This article is reprinted from 2009, with permission, from Doug Kutilek’s free newsletter “As I See It,” then a monthly electronic magazine.
One of the most often-quoted devotional comments in Matthew Henry’s (1662-1714) famous commentary on the Bible is his remark regarding the creation of the first woman from the side of the first man (Genesis 2:21-22)—
“I hold to a historical Adam and Eve, though not on exegetical grounds,” Pahl wrote in his defense to trustees, which CT obtained. “My reasons are more theological in nature….”
Evangelicals look to the Bible to settle important questions of faith. So, faced with a potentially faith-crushing idea like evolution, evangelicals naturally ask right off the bat, “What does the Bible say about that?” And then informed by “what the Bible says,” they are ready to make a “biblical” judgment. This is fine in principle, but in the evolution debate this mindset is a problem: It assumes that the Adam and Eve story is about “human origins.” It isn’t.
