Fresh off of suggesting that abortion may be a tragic yet best allowable option in cases of rape, incest, or for the mental health of the mother, and that that belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ is not necessary to be a Christian,famed New Testament scholar N.T. Wright has shared some thoughts on the origins of Adam and Eve.
On a recent episode of Premiere Unbelievable?, after being asked whether or not Adam and Eve literally existed, Wright opines:
Mike Bird: “What about Adam? Is there a historical Adam? Do we need a historical Adam?
N.T. Wright:’The way that I’m inclined to see an original human pair, let’s put it like that, is to say that undoubtedly from all the historical evidence we’ve got, there were what we might call hominids, human-like creatures, and we might even call them proto-humans, for many generations, perhaps for many thousands of years before
the time we’re now talking about.
But that just as God called Abraham and Sarah and said, ‘now I’ve got a special purpose for you.’ So it seems to me perfectly reasonable to suppose that God would say to one pair of proto-homidids, whatever we’re to call them,’ come with me. I’ve got a special purpose for you. I’m now going to enable you to reflect my image into the world. and reflect the praises of creation back to me. And your purpose will be to bring the, at the moment, rather random and chaotic world under my saving sovereign stewardship.’
So that it seems to me is a way of saying that if there was an original Adam and Eve, that would be what it was all about. Not, I mean, what we’re getting away from, of course, is any idea of seven periods of 24 hours. That’s certainly not what Genesis 1 is trying to communicate.”
This echoes the sentiment of another prominent apologist, William Lane Craig, who believes Adam and Eve were members of the archaic pre-homosapien species Homo heidelbergensis that lived 750,000 years ago, and represents those who received a ‘divinely caused’ genetic mutation
