Adam. Man or Myth?

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Has anyone got any thoughts as to wethere Adam was a real person or not. Here’s a starting point.

People seem to trust the OT less in terms of how litteral it is or how true (this irritates me), so i’ll start in the NT. Both Matthew and Luke’s gospels contain geneologies of Jesus. We get as far back as Abraham and no-one doubts that any of those people actually excisted. But after that ( and like wise before genesis 11) many people decide…actually it can’t be proved historically/archeologically/scientificaly so i won’t believe it. Is this any reason to disbelieve the bible, understanding that it is the pure inspiried word of God? (2 tim 3:16, 2 peter 1:20, Pro 30:5)

This isn’t the only place in the NT in which scripture refers to Adam like he was a real person. Romans 5 speaks of how jesus had to come to erase adams error. If Adam wasn’t real does that mean jesus wasn’t real either? Or if Adam is metaphorical is Jesus metaphorical? if Adam is only a spiritual truth is Jesus only a spiritual truth? I know Jesus was a flesh and Blood man, and scripture leads me to believe that Adam was the same. Any thoughts anyone???👍
 
Jez4 said:
Has anyone got any thoughts as to wethere Adam was a real person or not. Here’s a starting point.

People seem to trust the OT less in terms of how litteral it is or how true (this irritates me), so i’ll start in the NT. Both Matthew and Luke’s gospels contain geneologies of Jesus. We get as far back as Abraham and no-one doubts that any of those people actually excisted. But after that ( and like wise before genesis 11) many people decide…actually it can’t be proved historically/archeologically/scientificaly so i won’t believe it. Is this any reason to disbelieve the bible, understanding that it is the pure inspiried word of God? (2 tim 3:16, 2 peter 1:20, Pro 30:5)

This isn’t the only place in the NT in which scripture refers to Adam like he was a real person. Romans 5 speaks of how jesus had to come to erase adams error. If Adam wasn’t real does that mean jesus wasn’t real either? Or if Adam is metaphorical is Jesus metaphorical? if Adam is only a spiritual truth is Jesus only a spiritual truth? I know Jesus was a flesh and Blood man, and scripture leads me to believe that Adam was the same. Any thoughts anyone???👍
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In the Encyclical “Humani Generis” we are taught by the Church that the human race began with one man and one woman. (Adam and Eve). Many gloss over this teaching.
 
Hi Gez,

There is lots of room for interpretation in Genesis, but not on this. We are all descended from one man and one woman. Whether they were actually called Adam and Eve is a non-issue.

Verbum
 
The church teaches that we are all descended from one man and one woman. The stories concerning Adam and Eve in Genesis are myths - imaginative stories which explore a reality beyond the writer’s comprehension.
 
Adam and Eve: Real People

It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).

The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The *Catechism *states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).
 
patg said:
The church teaches that we are all descended from one man and one woman. The stories concerning Adam and Eve in Genesis are myths - imaginative stories which explore a reality beyond the writer’s comprehension.
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Myths are not necessary fictional.
 
I had a question a lot like this a while ago. I don’t think it’s still up though. Ah, here it is…

Original Sin, the basis for Christianity?
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=109061&highlight=hubriss
There is lots of room for interpretation in Genesis, but not on this. We are all descended from one man and one woman. Whether they were actually called Adam and Eve is a non-issue.
Click to expand...
-Verbum
The church teaches that we are all descended from one man and one woman. The stories concerning Adam and Eve in Genesis are myths - imaginative stories which explore a reality beyond the writer’s comprehension.
Click to expand...
-Patg

The question is whether or not Adam and Eve were real people. The point isn’t that we are all descendants from two common ancestors. The issue is whether or not the story is true. The whole reason why the myth of Adam and Eve was made up was to create the story for original sin. And supposedly, the only reason Jesus came or ever existed was to provide a way out of original sin. So if the story of Adam and Eve isn’t even true in the first place, then there is no point for Jesus even coming to save us from something that didn’t exist in the first place.

All of Christianity relies on Adam and Eve being true and real, along with the entirity of their story.
 
patg said:
The church teaches that we are all descended from one man and one woman. The stories concerning Adam and Eve in Genesis are myths - imaginative stories which explore a reality beyond the writer’s comprehension.
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They are myths in that symbolic language was used (a serpent speaking to Eve to represent the temptation to disobedience by Satan).

Adam and Eve walked with God - they had the gift of sanctifying grace…but they fell from that grace.
 
Of course Adam & Eve were made up, there is not one shred of evidence to support their existence. There are, however, masses of evidence in museums throughout the world that supports evolution.

You can visit any museum to see and touch (where permissable) solid, tangible evidence of our ancestory. There is nothing outside the imagination of the authors of the bible to back up their claims of how we began.

How can you take seriously the story of Adam & Eve from a book that tells, as truth, the story of a man that single handedly built a boat the size of the titanic and housed all manner of animals in it, from the most harmless to the most dangerous.
 
I’ve brought this up before, but I think a more interesting question is when Adam/Eve would have lived. If you take the Bible literally, you must place them at the time when there was sophisticated musical instruments (harp and flute), metal tools, animal and plant domestication, and cities. These things don’t show up in the archaeological record until about 4000 or 5000 B.C. If you place Adam/Eve when Genesis says they lived, there were plenty of people around at this time, so they definitely weren’t the first humans on the scene.

From my article Adam, Eve, and the Hominid Fossil Record

Genesis sets Adam and his immediate descendants in a much more recent farming culture. This farming family already possessed a relatively advanced culture including animal and plant domestication. Cain worked the soil and offered to God his fruits of the field. Abel offered the fat parts of the firstborn and of his flock of sheep (Gen 4:2-4, 20). Archeologists trace the beginnings of plant cultivation to 7,500 to 7,000 B.C. with domestication of cattle and sheep appearing soon after. When Cain left home, he built a “city” (Gen 4:17). However, no cities or even villages appear in the archaeological record until about 9,000 B.C. There are also references to sophisticated musical instruments and iron tools (Genesis 4:21-22).

As a solution, the above article places the literal Adam/Eve with human souls around 40000-50000 B.C., rather than the time the author wrote they lived.

Glenn Morton in his book places them millions of years ago since he argues man had “spirit” (religion) much earlier than that.

Dick Fischer in an article (and part 2) for ASA argues they were placed (created) in the timeline when Genesis says they were.

John Paul II wrote on the "myths" of Genesis (and the JEPD authorship ideas which he seems to accept) in his Theology of the Body early in his pontificate.

“A reflection in depth on this text – through the whole archaic form of the narrative, which manifests its primitive mythical character [and see footnote #1] – provides us in nucleo with nearly all the elements of the analysis of man, to which modern, and especially contemporary philosophical anthropology is sensitive.” (John Paul II, “The Second Account of Creation: the Subjective Definition of Man,” Sept 19, 1979, published in the Vatican Newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Sept 24, 1979)

Phil P
 
The words of Scripture are the words or translations of words used by human authors to convey the Word(truths) which God wished us to hear or read. The authors of the Scriptures were not like Mohamet to whom the Quran was dictated or like the founder of Mormonism who found it all written out on some golden tablets. The words of our Bible were not dictated to the human authors. The Bible is the inspired Word of God, not the words of God.
 
Adam. Man or Myth?

Why the either/or?

Why can’t it be both?
 
R_McGeddon said:
Of course Adam & Eve were made up, there is not one shred of evidence to support their existence. There are, however, masses of evidence in museums throughout the world that supports evolution.

You can visit any museum to see and touch (where permissable) solid, tangible evidence of our ancestory. There is nothing outside the imagination of the authors of the bible to back up their claims of how we began.

How can you take seriously the story of Adam & Eve from a book that tells, as truth, the story of a man that single handedly built a boat the size of the titanic and housed all manner of animals in it, from the most harmless to the most dangerous.
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You think that’s’ something? In addition to all of that, I also believe that a virgin gave birth to a child who, when he grew up, restored the sight to the blind, raised people from the dead, fed 5,000 with just a few fish, walked on water, was put to death on a cross and then ROSE from the dead on the third day.

With God, all things are possible. Seriously. 🙂
 
Look at it this way…the story of Adam and Eve happened…even if the names are not accurate…yet…regardless it did begin with an origiaal pair of humans. You see, sin entered the world through their act of disobedience and rebellion against God, therefore the natural consequences that have plagued us since…if there was no Adam and Eve or whatever you want to call them, then who is to blame for our fall from Grace? The only one left to blame would be God, and we all know that’s not true thus the story of creation and how we fell in “Adam”
P7
 
R_McGeddon said:
Of course Adam & Eve were made up, there is not one shred of evidence to support their existence. There are, however, masses of evidence in museums throughout the world that supports evolution.

.
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Adam is the name given to the first man. Eve the first women.

To deny the account is to deny the truth of the knowledge God handed down to Moses.

Science has also reinforced that we have all descended form one woman.

The Bible also gets it right where it points out that life reproduces according to its “kind” verified by DNA evidence.

Pick up Noah on another thread.
 
R_McGeddon said:
the story of a man that single handedly built a boat the size of the titanic and housed all manner of animals in it, from the most harmless to the most dangerous.
Click to expand...
He didnt build the boat single handedly. Peace
 
carol_marie said:
You think that’s’ something? In addition to all of that, I also believe that a virgin gave birth to a child who, when he grew up, restored the sight to the blind, raised people from the dead, fed 5,000 with just a few fish, walked on water, was put to death on a cross and then ROSE from the dead on the third day.

With God, all things are possible. Seriously. 🙂
Click to expand...
Yes and I believe that a tooth fairy comes along, takes children’s teeth and leaves money behind. I also believe that there are elves and pixies. Not forgetting the Loch Ness monster, bigfoot and the abominable snowman. Not to mention there are the unicorns, the Hobbits from Middle Earth, Merlin the wizard and finally Pinocchio the wooden puppet that became a real boy.

With a vivid imagination…
 
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