The "Historical Adam" Debate

Rick Ausdahl

Does anyone have recommendations for resources on the "Historical Adam" debate?

I've heard Tremper Longman state that he knows the apostle Paul believed Adam was a literal/historical individual, but that he believes Paul was mistaken.  What I haven't heard, is how Tremper works through that or where it leads him in regard to Paul's arguments and theology.

I also noticed that in Moo's Mobile Ed course on Romans (NT331), there's an item in the course TOC titled "The Historical Adam Debate".  I did some searching in Moo's NIC on Romans, but couldn't find any place where Moo addresses the topic, so I'm also wondering if anyone knows Moo's view on the issue.

Please ...don't voice arguments either way here in the forum as that would violate forum rules.  But pointers to good resources on the topic and a simple statement on Moo's view would be appreciated.

Jacob Hantla

From the course, "

Obviously, I’m no expert at all on Gen 1–3, and so I don’t have much stake to comment on what’s going on in those chapters. But very significant in this debate is the way the nt speaks about Adam, and particularly the Apostle Paul. As we’ve seen here in Rom 5, Paul talks about Adam as one who sinned, whose one trespass brought condemnation to all human beings. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says some things that are similar in comparing Adam and Christ as he does here in Rom 5. And in a passage like 1 Tim 2, Paul talks about apparent individuals of Adam and Eve. Adam did not trespass, but Eve trespassed, falling into sin, contrasting Adam and Eve in that way there.

If we posit that there is no historical individual called Adam, does Paul’s teaching in these passages ultimately work? Some scholars think, “Yes, we can still explain what Paul is doing here, and it can still make good sense.” I’m not so sure. Focusing on Romans 5, for instance—the text that we’ve been looking at—Paul certainly appears to suggest that he is reading the ot history in terms of an actual person Adam, who can be compared then to an actual single person Christ. Indeed, a lot of his argument seems to rest on the parallel between the one man Adam and the one man Jesus, whose actions affected all who belong to them.

We’re going to continue to discuss these things. We need to have an appropriately open mind to ask whether we have read Scripture correctly, to seek to honor what scientists are telling us. But we do have to be careful that we do not allow our speculation to move us away from certain things the biblical text is claiming to be important. It seems to me—at least at this stage with my own thinking—that Rom 5 does pretty much require us to think that Paul views Adam as a single human being and that we have to seek ways to explain both Paul and Genesis and science in that light. I am confident as we continue to work on these matters, we may be able to come to a point where we are able, in fact, to do justice to the significance of Paul’s argument here and to the data of Genesis and science.

 Douglas J. Moo, NT331 Book Study: Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Logos Mobile Education (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).