Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig. Today, the Doctrine of Man,

Part 18. For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonable faith.org.

Welcome to Defenders. We're glad that you could join us this morning.

Today, we want to summarize the

results of our study of the historical atom and then reflect on those conclusions.

On the basis of a detailed genre analysis of Genesis 1 to 11, we concluded that it's plausible to regard these chapters

as a Hebrew mytho history, which serves as a universal foundational charter for the nation

and identity of Israel over against her neighbors. While these narratives need not be read as literal

history, the ordering presence of genealogies terminating in persons who were indisputably taken

to be historical, as well as the teaching of Paul in the New Testament about Adam,

which bursts the bounds of a purely literary figure, obliged the biblical Christian

to affirm the historicity of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve should be affirmed to be the fount of all humanity,

the genealogical ancestors of every human being who has ever lived on the face of this planet.

A review of the scientific evidence concerning the time of human origins reveals that, based

on widely accepted criteria for human cognitive capacity, human beings ought not to be

identified with Homo sapiens alone, but ought also to include Neanderthals as well.

Given that all human beings are descendants of a founding couple, Adam and Eve may be plausibly

identified as belonging to the last common ancestor of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals

usually denominated Homo Heidelbergensis, or Heidelberg man.

Such an identification is fully consonant with the data of population genetics, which does not rule

out the existence of two heterozygous sole genetic progenitors of the human race earlier than

500,000 years ago. In this final section, we want to reflect upon the ramifications

...