ADAM
1. The progenitor and representative head of our race; formed of the dust of the ground, and made a living soul by the Creator’s breath. He was the last work of the creation, and received dominion over all that the earth contained. That he might not be alone, God provided Eve as a helpmeet for him, and she became his wife. Marriage is thus a divine institution, first in order of time, as well as of importance and blessedness to mankind. Adam was made a perfect man-complete in every physical, mental, and spiritual endowment; and placed in the Garden of Eden on probation, holy and happy, but liable to sin. From this estate he fell by breaking the express command of God, through the temptations of Satan and the compliance of Eve; and thus brought the curse upon himself and all his posterity. Sovereign grace interposed; a Savior was revealed, and the full execution of the curse stayed; but Adam was banished from Eden and its tree of life, and reduced to a life of painful toil. His happiness was farther imbittered by witnessing the fruits of his fall in his posterity. Cain his first born son, and Abel the second, born in the likeness of their fallen parents, were ere long last to them-the one slain, and the other a fugitive. They probably had many other sons and daughters, but the name of Seth alone is given. Adam lived to the age of nine hundred and thirty years, and saw the earth rapidly peopled by his descendants; but “the wickedness of man was great upon the earth.” At the time of his death, Lamech, the father of Noah, was fifty-six years of age; and being in the line of those who “walked with God,” had probably heard the early history of the race from the lips of the penitent Adam.The curse pronounced on man includes not only physical labor and toil on a barren and thorny earth, and the physical dissolution of the body, but also the exposure of the soul, the nobler part, to “everlasting death.” In that very day he should lose the moral image of his Maker, and become subject not only to physical death, but also to God’s eternal wrath and curse, which is death in the highest sense of the word, and is the doom which has fallen upon all his race. Such is the view of the apostle Paul; who everywhere contrasts the death introduced into the world through Adam, with the life which is procured for our race through Jesus Christ, 1Ch 5:1-21 . This life is spiritual; and the death, in its highest sense, is also spiritual. So far as the penalty is temporal and physical, no man is or can be exempt from it; but to remove the spiritual and eternal punishment, Christ has died; and he who comes to him in penitence and faith will avoid the threatened death, and enter into life eternal, both of the body and the soul.The Redeemer is called “the second Adam,” 1Co 15:45, as being the head of his spiritual seed, and the source of righteousness and life to all believers, as the first Adam was the sorrow of sin and death to all his seed.2. A city near the Jordan, towards the sea of Tiberias, at some distance from which the waters of the Jordan were heaped up for the passage of the Jews, Jos 3:16 .
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Adam
()
Adam was the first man ( = man) and the parent of the human race.-1. When the writer of Jude (Jud 1:14) thinks it worth noting that Enoch (q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] ) was the seventh from Adam ( ), he probably has in mind the sacredness of the number seven. It seems to him an interesting point that God, who rested from His work on the seventh day, found a man to walk in holy fellowship with Him in the seventh generation.
2. In 1Co 11:9 f. and 1Ti 2:13 f. the doctrine of the headship of man and the complete subjection ( ) of woman is based upon the story of creation. Man was not created for woman, but woman for man; Adam was created first and sinned second, Eve was created second and sinned first; therefore let woman ever remember that she is morally as well as physically weaker than man, and let her never attempt either to teach or to have dominion over him ( ). With the premisses of this argument one may compare the words of Sirach (Sir 25:24): From a woman was the beginning of sin ( ), and because of her we all die. St. Paul did not take pleasure in this quaint philosophy of history, as many of the Rabbis did; but, with all his reverence for womanhood, he felt that the accepted belief in womans creation after and her fall before mans clearly established her inferiority. It was not a personal and empirical, but a traditional and dogmatic, judgment.
3. St. Paul had, and knew that many others had, a religious experience so vivid and intense that ordinary terms scorned inadequate to do it justice. It was the result of a Divine creative act. If any man was in Christ, there was a new creation ( ); old things were passed away; behold, they were become now (2Co 5:17). Not legalism or its absence, but a new creation (Gal 6:15) was of avail. Reflexion on this profound spiritual change and all that it involved convinced the Apostle that Christ was the Head and Founder of a new humanity; that His life and death, followed by the gift of His Spirit, not merely marked a now epoch in history, introducing a new society, philosophy, ethics, and literature, but created a new world. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. As St. Paul brooded on the stupendous series of events of which Christ was the cause, on the immeasurable difference which His brief presence made in the life of mankind, there inevitably took shape in his mind a grand antithesis between the first and the second creation, between the first and the last representative Man, between the intrusion of sin and death into the world and the Divine gift of righteousness and life, between the ravages of one mans disobedience and the redemptive power of one Mans perfect obedience (Rom 5:12-21).
It is to be noted that the Apostle does not advance any new theory of the first creation. He knew only what every student of Scripture could learn on that subject. He had no new revelation which enabled him either to confirm or to correct the account of the beginning of things which had come down from a remote antiquity. He no doubt regarded as literal history the account of the origin of man, sin, and death which is found in Genesis 2-3. He did not imagine, like Philo, that he was reading a pure allegory; he believed, like Luther, that Moses meldet geschehene Dinge. It is remarkable, however, with what unerring judgment he seizes upon and retains the vital, enduring substance of the legend, while he leaves out the drapery woven by the old time-spirit. He says nothing of a garden of Eden, a miraculous tree of life, a talking serpent, an anthropomorphic Deity. But he finds in the antique human document these facts: the Divine origin and organic unity of the human race; mans affinity with, and capacity for, the Divine; his destiny for fellowship with God as an ideal to be realized in obedience to Divine law; his conscious freedom and responsibility; the mysterious physical basis of his transmitted moral characteristics; his universally inherited tendency to sin; his consciousness that sin is not a mere inborn weakness of nature or strength of appetite, but a disregard of the known distinction between right and wrong; the entail of death, not as the law obeyed by all created organisms, but as the wages of his sin. The narrative which blends these elements in a form that appealed to the imagination of primitive peoples has a depth of moral and religious insight unsurpassed in the OT (Skinner, Genesis [International Critical Commentary , 1910] 52).
The teaching of St. Paul with regard to sin and death does not materially differ from that of his Jewish contemporaries and of the Talmud, in which the same sense of a fatal heredity is conjoined with a consciousness of individual responsibility, O Adam, what hast thou done? For if thou hast sinned, thy fall has not merely been thine own, but ours who are descended from thee (2Es 7:48). Yet Adam is not the cause of sin except in his own soul; but each of us has become the Adam of his own soul (Bar 54:19). According to the Talmud, there is such a thing as transmission of guilt, but not such a thing as transmission of sin (Weber, System d. altsyn. palstin. Theol., Leipzig, 1880, p. 216).
The immortal allegory of Genesis cannot now be regarded as literal history. The plain truth, and we have no reason to hide it, is that we do not know the beginnings of mans life, of his history, of his sin; we do not know them historically, on historical evidence; and we should be content to let them remain in the dark till science throws what light it can upon them (Denney, Studies in Theol., London, 1894, p. 79). Science knows nothing of a man who came directly from the hand of God, and it cannot accept the pedigree of Adam as given by Moses or by Matthew. Its working hypothesis is that man is a scion of a Simian stock, and it is convinced that man did not make society but that society made man. Beyond this it has not yet done much to enlighten theology. We do not know how Man arose, or whence he came, or when he began, or where his first home was; in short we are in a deplorable state of ignorance on the whole subject (J. A. Thomson, The Bible of Nature, Edinburgh, 1908, p. 191).
4. Art has made it difficult to think of our first parents without adorning them with all graces and perfections. But when we get away from poetry and picture-painting, we find that men have drawn largely from their imaginations, without the warrant of one syllable of Scripture to corroborate the truth of the colouring (F. W. Robertson, Corinthians, 242). To St. Paul (1Co 15:45-49) the primitive man was of the earth, earthy (), a natural as opposed to a spiritual man, crude and rudimentary, with the innocence and inexperience of a child. The life of the spirit is substantially identical with holiness; it could not therefore have been given immediately to man at the time of his creation; for holiness is not a thing imposed, it is essentially a product of liberty, the freewill offering of the individual. God therefore required to begin with an inferior state, the characteristic of which was simply freedom, the power in man to give or withhold himself (Godet, Corinthians, ii. 424). St. Pauls conception is that, while the first man Adam, as akin to God, was capable of immortality-potuit non mori-his sin made him subject to death, which has reigned over all his descendants. Cf. 2 Ezr 3:7 : And unto him (Adam) thou gavest thy one commandment: which he transgressed, and immediately thou appointedst death for him and in his generations. Formally as a deduction from the story of Adam, but really as his own spiritual intuition, the Apostle thus teaches the unnaturalness of human death. This is apparently opposed to the doctrine of science, that death is for all organisms a natural law, which reigned in the world long before the ascent of man and the beginning of sin-a debt which, as it cannot be cancelled, man should pay as cheerfully as possible. And yet his sense of two things-his own greatness and Gods goodness-convinces him that it is radically contra rerum naturam.
He thinks he was not made to die,
And Thou hast made him, Thou art just
(Tennyson, In Memoriam).
Christianity confirms his instinctive feeling that death is in his case a dark shadow that should never have been cast upon his life. Acknowledging that it is not the mere natural fate of a physical organism, but the wages of sin, the Christian believes that it is finally to be abolished. In Christ shall all be made alive. The last Adam, having vanquished death, became a life-giving spirit (1Co 15:22; 1Co 15:45). See also articles Life and Death, Sin.
Literature.-B. Weiss, Biblical Theology of the NT, 1882-83, i. 331ff., 409ff.; W. Beyschlag, NT Theology 1894-96, ii. 48ff.; C. v. Weizscker, Apostolic Age, 1894-95, i. 149ff.; G. B. Stevens, The Pauline Theology 1906, p. 122ff., Theology of the NT, 1901, p. 349ff.; A. B. Bruce, St. Pauls Conception of Christianity, 1896, p. 125ff.; D. Somerville, St. Pauls Conception of Christ, 1897. p. 86ff.; Sandy-Headlam, Romans5, 1902, p. 136ff.; A. Deissmann, St. Paul. 1912, pp. 59, 107, 155ff.; H. Wheeler Robinson, The Christian Doctrine of Man, 1911, p. 122ff.
James Strahan.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
Adam
(Hebrew: man) The first man and father of the human race. God made him in His own image, and placed him in the Garden of Eden. He made a woman, Eve, from the rib of Adam and gave her to him for a wife. Adam and Eve were tempted by the devil, disguised as a serpent, to disobey God by eating of the tree of knowledge. For their sin God expelled them from Paradise and they were condemned to pain and hardship in the outer world. Adam was the father of Cain and Abel , of Seth when he was 130 years old, and of many sons and daughters. He died at the age of 930 according to the scriptural computation. In the New Testament Saint Paul alludes to Christ as the “last Adam,” through whom all are saved, as in the first Adam all inherited the effect of his sin.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Adam
The first man and the father of the human race.
ETYMOLOGY AND USE OF WORD
There is not a little divergence of opinion among Semitic scholars when they attempt to explain the etymological signification of the Hebrew word adam (which in all probability was originally used as a common rather than a proper name), and so far no theory appears to be fully satisfactory. One cause of uncertainty in the matter is the fact that the root adam as signifying “man” or “mankind” is not common to all the Semitic tongues, though of course the name is adopted by them in translations of the Old Testament. As an indigenous term with the above signification, it occurs only in Phoenician and Sabean, and probably also in Assyrian. In Gen., ii, 7, the name seems to be connected with the word ha-adamah (“the ground”), in which case the value of the term would be to represent man (ratione materiæ) as earthborn, much the same as in Latin, where the word homo is supposed to be kindred with humus. It is a generally recognized fact that the etymologies proposed in the narratives which make up the Book of Genesis are often divergent and not always philologically correct, and though the theory (founded on Genesis 2:7) that connects adam with adamah has been defended by some scholars, it is at present generally abandoned. Others explain the term as signifying “to be red”, a sense which the root bears in various passages of the Old Testament (e.g. Genesis 25:50), as also in Arabic and Ethiopic. In this hypothesis the name would seem to have been originally applied to a distinctively red or ruddy race. In this connection Gesenius (Thesaurus, s.v., p. 25) remarks that on the ancient monuments of Egypt the human figures representing Egyptians are constantly depicted in red, while those standing for other races are black or of some other colour. Something analogous to this explanation is revealed in the Assyrian expression çalmât qaqqadi, i.e. “the black-headed”, which is often used to denote men in general. (Cf. Delitsch, Assyr. Handwörterbuch, Leipzig, 1896, p. 25.) Some writers combine this explanation with the preceding one, and assign to the word adam the twofold signification of “red earth”, thus adding to the notion of man’s material origin a connotation of the color of the ground from which he was formed. A third theory, which seems to be the prevailing one at present (cf. Pinches, The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia, 1903, pp. 78, 79), explains the root adam as signifying “to make”, “to produce”, connecting it with the Assyrian adamu, the meaning of which is probably “to build”, “to construct”, whence adam would signify “man” either in the passive sense, as made, produced, created, or in the active sense, as a producer.
In the Old Testament the word is used both as a common and a proper noun, and in the former acceptation it has different meanings. Thus in Genesis ii, 5, it is employed to signify a human being, man or woman; rarely, as in Gen., ii, 22, it signifies man as opposed to woman, and, finally, it sometimes stands for mankind collectively, as in Gen., i, 26. The use of the term, as a proper as well as a common noun, is common to both the sources designated in critical circles as P and J. Thus in the first narrative of the Creation (P) the word is used with reference to the production of mankind in both sexes, but in Gen., v, 14, which belongs to the same source, it is also taken as a proper name. In like manner the second account of the creation (J) speaks of “the man” (ha-adam), but later on (Genesis 4:25) the same document employs the word as a proper name without the article.
ADAM IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
Practically all the Old Testament information concerning Adam and the beginnings of the human race is contained in the opening chapters of Genesis. To what extent these chapters should be considered as strictly historical is a much disputed question, the discussion of which does not come within the scope of the present article. Attention, however, must be called to the fact that the story of the Creation is told twice, viz. in the first chapter and in the second, and that while there is a substantial agreement between the two accounts there is, nevertheless, a considerable divergence as regards the setting of the narrative and the details. It has been the custom of writers who were loath to recognize the presence of independent sources or documents in the Pentateuch to explain the fact of this twofold narrative by saying that the sacred writer, having set forth systematically in the first chapter the successive phases of the Creation, returns to the same topic in the second chapter in order to add some further special details with regard to the origin of man. It must be granted, however, that very few scholars of the present day, even among Catholics, are satisfied with this explanation, and that among critics of every school there is a strong preponderance of opinion to the effect that we are here in presence of a phenomenon common enough in Oriental historical compositions, viz. the combination or juxtaposition of two or more independent documents more or less closely welded together by the historiographer, who among the Semites is essentially a compiler. (See Guidi, L’historiographie chez les Sémites in the Revue biblique, October, 1906.) The reasons on which this view is based, as well as the arguments of those who oppose it, may be found in Dr. Gigot’s Special Introduction to the Study of the Old Testament, Pt. I. Suffice it to mention here that a similar repetition of the principal events narrated is plainly discernible throughout all the historic portions of the Pentateuch, and even of the later books, such as Samuel and Kings, and that the inference drawn from this constant phenomenon is confirmed not only by the difference of style and viewpoint characteristic of the duplicate narratives, but also by the divergences and antinomies which they generally exhibit. Be that as it may, it will be pertinent to the purpose of the present article to examine the main features of the twofold Creation narrative with special reference to the origin of man.
In the first account (Ch. i, ii, 4a) Elohim is represented as creating different categories of beings on successive days. Thus the vegetable kingdom is produced on the third day, and, having set the sun and moon in the firmament of heaven on the fourth, God on the fifth day creates the living things of the water and the fowls of the air which receive a special blessing, with the command to increase and multiply. On the sixth day Elohim creates, first, all the living creatures and beasts of the earth; then, in the words of the sacred narrative, he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. Then follows the blessing accompanied by the command to increase and fill the earth, and finally the vegetable kingdom is assigned to them for food. Considered independently, this account of the Creation would leave room for doubt as to whether the word adam, “man”, here employed was understood by the writer as designating an individual or the species. Certain indications would seem to favour the latter, e.g. the context, since the creations previously recorded refer doubtless to the production not of an individual or of a pair, but of vast numbers of individuals pertaining to the various species, and the same in case of man might further be inferred from the expression, “male and female he created them.” However, another passage (Genesis 5:15), which belongs to the same source as this first narrative and in part repeats it, supplements the information contained in the latter and affords a key to its interpretation. In this passage which contains the last reference of the so-called priestly document to Adam, we read that God created them male and female . . . and called their name adam, in the day when they were created. And the writer continues: And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son to his own image and likeness, and called his name Seth. And the days of Adam, after he begot Seth, were eight hundred years and he begot sons and daughters. And all the time that Adam lived came to nine hundred and thirty years, and he died. Here evidently the adam or man of the Creation narrative is identified with a particular individual, and consequently the plural forms which might otherwise cause doubt are to be understood with reference to the first pair of human beings.
In Genesis, ii, 4b-25 we have what is apparently a new and independent narrative of the Creation, not a mere amplification of the account already given. The writer indeed, without seeming to presuppose anything previously recorded, goes back to the time when there was yet no rain, no plant or beast of the field; and, while the earth is still a barren, lifeless waste, man is formed from the dust by Yahweh, who animates him by breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. How far these terms are to be interpreted literally or figuratively, and whether the Creation of the first man was direct or indirect, see GENESIS, CREATION, MAN. Thus the creation of man, instead of occupying the last place, as it does in the ascending scale of the first account, is placed before the creation of the plants and animals, and these are represented as having been produced subsequently in order to satisfy man’s needs. Man is not commissioned to dominate the whole earth, as in the first narrative, but is set to take care of the Garden of Eden with permission to eat of its fruit, except that of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the formation of woman as a helpmeet for man is represented as an afterthought on the part of Yahweh in recognition of man’s inability to find suitable companionship in the brute creation. In the preceding account, after each progressive step “God saw that it was good”, but here Yahweh perceives, as it were, that it is not good for man to be alone, and he proceeds to supply the deficiency by fashioning the woman Eve from the rib of the man while he is in a deep sleep. According to the same narrative, they live in childlike innocence until Eve is tempted by the serpent, and they both partake of the forbidden fruit. They thereby become conscious of sin, incur the displeasure of Yahweh, and lest they should eat of the tree of life and become immortal, they are expelled from the garden of Eden. Henceforth their lot is to be one of pain and hardship, and man is condemned to the toilsome task of winning his sustenance from a soil which on his account has been cursed with barrenness. The same document gives us a few details connected with our first parents after the Fall, viz.: the birth of Cain and Abel the fratricide, and the birth of Seth. The other narrative, which seems to know nothing of Cain or Abel, mentions Seth (Chap. v, 3) as if he were the first born, and adds that during the eight hundred years following the birth of Seth Adam begat sons and daughters.
Notwithstanding the differences and discrepancies noticeable in the two accounts of the origin of, mankind, the narratives are nevertheless in substantial agreement, and in the esteem of the majority of scholars they are easiest explained and reconciled if considered as representing two varying traditions among the Hebrews — traditions which in different form and setting embodied the selfsame central historic facts, together with a presentation more or less symbolical of certain moral and religious truths. Thus in both accounts man is clearly distinguished from, and made dependent upon, God the Creator; yet he is directly connected with Him through the creative act, to the exclusion of all intermediary beings or demigods such as are found in the various heathen mythologies. That man beyond all the other creatures partakes of the perfection of God is made manifest in the first narrative, in that he is created in the image of God, to which corresponds in the other account the equally significant figure of man receiving his life from the breath of Yahweh. That man on the other hand has something in common with the animals is implied in the one case in his creation on the same day, and in the other by his attempt, though ineffectual, to find among them a suitable companion. He is the lord and the crown of creation, as is clearly expressed in the first account, where the creation of man is the climax of God’s successive works, and where his supremacy is explicitly stated, but the same is implied no less clearly in the second narrative. Such indeed may be the significance of placing man’s creation before that of the animals and plants, but, however that may be, the animals and plants are plainly created for his utility and benefit. Woman is introduced as secondary and subordinate to man, though identical with him in nature, and the formation of a single woman for a single man implies the doctrine of monogamy. Moreover, man was created innocent and good; sin came to him from without, and it was quickly followed by a severe punishment affecting not only the guilty pair, but their descendants and other beings as well. (Cf. Bennett in Hastings, Dict. of the Bible, s.v.) The two accounts, therefore, are practically at one with regard to didactic purpose and illustration, and it is doubtless to this feature that we should attach their chief significance. It is hardly necessary to remark in passing that the loftiness of the doctrinal and ethical truths here set forth place the biblical narrative immeasurably above the extravagant Creation stories current among the pagan nations of antiquity, though some of these, particularly the Babylonian, bear a more or less striking resemblance to it in form. In the light of this doctrinal and moral excellence, the question of the strict historical character of the narrative, as regards the framework and details, becomes of relatively slight importance, especially when we recall that in history as conceived by the other biblical authors, as well as by Semitic writers generally, the presentation and arrangement of facts — and indeed their entire role — is habitually made subordinate to the exigencies of a didactic preoccupation.
As regards extra-biblical sources which throw light upon the Old Testament narrative, it is well known that the Hebrew account of the Creation finds a parallel in the Babylonian tradition as revealed by the cuneiform writings. It is beyond the scope of the present article to discuss the relations of historical dependence generally admitted to exist between the two cosmogonies. Suffice it to say with regard to the origin of man, that though the fragment of the “Creation Epic”, which is supposed to contain it, has not been found, there are nevertheless good independent grounds for assuming that it belonged originally to the tradition embodied in the poem, and that it must have occupied a place in the latter just after the account given of the production of the plants and the animals, as in the first chapter of Genesis. Among the reasons for this assumption are: the Divine admonitions addressed to men after their creation, towards the end of the poem; the account of Berosus, who mentions the creation of man by one of the gods, who mixed with clay the blood which flowed from the severed head of Tiamat; a non-Semitic (or pre-Semitic) account translated by Pinches from a bilingual text, and in which Marduk is said to have made mankind, with the cooperation of the goddess Aruru. (Cf. Encyclopedia Biblica, art. “Creation”, also Davis, Genesis and Semitic Tradition, pp. 36-47.) As regards the creation of Eve, no parallel has so far been discovered among the fragmentary records of the Babylonian creation story. That the account, as it stands in Genesis, is not to be taken literally as descriptive of historic fact was the opinion of Origen, of Cajetan, and it is now maintained by such scholars as Hoberg (Die Genesis, Freiburg, 1899, p. 36) and von Hummelauer (Comm. in Genesim, pp. 149 sqq.). These and other writers see in this narrative the record of a vision symbolical of the future and analogous to the one vouchsafed to Abraham (Genesis 15:12 sqq.), and to St. Peter in Joppe (Acts 10:10 sqq.). (See Gigot, Special Introduction to the Study of the Old Testament, pt. I, p. 165, sqq.)
References to Adam as an individual in the later Old Testament books are very few, and they add nothing to the information contained in Genesis. Thus the name stands without comment at the head of the genealogies at the beginning of I Paralipomenon; it is mentioned likewise in Tobias, viii, 8; Osee, vi, 7; Ecclus., xxxv, 24, etc. The Hebrew word adam occurs in various other passages, but in the sense of man or mankind. The mention of Adam in Zacharias, xiii, 5, according to the Douay version and the Vulgate, is due to a mistranslation of the original.
ADAM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
In the New Testament references to Adam as an historical personage occur only in a few passages. Thus in the third chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel the genealogy of the Saviour is traced back to “Adam who was of God”. This prolongation of the earthly lineage of Jesus beyond Abraham, who forms the starting point in St. Matthew, is doubtless due to the more universal spirit and sympathy characteristic of our third Evangelist, who writes not so much from the viewpoint of Jewish prophecy and expectation as for the instruction of the Gentile recruits to Christianity. Another mention of the historic father of the race is found in the Epistle of Jude (verse 14), where a quotation is inserted from the apocryphal Book of Enoch, which, rather strange to say, is attributed to the antediluvian patriarch of that name, “the seventh from Adam.” But the most important references to Adam are found in the Epistles of St. Paul. Thus in I Tim., ii, 11-14, the Apostle, after laying down certain practical rules referring to the conduct of women, particularly as regards public worship, and inculcating the duty of subordination to the other sex, makes use of an argument the weight of which rests more upon the logical methods current at the time than upon its intrinsic value as appreciated by the modern mind: For Adam was first formed; then Eve. And Adam was not seduced; but the woman being seduced, was in the transgression. A similar line of argument is pursued in I Cor., xi, 8, 9. More important is the theological doctrine formulated by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans, v, 12-21, and in I Cor., xv, 22-45. In the latter passage Jesus Christ is called by analogy and contrast the new or “last Adam.” This is understood in the sense that as the original Adam was the head of all mankind, the father of all according to the flesh, so also Jesus Christ was constituted chief and head of the spiritual family of the elect, and potentially of all mankind, since all are invited to partake of His salvation. Thus the first Adam is a type of the second, but while the former transmits to his progeny a legacy of death, the latter, on the contrary, becomes the vivifying principle of restored righteousness. Christ is the “last Adam” inasmuch as “there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12); no other chief or father of the race is to be expected. Both the first and the second Adam occupy the position of head with regard to humanity, but whereas the first through his disobedience vitiated, as it were, in himself the stirps of the entire race, and left to his posterity an inheritance of death, sin, and misery, the other through his obedience merits for all those who become his members a new life of holiness and an everlasting reward. It may be said that the contrast thus formulated expresses a fundamental tenet of the Christian religion and embodies in a nutshell the entire doctrine of the economy of salvation. It is principally on these and passages of similar import (e.g. Matthew 18:11) that is based the fundamental doctrine that our first parents were raised by the Creator to a state of supernatural righteousness, the restoration of which was the object of the Incarnation. It need hardly be said that the fact of this elevation could not be so clearly inferred from the Old Testament account taken independently.
ADAM IN JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN TRADITION
It is a well-known fact that, partly from a desire to satisfy pious curiosity by adding details to the too meagre biblical accounts, and partly with ethical intent, there grew up in later Jewish as well as in early Christian and Mohammedan tradition a luxuriant crop of legendary lore around the names of all the important personages of the Old Testament. It was therefore only natural that the story of Adam and Eve should receive special attention and be largely developed by this process of embellishment. These additions, some of which are extravagant and puerile, are chiefly imaginary, or at best based on a fanciful understanding of some slight detail of the sacred narrative. Needless to say that they do not embody any real historic information, and their chief utility is to afford an example of the pious popular credulity of the times as well as of the slight value to be attached to the so-called Jewish traditions when they are invoked as an argument in critical discussion. Many rabbinical legends concerning our first parents are found in the Talmud, and many others were contained in the apocryphal Book of Adam now lost, but of which extracts have come down to us in other works of a similar character (see MAN). The most important of these legends, which it is not the scope of the present article to reproduce, may be found in the Jewish Encyclopedia, I, art. “Adam”, and as regards the Christian legends, in Smith and Wace, Dictionary of Christian Biography, s.v.
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PALIS in VIG., Dict. de la Bible, s.v.; BENNETT and ADENEY in HAST., Dict. of the Bible, s.v. For New Testament references, see commentaries; for Old Testament, GIGOT, Special Introduction to the Study of the Old Testament, I, iv; VON HUMMELAUER, Comm. in Genesis.
JAMES F. DRISCOLL
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume ICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Adam
(Heb. Adam’, , red SEE EDOM; hence , the ground, from the ruddiness of flesh and of clayey soil, see Gesenius, Thes. Heb. p. 24, 25; comp. Josephus, Ant. 2, 1; Jonathan’s Targum on Gen 2:7; Leusden, Onomast, s.v.; Marek, Hist. Paradisi, 2, 5), the name of a man and a place.
1. The first man, whose creation, fall, and history are detailed by Moses in Gen 2:1-25; Gen 3:1-24; Gen 4:1-26; Gen 5:1-32, being in fact the same Hebrew word usually rendered man (including woman also, Gen 5:1-2), but often used distinctively with the article (, ha-Adam’, the man, Sept. and N.T. , Josephus , Ant. 1, 1, 2), as a proper name (comp. Tob 8:1-21; Tob 6:1-17). It seems at first thought somewhat strange that the head of the human family should have received his distinctive name from the affinity which he had, in the lower part of his nature, to the dust of the earth that he should have been called Adam, as being taken in his bodily part from adamah, the ground; the more especially as the name was not assumed by man himself, but imposed by God, and imposed in immediate connection with man’s destination to bear the image of God: And God said, Let us make man (Adam) in our image, after our likeness, etc. This apparent incongruity has led some, in particular Richers (Die Schopfungs-, Paradieses- und Sundfluthsgesch ichte, p. 163), to adopt another etymology of the term to make Adam a derivative of damah (, to be like, to resemble).
Delitzsch, however (System der Bibl. Psychologie, p. 49), has objected to this view, both on grammatical and other grounds; and though we do not see the force of his grammatical objection to the derivation in question, yet we think he puts the matter itself rightly, and thereby justifies the received opinion. Man’s name is kindred with that of the earth, adamah, not because of its being his characteristic dignity that God made him after his image, but because of this, that God made after his image one who had been taken from the earth. The likeness to God man had in common with the angels, but that, as the possessor of this likeness, he should be Adam this is what brought him into union with two worlds the world of spirit and the world of matter rendered him the center and the bond of all that had been made, the fitting topstone of the whole work of creation, and the motive principle of the world’s history. It is precisely his having the image of God in an earthen vessel, that, while made somewhat lower than the angels, he occupies a higher position than they in respect to the affairs of this world (Psa 8:5; Heb 2:5).
I. History. In the first nine chapters of Genesis there appear to be three distinct histories relating more or less to the life of Adam. The first extends from Gen 1:1-31; Gen 2:1-3, the second from 2:4 to 4:26, the third from 5:1 to the end of 9. The word () at the commencement of the latter two narratives, which is rendered there and elsewhere generations, may also be rendered history. The style of the second of these records differs very considerably from that of the first. In the first the Deity is designated by the word Elohim; in the second he is generally spoken of as Jehovah Elohim. The object of the first of these narratives is to record the creation; that of the second to give an account of paradise, the original sin of man, and the immediate posterity of Adam; the third contains mainly the history of Noah, referring, it would seem, to Adam and his descendants, principally in relation to that patriarch. The first account of the creation of man is in general terms, the two sexes being spoken of together (ch. 1:27) as a unit of species; whereas in the second, or resumptive account, the separate formation of the man and the woman is detailed. This simple consideration reconciles all apparent discrepancy between the two narratives. SEE GENESIS.
The representation there given is that Adam was absolutely the first man, and was created by the direct agency of God; that this act of creation, including the immediately subsequent creation of Eve, was the last in a series of creative acts which extended through a period of six literal days. SEE CREATION. This Scriptural account is, of course, entirely opposed to the atheistic hypothesis, which denies any definite beginning to the human race, but conceives the successive generations of men to have run on in a kind of infinite series, to which no beginning can be assigned. Such a theory, originally propounded by heathen philosophers, has also been asserted by the more extreme section of infidel writers in Christian times. But the voice of tradition, which, in all the more ancient nations, uniformly points to a comparatively recent period for the origin of the human family, has now received conclusive attestations from learned research and scientific inquiry. Not only have the remains of human art and civilization, the more they have been explored, yielded more convincing evidence of a period not very remote when the human family itself was in infancy, but the languages of the world also, when carefully investigated and compared, as they have of late been, point to a common and not exceedingly remote origin. This is the view of Sir William Jones, and, later, of Bunsen also. The same conclusion substantially is reached by Dr. Donaldson, who, after stating what has already been accomplished in this department of learning, expresses his conviction, on the ground alone of the affinities of language, that investigation will fully confirm what the great apostle proclaimed in the Areopagus, that God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth (New Cratylus, p. 19).
The position is still further confirmed by the results that have been gained in the region of natural science. The most skillful and accomplished naturalists such as Cuvier, Blumenbach, Pritchard have established beyond any reasonable doubt the unity of the human family as a species (see particularly Pritchard’s History of Man); and those who have prosecuted geological researches, while they have found remains in the different strata of rocks of numberless species of inferior animals, can point to no human petrifactions none, at least, but what appear in some comparatively recent and local formations a proof that man is of too late an origin for his remains to have mingled with those of the extinct animal tribes of preceding ages. Science generally can tell of no separate creations for animals of one and the same species; and while all geologic history is full of the beginnings and the ends of species, it exhibits no genealogies of development (Miller’s Testimony of the Rocks, p. 201). That, when created, man must have been formed in full maturity, as Adam is related to have been, was a necessity arising from the very conditions of existence. It has been discovered, by searching into the remains of preceding ages and generations of living creatures, that there has been a manifest progress in the succession of beings on the surface of the earth a progress in the direction of an increasing resemblance to the existing forms of being, and in particular to man. But the connection between the earlier and the later, the imperfect and the perfect, is not that of direct lineage or parental descent, as if it came in the way merely of natural growth and development. The connection, as Agassiz has said in his Principles of Zoology, is of a higher and immaterial nature; it is to be sought in the view of the Creator himself, whose aim in forming the earth, in allowing it to undergo the successive changes which geology has pointed out, and in creating successively all the different types of animals which have passed away, was to introduce man upon the surface of our globe. Man is the end toward which the animal creation has tended from the first appearance of the first palaeozoic fishes. SEE GEOLOGY.
The Almighty formed Adam out of the dust of the earth, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and gave him dominion over all the lower creatures (Gen 1:26; Gen 2:7), B.C. 4172. He created him in his own image SEE PERFECTION, and, having pronounced a blessing upon him, placed him in a delightful garden, that he might cultivate it and enjoy its fruits. SEE EDEN. At the same time, however, he gave him the following injunction: Of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat; for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. The first recorded exercise of Adam’s power and intelligence was his giving names to the beasts of the field and fowls of the air, which the Lord brought before him for this purpose. The examination thus afforded him having shown that it was not good for man to be alone, the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and while he remained in a semi-conscious state took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh; and of the rib thus taken from man he made a woman, whom he presented to him when he awoke. SEE EVE.
Adam received her, saying, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. SEE MARRIAGE.
This woman, being seduced by the tempter, persuaded her husband to eat of the forbidden fruit (comp. Theuer, De Adamo lapso, divortium c. Eva cogitante, Jen. 1759). When called to judgment for this transgression before God, Adam blamed his wife, and the woman blamed the serpent- tempter. God punished the tempter by degradation and dread SEE SERPENT; the woman by painful travail and a situation of submission; and the man by a life of labor and toil of which punishment every day witnesses the fulfillment. SEE FALL. As their natural passions now became irregular, and their exposure to accidents great, God made a covering of skin for Adam and for his wife. He also expelled them from his garden to the land around it, where Adam had been made, and where was to be their future dwelling; placing at the east of the garden a flame, which turned every way, to prevent access to the tree of life (Gen 3:1-24). SEE DEATH.
It is not known how long Adam and his wife continued in Paradise: some think many years; others not many days; others not many hours. Shortly after their expulsion Eve brought forth Cain (Gen 4:1-2). Scripture notices but three sons of Adam, Cain, Abel, and Seth (q.v.), but contains an allusion (Gen 5:4) to sons and daughters; no doubt several. He died B.C. 3242, aged 930 (see Bruckner, Ob Adam wirklich ub. 900 J. alt geworden, Aurich, 1799). SEE LONGEVITY.
Such is the simple narrative of the Bible relative to the progenitor of the human race, to which it only remains to add that his faith doubtless recognised in the promise of the woman’s seed that should bruise the serpent’s head the atoning merits of the future Redeemer. SEE MESSIAH. Whatever difficulties we may find in the Scriptural account, we accept it as a literal statement of facts, and shall therefore dismiss the rationalistic theories and speculations to which it has given rise. The results are of the utmost importance to mankind, and the light that the Bible thus sheds upon the origin of the race and the source of human depravity is of inestimable value even in a historical and philosophical point of view. SEE MAN.
See, generally, Eichhorn’s Urgesch. ed. Gabler (Nurnb. 1790); Hug, Mos. Gesch. (Frankf. und Leipz. 1790). Buttman has collected the parallels of heathen mythology in the Neue Berl. Monatsschr. 1804, p. 261 sq.; also in his Mythologus, 1, 122 sq.; comp. Gesenius, in the Hall. Encykl. 1, 358. In the Hindoo sacred books the first human pair are called Meshia and Meshiam (Zend Avesta, 1, 23; 3:84). For the Talmudic fables respecting Adam, see Eisenmenger, Entdeckt. Judenth. 1, 84-365, 830; 2, 417; Otho, Lex. Rabb. p. 9 sq. Those of the Koran are found in Sura 2, 30 sq.; 7, 11 sq.; see Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 21; comp. D’Herbelot, Biblioth. Or. s.v. Christian traditions may be seen in Epiphan. Haer. 46, 2 sq.; Augustine, Civ. Dei, 14, 17; Cedrenus, Hist. p. 6, 9; see especially Fabricii Codex Pseudepigraphus Vet. Test. 1, 1 sq. The Vulgate. in Jos 14:15, ranks Adam among the Anakim; see Gotze, Quanta Adamistatura fuerit (Lips. 1722); comp. Edzardi, Ad Cod. Avoda Sara, p. 530 sq. SEE ANTEDILUVIANS.
II. The question of the unity of the human race, or the descent of the race from a single pair, has given rise to much discussion of late, after it had been thought to be finally settled. It may be stated thus: Did the Almighty Creator produce only one man and one woman, from whom all other human beings have descended? or did he create several parental pairs, from whom distinct stocks of men have been derived? The question is usually regarded as equivalent to this: whether or not there is more than one species of men? But we cannot, in strict fairness, admit that the questions are identical. It is hypothetically conceivable that the adorable God might give existence to any number of creatures, which should all possess the properties that characterize identity of species, even without such differences as constitute varieties, or with any degree of those differences. But the admission of the possibility is not a concession of the reality. So great is the evidence in favor of the derivation of the entire mass of human beings from one pair of ancestors, that it has obtained the suffrage of the men most competent to judge upon a question of comparative anatomy and physiology.
(1.) The animals which render eminent services to man, and peculiarly depend upon his protection, are widely diffused the horse, the dog, the hog, the domestic fowl. Now of these, the varieties in each species are numerous and different, to a degree so great that an observer ignorant of physiological history would scarcely believe them to be of the same species. But man is the most widely diffused of any animal. In the progress of ages and generations, he has naturalized himself to every climate, and to modes of life which would prove fatal to an individual man suddenly transferred from a remote point of the field. The alterations produced affect every part of the body, internal and external, without extinguishing the marks of the specific identity.
(2.) A further and striking evidence is, that when persons of different varieties are conjugally united, the offspring, especially in two or three generations, becomes more prolific, and acquires a higher perfection in physical and mental qualities than was found in either of the parental races. From the deepest African black to the finest Caucasian white, the change runs through imperceptible gradations; and, if a middle hue be assumed, suppose some tint of brown, all the varieties of complexion may be explained upon the principle of divergence influenced by outward circumstances. Mr. Poinsett saw in South America a fine healthy regiment of spotted men, quite peculiar enough to be held by Professor Agassiz a separate race. And why were they not? Simply because they were a known cross-breed between Spaniards and Indians. Changes as great are exhibited by the Magyars of Europe, and by the Ulster Irish, as quoted by Miller. Sir Charles Lyell was of opinion that a climatic change was already perceptible in the negro of our Southern states. Professor Cabell (Testimony of Modern Science, etc.) ably and clearly sustains the doctrine that propagability is conclusive proof of sameness of species. He denies, on good authority, that the mulatto is feebler or less prolific than either unmixed stock. He furnishes abundant proof of the barrenness of hybrids. The fact that the connection of different varieties of the human species produces a prolific progeny, is proof of oneness of species and family. This argument, sustained by facts; can hardly be considered less than demonstration.
(3.) The objection drawn from the improbability that the one race springing from a single locality would migrate from a pleasanter to a worse region is very completely dispatched. Ample causes, proofs, facts, and authorities are furnished to show that, were mankind now reduced to a single family, only time would be wanting, even without civilization, to overspread the earth. European man and European- American man, as all history agrees, came from Asia. Whence came our aboriginal men? As Professor Cabell shows, they came by an antipodal route from the same Asia. Pursue the investigation, and the clue of history will lead our tremulous feet to about the Mosaic cradle of man.
(4.) Ethnology, or rather Glottology, the gradually perfecting comparison of languages, is bringing. us to the same point. The unscientific attempt to trace the striking analogies of languages to the mere similarity of human organs, and the still more unscientific attempt of Professor Agassiz to attribute them to a transcendental mental unity in races sprung from different original localities, look like desperation. Meanwhile, comparison is educing wonderful yet rarely demonstrative laws, and laws are guiding threads converging to unity.
(5.) Another argument is derived from the real mental unity of the universal human soul. Races differ, indeed, in mental power, as do individuals, widely, even in the same family. But there is the same program of mental philosophy for all. The same intellect, affections, instincts, conscience, sense of superior divine power, and susceptibility of religion. For the European, the Esquimaux, the Hottentot, there is the same power in the cross of Christ.
(6.) Finally, Geology, with her wonderful demonstration of the recent origin of man, proves the same thing. The latest attempts to adduce specimens of fossil man have been failures. Not far back of the period that our best but somewhat hypothetical calculations from Mosaic chronology would assign, Geology fixes the birth of man.
The conclusion may be fairly drawn, in the words of the able translators and illustrators of Baron Cuvier’s great work: We are fully warranted in concluding, both from the comparison of man with inferior animals, so far as the inferiority will allow of such comparison, and, beyond that, by comparing him with himself, that the great family of mankind loudly proclaim a descent, at some period or other, from one common origin.’
Thus, by an investigation totally independent of historical authority, we are brought to the conclusion of the inspired writings, that the Creator hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth’ (Act 17:26). The more recent authorities on this question are: Prichard, Researches into the Physiological History of Mankind (Lond. 4 vols. 8vo, 1836-44); also Natural History of Man (London, 3d ed. 8vo, 1848); Bachman, Unity of the Human Race
(Charleston, 1850, 8vo); Smyth, Unity of the Races (New York, 1850); Johnes, Philological Proofs of the Unity of the Human Race (London, 1846); Meih, Qu. Rev. July, 1851, p. 345; Jan. 1859, p. 162; Cabell, Testimony of Modern Science to the Unity of Mankind (New York, 1858, 12mo). See also Blumenbach, De gen. hum. Var. Nativa (Gott. 1776, 8vo); Quatrefages, in Rev. des Deux Mondes, 1861; and the article MAN SEE MAN .
III. The original capacities and condition of the first human pair have also formed the subject of much discussion. It will be found, however, that the best conclusions of reason on this point harmonize fully with the brief Scriptural account of the facts as they were.
1. It is evident, upon a little reflection, and the closest investigation confirms the conclusion, that the first human pair must have been created in a state equivalent to that which all subsequent human beings have had to reach by slow degrees, in growth, experience, observation, imitation, and the instruction of others; that is, a state of prime maturity, and with an infusion, so to speak, of knowledge and habits, both physical and intellectual, suitable to the place which man had to occupy in the system of creation, and adequate to his necessities in that place. Had it been otherwise, the new beings could not have preserved their animal existence, nor have held rational converse with each other, nor have paid to their Creator the homage of knowledge and love, adoration and obedience; and reason clearly tells us that the last was the noblest end of existence. The Bible coincides with this dictate of honest reason, expressing these facts in simple and artless language: And Jehovah God formed the man [Heb. the Adam], dust from the ground [ha-adamah], and blew into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living animal (Gen 2:7). Here are two objects of attention, the organic mechanism of the human body, and the vitality with which it was endowed.
(a) The mechanical material, formed (molded, or arranged, as an artificer models clay or wax) into the human and all other animal bodies, called dust from the ground. This expression conveys, in a general form; the idea of earthy matter, the constituent substance of the ground on which we tread. To say that of this the human and every other animal body was formed, is a position which would be at once the most easily apprehensible to an uncultivated mind, and which yet is the most exactly true upon the highest philosophical grounds. We now know, from chemical analysis, that the animal body is composed, in the inscrutable manner called organization, of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, lime, iron, sulphur, and phosphorus. Now all these are mineral substances, which in their various combinations form a very large part of the solid ground. (b) The expression which we have rendered living animal sets before us the organic life of the animal frame, that mysterious something which man cannot create nor restore, which baffles the most acute philosophers to search out its nature, and which reason combines with Scripture to refer to the immediate agency of the Almighty in him we live, and move, and have our being.
2. But the Scripture narrative also declares that God created man in his own image: in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them (Gen 1:27). The image (resemblance, such as a shadow bears to the object which casts it) of God is an expression which breathes at once primitive simplicity and the most recondite wisdom; for what term could the most cultivated and copious language bring forth more suitable to the purpose? It presents to us man as made in a resemblance to the Author of his being, a true resemblance, but faint and shadowy; an outline, faithful according to its capacity, yet infinitely remote from the reality: a distant form of the intelligence, wisdom, power, rectitude, goodness, and dominion of the Adorable Supreme. As to the precise characteristics of excellence in which this image consists, theologians have been much divided. Tertullian (Adv. Marc. 2, 5, 6) placed it in the faculties of the soul, especially in the power of choice between good and evil. Among the fathers generally, and the schoolmen after them, there were many different theories, nor are the later theologians at all more unanimous. Many unnecessary disputes would have been avoided by the recognition of the simple fact that the phrase the image of God is a very comprehensive one, and is used in the Bible in more than one sense. Accordingly, the best writers speak of the image of God as twofold, Natural and Moral.
(a) Natural The notion that the original resemblance of man to God must be placed in some one quality is destitute of proof either from Scripture or reason; and we are, in fact, taught that it comprises also what is so far from being essential that it may be both lost and regained.
(1.) When God is called the Father of Spirits, a likeness is suggested between man and God in the spirituality of their nature. This is also implied in the striking argument of St. Paul with the Athenians: Forasmuch, then, as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device; plainly referring to the idolatrous statues by which God was represented among heathens. If likeness to God in man consisted in bodily shape, this would not have been an argument against human representations of the Deity; but it imports, as Howe well expresses it, that we are to understand that our resemblance to him, as we are his offspring, lies in some higher, more noble, and more excellent thing, of which there can be no figure; as who can tell how to give the figure or image of a thought, or of the mind or thinking power? In spirituality, and, consequently, immateriality, this image of God in man, then, in the first instance, consists.
(2.) The sentiment expressed in Wisdom. 2, 23, is an evidence that, in the opinion of the ancient Jews, the image of God in man comprised immortality also.
For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity; and though other creatures were made capable of immortality, and at least the material human frame, whatever we may think of the case of animals, would have escaped death had not sin entered the world; yet, without admitting the absurdity of the natural immortality of the human soul, that essence must have been constituted immortal in a high and peculiar sense, which has ever retained its prerogative of continued duration amid the universal death not only of animals but of the bodies of all human beings. There appears also a manifest allusion to man’s immortality, as being included in the image of God, in the reason which is given in Genesis for the law which inflicts death on murderers: Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
The essence of the crime of homicide is not confined here to the putting to death the mere animal part of man; and it must, therefore, lie in the peculiar value of life to an immortal being, accountable in another state for the actions done in this, and whose life ought to be specially guarded for this very reason, that death introduces him into changeless and eternal relations, which were not to be left to the mercy of human passions.
(3.) The intellectual faculties of man form a third feature in his natural likeness to God. Some, indeed (e.g. Philo), have placed the whole likeness in the , or rational soul.
(4.) The will, or power of choice and volition, is the last of these features. They are all essential and ineffaceable. Man could not be man without them.
(b) Moral.
(1.) There is an express allusion to the moral image of God, in which man was at first created, in Col 3:10 : And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge, after the image of Him that created him; and in Eph 4:24 : Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. In these passages the apostle represents the change produced in true Christians by the Gospel, as a renewal of the image of God in man; as a new or second creation in that image; and he explicitly declares, that that image consists in knowledge, in righteousness, and in true holiness.
(2.) This also may be finally argued from the satisfaction with which the historian of the creation represents the Creator as viewing the works of his hands as very good, which was pronounced with reference to each of them individually, as well as to the whole: And God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good. But, as to man, this goodness must necessarily imply moral as well as physical qualities. A rational creature, as such, is capable of knowing, loving, serving, and living in communion with the Most Holy One. Adam, at first, did or did not exert this capacity; if he did not, he was not very good not good at all.
3. On the intellectual and moral endowments of the progenitor of the human race, extravagant views have been taken on both sides.
(a) In knowledge, some have thought him little inferior to the angels; others, as furnished with but the simple elements of science and of language. The truth seems to be that, as to capacity, his intellect must have been vigorous beyond that of any of his fallen descendants; which itself gives us very high views of the strength of his understanding, although we should allow him to have been created lower than the angels. As to his actual knowledge, that would depend upon the time and opportunity he had for observing the nature and laws of the objects around him; and the degree in which he was favored with revelations from God on moral and religious subjects. The knowledge in which the Apostle Paul, in the passage quoted above from Col 3:10, places the image of God after which man was created, does not merely imply the faculty of understanding, which is a part of the natural image of God, but that which might be lost, because it is that in which we may be renewed. It is, therefore, to be understood of the faculty of knowledge in right exercise; and of that willing reception, and firm retaining, and hearty approval of religious truth, in which knowledge, when spoken of morally, is always understood in the Scriptures. We may not be disposed to allow, with some, that Adam understood the deep philosophy of nature, and could comprehend and explain the sublime mysteries of religion. The circumstance of his giving names to the animals is certainly no sufficient proof of his having attained to a philosophical acquaintance with their qualities and distinguishing habits, although we should allow their names to be still retained in the Hebrew, and to be as expressive of their peculiarities as some expositors have stated. Sufficient time appears not to have been afforded him for the study of the properties of animals, as this event took place previous to the formation of Eve; and as for the notion of his acquiring knowledge by intuition, this is contradicted by the revealed fact that angels themselves acquire their knowledge by observation and study, though, no doubt, with great rapidity and certainty. The whole of this transaction was supernatural; the beasts were brought to Adam, and it is probable that he named them under a Divine suggestion. That his understanding was, as to its capacity, deep and large beyond any of his posterity, must follow from the perfection in which he was created; and his acquisitions of knowledge would, therefore, be rapid and easy. It was, however, in moral and religious truth, as being of the first concern to him, that we are to suppose the excellency of his knowledge to have consisted. His reason would be clear, his judgment uncorrupted, and his conscience upright and sensible. The best knowledge would, in him, be placed first, and that of every other kind be made subservient to it, according to its relation to that. The apostle adds to knowledge righteousness and true holiness; terms which express, not merely freedom from sin, but positive and active virtue.
Sober as these views of man’s primitive state are, it is not, perhaps, possible for us fully to conceive of so exalted a condition as even this. Below this standard it could not fall; and that it implied a glory, and dignity, and moral greatness of a very exalted kind, is made sufficiently apparent from the degree of guilt charged upon Adam when he fell; for the aggravating circumstances of his offense may well be deduced from the tremendous consequences which followed.
(b) As to Adam’s moral perfection, it has sometimes been fixed at an elevation which renders it exceedingly difficult to conceive how he could fall into sin at all. On the other hand, those who deny the doctrine of our hereditary depravity, delight to represent Adam as little superior in moral perfection and capability to his descendants. But if we attend to the passages of Holy Writ above quoted, we shall be able, on this subject, to ascertain, if not the exact degree of his moral endowments, yet that there is a certain standard below which they cannot be placed. Generally, he was made in the image of God, which, we have already proved, is to be understood morally as well as naturally. To whatever extent it went, it necessarily excluded all which did not resemble God; it was a likeness to God in righteousness and true holiness, whatever the degree of each might be, and excluded all admixture of unrighteousness and unholiness. Man, therefore, in his original state, was sinless, both in act and in principle.
4. The rabbis and the Arabians relate many absurd traditions about Adam’s personal beauty, endowments, etc., and such are still current among the Eastern nations. An account of many of them may be found in Bayle (s.v.).
5. That Adam was a type of Christ is plainly affirmed by Paul, who calls him the figure of him who was to come. Hence our Lord is sometimes called, not inaptly, the second Adam. This typical relation stands sometimes in similitude, sometimes in contrast. Adam was formed immediately by God, as was the humanity of Christ. In each the nature was spotless, and richly endowed with knowledge and true holiness. Both are seen invested with dominion over the earth and all its creatures; and this may explain the eighth Psalm, where David seems to make the sovereignty of the first man over the whole earth, in its pristine glory, the prophetic symbol of the dominion of Christ over the world restored. Beyond these particulars fancy must not carry us; and the typical contrast must also be limited to that which is stated in Scripture or supported by its allusions. Adam and Christ were each a public person, a federal head to the whole race of mankind; but the one was the fountain of sin and death, the other of righteousness and life. By Adam’s transgression many were made sinners (Rom 5:14-19). Through him, death passed upon all men, because all have sinned in him. But he thus prefigured that one man, by whose righteousness the free gift comes upon all men to justification of life. The first man communicated a living soul to all his posterity; the other is a quickening Spirit, to restore them to newness of life new, and to raise them up at the last day. By the imputation of the first Adam’s sin, and the communication of his fallen, depraved nature, death reigned over those who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression; and through the righteousness of the second Adam, and the communication of a divine nature by the Holy Spirit, favor and grace shall much more abound in Christ’s true followers unto eternal life. Watson, Theol. Dict. s.v.; Hunter, Sac. Biog. p. 8; Williams, Characters of O.T. 1; Kurtz, Hist. of Old Cov. 21, 22. SEE FALL and SEE REDEMPTION.
2. (Sept. , but most copies omit; Vulg. Adom.) A city at some distance from the Jordan, to which (according to the text, , in Adam), or beyond which (according to the margin, , from Adam, as in our version), the overflow of the waters of that stream extended in its annual inundation, at the time when the Israelites passed over (Jos 3:16). The name of the city (red) may have been derived from the alluvial clay in the vicinity (comp. 1Ki 7:46). It has been incorrectly inferred from the above text that the city Adam was located east of the river, whereas it is expressly stated to have been beside. () Zarethan (q.v.), which is known to have been on the west bank, not far from Bethshean (1Ki 4:12). It hence appears that the heap or accumulation of waters above the Israelites’ crossing-place, caused by the stoppage of the stream, reached back on the shore and many miles up the river, over the secondary banks of the Ghor, on which Zarethan stood, as far as the higher ground on which Adam was located (see Keil, Comment. in loc.); probably the ridge immediately north of Bethshean, which closes the plain of the Jordan in this direction.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Adam (2)
a Scotch bishop, was witness to a charter by William Bisset to William de Newbigging. He was bishop of Galloway in 1359. See Keith, Scottish Bishops, page 274.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Adam
red, a Babylonian word, the generic name for man, having the same meaning in the Hebrew and the Assyrian languages. It was the name given to the first man, whose creation, fall, and subsequent history and that of his descendants are detailed in the first book of Moses (Gen. 1:27-ch. 5). “God created man [Heb., Adam] in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
Adam was absolutely the first man whom God created. He was formed out of the dust of the earth (and hence his name), and God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and gave him dominion over all the lower creatures (Gen. 1:26; 2:7). He was placed after his creation in the Garden of Eden, to cultivate it, and to enjoy its fruits under this one prohibition: “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
The first recorded act of Adam was his giving names to the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, which God brought to him for this end. Thereafter the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon him, and while in an unconscious state took one of his ribs, and closed up his flesh again; and of this rib he made a woman, whom he presented to him when he awoke. Adam received her as his wife, and said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” He called her Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
Being induced by the tempter in the form of a serpent to eat the forbidden fruit, Eve persuaded Adam, and he also did eat. Thus man fell, and brought upon himself and his posterity all the sad consequences of his transgression. The narrative of the Fall comprehends in it the great promise of a Deliverer (Gen. 3:15), the “first gospel” message to man. They were expelled from Eden, and at the east of the garden God placed a flame, which turned every way, to prevent access to the tree of life (Gen. 3). How long they were in Paradise is matter of mere conjecture.
Shortly after their expulsion Eve brought forth her first-born, and called him Cain. Although we have the names of only three of Adam’s sons, viz., Cain, Abel, and Seth, yet it is obvious that he had several sons and daughters (Gen. 5:4). He died aged 930 years.
Adam and Eve were the progenitors of the whole human race. Evidences of varied kinds are abundant in proving the unity of the human race. The investigations of science, altogether independent of historical evidence, lead to the conclusion that God “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26. Comp. Rom. 5:12-12; 1 Cor. 15:22-49).
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Adam (1)
(“red earth”.) The name given by God to the first man, to remind him of his earthly nature; whereas Ish was the name whereby he designates himself, a man of earth (as opposed to Enosh “a man of low degree” Psa 62:9) (Gen 2:23). The Hebrew Adam never assumes any change to mark the dual or plural numbers, men. Probably the Syro-Arabian is the primitive tongue, whence sprang the Hebrew and other so-called Shemitic tongues. The names in Genesis are therefore essentially the same as were actually spoken. Adam’s naming of the animals in Eden implies that God endued Adam with that power of generalization based on knowledge of their characteristics, whereby he classified those of the same kinds under distinctive appellations, which is the fundamental notion of human language.
Its origin is at once human and divine. divine, in that “God brought” the animals “to Adam to see what he would call them,” and enabled him to know intuitively their characteristics, and so not at random or with arbitrary appellations, but with such as marked the connection (as all the oldest names did, when truth logical and moral coincided) between the word and the thing, to name them; human, in that Adam, not God, was the name. “He did not begin with names, but with the power of naming; for man is not a mere speaking machine; God did not teach him words, as a parrot, from without, but gave him a capacity, and then evoked the capacity which He gave.” (Abp. Trench.)
As the crown of creation, he was formed at the close of the sixth day. Adam came into the world a full grown man, with the elements of skill and knowledge sufficient to maintain his lordship over nature. The Second Adam came as an infant by humiliation to regain for man his lost lordship. Original records are perhaps traceable as employed in the inspired record of Moses. Gen 1:1-2:3 is one concerning creation and man in a general summary. A second is Gen 2:4-4:26, treating in a more detailed way what was summarily given as to man (Genesis 1), his innocence, first sin, and immediate posterity. A third is Genesis 5:1 – 9:29, “the book of the generations of Adam,” and especially of Noah.
But the theory of an Elohist author for Genesis 1, and a Jehovist author for Genesis 2, distinct from Moses, on the ground that ELOHIM is the divine name in Genesis 1, but JEHOVAH ELOHIM in Genesis 2, is untenable. Nay, the names are used in their respective places with singular propriety; for ELOHIM expresses the mighty God of creation, and is fitting in His relation to the whole world. (Genesis 1) But JEHOVAH, the unchanging I AM (Exo 6:3), in covenant with His people, always faithful to His promises to them, is just the name that the Spirit of God would suggest in describing His relation to man, once innocent, then fallen, then the object of an everlasting covenant of love. It is just one of the undesigned proprieties which confirm Scripture’s divine origination, that the JEHOVAH of the covenant with the church is the ELOHIM of the world, and vice versa.
The Elohim in man’s creation use anthropomorphic language, implying collective counsel: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” Abp. Trench remarks: “The whole history of man, not only in his original creation, but also in his after restoration and reconstitution in the Son, is significantly wrapped up in this double statement; which is double for this very cause, that the divine mind did not stop at the contemplation of his first creation but looked on to him as renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him (Col 3:10); because it knew that only as partaker of this double benefit would he attain the true end for which he was made.” In 1Co 11:7 man is called “the image and glory of God.” This ideal is realized fully in the Son of man (Psa 8:4-5). Man is both the “image” (Greek eikon, Hebrew tzelem)), and made in the “likeness” (Greek homoiosis, Hebrew demuth) of God (Jam 3:9). “Image” (eikon) alone is applied to the Son of God (Col 1:15); compare Heb 1:3, “the express image of His person” (Greek character, the impress). Eicon, “image,” presupposes a prototype, as the monarch is the prototype and his head on the coin the image.
But “likeness” implies mere resemblance. Thus the “image” of God remains in some degree after the fall (Gen 9:6; Jam 3:9; 1Co 11:7). The likeness of God is what we are to be striving toward. The archetype is in God; man in his ideal is molded after the model realized in the Son of Man, “the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of every creature,” the incarnate God, already existing in the divine point of view (Col 1:15), with body and animal life akin to the animal world, yet the noble temple of an immortal spirit, with reason, imagination, freewill finding its true exercise in conformity to God’s will, and a spiritual nature resembling God’s, reflecting God’s truth, righteousness, and love; capable of reasoning in the abstract which the lower animals cannot, as they have no general signs for universal ideas.
Some indeed, as the parrot, can frame articulate sounds, but they have not the power to abstract ideas from the particular outward objects, so as to generalize; as their want of a general language proves. Man is the interpreter of nature’s inarticulate praises to nature’s God. The uniformity of type in the animal kingdom, including man in his bodily nature, and the affinity of structure in the homologous bones, are due not to development from a common parentage, but to the common archetype in the divine mind, of which the cherubim was probably an ideal representation. When man fell, he still is called “in the image of God,” with a view to his future restoration in the God-man. It is a “palace” in God’s design, for a while spoiled by the “strong man” Satan, but to be reinstated by the “stronger” Man with God’s archetypal image and likeness more vividly than ever standing forth (Luk 11:21).
Adam is the generic term for man, including woman (Gen 1:26-27). Christ came to reveal not only God, but MAN to us; He alone is therefore called “THE Son of man”; the common property of mankind; who alone realizes the original ideal of man: body, soul, and spirit, in the image and likeness of God, the body subordinate to the animal and intellectual soul, and the soul to the spirit (1Th 5:23), combining at once the man and woman (Gal 3:28); and in whom believers shall realize it by vital union with Him: having the masculine graces, majesty, power, wisdom, strength, courage, with all woman’s purity, intuitive tact, meekness, gentleness, sympathetic tenderness and love, such as Roman Catholics have pictured in the Virgin Mary. So the first Adam, the type, combined both (Gen 1:27). The creation of woman from man (marked by the very names isha, ish) subsequently implies the same truth.
The Second Adam combined in Himself, as Representative Head of redeemed men and women, both man’s and woman’s characteristic excellencies, as the first Adam contained both before that Eve was taken out of his side. Her perfect suitableness for him is marked by Jehovah’s words, “I will make for him a help suitable as before him,” according to his front presence: a helping being in whom, as soon as he sees her, he may recognize himself (Delitzsch). The complement of man. So the bride, the church, is formed out of the pierced side of Christ the Bridegroom, while in the death sleep; and, by faith vitally uniting her to Him in His death and His resurrection, is “bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh” (Eph 5:25-32.)
The dominion which Adam was given as God’s vicegerent over the lower world, but lost by sin, is more than regained for man in the person of Christ. Even in His humiliation He exercised unlimited sway over man’s bodily diseases and even death itself, over vegetable nature (the fig tree), the dumb animal kingdom (the ass’s colt), the inorganic world, the restless sea, and the invisible world of demons; compare Psalm
8. In His manifested glory, His full dominion, and that of His redeemed with Him, shall be exercised over the regenerated earth: Isaiah 11; Isa 2:4; Isa 65:25; Isa 35:9-10; Psalm 72; Eze 34:25; Hos 2:18; Rev 11:15-17; Rev 11:20; Revelation 21; Revelation
22. The first man Adam was made a “living soul,” endowed with an animal soul, the vital principle of his body; but “the last Adam a quickening spirit” (1Co 15:45). As the animal souled body (1Co 15:44) is the fruit of our union with Adam, an animal souled man, so the spiritual body is the fruit of our union with Christ, the life-giving Spirit.
Eden (See EDEN) is by Sir H. Rawlinson identified with Babylonia; the Babylonian documents giving an exact geographical account of the garden of Eden, and the rivers bearing the same names: the Hiddekel is certainly the Tigris, and the Phrath the Euphrates; the other two seem tributary branches, though some make Gihon the Nile and Pison the Indus (?). Any fruit tree (some have supposed, from Egyptian representations still extant, the pomegranate) would suffice as a test of obedience or disobedience, by the eating of which the knowledge of evil as well as of good would result. To know evil without being tainted by it is the prerogative of God. Man might have attained this knowledge by making his will one with God’s, in not eating it; he then would have attained to a Godlike knowledge of good and evil, and would have exercised true liberty in conformity with his likeness, to God.
But man aspired to it by his own way, and fell. Only in Christ shall he know it and triumph over it. To distinguish good and evil is the gift of a king (1Ki 3:9) and the wisdom of angels (2Sa 14:17). The tree of knowledge suggested to man the possibility of evil, which in the absence of lust might not occur. If he was to be tried at all, it could only be by a positive precept; and the smaller the subject of the command was, the more it tested the spirit of obedience. Satan’s antitrinity, the lust of the flesh (“the woman saw that the tree was good for food”), the lust of the eye (“and that it was pleasant to the eyes”), and the pride of life (and a “tree to be desired to make one wise”) seduced man: 1Jo 2:16; compare ACHAN; Jos 7:21. As this tree was the sacramental pledge of God’s requirement, so the tree of life was the pledge of God’s promised blessing.
ArchbishopWhately thought the tree of life acted medicinally, and that Adam and Eve ate of it; and that hence arose his longevity and that of the patriarchs, so that it was long before human life sank to its present average. Gen 2:16 seems to imply his free access to it; but perhaps Gen 3:22 that he had,tot actually touched it. Indeed it is only sacramentally, and in inseparable connection with faith and obedience, when tested first as to the tree of knowledge, that the tree of life could give man true immortal life. In the day that he ate he died (Gen 2:17, compare Hos 13:1), because separation from God, sin’s necessary and immediate consequence, is death; the physical death of Adam was deferred until he was 930.
Sin’s immediate effects on Adam and Eve, after she in her turn became a seducer, having first been seduced herself (Gen 3:6 end), were shame (Gen 3:7), concealment and folly (Gen 3:8-9; compare Psalm 139), fear (Gen 3:10), selfishness on Adam’s part toward Eve, and presumption in virtually laying the blame on God (Gen 3:12), the curse, including sorrow, agony, sweat of the brow in tilling the thorny ground, death. All these are counter worked by Christ. He bore our shame and fear (Heb 12:2; Heb 5:7), denied self wholly (Mat 20:28), resisted Satan’s temptation to presumption (Mat 4:6), bore the curse (Gal 3:13), was “the man of sorrows” (Isaiah 53), endured the agony and bloody sweat of Gethsemane, the crown of thorns, and the dust of death (Psa 22:15, compare Gen 3:19). The temporary exclusion from the tree of life was a merciful provision for fallen man, (for immortality in a lost state is a curse), until that, through Christ, he should have it restored (Rev 22:2; Rev 22:14; Rev 2:7).
The cherubim were not outside the garden, blocking up access to it (as Gen 3:24 is often explained), but “keeping the way to the tree of life,” doing what man had failed to do (Gen 2:15). So the cherubim’s position implies, not at the threshold, or even before the mercyseat, but in immediate connection with it, the throne of God (Exo 25:18). So in Ezekiel and Revelation they are the living ones, combining the highest forms of creaturely life, suggesting to man his interest still in life and in paradise, and even in a share of God’s throne through divine grace. As the flaming sword represents justice excluding man’s access by his own righteousness, so the cherubim represents man reunited to God upon the ground of the mercy-seat, which is Christ our propitiatory.
The unity of the human race is plainly asserted in Act 17:26 (See CREATION). The co-extensiveness of sin’s curse upon all men as Adam’s offspring, and of Christ’s redemption for all men (Rom 5:12-21; 1Co 15:22-47) implies the same. “That the races of men are not species of one genus, but varieties of one species, is confirmed by the agreement in the physiological and pathological phenomena in them all, by the similarity in the anatomical structure, in the fundamental powers and traits of the mind, in the limits to the duration of life, in the normal temperature of the body, and the average rate of pulsation, in the duration of pregnancy, and in the unrestricted fruitfulness of marriages between the various races.” (Delitzsch.) The brain of the lowest savage is larger than his needs require, usually five sixths of the size of a civilized man’s brain. This implies the latent, power of intellectual development, which proves he is essentially one with his more favored brethren.
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
Adam (2)
A city beside Zarthan (Jos 3:16), on the Jordan. Near the present ford Damieh, which possibly is derived from the ancient name Adam; the northern extremity of Israel’s passage (Jos 22:11). Probably Reuben’ s altar of ED, or witness, was near, on the Kurn Surtabeh. Near Damieh the remains of a Roman bridge are still found. Kurn Surtabeh was more than 15 miles from Jericho, which tallies with the words “very far from the city Adam.” Knobel thinks the name Sartabeh preserves the name Zarthan, a long rocky ridge S.W. of Damieh ford. See ED.
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
ADAM
The name Adam, which is the name of the first human, is also the common Hebrew word for man, both man the individual and the human race as a whole. The root of the word appears originally to have meant red, and is the same as that for red soil. The two words are used together in the sentence, The Lord God formed man (adam) of dust from the ground (adamah) (Gen 2:7).
Adam represented the climax of Gods creation. He shared his physical origin with other animals in being made of common earthly chemicals, yet he was uniquely different in that he was made in the image of God (Gen 1:27; Gen 2:7; see CREATION; HUMANITY, HUMANKIND). God gave Adam a wife, Eve, who shared his unique nature (Gen 2:21-23), and this nature has passed on to the human race that has descended from them (1Co 15:45-49).
God placed Adam and Eve in a beautiful parkland for their time of testing and training. There they had opportunity to develop in body, mind and spirit, through doing physical work, making choices, learning skills, relating to each other and living in fellowship with God (Gen 2:15-23). But instead of submitting to God, Adam attempted to live independently of God and so fell into sin (Gen 3:1-7). In so doing he brought judgment upon himself and upon the whole human race which, in effect, existed in him (Gen 3:14-19; Rom 5:12; see DEATH; SIN).
Only Jesus Christ can undo the damage that Adam has caused. Through his death, he becomes head of a new race of people, those saved by Gods super-abundant grace (Rom 5:14-19). As Adam was the first of a race of people fitted for the physical life of the present age, so Jesus Christ is the first of a race of people fitted for the spiritual life of the age to come. As all who are in physical union with Adam share the deathly consequences of Adams sin, so all who are in spiritual union with Christ share the resurrection life that Christ has made possible (1Co 15:21-22; 1Co 15:45-49; see also IMAGE).
Adam lived 930 years, during which he fathered many sons and daughters (Gen 5:1-5; cf. Gen 1:28). The most well known of these were Cain, his firstborn; Abel, whom Cain murdered; and Seth, whom Adam and Eve considered a special gift from God to replace Abel (Gen 4:1-8; Gen 4:25).
Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary
Adam
ADAM.1. In Luk 3:38 the ancestry of Jesus is traced up to Adam. From what source the Evangelist drew his genealogy it is impossible to say. But when compared with that in the First Gospel, it clearly shows the purpose with which St. Luke wrote. As a Gentile, writing for a Gentile, he took every opportunity of insisting upon the universal power of the gospel. The effects of the life and Person of Jesus are not confined to the Jews; for Jesus is not, as in St. Matthews Gospel, a descendant of Abraham only, but of the man to whom all mankind trace their origin. See art. Genealogy of Jesus Christ. But further, St. Luke closes his genealogy with the significant words the son of Adam, the son of God ( , ). Adam, and therefore all mankind, had a Divine origin. The same Evangelist who relates the fact of the virgin birth, and records that Christ was, in His own proper Person, (Luk 1:35), claims that the first man, and hence every human being, is . Thus the genealogy, which might at first sight appear to be a useless addition to the Gospel narrative, possesses a lasting spiritual value.
The truth placed by St. Luke in the forefront of his Gospel is treated in its redemptive aspect by his master St. Paul, who in four passages brings Adam and Christ into juxtaposition:
(a) 1Co 15:22. The solidarity of mankind in their physical union with Adam involves universal death as a consequence of Adams sin. Similarly the solidarity of mankind in their spiritual union with Christ involves universal life as a consequence of Christs perfect work.
(b) In Rom 5:12-21. this solidarity and its results are treated in fuller detail. (i.) Rom 5:12-14. There is a parallelism between Adam and Christ. Adam is a type of him who was to come (Rom 5:14), in the sense that his act affected all men. Adam committed a , a lapse, a false stepcommonly termed the Fall. By this lapse, sin was as a malignant force let loose among mankind; and through sin came physical death. (St. Paul sees no occasion for proof of the connexion between sin and physical death; he unhesitatingly bases his position on the narrative in Genesis; see Rom 2:17, Rom 3:3; Rom 3:19; Rom 3:21). Were this all, the passage would implicitly annul human responsibility. But St. Paul, without attempting fully to reconcile them, places side by side the two aspects of the truththe hereditary transmission of guilt, and moral responsibility: and thus death made its way () to every individual man, because all sinned ( ). Controversy has raged hotly round this phrase, Augustine and many other writers having understood the relative as masculine, and as referring to Adam; so Vulgate in quo. But there can be no doubt that must be taken in its usual meaning because. Adams fall involved all men in sin, and therefore in death; but this was because all men (in full exercise of their free will) sinned. It would be out of place here to discuss the attempts that have been made to combine these two factors in the moral history of man (see Literature): strictly speaking, they cannot fully and logically he combined; but many of the most fundamental truths of the Christian religion can be arrived at only by the balancing of complementary statements. In Rom 3:13-14 a qualification is entered, which causes St. Paul to ruin his construction, and omit the apodosis of which Rom 3:12 forms the protasis. He feels obliged to explain that, sin being an offence against law, those who lived between Adam and Moses had no law, and thus did not transgress an explicit command as Adam had done. But the fact that death reigned throughout that period only shows thatnot the guilt of individuals, butthe transmitted effects of Adams sin were at work. And it is this that makes him a type of the Messiah. (ii.) Rom 3:15-17. The contrast is far greater than the similarity. The contrast between Adam and Christ is great:In quality (Rom 3:15). The one representative man, Adam, committed a ; but over-against that must be placed the undeserved kindness () of God, and the gift of righteousness arising from the kindness of the other representative Man, Jesus Christ. In quantity (Rom 3:16). One act tainting the whole race with sin, and a multitude of sins collected together in one only to be forgiven. In character and consequences (Rom 3:17). Adams fall ushered in a reign of death; Christs work ensures that all who have received His kindness and His gift of righteousness shall themselves reign in life. (iii.) Rom 3:18-21. Summary of the argument, in which it is further shown that Law came in as an afterthought (), multiplying sin, but thereby only increasing the abundance of Gods kindness.
(c) 1Co 15:44-47. The two foregoing passages from St. Pauls writings deal with the practical moral results of union with Adam and Christ respectively. These verses (i.) go back behind that, and show that there is a complete and radical difference between the nature of each; (ii.) look forward, and show that this difference has a vital bearing on the truth of mans resurrection.
(i.) St. Paul maintains (1Co 15:36-44 a), by a series of illustrations from the natural world, the reasonableness of a resurrection from death. In Nature every seed has its own particular bodyall flesh is not the same fleshthe terrestrial differs from the celestialthere is a different glory of the sun, the moon, and the stars. So also it may be rightly held that it is possible for man to exist in two different states, one far higher than the other. Not only so, but (1Co 15:44 b, 45) there actually exists such an analogous distinction between man and man, as Scripture shows. The thought in 1Co 15:45 is arrived at by an adaptation of Gen 2:7 : . These words relate only that after being lifeless clay, man was by Gods breath transformed into a living being. But St. Paul reads into the statement the doctrinal significance that the body of the first representative man became the vehicle of a psychical nature, while the body of the Second is the organ of a pneumatical nature. St. Pauls trichotomy of man may he represented thus:
= =
Everything in man that is not may he called psychical is so far as it is considered as intellect, and carnal in so far as it is thought of as the seat of the animal passions; both the adjectives and thus mean non-spiritual. The second half of St. Pauls statementthe last Adam became a life-giving spiritfinds no exact parallel in the OT, but seems to be based on a reminiscence of Messianic passages which speak of the work of the Divine Spirit, e.g. Isa 11:1-2, Joe 2:28-32.
(ii.) But as the came first and the last, so it is with the development of mankind; the spiritual must follow the psychical (1Co 15:46). As the first man was formed from the clay, and had a nature in conformity with his origin, while the second Man has His origin from heaven (1Co 15:47), so among mankind there are those whose nature remains low and mean, tied to the clods of earth, and there are those whose nature has become heavenly (1Co 15:48). But this implies more (1Co 15:49). In his present state man is an exact counterpart, he visibly reproduces the lineaments and character, of the first man, because of his corporate union with him ( ). But the time is coming when we shall become the exact counterpart or image of the second Man (cf. Gen 1:26 f.), because of our spiritual union with Him ( ). The above follows the text of B a c g 17 aeth. arm. [Syriac is indeterminate]; and Theodoret distinctly is says to The mass of authorities read , from a desire to turn what is really a physical assertion into an ethical exhortation (Alf.); so Chrys., , . But it is difficult to conceive how St. Paul, who has from 1Co 15:35 been leading up to the thought of the resurrection, could at the critical moment throw his argument to the winds, and content himself with saying, according as we have been earthly in our thoughts, let us strive to be heavenly.
It has been suggested that St. Paul adopted the designation of Christ as the last Adam and the second Adam from Rabbinic theology. But such a comparison between Adam and the Messiah was unknown to the earlier Jewish teachers. Passages adduced to support it belong to the Middle Ages, and are influenced by the Kabbala. See G. F. Moore, JBL [Note: BL Journal of Biblical Literature.] xvi. (1897), 158161; Dalman, The Words of Jesus, English translation 248 f., 251 f.
(d) Php 2:6. St. Paul speaks of Christ Jesus, who being [in His eternal and inhereat nature, ] in the form of God, deemed it not a thing to be snatched at () to be on an equality with God. There is here an implied contrast with Adam, who took fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which God said had made him as one of us (Gen 3:22).
2. In Mat 19:4-6 || Mar 10:6-8 reference is made by Jesus to the account of Adam and Eve in Gen 1:27 male and female created he them ( ). Pharisees came and asked Him whether divorce was allowable [for any cause, Mt.]. Our Lords answer is intended to show that the provision made for divorce in the Mosaic law (Deu 24:1) was only a concession to the hardness of mens hearts. The truer and deeper view of marriage which Christians should adopt must be based on a nobler morality,on a morality which takes its stand on the primeval nature of man and woman as God made them. To suit () your hardness of heart he wrote for you this commandment. But from the beginning of the creation he made them male and female. And with this quotation is coupled one from Gen 2:24 (see also Eph 5:31), For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother [and shall cleave to his wife (Mt.)], and they twain shall become one flesh. The same result is reached in Mt., but with a transposition of the two parts of the argument. See Wrights Synopsis, in loc. Thus Jesus bases the absolute indissolubility of the marriage tie on the union of man and woman from the first. In Mat 19:9; Mat 5:32 this pronouncement is practically annulled by the admission of the words except for fornication ( , and ). See Wright, in loc., who contends that the Church (of Alexandria?) introduced these two clauses into the Gospel in accordance with the permission to legislate which our Lord gave to all Churches (Mat 18:18). See art. Marriage.
3. In Joh 8:44 may refer to the introduction of death into the world by the fall of Adam. But see art. Abel.
4. The parallel drawn by St. Paul between Adam and Christ may have been the origin of the tradition that Adam was buried under Golgotha. Jer. (Com. in Mat. iv. 27) rejects it, saying that it arose from the discovery of an ancient human skull at that spot. He also declines to see any reference to it in Eph 5:14. But in Ep. 46 he says, The place where our Lord was crucified is called Calvary, because the skull of the primitive man was buried there. So it came to pass that the second Adam, that is the blood of Christ (a play on and ), as it dropped from the Cross, washed away the sins of the buried protoplast,* [Note: Wis 7:1.] the first Adam, and thus the words of the apostle were fulfilled,quoting Eph 5:14. Epiphanius (contra Haer. xlvi. 5) goes farther, stating that Christs blood dropped upon Adams skull, and restored him to life. The tradition is mentioned also by Basil, Ambrose, and others.
Literature.Besides the works cited in the article, the following may be consulted on the relation between Adam and Christ: Sanday-Headlam, Com. on Epistle to Romans (pp. 130153); Bethune-Baker, An Introduction to the Early History of Christian Doctrine, ch. xvii.; Tennant, The Sources of the Doctrine of the Fall and Original Sin; Sadler, The Second Adam and the New Birth; Thackeray, The Relation of St. Paul to Contemporary Jewish Thought, ch. ii.
A. H. MNeile.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Adam
ADAM.The derivation is doubtful. The most plausible is that which connects it with the Assyr. [Note: Assyrian.] admu, make, produce; man is thus a creatureone made or produced. Some derive it from a root signifying red (cf. Edom, Gen 25:30), men being of a ruddy colour in the district where the word originated. The Biblical writer (Gen 2:7) explains it, according to his frequent practice, by a play on the word admh, ground; but that is itself derived from the same root red. The word occurs in the Heb. 31 times in Gen 1:5 to Gen 5:5. In most of these it is not a proper name, and the RV [Note: Revised Version.] has rightly substituted man or the man in some verses where AV [Note: Authorized Version.] has Adam. But since the name signifies mankind, homo, Mensch, not a man, vir, Mann (see Gen 5:2), the narrative appears to be a description, not of particular historical events in the life of an individual, but of the beginnings of human life (ch. 2), human sin (ch. 3), human genealogical descent (Gen 4:1; Gen 4:25, Gen 5:1-5). In a few passages, if the text is sound, the writer slips into the use of Adam as a proper name, but only in Gen 5:3-5 does it stand unmistakably for an individual.
1. The creation of man is related twice, Gen 1:26-27 (P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] ) and Gen 2:7 (J [Note: Jahwist.] ). The former passage is the result of philosophical and theological reflexion of a late date, which had taught the writer that man is the climax of creation because his personality partakes of the Divine (and in Gen 5:3 this prerogative is handed on to his offspring); but the latter is written from the nave and primitive standpoint of legendary tradition, which dealt only with mans reception of physical life (see next article).
2. Mans primitive condition, Gen 2:8-25 (J [Note: Jahwist.] ). The story teaches: that man has work to do in life (Gen 2:15); that he needs a counterpart, a help who shall be meet for him (Gen 2:18; Gen 2:21-24); that man is supreme over the beasts in the intellectual ability, and therefore in the authority, which he possesses to assign to them their several names (Gen 2:19-20); that man, in his primitive condition, was far from being morally or socially perfect; he was simply in a state of savagery, but from a moral standpoint innocent, because he had not yet learned the meaning of right and wrong (Gen 2:25); and this blissful ignorance is also portrayed by the pleasures of a luxuriant garden or park (Gen 2:8-14).
3. The Fall, Gen 2:16 f., 3 (J [Note: Jahwist.] ). But there came a point in human evolution when man became conscious of a commandthe earliest germ of a recognition of an ought (Gen 2:16 f., Gen 3:3); and this at once caused a stress and strain between his lower animal nature, pictured as a serpent, and his higher aspirations after obedience (Gen 3:1-5) [N.B.The serpent is nowhere, in the OT, identified with the devil; the idea is not found till Wis 2:23]; by a deliberate following of the lower nature against which he had begun to strive, man first caused sin to exist (Wis 2:6); with the instant result of a feeling of shame (Wis 2:7), and the world-wide consequence of pain, trouble, and death (Wis 2:14-19), and the cessation for ever of the former state of innocent ignorance and bliss (Wis 2:22-24).
On the Babylonian affinities with the story of Adam, see Creation, Eden.
A. H. MNeile.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Adam
ADAM (city).A city in the Jordan valley, beside Zarethan (Jos 3:16); usually identified with Jisr ed-Damieh, near the confluence of the Jabbok and the Jordan, where there was once a bridge. Hiram, Solomons worker in brass, may have had his furnace here (cf. 1Ki 7:46).
G. L. Robinson.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Adam
The first man. The name implies the earth, from whence he was formed, which signifies red. It is worthy remark, that Christ is also called Adam. (1Co 15:45) And if we compare what the apostle saith of Christ, (Col 1:15) with what is said of Adam, at the creation of the world, (Gen 1:26) it serves to explain, in what sense we are to limit the expression concerning him, who was formed from the earth as the first man. In that Scripture of the apostle, when speaking of Christ, he is called, “the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature.” Hence we infer, that though the first Adam was indeed the first man, as manifested openly; yet the second Adam, so called, even the Lord from heaven, had a pre-existence in secret, and stood up the Great Head of his body the church, in the counsels of the divine mind, the Wisdom man, from all eternity. Indeed from this Wisdom man, this pattern, the first earthly man was formed. For so the charter of grace, at the creation, expressed it: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Gen 1:26) And if Christ was, and is, as the apostle was commissioned to tell the church, “the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature,” nothing can be plainer than that the first Adam, so called, because indeed he was the first man openly, was created in the image or likeness of Him, who alone can be said to be the image of the invisible God, and in his human nature, “the first born of every creature.” (See Psa 89:19; Pro 8:22-31; Mic 5:2)
Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures
Adam
Adam, 1
Adam, the word by which the Bible designates the first human being.
It is evident that, in the earliest use of language, the vocal sound employed to designate the first perceived object, of any kind, would be an appellative, and would be formed from something known or apprehended to be a characteristic property of that object. The word would, therefore, be at once the appellative and the proper name. But when other objects of the same kind were discovered, or subsequently came into existence, difficulty would be felt; it would become necessary to guard against confusion, and the inventive faculty would be called upon to obtain a discriminative term for each and singular individual, while some equally appropriate term would be fixed upon for the whole kind. Different methods of effecting these two purposes might be resorted to, but the most natural would be to retain the original term in its simple state, for the first individual: and to make some modification of it by prefixing another sound, or by subjoining one, or by altering the vowel or vowels in the body of the word, in order to have a term for the kind, and for the separate individuals of the kind.
This reasoning is exemplified in the first applications of the word before us: (Gen 1:26), ‘Let us make man [Adam] in our image;’ (Gen 1:27), ‘And God created the man [the Adam] in his own image.’ The next instance (Gen 2:7) expresses the source of derivation, a character or property; namely, the material of which the human body was formed: ‘And the Lord God [Jehovah Elohim] formed the man [the Adam] dust from the ground [the adamah]’. The meaning of the primary word is, most probably, any kind of reddish tint, as a beautiful human complexion (Lam 4:7); but its various derivatives are applied to different objects of a red or brown hue, or approaching to such. The word Adam, therefore, is an appellative noun made into a proper one. It is further remarkable that, in all the other instances in Genesis 2-3, which are nineteen, it is put with the article, the man, or the Adam.
The question arises, Was the uttered sound, originally employed for this purpose, the very phonetic Adam, or was it some other sound of correspondent signification? This is equivalent to asking, what was the primitive language of men?
That language originated in the instinctive cries of human beings herding together in a condition like that of common animals, is an hypothesis which, apart from all testimony of revelation, must appear unreasonable to a man of serious reflection. There are other animals, besides man, whose organs are capable of producing articulate sounds, through a considerable range of variety, and distinctly pronounced. How, then, is it that parrots, jays, and starlings have not among themselves developed an articulate language, transmitted it to their successive generations, and improved it, both in the life-time of the individual and in the series of many generations? Those birds never attempt to speak till they are compelled by a difficult process on the part of their trainers, and they never train each other.
Upon the mere ground of reasoning from the necessity of the case, it seems an inevitable conclusion that not the capacity merely, but the actual use of speech, with the corresponding faculty of promptly understanding it, was given to the first human beings by a superior power: and it would be a gratuitous absurdity to suppose that power to be any other than the Almighty Creator. In what manner such communication or infusion of what would be equivalent to a habit took place, it is in vain to inquire; the subject lies beyond the range of human investigation: but, from the evident exigency, it must have been instantaneous, or nearly so. It is not necessary to suppose that a copious language was thus bestowed upon the human creatures in the first stage of their existence. We need to suppose only so much as would be requisite for the notation of the ideas of natural wants and the most important mental conceptions; and from these, as germs, the powers of the mind and the faculty of vocal designation would educe new words and combinations as occasion demanded.
That the language thus formed continued to be the universal speech of mankind till after the deluge, and till the great cause of diversity took place, is in itself the most probable supposition [TONGUES, CONFUSION OF]. If there were any families of men which were not involved in the crime of the Babel-builders, they would almost certainly retain the primeval language. The longevity of the men of that period would be a powerful conservative of that language against the slow changes of time. That there were such exceptions seems to be almost an indubitable inference from the fact that Noah long survived the unholy attempt. His faithful piety would not have suffered him to fall into the snare; and it is difficult to suppose that none of his children and descendants would listen to his admonitions, and hold fast their integrity by adhering to him: on the contrary, it is reasonable to suppose that the habit and character of piety were established in many of them.
The confusion of tongues, therefore, whatever was the nature of that judicial visitation, would not fall upon that portion of men which was the most orderly, thoughtful, and pious, among whom the second father of mankind dwelt as their acknowledged and revered head.
If this supposition be admitted, we can have no difficulty in regarding as the mother of languages, not indeed the Hebrew, absolutely speaking, but that which was the stock whence branched the Hebrew, and its sister tongues, usually called the Shemitic, but more properly, by Dr. Prichard, the Syro-Arabian. It may then be maintained that the actually spoken names of Adam and all the others mentioned in the antediluvian history were those which we have in the Hebrew Bible, very slightly and not at all essentially varied.
It is among the clearest deductions of reason, that men and all dependent beings have been created, that is, produced or brought into their first existence by an intelligent and adequately powerful being. A question, however, arises of great interest and importance. Did the Almighty Creator produce only one man and one woman, from whom all other human beings have descended?or did he create several parental pairs, from whom distinct stocks of men have been derived? The affirmative of the latter position has been maintained by some, and, it must be confessed, not without apparent reason. The manifest and great differences in complexion and figure, which distinguish several races of mankind, are supposed to be such as entirely to forbid the conclusion that they have all descended from one father and one mother. The question is usually regarded as equivalent to this: whether there is only one species of men, or there are several. But we cannot, in strict fairness, admit that the questions are identical. It is hypothetically conceivable that the Adorable God might give existence to any number of creatures, which should all possess the properties that characterize identity of species, even without such differences as constitute varieties, or with any degree of those differences.
But the admission of the possibility is not a concession of the reality. So great is the evidence in favor of the derivation of the entire mass of human beings from one pair of ancestors, that it has obtained the suffrage of the men most competent to judge upon a question of comparative anatomy and physiology.
The animals which render eminent services to man, and peculiarly depend upon his protection, are widely diffusedthe horse, the dog, the hog, and the domestic fowl. Now of these, the varieties in each species are numerous and different, to a degree so great, that an observer ignorant of physiological history would scarcely believe them to be of the same species. But man is the most widely diffused of any animal. In the progress of ages and generations, he has naturalized himself to every climate, and to modes of life which would prove fatal to an individual man suddenly transferred from a remote point of the field. The alterations produced affect every part of the body, internal and external, without extinguishing the marks of the specific identity. A further and striking evidence is, that when persons of different varieties are conjugally united, the offspring, especially in two or three generations, becomes more prolific, and acquires a higher perfection in physical and mental qualities than was found in either of the parental races. From the deepest African black to the finest Caucasian white, the change runs through imperceptible gradations; and, if a middle hue be assumed, suppose some tint of brown, all the varieties of complexion may be explained upon the principle of divergence influenced by outward circumstances. The conclusion may be fairly drawn, in the words of the able translators and illustrators of Baron Cuvier’s great work’We are fully warranted in concluding, both from the comparison of man with inferior animals, so far as the inferiority will allow of such comparison, and, beyond that, by comparing him with himself, that the great family of mankind loudly proclaim a descent, at some period or other, from one common origin.’
Thus, by an investigation totally independent of historical authority, we are brought to the conclusion of the inspired writings, that the Creator hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth’ (Act 17:26).
We shall now follow the course of those sacred documents in tracing the history of the first man, persuaded that their right interpretation is a sure basis of truth. At the same time we shall not reject illustrations from natural history and the reason of particular facts.
It is evident upon a little reflection, and the closest investigation confirms the conclusion, that the first human pair must have been created in a state equivalent to that which all subsequent human beings have had to reach by slow degrees, in growth, experience, observation, imitation, and the instruction of others: that is, a state of prime maturity, and with an infusion, concreation, or whatever we may call it, of knowledge and habits, both physical and intellectual, suitable to the place which man had to occupy in the system of creation, and adequate to his necessities in that place. Had it been otherwise, the new beings could not have preserved their animal existence, nor have held rational converse with each other, nor have paid to their Creator the homage of knowledge and love, adoration, and obedience; and reason clearly tells us that the last was the noblest end of existence. Those whom unhappy prejudices lead to reject revelation must either admit this, or must resort to suppositions of palpable absurdity and impossibility. If they will not admit a direct action of Divine power in creation and adaptation to the designed mode of existence, they must admit something far beyond the miraculous, an infinite succession of finite beings, or a spontaneous production of order, organization, and systematic action, from some unintelligent origin. The Bible coincides with this dictate of honest reason, expressing these facts in simple and artless language, suited to the circumstances of the men to whom revelation was first granted. That this production in a mature state was the fact with regard to the vegetable part of the creation, is declared in Gen 2:4-5 : ‘In the day of Jehovah God’s making the earth and the heavens, and every shrub of the field before it should be in the earth, and every herb of the field before it should bud.’ The two terms, shrubs and herbage, are put to designate the whole vegetable kingdom. The reason of the case comprehends the other division of organized nature; and this is applied to man and all other animals, in the words, ‘Out of the grounddust out of the groundJehovah God formed them.’
It is to be observed that there are two narratives at the beginning of the Mosaic records, different in style and manner, distinct and independent; at first sight somewhat discrepant, but when strictly examined, perfectly compatible, and each one illustrating and completing the other. The first is contained in Gen 1:1 to Gen 2:3; and the other, Gen 2:4 to Gen 4:26. As is the case with the Scripture history generally, they consist of a few principal facts, detached anecdotes, leaving much of necessary implication which the good sense of the reader is called upon to supply; and passing over large spaces of the history of life, upon which all conjecture would be fruitless.
In the second of these narratives we read, ‘And Jehovah God formed the man [Heb. the Adam], dust from the ground [ha-adamah], and blew into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living animal’ (Gen 2:7). Here are two objects of attention, the organic mechanism of the human body, and the vitality with which it was endowed.
The mechanical material, formed (molded, or arranged, as an artificer models clay or wax) into the human and all other animal bodies, is called ‘dust from the ground.’ This would be a natural and easy expression to men in the early ages, before chemistry was known or minute philosophical distinctions were thought of, to convey, in a general form, the idea of earthy matter, the constituent substance of the ground on which we tread. To say, that of this the human and every other animal body was formed, is a position which would be at once the most easily apprehensible to an uncultivated mind, and which yet is the most exactly true upon the highest philosophical grounds. We now know, from chemical analysis, that the animal body is composed, in the inscrutable manner called organization, of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, lime, iron, sulfur, and phosphorus. Now all these are mineral substances, which in their various combinations form a very large part of the solid ground.
The expression which we have rendered ‘living animal’ sets before us the organic life of the animal frame, that mysterious something which man cannot create nor restore, which baffles the most acute philosophers to search out its nature, and which reason combines with Scripture to refer to the immediate agency of the Almighty’in him we live, and move, and have our being.’
The other narrative is contained in these words, ‘God created man in his own image: in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them’ (Gen 1:27). The image (resemblance, such as a shadow bears to the object which casts it) of God is an expression which breathes at once archaic simplicity and the most recondite wisdom; for what term could the most cultivated and copious language bring forth more suitable to the purpose? It presents to us man as made in a resemblance to the author of his being, a true resemblance, but faint and shadowy; an outline, faithful according to its capacity, yet infinitely remote from the reality: a distant form of the intelligence, wisdom, power, rectitude, goodness, and dominion of the Adorable Supreme. To the inferior sentient beings with which he is connected man stands in the place of God. We have every reason to think that none of them are capable of conceiving a being higher than man. All, in their different ways, look up to him as their superior; the ferocious generally flee before him, afraid to encounter his power, and the gentle court his protection and show their highest joy to consist in serving and pleasing him. Even in our degenerate state it is manifest that if we treat the domesticated animals with wisdom and kindness, their attachment is most ardent and faithful.
Thus had man the shadow of the divine dominion and authority over the inferior creation. The attribute of power was also given to him, in his being made able to convert the inanimate objects and those possessing only the vegetable life, into the instruments and the materials for supplying his wants, and continually enlarging his sphere of command.
In such a state of things knowledge and wisdom are implied: the one quality, an acquaintance with those substances and their changeful actions which were necessary for a creature like man to understand, in order to his safety and comfort; the other, such sagacity as would direct him in selecting the best objects of desire and pursuit, and the right means for attaining them.
Above all, moral excellence must have been comprised in this ‘image of God;’ and not only forming a part of it, but being its crown of beauty and glory. The Christian inspiration, than which no more perfect disclosure of God is to take place on this side eternity, casts its light upon this subject: for this apostle Paul, in urging the obligations of Christians to perfect holiness, evidently alludes to the endowments of the first man in two parallel and mutually illustrative epistles; ‘the new man, renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him; the new man which, after [according to] God, is created in righteousness and true holiness’ (Col 3:10; Eph 4:24).
In this perfection of faculties, and with these high prerogatives of moral existence, did human nature, in its first subject, rise up from the creating hand. The whole Scripture-narrative implies that this state of existence was one of correspondent activity and enjoyment. It plainly represents the Deity himself as condescending to assume a human form and to employ human speech, in order to instruct and exercise the happy creatures whom (to borrow the just and beautiful language of the Apocryphal ‘Wisdom’) ‘God created for incorruptibility, and made him an image of his own nature’ (Wisdom of Solomon 2:23).
The noble and sublime idea that man thus had his Maker for his teacher and guide, precludes a thousand difficulties. It shows us the simple, direct, and effectual method by which the newly formed creature would have communicated to him all the intellectual knowledge, and all the practical arts and manipulations, which were needful and beneficial for him.
Religious knowledge and its appropriate habits also required an immediate infusion: and these are pre-eminently comprehended in the ‘image of God.’ On the one hand, it is not to be supposed that the newly created man and his female companion were inspired with a very ample share of the doctrinal knowledge which was communicated to their posterity by the successive and accumulating revolutions of more than four thousand years: and, on the other, we cannot imagine that they were left in gross ignorance upon the existence and excellencies of the Being who had made them, their obligations to him, and the way in which they might continue to receive the greatest blessings from him. It is self-evident that, to have attained such a kind and degree of knowledge, by spontaneous effort, under even the favorable circumstances of a state of negative innocence, would have been a long and arduous work. But the sacred narrative leaves no room for doubt upon this head. In the primitive style it tells of God as speaking to them, commanding, instructing, assigning their work, pointing out their danger, and showing how to avoid it. All this, reduced to the dry simplicity of detail, is equivalent to saying that the Creator, infinitely kind and condescending, by the use of forms and modes adapted to their capacity, fed their minds with truth, gave them a ready understanding of it and that delight in it which constituted holiness, taught them to hold intercourse with himself by direct addresses in both praise and prayer, and gave some disclosures of a future state of blessedness when they should have fulfilled the condition of their probation.
An especial instance of this instruction and infusion of practical habits is given to us in the narrative: ‘Out of the ground Jehovah God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto the man, to see what he would call them’ (Gen 2:19). This, taken out of the style of condescending, anthropomorphism, amounts to such a statement as the following: the Creator had not only formed man with organs of speech, but he taught him the use of them, by an immediate communication of the practical faculty and its accompanying intelligence; and he guided the man, as yet the solitary one of his species, to this among the first applications of speech, the designating of the animals with which he was connected, by appellative words which would both be the help of his memory and assist his mental operations, and thus would be introductory and facilitating to more enlarged applications of thought and language. We are further warranted, by the recognized fact of the anecdotal and fragmentary structure of the Scripture history, to regard this as the selected instance for exhibiting a whole kind or class of operations or processes; implying that, in the same or similar manner, the first man was led to understand something of the qualities and relations of vegetables, earthy matters, the visible heavens, and the other external objects to which he had a relation.
The next important article in this primeval history is the creation of the human female. The narrative is given in the more summary manner in the former of the two documents:’Male and female created he them’ (Gen 1:27). It stands a little more at length in a third document, which begins the fifth chapter, and has the characteristic heading or title by which the Hebrews designated a separate work. ‘This, the book of the generations of Adam. In the day God created Adam; he made him in the likeness of God, male and female he created them; and he blessed them, and he called their name Adam, in the day of their being created’ (Gen 5:1-2).
The second of the narratives is more circumstantial: ‘And Jehovah God said, it is not good the man’s being alone: I will make for him a help suitable for him,’ Gen 2:18. Then follows the passage concerning the review and the naming of the inferior animals; and it continues’but for Adam he found not a help suitable for him. And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man [the Adam], and he slept: and he took one out of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place: and Jehovah God built up the rib which he had taken from the man into a woman, and he brought her to the man,’ Gen 2:20-22.
The next particular into which the sacred history leads us, is one which we cannot approach without a painful sense of its difficulty and delicacy. It stands thus in the Authorized Version: ‘And they were both naked, the man and his wife; and were not ashamed’ (Gen 2:25). The common interpretation is, that, in this respect, the two human beings, the first and only existing ones, were precisely in the condition of the youngest infants, incapable of perceiving any incongruity in the total destitution of artificial clothing. But a little reflection will tell us, and the more carefully that reflection is pursued the more it will appear just, that this supposition is inconsistent with what we have established on solid grounds, the supernatural infusion into the minds of our first parents and into their nervous and muscular faculties, of the knowledge and practical habits which their descendants have had to acquire by the long process of instruction and example. We have seen the necessity that there must have been communicated to them, directly by the Creator, no inconsiderable measure of natural knowledge and the methods of applying it, or their lives could not have been secured; and of moral and spiritual ‘knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness,’ such a measure as would belong to the sinless state, and would enable them to render an intelligent and perfect worship to the Glorious Deity. It seems impossible for that state of mind and habits to exist without a correct sensibility to proprieties and decencies which infant children cannot understand or feel; and the capacities and duties of their conjugal state are implied in the narrative. Further, it cannot be overlooked that, though we are entitled to ascribe to the locality of Eden the most bland atmosphere and delightful soil, yet the action of the sun’s rays upon the naked skin, the range of temperature through the day and the night, the alternations of dryness and moisture, the various labor among trees and bushes, and exposure to insects, would render some protective clothing quite indispensable.
From these considerations we feel ourselves obliged to understand the word arom in that which is its most usual signification in the Hebrew language, as importing not an absolute, but a partial or comparative nudity, a stripping off of the upper garment, or of some other usual article of dress, when all the habiliments were not laid aside; and this is a more frequent signification than that of entire destitution. If it be asked, Whence did Adam and Eve derive this clothing? we reply, that, as a part of the divine instruction which we have established, they were taught to take off the inner bark of some trees, which would answer extremely well for this purpose. If an objection be drawn from Gen 3:7; Gen 3:10-11, we reply, that, in consequence of the transgression, the clothing was disgracefully injured.
Another inquiry presents itself. How long did the state of paradisiac innocence and happiness continue? Some have regarded the period as very brief, not more even than a single day; but this manifestly falls very short of the time which a reasonable probability requires. The first man was brought into existence in the region called Eden; then he was introduced into a particular part of it, the garden, replenished with the richest productions of the Creator’s bounty for the delight of the eye and the other senses; the most agreeable labor was required ‘to dress and to keep it,’ implying some arts of culture, preservation from injury, training flowers and fruits, and knowing the various uses and enjoyments of the produce; making observation upon the works of God, of which an investigation and designating of animals is expressly specified; nor can we suppose that there was no contemplation of the magnificent sky and the heavenly bodies: above all, the wondrous communion with the condescending Deity, and probably with created spirits of superior orders, by which the mind would be excited, its capacity enlarged, and its holy felicity continually increased. It is also to be remarked, that the narrative (Gen 2:19-20) conveys the implication that some time was allowed to elapse, that Adam might discover and feel his want of a companion of his own species, ‘a help correspondent to him.’
These considerations impress us with a sense of probability, amounting to a conviction, that a period not very short was requisite for the exercise of man’s faculties, the disclosures of his happiness, and the service of adoration which he could pay to his Creator. But all these considerations are strengthened by the recollection that they attach to man’s solitary state; and that they all require new and enlarged application when the addition of conjugal life is brought into the account. The conclusion appears irresistible that a duration of many days, or rather weeks or months, would be requisite for so many and important purposes.
Thus divinely honored and happy were the progenitors of mankind in the state of their creation.
The next scene which the sacred history brings before us is a dark reverse. Another agent comes into the field and successfully employs his arts for seducing Eve, and by her means Adam, from their original state of rectitude, dignity, and happiness.
Among the provisions of divine wisdom and goodness were two vegetable productions of wondrous qualities and mysterious significancy; ‘the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil’ (Gen 2:9). It would add to the precision of the terms, and perhaps aid our understanding of them, if we were to adhere strictly to the Hebrew by retaining the definite prefix: and then we have ‘the tree of the life’ and ‘the tree of the knowledge.’ Thus would be indicated the particular life of which the one was a symbol and instrument, and the fatal knowledge springing from the abuse of the other. At the same time, we do not maintain that these appellations were given to them at the beginning. We rather suppose that they were applied afterwards, suggested by the events and connection, and so became the historical names.
We see no sufficient reason to understand, as some do, ‘the tree of life,’ collectively, as implying a species, and that there were many trees of that species. The figurative use of the expression in Rev 22:2, where a plurality is plainly intended, involves no evidence of such a design in this literal narrative. The phraseology of the text best agrees with the idea of a single tree, designed for a special purpose, and not intended to perpetuate its kind. Though in the state of innocence, Adam and Eve might be liable to some corporal suffering from the changes of the season and the weather, or accidental circumstances; in any case of which occurring, this tree had been endowed by the bountiful Creator with a medicinal and restorative property, probably in the way of instantaneous miracle. We think also that it was designed for a sacramental or symbolical purpose, a representation and pledge of ‘the life,’ emphatically so called, heavenly immortality when the term of probation should be happily completed. Yet we by no means suppose that this ‘tree of the life’ possessed any intrinsic property of communicating immortality. In the latter view, it was a sign and seal of the divine promise. But, with regard to the former intention, we see nothing to forbid the idea that it had most efficacious medicinal properties in its fruit, leaves, and other parts. Such were called trees of life by the Hebrews (Pro 3:18; Pro 11:30; Pro 13:12; Pro 15:4).
The ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ might be any tree whatever; it might be of any species even yet remaining, though, if it were so, we could not determine its species, for the plain reason, that no name, description, or information whatever is given that could possibly lead to the ascertainment. Yet we cannot but think the more reasonable probability to be, that it was a tree having poisonous properties, stimulating, and intoxicating, such as are found in some existing species, especially in hot climates. On this ground, the prohibition to eat or even touch the tree was a beneficent provision against the danger of pain and death. But the revealed object of this ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ was that which would require no particular properties beyond some degree of external beauty and fruit of an immediately pleasant taste. That object was to be a test of obedience. For such a purpose, it is evident that to select an indifferent act, to be the object prohibited, was necessary; as the obligation to refrain should be only that which arises simply, so far as the subject of the law can know, from the sacred will of the law-giver. This does not, however, nullify what we have said upon the possibility, or even probability, that the tree in question had noxious qualities: for upon either the affirmative or the negative of the supposition, the subjects of this positive law, having upon all antecedent grounds the fullest conviction of the perfect rectitude and benevolence of their Creator, would see in it the simple character of a test, a means of proof, whether they would or would not implicitly confide in him. For so doing they had every possible reason; and against any thought or mental feeling tending to the violation of the precept, they were in possession of the most powerful motives. There was no difficulty in the observance. They were surrounded with a paradise of delights, and they had no reason to imagine that any good whatever would accrue to them from their seizing upon anything prohibited. If perplexity or doubt arose, they had ready access to their divine benefactor for obtaining information and direction. But they allowed the thought of disobedience to form itself into a disposition, and then a purpose.
Thus was the seal broken, the integrity of the heart was gone, the sin was generated, and the outward act was the consummation of the dire process. Eve, less informed, less cautious, less endowed with strength of mind, became the more ready victim. ‘The woman, being deceived, was in the transgression;’ but ‘Adam was not deceived’ (1Ti 2:14). He rushed knowingly and deliberately to ruin. The offence had grievous aggravations. It was the preference of a trifling gratification to the approbation of the Supreme Lord of the universe; it implied a denial of the wisdom, holiness, goodness, veracity, and power of God; it was marked with extreme ingratitude; and it involved a contemptuous disregard of consequences, awfully impious as it referred to their immediate connection with the moral government of God and cruelly selfish as it respected their posterity
The instrument of the temptation was a serpent; whether any one of the existing kinds it is evidently impossible for us to know. Of that numerous order many species are of brilliant colors and playful in their attitudes and manners, so that one may well conceive of such an object attracting and fascinating the first woman. Whether it spoke in an articulate voice, like the human, or expressed the sentiments attributed to it by a succession of remarkable and significant actions, may be a subject of reasonable question. The latter is possible, and it seems the preferable hypothesis, as, without a miraculous intervention, the mouth and throat of no serpent could form a vocal utterance of words; and we cannot attribute to any wicked spirit the power of working miracles.
This part of the narrative begins with the words, ‘And the serpent was crafty above every animal of the field’ (Gen 3:1). It is to be observed that this is not said of the order of serpents, as if it were a general property of them, but of that particular serpent. Indeed, this ‘cunning craftiness, lying in wait to deceive’ (Eph 4:14), is the very character of that malignant creature of whose wily stratagems the reptile was a mere instrument. The existence of spirits, superior to man, and of whom some have become depraved, and are laboring to spread wickedness and misery to the utmost of their power, has been found to be the belief of all nations, ancient and modern, of whom we possess information. It has also been the general doctrine of both Jews and Christians, that one of those fallen spirits was the real agent in this first and successful temptation; and this doctrine receives strong confirmation from the declarations of our Lord and his apostles. See 2Co 2:11; 2Co 11:3; 2Co 11:14; Rev 12:9; Rev 20:2; Joh 8:44. The summary of these passages presents almost a history of the Fallthe tempter, his manifold arts, his serpentine disguises, his falsehood, his restless activity, his bloodthirsty cruelty, and his early success in that career of deception and destruction.
The condescending Deity, who had held gracious and instructive communion with the parents of mankind, assuming a human form and adapting all his proceedings to their capacity, visibly stood before them; by a searching interrogatory drew from them the confession of their guilt, which yet they aggravated by evasions and insinuations against God himself; and pronounced on them and their seducer the sentence due. On the woman he inflicted the pains of child-bearing, and a deeper and more humiliating dependence upon her husband. He doomed the man to hard and often fruitless toil, instead of easy and pleasant labor. On both, or rather on human nature universally, he pronounced the awful sentence of death. The denunciation of the serpent partakes more of a symbolical character, and so seems to carry a strong implication of the nature and the wickedness of the concealed agent. The human sufferings threatened are all, excepting the last, which will require a separate consideration, of a remedial and corrective kind.
Of a quite different character are the penal denunciations upon the serpent. If they be understood literally, and of course applied to the whole order of Ophidia, they will be found to be so flagrantly at variance with the most demonstrated facts in their physiology and economy, as to lead to inferences unfavorable to belief in revelation. Let us examine the particulars:
‘Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle,’ Gen 3:14; literally, ‘above every behemah.’But the serpent tribe cannot be classed with that of the behemoth. The word is of very frequent occurrence in the Old Testament; and though, in a few instances, it seems to be put for brevity so as to be inclusive of the flocks as well as the herds, and in poetical diction it sometimes stands metonymically for animals generally (as Job 18:3; Psa 73:22; Ecc 3:18-19; Ecc 3:21); yet its proper and universal application is to the large animals (pachyderms and ruminants), such as the elephant, camel, deer, horse, ox, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, etc. [BEHEMOTH].
As little will the declaration, ‘cursed,’ agree with natural truth. It may, indeed, be supposed to be verified in the shuddering which persons generally feel at the aspect of any one of the order of serpents; but this takes place also in many other cases. It springs from fear of the formidable weapons with which some species are armed, as few persons know beforehand which are venomous and which are harmless; and, after all, this is rather an advantage than a curse to the animal. It is an effectual defense without effort. Indeed, we may say that no tribe of animals is so secure from danger, or is so able to obtain its sustenance and all the enjoyments which its capacity and habits require, as the whole order of serpents. If, then, we decline to urge the objection from the word behemah, it is difficult to conceive that serpents have more causes of suffering than any other great division of animals, or even so much.
Further, ‘going upon the belly’ is to none of them a punishment. With some differences of mode, their progression is produced by the pushing of scales, shields, or rings against the ground, by muscular contractions and dilatations, by elastic springings, by vertical undulations, or by horizontal wrigglings; but, in every variety, the entire organizationskeleton, muscles, nerves, integumentsis adapted to the mode of progression belonging to each species. That mode, in every variety of it, is sufficiently easy and rapid (often very rapid) for all the purposes of the animal’s life and the amplitude of its enjoyments. To imagine this mode of motion to be, in any sense, a change from a prior attitude and habit of the erect kind, or being furnished with wings, indicates a perfect ignorance of the anatomy of serpents. Yet it has been said by learned and eminent theological interpreters, that, before this crime was committed, the serpent probably did ‘not go upon his belly, but moved upon the hinder part of his body, with his head, breast, and belly upright’ (Clarke’s Bible, p. 1690). This notion may have obtained credence from the fact that some of the numerous serpent species, when excited, raise the neck pretty high; but the posture is to strike, and they cannot maintain it in creeping except for a very short distance.
Neither do they ‘eat dust.’ All serpents are carnivorous; their food, according to the size and power of the species, is taken from the tribes of insects, worms, frogs, and toads, and newts, birds, mice, and other small quadrupeds, till the scale ascends to the pythons and boas, which can master and swallow very large animals. The excellent writer just cited, in his anxiety to do honor, as he deemed it, to the accuracy of Scripture allusions, has said of the serpent, ‘Now that he creeps with his very mouth upon the earth, he must necessarily take his food out of the dust, and so lick in some of the dust with it.’ But this is not the fact. Serpents habitually obtain their food among herbage or in water; they seize their prey with the mouth, often elevate the head, and are no more exposed to the necessity of swallowing adherent earth than are carnivorous birds or quadrupeds. At the same time, it may be understood figuratively. ‘Eating the dust is but another term for groveling in the dust; and this is equivalent to being reduced to a condition of meanness, shame, and contemptSee Mic 7:17.’
But these and other inconsistencies and difficulties (insuperable they do indeed appear to us) are swept away when we consider the fact before stated, that the Hebrew, literally rendered, is the serpent was, etc., and that it refers specifically and personally to a rational and accountable being, the spirit of lying and cruelty, the devil, the Satan, the old serpent. That God, the infinitely holy, good, and wise, should have permitted any one or more celestial spirits to apostatize from purity, and to be the successful seducers of mankind, is indeed an awful and overwhelming mystery. But it is not more so than the permitted existence of many among mankind, whose rare talents and extraordinary command of power and opportunity, combined with extreme depravity, have rendered them the plague and curse of the earth; and the whole merges into the awful and insolvable problem, Why has the All-perfect Deity permitted evil at all? We are firmly assured that He will bring forth, at last, the most triumphant evidence that ‘He is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works,’ Psa 145:17. In the mean time, our happiness lies in the implicit confidence which we cannot but feel to be due to the Being of Infinite Perfection.
The remaining part of the denunciation upon the false and cruel seducer sent a beam of light into the agonized hearts of our guilty first parents: ‘And enmity will I put between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he will attack thee [on] the head, and thou wilt attack him [at] the heel,’ Gen 3:15. Christian interpreters generally regard this as the first gospel-promise, and we think with good reason. It was a manifestation of mercy: it revealed a Deliverer, who ‘should be a human being, in a peculiar sense the offspring of the female, who should also, in some way not yet made known, counteract and remedy the injury inflicted, and who, though partially suffering from the malignant power, should, in the end, completely conquer it, and convert its very success into its own punishment’ (J. Pye Smith, Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, vol. 1, p. 226).
The awful threatening to man was, ‘In the day that thou eatest of it, thou wilt die the death,’ Gen 2:17. The infliction is Death in the most comprehensive sense, that which stands opposed to Life, the life of not only animal enjoyment, but holy happiness, the life which comported with the image of God. This was lost by the fall; and the sentence of physical death was pronounced, to be executed in due time. Divine mercy gave a long respite.
The same mercy was displayed in still more tempering the terrors of justice. The garden of delights was not to be the abode of rebellious creatures. But before they were turned out into a bleak and dreary wilderness, God was pleased to direct them to make clothing suitable to their new and degraded condition, of the skins of animals. That those animals had been offered in sacrifice is a conjecture supported by so much probable evidence, that we may regard it as a well-established truth. Any attempt to force back the way, to gain anew the tree of life, and take violent or fraudulent possession, would have been equally impious and nugatory. The sacrifice (which all approximative argument obliges us to admit), united with the promise of a deliverer, and the promise of substantial clothing, contained much hope of pardon and grace. The terrible debarring by lightning flashes and their consequent thunder, and by visible supernatural agency (Gen 3:22-24), from a return to the bowers of bliss, are expressed in the characteristic patriarchal style of anthropopathy; but the meaning evidently is, that the fallen creature is unable by any efforts of his own to reinstate himself in the favor of God, and that whatever hope of restoration he may be allowed to cherish must spring solely from free benevolence. Thus, in laying the first stone of the temple, which shall be an immortal habitation of the Divine glory, it was manifested that ‘Salvation is of the Lord,’ and that ‘grace reigneth through righteousness unto eternal life.’
From this time we have little recorded of the lives of Adam and Eve. Their three sons are mentioned with important circumstances in connection with each of them. See the articles Cain Abel and Seth. Cain was probably born in the year after the fall; Abel, possibly some years later; Seth, certainly one hundred and thirty years from the creation of his parents. After that, Adam lived eight hundred years, and had sons and daughters, doubtless by Eve, and then he died, nine hundred and thirty years old. In that prodigious period many events, and those of great importance, must have occurred; but the wise providence of God has not seen fit to preserve to us any memorial of them, and scarcely any vestiges or hints are afforded of the occupations and mode of life of men through the antediluvian period [ANTEDILUVIANS].
Adam, 2
Adam, a city at some distance east from the Jordan, to which, or beyond which, the overflow of the waters of that river extended when the course of the stream to the Dead Sea was stayed to afford the Israelites a passage across its channel.
Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature
Adam
[Ad’am]
The first man. The name is supposed to be derived from Adamah, ‘earth, or red earth,’ agreeing with the fact that “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, Gen 2:7. He differed from all other creatures, because God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, by which man became a living soul. He differed also in being made after the image and likeness of God: he was God’s representative on earth, and to him was given dominion over all other living things, and he gave them names. He was placed in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it, showing that occupation was a good thing for man even in innocence. God said also that it was not good for man to be alone, so He caused him to sleep, took from him a rib, and of this ‘builded’ a woman. Adam called her Isha for she was taken out of Ish, man: the two being a type of Christ and the church, in the closest union: cf. Eph 5:31-32.
Adam and Eve were permitted to eat of all the trees of the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: of the which if they ate, in the same day they should die. Eve, being beguiled by Satan, ate of that tree; and at her suggestion, though not deceived as Eve was, Adam also took of it. Their eyes were at once opened, they knew they were naked, and hid themselves from God. They were transgressors, had fallen from their state of innocence, and acquired a conscience, and with it the sense of their own evil and guilt. When questioned by God, Adam laid the blame on Eve, ungratefully saying, “the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” The ground was then cursed for Adam’s sake: in sorrow he should eat of it all his life: thorns and thistles should be produced, and in the sweat of his face he should eat bread.
God made for Adam and Eve coats of skins and clothed them, foreshadowing the need for a vicarious sacrifice, and the righteousness that could only come to them through death. They were driven from the garden, and Cherubim with a flaming sword prevented them re-entering, lest they should eat of the tree of life and live for ever in their sin. Adam did not beget a son until after his fall: hence all mankind are alike fallen creatures. Act 17:26; Rom 5:18-19; 1Co 15:22. Adam lived 930 years and begat sons and daughters. We have no details of the life of Adam as a fallen man. Viewed typically as head of a race he stands in marked contrast to Christ, the last Adam.
[Ad’am]
A town near the Jordan, named only in Jos 3:16, which should read “a heap very far off, by [or at] Adam, the city that is beside Zaretan.” The waters of death were heaped at Adam as if to teach the death of the first man at the passage of the Jordan. Adam is identified with ed Damieh, 32 7′ N, 35 33′ E. If this is correct, the waters were piled up some 20 miles from where the Israelites crossed. See JORDAN.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Adam
H121 G76
1. The first man
– Creation of
Gen 1:26-28; Gen 2:7; 1Co 15:45; 1Ti 2:13
– History of, before he sinned
Gen 1:26-30; Gen 2:16-25
– Temptation and sin of
Gen 3; Job 31:33; Isa 43:27; Hos 6:7; Rom 5:14-21; 1Ti 2:14
– Subsequent history of
Gen 3:20-24; Gen 4:1-2; Gen 4:25; Gen 5:1-5
– His death
Gen 5:5
– Progenitor of the human race
Deu 32:8; Mal 2:10
– Brought sin into the world
1Co 15:22; 1Co 15:45
– Type of Christ
Rom 5:14
2. A name of Christ
1Co 15:45; 1Co 15:47
3. A city near the Jordan
Jos 3:16
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Adam
Adam (d’am), red, red earth. The name appropriated to the first man, the father of the inhabitants of the world; used, however, sometimes more generally, as in Gen 5:1-2, where the woman is included. This name was probably chosen to remind the man of his earthly nature, seeing that out of the ground his body was taken, though his soul, the breath of life, was breathed into his nostrils by God’s immediate act. This history of his creation is narrated in Gen 1:26-30; Gen 2:7; Gen 2:15-25, a single pair being formed, to whom the earth was given for a possession, to replenish it with their children, to enjoy the fruits of it, and to have dominion over the inferior animate. We are told that “God created man in his own image” and after his “likeness;” not with respect to bodily shape, but with a likeness to God in moral attributes. This is implied by the expressions of St. Paul, who plainly considers righteousness and holiness the likeness of God. Eph 4:24; Col 3:10. The phrase must also denote the possession of dominion and authority; for immediately it is subjoined “let them have dominion,” Gen 1:26, explanatory, it would seem, of the term “image.” And so St. Paul calls the man “the image and glory of God,” on the ground of his being “the head of the woman.” 1Co 11:3; 1Co 11:7. The high intellectual power with which man was endowed is illustrated by his giving appropriate names to the lower animals. Gen 2:19-20. He was indeed a glorious creature, and would have been uninterruptedly and increasingly happy had he continued in his first estate of innocence. Adam’s lamentable fall is next related. How long it was after his creation, ingenious men have puzzled themselves to discover, but in vain. By sin Adam lost his best prerogative. He had suffered spiritual death, and he was to suffer bodily death: dust as he was, to dust he should return. To his posterity he transmitted, therefore, a corrupted nature, which could be restored and recovered only by the power of the second Adam, a head of life and blessedness to all that believe in him. Rom 5:15-16; 1Co 15:21-22; 1Co 15:45; 1Co 15:47-48. Of Adam’s subsequent history we know little. We are expressly told that he had “sons and daughters,” though the names of but three of his sons are recorded. He lived 930 years, Gen 4:1-2; Gen 4:25-26; Gen 5:3-5; 1Ch 1:1; Luk 3:38, and was probably contemporary with Methusalah about 240 years. Methusalah lived 600 years with Noah; Shem lived 150 years with Abram, and 50 years with Isaac, according to the Ussher Chronology, so that the history of the world before the flood might have been carried through three or four persons to the time of Moses. 2. A city near the Jordan, by which the waters were cut off when Israel passed over. Jos 3:16.
Fuente: People’s Dictionary of the Bible
Adam
Ad’am. (red earth).
1. The name given in Scripture to the first man. It apparently has reference to the ground from which he was formed, which is called in Hebrew, Adamah. The idea of redness of color seems to be inherent in either word.
The creation of man was the work of the sixth day — the last and crowning act of creation. Adam was created (not born) a perfect man in body and spirit, but as innocent and completely inexperienced as a child. The man Adam was placed in a garden which the Lord God had planted “eastward in Eden,” for the purpose of dressing it and keeping it. See Eden.
Adam was permitted to eat of the fruit of every tree in the garden but one, which was called “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” because it was the test of Adam’s obedience. By it, Adam could know good and evil in the divine way, through obedience; thus knowing good by experience in resisting temptation and forming a strong and holy character, while he knew evil only by observation and inference. (Or he could “know good and evil,” in Satan’s way, by experiencing the evil and knowing good only by contrast. — Editor).
The prohibition to taste the fruit of this tree was enforced by the menace of death. There was also another tree which was called “the tree of life.” While Adam was in the garden of Eden, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air were brought to him to be named. After this, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon him, and took one of his ribs from him, which he fashioned into a woman and brought her to the man. At this time, they were both described as being naked without the consciousness of shame.
By the subtlety of the serpent, the woman, who was given to be with Adam, was beguiled into a violation of the one command which had been imposed upon them. She took of the fruit of the forbidden tree and gave it to her husband. The propriety of its name was immediately shown in the results which followed; self-consciousness was the first-fruits of sin; their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked.
Though the curse of Adam’s rebellion of necessity fell upon him, yet the very prohibition to eat of the tree of life after his transgression was probably a manifestation of divine mercy, because the greatest malediction of all would have been to have the gift of indestructible life super-added to a state of wretchedness and sin.
The divine mercy was also shown in the promise of a deliverer given at the very promise of a deliverer given at the very time the curse was imposed, Gen 3:15, and opening a door of hope to Paradise, regained for him and his descendants. Adam is stated to have lived 930 years. His sons mentioned in Scripture are Cain, Abel and Seth; it is implied, however, that he had others.
2. Man, generically, for the name Adam was not confined to the father of the human race, but like homo was applicable to woman as well as to man. Gen 5:2.
3. A city on the Jordan, “beside Zaretan,” in the time of Joshua. Jos 3:16.
Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary
ADAM
created in the image of God
Gen 1:26; Gen 2:19; Gen 2:23; Gen 3:8; Gen 3:17; Gen 5:5; 1Co 15:22; 1Ti 2:13
–Fall Of, See FALL OF ADAM
Fuente: Thompson Chain-Reference Bible
Adam
the name given to man in general, both male and female, in the Hebrew Scriptures, Gen 1:26-27; Gen 5:1-2; Gen 11:5; Jos 14:15; 2Sa 7:19; Ecc 3:21; Jer 32:20; Hos 6:7; Zec 13:7 : in all which places mankind is understood; but particularly it is the name of the first man and father of the human race, created by God himself out of the dust of the earth. Josephus thinks that he was called Adam by reason of the reddish colour of the earth out of which he was formed, for Adam in Hebrew signifies red. God having made man out of the dust of the earth, breathed into him the breath of life, and gave him dominion over all the creatures of this world, Gen 1:26-27; Gen 2:7. He created him after his own image and resemblance; and having blessed him, he placed him in a delicious garden, in Eden, that he might cultivate it, and feed upon its fruits, Gen 2:8; but under the following injunction: Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. The first thing that Adam did after his introduction into paradise, was to give names to all the beasts and birds which presented themselves before him, Gen 2:19-20.
But man was without a fellow creature of his own species; wherefore God said, It is not good for man to be alone; I will make him a help meet for him. And the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and while he slept, he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and of that substance which he took from man made he a woman, whom he presented to him. Then said Adam, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man, Gen 2:21, &c.
The woman was seduced by the tempter; and she seduced her husband to eat of the forbidden fruit. When called to judgment for this transgression before God, Adam attempted to cast the blame upon his wife, and the woman upon the serpent tempter. But God declared them all guilty, and punished the serpent by degradation; the woman by painful childbearing and subjection; and the man by agricultural labour and toil; of which punishments every day witnesses the fulfilment. As their natural passions now became irregular, and their exposure to accidents was great, God made a covering of skins for Adam and for his wife; and expelled them from the garden, to the country without; placing at the east of the garden cherubims and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. It is not known how long Adam and his wife continued in paradise: some say, many years; others, not many days; others, not many hours. Adam called his wife’s name Eve, which signifies the mother of all living. Shortly after, Eve brought forth Cain, Gen 4:1-2. It is believed that she had a girl at the time, and that, generally, she had twins. The Scriptures notice only three sons of Adam: Cain, Abel, and Seth; and omits daughters; except that Moses tells us, Adam beast sons and daughters; no doubt many. He died, aged nine hundred and thirty, B.C. 3074.
Upon this history, so interesting to all Adam’s descendants, some remarks may be offered.
1. It is disputed whether the name Adam is derived from red earth. Sir W. Jones thinks it may be from Adim, which in Sanscrit signifies, the first. The Persians, however, denominate him Adamah, which signifies, according to Sale, red earth. The term for woman is Aisha. the feminine of Aish, man, and signifies, therefore, maness, or female man.
2. The manner in which the creation of Adam is narrated indicates something peculiar and eminent in the being to be formed. Among the heavenly bodies the earth, and above all the various productions of its surface, vegetable and animal, however perfect in their kinds, and beautiful and excellent in their respective natures, not one being was found to whom the rest could minister instruction; inspire with moral delight; or lead up to the Creator himself. There was, properly speaking, no intellectual being; none to whom the whole frame and furniture of material nature could minister knowledge; no one who could employ upon them the generalizing faculty, and make them the basis of inductive knowledge. If, then, it was not wholly for himself that the world was created by God; and if angels were not so immediately connected with this system, as to lead us to suppose that it was made for them; a rational inhabitant was obviously still wanting to complete the work, and to constitute a perfect whole. The formation of such a being was marked, therefore, by a manner of proceeding which serves to impress us with a sense of the greatness of the work. Not that it could be a matter of more difficulty to Omnipotence to create man than any thine beside; but principally, it is probable, because he was to be the lord of the whole and therefore himself accountable to the original proprietor; and was to be the subject of another species of government, a moral administration; and to be constituted an image of the intellectual and moral perfections, and of the immortality of the common Maker. Everything therefore, as to man’s creation, is given in a solemn and deliberative form, and contains also an intimation of a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, all equally possessed of creative power, and therefore Divine, to each of whom man was to stand in relations the most sacred and intimate:And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion, &c.
3. It may be next inquired in what that image of God in which man was made consists.
It is manifest from the history of Moses, that human nature has two essential constituent parts, the BODY formed out of pre-existing matter, the earth; and a LIVING SOUL, breathed into the body by an inspiration from God. And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils (or face) the breath of life, (lives,) and man became a living soul. Whatever was thus imparted to the body of man, already formed, and perfectly finished in all its parts, was the only cause of life; and the whole tenor of Scripture shows that this was the rational spirit itself, which, by a law of its Creator, was incapable of death, even after the body had fallen under that penalty.
The image or likeness of God in which man was made has, by some, been assigned to the body; by others to the soul. It has, also, been placed in the circumstance of his having dominion over the other creatures. As to the body, it is not necessary to prove that in no sense can it bear the image of God; that is, be like God. An upright form has no more likeness to God than a prone or reptile one; God is incorporeal, and cannot be the antitype of any thing material.
Equally unfounded is the notion that the image of God in man consisted in the dominion which was granted to him over this lower world. Limited dominion may, it is true, be an image of large and absolute dominion; but man is not said to have been made in the image of God’s dominion, which is an accident merely, for, before creatures existed, God himself could have no dominion; he was made in the image and likeness of God himself. Still farther, it is evident that man, according to the history, was made in the image of God in order to his having dominion, as the Hebrew particle imports; and, therefore, his dominion was consequent upon his formation in the image and likeness of God, and could not be that image itself.
The notion that the original resemblance of man to God must be placed in some one essential quality, is not consistent with holy writ, from which alone we can derive our information on this subject. We shall, it is true, find that the Bible partly places it in what is essential to human nature; but that it should comprehend nothing else, or consist in one quality only, has no proof or reason; and we are, in fact, taught that it comprises also what is so far from being essential that it may be both lost and regained. When God is called the Father of Spirits, a likeness is suggested between man and God in the spirituality of their nature. This is also implied in the striking argument of St. Paul with the Athenians: Forasmuch, then, as we are the OFFSPRING of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device;plainly referring to the idolatrous statues by which God was represented among Heathens. If likeness to God in man consisted in bodily shape, this would not have been an argument against human representations of the Deity; but it imports, as Howe well expresses it, that we are to understand that our resemblance to him, as we are his offspring, lies in some higher, more noble, and more excellent thing, of which there can be no figure; as who can tell how to give the figure or image of a thought, or of the mind or thinking power? In spirituality, and, consequently, immateriality, this image of God in man, then, in the first instance, consists. Nor is it any valid objection to say, that immateriality is not peculiar to the soul of man; for we have reason to believe that the inferior animals are actuated by an immaterial principle. This is as certain as analogy can make it: but though we allow a spiritual principle to animals, its kind is obviously inferior; for that spirit which is incapable of induction and moral knowledge, must be of an inferior order to the spirit which possesses these capabilities; and this is the kind of spirit which is peculiar to man.
The sentiment expressed in Wis 2:23, is an evidence that, in the opinion of the ancient Jews, the image of God in man comprised immortality also. For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity: and though other creatures were made capable of immortality, and at least the material human frame, whatever we may think of the case of animals, would have escaped death, had not sin entered the world; yet, without admitting the absurdity of the natural immortality of the human soul, that essence must have been constituted immortal in a high and peculiar sense which has ever retained its prerogative of continued duration amidst the universal death not only of animals, but of the bodies of all human beings. There appears also a manifest allusion to man’s immortality, as being included in the image of God, in the reason which is given in Genesis for the law which inflicts death on murderers: Whose sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his, blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. The essence of the crime of homicide is not confined here to the putting to death the mere animal part of man; and it must, therefore, lie in the peculiar value of life to an immortal being, accountable in another state for the actions done in this, and whose life ought to be specially guarded for this very reason, that death introduces him into changeless and eternal relations, which were not to be left to the mercy of human passions.
To these we are to add the intellectual powers, and we have what divines, in perfect accordance with the Scriptures, have called, the NATURAL image of God in his creatures, which is essential and ineffaceable. Man was made capable of knowledge, and he was endowed with liberty of will. This natural image of God was the foundation of that MORAL image by which also man was distinguished. Unless he had been a spiritual, knowing, and willing being, he would have been wholly incapable of moral qualities. That he had such qualities eminently, and that in them consisted the image of God, as well as in the natural attributes just stated, we have also the express testimony of Scripture: Lo this only have I found, that God made man UPRIGHT; but they have sought out many inventions. There is also an express allusion to the moral image of God, in which man was at first created, in Col 3:10 : And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge, after the image of Him that created him; and in Eph 4:24 : Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. In these passages the Apostle represents the change produced in true Christians by the Gospel, as a renewal of the image of God in man; as a new or second creation in that image; and he explicitly declares, that that image consists in knowledge, in righteousness, and in true holiness.
This also may be finally argued from the satisfaction with which the historian of the creation represents the Creator as viewing the works of his hands as very good, which was pronounced with reference to each of them individually, as well as to the whole: And God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good. But, as to man, this goodness must necessarily imply moral as well as physical qualities. Without them he would have been imperfect as man; and had they, in their first exercises, been perverted and sinful, he must have been an exception, and could not have been pronounced very good. The goodness of man, as a rational being, must lie in devotedness and consecration to God; consequently, man was at first holy. A rational creature, as such, is capable of knowing, loving, serving, and living in communion with the Most Holy One. Adam, at first, did or did not exert this capacity; if he did not, he was not very good,not good at all.
4. On the intellectual and moral endowments of the progenitor of the human race, erring views appear to have been taken on both sides.
In knowledge, some have thought him little inferior to the angels; others, as furnished with but the simple elements of science and of language. The truth seems to be that, as to capacity, his intellect must have been vigorous beyond that of any of his fallen descendants; which itself gives us very high views of the strength of his understanding, although we should allow him to have been created lower than the angels. As to his actual knowledge, that would depend upon the time and opportunity he had for observing the nature and laws of the objects around him; and the degree in which he was favoured with revelations from God on moral and religious subjects.
On the degree of moral excellence also in the first man, much license has been given to a warm imagination, and to rhetorical embellishment; and Adam’s perfection has sometimes been fixed at an elevation which renders it exceedingly difficult to conceive how he could fall into sin at all. On the other hand, those who either deny or hold very slightly the doctrine of our hereditary depravity, delight to represent Adam as little superior in moral perfection and capability to his descendants. But, if we attend to the passages of holy writ above quoted, we shall be able, on this subject, to ascertain, if not the exact degree of his moral endowments, yet that there is a certain standard below which they cannot be placed.Generally, he was made in the image of God, which, we have already proved, is to be understood morally as well as naturally. Now, however the image of any thing may be limited in extent, it must still be an accurate representation as far as it goes. Every thing good in the creation must always be a miniature representation of the excellence of the Creator; but, in this case, the goodness, that is, the perfection, of every creature, according to the part it was designed to act in the general assemblage of beings collected into our system, wholly forbids us to suppose that the image of God’s moral perfections in man was a blurred and dim representation. To whatever extent it went, it necessarily excluded all that from man which did not resemble God; it was a likeness to God in righteousness and true holiness, whatever the degree of each might be, and excluded all admixture of unrighteousness and unholiness. Man, therefore, in his original state, was sinless, both in act and in principle. Hence it is said that God made man UPRIGHT. That this signifies moral rectitude cannot be doubted; but the import of the word is very extensive. It expresses, by an easy figure, the exactness of truth, justice, and obedience; and it comprehends the state and habit both of the heart and the life. Such, then, was the condition of primitive man; there was no obliquity in his moral principles, his mind, or affections; none in his conduct. He was perfectly sincere and exactly just, rendering from the heart all that was due to God and to the creature. Tried by the exactest plummet, he was upright; by the most perfect rule, he was straight. The knowledge in which the Apostle Paul, in the passage quoted above from Col 3:10, places the image of God after which man was created, does not merely imply the faculty of understanding, which is a part of the natural image of God; but that which might be lost, because it is that in which we may be renewed. It is, therefore, to be understood of the faculty of knowledge in right exercise; and of that willing reception, and firm retaining, and hearty approval, of religious truth, in which knowledge, when spoken of morally, is always understood in the Scriptures. We may not be disposed to allow, with some, that Adam understood the deep philosophy of nature, and could comprehend and explain the sublime mysteries of religion. The circumstance of his giving names to the animals, is certainly no sufficient proof of his having attained to a philosophical acquaintance with their qualities and distinguishing habits, although we should allow their names to be still retained in the Hebrew, and to be as expressive of their peculiarities as some expositors have stated. Sufficient time appears not to have been afforded him for the study of the properties of animals, as this event took place previous to the formation of Eve; and as for the notion of his acquiring knowledge by intuition, this is contradicted by the revealed fact that angels themselves acquire their knowledge by observation and study, though no doubt, with great rapidity and certainty. The whole of this transaction was supernatural; the beasts were brought to Adam, and it is probable that he named them under a Divine suggestion. He has been also supposed to be the inventor of language, but his history shows that he was never without speech. From the first he was able to converse with God; and we may, therefore, infer that language was in him a supernatural and miraculous endowment. That his understanding was, as to its capacity, deep and large beyond any of his posterity, must follow from the perfection in which he was created; and his acquisitions of knowledge would, therefore, be rapid and easy. It was, however, in moral and religious truth, as being of the first concern to him, that we are to suppose the excellency of his knowledge to have consisted. His reason would be clear, his judgment uncorrupted, and his conscience upright and sensible. The best knowledge would, in him, be placed first, and that of every other kind be made subservient to it, according to its relation to that. The Apostle adds to knowledge, righteousness and true holiness; terms which express, not merely freedom from sin, but positive and active virtue.
Sober as these views of man’s primitive state are, it is not, perhaps, possible for us fully to conceive of so exalted a condition as even this. Below this standard it could not fall; and that it implied a glory, and dignity, and moral greatness of a very exalted kind, is made sufficiently apparent from the degree of guilt charged upon Adam when he fell: for the aggravating circumstances of his offence may well be deduced from the tremendous consequences which followed.
5. The salvation of Adam has been disputed; for what reason does not appear, except that the silence of Scripture, as to his after life, has given bold men occasion to obtrude their speculations upon a subject which called for no such expression of opinion. As nothing to the contrary appears, the charitable inference is, that as he was the first to receive the promise of redemption, so he was the first to prove its virtue. It is another presumption, that as Adam and Eve were clothed with skins of beasts, which could not have been slain for food, these were the skins of their sacrifices; and as the offering of animal sacrifice was an expression of faith in the appointed propitiation, to that refuge we may conclude they resorted, and through its merits were accepted.
6. The Rabbinical and Mohammedan traditions and fables respecting the first man are as absurd as they are numerous. Some of them indeed are monstrous, unless we suppose them to be allegories in the exaggerated style of the orientals. Some say that he was nine hundred cubits high; whilst others, not satisfied with this, affirm that his head touched the heavens. The Jews think that he wrote the ninety-first Psalm, invented the Hebrew letters, and composed several treatises; the Arabians, that he preserved twenty books which fell from heaven; and the Musselmen, that he himself wrote ten volumes.
7. That Adam was a type of Christ, is plainly affirmed by St. Paul, who calls him the figure of him who was to come. Hence our Lord is sometimes called, not inaptly, the Second Adam. This typical relation stands sometimes in SIMILITUDE, sometimes in CONTRAST. Adam was formed immediately by God, as was the humanity of Christ. In each the nature was spotless, and richly endowed with knowledge and true holiness. Both are seen invested with dominion over the earth and all its creatures; and this may explain the eighth Psalm, where David seems to make the sovereignty of the first man over the whole earth in its pristine glory, the prophetic symbol of the dominion of Christ over the world restored. Beyond these particulars fancy must not carry us; and the typical CONTRAST must also be limited to that which is stated in Scripture, or supported by its allusions. Adam and Christ were each a public person, a federal head to the whole race of mankind; but the one was the fountain of sin and death, the other of righteousness and life. By Adam’s transgression many were made sinners, Rom 5:14-19. Through him, death passed upon all men, because all have sinned in him. But he thus prefigured that one man, by whose righteousness the free gift comes upon all men to justification of life. The first man communicated a living soul to all his posterity; the other is a quickening Spirit, to restore them to newness of life now, and to raise them up at the last day. By the imputation of the first Adam’s sin, and the communication of his fallen, depraved nature, death reigned over those who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression; and through the righteousness of the Second Adam, and the communication of a divine nature by the Holy Spirit, favour and grace shall much more abound in Christ’s true followers unto eternal life. See REDEMPTION.
Fuente: Biblical and Theological Dictionary
Adam
Gen 5:2 (c) This man is a type of CHRIST in that he was the head of the human family, and
CHRIST is the head of GOD’s family.
Adam was sinless in the first part of his life, and then deliberately and knowingly became a partner in Eve’s sin in order that he might be with her, partake of her punishment, and continue to have her for his very own.
So our Lord JESUS was sinless and perfect.
– He willingly and knowingly took upon Himself the form of a servant,
– and was made sin for us that He might forever have us with Him. (See 1Ti 2:14). As by the sin of Adam all who are in Adam were made sinners, so by the obedience of CHRIST all who are in CHRIST are made righteous (Rom 5:18).
Rom 5:19 (b) Adam was the first of the earthly family and CHRIST is the first of the heavenly family. Our bodies are in the likeness of Adam, and in the new creation we shall be like CHRIST, the last Adam.