Adam is Israel

by Christ Alone 11 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Christ Alone

  I've recently been informed about the belief that the Genesis account of Adam is not speaking about the literal first man and woman, but a metaphorical retelling about the beginning of the nation of Israel.

  One of the proofs that they use is when Cain kills Abel and is forced to leave. He is concerned about a posse coming after him to avenge Abel's death. Since there were only a few children of Adam and Eve at this time, who would he have been afraid of? So God puts a mark on Cain and exiles him to Nod, a populated city to the east. There he takes a wife and they have a child, Enoch, and Cain proceeds to build a city, named after his son, in which others can live.

  If the Adam story is about the first humans, the presence of other humans outside of Eden is out of place. We are quite justified in concluding that the Adam story is not about absolute human origins but the beginning of one smaller subset, one particular people.

  Has anyone else heard of this theory? It does attempt an answer to the problem of 6000 years of human history in the Bible and the dating of older cultures. It answers the gap between the Bible and evolution. I do see a lot of issues with this view, but it was a new POV that I'd never considered. Here's a link to a detailed article about it on biologos:

  http://biologos.org/uploads/projects/enns_adam_white_paper.pdf
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  Christ Alone

  Here is an interesting video about Israel's history and it's parallels in Genesis:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffWo7nzL66o&feature=youtu.be
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  glenster

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Israel#Pre-historic_Levant
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  Perry

  In Genesis 5:4 we read a statement that sums up the life of Adam and Eve: “After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters.”

  Millions of people would have been alive by then.

  During their lives, Adam and Eve had a number of male and female children. In fact, the Jewish historian Josephus wrote, “The number of Adam’s children, as says the old tradition, was thirty-three sons and twenty-three daughters.”7

  Scripture doesn’t tell us how many children were born to Adam and Eve, but considering their long life spans (Adam lived for 930 years—Genesis 5:5), it would seem logical to suggest there were many. Remember, they were commanded to “be fruitful, and multiply” (Genesis 1:28).

  The Wife

  If we now work totally from Scripture, without any personal prejudices or other extrabiblical ideas, then back at the beginning, when there was only the first generation, brothers would have had to marry sisters or there wouldn’t have been any more generations!

  We’re not told when Cain married or many of the details of other marriages and children, but we can say for certain that Cain’s wife was either his sister or a close relative.

  A closer look at the Hebrew word for “wife” in Genesis reveals something readers may miss in translation. It was more obvious to those speaking Hebrew that Cain’s wife was likely his sister. (There is a slim possibility that she was his niece, but either way, a brother and sister would have married in the beginning.) The Hebrew word for “wife” used in Genesis 4:17 (the first mention of Cain’s wife) is ishshah, and it means “woman/wife/female.”

  And Cain knew his wife [ishshah], and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son—Enoch (Genesis 4:17).

  The word ishshah is the word for “woman,” and it means “from man.” It is a derivation of the Hebrew words ‘iysh (pronounced: eesh) and enowsh, which both mean “man.” This can be seen in Genesis 2:23 where the name “woman” (ishshah) is given to one who came from Adam.

  And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman [ishshah], because she was taken out of Man [iysh]” (Genesis 2:23).

  Thus, Cain’s wife is a descendant of Adam/man. Therefore, she had to be his sister (or possibly niece). Hebrew readers should be able to make this connection easier; however, much is lost when translated.

  MORE
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  Christ Alone

  Yes, but then how do you answer the discoveries of remains of bones and cultures that are clearly over 6000 years old? At least this view allows for that.
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  Christ Alone

  Yes, but then how do you answer the discoveries of remains of bones and cultures that are clearly over 6000 years old? At least this view allows for that.
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  Perry

  According to evolutionists, Stone Age man existed for 100,000 years before beginning to make written records about 4,000-5,000 years ago. Prehistoric man built megalithic monuments, made beautiful cave paintings, and kept records of lunar phases. (23) Why would he wait a thousand centuries before using the same skills to record history? The biblical time-scale is much more likely. (22)

  1. Marshak, A., 'Exploring the mind of Ice Age man', National Geographic 147 (January 1975), pp. 64-89.
  2. Dritt, J.O., 'Man's earliest beginnings: discrepancies in the evolutionary timetable', Proc. 2nd Internat. Conf. on Creationism, Vol. I., Creation Science Fellowship (1990), pp. 73-78, address in ref. 12.
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  kurtbethel

  The religious explanation of this story is found wanting.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww75UH2Io74
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  designs

  Perry one of these days you seriously need to sit down with a local Rabbi.
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  PSacramento

  The notion of Adam as Israel came about from the Patristic fathers using allegory as one of their interpretating tools.

  In the traition of the Jewish rabbis that interpreted ancient text to deal with current issues ansd events, the patristic fathers did soemthing alone the same lines (not identical though).

  They viewed every passage as having multiple meanings: Literal ( what the text means in the literal sense ie: to who it was written for and by whom), theological, historical and allegory ( what th text CAN mean in a symbolic sense for future and current beleivers).

  The Two Genesis stories come at creation from two points: the GENERAL view of creation ( Genesis 1) and the Specific view in which Man is thecentral theme AND ( and this is important) what takes place in the Garden of Eden.