The other week I picked up the biography, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Robert Oppenheimer was a brilliant theoretical physicist who played a key role in the Manhattan Project, helping to develop the world’s first nuclear weapons. After World War II, however, he worked unsuccessfully to prevent a nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, fearing the devastating power of his own invention. Naturally enough, his biographers liken his story to the myth of Prometheus, writing in the preface of the book:
Like that rebellious Greek god Prometheus–who stole fire from Zeus and bestowed it upon humankind, Oppenheimer gave us atomic fire. But then, when he tried to control it, when he sought to make us aware of its terrible dangers, the powers-that-be, like Zeus, rose up in anger to punish him. (xiii)
It would be hard to think of a more apposite comparison, a better metaphorical lens for understanding Oppenheimer’s place in our world. But of course, there are a few differences between Prometheus and Oppenheimer, chief among them being the fact that Oppenheimer is a historical figure of recent memory and Prometheus is a fictional character of a mythic past. But no one in their right mind would say that that fact diminishes the validity or the power of Bird and Sherwin’s comparison. No one would say that Bird and Sherwin’s likening of Oppenheimer to Prometheus commits them to the historicity of Prometheus’s story, or that believing that Prometheus’s story is mythological somehow undermines one’s grounds for believing in Robert Oppenheimer.
This morning I was reading the fifth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans where he likens Jesus to Adam. Paul writes:
Therefore, just as (hosper) 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 (typos) of the one who was to come. (5:12-14, ESV)
With Bird and Sherwin’s biography in the back of my mind it struck me today as never before that Paul’s comparison of Jesus to Adam is fundamentally just that, a comparison. More specifically, Adam’s role in the comparison is that Adam is the typos, the figure, the pattern, the model for Jesus, “the one who was to come (tou mellontos).” Jesus, like Adam, is one man whose singular decisive action has had ramifications for all of subsequent humanity.
The analogy isn’t perfect, as Paul acknowledges:
But the free gift is not like (ouk hws) the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like (ouk hws) the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:15-17, ESV)
The analogy isn’t perfect. Whereas Adam’s action (like Prometheus’s) was catastrophic, Jesus’s action was, to borrow Tolkien’s word, eucatastrophic. Whereas Adam’s was an act of disobedience, Jesus’s action was one of obedience. Whereas Adam’s action was a betrayal of God, Jesus’s action was a gift of God. Whereas Adam’s action brought about a regime of death, Jesus’s action brought about the victory of life. Jesus, in other words, is like Adam turned right-side-up.
The more I look at this passage, the less I see how it makes a lick of difference to the force of Paul’s argument whether Adam is a historical figure or not. To my mind, the fundamental analogy still holds even if we were to add one more disanalogous element to those we have already rehearsed: whereas Adam was a fictional character of a mythic past, Jesus was for Paul a historical figure of recent memory. No matter. The comparison still holds. Jesus is, in some important ways, like Adam, just as He is said elsewhere in the New Testament to be like Moses, like Jonah, like Jeremiah, like Elijah, like a lamb, like a vine, like a door, like a shepherd, and like dozens of other things.
Rembrandt’s “St. Paul at His Writing Desk,” 1630
So did Paul personally believe in a historical Adam? Probably. He was a first century Jew. I’d be surprised if he didn’t (and I’d also be surprised if he didn’t believe in a geocentric cosmos, for that matter).
But does Paul need Adam to be a historical figure in order to make his argument in Romans 5? No, not really. And I would say the same, mutatis mutandis, for his argument in 1 Corinthians 15. The link between Adam and Jesus that he is making is more like Bird and Sherwin’s link between Prometheus and Oppenheimer than it is like the link between, say, Jesus and Pontius Pilate. It is a fundamentally anological link, not a fundamentally historical link.
All of this, of course, matters for those of us who take the New Testament to be our primary source for thinking about life, the universe, and everything, and who are keeping abreast of conversations in both the natural sciences and biblical scholarship which suggest that Genesis is not best understood as a textbook on natural history (see, e.g., this story by NPR). The evidence isn’t all in. It never is. But it is getting harder and harder to make a case for a historical Adam and that is disconcerting in excelsis for many Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, and others who see the Christian faith itself as being on the line in these discussions.
But, really, who needs a historical Adam? I don’t think Paul does. Nor do I think that the essential trustworthiness of the Bible depends on Adam’s historicity.
So who needs–really needs–a historical Adam? Adherents to a traducian account of the soul and a peculiar understanding of original sin? Devotees of the Westminster Confession of Faith? Biblical literalists?
But these are all varieties of Christian faith, not Christianity per se. There have always been within the Christian tradition (better?) alternatives to these particular theological stances, some of which do not logically depend upon the historicity of the Adam story. If the evidence should continue to mount against the historicity of Adam, the choice before us should not be whether we will be Christians or not, but whether we will be these sorts of Christians or those sorts of Christians. Christianity itself is simply not at stake.
So do you need a historical Adam? If so, help me understand why you do. If you don’t, you can tell me about that too.
Hey David
as always, i love your posts. you always challenge me to think in terms and in areas that I never would’ve gone by myself.
but on this point, I think I’d like to ask you about your analogy. I understand that your trying to argue for a mythological Adam. I don’t have a problem with that per se. but I do want to interject that this is God ordained myth…and that makes all the difference in the world, especially if we’re going to compare Gen 1-3 to the prometheus myth.
perhaps another point that I would like to propose (since I might be wrong) is that perhaps Gen 1-3 is condescension where God is trying to communicate in an intelligible fashion what actually happened. in other words, while it may be true that Gen 1-3 is non-historical, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t an actual referent that took place in real time and space. for me, it doesn’t need to be a first human. it doesn’t even need to be a talking serpent. But to say that it refers merely to an idealization (which it does) with no reference to reality goes a little too far for me.
my issue is that the referent for your Gen 3 seems to be in the future (Jesus). my argument is that sin actually did enter into the world (in the past)…and for whatever reason, God chose to use Genesis 1-3 to explain the theological principles for why that happened. Call it mythology or mythopoeic narrative, it doesn’t matter…its all ahistorical. But this seems to be the best that the ancient world could do. and God seems to be perfectly happy with that.
Posted by Joe F Kim | October 19, 2012, 5:27 pmGreat to hear from you, Joe!
Hmmm…I’m not sure that I ever said that Gen 2-3 “refers merely to an idealization…with no reference to reality.” I’m not even entirely sure that we actually disagree. I sort of warm to C.S. Lewis’s view, namely the view that Gen 2-3 refers to the fact that sin and death have been with us from the dawn of humankind–they are an unavoidable part of the human condition. Though, I would also add that I think the Adam story is a proto-Israel story, painting Israel’s story of exile in universally human terms.
The point of my post was simply that Paul doesn’t need a historical Adam in order for his theological arguments in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 to hold water. Both of those arguments liken Christ to Adam, but they do not (so far as I can see) depend on historically relating Adam to Jesus in such a way as to make the prospect of Adam’s having been a mythical figure a threat. My point is that Paul’s argument is valid regardless of how this Adam controversy shakes out.
Posted by dmwilliams83 | October 19, 2012, 11:45 pmthat’s my bad about using the word ‘said’. I was simply trying to point out that thats what the Prometheus myth is…a mere idealization. (actually the prometheus story isn’t really ideal for anyone. but i can’t think of a better word…metonymy maybe?)
and I agree with the proto Israel stuff. i dunno where you got it from but for me, Dr. Enns made a great case.
and as for the point of your post, i really do agree with you. its just that for some reason, the analogy of prometheus to Oppenheimer as Adam to Christ just doesn’t sit well after reflection. beyond what I said, i’m having trouble articulating why.
keep up the good work!
Posted by Joe F Kim | October 20, 2012, 12:01 pmWith your permission, I’d like to link this article to http://evolvingcreation.com/part-3-four-questions-were-adam-and-eve-real-people/
You’ve provided an excellent metaphor.
Posted by David Evarts | October 20, 2012, 7:40 amOh, sure. Be my guest. Thanks for reading!
Posted by dmwilliams83 | October 20, 2012, 8:02 amI think that Calvin and many other theologians would say that biblical thought depends on an historical fall for a number of reasons, one of which is the following – if there were no historical Fall, then man could not be rightly punished by death for sin, for after the Fall man is fundamentally incapable of avoiding sin, and it would be unjust of God to punish sin with death if man could never have avoided sin. I think that this argument can be challenged at several points, but perhaps the most relevant criticism (given your post) is this – it is possible to accept an historical Fall while denying an historical Adam. Indeed, it is arguably possible to accept an historical Fall while accepting evolution. And again, there are numerous other problems with the argument that I sketched above. So, are there any theological problems that follow from rejecting an historical Adam? At the moment, I only see one – namely, the challenge to the authority of Scripture that results. And not because I think that the authors/editors of Genesis 2-3 believed that Adam was historical. My guess is that they didn’t think Adam was historical. But later biblical authors like Paul believed that Adam was not only historical, but also crucial to salvation history and theology. Does that undermine the authority of those authors? Not necessarily. But it does pose a serious challenge to their authority that can’t be dismissed lightly – a lot of work must be done here. My guess is that there will be little patience for that work, and that a neat and tidy solution will be imposed where it cannot be made to work.
Posted by Leslie Wolf | October 23, 2012, 1:04 amInteresting argument. I was just thinking recently on this issue as I was reading up on a bit of historical criticism in which evangelicals have taken the whole kit-and-kaboodle and demonized it by placing it in that awful ‘other’ category. Genesis came to mind as I was reading about foundationalism and Descartes attempt to secure an unassailable foundation in tackling the issue of infinite regression. I thought, “Don’t evangelicals demand a foundation from this text? Isn’t uncertainty not an option?” This would seem to be ironic due to the fact that historical criticism is scrutinized for having been the offspring of the enlightenment but this Cartesian thought seems to have seeped into the theological spectrum but isn’t thrown out in its entirety. Perhaps I’m off here but it would appear that Christianity has been co-opted by the enlightenment again.
Posted by Bryan | November 13, 2012, 11:18 amI don’t need a historical Adam. But this is an area that my wife and I disagree on. She points to the basic issue that Leslie brought up. If there was not a first sin by a first person, then God created humanity with sin.
She doesn’t need a 7 day creation, but she does not a specific created Adam and the original sin that was then passed down.
Posted by Adam Shields | November 13, 2012, 11:49 amNowhere in the OT do we find the prophets, legal texts or historical texts lamenting the sin of Adam and turning to this as if to suggest that this was the beginning point which spun out of control, continuously getting Israel into trouble with God.
Posted by Bryan | November 13, 2012, 12:10 pmAgreed. But what about the NT?
Posted by Leslie Wolf | November 13, 2012, 9:29 pmThis is Second Temple hermeneutics. For an in-depth analysis on this see Pete Enns book, ‘Inspiration and Incarnation’.
Posted by Bryan | November 14, 2012, 11:26 amThanks for commenting, Adam! I would recommend looking at C.S. Lewis’s chapter on the Fall in The Problem of Pain (summarized here). Lewis provides a robust account of human fallenness that does not logically depend upon the historicity of Adam and Eve.
Posted by dmwilliams83 | November 13, 2012, 3:48 pmHey there! Question!
You mention alternate views of original sin dealing with this issue. Could you flesh that out a bit?
Posted by David | November 13, 2012, 2:27 pmHey David, I think C.S. Lewis is a great place to start. Check out my summary of his take on Adam and the Fall here.
Posted by dmwilliams83 | November 13, 2012, 3:41 pmThis is a bit of a loaded question since I did not mention ‘original sin.’ There is much to discuss on this issue and difficult to speak about if readers are not up to par on how they have inherited the theological understanding of original sin. Descartes set out to find a ‘beginning point’ where we could eliminate uncertainty in favor of the certainty of reason. Christianity has been co-opted by an enlightenment thought process. Readers in the ancient near east were not concerned with human origins (cf. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One)but were interested in how God ordered creation to function in particular ways.
We do not find the word ‘original sin’ but we do find Deuteronomic and Priestly authors drawing clear set boundaries from ‘pagan foreign’ nations to answer the question of how Israel came into numerous exiles. Sin was perceived as the worship of foreign gods but nowhere do we find the prophets lamenting something like this: “Oh, if it were not for the sin of Adam, we would not be here!” There is much to discuss on this topic but I hope I helped.
Posted by Bryan | November 13, 2012, 8:26 pmThanks for the comments, Bryan. I think (other) David brought up “original sin” because in my original post I had mentioned alternative approaches to framing that doctrine, not because of anything you said.
I generally agree with the gist of your comment, but I would add that I think parts of the OT see a bigger problem than simply Israel and Judah’s exiles. Job is worried about undeserved suffering generally and Ecclesiastes laments the apparent futility of human existence. Genesis 2-3 depicts Israel’s exile and alienation as, in some sense, reflective of the human condition, etc. But more importantly, the NT authors have come to see “the problem” to be larger than just exile precisely because “the solution” (the death and resurrection of Jesus + the outpouring of the Spirit) seems to solve different and larger issues than just Israel’s lack of national sovereignty.
Posted by dmwilliams83 | November 14, 2012, 3:35 pmOn the contrary, many scholars would place Job and Ecclesiastes in the exile and even as far as the third century. This would still correlate strongly with the exile by answering the dogmatic issue of retribution theology. If worshiping false gods (which is what Deuteronomistic and Priestly authors are concerned with) or entertaining hidden sin produces the cause/effect formula of retribution theology, then Job and Ecclesiastes moves in a direction to break this mold but only because of the troublesome issue of multiple exiles. These were horrific conquerings and in the eyes of an ANE person, would be understood as: 1)Sin is present in the land and 2)God has removed his protective favor as a result. These books clearly seem to be written as a knee-jerk response to these issues.
The ‘solution’ as you mentioned, appears to solve the problem of ‘national sovereignty’ unlike Israel had ever known. Jesus eliminates the notion of a nationalist deity and offers this to all nations by eliminating the tit-for-tat scheme in which Israel appeals to God in conquering the ‘foreigners’. In part, it no doubt addresses the issue and offers a vision of peace as was exemplified through Christ.
Posted by Bryan | November 14, 2012, 7:30 pmThanks for the heads up. I was unaware that someone was not replying to my message.
Posted by Bryan | November 14, 2012, 7:33 pmI agree with C.S. Lewis entirely. In fact, it reminds me very much of Teilhard de Chardin’s concept of the “sin of origins.” However, the one thing which bothers me is that the Genesis myth, in the truest sense of the word, like the Epic of Gilgamesh was designed to explain why sin and death exist. The answer is, contra Gilgamesh, not with the gods but with man. Without some kind of protohistorical “missed opportunity” to receive God’s Spirit and become gods in the Athanasian sense, how is that responsibility true anymore? Do we not end up in the same situation as the Sumerian (or Job) where death is a mystery of God? Yes, the Incarnation and Resurrection overcome death for the whole Creation, but how is man responsible for his mortality through sin in any sense? In other words, in what sense is that fundamental dimension of Genesis true – that through sin – i.e., missing the mark of divinity – death entered the world? It would seem then that God made us in a “sinful” state which required the travails of history and necessitated the Crucifixion without any primordial opportunity or choice.
Posted by Dante Aligheri | November 13, 2012, 11:42 pm“If there was not a first sin by a first person, then God created humanity with sin.” (Adam). This issue/objection was also raised by Leslie and Dante. But it’s not obvious to me why this creates a problem in Genesis 1-3.
I suspect all Christians would agree with the basic theological idea that if God created humanity sinful there would be no grounds for attributing guilt to humanity. So if the story is narrated historically, we would have God creating a world that is good, then at a subsequent point in time humanity went wrong – from good to bad, from healthy to sick, whatever words we would use.
But is that not exactly what Genesis says, whether we read it historically or mythically? On one view, God created Adam and Eve (=the first human pair), and created them good, but that first human pair rebelled against him. On the other view, God created Adam and Eve (=humanity at large) and humanity at large rebelled against him.
I think that one problem is we have a misunderstanding of myth. We perceive a mythical story as somehow less true than a historical story. But truth doesn’t depend on whether the story is historical or not. A good illustration is to compare the story of Manasseh (2 Chronicles 33) with the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15). Manasseh is a story grounded in historical fact. The prodigal son is a story grounded only – only! – in the creative imagination of Jesus. Yet both stories communicate the truth about God’s acceptance of those who repent and turn back to him, a truth that is not dependent on historical grounding.
Genesis 1-3 is first and foremost a story. The question then becomes, what is the message of the story? That requires humility and common sense interpretation. It doesn’t require an a priori allegiance to the story being historical in nature.
Posted by Peter Kirkpatrick | November 21, 2012, 4:30 am