RWTW – 2: Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve

Were Adam and Eve merely allegorical (fictional) persons?

Since the theory of the “Mitochondrial Eve”, a single common matrilineal ancestor of mankind, sprung up in the 70’s and 80’s is frequently touted by the Witnesses as being solid proof of the existence of Adam and Eve (and by extension, the veracity of the Bible).  There’s also been research in molecular genetics that points to a “Y-chromosomal Adam”, a most recent common ancestor (MRCA) from whom all living people are descended patrilineally (tracing back only along the paternal lines of their family tree).   While initial findings did seem to suggest that the biblical idea of Adam and Eve may in fact be true, and in 1980, WM Brown first proposed that modern humans possessed a mitochondrial common ancestor that may have lived as recently as 180,000 years ago, continued and refined research has proven that the actual answer is considerably more complicated.

“The mitochondrial Eve hypothesis emanates from a confusion between gene genealogies and individual genealogies” – Francisco Ayala.  It’s difficult to get into the subject without getting too technical, but the concept of the most recent common ancestor doesn’t indicate a sole progenitor of the species.  Imagine a family tree, starting with the children at the bottom.  Adding the parents above them in the tree would connect the siblings with their parents, or common ancestors.  Adding the next generation connects all first cousins.  As earlier and earlier generations are mapped, it eventually becomes possible to trace a path of direct descendants all the way back down to every living person at the bottom of the map.  The theory of a mitochondrial Eve doesn’t mean that she was the only woman alive at the time, only that all women alive today descended in a direct unbroken female line from her.  In fact, nuclear DNA studies indicate that there has never been a “genetic bottleneck” as low as two people, or even eight (as would have been the case with Noah and his family being the only survivors of the flood) the size of the ancient human population never dropped below tens of thousands.  Other women alive at Eve’s time have descendants alive today, each of their lines of descent included at least one male at some point in the past, thereby breaking the mitochondrial DNA lines of descent. By contrast, Eve’s lines of descent to each person alive today includes precisely one purely matrilineal line.

Does the Bible present Adam simply as an allegorical character representing all early mankind?

How about that “Y-chromosomal Adam”?  Again, while evidence indicates a paternal MCRA, this does not indicate that he was the only living male progenitor of the species, or even that he was a contemporary, or even a mate, of Eve.  In fact, current evidence from molecular genealogy studies indicates that he lived approximately 70,000 _after_ the mitochondrial Eve.

The bible certainly presents Adam as a factual character, undoubtedly, but reason must depend on reproducible, testable evidence.  Consider that the account of Genesis was “completed by Moses in the wilderness of Sinai in the year 1513 B.C.E.” (Insight, p.919)  It’s a written account of the oral history of the Israelites.  And not just the recent history, where Moses could have checked his facts with a grandfather or great grandfather.  No, we’re talking almost 30 generations – thousands of years for these stories to have been passed down to him.  Considering the factual and perceptual distortion of events that can happen just between a single generation, it becomes very difficult to rationally consider even that the account as Moses wrote it (even if we were privy to the original text, as opposed to a translation of a translation of a copy of a copy of a copy of a translation etc.) to be anything other than apocryphal.

Does the statement that a serpent spoke to Eve require that the account be allegorical?

Again, this comes from the argument that the accounts as recorded by Moses were untainted by any changes in oral history, and that our text of the bible is similarly unmodified from the original texts.  There is the viewpoint that the Devil spoke through the snake, as if through a ventriloquists dummy, which they correlate with the account of God causing Ba’laam’s she-ass to speak.  With the current testable, reproducible scientific evidence against the existence of Adam and Eve, as well as the high likelihood of a legendary aspect to the Genesis account, the likelihood of chatty snakes becomes more and more dismissible.

How did Jesus himself view the Genesis account?

Jesus did make (obliquely) reference to Adam and Eve at Mat 19:4,5, repeated at Mark 10:6.  Turning to this as evidence of the existence of Adam and Eve despite the information already covered does little to provide a convincing argument.  Given that Jesus existed (still a hotly contested point among the scientific community) and spoke those words, it’s of little surprise that he would have believed the account of Adam and Eve.  It would have hardly been of much benefit to deny the account while attempting to retain a claim of divinity.

If “the first man Adam” was simply allegorical, what about “the last Adam,” Jesus Christ?

From the Reasoning From the Scriptures text:  “Denial that Adam was a real person who sinned against God implies doubt as to the identity of Jesus Christ. Such denial leads to rejection of the reason it was necessary for Jesus to give his life for mankind. Rejection of that means repudiation of the Christian faith.”

I really couldn’t have put it better myself.

Sources:
Takahata, N (January 1993), “Allelic genealogy and human evolution”, Mol. Biol. Evol. 10 (1): 2–22
Dawkins, Richard (2004), The ancestor’s tale: a pilgrimage to the dawn of evolution, Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Ayala, Francisco J.  (December 22, 1995) “The Myth of Eve: Molecular Biology and Human Origins”, Science Vol. 270: p1930
Insight into the Scriptures (1998), “Genesis, Book of”