To Adam About Adam: Where Science and Christianity Meet

By Jim Frederick

Modern scientific discoveries often challenge biblical teachings and the long-held beliefs of many Christians. To Adam about Adam is a serious yet lighthearted autobiography of the author, who has known Jesus since his childhood but drifted for many years while on his quest for science. Only while searching for answers to his sons question about Creation did the author find his way back to the Word of God. Through his journey, the author was able to bring his passion for science and love for God together into a more holistic understanding of Gods plan for mankind. In a very personal way, he uses an open, bantering approach throughout the book to establish a friendly relationship with the reader. This personal relationship is used to guide the reader through a number of biblical stories to show how God acted as both a loving and caring Father and as a scientist in teaching mankind lessons related to overcoming sin. To Adam about Adam may improve the readers understanding of Gods plan for mankind and show how science is instrumental to that plan. For example, the author details how the fall of Adam and Eve was an important and preconceived part of Gods plan, not merely perfection gone awry. Science can explain the basis for the sin we see in the world today, whereas the Bible describes the only cure. Thus, the Bible and science are both integral to the fulfillment of Gods plan.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781490808000

Jim Frederick

Jim Frederick is a contributing editor at Time magazine. He was previously a Time senior editor in London and, before that,the magazine’s Tokyo bureau chief. He is co-author, with former Army Sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins, of The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea. He lives in New York City.

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Copyright © 2013 Jim Frederick.

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Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-0801-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-0802-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-0800-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013916483

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/14/2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1   Christianity or Science—What Do We Believe?

Chapter 2   What Is Evolution? (Evolution 101)

Chapter 3   Genesis 1—The Creation of All We Know, Shared by Christians and Scientists Alike

Chapter 4   Genesis 2—God’s Break in Creation and the Story of Adam and Eve

Chapter 5   Genesis 3—The Fall of Man: The Lessons Learned

Chapter 6   God’s Second Lesson on Dealing with Sin (The Flood of Noah)

Chapter 7   More Lessons on What Does Not Work for Sin

Chapter 8   The New Testament

Chapter 9   The Book of Revelation: Spiritual Evolution Comes to a Close

Chapter 10   Where Are We Today?

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CHAPTER 1

CHRISTIANITY OR SCIENCE—WHAT DO WE BELIEVE?

Growing up back in the sixties, my brother and I attended Sunday school at our church just about every weekend. Reflecting back on when I was young, it seems like waking up on Sunday mornings was always a pleasurable experience. I can remember opening my eyes and seeing sunlight streaming through the windows as I lay there listening to the birds chirping off in the distance. It seems like Sunday mornings were almost picture perfect.

Looking back, now that the years have passed, I am sure there were many cold and rainy days, but it is amazing that I don’t remember Sundays ever being that way. Sundays were always sunny spring days in my mind, which I am sure some of them were. Time makes a difference in what we choose to remember. Maybe it is a blessing that God gave us selective memories.

I also recall viewing Sunday school as the spiritual warm-up for the more formal church service that followed. Most kids I knew liked attending Sunday school more than church. Lessons during Sunday school were much more interesting and easier to understand than the fire-and-brimstone sermons of the regular church services, at least from a child’s perspective. I remember the boredom of sitting in the church pew as a youngster, listening to the minister talk for what felt like forever. A half-hour sermon seemed like an eternity when I was young and, to be honest, at times even today.

This boredom usually led to restlessness on my part. I would wiggle all over the place, sometimes even onto the floor, during those extra-long sermons. But my mother usually came prepared for my misbehavior with a handful of candy in her purse. Bribery with sweets never seemed to fail to put me in better spirits. Since then I have noticed many other mothers using that very same technique to get their children through lengthy sermons. Obviously, it is a proven method that seldom fails. I wonder if my wife would give me candy today if I wiggled more during the sermon. I may have to give it a try.

In the small Pennsylvania town where I grew up, just about everyone went to church or Sunday school, or in most cases, both. It was just what you did on Sunday mornings. My family woke up, ate a quick breakfast, put on our suits or dresses, and rushed to the church, since according to my mother, we were always running late. I have to admit that she was probably right, since it took extra time for us to get into our Sunday best. Back then boys wore suits and girls wore dresses, no matter what their age or which denomination they attended. It was just what was expected two generations ago.

Although we were usually late getting out of the house, we almost always arrived on time for Sunday school due to my mother’s keen but somewhat speedy driving skills. Sometimes we didn’t attend church, but we almost always went to Sunday school. What we were going to attend each Sunday was always my mother’s decision. Most times she favored just going to Sunday school. When we asked her why, she said she preferred Sunday school over church because she could discuss passages from the Bible with others during Sunday school. In contrast, talking to one another during the church service was always prohibited. It seemed like even a quiet whisper was frowned upon. This was no doubt the reason for my mother’s bribery with candy during the church service; it kept me quiet. But she was right; Sunday school was different. Discussions about the Word of God were usually encouraged at all age levels.

Even though Sunday school had school attached to its name, it did not seem all that bad to me. It started later in the morning than regular school, and we learned about some really awesome people who lived long ago. The way they were described by the teacher made many of the biblical people seem like superheroes. These were people who came out victorious, even when facing almost impossible challenges—even death. They rose to the occasion, and through God, they accomplished great things in spite of the odds. Every Sunday there was a different story from the Bible, with the moral that problems can always be solved if you have faith in God.

We also learned about this perfect man called Jesus who loved children like us and who was also able to perform great miracles. To a kid, how could you top miracles like walking on water or raising someone from the dead? We were taught that we do not have to worry about the Devil, because Jesus looks after us. Satan, with his horns and pointy tail, did not stand a chance against Jesus. Thus, Christianity seemed pretty easy and uncomplicated back then. The lesson was if we just believe in God and his Son, Jesus, good things will happen. We never heard about how things happened; they just did. That was what faith was all about. We did not have to worry. God took care of everything.

Unfortunately, I learned that how we look at the world changes as we get older. It is almost a fact of life. We tend to question conventional wisdom more as we age. We do not always take things at face value. In my case, the word why became more common in my vocabulary in relation to all aspects of life. I certainly became more of a why person.

The problem with Sundays as a child was the knowledge that the next day we had to go back to regular school to take classes like science. Science, in contrast to church, was always trying to explain how and why things happen in the world. Science was about facts rather than faith. From first grade on, we were taught in regular school that there is a scientific reason for everything we see. But science was never something that was discussed in Sunday school or even mentioned in church. Science is what we learned about during the week.

When I was young, I saw science as just a lot of facts that we needed to memorize. Science described how things worked. We were also taught that scientific theories were always changing as scientists learned more about the world. But science was not about miracles or good triumphing over evil. It was not as cool as the heroes in the Bible. To the best of my knowledge, there were no heroes—just a lot of amoebas, chemical symbols, and names for different parts of living organisms.

The bad thing about science was being tested on what we were taught. We seldom, if ever, were tested in Sunday school. In fact, we sometimes received candy if we just listened or obeyed the Sunday school teacher. Even today my Sunday school class offers breakfast snacks and treats to its attendees, which has certainly helped increase attendance. This goes to show that people never outgrow their attraction to tasty treats. Unfortunately, this natural attraction to treats is part of what caused the downfall of Adam and Eve. But we will discuss this in greater detail in coming chapters.

Even though there were no snacks in any of my science classes, I survived the many years of memorizing scientific facts in regular school. Little did I know that someday a lot of the scientific stuff I learned about in regular school would be what I would go to work to study every day. All those little facts I so disliked in my younger years would be crammed into my mind through many years of college and graduate school. Little did I know that I would use those facts for the rest of my life. As a plant scientist, just about every day I go to work to try to figure out how crop plants grow and what we can do to make them grow better. In other words, I try to figure out just one aspect of God’s many creations.

What attracted me to science as a career was the potential to explain the unknown, the things humans do not understand. I agree with my early science teachers that everything happens for a reason. Unfortunately, we do not know the reasons for many of the things we see every day.

In college, I did not necessarily like the idea of just discovering new facts. However, I enjoyed trying to piece together why things work the way they do in nature. Like most kids, my favorite response to my parents’ demands was always asking why, a habit that continued well into my adult years.

Some scientists are happy just to discover facts, without knowing how those facts fit into the big picture of the world. But what I liked most was learning the meaning of the facts. I wanted to know why plants grow and develop like they do. I wanted to be able to explain what I saw.

It never occurred to me that science may help explain and support God’s plan in the Bible. Science may not have been seen that way before, because God’s plan—or God himself—is not something we can see, at least in terms of human vision. We can see nature, on the other hand, and we can begin to explain it with science.

Until recently, religion and science were separate parts of my life. As a scientist, I contemplated and conducted my research separate from any religious thoughts. I can honestly say I never considered the Bible when pondering the implications of my research data. In church, I never thought of trying to explain events in the Bible in terms of science. It was always easier to keep the two separate. Do not ask me how I kept the two parts of who I am divided. It is just the way it was. And I am sure most Christian scientists do the same thing.

I did not always keep religion simple. As I grew older, I realized the Bible is more than just a collection of stories about great people. When asked, most people would answer that the Bible is the Word of God or the message of God. Events in the Bible did not happen all at one time. The Bible spans many, many generations. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the events that occurred during those generations. They were lessons that God used to build a fatherly relationship with humankind, and he is still using them for that purpose today.

The Bible spans over several thousands of years. Adam and Eve were estimated to have been created around 4000 BC, which seems like a very long time ago. A lot has happened to humankind since Adam was created. We have become more civilized in many ways. However, humans have struggled over the centuries to live peaceably with one another, even struggling to this day in many areas of the world.

Scientists believe agriculture was beginning to develop and small cities and empires were being built at about the time of Adam and Eve, or not long thereafter. This was also a time when there was a need by humankind for guidance on how to live as a civilized society. Humans still had a wild side and were usually spread out in a nomadic lifestyle. Early in civilization, there were no rules other than those made by those in charge at the time, and the rules varied from ruler to ruler.

As people became more urban, they lived closer and closer together. This closeness often led to conflict. It seems like conflicts arise when my own children are together for more than just a few minutes. So it was a time when people needed guidance or lessons from God on the rights and wrongs of living together as a society, as one huge family consisting of all God’s children.

The Bible means different things to different people. In addition to the Word of God, it is also the individual words of God. Most agree that the individual writers of the books of the Bible were under divine inspiration. Many Christians believe they were guided by God and what they wrote was the truth, word for word.

One thing I like about the Bible is that its passages are short and to the point. I believe in getting to the bottom line. As a kid, I was always happy just skipping to the last chapter in a book to see how it turned out. But you cannot do that with the Bible. As a matter of fact, in my younger years, I skipped to the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, to get to the point. Needless to say, I was kind of shocked and confused about the point of some of the verses in the book of Revelation.

Since the Bible does not give many details in most passages, the meaning of a lot of the passages has been open to interpretation. The interpretation is complicated by other factors too. Words often have multiple definitions, and definitions have changed over time and from culture to culture. This leaves the meaning of certain passages of the Bible open for discussion. I am sure each of us has heard at least one passage of the Bible debated in our lifetime. It is not that some the words are not true; it is that different people have different interpretations of what is being told in the Bible and how it should be applied to society today.

As I read the local newspaper, I saw a commentary about a recent Gallop poll that showed only about 30 percent of today’s population takes the Bible literally—down substantially from a decade ago. This decline should come as no surprise. But being a why person, I have to ask why this is occurring. Are we less in touch with the Bible? Do we not spend as much time studying it? Is family life less focused on the church than it was a generation ago? Is it due to disagreement within the Protestant church about the meaning of passages in the Bible? I would guess that it is probably a combination of all these factors. I would also venture to guess that we have so many different churches today because of all of these disagreements. Differences of opinion are human nature. Unfortunately, differences of opinion often lead to conflicts, whether at home, in the workplace, or at church.

It is no different in science. Scientists argue about the conclusions of their findings all the time. That is sometimes what we do best. There have been a lot of advances in science in recent decades. New technologies are providing new answers every day regarding life’s problems and our understanding of our existence. But scientists do not always agree on the interpretation of their data; often resulting in heated debates within the scientific community.

Science and the church have been at odds many times throughout the centuries. Historically, science has often been viewed as questioning the Bible. Scientific discoveries have been put down as heresy; scientists have been chastised, jailed, and even put to death throughout history. And the split between science and the church is growing as science grows. A lack of acceptance of science in some Christian circles may be one of the reasons the public believes less in the exact wording of the Bible. Many Christians do not believe scientific principles apply to God. They feel God works in mysterious ways; therefore, science does not have to apply to God.

Jesus could instantaneously cure diseases and raise the dead. That is considered beyond science. On the other hand, the public does not want to believe science is all wrong either. There is just too much science out there to be a mistake or some kind of fluke. The public does not want to disbelieve the Bible either. After all, that probably would be considered by many as grounds for burning in hell.

So one compromise is to say maybe science agrees with biblical descriptions if a person does not take the Bible literally. After all, religious scholars are still debating the true meaning of different passages. Jesus put a lot of effort into trying to straighten out the Pharisees about the true meaning of the laws. And the Pharisees were supposed to be the religious experts—the ones with all the answers, the ones who could answer all the questions about Scripture.

I have experienced this type of debate in my home too—that is, debate related to the meaning of the words of God. On the way home from church, my wife and I are in the habit of discussing, if not debating, the meaning of each Sunday’s sermon. She is the conservative, and I am the semi-liberal. She accepts things as the way they are, and I tend to question conventional wisdom. Remember, I am a why person and do not always take things at face value.

Discussing the sermon is not a bad habit. Actually, making us think about and discuss the Bible is one of the outcomes of a good sermon. It seems like a waste to just turn off the brain when we walk out the church doors. Often we have to be challenged in what we believe before we will stop,