The Primal Testament: Parallels between Evolutionary and Biblical History

Abstract

Evolutionary biology is regarded with suspicion in some theological circles. However, the era of DNA sequencing, allowing linear side-by-side comparisons of our genome with those of related species, has revealed how our genetic “text”—that is, our genome—has incrementally developed, and has provided compelling insights into our evolutionary history. This paper presents examples of mutations in our genetic text that have generated features of our characteristically human biology. It is suggested that our genetic text be thought of as the Primal Testament, analogously to the Old and New Testaments that describe the history of God’s dealings with humankind. There are clear differences between the Primal Testament and those of the scriptures. The Primal Testament describes an impersonal and nonmoral history. But the three testaments have in common their witness to God’s purposes, their accounts of God’s creation of new realities (biological organisms, Israel, and the church), and their depictions of richer conceptions of life (successively, biological, personal/communal, and the Spirit-indwelt zoe aionios). The three testaments all describe contingent histories arising from God’s gift of freedom to the creatures. The histories alike describe ambiguities, suffering (even extinctions), goal-directedness, and incompleteness as they together anticipate God’s consummation of all things in the New Creation.