
William Lane Craig has taken a lot of heat for his In Quest of the Historical Adam, where he tries to sidestep historical issues. Jason Lisle at the Biblical Science Institute offers an eight part series on the topic; this is from the wrap-up, where he addresses Craig’s suggestion that Jesus did not take Genesis literally re Adam and Eve:
Craig: He [Jesus] then cites Genesis 1:27, “male and female he created them,” and weds this statement with Genesis 2:24, “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.” This forms the basis for Jesus’s teaching on divorce. Jesus is interpreting the story of Adam and Eve to discern its implications for marriage and divorce, not asserting its -historicity.
Lisle: Hardly. Jesus is not referencing an allegorical or mythical story to illustrate marriage. Rather, Jesus is citing the historical basis for marriage! The very text Jesus quotes specifically says this, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Matthew 19:5; Genesis 2:24). That is, the reason people get married today is because God created Eve from Adam’s rib as a helper suitable for him (Genesis 2:20-22).
A non-historical story cannot have “implications for marriage and divorce” in the real world. If Jesus were referring to a non-historical, allegorical, or mythical story, then He made a bad argument; fiction cannot explain why marriage is what it is. Only history can do that. But, of course, Jesus is God and would therefore never make a bad argument. Matthew 19 shows that Jesus believed in the literal historical details of the creation of Adam and Eve as recorded in Genesis 1 and 2, and that such details are the reason why marriage is what it is today.
As I illustrated in a previous article, imagine someone said, “The reason we celebrate Independence Day on July 4th is because that is the day David Levinson and Steve Hiller saved the world from invading extra-terrestrials in the movie Independence Day.” That would be absurd because the fictional events in a movie do not affect the real world. Rather, The United States celebrates Independence Day on July 4th because that is historically when the final draft of the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress. Many other nations celebrate their Independence on a different date because of the various events that actually happened in their respective histories.
Jason Lisle, “The Historical Adam – Part 8: Closing Remarks” at Biblical Science Institute (January 7, 2022)
Life might be easier for Craig if he just became a theistic evolutionist, embraced Darwinism, and sidestepped issues around what the Bible says about human history.
You may also wish to read: Casey Luskin: The mytho-history of Adam, Eve, and William Lane Craig. Long a defender of orthodoxy, Craig seems to want to prune the orthodoxies he is expected to defend. But the pruning process in which he is engaged can never really stop. The “sensible God” is most likely the one looking back at us from our medicine cabinet mirrors.