Adam's Ancestors: Race, Religion, and the Politics of Human Origins
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Although the idea that all human beings are descended from Adam is a long-standing conviction in the West, another version of this narrative exists: human beings inhabited the Earth before, or alongside, Adam, and their descendants still occupy the planet.In this engaging and provocative work, David N. Livingstone traces the history of the idea of non-Adamic humanity, and the debates surrounding it, from the Middle Ages to the present day. From a multidisciplinary perspective, Livingstone examines how this alternative idea has been used for cultural, religious, and political purposes. He reveals how what began as biblical criticism became a theological apologetic to reconcile religion with science — evolution in particular — and was later used to support arguments for white supremacy and segregation. From heresy to orthodoxy, from radicalism to conservatism, from humanitarianism to racism, Adam's Ancestors tells an intriguing tale of twists and turns in the cultural politics surrounding the age-old question, "Where did we come from?"
1 Beginnings: Questioning the Mosaic Record 12 Heresy: Isaac La Peyrere and the Pre-Adamite Scandal 263 Polity: The Cultural Politics of the Adamic Narrative 524 Apologetics: Pre-Adamism and the Harmony of Science and Religion 805 Anthropology: Adam, Adamites, and the Science of Ethnology 1096 Ancestors: Evolution and the Birth of Adam 1377 Bloodlines: Pre-Adamism and the Politics of Racial Supremacy 1698 Shadows: The Continuing Legacy of Pre-Adamite Discourse 2019 Dimensions: Concluding Reflections 219Notes 225Bibliography 255Index 287
