Adam and Eve
Michael Ferrer quoted Pope Pius XII Humani Generis paragraph 38 saying: //If, however, the ancient sacred writers have taken anything from popular narrations (and this may be conceded)//
My reply: Notice that the statement begins with the word IF which to me expresses a possibility and not of fact. These 2 things are not the same. For example, while it is possible that the human body may have evolved from lower forms until it had reach a certain level that it is now worthy of habitation of a human soul but the fact of evolution still remains unproven. Likewise, while it is possible that the sacred writers may have borrowed certain elements from popular narration but the fact of borrowing still has to be proven. As I have pointed in my previous comment, the series of citations from similar mythical accounts of creation and great floods from pagan cultures does not prove the so-called borrowings. What I am saying here is that those Biblical scholars who concluded that the sacred writers in fact borrowed from pagan myths has to do better. Similarity does not necessarily imply descent or common origin. And of course, IF the facts are established then we may concede and this will not affect the inspiration of the sacred text in the same manner that IF the facts of evolution of the human body are established then we may concede and this will not affect any Church teaching since the Church has maintained that the soul of man could not evolve but is a result of a direct creation by God.