Understanding Genesis: Contemporary Adventist Perspectives

by Brian S. Bull

In his The The Evolution of Scientific Creationism, the distinguished American historian, Ronald Numbers documented in detail the essential role that a devout Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) believer, George McCready Price (1870-1963), played in creating the initial set of modern fundamentalist arguments to support a so-called "Flood Geology" as a means of explaining the geological column, a position that the scientific community totally rejects. In recent official pronouncements, the SDA Church continues to endorse an essentially literalistic interpretation of the Genesis creation narratives and a geologically recent (<10,000 years) creation and worldwide flood. What may not be known outside of the Adventist subculture is that there has been for many decades major criticisms and exceptions voiced by a number of moderate and progressive SDA theologians and scientists to many aspects of the traditional Adventist understandings promulgated by fundamentalist and conservative elements within the SDA faith tradition. Understanding Contemporary Adventist Perspectives is a volume of papers written by SDA theologians and scientists, most of which hold faculty appointments at Adventist colleges and universities in North America. The various chapters provide a spectrum of views on a variety of topics, including non-fundamentalist interpretations of the Genesis creation and flood narratives, a consideration of theistic evolution or progressive creationism, the validity of the evidence dating the geological column and human prehistory, and other related topics.

Paperback

Published January 1, 2006