Paul and the Historicity of Adam and Eve

Paul and the Historicity of
Adam and Eve
Peter Enns & Denis Lemoureux versus C. John
Collins & D.A. Carson

Where We are focusing…
 Before I begin, I’ll go ahead and reveal my own cards. I am
an Old Earth Creationist who holds to a literary framework
view of Genesis 1. I agree with the best science of the day
that says the earth is 4 billion years old and the universe is 13
billions years old. The Creation account(s) has some
historical referent in our space-time history. I think there are
good reasons to believe in a historical Adam and Eve.
 I do not intend to discuss the whole Creation/Evolution
debate.
◦ Too big of a topic for an hour
 Hermeneutics, theology & church history, philosophy,
science, and other fields
◦ Too big of an issue for my feeble, mental faculties
◦ Too controversial of an issue for me to ramble about

Where We are focusing
 We will look at two theistic
evolutionist’s handlings of the
historicity of Adam and Eve in Pauline
literature
 We will focus of the work of Peter
Enns and Denis Lemoureux with
responses by D.A. Carson and C.
John Collins.

Adam & Eve Existed.
 Dr. D.A. Carson is Research Professor
of New Testament at Trinity
Evangelical Divinity School in
Deerfield, IL.
◦ Adam in the Epistles of Paul
 Dr. C. John Collins is the professor of
Old Testament at Covenant Seminary.
◦ Did Adam and Eve Really Exist?

Adam & Eve Never Existed
 Peter Enns is a Senior Fellow of
Biblical Studies for The BioLogos
Foundation.
◦ The Evolution of Adam
 Denis O. Lemoureux is a professor of
science and religion at St. Joseph's
College at the University of Alberta,
Canada.
◦ Creation: A Christian Approach to
Evolution

Introduction- Waltke Controversy
 Bruce Waltke, after appearing on a Biologos video discussing
theistic evolution, resigned from RTS amidst an evangelical
firestorm.
 Prof. Bruce Waltke is a preeminent Old Testament scholar,
holding doctorates from Dallas Theological Seminary (Th.D.),
Harvard University (Ph.D.), and Houghton College (D. Litt.).
His teaching appointments at Dallas Theological Seminary,
Regent College, Westminster Theological Seminary,
Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando, and currently at
Knox Theological Seminary have earned him a reputation as
a master teacher with a pastoral heart. In addition to serving
on the translation committee of the NIV and TNIV and as
editor of the Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible, Waltke has
written commentaries on Genesis, Proverbs, and Micah. His
latest publication, An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical,
Canonical and Thematic Approach, earned the Christian
Book Award in 2008.

Introduction- What he said…
 “If the data is overwhelmingly in favor
of evolution, to deny that reality will
make us a cult…some odd group that is
not really interacting with the world. And
rightly so, because we are not using
our gifts and trusting God’s Providence
that brought us to this point of our
awareness.”
 His statements were conditional…

Introduction-What is Theistic
Evolution?
 What is theistic evolution?
 “The best harmonious synthesis of the special revelation of the Bible, of the
general revelation of human nature that distinguishes between right and wrong
and consciously or unconsciously craves God, and of science is the theory of
theistic evolution. By “theory,” I mean here “a coherent group of general
propositions used as principles of explanation for the origin of species, especially
Adam,” not “a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural.” By “theistic
evolution” I mean that the God of Israel, to bring glory to himself, (1) created all
the things that are out of nothing and sustains them; (2) incredibly, against the
laws of probability, finely tuned the essential properties of the universe to produce
Adam, who is capable of reflecting upon their origins; (3) within his providence
allowed the process of natural selection and of cataclysmic interventions-such as
the meteor that extinguished the dinosaurs, enabling mammals to dominate the
earth-to produce awe-inspiring creatures, especially Adam; (4) by direct creation
made Adam a spiritual being, an image of divine beings, for fellowship with himself
by faith; (5) allowed Adam to freely choose to follow their primitive animal nature
and to usurp the rule of God instead of living by faith in God, losing fellowship with
their physical and spiritual Creator; (6) and in his mercy chose from fallen Adam
the Israel of God, whom he regenerated by the Holy Spirit, in connection with their
faith in Jesus Christ, the Second Adam, for fellowship with himself.” Bruce Waltke,
An Old Testament Theology

Introduction
 Dr. Waltke’s resignation brought Biologos
& the theistic evolution controversy to the
forefront of the evangelical community.
 Since then, numerous books have come
out on the subject.
 The center of the evolution debate has
shifted from asking whether we came
from earlier animals to whether we could
have come from one man and one
woman.

Introduction
 Denis Lemoureux’s and Peter Enn’s
works serve as an apologetic
endeavor to accommodate the
findings of science with the truths of
inspired Scripture.
 In the process, many evangelical
leaders, scholars, and theologians
have said they’ve gone “too far” and
have compromised on a key doctrine.

Both Agree on Paul in One
Sense
Paul
believed
that Adam
and Eve
really
existed.

Denis Lemoureux’s Paul
 "My central conclusion in this book is
clear: Adam never existed and this fact
has no impact whatsoever on the
foundational beliefs of Christianity."
Evolutionary Creation
 What is essential to Christianity?
◦ God created humans
◦ Humans bear the image of God
◦ Humans are sinful
◦ God judges humanity for sin
◦ Jesus died for humans
◦ Salvation is found through Jesus Christ alone

 Evolutionary creation claims that the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit created
the universe and life through an
ordained, sustained, and design-
reflecting evolutionary process.
 Evolution is intelligently designed to
bring about what God wants.

 Dr. Lemoureux rejects scientific
concordism.
 Scientific concordism is the
assumption that God revealed
scientific facts in the Bible thousands
of years before their discovery in
modern history.
 He rejects this notion because of the
presence of a three-tier universe in the
Bible.

 Genesis 1 and the firmament or
expanse.
◦ They thought it was a hard dome because
it appeared that way.
◦ All ANE cultures believed this idea.
 God places the sun, moon, and stars
in the firmament because it appears
that way. It is an ancient
understanding of the physical world.

 Other biblical passages
◦ Acts 4:12 "Under heaven"
 This reflects a three tier universe
◦ Phil. 2:10-11
 "in heaven…on earth…and in the underworld"
 This passage uses an ancient understanding of the entire
universe that is three-tiered.
◦ Gen. 1:7
 Waters under the earth
 Ancients would travel in all directions and would eventually come to
a body of water. It made perfect sense to assume they were
surrounded by a body of water. This is where we get the phrase
"ends of the earth."
 Ends of the earth
 Isa. 41:8
 Jesus himself uses this same ancient mindset of the day in Matt.
12:42

 Is concordism true?
◦ We find an ancient understanding of the
physical world.
◦ What we find in scripture does not align with
the scientific facts.
 Did God lie?
◦ No. Lying requires deception and malice.
◦ God simply accommodates himself.
 The Holy Spirit descended to the level of ancient
humans and used their ideas (Ancient Science) in
order to reveal messages of faith.

 Creation in Genesis 1
◦ We find an ancient understanding of the creation of
the world.
◦ De novo Creation
 Creation that is brand new.
 Quick and complete origin of life. Things are made quickly
and fully formed.
 This is the origins science of the world.
 This is the best understanding for the ancient peoples.
 Message-incident principle
◦ We find a message in Scripture that is timeless, good
truth that is carried by the vessel of an ancient
understanding of an incident.
◦ We find the message amidst ancient understandings
of things.

 Biology in the Bible
◦ Implication of the three-tier universe
 If the astronomy is ancient…
 If the geology is ancient…
 Is the biology not ancient?
◦ This is a consistency argument.
◦ Ancient biology in Scripture
 The creation of life is mentioned to be "according to their kinds" in the
Creation accounts ten times.
 This is an ancient phenomenological perspective of the ancients.
 Cows make cows…
 Sheep make sheep…
 Birds make birds…
 People make people…
 This is the taxonomy-of-the-day.
 Implication?
 The ancients would have asked is "where do humans come from?"
 Retrojection
 Taking present experience and casting it back in time to explain the past.

 Adam?
◦ A human gives birth to a human who gives birth to another human
and so on and so forth.
◦ Origins implication: Adam is the retrojection of the ancients. This
is an ancient biology of origins. Adam is an extension of adding
people all the way back to the first "humans."
◦ Adam is simply a retrojective conclusion (de novo creation
“according to their kinds”) of an ancient taxonomy, which is based
on an ancient phenomenological perspective of biology.
◦ Adam is an incidental vessel that delivers inerrant foundations of
the Christian faith to remind us: We are created in the Image of
God, we are sinful, and God judges us for our sins.
◦ Though Adam never existed, he is the prototype of the human
spiritual condition. In order to understand our existence, we must
see ourselves in him—Adam is you and me.
◦ Adam = three tiers
◦ Adam was never created de nova like the Scriptures say.

Rebuttals to Dr. Lemoureux’s
Paul
1. Anticoncordism, which tends to reject
concordism out of hand, is not the only
alternative. Anti-concordism, as applied to
Genesis, tends to assume that the Biblical
account has little or no historical referent.
2. He assumes historical or scientific
concordism requires literalism.
3. He assumes a timeless message can be
abstracted from a story.
4. He assumes that Paul’s argument is not
somehow contingent upon facts of history.
5. Some of the statements could be poetic.
6. He assumes a level of ethnocentrism.

Peter Enn’s Paul
 "The conversation between Christianity and evolution
would be far less stressful for some if it were not for the
prominent role that Adam plays in two of Paul's
letters…In these passages Paul seems to regard Adam
as the first human being and ancestor of everyone who
lived. This is a particularly vital point in Romans, where
Paul regards Adam's disobedience as the cause of
universal sin and death from which humanity is
redeemed through the obedience of Christ. Many
Christians, however creative they might be willing to be
interpreting Genesis, stop dead in their tracks when
they see how Paul handles Adam.“ 79
 Paul really does believe this fact he is discussing in
Romans and First Corinthians.
 What Paul has to say is not based upon the OT.

Paul’s Adam and the OT
 Adam is relatively absent from the Old
Testament story.
◦ From a Christian point of view, we talk about
Genesis 3 as a turning point. We call it "the
Fall."
◦ This is not a major turning point within the
Hebrew bible. Outside of genealogies within
Chronicles, Adam is never really brought up
too much.
◦ The Fall isn't seen as a cause of anything
really. We assume that depravity comes from
the fall. The text does not blame Adam like
Paul does.

 If Adam's disobedience lies at the root of
universal sin and death, why does the
Old Testament never once specifically
refer to Adam this way?
◦ Adam is mentioned in 1 Chronicles 1:1.
◦ Hosea 6:7 should not be viewed as referring
to Adam as person's name. It should be
viewed as a place's name.
 Hosea is not concerned with the sin of all humanity.
He is concerned with Israel's failure to repent.
 Adam is the first of three places listed where Israel
failed to repent (Gilead and Shechem in vv. 8-9).
 Hosea 6:7 is not a brief allusion to the fall of man.

 Adam's punishment from God listed in Genesis 3:17-18 does
not mention his posterity would be born in a state of
sinfulness from which all efforts to eradicate oneself are in
vain.
◦ Cain's disobedience is not causally linked with Adam's
disobedience.
◦ Noah would be exempt from Adam's sinfulness that is passed
down because he is described as "a righteous man, blameless in
his generation. (6:9)"
◦ Why is Adam's disobedience not causally linked to the flood?
◦ Israel is given a choice whether or not to obey God's law- much
like Adam and Cain.
◦ The choice offered to Adam and Cain is the same choice later
offered to Israel: obedience yields blessing and disobedience
yields cursing. The Old Testament does not tie Israel's
disobedience, or that of humanity at large, to Adam's one act of
disobedience.

 Paul's use of Genesis is clearly rooted in
something else other than a simple reading of
the story.
 Paul's view of the depth of universal, inescapable
human alienation from God is completely true,
but it is also beyond what is articulated in the OT
in general or Genesis specifically.
 We read Genesis like we do because of the
influence of Augustine in the Western Church.
◦ Humanity's state was transformed because of Adam
and Eve's transgression. The depraved and guilty
nature of the first couple was passed onto their
offspring and all of the rest of humanity.
◦ All of humanity was in some sense present in Adam's
actions and disobedience

 We do not have to read it like this. The
Eastern Church, following Irenaeus of Lyons,
sees the story from a different angle. The
garden story is not about a descent from a
pristine, untainted original state of humanity.
Rather, it tells the story of naïveté and
immaturity on the part of Adam and Eve and
the loss of childlike innocence in an illicit
move to grasp at a good thing, wisdom,
represented by the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. Adam and Eve are like
children placed in a paradise, where they are
to learn to serve God and grow in wisdom
and maturity, to move to spiritual perfection.

 The story is about the how (how wisdom is obtained)
knowledge is to be pursued.
 Knowing the difference between good and evil, right
and wrong, is desirable. This is found in Israel's wisdom
literature.
 Becoming like God in knowing good and evil is precisely
what God wants for Adam and Eve. The issue is not the
knowledge should be avoided lest one claim to be like
God.
 The problem is the illicit way in which Eve tries to attain
wisdom- quickly, prematurely, impatiently.
 A wisdom reading of Genesis 3 does not address, and
so in no way negates, the universal and inescapable
reality of sin and death and the need for a savior to die
and rise.

Paul as an Ancient Interpreter
 Although Paul's gospel was fresh, radical, and
counterintuitive to both Jew and Gentile alike, Paul was an
ancient man and naturally held widely accepted views on a
good number of things. Paul had a cultural context.
◦ Paul believed in a three-tiered universe (Phil. 2:10-11; 2 Cor.
12:2).
◦ Paul's world did not include the Western hemisphere or the arctic
poles; reproductive barrenness is solely the woman's fault; the
world was created by a discreet act of God in relatively recent
history, not through an evolutionary process over millions or
billions of years (Paul would not have a category for the
astronomical numbers we casually toss about).
◦ Just because Paul’s access to knowledge about the origins led
him to use the language he did to make a theological claim, that
does not mean we need to accept the scientific accuracy of his
statements in order to agree with his theological conclusion.
 Paul does not have to be right scientifically for us to agree
with him theologically.

 Paul’s handling of his Scripture is marked throughout
by a creative engagement of his tradition. That
creativity stems from two factors: (1) the Jewish
climate of his day, likewise marked by imaginative
ways of handling Scripture; and (2) Paul’s
uncompromising Christ-centered focus. In other
words, Paul’s understanding of the Adam story is
influenced both by the interpretive conventions of
Second Temple Judaism in general and by his wholly
reorienting experience of the risen Christ. Paul is not
doing “straight exegesis” of the Adam story. Rather,
he subordinates that story to the present, higher
reality of the risen Son of God, expressing himself
within the hermeneutical conventions of the time.

 By the time Jesus came on the scene, Jews had
already been steeped in several hundred years of
careful reflection on their own now sacred and
inscripturated story. This process already began within
the pages of the OT itself, a phenomenon sometimes
referred to as "inner biblical interpretation," where
Israel's latter literature shows evidence of transforming
its older texts in view of changing circumstances
(Chronicles).
◦ During this time, the Qumran community was writing
books, the Pseudepigrapha and OT apocrypha was written,
and the Hebrew scriptures were translated into other
languages.
 There was tremendous literary output by faithful Jews in
trying to come to grips with how their scriptures and
current events intersected. The NT was written amid
this flurry of interpretive output.

 There are various "Adams" of Jewish Interpreters that do not
agree with Paul's unique view.
◦ The Wisdom of Solomon refers to Adam as one who was
"delivered from his transgressions" (10:1). Adam was a master of
all things, but transgressed God's command. Adam is presented
as some sort of victim of the death that entered the world "through
the devil's envy," not through Adam's disobedience (2:23-24).
◦ Ecclesiasticus talks about Adam being formed from the dust, but
there is no mention of a fall or sinful nature inherited by his
offspring (17:1-14; 33:10).
◦ Sirach places the blame not on Adam for the misery of all
humanity but solely on Eve (25:24 [1 Tim. 2:14?]).
◦ In the book of Jubilees, Adam is a priestly figure who actually
offers sacrifices for his own transgressions.
◦ In On the Creation of the World, Philo understands Adam to have
been made perfect and immortal, fully possessing the image of
God (134-135). The further the human race extends from him, the
less of the image they posses (141).

 Paul's Adam is an example of the rich
interpretive activity, where Adam is
called upon to address various
theological concerns.
 Paul's handling of Adam is
hermeneutically no different from what
others were doing at the time:
appropriating an ancient story to
address pressing concerns of the
moment.

 Paul does not use the OT with exact
precision of the original context. The
crucifixion and resurrection changes how he
interprets his Bible. The text is not the
master; it serves a goal- the absolute and
uncompromised centrality of what God has
done here and now in the crucified and risen
Christ.
◦ 2 Cor. 6:2 and Isaiah 49:8
◦ The "seed" in Gal. 3:16,29
◦ Gal. 3:11 and Hab. 2:4
◦ Rom. 11:26-27 and Isa. 59:20
◦ Rom. 4 and Gen. 15:6

 Paul had an interpreted Bible. How Paul
understood the OT was affected by interpretive
traditions that were older than Paul but shaped
his thinking more subtly.
◦ 2 Tim. 3:8 mentions Jannes and Jambres, the
magicians in Pharaoh's court during Moses' day.
◦ Gal. 3:19 mentioned the law being mediated by
angels.
◦ 1 Cor. 10:4 mentions a moving well that followed the
Israelites' during the desert experience.
 We cannot and should not assume that what
Paul says about Adam is necessarily what
Genesis was written to convey. Paul was an
ancient man with ancient thoughts, inspired
though he was.

Paul’s Adam
 Paul's Adam: The historical first man, responsible
for universal sin and death.
 Adam is a vital theological and historical figure
for Paul. But, Adam is also typological and
symbolic in Paul (Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 15:44-49).
 What makes Paul difficult to read for us today.
◦ All the extrabiblical factors mentioned earlier.
◦ We do not know the full context of the situations.
They original hearers know something we lack.
◦ There are grammatical challenges to reading Paul.
◦ His thoughts tend to come with such a flurry of energy
and passion that his pen can hardly keep up with his
heart and head. He is not as logical, systematic, and
clinical as he is made out to be.

Paul’s Adam
 The reason Paul uses Adam the way he
does reflects his Christ-centered
handling of the OT in general. Paul's
understanding of Adam is shaped by
Jesus, not the other way around.
 The uncompromising reality of who
Jesus is and what he did to conquer the
objectively true realties of sin and death
do not DEPEND on Paul's understanding
of Adam as a historical person.

Paul’s Adam
 We can leave behind the cause of sin with
leaving behind the fact of sinfulness. There are
three core elements that remain:
◦ 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.
 What we lose: Paul's cultural answer to how
those things came about.
 We can hold to a "sin of origin" without believing
in Augustine's doctrine of "original sin." The
former is the absolute inevitability of sin that
affects every human being from their beginnings,
from birth.

Paul’s Adam
 Paul's goal is to show that what binds these two
utterly distinct groups together is their equal
participation in a universal humanity marked by
sin and death and their shared need of the same
universally offered redemption. Paul's Adam
serves that role. Everything else is subservient to
that goal.
 The New Perspective gets Paul's thinking right.
Paul is combating covenantal nomism within his
letters, doing the law out of gratitude to stay in
the covenant. The Jews did not think of
themselves as earning God's favor through the
observation of the Law. The law and other Jewish
markers "kept them" in the covenant community.

Paul’s Adam
 Paul is saying that the Gentiles do not have
to become Jewish to stay in the covenant
community. The resurrection of the Son of
God is a game changer; gentiles can now be
part of the covenant as gentiles. Paul pushes
Adam to the forefront in a brand new way to
address the problem of sin and death, a
problem the resurrection defeated.
 Any attempt to retain the old distinctions the
resurrection did away with are met with the
full arsenal of Paul's rhetorical skills,
passionate personality, and theological
insights.

Rebuttals to Dr. Enn’s Paul
1. He ignores the OT’s use of the Adam story in
other pericopes.
2. He does not consider other Second Temple
Literature concerning Paul’s issue of where sin
originated.
3. He assumes because of his commitment to the
New Perspective that Paul’s arguments do not
depend on a historical Adam.
4. He abuses Irenaeus of Lyons’ account.
5. His viewpoint concerning how the apostles
used the OT is not the only way to interact with
those texts.
6. His view of inspiration may place undue
emphasis on human frailty.

1-Adam in the OT
 Forest and the Trees Problem: How does our
perception of the big picture (the forest) interact
with our interpretations of the text (the trees)?
 There are several difficulties with this claim: the
first is, what exactly constitutes a "citation,"
presumption, or echo? Does an allusion to any
part of Genesis 1-5 count as one of the echoes?
Does not the presence or absence of allusions
depend on the communicative intentions of the
writers? The later writer may or may not find an
echo of this passage useful to what he is trying to
do in a later text-which means the perceived
rarity of citation hardly implies that this story has
no bearing on the rest of the Hebrew Bible.

1-Adam in the OT
 Narrative rarely tells the reader what the he or she should
believe outright. Rather, it shows one the consequences and
ends of actions and decisions within the flow of the plotline.
We do not need a statement from the writer that “Adam’s
disobedience affects all people who follow him” because the
text shows this fact. Cranfield says “ (Original Sin) is a natural
inference drawn from the Genesis narrative and surely its
intention.”
 Peter Enns reverses the prototype of seeing Adam as
representational of Israel instead of seeing Israel as
representational of Adam. Adam and Eve, as persons in
covenant with God who disobey the LORD, become types or
symbols of divine will and intention throughout Torah and the
rest of the OT. N.T. Wright in his The New Testament and the
People of God says that "If Abraham and his family are
understood as the Creator's means of dealing with the sin of
Adam, and hence the evil in the world, Israel herself becomes
to the true Adamic humanity…”

1-Adam in the OT
 Commands issued to Adam are given to Abraham and others (1:28; 12:2; 17:2,6,8; 22:16).
 The "blessing" idea is explicit in 12:2-3 and is combined with being fruitful and multiplying in
17:20; 22:17-18;26:3-4; 28:3: these echo God's blessings upon the original pair (1:28).
 The idea of "offspring" and "seed" ties the rest of Genesis with the first eleven chapters
(3:15; 4:25; 12:7; 13:15-16; 17:7-9).
 Abraham, Abel, Noah, and Israel mirrors Adam by building altars to sacrifice to the LORD.
 Israel is to be a nation of priests over God's earth much like Adam and Eve were priests
and vice-regents over the earth (Exo. 19). The prophets call Israel to be the people through
whom the LORD will act in relation to the whole world.
 Outside of Genesis 1-5, explicit references to Eden as a prototypical place of fruitfulness
occur in Gen.13:10; Isa. 51:3;Joel 2:3, and Ezek. 28:13; 31:8-9; 36:35.
 Adam is mentioned in the genealogy of 1 Chronicles 1 as-well-as the genealogies in the
earlier chapters of Genesis and Luke (3:38).
 The tree of life receives further mention in the OT & NT (Prov. 3:18; 11:30; 13:12; 15:4; Rev.
2:7; 22:2, 14, 19).
 Numerous passages refer back to creation (Psa. 8; 104)
 Human rest on the Sabbath imitates God's rest after his work on creation (Exo. 20:11,
echoing 2:2-3).
 Malachi 2:15 is likely referring to God's intent in marriage (Gen. 2:24).

1-Adam in the OT
 Hosea 6:7 is disputed but good reasons exist
to translate the verse as
“But like Adam they transgressed the
covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with
me.”
 Ecclesiastes 7:29 may be an echo of the Fall.
“See, this alone I found, that God made man
upright, but they have sought out many
schemes.” [many schemes 7:20?]
 Job 31:33 could be an allusion. “if I have
concealed my transgressions as others do
(margin: As Adam did) by hiding my iniquity in
my bosom. ”

2-Second Temple Literature on
Adam
 Various Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal
texts link Adam’s disobedience with a
universal punishment of death.
 Apocalypse of Moses-Adam said to Eve,
“Why have you wrought destruction among
us and brought upon us great wrath, which is
death gaining rule over all our race?” (14:2)
 4 Ezra- Ezra speaking to God says: “And you
laid upon him one commandment of yours;
but he transgressed it, and immediately you
appointed death for him and his
descendants.” (3:7)

2-Second Temple Literature on
Adam
 2 Baruch-“When Adam sinned and death was
decreed against those who were to be born, the
multitude of those who would be born was
numbered.” (23:4)
 2 Baruch- “Adam sinned first and brought death
upon all who were not in his own time.”
(54:15)…“For when he transgressed, untimely
death came into being. . .” (56:6).
 4 Ezra 7:118-199- “O Adam, what have you
done? For though it was you who sinned, the fall
was not yours alone, but ours also who are your
descendants. For what good is it to us, if an
immortal time has been promised to us, but we
have done deeds that bring death?”

2-Other Mentions of Adam
 Jesus refers to Adam or the events of creation in some
historical sense.
◦ Matt. 19:4-5 “He answered, "Have you not read that he who
created them from the beginning made them male and female,
and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother
and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh
(Gen. 2:7)'?
◦ Matt. 23:35- “…so that on you may come all the righteous blood
shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel (Gen. 4:8) to the
blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered
between the sanctuary and the altar.” (Luke 11:51)
◦ John 8:44- “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do
your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and
has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him.
When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar
and the father of lies.” (Wisdom of Solomon 2:24 “Nevertheless
through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that
do hold of his side do find it.”)

3-Paul’s Arguments and Adam
 Genesis 1-3 is mentioned in passing by Paul in 1 Cor.
11:7-12; 2 Cor 11:3; and 1 Tim. 2:13-14. Although there
is no reason to doubt that these references share the
usual assumption of Second Temple Jews that Adam
and Eve were historical, it is not easy to insist that the
argument depends on this assumption for its validity.
 “Not only must we conclude that Paul himself believed
in the historicity of Adam, but that the structure of his
argument requires the historicity of Adam. In other
words, for Paul Adam is more than an optional extra, a
mythological accretion which may be excised without
loss. Far from it; Paul so tightly relates the saving cross-
work of Christ to the significance of historical Adam that
it is difficult to see how one can preserve the former if
the latter is jettisoned.” Carson

3-Paul’s Arguments and Adam
 Enn’s work shows a sense of scholarly
arrogance. The traditional view concerning the
message of Romans is “Paul confessed his sin
and inability to save himself and accepted Jesus
as his savior, and led others to do likewise.”
 “The Protestant reading of Paul reflects medieval
theological debates, not Paul or the Judaism of
his time.”
 “Romans is often read within Protestantism as a
tract for how an individual can get saved; we are
justified by grace through faith, not by works…
“Getting saved” may be part of the application of
Romans, but if one makes it the whole message,
much of Paul’s argument will be missed.”

3-Paul’s Arguments: Romans 5
 “Therefore, just as sin came into the
world through one man, and death
through sin, and so death spread to all
men because all sinned-- for sin indeed
was in the world before the law was
given, but sin is not counted where there
is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam
to Moses, even over those whose
sinning was not like the transgression of
Adam, who was a type of the one who
was to come. (Rom. 5:12-14)

 Paul's reference to the time period from Adam to Moses
(5:13-14) certainly presupposes a historical figure (i.e. Adam)
at the beginning of the period, corresponding to a historical
figure at the end of the period (Moses). Moreover, this period
in world history is not simply an abstract, bounded, temporal
entity---we are not dealing with a "time" in the abstract; rather,
this period is portrayed as a time during which (a) the "law"
(of Moses) had not yet been given; (b) sin was in the world;
and (c) death reigned. This threefold description can only
refer to the Old Testament period stretching from the fall of
Adam to the giving of the law to Moses; and it treats the
period as real history inasmuch as all die within it.
 Not only does Rom. 5:12-14 lay considerable emphasis on
the one sin, one trespass, or one act of disobedience which
brought ruin to the race; but implicitly the argument depends
on the notion that before that one act of disobedience there
was no sin in the race. This accords very well with Gen. 1-3; it
cannot be made to cohere with any evolutionary perspective
which denies the centrality of a fall in space-time history.

 Adam is portrayed as the "type" (tupos, NIV "pattern," 5:14) of one to
come. The relationship between type and antitype in the Scriptures
is complex; but Ellis correctly insists that New Testament typology
cannot be thought of apart from God's saving activity in redemptive
history, as determined by God's definite plan of redemption which is
moving toward a predetermined goal from a specific point of
beginning. As Versteeg comments, "Thus a type always stands at a
particular moment in the history of redemption and points away to
another (later) moment in the same history. . . . To speak about a
type is to speak about the fulfillment of the old dispensation through
the new."
 Adam is not portrayed as the first sinner, of which other sinners are
later copies; but as the representative sinner, whose first sin affected
the race. This distinction is crucial if the parallel between Adam and
Jesus is to be maintained; for Jesus is certainly not portrayed as the
first man to perform some definitive righteous act, but as the
representative man whose definitive righteous act affects those who
are in him. Preserve this parallel between Adam and Christ, and the
historicity of Adam cannot simply be pro forma, as far as Paul is
concerned.

 “The argument is a narratival one: an event
that happened in the past (as in, “one man’s
trespass, one man’s sin, one trespass, one
man’s disobedience”) had consequences
(“many died”), even from Adam to Moses
(another character in the story), that is,
before the law of Moses. Verse 17 is explicit:
“Because of one man’s trespass, death
reigned through one man.” These events
were followed by what Jesus achieved (“one
act of righteousness, one man’s obedience”),
both in his death and resurrection.”

3-Paul’s Arguments:1
Corinthians 15:20-27
 “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the
firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a
man came death, by a man has come also the
resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also
in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own
order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who
belong to Christ.Then comes the end, when he delivers
the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every
rule and every authority and power. For he must reign
until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last
enemy to be destroyed is death. For "God has put all
things in subjection under his feet." But when it says,
"all things are put in subjection," it is plain that he is
excepted who put all things in subjection under him.”

 “The point of the argument is not simply that
Christ has introduced a new historical factor into
the status quo of universal sin , but that just as all
death can trace its roots back to one man, so all
resurrection from the dead can trace its roots
back to one man. Contextually, Paul 's argument
for the resurrection of Christ's people depends on
the resurrection of Christ; and the structure of
this resurrection argument depends on the
parallel structure, VIZ: that all participate in death
because of the introduction by Adam of death as
a kind of firstfruits. The argument of the context
requires an individual at the head of both lines
the line of death and the line of the resurrection
of the dead.”

 Similarly, explicit mention of Adam in v.22 argues for a
historical person. It does not help to point out that Adam in
Hebrew means man, for (a) even in the Hebrew Old
Testament, one can usually distinguish in Gen. 1-3 between
Adam qua man (generically) and Adam qua first Individual
man: (b) the New Testament was written in Greek, not
Hebrew; and so if Paul had wanted to say man generically he
would have been better off using Greek anthr6pos, rather
than referring to the name of the first human being, a name
which Greek-speaking Gentiles in Corinth would certainly
recognize as belonging to the first human being ; (c) the
parallel between 'Adam ' and 'Christ', two individuals, needs
to be preserved as much in this verse as in the preceding
one.
 The reference to death as the last enemy to be destroyed
(v.26)almost certainly casts a backward glance at the
Introduction of death into the race effected by the
disobedience of our first parent (Gen. 3) .

 The first part of v.27 (,For he "has put
everything under his feet." ') is a direct quote
from Ps. 8 :6, which in turn reflects the
creation narrative of Gen . 1:26- 30. In both
Gen. 1 and Ps. 8, it is man who is vested with
authority over all things. But Paul, like the
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (2 :5ff),
applies the language to Christ as the last
Adam, who retrieves the situation lost by the
first Adam.!" This backward glance is entirely
lost if Paul is unconcerned about the
historicity of Adam, and the historical reality
of man's pre-fall condition.

3-Paul’s Arguments: 1
 “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a
spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there
is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, "The
first man Adam became a living being"; the
last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is
not the spiritual that is first but the natural,
and then the spiritual. The first man was from
the earth, a man of dust; the second man is
from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also
are those who are of the dust, and as is the
man of heaven, so also are those who are of
heaven. Just as we have borne the image of
the man of dust, we shall also bear the image
of the man of heaven.”

 When Paul in 15:45a cites Gen. 2:7, he inserts the words first and Adam. These
additions make it clear that Paul does not intend to refer to man generally, but to
one specific man, the first one, Adam by name. It is on this basis that Paul can
refer to a second man, a last Adam, as an individual figure. The argument is
greatly weakened if the first Adam may be construed as a reference to all
humanity; for the last Adam must be an individual and not a reference to the new
humanity, since the last Adam has become a life-giving (not a life-receiving)
spirit. Only about Jesus Christ, the individual Jesus Christ, could this be said.
Moreover, Paul says that "we have borne the likeness of the earthly man"
(15:49), not that we are the earthly man; and in the same way we shall bear the
likeness of the man from heaven, which clearly cannot mean we are the man
from heaven. The language is reminiscent of the "in Adam"/"in Christ" contrast of
15:21. Clearly, neither Adam nor Christ is here presented in a purely private
capacity. Both function as representative heads, the one of the earthly humanity,
the other of the heavenly humanity; and it is difficult to perceive exactly what
Paul could be saying if this parallelism is destroyed. The cogency of his
argument for a resurrection body of a nature like Christ's resurrection body is
destroyed if there is no representative entailment from Christ to us; and there is
no reason to think such entailment must exist unless the historical representative
entailment from Adam to us also exists.

 We may put this in a slightly different fashion. As Ridderbos writes, "The
anthropological contrast is anchored in the redemptive-historical." The "natural"
mode of existence which springs from participation in Adam is succeeded by the
"spiritual" mode of existence which springs from participation in Christ. But Christ
in this passage appears not as an a- temporal parallel to Adam, but as the later
figure, the eschatological figure, the antitypical figure, the figure who comes in
fulfillment. Such categories are meaningful only if the first figure is a figure in
history. One cannot fail to be reminded of the argument of 2 Peter 3:1-7. There we
are told that those who scoff at the prospect of the second coming have two
historical examples of God's cataclysmic intervention to stand as witnesses to
what God can do---viz, the creation and the flood. But to a generation which
disbelieves heartily in both of these historical events which God has designed at
least in part to serve as pointers to the far greater cataclysm of the second
coming, what can we possibly offer by way of assurance that Christ's coming will
not be forever delayed? In the same way, we may ask ourselves: To a generation
which disbelieves in the historicity of the individual Adam who stands as
representative of the race and who introduced both death and a certain kind of
body into that race, a man designed by God to serve, at least in part, as a pointer
to the second Adam who brings a new, "spiritual" body and escape from death,
what can we possibly offer by way of assurance that there is reality to these
promises and not just pious talk?

3-Paul’s Arguments: Acts 17:26-
31
 “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to
live on all the face of the earth, having determined
allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling
place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they
might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is
actually not far from each one of us, for "'In him we live
and move and have our being'; as even some of your
own poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.'
Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that
the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image
formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of
ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all
people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a
day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by
a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given
assurance to all by raising him from the dead."

3-Paul’s Arguments: Acts 17:26-
31
 “The Athenians prided themselves in [the
fact] that they were sprung from the soil of
their native Attica. The Greeks considered
themselves superior to non-Greeks. Against
such claims of racial superiority Paul asserts
the unity of all men. The unity of the human
race as descended from Adam is
fundamental in Paul’s theology.” F.F. Bruce
 “The making of all kinds of people from one
person is an historical statement, which
grounds the universal invitation- an invitation
that itself is established by an event (the
resurrection), in the light of a sure-to-come
future event (day of judgment).” Collins

4-Irenaeus of Lyons
 “For the most part…they (the Greek Fathers) are rehearsing the
clichés of catechetical instruction, so that what they say smacks more
of affirmation than explanation. While taking it for granted that men are
sinful, ignorant and in need of true life, they never attempt to account
for their wicked plight.” J. N.D. Kelley
 “It was a natural consequence of this polemic attitude towards
Gnosticism, that the anthropology of the 2d and 3d centuries of both
the Western and the Eastern Church was marked by a very strong
emphasis of the doctrine of human freedom. At a time when the truth
that man is a responsible agent was being denied by the most subtle
opponents which the Christian theologian of the first centuries was
called to meet, it was not to be expected that very much reflection
would be expended upon that side of the subject of sin which relates to
the weakness and bondage of the apostate will. The Gnostic asserted
that man was created sinful, and that he had no free will. The Ancient
Father contented himself with rebutting these statements, without
much reference to the consequences of human apostasy in the moral
agent, and the human will itself.” W.G. T. Shedd

4-Irenaeus of Lyons
 “According to Irenaeus, the first humans
were created morally innocent, their
innocence being more like that of a child
than of a full adult. God’s goal was for
them to mature into moral confirmation,
but the fall interrupted the process.”
Collins
 “They (Augustine and Irenaeus) both
agree that the sin of Adam and Eve does
have an effect, which presupposes our
actual descent from this original pair.”
Collins

4-Irenaeus of Lyons
 “Though God intended the immature Adam and Eve to grow into
maturity, this process was interrupted by the Fall. Because Adam
was not yet mature, in his weakness and inexperience, Adam chose
to listen to Satan and disobey God. Thus, humanity lost the divine
likeness, that is, the endowment of the Spirit, and fell into the grasp
of Satan. Adam's sin was disobedience to God, but this
disobedience held important consequences for Adam's progeny.
This first instance of disobedience led to the sinfulness of the whole
race. He also believed that all of humanity shares in Adam's deed
and therefore they also share in his guilt. Though Irenaeus never
defines how this takes place, he must hold that there is some kind of
mystical solidarity within the human race.” J.N. D. Kelley
◦ “…through the disobedience of that one man who was first formed out of the
untilled earth, the many were made sinners and lost life.” Against Heresies 3,
18, 7
◦ “In the first Adam, we offended God, not fulfilling his commandment…to him
alone were we debtors, whose ordinance we transgressed in the beginning.”
Against Heresies 5, 16, 3
◦ “In Adam disobedient man was stricken…” Against Heresies 5, 34, 2

5-Other Ways of Handling the
OT
 Three Views on the New Testament
Use of the Old Testament
(Counterpoints: Bible and
Theology) by Peter Enns and
Kenneth Berding
 Commentary on the New Testament
Use of the Old Testament by D.A.
Carson and G. K. Beale

6-Inspiration and Incarnation
 His arguments are built upon his incarnational
model of inspiration.
 “As Christ is both God and human, so is the
Bible…Christ’s incarnation is analogous to
Scripture’s “incarnation.”…The human dimension
of Scripture is, therefore, part of what makes
Scripture Scripture. But it is precisely this
dimension that can create problems for modern
Christian readers, because it can make the Bible
seem less unique, less “Bible-like,” than we
might have supposed.”
 Good reasons exist to still hold to the orthodox
view of inspiration.

What We Might Lose…
 The grand narrative of Scripture is
somewhat different.

What We Might Lose…
 The reliability of Paul may be subtly
undermined.
◦ What future parts of Paul's arguments are the
result of his ancient mindset and thus nullified
because "we moved on?"
◦ What do we do with the other Biblical writers
on Adam? What other portions of Scriptural
history, ethics, and general doctrine are the
mere thoughts of ancient, unlearned people?
 Where does human dignity and objective
value apart from one’s relation to their
socio-cultural community derive itself
from?

Closing Admonitions
 I recommend the works of D.A. Carson,
Peter Enns, and C. John Collins.
◦ Possible reviews should be in the works.
 We should be loving in our treatment of
brothers and sister who hold different
viewpoints yet sharp in our defense of
the truth.
 Let us proceed with intellectual humility,
Christ-exalting attitude, and scholarly
engagement regarding the issues
surrounding God’s creation.

Paul and the Historicity of Adam and Eve

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