Q. It sounds like you are arguing that there are several ideas that might need to be reassessed by scholars. What sort of reassessments are needed? A. That is right. If we are following the conversation in historical theology, The Genealogical Adam and Eve should provoke a reassessment of key revisions to historical doctrine by several scholars over the last century. To engage with science, many scholars rejected monogenesis by openly embracing the idea of co-Adamites in the present day.... Read more

Q. One of the ideas which is flagged as problematic throughout your book is ‘polygenesis’. Now I understand the problems with a certain view of that, which led to racist speculations about Ham, Shem etc. as the origins of different races, but I don’t see any problem with the notion of polygenesis if by that we mean that human beings were created in his image by God in various places on earth both inside and outside Eden. Why is this... Read more

Q. If you disagreed with William Lane Craig on such a significant point, why did you endorse his book? A.  Despite these real disagreements, Craig’s work is important. He is pushing back on overreach by theological revisionists at BioLogos. As a scientist, I helped Craig. He had good faith questions about human origins, and really wanted to understand. In response, Biologos claimed, falsely, that his understanding of evolutionary creation conflicted with the evidence. When the ruse was found out, they... Read more

Q. So why will some scholars still see value in an ancient Adam and Eve? Why do you think they take this path?   A. In view of reception history, an ancient Adam and Eve seems like a “wrong-turn.” It seems to have arisen only in response to an erroneous understanding of science. The monogenesis tradition focused on original sin and Romans 5:12-14. The doctrine is not grounded in the Image of God, but rather about humanness in the distant... Read more

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Q. One of the issues I have with Bill Craig’s fine book The Quest for the Historical Adam is the willingness to take a text like Gen. 2 as basically myth, with the exception of there being a real historical Adam and Eve at some point in antiquity. He’s willing to basically dismiss the social ethos of the text which suggests a rather recent Adam and Eve during an era where religious sacrifices were offered and crops were grown, in... Read more

Q. One of things you do not discuss in your book is the fact that the vast majority of the Bible is not about all human beings and all of history for that matter, it is about the origins of God’s people and their history including salvation history. People such as the Philistines or Hittites of the OT or in the NT the Greeks or Romans only come into the picture insofar as they come into contact with God’s people.... Read more