The Tension of Mytho-History: A Review of William Lane Craig’s In Quest of the Historical Adam
In his ambitious work, In Quest of the Historical Adam, philosopher and theologian William Lane Craig attempts to bridge the gap between evolutionary science and biblical hermeneutics. His central thesis relies on classifying the first eleven chapters of Genesis as mytho-history a term borrowed from Assyriologist Thorkild Jacobsen. This classification serves as a middle ground, allowing Craig to treat the narrative as having a historical core while maintaining that the literary "clothing" of the stories is metaphorical or symbolic. The Cake and the Eating: Defining Mytho-History You’ve hit on the central critique of Craig’s approach: the idea of "having your cake and eating it too." By labeling Genesis 1-11 as mytho-history, Craig argues that the biblical authors were not providing a literal, journalistic account of origins. Instead, they used the common "myth" genre of the Ancient Near East to communicate profound theological truths about a re...