The Lost World of Adam and Eve (12 page)

Excursus: Image of God

The image of God is not mentioned in Genesis 2–3 and therefore is not applied directly to Adam and Eve. Nevertheless, in the view that I have proposed, Genesis 1 and 2 are a continuum, and what applies to all people in Genesis 1 applies to Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. This is not the place for a substantial treatment, but a few brief comments are in order.
24

1. Unlike in the rest of the ancient Near East, the image of God in the Bible applies to all humanity, not just the king (the only exceptions are brief comments in a few pieces of Egyptian wisdom literature:
   Instruction of Merikare
   ;
   Instruction of Ani
   ).
   
2. In Mesopotamia, the image of the king serves as a substitute through representation.
   
3. In the Bible as well as in Mesopotamia, the king, as the image of God, is considered to be the son of God and functions on behalf of God.
   
4. In Egypt, images of the deities were thought to contain the essence (
   ba
   ) of the deity and to manifest the presence of the deity.
   

It is evident in all of these that the image of God is also an element of function (not material) that pertains to all people (not just an initial group or pair). In this way, we continue to confirm the functional interests of the text.

Summary Conclusion Regarding the Role of Humanity

The role of humanity is not an independent topic; in the ancient Near Eastern cognitive environment, it can only be understood in relationship to the role of deity. All of the ideology concerning the role of humanity in the cosmos—whether it addresses the circumstances under which people were created, the materials of which they were made (i.e., their composition), their functions or their propagation—associates them with deity.

The conception of humanity focuses on two roles:

1. humanity’s role with regard to its place or station in the cosmos
   
2. humanity’s role with regard to its functions in the cosmos
   

The place or station assigned to humanity in the first role is often addressed through the material ingredients used in creation. Thus, the place of archetypal humanity in the cosmos is expressed in material terms: the tears of the god, the blood of the god, clay or dust. The
Instruction of Merikare
also addresses the place of humanity although in broader terms. Most of the Egyptian texts that concern the creation of humanity focus on this first role: humanity’s place in the cosmos.

The second category, humanity’s function in the cosmos, is evident in Mesopotamian accounts in which people are created to carry out functions
for
the gods and in the process replace the gods by doing the menial tasks that the gods previously did to care for themselves. It later became part of royal ideology throughout the ancient Near East that select individuals carried out the functions
of
the gods, in this case pertaining primarily to rulership. A variety of functions is evident in texts and can be summarized in the following categories:

• Function
  in place of
  the gods (menial labor; Mesopotamia only)
  
• Function
  in service to
  the gods (performance of ritual, supply of temple; Mesopotamia, Egypt and Gen 2:15)
  
• Function
  on behalf of
  the gods (rule, either over nonhuman creation or over other people; role of the image in Mesopotamia, Egypt and Gen 1)
  

We can therefore conclude that in the general ancient Near Eastern cognitive environment, the interest of all of the accounts currently available to us is to elucidate the role of humanity through archetypal depictions that fall into the few paradigmatic categories we have listed above. Notable as the most radical departure from this general perspective is the contention in
Merikare
that creation was for the sake of humankind.
25
Though this text deals with the station of humanity, as do other accounts, it nonetheless offers a unique perspective on humankind’s place. This exceptional case notwithstanding, the most common interest in humanity has to do with its role and function in the cosmos (animate or inanimate), not merely biological existence.
26

• Accounts of human origins focus on their role in the cosmos, whether in terms of station or function.
  
• Materials mentioned in the creation of humans have archetypal significance, not material significance, and are characteristic of all humanity.
  
• Similarly, the image of god concerns role and is mostly found in royal ideology in the political/bureaucratic model, confirming that the king has divine functions.
  
• People and gods work together to ensure the preservation of order in the cosmos and its smooth operation (Great Symbiosis).
  

These help us to appreciate the ways in which the Bible takes its departure from the rest of the ancient Near Eastern literature yet, at the same time, remains rooted in the same cognitive environment.

Proposition 10

The New Testament Is More Interested in Adam and Eve as Archetypes Than as Biological Progenitors

Various passages in the New Testament will be treated in several parts through the remainder of the book in chapters dealing with the questions of archetypes, historical Adam, theology of the fall, Adam and Jesus, and interpretation of these passages. In this chapter, we treat only the first of these.

In previous chapters we have proposed and supported the idea that the
forming
accounts in Genesis 2 are more interested in Adam and Eve as archetypes than as individuals since the details of the forming accounts apply to all of us, not just to them. We have also demonstrated that human origins in the ancient Near East were typically addressed through the use of archetypes. Now, we seek to determine whether the New Testament offers support for this treatment. As in Genesis, here we will seek to determine whether the New Testament is using Adam and Eve archetypally based on whether what the New Testament authors are saying about Adam and Eve is true only of them or is true of everyone.

Five passages in the New Testament name Adam and Eve specifically (though several more allude to them). The first, the genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3, treats Adam individually but says nothing about him except that he is the beginning of this particular human line of descent. This passage will be part of our discussion of the historical Adam, but it offers no information about material human origins or the fall.

The rest of the passages are Pauline. Paul indicates in Romans 5 that sin and death entered the world through one man (Rom 5:12), thereby talking about Adam’s role as an individual (cf. Rom 5:16-17, one sin, the sin of that one man). He then proceeds to observe that “death came to all people, because all sinned.” Here he switches to an archetypal observation—when Adam sinned, everyone sinned. This is not true of Adam alone, so Paul is treating him as more than an individual. When Paul moves to the assertion that death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, we are again talking about an individual. By the end of Romans 5:14 he has added a third perspective: Adam as a pattern or antitype. We can see then that Paul uses Adam on a number of levels in Romans 5, but one of them is as an archetype. Nevertheless, here the archetypal use is connected to the fall, not to his forming.

First Corinthians 15 is the other most extensive treatment of Adam by Paul. In 1 Corinthians 15:21 Paul observes that death came through a man and, in so doing, addresses Adam as an individual who is acting. But in 1 Corinthians 15:22 he expands his vision to the archetypal level: “as in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive.” Our status as being “in Adam” treats Adam as an archetype, though still a historical figure. We are all “in Adam.” We are not all “in Christ,” but those who are also experience life in that identity.

Paul returns to discussion of Adam in 1 Corinthians 15:45-49 as he compares and contrasts “the first man” (also called the “earthly man”) Adam to “the last Adam” (also called “the second man” and “the heavenly man”). From the variations that are used, we can see that “second” is the same as “last” and therefore does not focus on actual numeration value. That is, Jesus was neither the second man in time and history, nor was he the last man in time and history. First Corinthians 15:48-49 brings the discussion to the point Paul has been making throughout the passage: both Adam and Jesus are archetypes with whom we are identified. These verses also must be discussed with regard to historicity and human origins, but those are topics for other chapters to investigate. In 1 Corinthians 15, then, we can see that Paul is treating Adam as an archetype representing mortal humanity. This use is similar to what was proposed for Genesis 2 since the archetypal connection to dust was human mortality. Paul has followed the lead of Genesis here.

In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, it is not Adam to whom Paul refers, but Eve: “Just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray” (2 Cor 11:3). Paul is not suggesting here that all the Corinthians are archetypally represented by Eve. Instead, she serves as an illustration of what Paul wants to avoid happening at Corinth. She is neither archetype nor antitype. Furthermore, Paul’s use does not suggest that Eve was ontologically deceivable, only that she serves as an exemplar—a warning for the people at Corinth and for all of us.

In Paul’s letter to Timothy, we encounter one of the most complicated treatments of Adam and Eve. In 1 Timothy 2:13-15, Paul refers to the order of creation as being the opposite of the order of deception: Adam was created first; Eve was deceived first. We are only interested here in the question of the role that Adam and Eve are being given. Unlike Paul’s use of Eve in 2 Corinthians, where the fact that she was deceived served as an illustration for all, her situation is now applied to the women of Ephesus. Likewise, Adam is used to make a comment about the role of the men at Ephesus.

Three main options present themselves for understanding Paul’s use of Adam and Eve in the point he is making about Ephesus: (1) archetypal, (2) ontological and (3) illustrative. If his comments were archetypal, he would be saying that all men were formed first as Adam was formed first, and all women were deceived in Eve even as she was deceived. Nothing in the passage, in Paul’s thinking or in logical assessment suggests this is true. The ontological view could be seen as an extension of the archetypal. If this is what Paul is doing, he is suggesting that man by his created nature is first, and woman by her created nature is deceivable. Therefore, men not only should be first, but it is their nature to be so. Women are inherently deceivable, and cautions should therefore be taken. This is an extreme position, but it is not without adherents in the history of interpretation. Numerous arguments can and should be raised against it, not least of which is that Paul would not have denied that Adam was also deceived (Genesis is clear enough)—he is only making a point of who was deceived first. All of us are therefore susceptible to deception—that vulnerability is not ontological to only one gender. The third option, that Paul is using Adam and Eve as illustrations for the Ephesians, suits the passage well and accomplishes Paul’s aims.

In summarizing the New Testament use of Adam and Eve, we find the humans used for a wide variety of affirmations. For now, the most important observation to make is that archetypal is among those options (both in Rom 5 and in 1 Cor 15). Consequently, we see that treating Adam and Eve as archetypal in Genesis does not run against the grain of larger canonical, theological and literary usage. Archetypal use is supported in the context of Genesis, in the cultural context of the ancient Near East and in the canonical context of Scripture. At the same time, it is not the forming accounts that are treated archetypally in the New Testament. Rather, it is the accounts of the fall. The one exception is in 1 Corinthians 15:47-48, where Paul makes the same point made in Genesis 3 and Psalm 103, that all of us are formed from dust just as Adam was formed from dust. Overall, however, it should also be noted that the New Testament gives little attention to the question of human origins one way or another. We will return to that point in chapters eighteen and nineteen.

Proposition 11

Though Some of the Biblical Interest in Adam and Eve Is Archetypal, They Are Real People Who Existed in a Real Past

We have already seen in the last chapter that the New Testament treats Adam and Eve in a variety of ways: archetypal, illustrative and historical. Consequently, to contend that some treatment of Adam (in Genesis or anywhere else) is archetypal is not to suggest that he is not historical. Jesus is also treated archetypally by Paul, yet he is historical. Before we proceed to an investigation of Adam and Eve, it will be instructive for us to consider the example of Melchizedek to see how various perspectives about someone can weave together various aspects in a combination of historical, literary, traditional and archetypal elements.

Hermeneutical Complexity

Melchizedek appears in Scripture only in Genesis 14, Psalm 110 and Hebrews 5:6–7:28. We will examine each text independently and then all together. If we had only Genesis 14, we could easily conclude that Melchizedek was no more than a king in the land of Canaan (whether Canaanite, Amorite or Jebusite). As a prominent force in the region, he welcomes Abram back from his successful campaign, offers refreshment and congratulations, and receives a tithe that indicates the recognition of his suzerainty over Abram. Like most kings in the ancient world, Melchizedek is also a priest. Specifically, he is a priest of “El Elyon,” which is a generic identification of deity as best we can tell. It is left to Abram to affirm that, in his opinion, Yahweh is El Elyon—Melchizedek makes no such claim.

In Psalm 110, the very brief allusion uses the priest/king combination (true of most kings in the ancient world) and Melchizedek’s location in Jerusalem to provide precedent for a priest/king combination in the ideal Davidic king that eventually develops into a messianic theology. As John Hilber has demonstrated, Psalm 110 is a prophetic oracle that shares many similarities with Assyrian prophecies.
1
As is well established, priesthood in Israel was connected to the line of Levi, not the line of Judah. Here, however, priestly prerogatives for the king are drawn from the historic precedents in Jerusalem rather than from the Torah structures laid out in the Pentateuch. Presumably, it would not give the kings the right to usurp Levitical prerogatives but would give them some additional (unspecified) priestly prerogatives.
2