John Walton's, "The Lost World of Genesis One"

Here is a very critical review of Walton's book on the first chapter of Genesis.  Though I think McGrew overplays her hand on a few points, having read the book myself several years ago (well, good portions of it), I find the review fairly compelling at points.  I had similar thoughts as this when reading the book:

Putting all of this together, it is difficult to figure out what Walton means by God's establishing functions and installing functionaries in a sense that has nothing to do with material origins! Perhaps the most charitable thing to do would be to throw up one's hands and conclude that the book is radically unclear. What could it mean for all the plants already to be growing, providing food for animals, the sun to be shining, etc., but for these entities nonetheless to lack functions prior to a set of specific 24-hour days in a specific week? Throwing up his hands in despair at interpreting Walton is what one scholarly critic, Vern Poythress, essentially does after an exchange with Walton.

Like McGrew, it was not clear to me that there is a coherent sense in which things are (or could be) "receiving functions" from God during the (literal) seven days.  That is, given that--on Walton's account--the material things (creatures and the like) already seem to be kinds of things prior to the seven day period (and thus have structures, capacities, abilities, etc.), it's not clear what giving functions could amount to during the seven day period.  One might hold, sensibly I think, that to be is to be a kind of thing; to be a kind of thing is to have a nature; and to have a nature is to have (a) characteristic function(s).

Walton makes an appearance in the comments section followed by an awkward exchange.  (MarcAnthony's over-the-top remark is a good example of what is problematic with open comment boxes).  Though I've had a couple run-ins with McGrew, I didn't take her review to be outside the bounds of the ethical norms of book reviewing.  I look forward to reading and listening to the other reviews to which she has linked.

Historical Adam and Eve

An interesting fifteen minute podcast (as well as a transcript) with Bill Craig on science and the historical Adam and Eve here.

Of particular note:

Craig: This is the so-called Chromosomal Adam, again playing on the biblical figures. So the claim is that the Chromosomal Adam – the Adam from whom all persons are descended today – lived around 60,000-90,000 years ago, but the woman lived around 140,000 years ago. That doesn’t match up, right? Well, I am no geneticist, but recently Michael Murray, who is involved in the BioLogos movement and with the Templeton Foundation, sent me an email in which he said some recent studies have just reestimated the dates of the Mitochondrial Eve and Chromosomal Adam and they’ve determined that they were roughly contemporaneous.

Kevin Harris: Really?

Craig: Yes! Which, if that is correct, that is just astonishing. This could be Adam and Eve. It could be the original human pair that we are talking about.