Peter Ruest, wrote:
Let me start with Eden. In Gen.2:5-15, an effort is made to precisely
specify where Eden was located, namely in what is now southern Iraq,
which between about 4500 and 2500 BC was Sumer.
And Accad. Don't forget the Accadians which
were racially distinct apparently, and spoke a language precursor to
Hebrew which indicates they were the biological precursors to the
Semites. In other words, they were Adamites before the flood and
Semites (Japhethites, Hamites) after the flood.
Now, such a precise
geographical indication, as given by the four named rivers, would not
make any sense at all in a text meant to convey strictly nothing but
theological, psychological, or philosophical ideas. It is not the stuff
of myths, nor of a theological pamphlet. By the way, the text does not
equate the "garden planted by the LORD God" with Eden, but
locates the
garden either in the eastern part of Eden or east of Eden (Gen.2:8,
"
gan-b@^eden
miqerem"). Thus, the story of Adam and Eve and their fall
is explicitely placed in a geographically restricted area partially
known to the original readers of the text (in Moses' time or up to 2000
years earlier, when writing first appeared in Sumer).
Similarly, through the remarks made in passing about some individuals
mentioned in Gen.4-5, the time-frame of these events is restricted to a
period of a few thousand years BC, in the upper Neolithic.
Now evidently, if Gen.2 were a creation story, these indications
(apparently meant to be historical) would be in severe conflict with
what we know about the origin of the first humans.
Agreed!
In Gen.1, we
obviously do have a creation story. Gen.1:1-2:4 uses the verb
"bara'",
which specifically designates divine creation out of nothing, a few
times, as well as other expressions for divine (possibly mediate)
action. As appropriate for a creation story, the geographical focus of
Gen.1:2-2:4 clearly is the whole earth, without any regional restriction
on it.
In contrast, the text of Gen.2:5-25 never uses "bara'" and is
clearly
restricted to a region and time which do not fit with what we know about
the origin of the first humans. The "puzzle of Adam",
therefore, cannot
be solved while believing Gen.2 to be a creation story.
This is the crucial point, in my opinion, - the key for a possible
solution to the puzzle of Adam.
The erroneous traditional interpretation of Gen.2 as a creation
story
has necessarily led to the observation that the "two creation
stories"
are in conflict with each other, and, consequently, at least one of them
cannot describe historical facts. The only things that are therefore now
usually read from Gen.1-2 are theological (and psychological) truths.
Any satisfactory solution to the "puzzle of Adam" is in this
way
excluded a priori.
Now, if Adam lived sometime in the late Neolithic in Sumer (the town of
Eridu would about correspond to the region of Eden), not all humans
living today can be his descendents (although an argument has recently
been made to the effect that all - except possibly some tribes
completely isolated for the last 8000 years - might have some of his
genes).
But how does this fit with the doctrin of original sin and its
inheritance? I don't believe the Bible teaches this doctrine. What it
does teach is that all humans are sinners and need to be reconciled to
God by way of the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the
cross. This includes all humans created in God's image according to
Gen.1:27.
God's image is what characterizes humans and distinguishes them from
animals.
Or it separates accountable man from generic
man. I said this before:
How could it mean anything special for Paul to tell us that Christ was in
the image of God if every human being from the dawn of humanity was born
with the image of God? It would say nothing about the uniqueness of
Christ. The "image" has to have something more
special about it then just to signify that we are different from
animals.
Plus, I don't think Moses or anyone else living at that time had any idea
where human beings came from. They were just here. So Moses
started with the only man he know about and from which the covenant race
derived. And if Adam was a representative of God, then he had to
have an audience.
According to archeological finds, specific human
characteristics must be attributed to hominins at least as far back as
30,000 years ago, if not much earlier. Therefore, there have been
genuine humans much earlier than Adam, as well as contemporaries of his,
many of whom lived far away from Sumer.
Does Paul, in Rom.5:12, claim that sin came into humanity by Adam's
fall? No. Specifically, he doesn't say sin, and so death, spread to all
humans because of Adam's fall, but "because all sinned". And he
continues with the question of accountability. Some may have sinned, but
yet not be accountable for it in the same way as those having the law,
because "sin is not counted when there is no law" (v.13). He
illustrates
this with the law of Moses, which was not available to people from Adam
to Moses. In spite of this, they all sinned and died. In his message
addressed to the philosophers on the Areopagus of Athens, he said:
"the
times of ignorance God overlooked" (Acts 17:30), as these Athenians
were
not accountable for their sins, because they apparently hadn't heard the
Gospel (or Moses' law) before.
This leaves us only with the possibility of interpreting Rom.5:12 in
terms of Adam being the federal head of humanity, but not the first
truly human being. In 1 Cor.15:45 & 47, Paul quotes Gen.2:7, calling
Adam "the first man", but he contrasts him with Christ, whom he
calls
"the last Adam" and "the second man", indicating that
"the first man"
was not meant to designate the temporally first of all humans, as Christ
clearly is neither the second nor the last of all humans, but rather
that Adam is the first of the two compared. And indeed, Rom.5:12-21
doesn't deal with biological descent or biological inheritance at all,
but with two humanities distinguished on the basis of spiritual life,
the one characterized by the fallen (and not yet redeemed) Adam, the
other by Christ. This comparison shows that neither biological
inheritance, nor any time sequence is relevant here at all. OT believers
are saved by the blood of Christ, just as NT ones. Jesus said:
"before
Abraham was, I am", and: "Abraham rejoiced that he would see my
day - he
saw it and was glad" (John 8:56,58). I understand this to mean that
Abraham sort of appropriated his salvation through Christ by believing
God's promises, however veiled they were at that time, and that Christ's
death on the cross was effective to redeem Abraham who lived 2000 years
earlier.
Paul dealt with the problem of those not having the law of Moses,
talking of the period of the time of Adam to the time of Moses (v.14).
But the principle applies to those living before Adam and others not
descended from Adam, as well. Paul didn't treat these specifically.
Whether or not he and his audience knew of their existence, their
explicit mention would be irrelevant, in any case. Interestingly, his
statement of how sin came into the human world does not mention Adam by
name, but just reads: "...sin came into the world through one
human"
(anthropos, v.12), which is correct no matter whether Adam or someone
else living much earlier was that first (typical) human. In fact, the
whole passage of Rom.5:12-21 mentions Adam by name only in v.14, to
designate the beginning of the example period "Adam-to-Moses",
but
nowhere else. Therefore the other statements about the "one
man" sinning
need not refer to Adam at all, but may designate the first human
("man"
here is "anthropos" in the Greek, i.e. "human", not
specifically a male,
or left out altogether). We have to conclude that, from the first, all
humans were sinners, and therefore that Adam's fall was, in this sense,
typical of all humans before and after his time.
I think Adam's "fall" is unique as his
status was unique. We may all be in a fallen state today living in
an era of universal accountability. Whether we can trace that back
to Adam or not depends on your point of view. I think you are free
to speculate on that.
But how about those people whose sin is "not counted",
but "overlooked"
by God because "there is no law" (v.13) applicable to them? Are
they
automatically saved, not being accountable? I believe accountability is
judged and attributed by God to each human individually, in accordance
with his or her situation, knowledge, attitude and behavior - the amount
of accountability may vary greatly. Their response to God's revelation
to them (whatever its extent or limitation) is what counts. All who are
saved are saved through Christ alone - and their faith reaction to
Christ's offer, whether or not they knew him by name and history. But
there is no automatism (which would be magic).
What, then, is special about Adam, if he wasn't the first biblically
human being?
He is the first biblical person, just not the first
biological hominid.
From time to time in his salvation history
(Heilsgeschichte), God presented a new covenant, as he saw fit, such as
with Noah, Abraham, Israel through Moses, David, etc. This, in my
opinion, is what distinguished Adam, as well: a special covenant. In a
covenant, God makes a new beginning with an individual (or a nation),
giving them particular privileges, gifts, responsabilities, and tasks -
usually in view of a later extension to all humanity. In the OT, the
Holy Spirit was not yet given to all believers generally, as a permanent
resident in their hearts, as happened later, starting with Pentecost.
But the Spirit was given as a specific anointing to some individuals who
were charged with a particular task. This is what happened in Gen.2:7 to
Adam, when God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life"
(nishmat
chayim).
Before that, God "formed the Adam - [who was] dust of the
ground" (not
"out of dust"!). Other occurrences of the terms "to
form" (yatzar) and
"dust" (^afar) show that this was a customary metaphor for God
forming a
person in his mother's womb (cf. e.g. Jer.1:5; Job 10:8-9). Of course,
we (think we) know what happens biologically when a child is conceived
and develops in the womb. But the Bible specifically links this
occurrence with a creative activity by God, i.e. God creating something
out of nothing ("bara'" in Isa.43:7). What is this novelty
created out
of nothing in this case?
Or out of something. Sea life created on the
fifth creation day was probably formed from earthly elements created when
God created heaven and earth on the first day.
In a scientific description of a child's
pre-natal development, there are many aspects science can only attribute
to "random" events (such as specific mutations, genetic
recombinations,
allele selections, neural dendrite paths and synapse formations, etc.),
which in many cases can be attributed to some elementary events being
indeterminate according to quantum mechanics. I believe that just by
selecting specific outcomes of such physically indeterminate events, God
could influence the bodily and psychological development of the child in
major ways - not to speak of the spiritual realm -, in principle
undetectable by science. I can't believe that Psalm 139:13-16 would be
just double-talk for God doing nothing: "For you formed my inward
parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am
fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows
it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in
secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my
unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the
days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them."
The
novelty of each individual may thus be a bodily, psychological, and
spiritual constitution invisibly created by God in detail. This has
nothing to do, by the way, with created natural entities and processes
having been defectively designed. It rather represents a model for
divine providence for the case of an individual human being.
Every human being is a composite of three aspects or dimensions, a
physical (biological) one (like all of life), a psychological (sentient)
one (like all higher animals), and a spiritual one (the image of God,
specific to all humans). Where you want to place the "soul" is
a matter
of definition. I believe the creation of higher animals (called
"souls")
in Gen.1:21 corresponds to the creation of a novel sentient and
psychological realm in animals whose bodies evolved from lower forms.
Similarly, the creation of humans in Gen.1:27 corresponds to the
creation of a novel spiritual realm in hominins whose bodies and
"souls"
evolved from earlier forms.
The evolution of a spiritual soul is a novel
idea. How do non-material elements mutate? How does nature
select non-material elements?
In Gen.2:7, which refers to a much later
time than 1:27, Adam was called and equipped for a specific divine
covenant, through which God eventually was to bless all humankind - in
analogy to his covenant with Abraham.
How about Eve? How was she made as a woman similarly equipped by God to
be a suitable helpmate for Adam? Is her being "built" from a
"side" of
Adam to be interpreted "literally" - as a special miracle -, or
as a
metaphor? Did she have parents, like Adam apparently had?
I think it more likely that Adam had no
parents. He lived to 930 years. Who else living at that time
could do that? He walked and talked with the God of the
universe. Who else was so privileged? He could not find a
suitable wife, so God fashioned one for him who could live with him on in
to his old age.
I've said this before. I don't believe the "image" was
conferred upon biological man. It was reserved for someone special
- Adam, Noah, Abraham, Christ. I believe to be in the image of God
today means that we first must conform to the image of Christ.
Christ was God's representative, and as Christians we represent
Christ. No one represents God directly. We receive our
authority through His Son. At least that's how I understand
it.
I am undecided on that.
Adam called her Eve "because she was the mother of all living"
(Gen.3:20). Again, this doesn't imply that all humans descended from
her. Paul had compared two "humanities", the one headed by
Adam, the
other by Christ (Rom.5:12-21), independently of any biological descent
or of a before or after. In a similar symbolic or allegorical way, he
compares Hagar and Sarah, the two wives of Abraham (Gal.4:22-31). Hagar
represens Mount Sinai (i.e. the law), corresponding to the "present
Jerusalem", who/which is "in slavery with her children",
whereas Sarah,
the free woman, corresponds to the "Jerusalem above", "and
she is our
mother". Paul includes all Galatian believers as children of the
free
woman, although certainly not all of them were Jews (nor Edomites),
biologically descended from Sarah. In a similar way, Peter calls all
believing women Sarah's "children" (1 Pet.3:6). Adam and Eve
experienced
some kind of anointing with God's Spirit for their task, and they were
believers (as indicated in Gen.3:21 by God clothing them with skins of
animals, whose death stands for a substitutionary sacrifice for sin, and
in v.20 by Adam's calling Eve "the mother of all living",
indicating his
faith). Thus, Eve, like Sarah, may be the representative
"mother" of all
believers), independently of any biological descent or of a before or
after.
I think it is amazing how God can tell us the truth
in His book, and do it in such a way that we can argue its nuances into
eternity. When Christ explained why He spoke in parables it was to
both reveal and conceal. This may be a clue as to how to view the
entirety of Scripture.
Dick Fischer -
Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
www.genesisproclaimed.org
Received on Fri Nov 26 23:03:03 2004