The Historical Adam

The Importance of Adam for Christian Theology

All right, welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala and I am again excited to have Jason Lyle on the show to talk about the historical Adam. So if you've seen the YouTube thumbnail, you know, that's the topic that we're going to be covering very important and very controversial Topic so definitely looking forward to inviting him on in just a few moments.

Just real quick by way of announcement I know folks are When they follow this channel, they're kind of up on the whole presuppositional apologetics and the methodological debates. We got a real treat for you on November 23rd.

I I'm gonna be having Joshua pillows and David Pullman who is a very outspoken critic of presuppositional ism. I'm gonna be having those two gentlemen on the show to discuss the the ins and outs of Apologetic methodology from a presuppositional perspective which Joshua pillows holds that perspective and David Pullman representing the Evidentialist perspective is so that's gonna be a very exciting.

I'm sure very lively, but very respectful Interaction, so please stay tuned for that. That's on the 23rd at 9 p .m. Eastern. All right. Well just to give folks a heads up. We're gonna be talking about the historical Adam and more specifically I mean not too specifically but the ideas of Dr. Craig's book and we're gonna be talking about the book directly.

You could know what? Dr. Craig's position is That's reflected in this book by reading some of his articles listening to some podcasts. If you have a good background on the topic and kind of generally know where he's coming from.

I've read portions of the book. So I'm not speaking from a place of authority in this area, but definitely Dr. Lyle is someone who is very knowledgeable in the area of Genesis the historical Adam. And so I'm very much looking forward to hearing what he has to say and hopefully this conversation is going to be a blessing if it's going to be edifying to those who are interested in this topic and Hopefully will be challenging for folks.

So really think about these things. We're talking about the story of Adam and Eve. We're talking about the Bible the issues of biblical authority come up. And Biblical interpretation so there's a wide range of topics that are involved in these sorts of conversations.

Presuppositional Apologetics and the Clarity of Scripture

All right, so hopefully you guys will enjoy. I know I'm gonna be blessed. I always love having dr. Lyle on he's such a clear and good speaker and really knows his stuff and so Looking forward to having them on in just a few seconds.

If you have not subscribed to revealed apologetics, please do so hit the notification bell so that you know. Upcoming videos that are gonna be coming up. I will also be moderating a debate between a presupposition list haven't announced his name yet and an atheist.

So that should be a really great opportunity to see presuppositional apologetics in practice. So I'll let you guys know when that's going down as well. All right well without further ado, we got a little crowd going and thank you so much for your Your support and without further ado.

I'd like to invite. Dr. Lyle on the screen with me. How are you doing? Dr. Lyle? I'm very good. How are you? I'm doing. Well, I've been busy, but you've been busy as well. I look tired and you're really good at hiding being tired.

So Why don't you take a few moments and let folks know what you've been up to before we jump into our topic.

Okay. Well, I've been really on the speaking circuit for the last month. I've done I've been I feel like I've been everywhere in the Last month I was up in New Jersey in New York, Pennsylvania doing a bunch of speaking engagements defending Genesis defending the Christian faith presuppositionally and then and then just last week I was in Washington State and then California and then back to Washington State and I met some just wonderful brothers and in Christ brothers and sisters in Christ.

It was it was a wonderful experience. Washington State, California. Interesting, but I'm glad to be back in America. Oh, very good.

Well, I haven't been traveling. I'm just teaching and I have three kids and My wife is amazing. She helps out so much while I crawl into my bed exhausted at the end of the day. So so you look really good when you're busy.

You look like you got it all together. That's really good. You got to tell me your secret. For me, it's coffee and Jesus not in that order you go. All right. Well, let's let's jump right into our topic.

We're gonna be talking about the historical Adam. Let's just start with a very generic but very straightforward question. Why is the historical Adam. The question of the historical Adam so important and foundational to the Christian faith.

Well, if you think about the Christian Christian theology how much of it is linked to Adam the connection between The the first Adam and Jesus Christ the last Adam Jesus is called the last Adam because of the connection Adam brings sin into the world sin and death passes that on to us.

Jesus Christ is the one who then alleviates That that problem through by paying our penalty by dying on the cross for us. So that's certainly a big issue the fact that Christian theology is linked back not just to Adam but to a literal reading of Genesis and I think two other issues that that come into play here are if if Adams not the way he's described in Genesis if Genesis is myth or mytho-history.

If we can't trust the details in Genesis. Then we have some theological issues because one of the things that we learn in Genesis is that death is the penalty for sin. It was introduced when Adam sinned that brought suffering into into a world.

That was originally very good originally by God God's own standard very good. And so death being the penalty for sin now, of course, that's reiterated throughout the scriptures, but it has its origin.

It has its foundation in the book of Genesis. So that's Very really very very important the whole idea of original sin and the fact that we need we need help even We can't even declare Jesus as Lord without the help of the Holy Spirit as the Bible teaches so we need that change of our nature and then the other issue too is one of perspicuity because You know, it's it's easy enough to debate against people who you say well the Bible is not inerrant and so on.

But there are people who say the binds the Bible's inerrant. I just don't read it like you do it that's not that's not how I interpret that passage and When you take something that really is as clear as Genesis and say well, it's not clear.

It could mean this that or the other that really is a subtle attack on the perspicuity of the clarity of Scripture. God is a linguistic being he spoke the universe into existence. He created Adam able to speak and for that reason God does know how to communicate The issue and granted I realized there are difficult sections of Scripture the Bible itself says that but nonetheless the main and in plain teachings of Scripture are pretty clear and If we can't trust that that calls into question God's omnipotence is he really able to communicate to us clearly and so it brings into this issue of is the Bible really meant to Be understood.

Is it something that we need a PhD in philosophy to understand or is it something that everybody if they do their homework? Can understand that I've been I take the ladder. I take that the Bible is the clear Word of God.

Interpreting Genesis as Historical Narrative

Okay. Now, of course, there are people who will disagree with your interpretation, right? And they'll they'll believe the Bible is the Word of God. They'll believe it speaks clearly, but we need to identify Genre things like this.

Why is it? Is why is it the case that this is an issue in terms of? These different interpretations. I mean you come to Genesis and you say that this is clearly historical narrative and then you have other people who.

Yeah, you do have people who are influenced by Science and kind of the external factors, but you do have people who are like, I think there's something else going on in the text here. How would you kind of address?

Those sorts of folks who think the Bible is the Word of God. I believe in the authority of the Word of God, but the issue is who is using the correct interpretive model here.

How would you how would you speak to that issue? Well first I would want to make sure that I would want to sort of analyze that individual and Analyze for evidence of Sort of a post-modernist way of thinking because many people think that they have the right to interpret the Bible any way that they wish.

That there are multiple interpretations. And the way I like to say this to people is there are an infinite number of interpretations of the Bible. There's only one meaning the author had a particular thing in mind that he wanted to convey and so although there are an infinite number of Interpretations because you can interpret text any way that you like only one of them matches the meaning of the text.

There's only one correct interpretation now in some cases. It might be difficult to get to that correct interpretation. I don't deny that again. There are difficult sections in Scripture and most of us read a translation of Scripture anyway.

And so sometimes we have to do our homework and go back to the original Languages and do a little work there and that that can be tricky. But I would affirm that the main and plain doctrines of Scripture are clear.

And I would affirm that you do not have the right to read to interpret the Bible according to your preferences. I would argue that the Bible itself gives us the rules of Interpretation for how it should be interpreted.

And in fact, that was my motivation if you don't mind a little shameless promotion. That was my motivation for writing my book understanding Genesis. This this book really is a it's it's it's less about Genesis.

It's more about Hermeneutics and what I did in this book as I said, how do we approach? Hermeneutics the study of interpreting the Bible in a presuppositional way. I've seen people kind of Kind of do that a little bit, but I wanted to approach it, you know and say, okay.

Can we know trick can can I make a transcendental argument for the clarity of Scripture that it must mean X? Because of the impossibility of the contrary and I think I can make that argument because the Bible itself does give us rules of interpretation and That bugs people because it brings up this this idea of circularity that presuppositionalists are always accused of anyway.

But there is a degree of circularity there because people say well if the Bible gives us the rules for interpretation. Then how do we get started? How do I how do I start reading the scriptures, you know?

And it's answered the same way really as anything else. It's a spiral. It's a hermeneutical spiral. God give us God has given us enough innate ability in terms of linguistics to be able to read and Understand the main and plain teachings of the scriptures and that helps correct some of our misconceptions and when we read it again we have an improved understanding of it which corrects more misconceptions and so on and so the more you read the Bible and think through it logically, I Believe you can get to the to the meaning of the text and it's not the main in plain doctrines.

Not that difficult at all. And then the more nuanced doctrines I think it takes more readings of Scripture because we do have that sin nature that we've inherited from Adam. And so again, it goes back to Adam.

But yeah.

Craig's Mytho-History View of Genesis

All right. And okay, so okay. Those are good points. So the issue of hermeneutics having a proper hermeneutic is vitally important and it's really the key central issue when we're dealing with Genesis of.

Which the issue of Adam is just one element I mean we we get into this issue of whether someone's interpreting Genesis correctly when you get to other parts. You know whether you have global flood local flood these sorts of things.

Okay. Talking about dr. Craig then I am based on your understanding of his position then. I mean, I would assume he's coming to Genesis presumably with the intention of understanding what it means. How does his Interpretation differ with yours.

Now, obviously he we know he's not a young earth creationist. He doesn't have that that position. What is dr Craig's Understanding of Genesis and how does that affect how he interprets the first 11 chapters?

Well He takes it as what he calls myth. Oh history, which is to say that he believes it has elements. It has elements of history in it But is clothed in the language of myth and therefore should not be taken a straightforward history.

His words that it shouldn't be straight. It's not straightforward history I would say it is straightforward history and I would say there isn't any evidence of Myth in and we'll have to define our terms too because I've noticed that Craig actually subtly equivocates on the word myth.

Okay, he may not be aware that he's doing it, but I believe he's doing it and we thought we can talk about that. But it myth in the sense that it's not it didn't literally happen or that it's symbolic or something like that I would say no, there's no evidence of that in Genesis and and granted Genesis might contain statements of people that are wrong or you know I mean we understand this that but I'm suggesting that what Genesis affirms is factually true it really did happen in the way that God says it did and Really did happen in six days.

There was a literal Adam He really sinned the sin was exactly what the Bible says God told him not to eat from that tree. He ate from the tree and we've inherited that sin nature. And so we want to rebel against God by our very nature we need a change of heart we need our sins paid for and we need our Unforgiven and we need to we need a change of heart to be made.

Like Christ in terms of our nature and so but Craig looks at it more figuratively. But it's interesting because he notes there that there are Indicators of history there and so and he can't deny that which I appreciate it.

Ancient Near Eastern Myths and the Structure of Genesis

Okay. So, um, what are some of the points that he brings up to to Validate that, you know that position. So he said that Genesis is Cat should give at least the first 11 chapters. I believe that it should be categorized as mytho history.

What are some of the data points he uses to support that because obviously he's not just making a bare assertion. He's trying to. By the way, I mean in his book if you just look at the table of contents I mean he goes at great lengths trying to support his position, which is what he's supposed to do.

If you if you have a position you want to make sure. You know, you're supporting that position and we know that Craig dr Craig is a he makes good and at least trying to attempt to defend position. We might disagree with how he does that.

What are some of the ways in which he defends his position that the first 11 chapters is is categorized as mytho history.

Okay, there are several and as you know, I've been writing a series of articles critiquing Craig respectfully. He wrote an article that kind of summarizes his book. And I've been going through and just kind of going to point by point of that and in that article the first argument that he makes is he claims that the style of Genesis or Perhaps the content he kind of combines both.

He says is very similar to ancient East Near Eastern mythology. Okay. Okay. So that's his that's his first claim is that there's a similarity between Genesis and these other Pagan mythologies which he which he would reject obviously, but nonetheless he says there's a connection there and that's something that I will dispute.

We can come back to the details of that. But and then he also argues that there are certain Aspects of Genesis that would be extraordinary if taken literally such as the ages of the patriarchs the talking Serpent and so on and so forth.

I would reject that too because well, but let's go back to the first. Let's go back to the first one the idea that Genesis has all these similarities to Near Eastern mythologies. It really doesn't now there are two mistakes that I see Craig making here.

First of all, he's trying to say that Genesis has kind of a style that's similar to these myths. And it really doesn't. I had the pleasure of taking a college class on myth Folklore and legend when I was at Ohio Wesleyan University was fascinating class I didn't think I would enjoy it as much as I did.

And I got to read hundreds and hundreds of different myths in different cultures and the interesting thing is most of them almost all of them have a universe that be either is eternal or begins in a chaotic state and Then one or more gods sort of evolve out of that state really it's it's their evolution based these these mythologies.

And there's a chaos monster that has to be defeated in order for the world to become the good place that it's today. And that theme was almost universal and it was interesting because our professor Apparently not a Christian.

She threw in Genesis into these different, you know, she grouped that into and it was remarkable how different it is from these other mythologies. So if you really read them, you know, it's not similar at all.

Would you would you say though?

There are some key differences. But would you say that the the literary structure as to kind of like the days and like the creation of different category? Do you think there's similarities there? Is that maybe what he's getting at that.

The the way that the narrative is playing out is very similar to ancient Near Eastern myths. But the content is unique in that. I think that dr Craig would think that Genesis stands unique in very important ways, even though there are some similarities.

He may he may claim that but I would disagree with that because most of these myths are written in a very Either a poetic or literary literarily enhanced. They're not just straightforward narrative most of them were not and so I think the style is very different but the other thing that was that I thought was interesting and I thought this was a Mistake and reasoning on Craig's part is that he argues that the content is so is so similar In that and he gives specific examples and that it deals with the creation of the universe and of mankind.

And of a global flood and let's let's consider those. Let's let's put the flood off for a moment, but those first two categories it deals with the creation of the universe and of mankind. Well, yeah Genesis does and it's true that Near Near Eastern origins myths deal with those because if they didn't they wouldn't be origins myths so it's you know by construction any Alleged either myth or historical Report of the origins of the universe would have to deal with the origins of the universe.

So to say well, it's similar on that basis. Well, we're excluding all things that are not origin stories. Of course, that's going to be similar and that would be in it. But the same would be the case for the Big Bang and Darwinian evolution, which I think Craig would not classify as myth.

But by his by his thinking they shouldn't be they fall into that same category. They deal with the origins of the universe the origins of mankind. That's that's what the Big Bang and Darwinian evolution were invoked to explain.

I'll be it in a secular humanistic way Craig Rejects the the atheistic component of that but he accepts those origin stories. And so they would they would be very similar to so I think if he's going to be fair and say well We're you know, let's these things are similar.

He would have to include the Big Bang and evolution as well. But I would argue that Genesis is very different in that it's giving us An historical report of these events it's not trying to explain them from somebody who came afterwards and is sort of speculating on the past and and Telling stories that would be more along the lines of the Big Bang and evolution but Genesis, I believe it's recorded by eyewitnesses, but at the very least it's it's written by Moses and Inspired by the Holy Spirit who saw these events occur.

And so it's not giving us there's there's no compelling evidence that it's Mythological in any way in terms of its content or Or the structure they're very different and and again the content would have to be the same in terms of Dealing with the origins because that's what it is.

It's an origins account now with regard to the flood. Here there are similarities and in that class on myth legend and folklore I I was astonished at the number of ancient myths that teach a global flood.

Okay, not just in the Near East around the world. You can get just about every culture there for a while. There were two exceptions. There was I think Egypt and Japan and one of them they since then they found it.

They found a flood account there, too. There's no flood accounts in Japan. Wait. No, there's one.

Yeah, so basically every almost every culture has a flood account if you go back far enough into their history. Sure, and I guess you know Craig takes that as well. See, there you go. Similar to myth, but I take that as it really happened.

This this was a real event that happened in history, but you're saying that the diverse accounts of Global floods and these other cultures is not similarity of myth-telling but it's a similarity in the sense that there is this common Memory of a global event that is reflected in a lot of these myths from these different cultures.

Yeah, pass it down. Okay. Yeah passed down by word-of-mouth eventually written down. Genesis being the accurate account because it's inspired by the Holy Spirit and if I'm right I think Moses had access to previous documents that documented these things.

There's some evidence of that in Genesis. We don't know we can go into that or not. But in any case but I think it's very clear and Genesis is certainly the original because one of the things when I read these other accounts of Epic of Gilgamesh was one of the ones that we read and Gilgamesh meets the Noah figure which is a different name.

Like wouldn't have pitched him something like that and he meets the Noah figure and describes the the ark the ark is a cube in the. Well that doesn't work physically because a cute, you know, that doesn't make sense.

We've had engineers study the the actual shape of the ark that the Bible is that one is designed to weather a worldwide flood. So it's very clear not just on the basis of the inspiration of Scripture, but for these other reasons that Genesis is the original and these other Legends have spread around the world have distorted some of the details but nonetheless most of them have God or the gods were angry at mankind.

They sent this flood. It's a global flood. And humans and animals were saved On board an ark and those elements are common themes and that's not something that we would be inclined just to kind of make up.

Sure, because if you think about all these other if you go back and talk about the origin of the universe and of man almost all these ancient myths are Evolution based there. There's a they're either an eternal universe or at least one that's very old.

And then there's this K. There's this chaotic state and then there's this chaos monster that has to be defeated for the world to become the good place. It is today and Genesis is the opposite and that starts with us with a in the beginning.

There's a beginning at a time God starts it. It's already perfect when it as soon as God's finished making it. It's already perfect and chaos is introduced. Ultimately because of human beings and so it really has the opposite kind of structure as these ancient Near Eastern myths.

Science, Human Origins, and the Historical Adam

That's super fascinating. Let's let's let's kind of focus back on it on Adam. Now. That's interesting. I think that that that's worth a completely other conversation with the issue of the The myth of the flood being global or local.

That's that's very fascinating. So with respect to Adam though when we speak of Adam as opposed to like other parts of the Bible He's usually connected with the scientific conversation, right. Where you have this kind of People having studies in genetics and things like that and how man came about.

How does the biblical Adam cross hairs and some of these scientific discussions with respect to you know, what we can know? Right about the earliest humans. I don't know if my question makes sense.

I think it does and let me. This will illustrate to one of the differences between my approach to the Bible and William Lane Craig's approach to the Bible. Okay, I start with the Bible as my basic presupposition.

I built I have a philosophy so to see we all do whether we're conscious of it or not. But I try to build my philosophy on the Word of God and let it inform my understanding of other things that includes my understanding of science.

Some people think that that's a weakness. I think it's a tremendous strength most of the founding fathers of science to would agree with that. They based their thinking on scripture and that's how they interpreted the data.

And so when I in my second in my. My friends my Christian friends who have a PhD in relevant fields and genetics biology. What have you when they look at the data and I look at it with them. We tend to come to the same conclusions.

We interpret the data in a way that's consistent with what the Bible teaches and we find great harmony there. The the secular stories don't agree with the Bible, but I would argue the data the scientific data.

Align, they make sense the data the evidence that we see in the present makes sense. The. Genetically, we are descended from Adam Eve genetically and in fact, my friend Nathaniel Jensen has been working on that very topic.

He's a PhD from from Harvard actually and one of the one of those brilliant creation scientists. I know and he's been studying DNA and the lineages you can trace back through either mitochondrial DNA or the Y chromosome.

Y chromosome is passed on in the male line and the mitochondrial DNA is passed on mainly by the the woman. And so you can trace that back and get back to Adam and Eve and they do go back. They do go back to two people and even the timescale is interesting too because some of dr. Jensen's work Researched mutation rates and we can see the rate at which mutations accumulate in the human genome and in other organisms as well.

We can see the rate at which the mutations accumulate and he goes back and says, okay. Now, how many how many mutations do we have? What's the mutation rate? How long ago did this organism appear on the earth and he gets very close to 6 ,000 years based on all these studies.

Which I think is it's interesting if it's not surprising to me, but that's like that's that's what I'd expect. And I know Rob Carter's done some work on Y chromosome and getting back to the original DNA of Adam and Eve which you can because we all are descended from Adam and Eve.

We all have bits of the information that was in them. We've got some mistakes mutations that have accumulated but It's it's interesting stuff and it's something that confirms that we really do come from two human beings.

What We Know from Science and What We Know from Scripture

Hmm. Excellent. That's interesting.

And maybe at the back end of the episode you can point people in the direction of maybe some good books that deal with The whole issue of Adam and Eve genetic studies and things like that. I think folks would find that interesting.

Now you wrote a three-part article interacting with dr. Craig's work and I want to read a quote from dr Craig that you provided a response, but maybe you can kind of share it here. I think it'll be Helpful for folks.

Dr. Craig says the following. He says what historical claims does the Bible make about Adam and Eve and is belief in a historical Adam and Eve? Compatible with the scientific evidence. Why don't you share with us?

What issue you took with kind of that phraseology of his question? I thought that was interesting when I read the article. I maybe you can unpack it for us.

Well Craig basically accepts the the secular origin story now. He would say God did it but he would accept as he would accept Darwinian evolution in some form. He would accept the Big Bang the billions of years and so on.

So in his view, that's what we know about humanity what the secular scientists say. And I take issue with that because I would say what we know about Humanity is what the Bible teaches. What we know about the origins of the universe is what the Bible teaches now.

Can scientists make guesses about the past? Absolutely. I have no problem with that. But that's not what we know. What we know is what God has said in his word. Well, what we know historically is what is recorded in history books and the Bible is that it's a history book that Tells us the history of the universe how it began in the history of mankind how they began.

So I want to stop you there. So so you're saying okay from science someone someone could say we know this from science. And let's see if it's compatible with what the Bible says you're saying. Well, wait a minute what we know is what God has said and science is Confirmatory if you have the right presuppositions, I suppose right?

Yeah, so you're starting with a very authoritative Dogmatic position which you would you would openly admit right? This is the Word of God if it's the Word of God It speaks dogmatically. It speaks self-attesting Lee.

So you understand the Word of God is saying this is how God did it. This is what it means. We're able to interpret it and this is what we know. We don't come to the discussion from well science. We know this.

Let's see what the Bible says and see if there's a compatibility. Is that what you're saying?

Operational Science vs. Historical Science

Yeah, and particularly the opinions of secular scientists. Craig makes this reification fallacy mistake of taking a science Teaches this we know this from science. Okay, science is not an opinion. It's it's not a person that has opinions on thing.

It's a it's a method now scientists Have certain beliefs that they teach and different scientists have have different conclusions that they draw about the past. And so we need to be careful about that.

It would be more accurate for him to say that keep he accepts what the majority of scientists believe about the past. That would be honest and I would say and I Disagree with them because I got to tell you the majority of scientists do not believe in resurrection from the dead.

And so if we were going to use that as the standard by which we interpreted scripture We would have to reinterpret the resurrection as being a non-literal non-historical event as a myth. Yeah, I thought that was interesting.

So and I don't know what dr. Craig would I wish he would come on? I'd love to have a conversation with this man. We have like a dialogue going on between you and that'd be an interesting conversation.

I'm not sure if he'd ever do it, but He I this is this is an issue for me sometimes. So people will make a big deal about how Genesis is compatible with science, right? We can talk about in a way that Genesis is not irrational.

Look, I mean if you understand it this way, it makes sense and people team seem to bend over backwards. Trying to say look Genesis is reasonable if you understand it this way. Yet, you know when the resurrection is in question.

It's like well, we don't try to reconcile that with science yet. In order to make the Bible believable we try so hard to make it compatible when we're talking about Genesis. I think that's very fascinating I'm not sure.

That's what he's doing. But I mean I see people do it. I mean, you know what I mean? I think that's that's fascinating a real quick. I just want to give a shout out here Trinity Radio. Who thank you so much for your super chat.

I think he feels guilty. We had a folks know who Braxton Hunter is over at Trinity right is a good friend of mine. We we had some fighting words over the phone. I think he feels guilt. This is guilty money Braxton I'll take it.

But I don't worry Braxton. I love you, man. It is all good. And thank you so much for your support. If you have not already subscribed to Trinity Radio, you need to get over there and subscribe. That is an excellent excellent Apologetics channel not presuppositional, but hey God can strike a blow with a broken stick right a crooked stick.

I love you Braxton. Thank you so much for for that super chat and also Israel. Thank you so much for your $5 super chat. Well, we'll take some of those questions a little bit later. So if you do have questions, you could ask away, but thank you for the support.

Thank you so much. That's wonderful. Okay, so let's continue on here. So You said something to the effect of belief in a historical Adam and Eve. Is it compatible with the scientific evidence and you said that that was an odd question.

Can you unpack that a little bit more? Because it's.

Normally when we talk about historical claims We don't say now is that compatible with science? However, you know did George Washington really cross the Delaware on this particular date and so on. What does the science say?

That's a past event science is about understanding how the universe operates today the predictable orderly way. God upholds his creation. Historical events are not normally Conclusively discernible by the scientific method because there's there's no there's no repeatability.

There's no testability on the past. That's not to say we can't apply the methods of science to make some guesses about the past. But then to take that as the standard by which you then compare a historical document.