Adam and Eve

FEC affirms a historical Adam and Eve with a real vocation, a real command, and a real Fall. Their theological priority does not necessarily require them to appear at the biological beginning of humanity within the fallen world’s scientific history.

An artistic rendering of Adam and Eve entering a world whose landscape, life, and human history are already old.

One possible version proposes that Adam and Eve originated in the original good creation and later entered the fallen historical order. By that point, populations biologically continuous with earlier hominins may already have existed. This could account for the people implied by Cain’s fear, his wife, and the community associated with his city.

This possibility creates serious questions. In what sense are Adam and Eve the first humans? What is the image of God? How does sin spread? How should Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 be understood? What relationship could exist between Adam’s descendants and other human populations?

No answer may diminish the dignity of any people. Biological ancestry, spiritual vocation, and moral worth must not be turned into a ranking of human beings. All people known to history are fellow humans and neighbors to be loved.

The proposal should also remain modest about dates. Suggestions that Adam and Eve entered fallen history six to ten thousand years ago are possible extensions, not facts established by FEC itself. Genealogy, archaeology, population genetics, and biblical interpretation all need a place in the discussion.