WWUTT 1535 Q&A The Historical Adam, Genesis 1-11, William Lane Craig

The Historical Adam and the Meaning of Genesis 1–11

What is the historical Adam, and does William Lane Craig believe in him? Is it necessary to have to read Genesis 1 -11 in a literal way in order to be saved? The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, who did not join me to record this program today. We intended on doing this together, but our baby boy that you heard at the end of the last Friday broadcast was very grumpy today, and it's really difficult to record when he just wants to cry the whole time.

Some of you thought it was adorable hearing him cry at the end of last week's Q &A. Well, yeah, it's cued for two to three minutes, but you would not want a whole program like that. So we weren't able to do it.

I'm hoping, though, we're going to actually record next week's Q &A this weekend. We're going away on vacation this next week. I'm having to record ahead, and maybe we can get together this weekend and record next week's Q &A.

So everything that I planned on doing today, we're just pushing to next week. Today I'm doing the program I had actually intended on doing next week as a pre-record. But yeah, so now that I'm having to move stuff around, I'm moving this up a little bit, responding to some of the criticisms that I got from last week's episode, where I called out William Lane Craig for denying the historical Adam.

So I'll get to my question here in just a moment. Let's begin by looking at Romans 5, beginning in verse 12. Last week I read from 1 Corinthians 15, where we read about the first Adam and the last Adam.

The first Adam being the Adam who was created in the Garden of Eden, and the last Adam, of course, being Christ. So let me read now from Romans 5, beginning in verse 12. The apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, the historical Adam, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.

For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

Talking about the last Adam, who is Christ. Verse 15, Paul says, but the free gift is not like the trespass, for if many died through the one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many.

And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin, for the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous.

Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

William Lane Craig, the Historical Adam, and Original Sin

Last week's episode, last week's Q &A, I received a question about William Lane Craig denouncing the historical Adam. I went further with that and said that he outright denied the historical Adam. Same thing that Owen Strand said, by the way, regarding the same comments that I responded to from William Lane Craig.

There were a few people who were very mad at me for saying that, because they claimed that I was misrepresenting William Lane Craig. One person even called me an outright liar. So I grabbed at least one of the emails, one of the nicer emails, and I'll respond to this question.

This is James from Fresno, and he says, Dear Pastor Gabe, I'm a longtime listener of your podcast. Like you, I listened to a lot of William Lane Craig when I was in college. I don't always agree with everything he says, including his views on the historical Adam and original sin.

But when I listened to his full interview with Sean McDowell, it sounded to me like he did affirm the historical Adam. He just did not affirm a literal reading of Genesis 1 through 3. Could you clarify what you meant when you said that Craig denies the existence of a historical Adam?

Well, if you go back and listen to the way that I responded to that question last week, remember that I played the question and then Becky said, now, what is the historical Adam? And I said the historical Adam is the Adam of the Bible.

So it's Adam, as you read of him in Genesis 1 through 5. And it's on those grounds that I said that William Lane Craig denied the existence of a historical Adam. And Craig not only denies the existence of that Adam, he also mocked the Genesis 1 through 3 account.

Dr. Owen Strand responded to Dr. Craig's comments in this way. He says, I've now lived to see an esteemed Christian philosopher publicly mock Genesis 1 through 3. William Lane Craig is nearly laughing, as he says.

Then there's this talking snake who comes along and tempts them to sin. You mock the Bible at your peril and you will hear those comments as Craig made them here coming up in just a moment. I'm going to interact with Craig's comments a little more specifically than I did last week so you can hear in his own words what he says.

Dr. Strand went on to say, I'm grieved to read this by William Lane Craig. He says Genesis 1 through 11 is not literal truth, nor is Adam historical. Now all of that to say that Dr. Strand and I agree with one another.

The same words Dr. Strand used in response to William Lane Craig's views, it's the same words that I used. It is true that William Lane Craig claims that there was a historical Adam. But the figure that he props up existing over a million years ago bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Adam of Genesis 1 through 5.

He is making up some caveman like figure and calling that guy Adam. That does not qualify as believing in the historical Adam. That's a myth. William Lane Craig believes in myths about Adam, not the historical Adam.

When I was in college, there was a there was a professor I had who believed that everything that was in the Bible could be explained naturally in some way. Even the miracles that you read about in scripture could be explained with some kind of natural cause.

So he would say that he believed in the whole Bible. That's what he would say. I believe everything that's in the Bible. But then when you hear him describe what he says that he believes, it doesn't sound like the Bible at all.

What he believed about Adam. No kidding. This was his definition of the historical Adam. He said that he believed Adam was actually a race of people at a certain period of time way back in the past. So it wasn't one man, but it was symbolized as one man in Genesis 1 through 5.

That you would not call that believing in the historical Adam. But some people do believe that about Adam, and they say that's historical. So just because you're propping up some figure in the past and saying that you believe that person exists, that does not mean you're believing in the historical Adam.

Again, I qualified it last week as the biblical Adam is the historical Adam. And William Lane Craig's Adam bears no resemblance to the biblical Adam. So let's get to the interview here that he did with Sean McDowell.

And some of these clips I'm going to play here, they're probably not in the right order. I took the interview and kind of picked it apart. So this may not be in successive order in the way that you hear it in the interview, but you'll still hear William Lane Craig's views in context.

So here's the first question from Sean McDowell asking Dr. Craig exactly what his views are regarding Adam.

The Genealogical Adam and a Prehistoric First Couple

Bill, our mutual friend Josh Suamaras has written a book recently on the genealogical Adam and Eve. We have other books that are coming out and other friends. There's a ton of people talking about this.

How would you say, what sets your quest or your approach maybe apart from the way others have looked at the historical Adam?

My approach differs from Josh's in that in order to have Adam and Eve be the truly universal progenitors of every human being that has ever lived on the face of this planet, I pushed them deeply into the remote past, somewhere prior to 750 ,000 years ago.

And by putting them so far in prehistory, it enables one to affirm that every person who has ever lived on this planet is a descendant of this primordial, original human couple, which I take to be an essential teaching of Genesis 2, as well as of the statements about Adam in the New Testament.

Now, Dr. Craig says there, it is necessary to believe in a historical Adam figure like the one we read about in Genesis 2. But the man that he props up and puts a million years into the past doesn't look anything like the Adam that we read about in Genesis 2.

And I'll play more clips about him describing the Adam of the Bible and his rejection of that Adam here coming up in just a moment. This sounds a lot more like Dr. Craig is trying to capitulate to the Darwinian evolutionary crowd, and there's no reason to do that.

You gain nothing. There's no benefit in being a theistic evolutionist. You run into all kinds of problems, in fact, if you're going to believe that God, through evolutionary processes, created all things to get us to the point that we're at today.

If God has been evolving things over millions, if not billions of years of time, that means that death existed before Adam did. And if death was in the world before Adam, which, by the way, goes exactly against what we just read here in Romans five, if death was in the world before Adam, then death is not a consequence for sin.

But what is Genesis or sorry, Genesis? What does Romans 623 say? For the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord, because Adam sinned all die. That is what Paul states in Romans chapter five is what we read also in first Corinthians 15, that the last enemy to be destroyed at the return of Christ is going to be death.

Christ has conquered death by his death on the cross and resurrection from the grave so that by faith in Christ, we likewise will have victory over the grave and we will rise again as he was raised from the dead.

Why do we die? Because we're sinners. Because death is the consequence for sin, because all things were subjected to futility as a result of Adam and Eve's sinful choices, that was that stated in Romans chapter eight that God subjected all things to futility because of sin.

Death came into the world because of Adam's sin. And all who are born in the line of Adam are born with his sin nature. It's why even infants in the womb die, though they have not yet been able to make a choice right or wrong.

It's because they have Adam's sin nature even within them, if they did not have Adam's sin nature, they wouldn't die. They would be able to be born and not have to worry about death until they made some kind of a sinful choice.

But we all die because that is the consequence for sin. Death is the consequence. Jesus died, though he was sinless, because he gave his own life, because he took our sins upon himself, as it says in 2 Corinthians 5, 21, for our sake, he became sin, who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

But had Christ not done that, he would not have died because he was sinless. He was conceived sinless. He was not conceived of the seed of a man. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit. And according to Dr. Craig's view, that doesn't matter.

Jesus did not have to be virgin born, he could have just made the right choices. So his being virgin born is really not significant, according to Dr. Craig's view, because he denies the doctrine of original sin.

Listen to him here. He says so to Sean McDowell.

One question is, why does the historical Adam matter so much? Because it wasn't addressed, as far as I'm aware, in any ecumenical council such as the Nicene Creed.

Right. For those who hold to the doctrine of original sin, that is to say that we are culpable for Adam's sin or that Adam's sin corrupted human nature and we all bear that disease. The historical Adam is absolutely crucial because if he is merely a fictional character that never existed, obviously we cannot be culpable for the wrongdoing of a fictional person or be corrupted by his fault.

Now, I myself don't hold to that classical doctrine of original sin. I think that that is neither taught in Genesis 3 nor in Romans 5. I think what Paul teaches is that Adam was the floodgate through which sin entered into the human race and then sin spread to all men because, as Paul says, all men sin.

Now, there's a lot more that needs to be fleshed out in his explanation there, and he just simply doesn't give it. So does he therefore say that there is no indwelling sin in man? Because if there is no indwelling, I mean, if there's no original sin, there's no indwelling sin.

Sin is something that exists outside of us. We're all inherently good and we just we just make wrong choices. And so sin is this thing that kind of exists out there in the world because it's the floodgate.

Adam was the floodgate that sin came into the world. So sin is just kind of out there and we just kind of stumble into it. But it doesn't really come from within us. That's not what Jesus taught. Matthew 15, 19 for out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness and slander that comes from within.

That's not something that exists out there. And then we just get tempted by it and we therefore do it. Those evil things come from within us. David said in Psalm 51 in sin, did my mother conceive me from the moment of his conception?

David knew that he was a sinful person. It is in our members because we have inherited the sin nature of Adam to deny that as heresy. To think that you can just be a good person by making good choices is to deny what scripture says about indwelling sin.

It's the very reason why we die. It's the very reason why we need a savior, because we by our nature are rebellious sinners, lawbreakers going against God. And Paul states that in Ephesians two verses one through three, that we were once dead in our sins and our trespasses in which we once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived were born sons and daughters of disobedience, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and are by our nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

That's said right there in Ephesians two three. And and folks, I am biting my tongue from calling William Lane Craig a heretic. You heard me get real close to it last week to deny the doctrine of original sin is heresy.

And there's all kinds of problems with what Dr. Craig is proposing here. Listen to the way that he describes the Genesis narrative, the Adam and Eve story in Genesis one through three.

Mytho-History and a Nonliteral Reading of Genesis

If this approach is correct, how should the shape the way in your view we read Genesis one through 11, then and the story of Adam and Eve?

Dr. Craig I think it should prompt us not to be over literalistic in the way we read these narratives. And once you begin to look at them in terms of mytho-history, it's difficult to look at them in any other way.

I mean, when you read a story about two people in an arboretum with these magical trees whose fruit, if you eat it, will grant you immortality or knowledge of good and evil, and then there's this talking snake who comes along and tempts them into sin, and then you have this anthropomorphic god walking in the cool of the garden calling out audibly to Adam in his hideout, you think, well of course this is figurative and metaphorical language.

This isn't meant to be read in this sort of literalistic fashion. And so once you begin to see these narratives this way, I think you begin to ask yourself, how could I have read them any other way? It would be like reading Aesop's fables literalistically as really about talking animals, for example, rather than as figurative or metaphorical in order to teach some moral lesson.

This is an incredibly inconsistent critique, because in the first five books of the Bible, which we call the Pentateuch, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, Genesis 3 is not the only place where we read about a talking animal.

Where else in those historical five books of the Bible do we read about a talking animal? In the book of Numbers, Balaam's talking donkey. Would Dr. Craig call that story allegorical or figurative or mythohistory?

So anytime we read about some sort of talking animal, we just have to think that's absurd. And he outright mocks a literal reading of Genesis 1 through 3. How uncharitable was his tone there toward his brothers and sisters in Christ who read that literally?

And yet Gavin Ortland felt compelled to have to respond to Dr. Owen Strand because he thought Dr. Strand was being uncharitable to Dr. Craig. Gavin Ortland made this video responding to Owen Strand's remarks, and he said it's because that Dr. Craig is a reasonable person.

And so, therefore, he has to defend Dr. Craig. Where was his response to Dr. Craig for mocking a literal reading to Genesis 1 through 3? Oh, no, Dr. Strand needs to be rebuked because, according to Gavin Ortland, Owen was being just a little too much of a fundamentalist.

Not even kidding. That's the reason he gives at the beginning of his video, that there was just this air of fundamentalism that Dr. Strand had, Gavin felt compelled to have to respond to. There was something that was really funny in Gavin's defense of William Lane Craig, and I just have to play it here.

I have to do this because I really want to respond to this. So here you go. This is Gavin Ortland explaining that even in church history, there has not always been a literal reading of Genesis 1 through 11.

Here's Gavin Ortland.

It's not just modern exegetes. I wrote a whole book on St. Augustine's views on the doctrine of creation. I will resist the urge to start to draw you into interest in my book. That's not the purpose of this video, but I'll simply say I was shocked as I'm doing my research for chapter 5 of my book on Adam and Eve.

I'm like, I know Augustine doesn't read Genesis 1, literally. I know that.

Now, let me stop there for just a moment. Whenever we're talking about interpretations of the book of Genesis throughout church history, Augustine often gets pulled into this discussion. Now, Gavin says, Augustine, I say, Augustine, potato, potato.

OK, anyway, so he says that Augustine did not have a literal reading of Genesis 1. And there are a lot of people who say, well, Augustine did not read the literal six day creation, like on the first day God created this.

On the second day, God created this. Augustine did not view that as literal 24 hour days. That's true. Augustine read Genesis 1 in a very allegorical fashion. You can read this not only in his literal commentary on the book of Genesis, but even in his book Confessions, which I have I'm holding in my hand here.

It's in book 13 at the end of Confessions, where Augustine is going through Genesis 1 and he's very much reading it allegorically, but he's writing it as a prayer unto God. So he's going through Genesis 1 and basically praying the scriptures, but he's viewing the different things throughout the Genesis 1 narrative as being something allegorical.

Now, there are people that will say that about Augustine and they'll try to pull his allegorical reading of Genesis 1 into their paradigm of theistic evolution. And it's almost as if to say, well, Augustine did it so I can, too.

No, no, no. Darwinian evolution would never fit into Augustine's view of Genesis. No way. Not in a million years, if you'll pardon the pun. Augustine never would have let Darwinian evolution pass into a reading of the book of Genesis because Augustine believed that God created everything in a moment, in an instant.

It was all made. And so therefore, the six day creation is allegorical, like pointing to different things about man. He very much spiritualizes Genesis 1, that God created all these days or describes it in days for our spiritual benefit in some way.

Right. So like for the Sabbath, for example, let me read to you what Augustine says about the Sabbath. But the seventh day is without evening. It has no sunset for you sanctified it that it may abide forever.

After all your works, which were very good, you rested on the seventh day, although you made them with no interruption of your repose. So there is Augustine saying there, you just created everything. There was no interruption of it.

And he views the Sabbath as something symbolic because as it's read about at the beginning of Genesis two, there there was no evening and morning described for the Sabbath. So therefore, it's continual.

It's eternal. Right. That's that's how Augustine viewed the six day creation. He believed that God created everything in an instant, and therefore, the days were something allegorical to be spiritualized for our spiritual benefit.

So don't ever let anybody tell you that Augustine did not take a literal reading of Genesis one in order to make the excuse that we can therefore accept theistic evolution in our creation paradigm because Augustine never would have accepted that.

Now, furthermore, it's it's astonishing that Gavin would use Augustine to defend William Lane Craig. And you probably know where I'm going with this, but let me go ahead and let Gavin continue his answer here.

Genesis two to three, you know, I was shocked. You get to book eight of his literal commentary on Genesis, and he says there's three options. Adam is either a real person and Eden, a real place, or they're symbols of humanity and heaven, respectively, or both.

And he says, basically, to summarize, he says it's both. But if we had to go with option number two, and they're symbolic, we could do that and still be orthodox. I'm not lying.

You don't believe me? Look it up or check out my book. But what Augustine does with Genesis one is not anything like what William Lane Craig does with Genesis one, which is to form the Bible in order to fit a theistic evolutionary premise.

And then we can just bring the Darwinian evolutionary science into the Bible. And Craig is trying to make the Bible allow for that. Augustine never would have allowed for that. See, that's anachronistic to do that, to think that because Craig does it, well, Augustine would have done the same thing.

No way. So that's the first problem with Gavin using Augustine to defend William Lane Craig is because Augustine's reading of Genesis is nothing like William Lane Craig's reading of Genesis. Craig's reading is way more heterodox.

That's the first problem. Second problem, though. And like I said, you may have already known where I was going with this. William Lane Craig denies original sin. Craig takes the Pelagian view, who was Augustine's arch nemesis.

No way could you ever get William Lane Craig in the same camp as Augustine. He doesn't read Genesis the same way, and he denies original sin. Augustine would have laughed that guy out of the room. There's no way that they fit on the same spectrum in any way, shape or form.

It was astonishing to me that Gavin tried to use Augustine to defend William Lane Craig. I couldn't believe it. And this guy, as scholarly as he is, having written a book about Augustine, would dare try to do that.

And all in the all in the name of rebuking Owen Strand for being too fundamentalist. That was the whole reason he set forth at the beginning of his response, that he felt like he had to respond to Dr. Strand.

Just too much fundamentalism going on there. He could not allow Dr. Strand to get away with that. But where is his rebuke of the way that that Dr. Craig stretches the text so much? Of course, Gavin's not going to rebuke Dr. Craig, who's been on his program, who's been on his YouTube channel, and I think is about to be even in the in the coming weeks.

I think he's going to do an interview over exactly this book, the quest for the historical Adam. So, of course, hey, Craig's a guy that I admire, so I'm not going to rebuke him. I'm going to rebuke Dr. Strand, though Craig is the one who is playing fast and loose with the text.

Gavin's not going to rebuke him because he agrees with what William Lane Craig is doing. Let me continue more of Gavin's answer here. I want to respond to some other things that he says.

I was shocked at how open and flexible his hermeneutics were. And the reason is there's a lot. So I'll give you a quote so you don't think I'm exaggerating here. You can see all these in my book, but he's talking about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

He says, quote, if by any chance these people mean to take that tree in a figurative sense and not as a real one with real apples, this opinion may lead to ideas that are agreeable to right faith in the truth, end quote.

Now, you can disagree with Augustine. You can say his hermeneutics are crazy, but you can't call him a liberal because he lives in the fourth century in the early fifth century. You can't say, oh, he's compromising to science because he lived 1500 years before the scientific revolution.

There are reasons in the text that make people wonder how literally should we read this? You've got an angel with a flaming sword. How literally do you take that? Is he going to stab people if they cross his path?

Yes.

Yeah. If anybody had tried to enter the Garden of Eden, they would have been struck down by that angel that was put there to guard the way. Absolutely. Now, to Gavin's credit, I will say this. I've been curious about that reference to sword.

Like, I don't know what that means, because at this time in human history, swords are not being forged. No one was making weapons. And even in heaven, there's not like heavenly anvils where angels go to the smithy shop there in heaven and have some weapons made for them.

You know what I mean? So when we read in Genesis three, 24, that God drove out the man and at the east of the Garden of Eden, he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Like, what do we understand that sword to be? At the same time, I don't think that's making a reference to something figurative. There's something there that's being called a sword. It may not be a sword like man makes a sword, but it's still something that was in the angel's possession to prevent people from entering into the Garden of Eden.

This is no reason to read Genesis one through three in a figurative way. And yes, if anybody had tried to enter Eden, they would have been killed. God was preventing mankind from getting to the tree of life and eating it.

For the Lord said, this is back in verse 22. Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever.

And then the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. So the punishment there is death. You've been removed from access to eternal life. You are now going to die because that is the consequence for sin.

And if we don't understand that, if you don't understand that you have death in your members before you come to Christ, then you don't understand why you need a savior and exactly what it is that Jesus saves us from.

It would otherwise be possible for you to be born and just do the right things and therefore be saved by your works because you don't really have sin dwelling within you. It's just out there. Sin is corrupting us.

As long as I don't run into any sin, then I can live a good, perfect life and therefore save myself by my works. But that's self-righteousness. And it is by that very idea that you will perish. That's where that's what you get to when you deny the doctrine of original sin, when you deny that we all have sin within ourselves because we're all descendants of Adam and born with the same curse that was placed upon him because he rebelled against God.

This is federal understanding of federal headship. Adam is our federal head. We are born under the federal headship of Adam. We are born again under the federal headship of Christ. And when we are in Christ.

We who were once dead have been made alive. Though the body will die, we will live forever with God. And at Christ's return, even our bodies will be raised from the dead, made imperishable by him who has the power to subject all things even unto himself, as it says in Philippians chapter three.

Noah, the Flood, and the Witness of Jesus and Peter

OK, I could keep going with that. Let me let me continue here with Gavin's response, because there's something else I want to respond to here.

You've got God walking in the garden. How literally do you take that? What does it mean for God to walk?

God doesn't have legs and feet. How does God walk? I would imagine much the same way as God came to Abraham at the Oaks of Mamre. Did not God appear as a man before Abraham and speak with him face to face as you and I might talk face to face?

I just I don't get it. I don't get why you think that it's absurd to take Genesis one through 11 literally and then dismiss that there's actually miracles going on in the rest of the book of Genesis. You have the Sodomites who are blinded by the angels who came to rescue Lot.

There's raining down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah and the other cities of the plains. Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt. Sarah, Abraham's wife, able to have a son when she was physically incapable of doing so.

That was a miracle by God. You have an angel who stopped Abraham before he killed Isaac. Joseph's ability to dream and interpret dreams and prophesy on and on it goes. There's plenty of miraculous events that happen in Genesis.

If it's absurd to read Genesis one through 11 as literal history, then it's absurd to read Genesis 12 through 50 as literal history. Why not look at any of those other miracles as being something figurative, just like you would read Genesis one through 11 as being something figurative.

Again, there's nothing to gain by viewing Genesis one through 11 that way. Instead, what you run into is all kinds of theological problems. If you take the first 11 chapters of the Bible as mytho history, you've got all other kinds of problems you run into.

Jesus referred to Noah as a literal, real historical man and the noetic flood as something that actually happened that destroyed the world. Peter talks about that in second Peter chapter three, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.

In second Peter three, seven, but by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. Jesus likewise refers to Noah in reference to his return when he comes back to judge the living and the dead.

If Noah in the ark and the flood were a figurative localized event, then Christ's return is a figurative localized event. And of course, you don't believe that about Christ's return. It's going to be seen by the whole world.