Many Christians are concerned that Adam in the book of Genesis is to be understood as a \u201cfirst\u201d human of some sort\u2013either literally so or \u201cfirst\u201d in terms of importance.<\/p>\n
In my book The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn\u2019t Say about Human Origins<\/a> For Paul, Adam seems to be the first human. As the logic goes, if Adam was not the first human in some sense of\u00a0the\u00a0word \u201cfirst,\u201d then Paul\u2019s subsequent arguments about Jesus fixing what Adam broke are likewise wrong. An extreme form of that argument is that the gospel itself crumbles to the ground if Adam was not the first human.<\/p>\n Of course, this is why many Christians freak out about evolution, and so either turn away from it like they just saw a car wreck, or work overtime to \u201creconcile\u201d evolution and Christianity, usually by inserting an \u201cAdam\u201d of some sort into the evolutionary scheme. I find neither option remotely viable.<\/p>\n My argument in the second half of\u00a0The Evolution of Adam<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>is that\u00a0<\/em>Paul did indeed understand human origins in the way that you would expect ancient<\/em> people to, namely an original first pair. I explain in my book in more detail why I think this and, more importantly, why this has no bearing on whether or not the gospel is true.<\/p>\n Another approach taken by some Christians, however, is to suggest that Paul wasn\u2019t a \u201cliteralist\u201d when it came to Adam, but understood him figuratively. We shouldn\u2019t assume, as is often done, that Paul was a modern fundamentalist with no literary sensitivity, stuck on equating \u201ctruth\u201d with \u201cit literally happened.\u201d James Dunn, for example, in his commentary the book of Romans<\/a> I have always considered this interpretation of Paul to be possible, though I took a different approach in my book.<\/p>\n I treated Paul as a \u201cliteralist\u201d about Adam for 2 reasons:<\/p>\n 1. I was deliberately taking the worst case scenario for Christian theology<\/strong>\u2013that Paul was wrong about Adam as the first human\u2013and exploring the implications of that scenario. Even if Paul understood Adam literally, we do not need to and yet what Paul says about Jesus remains.<\/p>\n If that train of thought is\u00a0convincing (see the book), the head-on collision between evolution\u00a0and Christianity is averted. Though other\u00a0philosophical\u00a0and theological problems certainly remain, at least the\u00a0hermeneutical\u00a0issue is reframed.<\/p>\n 2. I also treat Paul as a literalist about Adam because the issue, as I see it, isn\u2019t how he handles his Bible. <\/em>Rather, the issue is what we can reasonably assume of Paul as an ancient person<\/strong> thinking about human (and cosmic) origins.<\/p>\n It seems most defensible\u2013least complicated\u2013to see Paul as an ancient person (duh) who simply accepted as a natural course of events that, if all babies (animal or human) came from the union a male and female, then working backwards you\u2019d\u00a0have\u00a0to conclude that somewhere back in primordial time God made the first two humans capable of procreation.<\/p>\n That is the biblical scenario in Genesis and in antiquity as a whole, and Paul accepted it in due course as a base point for discussion.\u00a0Reason #2 is the main reason for why I also accepted reason #1.<\/p>\n Having said that, if James Dunn and others are right, that Paul was not bound to\u00a0ancient\u00a0ways of thinking, but understood Adam figuratively, then the\u00a0whole\u00a0discussion of Adam and evolution shifts somewhat\u00a0dramatically, I would think.<\/p>\n Of course\u2013and here is our thought for the day\u2013if Paul did rise above ancient assumptions of human origins when talking about Adam figuratively, then we can\u00a0conclude\u00a0that Paul did so by divine revelation. In which case, the Spirit inspired Paul to understand Adam figuratively<\/strong>,\u00a0meaning\u00a0that God doesn\u2019t think Adam was the literal first human either.<\/p>\n In any case, I\u2019m fine with Paul being a \u201cfigurativist,\u201d though, as I said, reason #2 above seems a more reasonable starting point. I would need to see some support for why Paul thought of human origins differently that\u00a0other\u00a0ancients did, especially other ancient Jews armed with the book of Genesis and its account of human origins.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=inspirandinca-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B006T46QTA\")
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