Figure 11.1. Mystery is part of the traditional account, with the fixed point that everyone in present day descends from Adam and Eve. If the humans of theology are coextensive with the genealogical ancestors of Adam and Eve, then we see them arising from a single couple in the distant past. Historical theology has been largely silent about people outside the Garden. As long as the humans of theology arise and spread by genealogical descent from Adam and Eve, both the scientific and the theological account could be taking place at the same time.
ADAM, ANTHRŌPOS, AND HUMANKIND
In defining human from the text of Scripture, the original language is an important guide.4 The most important passages are in Genesis, Acts, and Romans. The first challenge we face is that the English word human never appears in these texts. It is obvious, but often neglected, that Scripture was not written in English. Genesis comes to us in Hebrew. Acts and Romans come to us in Greek.
Genesis, Acts, and Romans seem to tell the story of the rise of Adam and Eve’s lineage, who become all of us, who become everyone across the globe. Early in the story, Adam’s lineage is not geographically universal. When Jesus commissions the apostles, however, his lineage comes to spread to the “ends of the earth.” His name becomes synonymous with the word for “human” in Hebrew, the Greek anthrōpos of Romans. We might anachronistically use the term anthrōpos, adam, or “human” for people before Adam and Eve, but the precise definition of textual humans would not include anyone but the genealogical lineage of Adam and Eve.
The language of Scripture supports this interpretation. In Genesis 1–11, the Hebrew word adam is rendered “man,” “human,” “humankind,” and “mankind.” At the same time, the Hebrew word adam is also the proper name of, literally, “the man” in Genesis 2, usually rendered as “Adam.” The double meaning of adam in Hebrew is notable. The Hebrew for “human” and “humankind” in Genesis 1–4 is adam, the same word for the proper name, but referring to collective male and female. Likewise, adam is a suggestive play on words; Adam is created because there was “no adam to work the adamah” (Gen 2:5). Later Cain is banished to the erets of Nod, away from the adamah where his family lives (Gen 4:14). This may suggest that the area around the Garden is adamah, and this is the location to which Adam is initially associated.
This set of patterns is understood in different ways. In one sense, Adam is a man named “Human” or “Man.” Some argue this demonstrates Adam is a mythical archetype and never existed as more than a story.5 Another understanding that might also make sense. Perhaps, instead, the Hebrew word adam is defining human as the descendants of the man named Adam. In this case, Genesis is telling us the story of the lineage of a real man in a real past who becomes the ancestor of all of us. It is not the story of the rise of biological humans, but of the rise of Adam and his descendants. The lineage of adam is initially associated with adamah, but eventually covers the entire earth, and eventually becomes synonymous with “human,” the anthrōpos of Romans. The definition of adam, the definition of “human” from the text, could be Adam, Eve, and their descendants, who become the ancestors of all “humans” by the time of Paul.
Consistent with this interpretation, the New Testament refers to Adam by his name in Greek, the proper name Adam, not anthrōpos. The proper name Adam appears nine times in the New Testament, including in Jesus’ genealogy (Lk 3:38; Rom 5:14; 1 Cor 15:22, 45; 1 Tim 2:13, 14; Jude 1:14). Writing in Greek, they had the ability to clarify whether adam in Genesis was a proper name or an archetypal reference alone by using anthrōpos instead of Adam. Instead, both Paul and Luke refer to Adam with a proper name as if he were a real person in a real past.
“Human” becomes synonymous with the descendants of Adam and Eve, even though many biological humans in the distant past did not descend from them. We see a similar linguistic pattern elsewhere in origins. For example, Homo sapiens is the taxonomical category that becomes synonymous with “human,” even though we see other types of hominids in the past, such as Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Homo erectus. At about forty thousand years ago, however, the last Neanderthals all die out or interbreed with Homo sapiens. Other biological types of human, such as Homo erectus, vanished in the far more ancient past. In the same way, the descendants of Adam become synonymous with humanity, even though humanity included a larger group in the past.
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
Consistent with this definition, the Genesis and the New Testament authors describe the geographical extent of Adam’s descendants in different ways. Looking at Genesis alone, we cannot conclude that all people descend from Adam and Eve. The phrase “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8), however, gives grounding for inferring universal descent from Adam by, at latest, the ascension of Jesus.
In Genesis, Adam’s lineage occupies a defined place in the Middle East, and little is said about the people outside the Garden. The Garden is identified by rivers and other landmarks (Gen 2:8-14). After the flood, Noah’s visible lineage clusters around a tiny area around the Tower of Babel (Gen 11). In Genesis 10 and 11, the spread of Noah’s children shows that Adam and Eve become the ancestors of, at least, some of the people in the areas within and surrounding the Middle East. There are, however, no references to India, Australia, the Americas, Tasmania, Africa, and so on.6 There are, likewise, no specific statements against the existence of other people across the earth.
In the New Testament, Paul’s message on Mars Hill contains an oblique reference to Adam. He says, “from one man [God] made all the nations” (Acts 17:26). This is sometimes rendered as through “one man” or out of “one blood,” but the earliest manuscripts just say “one.” In context, this makes sense as a reference to Adam because Paul is logically reasoning why the gospel of Jesus was relevant to a skeptical Greek audience. He seems to argue that everyone descends from Adam, so we are all one people, inheriting the same problem from Adam that Jesus comes to solve. If this was their belief, how far would Paul and the other apostles have thought Adam’s descendants stretch? If they believed descent from Adam was important, they would answer that Adam’s descendants stretched as far as the gospel was sent out. In Acts 1:8, Jesus commissions them, saying,
You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
The phrase “to the ends of the earth” indicates the geographical universality of the gospel. The apostles did not know about Tasmania or the Americas. Perhaps their understanding of the world did not expand across the whole globe; for this reason, the text may not literally refer to the whole globe. It is, nonetheless, a reasonable theological inference that Jesus is referring to people across the whole globe. The fixed point, it seems, is the universal relevance of the gospel to all of humankind across the globe at this moment in time. Paul seems to teach or justify the universality of the gospel by appealing to universal descent from Adam. This implicates universal descent in Adam, which is no longer not merely incidental to his message, rendering it an important teaching of Scripture.7 This teaching, as we have seen, is clarified and canonized in the monogenesis tradition of the Church.
What about the temporal universality of the gospel? What about a Neanderthal from the distant past? What about Homo sapiens from twenty thousand years ago? The apostles never discuss these sorts of questions because they did not know about Neanderthals nor ancient Homo sapiens. In whatever senses archaic humans are “human,” they are not the people to whom Paul or Jesus were referring (Acts 1:8; 17:26; Rom 5:12-14). The ecclesial question at hand was the extent of Jesus’ command to tell everyone “to the ends of the earth.” Jesus, for obvious reasons, does not say “to the beginning of time.” In this sense, there is a distinction between geographic and temporal universality. This is not to suggest Jesus had no relevance to those outside the Garden. Rather, it is an eisegetical leap to extrapolate from “the ends of the earth” to “all Homo sapiens from the beginning of time” or “all rational souls to the beginning of time” or even “all rational souls e
ver in the universe.” Scripture is not concerned with the biological humans of antiquity. Nor were the apostles. Do all biological humans descend from Adam and Eve? It is possible to infer geographical universality at the time of Jesus’ ascension, at the latest, but an inference of temporal universality is not well grounded.
These two definitions from Genesis and the New Testament fit together. Early in the story, Adam and Eve’s lineage is not geographically universal. When Jesus commissions the apostles, however, his lineage has come to spread to the “ends of the earth.” Genesis is about the rise of Adam and Eve’s lineage, which becomes all of us. His name comes to be the word for human in Hebrew, synonymous with the Greek anthrōpos of Romans.
TWO ACCOUNTS OF CREATION
Genesis 1 and 2 are two different accounts of creation.8 The tensions between these two accounts hint there were people outside the Garden in the distant past. They may also hint that the people outside the Garden were in the image of God. There are several differences between the two accounts, even though they both include the creation of adam, which is usually rendered differently in most translations, for example, as “humankind” (Gen 1) and “Adam” (Gen 2).
The first account, Genesis 1, uses the word Elohim for God, who is described as a hovering Spirit. It evokes the notion that God is creating all that has been made.9 On the sixth day, Elohim makes adam plurally in “our image,” male and female, not limited to a single couple or geographic area. These textual cues encourage an archetypal translation of adam to “humankind” and anthrōpos in the Septuagint.10 The word for creation, bara, appears three times in this account, and it is described as the land and sea “bringing forth” creatures in response to Elohim’s command. All of this ends with a declaration that creation is “good” on the sixth day, and God then “rests” on the seventh day.
In contrast, the second account, Genesis 2 uses the name Yahweh Elohim for God, the covenantal name. It is situated in a localized and small geographic area. These cues encourage a narrative translation of adam to the proper name Adam in both English and the Greek Septuagint.11 Adam is “made” with the verb asah, and he is created alone without a wife. This is declared “not good,” and Eve is made later from his rib or side. As the story develops, we find that Yahweh Elohim seems to have a body that can breathe, hands to form the dust, and a presence from which Adam and Eve believe they can hide. No mention of the image of God is made in Genesis 2. Instead of ending “good,” the narrative in Genesis 3 ends with God at work in the not-good fall of Adam.
There are so many differences between Genesis 1 and 2 that, for a while, some scholars understood them to be in conflict with one another. But the two narratives fit together, linked in a meaningful tension.12 How so? Do they recapitulate the same events, or are they sequential? Is Genesis 1 a broader account than Genesis 2 or does it recount the same events? Here are the options:
1. Exact recapitulation. Genesis 1 is describing the creation of the same couple that is created in Genesis 2, without any reference to people outside the Garden. This reading is silent about the people outside the Garden, so they might be in the image of God or not.13
2. Zoomed recapitulation. Genesis 1 describes a broad event (extending across a larger geographic or temporal range) where people outside the Garden and Adam and Eve are created. Genesis 2 zooms in to describe the creation of a single couple, Adam and Eve, one couple within this larger event. This reading hints, but does not require, that there are people outside the Garden in the image of God.
3. Sequential. Genesis 1 describes a broad event where people outside the Garden are created. Genesis 2 takes place at a later point in time, describing the creation of a single couple, Adam and Eve. This reading requires people outside the Garden that are in the image of God.14
All three of these readings are consistent with people outside the Garden,15 and two suggest that they exist and are in the image of God.16
The idea of Adam and Eve de novo created within a larger population might seem strange, possibly an imposition on the text.17 In light of Jesus, however, the de novo creation of Adam matches the Virgin Birth quite closely; both are special entries into the world, within a larger population. The original cultural context, moreover, is comfortably aligned with this reading.18 The ancient Near Eastern literature is not necessary to make the point, but it demonstrates that this reading is comfortably aligned with this cultural context. Reading other literature from this time triangulates the literary genre of Genesis 1 and 2.19 Genesis 1 parallels archetypal accounts of creation, such as Atrahasis, Enuma Elish, Enki and Ninmah, and The Eridu Genesis. In these stories, the gods create several people, all of humanity, never just one couple to fill the earth, and never people who participate in a narrative dialogue. Genesis 2, in contrast, describes a single couple, who participate in a narrative as individual people in a narrative dialogue with others. Unlike an archetypal account, Genesis 2 parallels the account of Enkidu, who is created within a larger population, for the idiosyncratic purpose of influencing their harsh king Gilgamesh.20 In this cultural context, it makes sense to understand Adam and Eve as specially created within a larger population, just like Enkidu, for the purpose of influencing a larger population outside the Garden.
Anachronistically using the word adam, Genesis 1 is about the creation of the people outside the Garden, but Genesis 2 onward sits within this larger account, following Adam, Eve, and their descendants, who become all of us. Translators for thousands of years grappled with this tension by translating adam to the archetypal “humankind” or anthrōpos in Genesis 1, but to the proper name Adam in Genesis 2. Far from challenging the Chicago Statements, moreover, we will see that Genesis 2–5 can be taken more literally if there are people outside the Garden.
For several reasons, therefore, it is sensible to read Genesis 1 as an archetypal account of the creation of a large population, using adam anachronistically, followed by the creation of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 to alter the destiny of everyone outside the Garden. This reading works whether or not Genesis 1 and 2 are sequential or recapitulatory, and whether or not we consider other ancient literature. Either way, the special creation of Adam and Eve foreshadows the Virgin Birth of Jesus, the “last Adam,” which is also within a larger population.
CAIN, ABEL, SETH, AND ENOCH
Were there people outside the Garden? Several hints come from the story of Cain, Abel, Seth, and Enoch. Cain murders his brother Abel. God exiles Cain, and Enoch is born to Cain in exile. Seth is given to replace Cain. Then, Adam and Eve have many more children. The details of this narrative trouble any theory that does not include people outside the Garden that did not descend from Adam and Eve.
First, Cain is banished to the erets of Nod, away from the adamah near the Garden. He is fearful he would be found and killed. God protects Cain with a mark, decreeing that anyone who kills Cain would suffer judgment from him (Gen 4:14-16). With the mark, God endorses the legitimacy of Cain’s fear. This suggests there really were people in Nod that, perhaps, had a sense of morality in that they would want to bring Cain to justice (Rom 2:15). Who were they and where did they come from? Scripture does not tell us.
Second, after he is exiled, Cain suddenly has a wife, who bears him a child named Enoch (Gen 4:17). From where did his wife come? It is possible that Cain’s wife was his sister. When Cain was exiled, why did his sister-wife go into exile with him? Perhaps, Cain found an unrelated wife in the land into which he was exiled.
Third, Cain builds a city (Gen 4:17). From whence came the inhabitants of this city? They seem like people outside the Garden. Alternatively, some theorize a multicentury gap in Genesis 4, reordering events in the narrative. For example, it is only after Seth is born, after Cain’s city is built, that the text reports Adam and Eve bear more sons and daughters (Gen 5:4).
Fourth, the genealogies suggest that Abel, Cain, Seth, and Enoch are the eldest sons of their lineages, and that Abel does not have children. Cain’s genealogy is reported, sta
rting from Enoch; Seth’s genealogy is reported too, but Abel’s is not. This makes sense of Cain and Enoch both being firstborn sons, and Seth was given to Eve, who was left without a son.
Fifth, Eve’s son Seth is appointed by God to “replace” Abel (Gen 4:25) when Adam is 130 years old (Gen 5:3). How does Seth “replace” Abel? It seems that with one son murdered and the other exiled, Adam’s family was left without a male heir. Seth replaces Abel as the heir of Adam’s lineage. This is why Seth’s lineage is traced, even though Cain is the eldest and Abel was next in line. If Adam or Abel already had other children, it is unclear how Seth would “replace” Abel.
Gap theories to populate Cain’s city and the land of Nod are troubled. For literalists who argue Scripture clearly teaches a young earth, why is a gap in Genesis 3 acceptable, but unacceptable between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2? All gap theories reorder events. For example, Adam and Eve’s children must have come before the city, not after, even though Genesis only mentions them after. Why is reordering of events permitted when interpreting Genesis 4–5? If a strict literal reading is important, these questions cannot be ignored. It seems that gap theories for Cain stir up far more questions than they answer.
Inferring people outside the Garden resolves all these tensions, without creating new ones. Even if an imaginative gap theory could answer these questions, it would not rule out people outside the Garden. Either way, we are filling in details not stated in the text. For this reason, Scripture suggests there were people outside the Garden.
THE MYSTERY OF NEPHILIM
Another hint of people outside the Garden comes from the passages on Nephilim (Gen 6:1-4) and their post-flood appearance (Num 13:33). The words used in Genesis 6:1-4 are intriguing.
The Genealogical Adam and Eve Page 15