Re: How to interpret Adam (was: Re: Kerkut)

Dick Fischer wrote:
>
> George wrote:
>
> >Dick Fischer wrote:
> >
> > > This sounds like an argument coming from one who believes there was a flesh
> > > and blood human being - Adam. Someone "trespassed." We agree. When do
> > > you think he lived?
> >
> > No, it sounds like someone trying to understand what Paul was
> > getting at. He
> >was operating with a picture of a flesh & blood Adam in Gen.2 & 3. What
> >he was using
> >that picture for was (among other things) to say that the sin of humanity
> >in its origin
> >brought about a condition of sinfulness & condemnation for all humans.
>
> A "picture of" Adam? No real Adam though? I frankly don't know how a
> parallel can be drawn between a non-existent figurehead and a flesh and
> blood Christ. The first Adam was non-existent, the other really was? Then
> how does this work: 1Cor 15:45: "And so it is written, The first man Adam
> was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit."

        Please stop trying to make me say things that I didn't say. I think that
there's very little doubt that St. Paul understood Gen.2-3 as an account of an
historical figure Adam & used that idea to express a belief in the causal effects of
the the sin of humanity in its origin & the general sinful condition of humanity. In a
similar way, the author/editor of Gen.1 thought that there were waters above the
heavens and used that idea in expressing the belief that God is the creator of the
entire universe. The fact that there isn't a super-celestial ocean doesn't make Gen.1
worthless as a theological statement about creation, & the fact that there
probably wasn't a single human from whom the whole human race sprung doesn't invalidate
what Paul says about the problem of sin.
        & please don't keep pretending that this amounts to a claim that there was no
real origin of the human race at all. To say that the 1st humans - in a theological
sense - were a group of a few hundred rather a single Adam-Eve pair doesn't mean that
Christ, & the rest of us, trace our ancestry back to pure fiction. It does mean that
the precise parallel between 2 individuals, Christ and Adam, in Rom. & I Cor. can't be
pressed. OTOH it should be remembered that Christ as an eschatological figure also has
corporate features.

....................
> > > During World War II, the Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler, was responsible for
> > > the senseless and tragic eradication of 6 million innocent Jewish
> > > civilians. Were the Jews sinners? Of course, "there is none righteous, no
> > > not one" (Rom 3:10). Was the Nazi dictator, by his insane decree, directly
> > > responsible for the death of those Jews? Yes, he was. Is it accurate to
> > > say that death passed upon all of them due to the sin of one man? Yes, it
> > > is. Were those 6 million who died descendants of the Nazi
> > > dictator? Obviously not.
> >
> > 1st, Hitler wasn't responsible for the fact that the Jews for
> > whose death he was
> >responsible were, qua sinners, under condemnation.
>
> As is everyone not saved.
>
> > & 2d, how did the action of Adam, in
> >your scenario, bring about the condemnation of his Mesoamerican
> >contemporaries?
>
> I don't know if it did. I don't know how the nearby Sumerians were
> affected. Simply an opportunity lost I suppose.

        My point was simply that your Adam-Hitler parallel doesn't work very well.

                                                        Shalom,
                                                        George
 
> Dick Fischer - Genesis Proclaimed Association
> Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
> www.genesisproclaimed.org

-- 
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/