My friend Paul sent me this video of N. T. Wright commenting on Adam and Eve. In passing Wright says he's "with" John Walton in his understanding of Genesis 1. I'll come back to that in a minute.
I find it interesting that Wright says Americans need to realize the "rest of the world" does not bundle issues together the way we do so we need to "lighten up" and "uncouple" those issues. I think he's thinking of things like if we deny Adam and Eve were real then we have to deny original sin. I realize it's more than that but that's one example. First, I'm not sure that just knowing others (For Wright to go from the way Britains do it to the "rest of the world" is quite a leap in itself.) don't make the connections we do in itself justifies that we stop making them. It makes us sound like we are slaves to some "American mental illness" that arbitrarily makes connections with no sound reason for doing so. Secondly, on the other hand, I do believe we have unnecessarily coupled some things together on pretty tenuous grounds but the uncoupling must be proven not simply dismissed because "the rest of the world" doesn't see connections the way we do.
His discussion of myth vs. history is very good and is a common misunderstanding in popular circles. The last part of the discussion he shows his dependence on Walton's understanding of Genesis. I've provided Wright's video here and another brief video of Walton on Genesis. Those who want to know more should read Walton's book The Lost World of Genesis One. You can see my review of Walton's book here. You can find these and other helpful videos and articles at The BioLogos Foundation.
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