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Was Adam a Historical Person?
ligonier.org ^ | 8/8/14 | Guy Waters

Posted on 08/09/2014 1:55:43 PM PDT by SoFloFreeper

“In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.” So begins the New England Primer, which taught generations of early Americans to read. In introducing our forefathers to the letter A, the primer was also administering a generous dose of biblical theology. As Paul puts it crisply in 1 Corinthians 15:22, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” Through Adam, sin and death entered into the world. By Christ, sin and death were conquered. Adam forfeited life by his disobedience. Christ achieved life by His obedience. These simple, basic truths, Paul tells the Corinthians, are the very structure and content of the gospel.

In the modern world, skeptics have long questioned or denied the historicity of Adam. Neo-orthodox theologians added their voices to this chorus in the last century. More recently, and under the pressure of evolutionary theory, some prominent evangelical voices have as well. One prominent evangelical Old Testament scholar has argued that “it is not necessary that Adam be a historical individual for [Genesis 1–2] to be without error in what it intends to teach.” Another well-known evangelical Old Testament scholar denies that “a literal Adam [was] the first man and cause of sin and death.” Even so, he continues, we may retain “three core elements of the gospel,” namely, “the universal and self-evident problem of death; the universal and self-evident problem of sin; the historical event of the death and resurrection of Christ.”

It may help to pause and review what the issues in this particular debate are and what they are not. The issues do not concern the age of the earth and of the universe. Neither do they concern how we are to understand the days of Genesis 1. Reformed evangelicals have disagreed on these issues for generations, all the while affirming their common belief that Adam was a historical person.

We may frame the issue in the form of two related questions. First, does the Bible require us to believe that Adam was a historical person? Second, would anything be lost in the gospel if we were to deny Adam’s historicity?

In answer to the first question, yes, the Bible requires us to believe that Adam was a historical person. Some of the clearest testimony about Adam comes from the New Testament. When explaining Genesis 2, Jesus clearly speaks of the first man and the first woman in historical terms, and of the institution of marriage in historical terms (Matt. 19:4–6). The Apostle Paul, in referring to Genesis 2, speaks of Adam and Eve in terms equally historical (1 Tim. 2:12–14).

In 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5, Paul places Adam and Jesus in parallel relationship. Paul calls Jesus the “Second Adam”—there is none between Adam and Jesus (1 Cor. 15:47). He also calls Jesus the “Last Adam”—there is none after Jesus (v. 45).

This relationship requires Adam to be a historical person. Paul compares Adam and Christ in terms of what each man did. Paul speaks of Adam’s one trespass in eating the forbidden fruit, and of Christ’s obedience unto death and resurrection unto life. For the comparison to hold, Adam’s actions must be as fully historical as Christ’s actions are historical, and Adam must be as historical a person as Christ was and remains.

So then, the Bible requires us to believe that Adam was a historical person. Now, taking up our second question, what are we to make of the argument that nothing in the gospel would be lost if we were to deny Adam’s historicity? May we uphold universal sin and death while discounting the way in which the Scripture says sin and death entered the world? The answer is no. The Bible does not give us that option. It clearly teaches that sin entered the world through the one action of one historical man, Adam (Rom. 5:12). If we reject the Bible’s account of a historical point of entry for sin into human existence, then, as Richard Gaffin has rightly observed, sin is no longer a matter of “human fallenness.” It is a matter of “human givenness.” It is just the way that human beings are.

This understanding of our plight upends the gospel. Absent a historical fall, the Bible’s account of redemption through the Second and Last Adam, Jesus Christ, makes no sense at all. How can it at all be meaningful to say with the Bible that God, in His sovereign and infinite mercy, has recovered and restored what was lost in the fall? To deny the historicity of Adam is no trivial matter. It has radical implications for the way in which we look at human nature, evil, and redemption.

The second lesson of the New England Primer, teaching the letter B, is “Thy life to mend / this Book [the Bible] attend.” Having clarified our human problem in biblical terms with its lesson on the letter A, the primer then articulates the solution in equally biblical terms with its lesson on the letter B. Wise counsel indeed. And what God has joined together, let no man put asunder.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: belongsinreligion; bible; history; notanewstopic; religion; truth
The issues do not concern the age of the earth and of the universe. Neither do they concern how we are to understand the days of Genesis 1. Reformed evangelicals have disagreed on these issues for generations, all the while affirming their common belief that Adam was a historical person.

I posted this article because I also started a thread here on FR about a "Christian" music group called Grungor...recently the founders of that group (by the same last name) announced they no longer believe the Bible in regard to the Genesis account.

Sad.

1 posted on 08/09/2014 1:55:44 PM PDT by SoFloFreeper
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To: SoFloFreeper

News?


2 posted on 08/09/2014 2:07:15 PM PDT by TexasGator
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To: SoFloFreeper
I don't know how anyone can claim otherwise.

We live in space-time. There is an order to time, driving forward.

Originally there was no man. Hell, there was no earth.

Obviously now we have man, a being capable of moral reason, and with free will that allows him to make the wrong choices, for self-serving reasons.

At some point in the sands of time, about 150,000 years ago, those humans, beings with those characteristics, started populating the earth. And if you look closely at that event horizon, there is a leading edge to it: there is a first.

As with all things in time, there is always a first.

3 posted on 08/09/2014 2:17:28 PM PDT by Yossarian
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To: Yossarian

Actually, there are several theories of time (the Rainbow universe being one) that posit that time has no beginning so there would be no first.


4 posted on 08/09/2014 2:25:11 PM PDT by RIghtwardHo
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To: Yossarian

Our Jewish compatriots have searched the Old Testament for at least 2000 years and they still have not discovered “original sin”.


5 posted on 08/09/2014 2:30:36 PM PDT by Citizen Tom Paine (An old sailor sends)
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To: Yossarian; All
As with all things in time, there is always a first.

Without Adam there is no sin problem. But the Apostle Paul makes it quite clear where he contrasts Adam "The one man" who disobeyed (bringing sin and death into the World) vs the one man who obeyed - with the Lord Jesus Christ (who brought life for all who believe). Thus if we get rid of "the one man" we get involved with the other.(Romans 5)

6 posted on 08/09/2014 2:34:24 PM PDT by sr4402
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To: SoFloFreeper

“it is not necessary that Adam be a historical individual for [Genesis 1–2] to be without error in what it intends to teach.”

Yeah, ok.

And we are free to buy into 3 core elements of Teaching that in no way manner or form even begin to stretch credulity. Cool.

AN invisible man in the sky says he spoke creation into being and further promises He will raise the dead back to Life but the question of weather His Adam actually lived...well don’t freak me out or anything.

Sigh. Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong sigh....


7 posted on 08/09/2014 2:35:50 PM PDT by TalBlack (Evil doesn't have a day job.)
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To: SoFloFreeper

Or was he a hysterical person?


8 posted on 08/09/2014 2:45:14 PM PDT by PapaNew (The grace of God & freedom always win the debate over unjust law & government in the forum of ideas)
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To: SoFloFreeper

The Adamic Hero. I earned my degree in English literature studying this figure. That was the 1970s although Herman Melville cut his teeth on this in his brilliant novella “Billy Budd” in the 19th Century. Today, English literature students study Alice Walker. (Or why I never went on to a Master’s Degree.)


9 posted on 08/09/2014 3:16:41 PM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard Lives Yet!)
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To: SoFloFreeper

In the Hebrew understanding, it is not so easy, because Adam was originally not self-defining, but based on God’s description. So there is a different name for Adam meaning “the first”, then as God later defined him, as “the above”, that is above plants and animals.

Even further along, God defined Adam further as *not* the creator of reality, but the describer of reality. And this is important, because in doing so, God retains the creation of all things; but it is up to man to apply descriptive abstract labels on things. This is a dog, and that is an apple.

And this opened the door to man’s greatest failing of vanity. That is the endless human assumption that because man can use abstracts to describe reality, our abstracts *create* reality.

But one abstract apple, plus another abstract apple, does *not* make two *real* apples.

So the bottom line is that we can describe Adam, but we cannot create Adam. So can we truthfully say there ever was Adam? We can only imagine an abstract of his existence.


10 posted on 08/09/2014 4:06:09 PM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy ("Don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative." -Obama, 09-24-11)
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To: SoFloFreeper

It says in 6 days, yes, Adam was real

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmgs4a-Gbrc


11 posted on 08/09/2014 4:21:30 PM PDT by RaceBannon (Lk 16:31 And he said unto him If they hear not Moses and the prophets neither will theybe persuaded)
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To: Alamo-Girl; betty boop; SoFloFreeper
Heads up! If any of us have the time for it, this could be a most thought-provoking thread...

Did I hear the term, "ensouled"? '-)

12 posted on 08/09/2014 9:33:29 PM PDT by TXnMA (Craig Dubh, Clan Chattan!!)
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To: RIghtwardHo; Yossarian; TXnMA; Alamo-Girl; marron; hosepipe; metmom; xzins
Actually, there are several theories of time (the Rainbow universe being one) that posit that time has no beginning so there would be no first.

Indeed you are right about that, RIghtwardHo.

But if there is no "first" in time, then "how can anything be what it is, and not some other way?" Or even, how explain that "anything is at all, why not nothing at all?"

These are Leibniz's two great questions. To ask them has become unfashionable in our progressive times.

The "eternal universe" model has many supporters across many intellectual disciplines, philosophic, scientific, and theological. Yet ultimately, as an accurate description of the real universe, it seems to suffer from profound logical defects.

The first of which should be obvious: There is no human being on the face of this planet, now or ever, who has ever had the power of perspective that would enable him to see the universe in its temporal totality. [Only God sees that way.]

I assert that "temporality" is a condition into which a human being is born, in midstream, or "in the middle" of an historical process, as it were. As such, he is part and participant of the very process which he purports to observe. Therefore, he is no "sovereign" observer, occupying some Archimedean point outside the universe, for he is already wholly captured by it. The logic of his "position" breaks down entirely right there.

Not only does does this "observer" not see the "before" and the "after" of his personal existence; but there is no logical way for him to claim any privileged insight into the workings of the All of which he is a mere part and participant in time.

One cannot evade such questions by simply proclaiming the Eternal Universe model. Which I daresay is what the various "progressive" enthusiasts are proposing....

But finally, such a conclusion flies in the face of common sense, and human experience. So there must be something "wrong" with it....

13 posted on 08/10/2014 11:16:08 AM PDT by betty boop (Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. —Thomas Jefferson)
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To: betty boop; Alamo-Girl; RIghtwardHo; Yossarian; TXnMA; marron; metmom; xzins

Literalists demand formulae for everything..

This plus this equals Something... or NOT..

Then you have linear ways of looking at stuff... this after this after that..

Was Adam a cartoon or a person... or BOTH..

AND if you knew........ what does that get you?..


Wisdom is expensive..

1 These are the words of the Teacher,a King David’s son, who ruled in Jerusalem.

2 “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!”

3 What do people get for all their hard work under the sun? 4 Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes. 5 The sun rises and the sun sets, then hurries around to rise again. 6 The wind blows south, and then turns north. Around and around it goes, blowing in circles. 7 Rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full. Then the water returns again to the rivers and flows out again to the sea. 8 Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content.

9 History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. 10 Sometimes people say, “Here is something new!” But actually it is old; nothing is ever truly new. 11 We don’t remember what happened in the past, and in future generations, no one will remember what we are doing now.

12 I, the Teacher, was king of Israel, and I lived in Jerusalem. 13 I devoted myself to search for understanding and to explore by wisdom everything being done under heaven. I soon discovered that God has dealt a tragic existence to the human race. 14 I observed everything going on under the sun, and really, it is all meaningless—like chasing the wind.

15 What is wrong cannot be made right.
What is missing cannot be recovered.

16 I said to myself, “Look, I am wiser than any of the kings who ruled in Jerusalem before me. I have greater wisdom and knowledge than any of them.” 17 So I set out to learn everything from wisdom to madness and folly. But I learned firsthand that pursuing all this is like chasing the wind.

18 The greater my wisdom, the greater my grief.
To increase knowledge only increases sorrow.


14 posted on 08/10/2014 12:23:12 PM PDT by hosepipe (This propaganda has been edited to include some fully orbed hyperbole..)
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To: hosepipe

And the conclusion of the matter? Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of mankind.


15 posted on 08/10/2014 12:25:12 PM PDT by cornelis
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