[In Genesis 2:7] The verb “form,” as J. Oliver Buswell observed, “gives no specifications as to the process by which the forming was accomplished. The result is all that is specified. Moses is here referring to the simple, obvious fact that the human body is made of the common elements of the soil”

C. JOHN COLLINS Reply to Richard Belcher, “Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? A review”:
Reformation21 article, February 2012

Let me begin by thanking those who manage this site for the opportunity to reply to Professor Belcher’s review. Reviewers of my Adam and Eve book on the blogosphere — people who do not know me — have explained to me all manner of things about my beliefs and inner life, things I never knew before. Of course all I can do there is ignore such divinations; but I consider this site to be more responsible, and more worthy of attention.

I would like for the person reading my book to come away thinking that the Bible writers all wanted us to believe that —

The human kind is actually one family, with one set of ancestors for us all. God acted specially (or “supernaturally”) to form our first parents, Adam and Eve. Our first ancestors, at the headwaters of the human race, brought sin and dysfunction into the world of human life.

I also hope that the reader who has worked through my apologetic, and my discussion of the sciences, would consider that this position actually does the best job of explaining our daily experience of living. Whether Professor Belcher saw this goal of mine I cannot be sure; he certainly found enough things he did not like that he didn’t make much of this.

I had to wonder whether the problem was my own bad writing — which is a shameful failing, though not one that undermines Biblical authority. However, I was emboldened by Fred Zaspel’s review of my book in Credo (January 2012), 76-79. He managed to see pretty well what I was trying to do, and where the various parts of my argument fit in; so the “bad writing” explanation can’t be all there is.

I will aim to be relatively brief in this reply, not because I have only a little to say, but rather because I have to focus on key questions as concisely as I can. If I leave any point in Professor Belcher’s review unremarked, that does not mean I let it stand, only that I have aimed to be concise. My theme here is that Professor Belcher’s review of my book misrepresents my actual arguments, comes very close to circular argument in his own assertions about Genesis 2:7, and fails to engage what I have said about the nature of history writing.

I don’t think he really attended to my own explicit statements about what I was trying to do in the book. In the end, he contends for a notion of Biblical authority that is out of step with, say, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, and he even raises the specter of my discussion providing cover for a candidate for the ministry denying the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

More a “Word of Warning” than a “Review”

First, it’s important to see that Professor Belcher’s post isn’t properly in the genre “Review” at all. Instead, its genre is “Word of Warning,” and its logic and rhetoric are along the lines of, “This is a big step onto an irretrievably slippery slope.” Consider, for example, his short description of my themes, and his lack of attention to the goals I explicitly state, before his leap into what’s wrong with the book.

The Obligation to Represent Accurately

But even a word of warning is obligated to represent accurately and fairly the person warned against; and Professor Belcher has not met that obligation. For example, he says of me, “he actually says that the Bible should be understood as non-literal, pictorial, and symbolic (pp. 17, 20, 31).” I say no such thing, as any reader who checks his page references and reads them in context will discover. I do say — and I know of no evangelical who disagrees with this — that biblical writers can make use of pictorial and symbolic language to communicate historical truth. And I also say — and here there is debate among evangelicals — that this is the case in Gen 1-11 (which I address in great detail in the book). My emphasis throughout, however, is that the use of such language does not take away from the historicity of the events described (see especially my discussion on pages 16-19). Let me take one of his cited instances to show what I actually do say. On page 31, I commented on Richard Purtill’s distinction between “gospel” and “myth” (and, by the way, reject “myth” as a proper characterization for Genesis 1-11):

I think I would restate the point Purtill makes about “gospel” being “literally and historically true in all its important elements (and perhaps even in its details)”: I do not know what “literally” means here. I prefer to say that it is possible for “gospel” to come to us in different kinds of literary form, each having its own set of literary and rhetorical conventions, which we should not prejudge. I am sure, for example, that the four Gospels do fit reasonably well with his description, but am willing to allow that Genesis 1-11 uses a higher degree of pictorial language.

Let the reader judge whether my remark about the Gospels squares with Professor Belcher’s assertion about what I said about the Bible in general.

Further, Professor Belcher describes my position as this: “special creation, which he understands to mean that God intervened to set apart the first couple as human beings.” I don’t know what he means by “set apart”; it is not an expression I use in this sense. Instead, on page 117-18 I quote with approval what John Bloom said:

At present either of these transitions [in the paleontological record] seems sharp enough that we can propose that the special creation of man occurred in one of these gaps and that it was not bridged by purely natural means.

In saying “what he calls special creation,” Professor Belcher seems to imply that I have used the term improperly. But my terminology is entirely legitimate; if we like, we can use Benjamin Warfield’s term “mediate creation,” which denotes “God miraculously bringing about something new out of previously existing matter.” (For more discussion, see Fred Zaspel, “B. B. Warfield on creation and evolution,” Themelios 35:2 [July 2010]). I insist throughout on strong terms like this, not weak or ambiguous ones; and I have good company in using them.

Let me mention one further item: Professor Belcher describes my “acceptance of groups of humans from which Adam comes.” I have no idea where he gets that, unless it is from my discussion of the views of Denis Alexander — views that I reject (see my pages 125-28). If, on the other hand, he thinks that this is an accurate description of the suggestion from Derek Kidner (see my pages 124-25), then I would simply ask him to go back and read the discussion again.

Read More of Collins here
Read Belcher’s critique here