Nearly a century after evolution clashed with the Bible in the Scopes Monkey Trial, a Christian scientist told Hillsdale students they can believe in both.
- Joshua Swamidass, associate professor of laboratory and genomic medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, delivered a talk titled “Adam & Eve … & Evolution?” April 11, proposing that the biblical creation of Adam and Eve could fit within the scientific framework of human evolution.
“I’m not saying this is what definitely happened,” Swamidass said. “But it’s a possibility many Christians and scientists have missed.”
Swamidass’ model, outlined in his book “The Genealogical Adam and Eve,” suggests that while humans may have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, God could have created Adam and Eve “de novo” — without parents — less than 10,000 years ago. As their descendants interbred with those outside the garden, they became the universal genealogical ancestors of all people alive today.
“It turns out that you don’t need to pass on DNA to be someone’s ancestor,” Swamidass said. “After about 10 generations, more than half of your ancestors give you zero DNA.”
He emphasized genealogical ancestry — who someone descends from — is different from genetic ancestry — whose DNA they carry.
“That distinction is really important,” Swamidass said. “The Bible was written long before we knew about DNA. When it talks about ancestry, it’s talking genealogically.”
Swamidass said his model preserves key theological elements upheld by historical Christianity: that Adam and Eve were real people, that they were created without parents, and that all humans today descend from them.
He also argued his model could help modern Christians affirm both the spiritual truth of Genesis and the scientific evidence for human evolution.
“These stories do not have to be in conflict,” he said. “They are just focused on different aspects of who we are and how God made us.”
In response, Professor of Biology Francis Steiner praised the book’s attempt to integrate science and theology, but raised several scientific concerns.
“I commend Dr. Swamidass for holding his ground,” Steiner said. “But introducing a de novo-created Adam and Eve seems, to me, outside the realm of science.”
Steiner said a specially created couple would present major biological problems, particularly in light of microbiology, epigenetics, and genetic inheritance. For instance, he questioned how such a couple could have survived without a microbiome—the complex ecosystem of microbes living in and on the human body.
“If Adam and Eve were created without parents, how would they have microbiomes?” Steiner said.
He also pointed to epigenetics, the study of how traits are passed down through chemical markers that regulate how genes are expressed. These markers, Steiner said, are influenced by parental experiences and inherited through generations.
“We now know that parents transmit more than just DNA,” Steiner said. “They also transmit epigenetic markers — chemical tags that turn genes on or off in the child.”
Steiner also raised the issue of retrotransposons — viral DNA remnants that help regulate development, including placenta formation.
“More than 40% of your DNA is made up of viral remnants,” he said. “If Adam and Eve were created de novo, would they have had these viral sequences already in their genome?”
To Steiner, the hypothesis Swamidass proposed relies more on theological reasoning than on empirical science.
“To me, the genealogical Adam and Eve seems like a conjecture,” he said. “Not a testable scientific hypothesis.”
He challenged modern interpretations of Genesis, suggesting it should be read in light of its ancient literary and cultural context, not as a scientific explanation.
“I think the authors of Genesis 1 and 2 had no idea how the universe or man was made,” Steiner said. “These are theological constructs, not biological descriptions.”
Robert Holmstedt, professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Toronto, opened the event with a historical and literary survey of Genesis and its interpretive traditions.
Holmstedt described Genesis 1 as “not a straightforward creation theory,” but as a temple dedication ceremony from ancient Near Eastern tradition. He said the six-day structure mirrors a ritual sequence in which sacred space is established and filled.
“The space is consecrated in three days,” Holmstedt said. “The things that operate in the space are consecrated in the next three days, including the temple workers — humans — and the Divine Being takes his rest and inhabits the newly consecrated zone on the seventh.”
Rather than offering a scientific account of physical origins, Holmstedt said the passage invites theological reflection.
“Genesis 1 is entirely about the deeper theological truth of human reality,” he said. “It leaves open the question of how the cosmos came into existence materially.”
Holmstedt added this view helps explain puzzling details in the text, such as the creation of light before the sun.
“It’s about the ritual ordering of an already existing, but unordered, cosmos,” he said. “The text as a temple dedication ceremony does not address material manufacture at all.”
Swamidass concluded the event by acknowledging that while science can inform how we came to be physically, Scripture addresses why we are here and who we are.
“This is not about rewriting Genesis,” Swamidass said. “It’s about reading it closely — and maybe, for the first time, seeing what we’ve missed.”
