Sunday, February 14, 2010

Confusion reigns on Genesis 1 & 2

Confusion today certainly reigns in the understanding of Genesis 1 & 2. A recent comment shows how many are thinking about what view is to be taken on Genesis 1 and 2. On the blog, First Things, Christopher Bensen wrote

I would like to see Wheaton open its range of acceptable options on the origin of human species, permitting scientists to endorse any of the following:
(1) reject the idea that Adam and Eve were created from pre-existing human-like creatures, or hominids”; (2) are neutral or “unsure” on the hominid theory; (3)affirm that “God gave a human spirit to a pair of pre-existing human-like creatures, or hominids”; or (4) deny the historicity of Adam and Eve and think of Genesis as a wholly “theological document.”

He was addressing what has been happening at Wheaten College, an evangelical college in the USA.
Consider the confusion involved in Bensen's enthusiasm for Scientists who would endorse any of points 1-4. The confusions involves people arbitrarily selecting from the text of Genesis 1 what they like against what offends their opinions. So many moderns are taking the approach that Genesis 1 is purely a literary piece given in figurative language so that Adam's evolving from some hominid is a possibility. However they still want to say that Adam and Eve were some creature that God breathed into at some point so that they became "a living being in the image of God." However the text of Genesis 1 clearly says that Eve was created from the rib of Adam, not from some hominid. Satan's questions to Eve, "Has God said" is alive and well. Deception in many claiming to be Christians are rampant. I am not making a judgment here about people's salvation but merely point out that this is happening frequently within the family of God.

And consider also point 4 a wholly nonsensical statement. To say that Genesis is wholly a Theological document is to state the obvious. It is a Theological statement, it's the Word of God. It is what God has revealed to us for our benefit. However being a Theological statement does not evacuate the text of truth nor historicity in the sense of it being an actual event that really happened.

In Christ,
Gary

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