Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? Does It Matter?
I will never forget the first time my faith was challenged intellectually. A question was asked about the literal existence of Adam and Eve, with the implication that if you still believe that they existed historically, and that the Garden of Eden was an actual geographical place, then you are just not that smart. The reasoning went something like this: "Much like the fairy tales parents tell to their children, the creation story in the Bible is not meant to be taken literally. It's a beautiful myth that can teach us many valuable lessons about right and wrong, human nature, and how we relate to God. Only children and 'fundies' (fundamentalists) would believe Adam and Eve actually existed!"
Growing up in church and studying the Bible, I can honestly say that this thought had never occurred to me. Never once did I read the Genesis account of creation and pick up even the faintest hint of allegory. Was I foolish to believe it was historically true?
Before we can explore this question theologically, we need to discover if the Bible communicates this story as history or allegory. Then we need to consider how the answer to that question impacts our faith, if at all.
Does how the Bible relates the story of Adam and Eve communicate whether they really existed?
In Hebrew, “Adam” is a proper name, but it’s also a general term that refers to all humankind. “Eve” and “Eden” are also proper names, but can signify the concepts of “life” and “pleasure” respectively. All three names have symbolic significance in Hebrew. Grammatically, there seems to be some evidence that “Adam” may not even be used as a personal name until Genesis 4:25.
(1)
Because of the symbolic quality of these names, some conclude that the events described in Genesis 1-4 are not historical, but are allegorical accounts of human origins that describe the effect of sin and evil on humanity.
I see three main problems with this view:
First, just as
English poetry has a certain style and unique characteristics such as rhyme and meter, ancient Hebrew poetry has specific characteristics such as parallelism and rhythmic patterns. Distinguished Hebrew scholar Edward J. Young notes that Genesis 1 lacks two-line parallelism, a major characteristic of Hebrew poetry. Although the story is told in a poetic way, the Genesis account mainly exhibits the characteristics of narrative prose, which describes a series of events. (2)
Second, Old Testament genealogies treat Adam as a literal person, giving his exact age when his son Seth is born and his exact age when he dies. These genealogies also link Adam directly to Noah, and all the way to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. All of these figures are treated as actual historical people in the Old Testament narratives.
Third, Adam is referred to as a literal person in several places in the New Testament. Luke 3:23-38 traces Jesus’ ancestry all the way back to Adam. Paul refers to Adam as historical in 1 Timothy 2:13-14 and Jude does as well in Jude 1:14. In Acts 17:26, Luke writes that God made the nations of men from one man. Jesus Himself alludes to Adam and Eve as literal people in the gospels of Matthew and Mark, (3) and in Matthew 23:35, Jesus refers to the literal murder of Abel, Adam and Eve's son.
It's clear from the Biblical texts that the genre for the Genesis account is historical narrative, and that writers in both the Old and New Testaments depicted Adam and Eve as historical figures.
Does it matter if Adam and Eve really existed?
When I began teaching apologetics, a bright teenaged boy asked, “What would it mean for salvation if Adam and Eve never existed?”
This is the key question.
In Romans 5:12-17, the Apostle Paul explains that sin entered the world through one man, Adam. He then connects this directly to salvation coming through one man, Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 15:22 and 45 he communicates that death came through the “first Adam,” and life has come through the “last Adam.”
It is not difficult to recognize that something is wrong with the world, and specifically, with humans. We are fallen. The Bible teaches that sin entered the world because of Adam's choice to disobey God, and that we inherited that “sin nature” from Adam.
(4) If sin didn’t enter the world at a specific moment in history, the only explanation for our fallenness would be that we were all created in a sinful state, and therefore could not be held accountable for our sin. If we are not accountable for our sin, we don’t need a Savior. The truth of a literal Adam speaks to the core truths of the gospel itself. We are guilty, and we need a Savior.
`
Richard B. Gaffin Jr. wrote,
The truth of the gospel stands or falls with the historicity of Adam as the first human being
from whom all other human beings descend. What Scripture affirms about creation,
especially the origin of humanity, is central to its teaching about salvation. (5)
The Bible teaches that Adam and Eve literally existed and that their existence matters. In fact, the gospel depends on it.
(1) Bill T. Arnold, Encountering Genesis, p. 33
(2) John C. Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary and Theological Commentary, 43
(3) Matthew 19:4-6; Mark 10:6-9
(4) Psalm 51:5; Psalm 58:3; Romans 5:19; 1 Corinthians 15:22;
Romans 5:12-21
(5) Richard B. Gaffin Jr., No Adam, No Gospel, p. 5
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TheShadowKnows
2/8/2017 03:28:37 am
Good write up.
My questionson are as follows:
How do you reconcile historical Adam and Eves with population genetics evidence which states that the human population could have never been below several thousand?
Who did Adam & Eve's children mate with? Where did the people whose land the children went to come from?
The archeological and mitochondrial evidence also point to humans originating in Africa and mitochondrial Eve being an African woman. How does this comport with the claim that humanity's original residence was between the Tigris and Euphrates river?
Thanks again for this article.
Alisa Childers
2/8/2017 02:59:08 pm
Hi, thanks for your comments and questions. I have some thoughts, so I'll address each one in turn.
1. The population genetics evidence you are referring to are estimations that largely depend on an evolutionary paradigm, but these theories have not been validated. These models also don't adequately take into account variables like migration, population structure, selective mating etc.. which makes it difficult to make dogmatic claims about initial population size. I think that given the lack of hard evidence, there is no reason to question the existence of a literal Adam and Eve.
2. Adam and Eve's children would have mated with each other. Laws prohibiting marriage between siblings weren't instituted until many generations later in the book of Leviticus. In the beginning, there was likely enough genetic purity to prevent the birth defects that result from such marriages. In regard to the land their children went to, I assume you are referring to the people Cain was protected from when he was marked and sent away? I can only speculate, but given the biblical evidence, I think it's reasonable to assume that given the long life-spans recorded in Genesis 5, there could have been a substantial population by this time, so these would have also been Cain's relatives.
3. Yes I agree that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the "Out of Africa" theory, and this actually harmonizes with the biblical account. The location of the original Eden is one that is debated. Some think it's isolated to Mesopotamia, others think it stretches from Mesopotamia and into Africa. (The Gihon river described in Genesis 2 flows out of Cush, which is most likely modern day Ethiopia. During the end of the last ice age the Red Sea was mostly dry, so Cush would have extended to the southwest tip of the modern day Arabian Peninsula.) But even if Eden was isolated to Mesopotamia, it still doesn't challenge the biblical narrative. Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden because of their sin, so biblically speaking, humanity's population growth would have happened outside the garden of Eden anyway.
These observations are certainly not exhaustive, and the purpose of my original post was to come at the question from a merely theological standpoint. But I'd love to tackle the same topic from a scientific standpoint in a future blog post. Thanks so much for your questions. Stay tuned for a more comprehensive answer on the blog….
TheShadowKnows
2/11/2017 01:42:31 pm
Thanks so much for answering the question. (I tried to post earlier but it doesn't seem as if it went through.)
I have been wondering about this and am seeking the guidance from the Holy Spirit about how to reconcile scripture with what God reveals to us through science.
I look forward to the blog on this issue.
Alisa Childers
2/11/2017 01:54:52 pm
So glad you found it helpful! I recommend www.reasons.org for questions about reconciling faith and science. They have an interesting creation model, and affirm biblical inerrancy and authority. Hugh Ross heads it up—a brilliant astrophysicist who loves Jesus. Thanks again!
barry
4/24/2017 02:54:37 pm
"Growing up in church and studying the Bible, I can honestly say that this thought had never occurred to me. Never once did I read the Genesis account of creation and pick up even the faintest hint of allegory. Was I foolish to believe it was historically true? "
———Barry: but when you read non-biblical stories which mentioned talking reptiles in the ancient past, did you pick up a hint that these stories were allegory?
"Before we can explore this question theologically, we need to discover if the Bible communicates this story as history or allegory."
———Barry: on the contrary, because biblical inerrancy is denied by most Christian scholars and has nowhere near the universal acclaim that other interpretation-tools such as "grammar" and "context" have, I have full rational justification to refuse to exalt it in my mind to the status of governing hermeneutic, and will need something more than "your interpretation disagrees with something else in the bible!" before I can be morally obligated to start worrying that my interpretation is false.
"Second, Old Testament genealogies treat Adam as a literal person, giving his exact age when his son Seth is born and his exact age when he dies."
——-Barry: Nobody exempted Judaism from the possibility of theological evolution.
"It is not difficult to recognize that something is wrong with the world, and specifically, with humans. We are fallen. The Bible teaches that sin entered the world because of Adam's choice to disobey God, and that we inherited that “sin nature” from Adam."
————Barry: plenty of Christians and most Jews deny the doctrine of original sin.
"Richard B. Gaffin Jr. wrote, The truth of the gospel stands or falls with the historicity of Adam as the first human being from whom all other human beings descend."
————Barry: and talking reptiles/animals remain a major archetype of fable. Since the credibility of Jesus and the apostles can be easily impeached, in numerous grounds, their views on Genesis 3 are something less than binding.
Anthony Barber
9/9/2018 04:59:58 pm
Barry, the burden of proof is on you if you claim that the credibility of Jesus and the apostles can be "easily impeached on numerous grounds."
Fatcat
4/26/2017 03:43:22 pm
Fuz Rana posted on this today too. http://www.reasons.org/blogs/the-cells-design/conservation-biology-studies-elicit-doubts-about-the-first-human-population-size
Alisa Childers
4/26/2017 04:06:00 pm
Great article—thanks for sharing!
A while ago I had asked about the possibility of addressing BioLogos primarily because of their attack on the historicity of the early chapters of Genesis including the dismissal of Adam as a real person. InterVarsity Press publishes a number of BioLogos books including Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One. This is just the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg as BioLogos has gained great traction in recent years. https://biologos.org/articles/was-adam-a-real-person
The historicity of Adam is crucial even in salvation. Original sin entered through him and so all are guilty. Jesus did not have a human father, so he did not inherit original sin. His Father was God Himself, so He could lead a sinless life and become the second Adam, through whom we could be adopted and become fellow heirs with Him.
Leonard
12/28/2021 05:30:40 am
You don't need to adhere to Original sin in order to defend the historicity of Adam & Eve. There are many other reasons why a biblically faithful christian should/would defend their historicity.
I like many other Christians don't find any biblical basis for the Augustinian view of Original sin and as such, aren't committed to defending it.
Jessica Starks
8/24/2020 12:05:07 am
Thank you so much for this article. If I may, I do have a few questions that I am stuck on:
"Although the story is told in a poetic way, the Genesis account mainly exhibits the characteristics of narrative prose, which describes a series of events." If it is not poetry, then how do we reconcile the out-of-order creation events of Chapters 1 and 2?
"The Bible teaches that sin entered the world because of Adam's choice to disobey God, and that we inherited that “sin nature” from Adam. If sin didn’t enter the world at a specific moment in history, the only explanation for our fallenness would be that we were all created in a sinful state, and therefore could not be held accountable for our sin."
I need help understanding this logic. Would this then point to Adam being created in sinful state?
Why would we have to inherit Adam's sin nature, why couldn't we all have the same choice to sin or not sin, as Adam had?
I appreciate your ministry, I look forward to your response.
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