Did Human Beings Evolve Outside The Garden Of Eden When God Created Adam & Eve?

Science and Historical Christianity have seemingly been at odds with each other. The study of Historical Adam & Eve is a topic that contributes a good deal to this conflict.

Dr. Joshua Swamidass'1 recent book The Genealogical Adam and Eve: The Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry, however, strives to bridge the gap between evolutionary science and the conservative understanding of Adam and Eve.

Proponents of evolutionary science believe that humans evolved as a population sharing common ancestors with apes and chimpanzees. On the other hand, a traditional or conservative understanding of the book of Genesis is the belief that Adam and Eve were created by God. They were the first humans. All of mankind descended from them.

These two views contradict each other (or so it seems).

Dr. Joshua Swamidass' position is that there is enough room to accommodate both these views and that they do not necessarily contradict each other.

How is this possible?

First, Dr. Swamidass establishes the distinction between genetics and genealogy within the context of ancestral study. Upon establishing that distinction, he posits the Biblical narration of Adam and Eve as the genealogical ancestry and that of science as the genetic ancestry.

Second, he posits the presence of human beings outside the Garden of Eden. In other words, when God created Adam & Eve and made them reside in the Garden of Eden, there were other human beings outside the Garden, who were the products of God guided evolution. Thus he builds a bridge between theology and science.

It's quite important to note that Dr. Swamidass is committed to the de novo2 creation of Adam & Eve.

In an interview with Christianity Today, Swamidass explains how these seemingly contradictory views could be true:3

There's been a lot of conflict about how science expresses its understanding of Adam and Eve. It has to do with misunderstanding the word ancestor. We can understand it in the genetic sense, meaning someone we get our DNA from. Or we can mean it in a genealogical sense, meaning someone whose lineage we descend from.

Genetics works in a very nonintuitive way. For example, my parents are both equally 100 percent my genealogical ancestors, and the same is true with my grandparents and great-grandparents. But my parents are each only one half of my genetic ancestry; my grandparents are one quarter; my great-grandparents are one eighth. Genetic ancestry just dilutes to the point where the majority of our genealogical ancestors pass on no DNA.

Why is that important? Scripture doesn't tell us about genetic ancestry. It does, however, tell us about genealogical ancestry. Historically, we've believed that Adam and Eve are the ancestors of everyone. We can ask: Does this mean genetic ancestors or genealogical ancestors? Well, Scripture can't possibly be talking about genetic ancestry. It has to be talking about genealogical ancestry.

That recognition really opens up an immense amount of space for theology. As Christians, we've had a lot of anxiety over what science is telling us about Adam and Eve. But these conflicts are based on what science says about our genetic ancestors. If we focus on genealogical ancestors instead, there might be far less conflict than we first imagined.

...If we keep straight what the science is actually saying, the story of Genesis could be true as literally as you could imagine it, with Adam being created by dust and God breathing into his nostrils and Eve being created from his rib. But evolution is happening outside the Garden, and there are people out there who God created in a different way and who end up intermingling with Adam and Eve's descendants. It's not actually in conflict with evolutionary science [Emphasis Mine].