Some participants on this board cite Romans 5 as proof that there was an Adam who brought sin to all of Humanity - - if not to the whole Cosmos!
Here are the relevant lines:
Romans 5:11-14:
And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin;
and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
So is Paul really arguing that if Adam hadn’t sinned, the rest of humanity would have been spared? It seems disputable. Certainly the ambiguities of what he writes explains why the doctrine of The Fall (as opposed to Original Sin) was not articulated until a few centuries the Bible was written . . . . and why The Fall is NOT a doctrine that all branches of Christianity agree to. The Orthodox churches, no insignificant fraction of the world’s faithful, don’t agree to the doctrine.
What if Paul was merely making dramatic rhetoric about Adam’s role - - not as the CAUSE of humanity’s sinfulness, but as the EXEMPLAR who first DEMONSTRATED the sinfulness of Humanity. As Paul says:
“…death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned…”
Creationists love to attribute the sinful nature of humanity as a TAINT … a CORRUPTION we received from Adam. But does that even make sense? Did Adam’s disobedience CORRUPT his chromosomes … and thereby passed it on as a genetic trait to the rest of his descendants?
Or did Adam’s disobedience create a PSYCHIC corruption … which mentally was passed on to each new generation … from the psychic engrams of the parents to the psychic engrams of the children?
The ideas above are WORD MAGIC. They aren’t plausible… especially when we find a MORE plausible explanation.
Adam’s disobedience was the PROOF to God that Humanity was sinful. And thus he evicted humanity from access to the Tree of Life.
He specifically WORRIED that if Adam, even as a sinner, ate from the Tree of Life, he would become immortal and like the Elohim. Was there anything about Adam’s “fall” that would keep him from eating from the Tree of Life? Apparently not … because God even had to equip Eden with a flaming sword … to make sure it didn’t happen.
So… setting aside a re-planting of the Tree of Life, what is the CURE, the RENOVATION of Humanity, that will bring all humans Perfection or Eternal Life with the Father?
WHY was Jesus necessary? To ritually wipe us clean of sin … and to prepare the way for the General Resurrection, when we are LITERALLY made incapable of sin.
THAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE BIRTH - - AND DEATH - - OF JESUS