What do Adam and Satan have in common?

Whilst doing some reading on a completely different subject I was struck by the similarity between the issues with Adam we were discussing earlier and another biblical character, namely Satan. In Satan's case the transformation is even more profound.

1. If in Adam's case he barely gets another mention after Genesis, Satan does at least get a mention in a few different OT books, 1 Chron, Job and Zechariah.  But the situation is complicated, like Adam's, by the fact his name is also a noun, "accuser." 
2. Satan's role in the gospels as Jesus' tempter is congruent with OT behaviour, but he seems to take on a less ambiguous role, no longer merely an accuser but God's enemy whose works are to be undone. In the NT Satan is presented more as being in diometric opposition to God, rather than just stirring up trouble for human beings as in the OT.
3. Unlike Adam, the promotion of Satan (who is now also identified as or conflated with "the Devil", a Greek word - diabolos - to the Hebrew word satan) happens across a broader range of NT scripture, all the gospels, Paul, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 1 John, and especially Revelation all reflect his importance as God's enemy. 
4. Back to the problem of original sin, the association of the serpent with Satan which is so easily made by evangelical theologians is actually only made in Revelation, and it is hard to say whether the author was intending to be 'literal" (;-)) about the connection.  In actual fact Genesis 3 is at pains to mention the serpent is a  חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה "beast of the field" or "wild animal" (Gen 3:1) which surely precludes him from being the personification of an evil supernatural entity.

So what do Adam and Satan have in common?  Well they both receive a significant theological promotion in importance between testaments and they both have been part of the traditional Christian answer to the origin of (original/hereditary) sin, but neither of them really have the scriptural mandate to take the blame for that first sin (if there ever was one, Tim).

Let me know what you think, :-)

Adam and Paul

This post on Jesus Creed is mind blowing, although it is really just a summary discussion of some of Peter Enns book, The Evolution of Adam.

The basic points are:

1. Nothing in the OT gives Adam the importance protestant theology does
2. Nothing in the OT suggests that Adam's sin is imparted to his offspring
3. Paul's emphasis on Adam is an innovation in terms of the OT resulting from his encounter with Christ

I would add to those points that Adam is mentioned in only 3 of Paul's letter (Rom, 1 Cor, 1 Tim) and only twice in the NT outside of Paul.  Both those occurences are in terms of genealogy rather than assertions of hereditary sin (Luke 3:38, Jude 14) . He gets a total of 9 mentions in the NT. By contrast Abraham is mentioned over 70 times in the NT, in all four gospels and across both Pauline and catholic epistles.

Now I think those points are more or less irrefutable, but of course the implications are not so clear.  I know Enns' thesis is really about whether or not Christians need to understand Gen 2-3 as literal history or something else.  But long before we get to that topic I'd say this suggests our protestant emphasis on hereditary sin is at the very least an overemphasis and most likely a misreading of Paul.  Which send me scurrying to look at Rom 5:12-21 and 1 Cor 15 again, and I think to myself, this is possible . . .

Action points: I'm going to have to read Enns' book myself (I thought Inspiration and Incarnation was overrated, so wasn't going to bother) and I'm going to have to do some exegesis on these Pauline Adam passages.

So, what do you think? :-)

Paul, Philo, Adam and the Imago Dei

Earlier I commented that it is a puzzle why Paul never seems to draw on Gen 1:1-2:4.  The answer may be found in Philo, a Hellenistic Jew and important contemporary of Paul.  In an excellent HTR article* Horsley makes the case that in Philo we can see a type of status disctinctions based around the wise/perfect/good people and those who are foolish/bad/evil, with a third category, the infant, in the middle being pulled in both directions. It is, he argues, these status distinctions that Paul is attempting to combat in 1 Corinthians.  Horsley makes a convincing case that this then informs our understanding of the pneumatikos-psychikos terminology in 1 Cor 2 and 15.  However what is really interesting is how Philo, and Horsley argues that this is not his innovation but representative of a Hellenistic Jewish stream, sees in Genesis 1 and 2 two different types of human being.  The heavenly who are stamped with the image of God (Gen 1) and the earthly who are made out of clay (Gen 2).**  For Philo bearing the Imago Dei was a feature of a spiritual elite, a group of special status, compared to the rest of humanity who were merely made of clay (Adam).  Perhaps this is one reason why Paul stays clear of Genesis 1, because in his context it was used not to argue for the inherent worth of all humanity but to argue for the priviledged status of a select few.  Instead he focuses on Adam as the ancestor of all humanity, who thus need redemption, and on Christ as the true image of God.  For Paul, then, one can only claim to bear the image of God as far as one can claim to bear the image of Christ.

* R.A. Horsley, “Pneumatikos vs Psychikos: Distinctions of Spiritual Status among the Corinthians,”  Harvard Theological Review, 69, 1976, p269-288.
** Philo, Legum Allegoriae, 1:31