclusion, leading him to surmise that humanity, as we define it, first emerged in the common ancestor of humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans. Craig put it even more strongly in an email to me, stating, “It is scientifically untenable and morally unconscionable to regard other persons who are basically just like us as subhuman.”

Would you like to expand on that?

DR. CRAIG: Sure. What I was saying to Nathan was that when you look at the archeology and the paleontology of these other ancient human beings like Neanderthals and Denisovans you find that they were basically just like us. Now, of course they had some anatomical differences, but they had cognitive capacities that were comparable to modern Homo sapiens. Therefore it would be scientifically untenable to think of them as subhuman. That's not what the evidence supports. And I think it would be morally unconscionable as well. It would literally be a sort of racism to say that Homo sapiens alone are truly human and to dehumanize these other ancient humans who belong to a different species just because they're not Homo sapiens.

KEVIN HARRIS: Nathan says,

After expertly summarizing the fossil evidence for the evolution of human personhood, Craig arrives at a stunningly precise conclusion: the historical Adam was a real individual, of the species Homo heidelbergensis, that lived in central Africa around 750,000 years ago. He bases this conclusion on a range of genetic, archaeological, and paleontological evidence. . . .

 The shockwave of this book is already being felt through the evangelical community. Will Craig be hailed as a visionary, or a pariah? Only time will tell. Of note, the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary has already scheduled a special conference on Craig’s book in March 2022.

What do you know about this upcoming conference?

DR. CRAIG: It's a conference that is organized by Ken Keithley who is a theologian at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and who has been deeply interested in and involved in conversations about the historical Adam over the last several years. He's interacted with Josh's work. He knows my work. He helped to chair the panel discussion of my book at the Evangelical Theological Society Conference in Dallas-Fort Worth this past November. And with a grant from the Templeton Foundation, Ken has organized this conference at Southeastern that will bring Josh and me both into the seminary to lecture on these subjects, and then there will be a panel of experts from different fields to interact with our proposals. I do want to say one thing though about Nathan's summary because it was something of an inaccuracy there when he said it's a stunningly precise conclusion to classify Adam and Eve as Homo heidelbergensis. I think it’s hardly precise. This species existed probably for hundreds of thousands of years. I'm just placing them somewhere in that range and, in fact, I don't claim that they lived in central Africa as Nathan reports. On the contrary, one of the striking things about Homo heidelbergensis is that he is a truly cosmopolitan human species. Remains are found in Africa, in the Middle East, in Asia. So it’s possible that he originated in any of those regions and then migrated to the other regions where in Africa for example he evolved into Homo sapiens, in Europe he evolved into Neanderthals and Denisovans, before finally going extinct himself. So it's perfectly possible that Adam and Eve lived in the traditional location of the Garden of Eden in the Middle East. They would have done so on my model simply vastly, vastly earlier than what is normally assumed.

KEVIN HARRIS: Homo heidelbergensis. I actually practiced saying it, and I still botched it. The camera comes on, the adrenaline.

DR. CRAIG: You can call him Heidelberg man.

KEVIN HARRIS: Heidelberg man.

DR. CRAIG: There you go.

KEVIN HARRIS: I've heard you refer to that. Heidelbergensis. Heidelberg man. Continuing, Nathan writes that your efforts, Bill, may divide the traditionalist and revisionist Christian camps.

But for the secular and scientific communities, Craig’s book is an encouraging step forward. Far too often, the evangelical approach is to either deny, ignore, or discredit evolutionary science; or, even worse, they attempt to twist, misinterpret, or misuse the evidence to support their preferred conclusions. Craig does the opposite, thoughtfully embracing the evidence rather than quarreling with it. By following where the data lead, rather than the other way around, Craig is modeling a healthy relationship between religion and science. . . . Craig even gives examples of how future evidence could lead him to revise his position.

That's another real compliment there.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. I appreciate that. Given the genre analysis I offer of Genesis 1-11, we're free to follow the scientific evidence where it leads, and the evidence is fascinating. It was an exhilarating study to engage in. Doing this book I learned so much. It's really deepened my understanding of the history of mankind on this planet.

KEVIN HARRIS: Nathan says,

There are no such individuals as the first in a new species; that’s not how speciation works. But, surely knowing this, Craig doesn’t get tripped up on species designations and instead simply asks, “What does it mean to be fully human?”, followed by, “when and where were the first individuals to meet those criteria?” He begins with a theological question, uses theology to answer it, then asks a scientific question and uses scientific evidence to answer it.

Any comments on speciation there that he brings up?

DR. CRAIG: Sure. What Nathan is talking about there is that scientists believe that new species originate as populations and not as isolated individuals. So the idea is that there would be a whole population of non-human or pre-human hominins and that this group would evolve very slowly and progressively as a tribe. So there wouldn't be a sort of first man or first woman but there would be a kind of broad front of evolutionary development as this population as a whole evolves. But, as Nathan rightly sees, my book is not about evolution. My interest is not in how humanity originates but rather when humanity originated. And so my hypothesis is that there is nothing that is contrary to the scientific evidence about thinking that there was an original human pair from whom all human beings on Earth are descended. That's the view that I defend in the book.

KEVIN HARRIS: Nathan concludes the article saying,

I am aware that few in the skeptical community will share my enthusiasm for this wave of evangelical Christians embracing modern evolutionary science.

I want to stop right there. If one were to just read this article, they may get the impression that you're an apologist for evolution.

DR. CRAIG: You are really on the ball today in catching these nuances and I appreciate it very much. I would distinguish between accepting a hypothesis and embracing a hypothesis. Many times mathematicians or scientists will simply say, “Let's accept this hypothesis and see what follows from it. Let's test it. Let's see how it holds up. Let's even seek to falsify the hypothesis by the evidence.” But that doesn't involve believing it or embracing it. On the other hand, someone who embraces a hypothesis actually believes it to be true. In this book I don't embrace evolutionary theory with regard to human origins. That's just not the interest in the book. Rather, what I do is I provisionally accept that hypothesis and then ask, “Is that hypothesis compatible with the existence of a primordial human pair from whom every human being on Earth is descended?” And I argue that, no, there's nothing about that hypothesis that rules out a historical Adam and Eve. So it's not an embrace, much as I think Nathan would like me to embrace it. But it is a way of saying there's no incompatibility.

KEVIN HARRIS: Continuing, he says,

Like Craig, I may even be risking my standing in my own community. But as I see it, the chance for peace between science and religion just got a boost, and the big winner here is science. . . . While many skeptics and atheists seem to be holding out for nothing less than the complete dismantling of organized religion, those of us that live in the real world prefer to focus time and energy on bringing together as many people as possible to face the immediate threats facing our society, such as pandemics and climate catastrophes. By working to resolve conflicts over science, Craig, Swamidass, Collins, and others are striking at one of the biggest planks that divides us.

For this reason, I applaud Craig for the courage it took to stake his position so publicly. As he explains so well, Christians can feel safe and secure in celebrating the fascinating science of human evolution. They may even see it as divine.

Thoughts on that conclusion?

DR. CRAIG: Well, I do think that it's a terrible tragedy that so many Christians feel threatened and insecure about modern science when in fact it is so fascinating and interesting. I would love for Christians to find the joy and the fascination of studying what science has to tell us about our world. Just to give one illustration. I just heard in the news this morning that a tribe has been discovered in the Philippines that has 5% of its genome derived from Denisovans. This is the highest of any population group in the world. The Denisovan DNA is quite scant in most populations, but in this Philippine tribe, 5% of their DNA today stems from these genetic ancestors of Denisovans. That’s exciting! That’s fascinating to me to learn that. I think that Nathan is right. We as Christians need to celebrate and explore this wonderful world that God has given us using the tools of modern science at our disposal.

KEVIN HARRIS: Thank you, Bill. We’ll see you on the next Reasonable Faith podcast.^[3]