Book Notice and Commentary: Death Before the Fall
by Ervin Taylor
Reviewed by Ervin Taylor, February 28, 2014
Death Before the Fall: Biblical Literalism and Problem of Animal Suffering, Ronald E. Osborn. Downers Grove: IVP Academic 2014
This important volume is now available for purchase through your local book retailer or from various online sources such as Amazon.com. Two reviews of Death Before the Fall will appear in a future issue of Adventist Today, written by individuals with contrasting points of view concerning the positive contribution that this book will make in facilitating meaningful dialogue within the Adventist faith community with respect to this controversial and thus polarizing topic. To maximize the degree to which readers will be able to appreciate what lies at the center of the controversy that this book addresses, interested individuals may wish to purchase and read this book ahead of reading the reviews.
This volume considers the principal theological objections that Fundamentalist Adventists and individuals belonging to other Conservative and Fundamentalist Christian traditions most often cite as the basis for their opposition to what generally is referred to as Darwinian evolution. The centerpiece of the understandings of the English naturalist, Charles Darwin, of the natural forces that drive the development and extinction of species of plants and animals, i.e., biological evolution, is the concept of natural selection. Such a process assumed that physical death had always been a natural part of the world in which we live and that different rates of reproduction and death were a function of species better adapted to their environments, and this accounted for a significant part of the progressive changes in the physical characteristics in populations of plants and animals over long periods of "deep time" on earth.
The basis for natural selection was first stated in great detail and with many examples in the middle of the 19th century by Darwin. It was also described by a contemporary of Darwin's, the English biologist, Alfred Russell Wallace. As with any scientific concept since their time, as new discoveries (such as a more detailed understanding of the role of genetic mutations and the development of molecular genetics) have accumulated, a number of important aspects of some of the Darwin-Wallace original insights concerning natural selectionand other processes involved in biological evolution have been continuously updated. As a result, Darwin and Wallace’s great contribution has become a central, unifying theme in contemporary life sciences.
However, the scientific basis of contemporary evolutionary biology is not the topic of this book. Its focus is on an examination of a series of theological concepts and assumptions about how different individuals and certain contemporary faith traditions view and evaluate biblical statements that currently lie at the heart of thetheologically-based rejection of modern biological evolution.
As befitting the title, the volume is divided into two major parts, with the first and longer section considering topics addressing various aspects of the hermeneutic of biblical literalism and the second part addressing what the author terms “the central riddle” of his book, animal suffering. The author reviews the issues that are dividing many Christians, including Adventist scholars and laity, over what has been a contentious issue within many Christian faith communities ever since Darwin published his seminal work,Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859.
Commentary
With few exceptions, until the early 1960s, traditional Adventism generally followed a theological paradigm which required a reading of the Genesis creation narratives as describing a set of literal historical events which occurred only a few thousand years ago. This approach to biblical interpretation excluded any accommodation to the reality established by almost two centuries of research studies in a number of scientific fields which established that there had been a progression of life forms which had evolved over billions of years on our planet.
In addition to its largely Fundamentalist legacy, Adventism has had to deal with real historical issues arising from having a 19th century prophetic figure, Ellen G. White, who, in some quarters of Adventism has been accorded, for all practical purposes, canonical authority. Although there were constant official protestations that this was not the case, effectively her views on a number of issues, including her largely devotional commentaries on Genesis, have been traditionally viewed as imparting both theological and scientific knowledge. On the subject of Genesis, her statements were unequivocal: There was a creation in seven literal days of life forms about 6,000 years ago and a worldwide flood about 4,000 years ago.
However, within the last half century, and particularly within the last few decades, increasing numbers of Adventist scientists and theologians have been pointing out what serious theological and scientific problems are created when simplistic, literalistic interpretations of Genesis are imposed on the biblical texts. In the view of a number of these scholars, this rigid interpretative or hermeneutical framework results in the creation of both bad science and bad theology.
Hopefully, this volume will provide a stimulus for the beginning of a new strand of dialogue within Adventism on what currently is a highly polarizing topic.
Thank you to Ervin Taylor and AT for this "Book Notice and Commentary." I look forward to the two planned AT book reviews, and to getting a copy of Ron Osborne's book so that I am able to take a look at his presentation.
A faithful reading of Scripture is "simplistic"? I'm not buying into that concept which appears to place "science" so called above a thus said the Lord.
Maranatha
I hope that "TS" must have meant to write "my interpretation of "Thus said the Lord" since we all have slightly different interpreations of various Biblical passages. I assume that even "TS" does not presume to assume that his interpreations of the Bible passages are always the correct ones.
I have had it explained to me by very devout Adventists that God gave us the Pen of Inspiration so we could all follow the same script in interpreting various difficult passages. I wonder if this is what Ellen White means when she refers to her writings as a "lesser light" to lead to the "greater light" of Scripture? It seems from this current Notice, coupled with your previous opinion piece on the many ways we as Adventists view her writings, that you, Dr. Taylor, do not believe this to be so. I certainly have not seen Ellen White's ministry as one of creating conformity/uniformity of exegesis in the Adventist Church. Rather, I have seen her words on lesser and greater light as indicative of her desire that we will learn to gradually shelve the lesser light, as we are brought more deeply into the greater light of Scripture. I have also been impressed that the most effective way to make of "no effect" her writings is to allow them to be used in place of, and to surpass, the importance of contemplating the teachings of Scripture.
When people ask me what I think about this or that "mistake" in Sister White's writings, I sometimes reply with a smile, "She probably put it there on purpose, just to see if folks like you and me were awake." In studying Bible lessons with my kids when they were young, I would often substitute a "wrong" word for the story's original word, just to see if they were paying attention. If the primary task of the Spirit of Prophecy is to draw our attention back to the Bible, what more effective methodology than to occasionally blunder (even purposely) in the factuality or style of her prose? Ellen White's writing has been helpful to the Church in many ways, but I don't think one of its strengths is to be used as a prescriptive way of interpreting the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. Did she herself ever say anything about here writings serving as the definitive interpretative resource for the Bible?
I must say that the suggestion that EGW made "mistakes" in her writings on purpose "to keep us alert" is one of the most facinating and original suggestions that I have heard in a long time. I must admit that it does explain a lot of things. There could be a varient of that suggestion which might posit that the Holy Spirit inspired her to make pronouncements that turned out to be factually incorrect on purpose so humans would never come to the conclusion that prophets were infallible. I like that suggestion even more! Let a thousand "flowers" of interpretative views bloom!
When I read things like TS and EAS above me thinks the flowers are indeed blooming.
Papaver somniferum?
Let the tares grow with the wheat. some have flowers. Hey Aussie, good on ya.
Please, brethren, my suggestions are those of a blooming idiot, I confess. Yet we have been mercilessly rigid in defining what it is that most impresses about the work of this beloved little woman. Does she not write that the Lord Himself held his hand over the full Advent story, until after the Great Disappointment? Why? Presumably to add impetus and gain newsworthy currency for the Midnight Cry of Christ's imminent return. And very effectively it appears to have been done, for today less than two centuries on, that Little Flock rivals in membership some of the blockbuster Protestant denominations of her day. This is no small accomplishment.
Is it not possible, by extrapolation, that other topics in her corpus of writing may find further elucidation, through time? The Great Controversy theme extends to us all manner of possibilities, and to this point most of us have been quite circumspect in assaying the possibilities, and rightly so. But one of the promises of the latter days is that there will be additional unfolding of Present Truth. We don't know how this will be accomplished, but I propose that it may come through improved exegesis, not of Ellen White's writings per se, but of the Bible to whom her writings point….. and some of this exegesis may entail an updating of some of Sister White's views to reflect an expanding panorama of truth, expressed through new and better understandings of the biblical record, coupled with a respectful analysis of the Great Controversy theme and the manifest evidence from careful scientific analysis.
Extrapolating on this theory, it also explains the many contradictions we can find in the Bible as well. Perhaps it was done on purpose to keep our minds sharp and to keep us "awake"? The field is indeed blooming!