Saving the Original Sinner: How Christians Have Used the Bible's First Man to Oppress, Inspire, and Make Sense of the World, by Karl W. Giberson
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Saving the Original Sinner: How Christians Have Used the Bible's First Man to Oppress, Inspire, and Make Sense of the World, by Karl W. Giberson
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A scientist and former evangelical argues that holding onto a belief in a literal, historical Adam has forced many Christians to reject science and become intellectually isolated from the modern world. The Bible’s first man stands at the center of a crisis that is shaking much of Christianity. In the evangelical world, scholars have been ostracized and banished from their academic communities for endorsing a modern scientific understanding of the world, even as they remained strong Christians. Self-appointed gatekeepers of traditional theology demand intellectual allegiance to an implausible interpretation of the Genesis creation story, insisting that all humanity must be descended from a single, perfect human pair, Adam and Eve. Such a view is utterly at odds with contemporary science. It wasn’t always this way. Karl Giberson spotlights the venerable tradition of Christian engagement with new knowledge and discoveries. When global exploration, anthropology, geology, paleontology, biblical studies, and even linguistics cast doubt on the historicity of Adam and his literal fall into sin, Christians responded by creatively reimagining the creation story, letting Adam “evolve” to accommodate his changing context. Even conservative evangelical institutions until recently encouraged serious engagement with evolutionary science, unhindered by the straitjacket of young-earth creationism, intelligent design, or other views demanding that Adam be a historical figure.Giberson calls for a renewed conversation between science and Christianity, and for more open engagement with new scientific discoveries, even when they threaten central doctrines. Christians should not be made to choose between their faith and their understanding of the universe. Instead, as Giberson argues, they should follow in the once robust tradition of exploring science openly within the broad contours of Christian belief.
Saving the Original Sinner: How Christians Have Used the Bible's First Man to Oppress, Inspire, and Make Sense of the World, by Karl W. Giberson - Amazon Sales Rank: #856336 in Books
- Published on: 2015-06-09
- Released on: 2015-06-09
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.32" h x .84" w x 6.23" l, 1.25 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 240 pages
Saving the Original Sinner: How Christians Have Used the Bible's First Man to Oppress, Inspire, and Make Sense of the World, by Karl W. Giberson Review “An erudite exploration of the Bible’s first man.”—Kirkus Reviews“What is the future of a Christian faith that requires an untenable self-destructive original sin/salvation theology? Honest, candid, enlightening, and disruptive, Giberson establishes a long-overdue foundation for viable faith and challenges Christians to rediscover the wonder, mystery, and reality of their God.”—Richard G. Colling, retired professor of Biology, Olivet Nazarene University. Professor Colling departed Olivet after thirty years of teaching because of criticism of his support of evolution in his book Random Designer“Was Adam the first human being and was his poor choice to eat the forbidden fruit the ‘original sin’ that ruined things for the rest of us? That’s the question that just won’t go away, and for many fundamentalist and evangelical Christians today it is the hill to die on—and the hill on which to sacrifice those who disagree. Through surveying the history of Adam from ancient Israel to the current crisis, and rooted in his own extensive experience, Giberson gives us a compelling, engaging, and accessibly written exposé of this troubling trend—and points us toward a better way of embracing this foundational biblical story.”—Peter Enns is Abram S. Clemens professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University, and author of The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It. Professor Enns was forced to leave Westminster Theological Seminary after 14 years of teaching and administration because of his book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and The Problem of the Old Testament.“Saving the Original Sinner chronicles Christianity's long struggle to understand the meaning of Adam and his Fall into sin, even as it became clear that Adam never existed. Giberson pays homage to those souls bold enough to wrestle with this reality—and who often paid a heavy price for their efforts to integrate the findings of science with the Christian faith. I join those scholars in gratitude for this wise, informative, eloquent, and yet troubling book. The intellectual viability of evangelicalism may well depend on whether its institutions act with the courage that Giberson commends to them.”—John Schneider teaches philosophy at Grand Valley State University and is publishing actively on the implications of evolutionary science for Christian Faith. Long a leading evangelical theologian, Professor Schneider was forced to leave Calvin College after 25 years of teaching for publishing a paper suggesting that Adam and Eve were not historical figures.
About the Author Karl Giberson teaches science and religion at Stonehill College and is a leading voice in America’s creation/evolution controversy. He is the author of ten books, including Saving Darwin, a Washington Post “Best Book of 2008,” and The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age, with Randall Stephens. He lives in Hingham, Massachusetts. He lives on the web at www.karlgiberson.com.
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Most helpful customer reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful. Adam and the Fall in Christian history By Paul R. Bruggink This book is about and for Christians wrestling with questions about a historical Adam and Eve. Giberson begins by discussing the current controversy over the historical Adam, in which he is personally enmeshed. He then discusses the history of the doctrine of original sin, the history of concordist strategies for relating science and the Bible, God’s Two Books (Scripture and nature) and the racial implications of views on a historical Adam.During his discussion, Giberson breaks down the Christian responses to biological evolution into fundamentalists circling the wagons, traditionalists trying their best to embrace science, and modernists understanding the Bible as a purely human book. He makes an important distinction between the less important biblical Adam (how and when he was created) and the more important theological Adam (the source of sin, death and the curse).Giberson concludes that “the key to making peace with evolution was learning to do without an historical Adam” (p. 172), that “Adam and Eve, as described in Genesis, cannot have been historical figures” (p. 173), and that “there is no original sin and there was no original sinner”, but that “we must not forget that the Christian tradition’s long conversation about sin was primarily about what was wrong with us and only secondarily about how we got to be that way.” (p. 176)Meanwhile, his publisher has committed the bibliological sin of endnotes instead of footnotes, and has compounded that sin by listing the endnotes only by chapter number, while the text is identified on each page only by chapter name, making the notes even more unnecessarily difficult to find. This ought to earn his publisher a spot in at least the “vestibule” of Dante’s hell.Seriously, Giberson’s book is a well written, informative, and interesting history of Christianity’s views on historical Adam over the past two thousand years. He does not go into how Christianity needs to deal with the new reality, but Giberson is, after all, a scientist, not a theologian. Others, like John Bimson, Robin Collins, Peter Enns, Daniel Harlow, Denis Lamoureux, John Schneider, Raymund Schwager, and Christopher Southgate are dealing with the theological issues, for which a satisfactory resolution has yet to be found. Theologians are going to be busy for a long time.I heartily recommend this book to Christians struggling with the historicity of a historical Adam and its implications on Christian theology and anyone else interested in the discussion.
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful. Saving the Original Sinner is the most recent book from ... By Thomas J. Oord Saving the Original Sinner is the most recent book from Karl Giberson exploring key issues in science and religion. Giberson's prose is winsome and informative. Although I teach at the university level on the subject, I learned several bits of historical information. The book is a product of extensive research!The concluding chapters were particularly stimulating. In them, Giberson mentions the consequences for Evangelical scholars who propose ways of reading Adam different from the usual/historical ways. Giberson argues that basic concept of original sin points to a deep truth about the evil prevalent throughout history and evident today.Unfortunately, Giberson is probably right when he says "anyone challenging the historicity of Adam should probably abandon evangelicalism, since they are likely to be ejected anyway." I pray this book helps to change this pattern of ejecting those who dare to explore the best in science and the best in theology.Thomas Jay Oord
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful. Modernism contra Fundamentalism By Mark V. As an atheist I started reading Saving the Original Sinner fearing it might be a dull religious screed eschewing rationalism for faith based ideas of Christian ethics and politics...happily this wasn't the case at all, in fact quite the opposite. Mostly a "Modernist" Christian defense of science against Christian fundamentalism and biblical literalism, Mr. Giberson clearly and convincingly details how for the last 1600 years or so, the concept of a literal Adam (and other Biblical myths) has worked as a counterweight to cultural and scientific progress within Western Christianity. Giberson argues that Biblical literalism isn't compatible with the scientific method, rational thinking, evolution, etc., and that its this literal interpretation that has caused many of the abuses of Christianity: racism, slavery, closed-minded anti-scientific irrationalism, persecution of heretics and so on. His arguments are well reasoned pleas to stem the tide of increasingly isolated and fanatical American Christian fundamentalist theology. Giberson opens and closes the book by discussing how he and other university professors have been fired or otherwise shunned for teaching evolution and anti-literalism at certain evangelical universities in the US. Apparently intellectual freedom and open dialogue don't exist for questions of faith at these schools where they'd like to prevent the spread of heresy.A highly recommended work indeed, with the caveat that it seems primarily intended as an inner-faith dialogue between Christians. Many of the arguments will likely be superfluous for the non-religious or those of other faiths, but even as an outsider I found it a fascinating discussion, as well written and reasoned as any of the current anti-religion/pro-science works of Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett, Christopher Hichens, Jerry Coyne, John Loftus and such.
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Saving the Original Sinner: How Christians Have Used the Bible's First Man to Oppress, Inspire, and Make Sense of the World, by Karl W. Giberson
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Saving the Original Sinner: How Christians Have Used the Bible's First Man to Oppress, Inspire, and Make Sense of the World, by Karl W. Giberson
Saving the Original Sinner: How Christians Have Used the Bible's First Man to Oppress, Inspire, and Make Sense of the World, by Karl W. Giberson
Saving the Original Sinner: How Christians Have Used the Bible's First Man to Oppress, Inspire, and Make Sense of the World, by Karl W. Giberson
