Dr.
Mark L. Bailey
Does
it matter if Adam was a real person or just a part of the “poetic myth” of the
first eleven chapters of Genesis as many liberal Bible scholars contend?
The
answer to this question is vital because of the implications that it has for
the rest of Scripture. You may be wondering why the historicity of Adam is even
a problem today among Christians who accept the truth and authority of
Scripture. But it is a major issue because even some reputable Christian
colleges, whose names you would probably know, are basically saying that they
are no longer going to teach that Adam was a historical person.
This latest denial of the
Bible’s teaching has, I believe, two basic sources—one new and old. The new is
the Human Genome project, which overzealous advocates say proves the human race
did not spring from two people, as Genesis teaches. We will leave that argument
for another time.
The old source of denial for the
historical Adam and the historicity of Genesis 1–11 comes from liberal scholars
who point to the “creation narratives” of other religions in the ancient Middle
East. They ask the question, “Why does Genesis have to be true when we have
these other accounts as well?” These scholars are, sadly, ready to bow to
Egyptian, Sumerian, and other myths that are so fanciful and absurd with
stories of procreation among gods. They summarily dismiss out of hand the
biblical text in loyalty to these others.
This
denial is also built on the idea of Genesis 1–11 being “poetic myth.” The
problem with this view is that these chapters are not written in Hebrew poetry
with its very distinctive style of meter and parallelism. These chapters also
are not written in the mythical style that was prominent in the ancient Near
East. Genesis 1–11, and therefore the account of Adam, are written as
historical narrative and meant to be read as such as evidenced by the way
the
rest of the Scriptures reference
the early events such as creation, the fall, and the flood.
A
Biblically Established Truth
At
Dallas Theological Seminary we’ve put a stake in the ground in our belief in
the historical Adam, who is mentioned 23 times in nine different books of the
Bible. What’s interesting is that nine of these references are in the New
Testament.
That’s
significant because if the New Testament writers had any doubt about Adam’s
historicity and wanted to ditch such old, outmoded teaching, they certainly
missed the opportunity! Instead, they linked key doctrines of Christianity to
his reality. We are going to look at just some of these references in God’s
Word and see that they hinge on the fact that Adam was a historical person
whose account is important to us as God’s people.
Adam’s
creation “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27), the Imago Dei, is a truth that is
affirmed in texts such as 1 Corinthians 11:7 and James 3:9, which refer to us
as being made in God’s image. But there is no Imago Dei in the human race if we
take Adam and Eve off the page of Scripture.
A
powerful argument for Adam’s historicity also comes from the fact that he is
included in three biblical genealogies. In Genesis 5:1 he is the head of the
human race: “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” In 1 Chronicles 1:1
Adam is the first of a group of people who are traced all the way to David in
the Messianic line, as the genuine history of Israel. And in the Gospel of
Luke, Adam is the human climax of Jesus’s genealogy back through, we believe,
the ancestral line of His mother Mary (Luke 3:38).
Would
the chronicler, arguing for the continuity of God’s creation of the Hebrew race
out of whom the Messiah would come and put a mythological character at the very
head of that genealogy? Not if he intended his argument to be taken seriously.
And what about Luke? Would he trace Jesus’s lineage all the way back to a
mythical character to argue for the historicity of Jesus’s humanity? That makes
no sense at all.
Further
Evidence for a Real Adam
Another,
often overlooked, area of biblical proof for the historicity of Adam is that
the Old Testament patriarchs, psalmists, and prophets mentioned Adam either
directly or by allusion in their writings. Let me give you a few examples of
the way various authors treated Adam.
In
Job 31:33 the patriarch says, “Have I covered my transgressions like Adam, by
hiding my iniquity in my bosom,” with the implication that he had not done as
Adam did. So Job not only assigns historicity to Adam, but even refers to
Adam’s attempt to hide from God in the Garden of Eden as a historical event.
The question is, was this account viewed by Job, the most righteous man of his
time, as a historical event and character that he ought not to emulate? The
answer is yes.
The
prophet Isaiah said to the people of his day, “Your first forefather sinned”
(43:27). If you were a prophet wanting to have a hearing in a land of divided
kingdoms like Israel and Judah, if you wanted to make a case to be believed as
a prophet of God, and if you used a mythological character to explain the
people’s sinfulness, you would be laughed off the stage. It wouldn’t be an
explanation at all.
The historicity of Adam is also
demanded in the Lord’s statement about the people of Israel during the time of
the prophet Hosea. Hosea quotes God as saying, “But like Adam, they have
transgressed the covenant; they have dealt treacherously against me” (Hosea
6:7). There would be no argument with that statement in the northern kingdom in
Hosea’s day. (Check the context for support of Adam as a person rather than
Adam as a place. What “covenant”?)
Likewise,
when we come to the New Testament, we see that Jesus believed in the creation
of the original couple and the purpose for their marriage. When asked about
marriage and divorce, Jesus went back to Adam: “Have you not read,” he replied,
“that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and
said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to
his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but
one flesh. What therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate”
(Matt. 19:4–6).
Jesus quoted not only Genesis
1:27, but also the passage on marriage in Genesis 2:24. But His argument
doesn’t work if there was not an original couple whom God made as male and
female and united in marriage. Rather than take Jesus’s word for it, however,
there are Christian schools across the land where they are saying that Jesus
was simply accommodating Himself to His culture and simply repeated what people
believed erroneously. This would mean that Jesus was willing to deceive others
rather than tell them the truth, because He knew there was no real “it the
beginning.” I don’t know about other people, but I am going to choose to stand
with Jesus on this issue in spite of the critics of the Bible who would not.
Paul
also had no problem with a historical Adam. In Acts 17 we find his great
message to the philosophers and others in the erudite city of Athens. If there
was ever a time when Paul, one of the most educated men of his day, could have
decided to make Christianity palatable to a sophisticated audience, this was
the time. He knew he was speaking to skeptics and unbelievers, so where did he
begin his argument for the reality of the true God? “He made them from one man
every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26). His
answer was the Bible’s answer—from one man—Adam!
But
it is in Romans 5:12-21 that we can really see the absolute importance of a historical
Adam. There Paul explained the doctrine of justification by the comparison of
the first Adam and the second Adam, Jesus Christ. Paul’s point in this major
doctrinal section is that just as sin entered the world through “one man,” Adam
(v. 12), so righteousness entered through “one man,” Jesus Christ (v. 19). You
can see even in this very brief synopsis that Paul’s argument depends on the
reality of what both men did. If Adam was not real and was not responsible for
sin entering the wo rld, then Paul’s
theological basis for Jesus and His atoning work falls short as well.
Adam
and Our Resurrection Hope
Another
important argument supporting the need of a historical Adam is Paul’s
explanation of the reality of death and the possibility of resurrection with
this contrast: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made
alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). Just as the apostle used Adam as the explanation for the
entrance of sin into the human race, so he cited Adam to explain the entrance
of death into the race. There would be no way to account for human death
without a historical Adam. By linking Adam and Christ so closely in terms of
the contrast in the results of their lives, Paul grounded the hope of
resurrection on the fact that Jesus reversed the sin-and-death curse Adam
inflicted on humanity.
But
Paul is not finished with Adam yet. Later in 1 Corinthians 15 he argues (and
this is worth quoting at length), “[The human body] is sown a natural body, it
is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual
body. So also it is written: ‘The first man Adam became a living soul; the last
Adam, became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the
natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the
second man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy;
and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. Just as we have
borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly” (vv.
44–49).
This
entire passage is meaningless if Adam was a character in a “poetic myth.” And
here yet again we can ask the troubling question, If the first Adam was
mythology, what argument do we have against the charge that the second Adam was
mythological? Paul intentionally linked Adam’s existence, sin, and death in
building the vital doctrines of justification by Christ and the resurrection
hope we have in Christ.
Adam’s
Place in Our Faith
I
could give you additional examples, but I think these are enough to answer the
question of why our belief about Adam is one very important illustration of why
it is crucial that we believe in the historical revelation of God’s Word.
Just by way of a quick review,
think of all the areas of life where Adam’s reality impacts life. It relates to
your salvation and mine, to marriage, to the nature of our bodies and the hope
of the resurrection, and to what’s true about the final judgment and eternity.
All of what was begun in Genesis has implications for the latter part of God’s
revelation and all of eternity. It all holds together and stands together, or
it all falls together, and right in the middle of that construction is the
reality and role of the historical Adam. Thus we believe in a historical
individual called Adam, who committed a real sin bringing real death.
Otherwise, why believe in a real historical Jesus who brought justification
from sin? Without these historical facts, the gospel itself has no foundation.
DR.
MARK L. BAILEY Dr. Mark Bailey serves as Senior Professor of Bible Exposition
and President at Dallas Theological Seminary. Dr. Bailey assumed the Seminary’s
presidency in 2001 after years of service as both a professor and the Vice
President for Academic Affairs as well as his role as pastor of a local
church.© 2016 Dallas Theological Seminary Published by Dallas Theological
Seminary 3909 Swiss Ave. Dallas, TX 75204 800-387-9673 www.dts.edu
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