Date: 25 Mar 94 16:58:30 To: All Subject: Views of Adam In response to the assertion that

   Date: 25 Mar 94  16:58:30
   From: James G. Acker
     To: All
Subject: Views of Adam

From: jgacker@news.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker)
Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- InterNetNews site


	In response to the assertion that Adam can only be interpreted
as a single, historical personage based on Genesis:


	ADAM -- an ongoing research project:

     Status report 1:

     Recent discussions via email and on talk.origins have
led to a consideration of the following question:

     Is it a theologically valid position to consider Adam
as a symbol of humanity, rather than as an actual historical
individual?

     At this point, I have reached the following tentative
conclusion:  In an INTERNALLY CONSISTENT study of the Bible,
Adam should be considered as a real, historical person.
This conclusion is reached on the basis of the statements of
other Biblical personages, the most important being Jesus
Christ and the Apostle Paul.  Statements in Isaiah (and
likely others) are also addressed to the historical
personage of Adam.  Thus, the doctrine of the Fall and
Original Sin, that one man sinned and in so doing condemned
all of his descendants to God's punishment:  and salvation
through Jesus Christ, one man for all of humankind's sin, is
internally consistent through the Old and New Testaments.
     Furthermore:
     It is likely, given the historical tradition of the
Hebrews, that Adam was unquestioningly considered to be a
historical person, i.e. the oral history and preliminary
written history of the Hebrews included Adam as part of that
history.  Thus, the prophets would address Adam
historically, just as they would address David, Joshua, or
Moses historically.

***********
     The problem with treating Adam as a historical entity,
as a "real" person, arises externally, when one attempts to
reconcile current scientific understanding with the Biblical
narrative.  Attempts to do this may be futile, but
nonetheless, many have attempted to do so.
     I have still not determined if Adam has been addressed
as symbolic in an external consideration of the Bible --
with the Bible considered in the context of current
scientific understanding.  I.e. what does Original Sin mean
theologically if Adam is taken as symbolic of all humanity?
I have constructed my own Christian-based apologetic for
this question, but it is not based on any particular source.
I still have considerably more research to conduct,
obviously.  However, I borrowed three books from a friend's
fairly extensive library as my first step in researching the
topic.  The three books:

     _Genesis in Space and Time_, by Francis A. Schaeffer;

     _Creation and Fall/Temptation:  Two Biblical Studies_,
     by Dietrich Bonhoeffer;

     _Genesis:  An Introduction & Commentary_, by Derek
Kidner (part of the Tyndale OT Commentaries Series, with
D.J. Wiseman, General Ed.).

     Furthermore, as I worked on this discussion, I also
consulted a chapter in "Is God A Creationist?" by Roland
Mushat Frye.  The chapter is entitled "The Earth is the
Lord's:  An Essay on the Biblical Doctrine of Creation",
and was written by Bernhard W. Andersen, Professor Emeritus
of Old Testament Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary
(and many other positions).  The essay appeared in 1955
originally, but was revised for inclusion in Frye's book
(publ. 1983).
     Andersen's comments support the concept, and the use of
the word, 'adam, as symbolic of _humankind_ and not of an
individual human being.  Given Andersen's credentials as a
noted theologian, I will assert at the end of this first
status report that viewing 'adam/Adam as a symbol for
humankind, and not as an individual "real" human being, is a
theologically valid position.

     I have highlighted what I find to be very significant
statements with asterisks *** in this manner. ***

*************
     The first book, by Schaeffer, presents an entirely
literal view of Genesis 1-11 and makes the case for Adam as
a historical person in the real world.  Schaeffer does not
address scientific issues to any great extent, but conducts
an internally-consistent study of Genesis and its relation
to the rest of the Bible (though the title would suggest
otherwise).  He does address some aspects of the "Calvin
dilemma" regarding the origin of evil, which I'll try to get to
later (not in this discussion).
     However, there is this interesting, if abstruse,
footnote from Schaeffer:
     "There may be a difference between the methodology by
which we gain knowledge from what God tells us in the Bible
and the methodology by which we gain it from scientific
study, but this does not lead to a dichotomy as to the
facts.  In practice it may not always be possible to
correlate the two studies because of the special situation
involved, yet if both studies can be adequately pursued,
there will be no final conflict.  For example, the Tower of
Babel:  whether we come at it from Biblical knowledge given
by God or by scientific study, either way when we are done
with our study, the Tower of Babel was either there or it
was not there.  The same thing is true of Adam.  Whether we
begin with the conceptual apparatus of archaelogy and
anthropology or whether we begin with the knowledge given us
in the Bible, if it were within the realm of science's
knowledge to do so, in both cases we would end with
knowledge of Adam's bones.  Science by its natural
limitations cannot know all we know from God in the Bible,
but in those cases where science can know, both sources of
knowledge arrive at the same point, *** even if the
knowledge is expressed in different terms. ***  And it is
important to keep in mind that there is a great difference
between saying the same thing in two different symbol
systems and actually saying two different exclusive things
but hiding the difference with the two symbol systems.  What
the Bible teaches where it touches history and the cosmos
and what science teaches where it touches the same areas do
not stand in a discontinuity.  There indeed must be a place
for the study of general revelation (the universe and its
form, and man with his mannishness), that is, a place for
*** true science ***.  But on the other hand, it must be understood
that there is no automatic need to accomodate the Bible to
the statements of science.  There is a tendency for some who
are Christians and scientists to always place special
revelation (the teaching of the Bible) under the control of
general revelation and science, and never or rarely to place
general revelation and what science teachers under the
control of the Bible's teaching.  That is, though they think
of that which the Bible teaches as true and that which
science teaches as true, in reality they tend to end with
the truth of science as more true than the truth of the
Bible."
     Fireside philosophers are invited to debate the final
sentence at their leisure.
     Moving on:

**************
     Dietrich Bonhoeffer is _widely_ respected in modern
theological circles.  His study, Creation and Fall, touches
upon the scientific world in only two places, as far as I
could tell from my reading.  Here they are:

     At the beginning of the chapter entitled "The Fixed",
and following a recitation of Genesis 1: 6-10, Bonhoeffer
writes:

     "Here we have before us the ancient world picture in
all its scientific _naivete_.  While it would not be
advisable to be too mocking and self-assured, in view of the
rapid changes in our own knowledge of nature, undoubtedly in
this passage the biblical author stands exposed with all the
limitations caused by the age in which he lived.  The
heavens and the seas were not formed in the way he says;  we
would not escape a very bad conscience if we committed
ourselves to any such statement.  *** The idea of verbal
inspiration will not do. ***  The writer of the first
chapter of Genesis is behaving in a very human way."

     The section addressing the creation of man and woman
(Genesis 1:26) is about two pages long.  I will quote as
completely as possible to avoid the accusation of taking
quotes out of context, but will not be inclusive.  The
chapter is entitled "The Image of God on Earth":

     "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness.'
     Man shall proceed from God as his ultimate, his new
work, and as the image of God in his creation.  There is no
transition here from somewhere or other, there is new
creation.  *** This has nothing to do with Darwinism;  quite
independently of this man remains the free, undetermined
work of God.  We have no wish at all to deny man's connexion
with the animal world; ***  on the contrary.  But we are
very anxious not to lose the peculiar relationship of man
and God in the process.  In our concern with the origin and
nature of man, it is hopeless to attempt to make a gigantic
leap back into the world of the lost beginning.  It is
hopeless to want to know for ourselves what man was
originally, to identify here man's ideal with the creational
reality of God, *** not to understand that we can know about
the man of the beginning only if we start from Christ. ***
This attempt, as hopeless as it is understandable, has again
and again delivered the Church up to free speculation on
this dangerous point.  Only in the middle, as those who live
from Christ, do we know of the beginning."

     In essence, I see Bonhoeffer as emphasizing that
natural science and what it tells us of the world, of
origins, does not affect or detract from what he calls "the
creational reality of God", which is (simply) that God made
us.  Bonhoeffer states that man is connected to the animal
kingdom, but has a special relationship with God, which is
consistent with Adam as a symbol of humankind -- that
humankind, as God's special creation, has a special
relationship with God.

***********
     The third reference, "Genesis:  An Introduction and
Commentary" by Derek Kidner, is primarily a walk-through on
the entire book of Genesis.  However, in a sub-section of
the preface, "Human Beginnings", Kidner addresses the
subject of the Genesis story and scientific understanding.
Again, it's somewhat long, so I'll select passages.  Kidner
is only titled the "former warden of Tyndale House,
Cambridge", so I am unqualified to judge his theological
standing.  However, I will note that the Tyndale commentaries
are found in most Christian bookstores (the majority of
which are strongly fundamentalist-evangelical in the titles
on their shelves.)

     "How the two pictures, biblical and scientific, are
related to each other is not immediately clear, and one
should allow for the provisional nature both of scientific
estimates (*** without making this a refuge from all
unwelcome ideas ***) and of traditional interpretations of
Scripture.  One must also recognize the different aims and
styles of the two approaches:  one probing the observable
world, the other revealing chiefly the unobservable, *** the
relation of God and man. ***  The style of reporting will be
drily factual for the former, but the latter may need the
whole range of literary genres to do it justice, and it is
therefore important not to prejudge the method and intention
of these chapters."

     Kidner then discusses the events in Genesis as being
actual, pivotal events, including the fall of Adam. Then:
     ..."It could be that the events are presented here in
simplified pictorial form (cf. the opening comments on
chapter 3), or are landmarks punctuating an immense tract of
time.  Even so there are difficulties.  If Genesis is
abbreviating a long history, the sheer vastness of the ages
it spans, on this view, is not so sharp a problem as the
fact that almost the whole of this immensity lies, for the
paleontologist, between the first man and the first farmer -
- that is, in terms of Genesis, between Adam and Cain, or
even between Adam inside and outside Eden.  Yet the birth of
Seth, or of his ancestor, sets an upper limit of a mere 130
years to this (4:25; 5:3).  Even if the figures in Genesis 5
are non-literal, the proportions raise the same difficulty.
Some other approach seems necessary."
     "To the present author various converging lines of
evidence point to an Adam much nearer our own times than the
early tool-makers and artists, let alone their remote
forbears...  The answer may lie in our definition of man."
     "Man in Scripture is much more than _homo faber_, the
maker of tools: he is constituted man by God's image and
breath, nothing less.  It follows that Scripture and science
may well differ in the boundaries they would draw around
early humanity:  the intelligent beings of a remote past,
whose bodily and cultural remains give them the clear status
of "modern man" to the anthropologist, may yet have been
decisively below the plane of life which was established in
the creation of Adam.  If, *** as the text of Genesis would
by no means disallow, ***  God initially shaped man by a
process of evolution, it would follow that a considerable
stock of near-humans preceded the first true man, and it
would be arbitrary to picture these as mindless brutes.
Nothing requires that the creature into which God breathed
human life should not have been of a species prepared in
every way for humanity, with already a long history of
practical intelligence, artistic sensibility and the
capacity for awe and reflection."
     "On this view, Adam, the first true man, will have had
as contemporaries many creatures of comparable intelligence,
widely distributed over the world. ... [section on Noah, the
Flood, connections to past antiquity] ... "Yet it is at
least conceivable that after the special creation of Eve,
which established the first human pair as God's viceregents
(Genesis 1:27,28) and clinched the fact that there is no
natural bridge from animal to man, God may have now
conferred his image on Adam's collaterals, to bring them
into the same realm of being.  Adams 'federal' headship of
humanity extended, if that was the case, outwards to his
contemporaries as well as onwards to his offspring, and his
disobedience disinherited both alike.
     There may be a biblical hint of such a situation in the
suprising impression of an already populous earth given by
the words and deeds of Cain in 4: 14-17.  Even Augustine had
to devote a chapter to those who 'find this a
difficulty'..."
     ..."Three final comments may be made.  First, the
exploratory suggestion above is only tentative, as it must
be, and it is a personal view.  It invites correction and a
better synthesis... What is quite clear from these chapters
is that mankind is a unity, created in God's image, and
fallen in Adam by the one act of disobedience;  and these
things are as strongly asserted of God's word as on any
other.
     Secondly, it may be thought that this whole discussion
*** allows science too much control over exegesis. ***  This
would be a serious charge.  But to try to correlate the data
of Scripture and nature is not to dishonour Biblical
authority, but to honour God as Creator and to grapple with
our proper task of interpreting His ways of speaking.  In
Scripture he leaves us to find out for ourselves such
details as whether "the wings of the wind" and "the windows
of heaven" are literal or metaphorical, and in what sense
'the world cannot be moved' (Psalm 96:10) or the sun daily
"runs it's course." (Psalm 19: 5,6)...  We are asserting our
own infallibility, *** not that of Scripture, *** when we
refuse to collate our factual answers with those of
independent enquiry.
     Thirdly, however, the interests and methods of
Scripture and science differ so widely that they are best
studied, in any detail, apart.  Their accounts of the world
are as distinct (and each as legitimate) as an artist's
portrait and an anatomist's diagram, of which no composite
picture will be satisfactory, for their common ground is
only in the total reality to which they both attend.  It
cannot be said too strongly that Scripture is the perfect
vehicle for God's revelation, which is what concerns us
here;  and its bold selectiveness, like that of a great
painting, is its power.  To read it with one eye on any
other account is to blur its image and miss its wisdom.  To
have God's own presentation *** of human beginnings as they
most deeply concern us ***, we need look no further than these
chapters and their New Testament interpretation."

     Summary of my view:  Kidner illustrates the difficulty
of external consistency quite well, recognizing the validity
of scientific evidence and the problems of reconciling that
evidence, despite clear indications of its legitimacy, with
Genesis.  His allusions in the final paragraph speak to the
symbolic nature ("artist's portrait) of Genesis.  He comes
down in final analysis on the side of wisely interpreting
Genesis with internal consistency in the Bible itself.

***********
     Finally we come to Andersen, as instroduced above.  I
will not be able to capture anything close to his entire
essay, so I'll concentrate on those sections pertaining to
what he terms *** 'adam. ***

     Some of his initial comments:

     "Today some interpreters advocate demythologizing the
biblical language concerning creation, that is, disengaging
the essential content of meaning from the language in which
it is expressed -- *** a prescientific language which is
obsolete in terms of the modern scientific outlook. *** ...
However, in the last analysis it is questionable whether the
content of the creation-faith can be abstracted from the
biblical form in which it is expressed.  Instead of
dispensing with the biblical language the interpreter should
seek to understand it from within, that is, *** from within
the worshipping community of Israel. ***  The problem of
demythology is put in a new light when at the outset one
recognizes that the biblical language concerning creation
*** does not purport to give us knowlege about nature ***, such
as can be acquired through science and expressed in scientific
terms." ... {the paragraph continues}

     Next:

     ... "The narratives of Genesis 2-11 do not deal
particularly with Israel, but with all peoples.  'Adam is
neither a Hebrew nor an Israelite, but human being
(humankind) *** generically ***, including both "male and
female" as explicitly stated in Genesis 1:26-27 (note the
alternation of the singular and plural forms of speech).
This typical or *** representative *** role is further
exemplified in Genesis 2-3, where the human situation is
portrayed in the primeval parents, Adam and Eve." ...

     That's a fairly clear statement of 'adam as being a
representation for humankind.  Further down:

     ... "But the biblical creation-faith deals primarily
with _the meaning of human history_.  The great affirmation
of the Bible is that the meaning, first disclosed in the
events of Israel's history, is the meaning upon which the
world is founded.  The redemptive Word, by which Israel was
created as the People of God, is none other than the
creative Word by which the heavens were made.  The point
bears reemphasis that in the Bible *** creation is not an
independent doctrine, *** but is inseparably related to the
basic story of the people in which Yahweh is presented as
the actor and redeemer." ...

     There's more, but not too much more.

     "It is human beings, however, who occupy a special
place in the liturgy of creation.  In the Priestly creation
story the creation of 'adam, consisting of "male and female"
(Gen 1:27), is the last of God's works;  therefore they
consitute the crown of creation.  The fact that human beings
are created on the same day as the animals is an important
testimony to the intimate relation between the human and
non-human creatures. ... "The uniqueness of human beings
among other earthly creatures is that they are persons whom
God addresses, the "Thou" with whom God enters into personal
relationship. ... "Though the Yahwist and Priestly
traditions differ from each other in important respects,
both agree in regarding the creation as the inauguration of
a historical drama in which human beings must reckon with
the sovereign power and purpose of the God who is Creator
and Lord..."

     I apologize for heavy excerpting in the above.  The
above quotes are to illustrate how clearly the author
equates the creation of 'adam (Adam) with the creation of
humanity, and that Adam can be interpreted as representative
of all humanity.

     Finally:

     "This view of the task of creatures to serve and
glorify God helps us to understand more clearly the crucial
statement in the Genesis creation story about "the image of
God."

     "Then God said:
     "Let us make human beings ['adam] in our image, after
our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of
the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle and all wild
beasts, and everything that moves upon the earth.
     So God created humanity ['adam] in his own image, in
the image of God he created it;  male and female he created
them."
     (Gen. 1:26-27 - my translation (note -- BWA's
translation).

     "Undoubtedly the word translated 'image' (tselem)
should be taken much more concretely than is often done by
those who attenuate its meaning to the "spiritual" part of
human nature, or, in Greek fashion, to the "soul" as
distinguished from the "body".  Elsewhere the Hebrew word
refers to something concrete and visible, for instance, a
picture drawn on a wall (Ezek. 23:14) or a statue of a god
(II Kings 11:18; Dan 3:1).  Such concreteness characterizes
the usage of tselem in Gen. 1:26-27, although the
explanatory addition of "likeness" (demuth) moves in the
direction of greater abstraction.  Apparently the view in
the Priestly account is that 'adam, viewed as a total bodily
whole (a psychosomatic unity, as we would say), is fashioned
after the heavenly beings of God's Council who are addressed
in the plural pronouns of Genesis 1:26 ("us", "our").  If
this is the correct interpretation, 'adam is made in the
image of the heavenly beings ("angels";  see Psalm 8:55 LXX)
who surround God and are members of the heavenly council
referred to in Micaiah's vision (I Kings 22: 19-23) and the
prologue statement of Job (Job 1:6).  However, the main
import of the statement about the _imago Dei_ is not to
define human _nature_ in relation to God but to accent the
special _function_ that God has assigned human beings in the
creation.  Human beings, male and female, are designed to be
God's representatives for they are created and commissioned
to represent or "image" God's rule on earth..."


	You will be pleased to learn, as am I, that the above
is my final quotation here!  Of particular note is the
author's translation of Genesis 1:26-27, where 'adam is
translated as either "human beings" or "humanity".  The
author takes great pains to show the importance of
humanity's role, and not just the role of a single man and
single woman, as God's special creation on Earth.
     Therefore, I assert from the above examples that it is
a valid theological position to view 'adam, or Adam, as
representative of humanity in toto.  It is not necessary, in
a theological consideration of Genesis, to maintain that the
only valid interpretation of 'adam/Adam is as a single,
historical individual.
     However, given the historical traditions of the tribe
of Israel and the Hebrews, to explain the message of
salvation, it is no surprise that the great teachers Jesus
Christ and the Apostle Paul addressed Adam as historical --
in order to convey the fundamental meaning of Christ's
singular role in salvation.

     As I finish this (3/21/94), I am aware that the actual
meaning of the words Adam and Eve in the Hebrew is under
discussion on talk.origins.  The definitions provided there
only serve to augment the argument that I have sought to
bring forth above.
     The next question I seek to address is the "external"
consideration of evolution and the doctrine of Original Sin
-- i.e. if Adam is viewed as representative of humanity, how
is the doctrine of Original Sin aligned with the sinfulness
of humanity and not of a single human being?  Again, I
stress that the complexities here are primarily due to the
difficulty of relating the internally consistent Old and New
Testaments to the external world of nature and science.
While it is not necessary to make such a relationship in
order for the Gospel message to be understood, the
intellectual challenge of investigating possible
relationships is still worthwhile.

     I dedicate the above work to the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, in the prayerful hope that it will aid a wider and
more conciliatory appreciation of the salvation message of
Jesus Christ, and help to bridge doctrinal divisions which
are not central to His message.

     James G. Acker, 3/21/94


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|  James G. Acker                             |
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