Okay, for starters, I am new here though not new to what this site teaches. I am no student of the sciences, just a lowly couch theologian/philosopher so don’t expect anything short of laymen terms and simple to follow ideas. I have some musings on Adam and Eve I would like read, considered and even torn apart if need be. However I find it completely convincing currently and will continue to do so until sufficient effort is put into showing me how it cannot be. I accept corrections and critical feedback, these things are what help me become more informed than I was yesterday. Just don’t type a word until you have read it all please.
So here goes…
Musings on Adam and Eve:
“The Lord God formed the Man from the dust of the Earth. And breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life” - I am going to suggest here that the singular being named Adam was specially created from the dust of the Earth as a miraculous event after other Humans were already around, after they had already evolved. After all the Bible states that God made Humans in Genesis 1 then made Adam in Genesis 2. And I suggest that the purpose of an evolved race of Humans separate from Adam is to provide the genetic diversity required for Adam’s descendants to become “as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.”
Whether this is true or not, one thing is certain… Cain found a wife East of Eden in a land called Nod.
This confirms that other Humans existed separately from any literal Adam and Eve.
So the biblical text supports a special creation event of a single person called Adam that was created AFTER Humans had already been designed through the process of evolution, perhaps as the first Man to begin a special, intimate relationship with God in Eden? The first Human being created with the special ability to reason and learn right from wrong, to think and communicate in a higher manner than his fellow Humans outside of Eden and able to worship and love God. Created with an immortal, un-aging body. I have no doubt the general population of Human Beings were intelligent, able to craft tools and shelters etc. But they were not like Adam. I would suggest that these original Humans were the Neanderthals or other, primitive Hominids found in the fossil record and traces of which are found in our own DNA Today. I suggest they hybridised with Adam’s offspring through unions like Cain’s and his wife’s, creating a new race of which we are all a part of Today. This would explain how we have our God-given characteristics that separate us from animals and our genetic variety as a species.
How much time passed between the making of Man and the special creation of Adam is unknown to me but seeing as though Adam was tasked with tending the fields and tilling the ground, because no one else could do it at that point, it is reasonable to suggest the fall of Man occurred around the Neolithic dawn. This is also when towns and villages started cropping up, when Man went from being Nomadic to settling down in one area and building permanent residences. And it is written that Cain built a city and named it Enoch, after his son.
Once the hybridisation of Adam’s descendants with the outside Humans began, and given that Adam was created to be more advanced than the other Humans existing at the time, it makes sense that the outside Humans would have continued to spread but ultimately be unable to compete with Adam’s descendants and became extinct, at least where Adam’s descendants lived. With their bloodline or genetic information surviving only through the new, hybrid race of Man. This seems to be in-line with the extinction of the Neanderthals and any other, primitive Hominids and explains why we have Neanderthal DNA in our genetic make-up. Their complete extinction most likely came after the Flood however as if they were already gone, there would be no one else for Noah’s relatives to mate with and rebuild Humanity into what it is Today.
The Flood itself must have been localised to the Mesopotamian region. A Global flood does not fit the evidence and is not even an essential conclusion to come to when reading the Bible. This region is where Adam’s descendants were, perhaps they had not spread into the rest of the World at that time. Noah was a direct descendant of Adam and was kept alive to assure that Adam’s bloodline would live on through him. After the Flood, Adam’s bloodline began to spread again from the Ark as Noah’s sons had children with their wives who were also present, these children then bred with the original, surviving outside Humans from other regions as Cain did so that Today, we are all descendants of Adam’s bloodline and the bloodline of the original Human species at once.
In any case, returning to Genesis 2, God states that “it is not good for the Man to be alone”. This is referring to the Man specially created, the Man named Adam. God decides Adam needs a helper. The helper is not specified as Human like Him yet, a helper can be anything, like a Dog helps a Man on a farm. So God brings all the creatures He had made for Adam to name them. “Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals”. The creatures God brings to Adam may very well have been creatures God also specially created for the garden of Eden, and not all the creatures he made throughout the Planet. But whatever the case there, none of them were what Adam yearned for. So God took Adam’s rib and made a female like Adam named Eve. Eve was created from Adam, flesh of his flesh and blood of his blood so that their bond was immediately apparent and special. “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
It is possible the outside Human beings did not have such deep and meaningful relationships prior to Adam and Eve. They may not have been monogamous prior to Adam and Eve beginning this concept. Cain could very well have introduced the concept to the other Humans when he chose his wife from among them, or perhaps only Adam, Eve and their blood descendants were and are able to think and feel so highly?
However where does original sin fit into that? It is possible that before Adam and Eve, Humans simply acted as other creatures do, unable to sin, only acting out of survival, out of necessity, because sin had not entered into the World at that point. There was no way for a Human Being’s actions to be good or evil yet. So sin also introduced the concept of judgement. There was no way to judge a Man for killing another until sin entered the World and created the distinction between right and wrong, between killing and murder. Their descendants however were awoken to the fact that killing could be murder and murder was wrong, and so to continue to perform such an action when it was now known to be wrong became sin. Just as a child can perform a horrible act but not be judged because it does not know better, however when that child learns the difference between right and wrong, it can be judged for continuing to perform those horrible acts. Romans 5:13 would seem to agree when it says: “for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.” Perhaps sin pre-existed in some form as potential but was only really born when the first, direct and knowing disobedience was committed? The actual act was sin and from then sin was? Like evil existing because good exists BECAUSE there is a distinction between the two? Perhaps even after Adam and Eve caused sin to enter the World, it took some time for it to spread, as there would still have been many Humans still ignorant of good and evil? I would suggest that sin was bred into Humanity through Adam, Eve and their descendants. And the pure, outside Humans remaining continued to live and die as they always had up until they became extinct.
But to continue Genesis 2’s account, “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” because sin had not entered into the World yet, nakedness was not considered anything special, anything to become excited over. It was simply the absence of clothing which was only used then to keep warm. Perhaps Humans were still hairy then and actually required no clothes at that point? Perhaps clothing was developed post-fall? Perhaps clothing was already being worn by other, outside Humans and only gained a second purpose of hiding genitals after Adam and Eve sinned? Whatever it was, God seemed to think they would need clothing outside Eden as he made for them garments.
Adam and Eve would have lost their immortal, un-aging status upon eating the fruit and eventually died as other Humans did and do throughout time. Or perhaps what died that very day was their spiritual life? In any case, it seems they were initially created as immortal, un-aging and fully developed adults. As awful as death is, it is essential for a corrupt entity to never live forever lest the corruption they sow would also never end. Perhaps their originally immortal and un-aging bodies still allowed extended life spans that got lesser and lesser throughout the generations of their descendants? Perhaps there was some kind of gene that was slowly bred out?
So in light of this musing and to summarise, I now believe Human Beings came about via a process called evolution. I believe Human Beings were at that time like children or other creatures in their minds and unable to identify right from wrong and therefore unable to sin, even if they performed actions that are now known as sinful.
I now believe that God then specially created a unique being named Adam from the dust of the Earth in a single, miraculous event and separated him from the rest of Humanity to live in a place called Eden. God then decided Adam required a helper and after presenting him candidates, none of which were deemed suitable by Adam, God specially created Eve from Adam. The Two lived in the garden of Eden until they ate of the forbidden fruit, which may or may not have been just a simple tree, and sin entered the World through this act of disobedience.
They were then banished from Eden, and cast out into the rest of the World where they struggled for survival as other Humans did at that time. But God did not completely abandon them. They had children who grew up knowing God and knowing good and evil as their parents did. One of which was named Cain, who chose from the other Humans in the outside World a wife for himself, introducing his inherited characteristics into his children. Thus a new, hybrid race of Humanity was born which outlasted the previous. This is the one we are a part of. Less than Adam and Eve yet more than the rest of Humanity (the Neanderthals) once was. Acutely aware of and able to choose between good and evil, able to worship God and able to truly love. “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned–”.
As for the Serpent that tempted Eve… Perhaps, if the creatures in Eden were specially created to live there, the Serpent was indeed simply a crafty, intelligent, and evil creature. Evil from the beginning, as Satan was? Perhaps it was Satan clothed in the flesh of a serpent? I just left this out as it is not a part of the idea I am trying to put forward.
So, thoughts?