The Second Adam: Choosing vs. Refurbishment vs. De Novo

Conversation
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Well you are the expert there :slight_smile:. Conversation with @jack.collins is a big part of what led me here.

If we remember the original context of either retaining true identity during exile, and recovering identity after slavery, this seems to make sense. It is supports a notion that they were looking for a return to the garden in the promised Land.

Though maybe I am just crazy here. Perhaps you will talk me out of it. Though the timing of Genesis and the rise of Civilization does merit contemplation. I suppose that is the one of the big question this returns us to.

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Why would you conceive of a “refurbishment” rather than a “refinement” as regards the given inception of the imago Dei? You don’t think God “poofed” Adam into existence out of thin air; do you see Him as, necessarily, picking up a handful of dust, and --“voila!”? All this is avoided in a pre-Adam imago Dei view, which derives naturally from a sequential reading. It affirms monogenism, too. It is not identical with structuralism, but in addition to it.

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Catching up with this thread across time-zones, so replies may end up duplicating others.

In terms of covenants, that with Abraham is God’s first announcement of a global salvation project. Noah simply preserves (sinful) life from de-creation, doing nothing to extend God’s glory, though achieving stability.

But the elements in the promise to Abraham echo those of the beginning (land, people, blessing). He is promised that he will achieve what Adam failed to do, and narratively his call marks the break from the “Old Testament of the Old Testament”, Gen 1-11. It is a “new thing”.

Next, this covenant with Abraham is expressly applied to Jesus by Paul, and also is used in Deuteronomy as the basis for that new covenant which will replace Moses’ own covenant, in the event of its inevitable failure.

So, turning to the time of Moses, we can see the call of Israel (by the Mosaic covenant) as the first culmination of the promise to Abraham, intended to bring blessing to the world and glory to God, but failing through unbelief, even as it begins.

But we can see the ministry of Jesus (by a new covenant, announced explicitly at the time of Israel’s exile) as being the successful fulfilment of the same Abrahamic promise in a new form.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Israel’s story (rather than Abraham’s) closely mirrors that of Adam of call, presence, failure through disobedience, ending, as we know, in exile. “Adam is Israel”, for better and worse.

And so the key salvific figures are Adam (:frowning_face:), Israel as a nation (Adam redividus :frowning_face:), and Jesus, who is both the new/last Adam and the true Israel :grin:.

The other covenant figures fit into that big scheme both historically and typologically: Noah’s covenant forms the stable world in which God’s long-game is played, and as a saviour-figure, including water, may be legitimately be compared to Christ.

Abraham’s covenant is the “master-plan” of salvation by grace through faith, and as exemplifying these Abraham is typologically the father of all believers, as well as the ancestor of both Israel and Jesus. But his own role in history is limited to being an initiator - he is not the new Adam, and neither are the individual patriarchs.

Israel the nation, as I have said, has the potential to remedy Adam’s failed mission to the world, but they break their covenant through unbelief. But still, they are represented as doing Adam’s work.

David’s covenant is, historically, a way to retrieve Israel’s mission, as the righteous king who restores his people to God. But prophetically and typologically, it primarily foretells Jesus as being a royal figure achieving that same role for all mankind. David’s personal mission is only to Israel - he is not a new Adam.

Opinions vary as to whether Adam’s own mission is covenantal - I would argue that it is, though for obvious historical reasons it lacks the “2nd millennium ANE covenant format”.

And lastly, the “eternal covenant” which the Reformers saw between the Father and the Son is the overarching plan encompassing all the other covenants, and all history. Conveniently that makes for a total of 7 biblical covenants, 3 of which (Adam, Moses, Jesus) are clear episodes in the salvation history, and/or (in the simplest arrangement) 2 of which represent the Fall (Adam) and God’s remedy (Abraham).

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Isn’t the revelation to Eve that her “seed” would crush the head of the serpent a covenantal type of promise? When God speaks, He announces His intention to act.

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Not sure this follows, Josh. “Refurbishment” is probably the most horrible theological term I’ve ever heard :grinning:, but I agree with you that there’s really little to choose between that concept and special creation. After all, in the literal account, Adam’s special creation is the refurbishment of dust. We are talking, perhaps, about the endowment of some new element of form on our first Adam (which we cannot define physically, though we might speculate conceptually on “God consciouness” or whatever), which is simply a lesser change than required for dust.

The net result, though, would be the same Adam whether created from dust or nothingness or created by such “refurbishment”:confounded:. In either case, we may see him as able to, even intended to, intermarry with those outside, and for his new endowments and spiritual handicaps to be communicable.

“Creation” has a wide range of application - though not as wide as seemed to be suggested by my recent thread at BioLogos, where it meant “efficient causation” for one poster. But at its heart “creation” seems to imply something new from God that was not inherent in the existing world. I don’t think that mere appointment and instruction would quite be covered by it, for God did not create Abraham, though he did create Israel, by dint of miraculous deliverance from Egypt and formation as a nation.

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Me too - it demands that Gen 1 be about Adam, leaving those outside the garden totally unwitnessed in the text, implying they are of no account. Denying God’s image to “non-Adamites” also makes men outside the garden (with, as far as we can see, advanced cultures including religious awareness) to be mere beasts, rather than a dignified pinnacle of creation for whom Adam might have a mission from God. And intermarriage then become mere bestiality, rather than something more nuanced.

That’s why this is NOT actually my view.

Nor this, if we’re talking about “refurbishment.” In my view the role of Adam is to glorify mankind, already existing as created in Gen 1 in the image and likeness of God, but not in covenant relationship to him.

That is at least in part biological (though don’t get me started on “natural causes”), in that it encompasses all we might see in ancient man - intelligence, culture (subduing the earth in a new way), and even the kind of spiritual awareness that natural theology untainted by sinful rebellion would produce - ie the worship of the Creator “afar off”, as exemplified by the “temple pattern” of Genesis 1, in which God is high above in heaven, and mankind upon earth. Mankind rules the earth under God in all the ways that the old scholastic definitions of man as “rational animal” could.

The image, then, is not unique to Adam, though as a man he bears it. His call starts a new episode, in which heaven and earth are to be brought together, and (if we speculate chrsitologically in terms of image) the one created after the image becomes intimately related to the Image.

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Yes Guy - one of the reasons both to see the call of Adam as covenantal, and to link him to the mission of Christ.

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I believe it has to be that “human” and “image” are synonymous, for “after the image” is the creational description of man. The argument must be rather whether references to man are entirely about Adam and his offspring, or whether he was one among many. If Adam were considered the first man, then the Garden and the mission, as such, are irrelevant: the image comes through creation from dust and/or inbreathing, before Adam opens his eyes on the world.

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Ken, here is a risky, but potentially fruitful, “biblial interpretation/science” interface. I would hesitate to see (as some have) the Genesis account as a critique of the neolithic revolution.

At the same time, Adam most naturally fits, taking a “historical core” approach, into a more or less identifiable people group around the start of “civilisation” though not the only one - the Indus valley culture appears to have arisen independently.

We can say that all the ills of civilisation begin to be seen from that time, ie that sin has corrupted civilisation. And it’s not too wild a speculation that God intended for Adam to civilise the world in a better way, bringing mankind to a righteous rule of the earth (at least - maybe also beyond).

That does not preclude entirely an earlier Adam (as Jack Collins says, the cultural details in Genesis could be anachronistic. But could we look for archaeological markers of the difference between “sin”, especially expressed in terms of violence, as in Gen 1-11, and our “non-Adamic man” doing what rational animals do naturally? I’d not pin too much on it at this stage, but there does seem to be very much less unequivocal evidence of interpersonal violence before the turn of the Neolithic.

I do take very seriously the importance of any overview we take matching the Bible’s metanarrative. It’s not a piece of archaeological evidence on which we contruct any theory that might fit, but God’s revelation through ancient writers, conceived for a purpose. That’s why much of my recent effort has been to suggest that any “Moses” must have known about people outside the garden, and that the universalist tone even in the proto-history has that in mind.

Israel was called from the start to bless the whole world, ergo Israel’s story begins with the whole world in mind. But that story’s main hint at the universal - the Table of Nations - excludes nations to the East (descended from the Indus valley culture) with which any conceivable author of Genesis would have known trade links. Ergo, “Moses” knows that the Table of Nations is incomplete, so he knows also that Adam’s direct line is not coterminous with the whole world.

And I’ll stop commenting now, because I’ve said more than enough!

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@guy_coe,

Who doesn’t believe in De novo Adam? The “poof” out of thin air (or out of dust!) is what i have EXPLICITLY signed up for …

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Thanks Jon for the lengthy reflections. Since I’ve kept up with The Hump most of this is familiar but it’s nice to have it synthesized together. I agree it is both risky and fruitful :slight_smile:

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George --the really odd thing is that you’d think that that “voila!” understanding is actually what the Hebrew presents or requires as an understanding. That it’s new is indisputable (every human birth is, in fact, a novelty), but that it’s instantaneously miraculous is in fact, NOT a requirement of the term. It emphasizes God’s agency to bring about something qualitatively novel, no matter how long it takes or whether something preexisting is used as a substrate.

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@jongarvey , @jack.collins , @deuteroKJ , is there anything to prevent us from seeing the “formed of dust” and “inbreathed as a living soul” comments from Genesis 2 as intending to “merely” situate Adam as in continuity with the imago Dei humanity from chapter 1, rather than a description of his immediate and instantative creation? That its literary intention is to clarify Adam’s continuity with chapter 1’s humanity and overall purposes, only to have God radically change His calling to Adam to “tend and to keep” the garden and enjoy the fruits of a non-hunter-gathering mandate? This is about God’s beginning lessons and provision for the dawn of staid civilizations from as early as the late Paleolithic, at least potentially and partially. And obviously about much more than that, as well. Why would that be at all “risky” to anything but some unnecessary elements of “traditional” (recent) overinterpreting?

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As far as I can tell, such cultural paradigm changes are at the heart of cultural artifacts like Gobeckli Tepe. At least some limited at-home agricultural finesse would have been required to enable a population from that early to have traveled to and congregated for the purpose of building and utilizing those structures, which I conceive of as a lot like churches/synagogues --places in which to worship, to learn cultural and personal values, to congregate as a penitent people, to enjoy unitive fellowship and social congress. The first “temple-university” structures.

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Which meaning of “human” are you using? It seems important to have at least one definition bound to Adams descendants so the claims of universality if the fall are satisfied.

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My own view is that it’s possible, firstly because Scrripture has other creatures described as returning to dust (references to man don’t count in this context, because “adamic man” is assumed). And all creatures have the breath of life from God (eg Ps 104).

Against it is the fact that none of this imagery is carried over from ch 1, so the context may require more.

Cf Richard Middleton’s comparison of the breath of God with Mesopotamian rituals to “divinise” divine images: that would suggest Adam is that kind of image, but then nothing like that has been said of the cereaytion of man in ch1.

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Josh

My own suggestion has been that the word “adam” is originally a specific name for “Adam’s line” (literally the people of the red soil, analogous to the “Black headed people” of Sumer), which for want of a better is subsequently generalised to all mankind, and hence to those created in ch 1, along these lines.

In the context of the conversation here, I’m saying that “those outside the garden” have their very origin as being after the image of God, and Adam is one such image-bearing human to whom value is added by the garden episode.

Though it’s linguistically more complex, it allows for the “image” to designate all that makes man the reflection of the Logos, be that physical or intellectual or in the sense of the head of the earthly creation. We don’t have to deny the humanity of (say) Mesolithic man before Adam, but we do allow Adam a specific new relationship with God, and a role beyond merely dominating the earth (a role messed up, of course).

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That works for me. Keep in mind then you are using “human” in different ways.

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Again, reflecting quickly and out loud (too much to do to give this too much time):

Not sure if this is relevant, but Collins finds the textual link in Gen 2:4, which points backwards and forwards. But, of course, Collins uses this for a non-sequential reading (but he’s at least open to an original tribe beyond the count of 2).

Heiser’s view is that Eden was the original meeting place of the divine council, with A&E potential members of the DC (harking back to your comment about the Serpent being jealous of A&E). Thus, the Fall is not just a casting out (exile) but a casting down (from the cosmic mountain). If correct, this fits with Middleton’s sense that A&E had a special relationship beyond that of the outside imagers.

The question of “transfer” of original sin persists…

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@swamidass, this might shore up some of my comments about your Dabar paper. Also, there are some (e.g., conservative Duane Garrett in Rethinking Genesis) who, on form-critical grounds, argue that Gen 1 was the last part to be added to the book. This would be consistent with Jon’s point.

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