The Messiah was to be a son of Adam; to fulfill the prophecies Luke had to trace such lineage.
Jesus referred to the Genesis account of Adam and Eve's creation as male and female saying “did you not read” at Genesis 2:24. This was a statement that a past event explained God's standard of marriage.
Sure, but that also doesn't say where Cain's wife came from! Even the most basic animals and plants are male and female, it is a trait rampant throughout nature.
Jesus said God created humans as male and female hence it wasn't by evolving over long periods of time and little steps as Darwinism proposes that they came to be.
And the theory of evolution does not say that man was once all one sex; in fact, the apes, lizards, birds, fish, even flowers are of two sexes. It is, in fact, the natural order of things which I believe just reinforces God's word regarding natural sexual relations!
Paul said at Romans 5:14 death ruled from Adam to Moses so which one if either person is part of traditional Jewish simile and metaphor?
But we have no record of the death of Cain or many more, does that mean they never died? Or were just important events captured in the Bible for the message they brought?
Darwinism has no room for a Creator unless it's one they fashion and is as Carl Sagan put it, “benign and indifferent”.
It does not? Does the theory of evolution demand that a Creator be "benign and indifferent"? On the contrary, I see it as an intimate and involved process with the Creator, where the rules are set up and observed, and as needed (and recorded) the Creator will intervene to correct the pathways taken.
Fundamentally, I believe the Bible is NOT a canonical, exhaustive historical record. It is a relationship manual, telling us about our (humans) relationship with God from the past, why God wants that relationship, how He forgives, and how we can enter into relationship with Him.
The miracle and message of the Bible is not that Cain married a woman not from Adam or Eve, or that Samson slew 10,000 with the jawbone of an ass; the miracle and message is that God loves us and wants to have a relationship with us!
It is when we elevate the written words of the Bible above the message - when we only accept it as an inerrant, literal word-for-word gift from God (much like Muslims hold the Koran) that we lose the majesty that is the Bible. The words themselves aren't relevant; the meanings the convey are.
No, your beliefs don't threaten me or what I believe at all. You may wave a copy of “Origin...” but that's not quite tar and feathers or a pitchfork.
Good, it is not intended to be as such! No more so than Maxwell's Equations, or the theory of general relativity should be as scourges on the backs of Christians!
So what part of the theory of evolution involves a creator that intervenes in the physical world?
In deed, the theory of evolution attempts to describe all life and its origin WITHOUT reference to an intelligent creator.
“Fundamentally, I believe the Bible is NOT a canonical, exhaustive historical record. It is a relationship manual, telling us about our (humans) relationship with God from the past, why God wants that relationship, how He forgives, and how we can enter into relationship with Him.”
Without an Adam as a real person who committed a real sin what need is there of a Christ as a sacrifice?
That is a rather simple and basic teaching of Christianity.
Christ didn't die for metaphor and simile.
“It is when we elevate the written words of the Bible above the message - when we only accept it as an inerrant, literal word-for-word gift from God (much like Muslims hold the Koran) that we lose the majesty that is the Bible. The words themselves aren't relevant; the meanings the convey are.”
The message is expressed by the words. If the words are off, erroneous, dubious, what message from them are we going to get?
When Jesus said, “Your word is truth”, part of that “word”, message, was the Genesis account.
We take very different views of the Scriptures.