Craig’s book is essential reading and stakes out a moderate position in the historical Adam debate. In the present intellectual climate, this work deserves two cheers. Nevertheless, his thesis stands in a long line of proposals that suffer from the same predicament: under pressure from science and other plausibility structures, they find it impossible to believe the clear witness of Scripture; therefore, they must reinterpret the Bible.

William Lane Craig is a professor of philosophy at Houston Baptist University and the author of multiple books covering apologetics, philosophy, theology, and related fields. He is widely respected as one of the leading Christian philosophers writing today. In his most recent book, In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration, Craig has decided to take on the many-tentacled debate surrounding the historical Adam.
There’s much to like in his argument. For one thing, Craig’s writing is clean as a whistle. His arguments are easy to follow and almost always illuminating. Writing this kind of monograph takes courage—most scholars prefer to hunker down in their silos, but Craig is a man on a mission, straddling multiple disciplines and armed with an astonishing arsenal of research. This book is a striking advertisement for interdisciplinary writing.
Parts of this volume are also highly entertaining. For example, his critiques of Old Testament scholarship were page turners. Those sections gave me fond memories of reading essays like Alvin Plantinga’s “Two (or More) Kinds of Scripture Scholarship.” I’m not saying all of Craig’s criticisms of biblical scholars were convincing, but I found most of them insightful and conceptually clarifying. (In fact, some of his critiques were so pointed and so obviously right that they should put the fear of God in any potential critic of the book. Be very afraid, Madueme.)

William Lane Craig

Was Adam a real historical person? And if so, who was he and when did he live? William Lane Craig sets out to answer these questions through a biblical and scientific investigation. He begins with an inquiry into the genre of Genesis 1–11, determining that it can most plausibly be classified as mytho-history—a narrative with both literary and historical value. He then moves into the New Testament, where he examines references to Adam in the words of Jesus and the writings of Paul, ultimately concluding that the entire Bible considers Adam the historical progenitor of the human race—a position that must therefore be accepted as a premise for Christians who take seriously the inspired truth of Scripture.

EERDMANS. 439 PP.

In what follows, I lay out my two main reservations: the first concerns how Craig interprets the early chapters of Genesis, and the second how he interprets the apostolic testimony. I’ll ignore the last section of the book on science because the plausibility of his moves depends on what one thinks of his earlier arguments (and besides, I do have a word count here).
On Early Genesis
Craig’s thesis is that Genesis 1–11 is mytho-history. In step with most Old Testament scholarship, Craig sees key differences in the literary styles of Genesis 1–11 and Genesis 12–50, and he thinks the first 11 chapters share the same conceptual world as ancient Near East (ANE) mythology. In his view, primeval myths were authoritative for ancient Israelites, but they didn’t necessarily believe them to be historical in the way that we, today, think about events as “historical.” We should not understand the primeval events literally: “Their primary purpose is to ground realities present to the pentateuchal author and important for Israelite society in the primordial past” (157).
I felt some whiplash reading his justification for the claim that early Genesis is largely mythical. On the one hand, Craig’s criticisms of the comparative method are some of the most penetrating that I’ve ever read, including his critique of parallelomania and claims of direct dependence between Genesis and this or that ANE myth. He rightly exposes the many layers of difficulty in the comparative approach. On the other hand, Craig’s thesis that large parts of Genesis 1–11 are mythical in the authoritative-but-not-literal sense itself depends on the comparative method: by analyzing Genesis 1–11 in light of family resemblances among ANE myths, he prioritizes extrabiblical ANE literature over the theological claims of Scripture itself.
But this approach reflects the wrong ordering and emphasis. The theological claims of Scripture should have priority over ANE literature, which is why I’m far less sanguine about the comparative method than Craig is. The explanatory categories of the comparative method tend to be naturalistic: they usually appeal to human, non-spiritual, this-worldly horizons—as if the compositional history of Genesis 1–11 is obviously more similar than different from other ANE texts. I doubt Craig endorses this kind of naturalism, but I still worry about naturalism creep (given that he accepts the basic outline of the comparative method).
Furthermore, religious and cultural similarities between Scripture and the ANE world are difficult to unravel and usually lack a single explanation. The mythical understanding of primeval history is an extrabiblical theory that obscures the analogy of faith. Christians should give priority to interpreting Scripture in light of Scripture rather than relatively speculative theories about ANE culture and its putative relationship to the biblical authors. 
Let me explain what I mean. Craig highlights 10 family resemblances among myths and then argues that Genesis 1–11 displays almost all those features. He concludes that much of the primeval narrative is mythical, which means that it’s authoritative but not meant literally. I think this position is wide of the mark. What I found most telling was Craig’s long discussion of the 10th feature of myths that he thinks Genesis 1–11 exemplifies. He tells us that Genesis has “fantastic elements” that are “palpably false” if taken to be literally true (101, 105), including the ideas that God created the world in six days, the first humans were vegetarian, there was a snake that could talk, there were rivers in Eden, there were actual cherubim with a flaming sword, the antediluvian patriarchs lived long ages, Noah’s flood was global, linguistic diversity can be traced back to the Tower of Babel, and the earth is only thousands of years old. But why would Craig categorize these elements of the narrative as “fantastic”? Why does he think they are palpably false if taken literally?
Perhaps because Craig has an anti-supernatural bias? But he rejects that charge explicitly: “The fantastic elements in the narratives that we have identified have nothing to do with miracles, which we accept. Rather, they concern non-miraculous features of the story that, if taken literally, are palpably false” (131)
Fair enough, the core issue seems to be epistemological authority rather than supernaturalism. Craig doesn’t explicitly reject the Bible’s epistemic authority, but he does so implicitly when he repeatedly rejects the literal interpretation. He justifies that move by appealing to ANE texts and how he thinks they were likely understood.
My problem is that such extra-textual moves are often speculative and should be resisted if and when they’re in tension with Scripture’s interpretation of itself. Those parts of the primeval narrative may seem implausible in a modern view of the world, but if we have solid exegetical and theological reasons to interpret these narratives literally and thus historically, then so much the worse for our modern expectations.
Almost everything Craig classifies as “fantastic” is, in my view, literal and straightforwardly historical. He gives no compelling intra-textual reasons for interpreting those elements mythically. The only reason he gives seems to be that he finds it all implausible—but that says more about Craig than about Scripture.
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Jesus is God’s final word in redemptive history (Heb. 1:2). He has fulfilled all Old Testament promises and expectations. We now await the consummation of his kingdom in the new creation. There’s no going back to the shadow of Canaan. Hebrews, instead, envisions God’s one pilgrim people on the verge of entering their final heavenly homeland. Like Abraham and other Old Testament saints, we are waiting for a city with foundations, whose designer and builder is God. 

The epistle to the Hebrews is known for its rich Christological themes. Hebrews celebrates the deity of Christ and his messianic enthronement in heaven. It describes in detail the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement and his ongoing priestly mediation. It proclaims his supremacy over all old covenant persons and institutions and champions the superior salvation that he has obtained. With so many major Christological theological themes, why consider what Hebrews teaches us about the fulfillment of the land promise?
First, the land promise is a key component of the Abrahamic covenant and a major part of Old Testament theology. How we understand the land promise and its fulfillment depends on our fundamental assumptions about how the Bible fits together. The fulfillment of the land promise remains one of the most prominent points of contention between dispensationalists and covenant theologians. Hebrews clarifies how we are to think about the land promise now that Christ has ushered in the last days of redemptive history (Heb. 1:2). Second, by grasping what Hebrews says about the fulfillment of the land promise, we will better understand the “great salvation” that Jesus has obtained for us (Heb. 2:3). The land promise is not just a matter for theological debate, but a promise that has found an escalated fulfillment in Christ who has won an inheritance for his people that far surpasses the geographical boundaries of the biblical land of Canaan.
The argument of this short essay is that Hebrews presents the biblical land of Canaan as an earthly type of the heavenly realm of God’s rest and as a type of the coming new creation, thus speaking against the possibility of a future historical fulfillment of the land promise to national Israel. To defend this argument, I will consider Hebrews’ use of “inheritance” language, the typological relationship between the land and heaven and the new creation, and the permanent rest Jesus has obtained as a better Joshua. An examination of the fulfillment of the land promise in Hebrews has the double benefit of fortifying our faith to persevere toward our final heavenly homeland and clarifying our interpretive assumptions. In other words, a study of the land promise in Hebrews feeds our souls and sharpens our theological frameworks.
Abraham’s Inheritance and Ours
Dana Harris has persuasively argued that Hebrews uses the language of “inheritance” to connect the believer’s salvation to the promises of the Abrahamic covenant: “The inheritance motif in Hebrews must be understood in terms of the Abrahamic promises, which became interwoven with a rich cluster of related themes, such as covenant, the tabernacle, and God’s holy mountain.”[1] The land promise is one of the “rich cluster of themes” related to Hebrew’s inheritance motif because Hebrews 11:8 refers to the “land of promise” as Abraham’s “inheritance.”[2] The “inheritance of salvation” that believers are about to receive is the same inheritance that Abraham desired—not Canaan, but a “city with foundations whose designer and builder is God” (Heb. 11:9–10).
The city with foundations is the same eschatological inheritance that Hebrews elsewhere refers to as a “better country” (Heb. 11:16), a heavenly homeland (Heb. 11:14–16), the “city to come” (Heb. 13:14), and the “world to come” (Heb. 2:5; cf. Heb. 1:6). The “world to come” (Heb. 2:5) is the heavenly realm that Christ entered at his ascension.[3] It is an eschatological world subjected to the incarnate Christ, not angels (Heb. 2:5–9). It is a world fit for human habitation and functions as the heavenly archetype of the biblical land of Canaan, the earthly type (more on this below). The heavenly realm already subjected to the reign of Christ will one day come from heaven to earth when Christ returns. The “promised eternal inheritance” that belongs to Abraham’s offspring is life in the permanent new creation when heaven comes to earth (Heb. 1:10–14; 2:5; 11:9–10; 13:14).
The author of Hebrews wanted his readers to emulate Abraham’s faith because Abraham desired the same eschatological salvation that now belongs to new covenant believers.[4]
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First of all, I am here raising a completely hypothetical question. In over two decades of ministry, I have never had a person ask me that exact question. If someone had, I suppose my initial inclination would be to say, “Probably not, but it depends.”
Sadly, it has been reported that some ministers are interpreting the appendix of “Why I Preach from the Received Text” in a way that undermines my initial inclination and, I believe, misinterprets the actual advice offered therein. The charge has even been voiced that the advice is dangerous and decidedly divisive.
Leaving a local church is a monumental decision and always involves many different considerations. I, in fact, once wrote a ten-step procedure for how saints should make and execute so weighty a decision in a manner that honors the Lord. Apparently, and as previously stated, the advice I offered in the anthology is being interpreted differently.
The purpose of this article is to clarify the advice that was offered that none might misunderstand the intent. Could I have possibly been more clear? Undoubtedly. At the same time, could my critics also be more charitable in their interpretation? Probably.
Let us proceed to review the advice [indented] as I offer some brief commentary on my intent. *
The Advice​