RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Adam
Eve (Gen. iii. 20; iv. 1) is the first proper name of our Bible. (3) Whatever may have been the origin of the proper name " Adam," its use here seems to be derived from and based upon the original generic sense. Even in the genealogies the two significations are interchanged. Thus while Gen. v. 1 substitutes "Adam" for " the man " of i. 27, chap. v. 2 continues: " Male and female created he them and called their name Adam."
It is a fair inference that the genealogies are in part at least responsible for the individual and personal usage of the name. When it is considered that all Semitic history began with genealogies, of which the standing designation in the early summaries is " generations " (Heb. toledhoth), the general motive of such a transference of ideas is obvious. The process was easy and natural because in the ancient type of society a community is thought of as a unit, is a proper name without the article, and is designated by a single not a plural form. The first community having been " man " (" the adam "), its head and representative was naturally spoken of as " Man " (" Adam ") when there was need of referring to him. On the etymological side a partial illustration is afforded by the French on (Lat. homo) and the German man, which express individualization anonymously.
The secondary character of the notion of an individual Adam is also made probable by the fact that the genealogical system of P is artificial and of foreign origin or at least of foreign 2. Foreign suggestion. The whole scheme of the Influence ten generations of Gen. v. is modeled in P. upon and in part borrowed from the Babylonian tradition of the first ten kings of Babylon. Of these lists of ten there are five names in either list which show striking correspondences with five in the other, ending with the tenth, which in either case is the name of the hero of the flood story. These Babylonian kings also were demigods, having lives of immense duration, two of them, moreover (the seventh and the tenth), having, like Enoch and Noah, special communications with divinity.
In brief, as regards P, the matter stands as
follows: — His first theme was the process and
plan of creation according to an ascending scale
of being. At the head of creation
3- The Aim were put the first human beings,
and Plan "man" or mankind (Gen. i. 26). of P. The second leading thought in P's " generations of the heavens and the earth " was the continuance of the race or the peopling of the earth. Expression was given to it by the statement that " the man " was created " male and female " (i. 27). The third stage in the narrative is reached when the descent of Abraham from the first man is established, in order to provide a necessary and appropriate pedigree for the house of Israel. At the head of this line was placed the individual " Man " or " Adam."
Turning now to the story of Paradise and the Fall, which, as has been seen, speaks of the first man only as "the man" and not as "Adam," the main motive of Gen. ii.-iv. is to account for certain characteristics and habits of mankind,
above all to set forth the origin, nature, and consequences of sin as disobedience to and alienation from Yahweh. Man is presented 4. The first as a single individual; next as Narrative being mated with a woman, with and of J. for whom he has a divinely constituted affinity; then as the head of the race upon which he brings the curse due to his own disobedience. At first sight this might seem to imply a preconception of the individuality and personality of the first man, who may as well as not have borne the name " Adam," which J himself gives him in the fragmentary genealogy of Gen. iv. 25-26. But the inference is not justified. The pictures drawn by J and the conceptions they embody are not spontaneous effusions. They are the result of careful selection and of long and profound reflection, and when the problems which J sets out to solve and the incidents which convey and embody the solution be considered, it must be concluded that the answers to the questions could have been arrived at only through the study of man, not in individuals but as a social being. In other words, this " prophetic " interpreter worked his way backward through history or tradition along certain well-known lines of general human experience, and at the heart of the story appears not a single but a composite figure, not an individual but a type, while the story itself is not history or biography but in part mythical and in part allegorical. Thus the unhistorical character of Adam is even more demonstrable from the narrative of J than from that of P.
Some of the primitive mythical material in Genesis has analogies in other literatures. Not to mention the more remote Avesta, attention must again be called to some of the Babylonian parallels. It is now indisputable that Eden is a Babylonian name; that the whole scenery of the region is Babylonian; that the tree of life, the cherubim, and the serpent, the enemy of the gods and men, are all Babylonian. There is also the Babylonian story of how the first man came to forfeit immortality. Adapa, the human son of the good god Ea, had offended Anu, the god of heaven (see Babylonia, VII., 3, § 3), and was summoned to heaven to answer for his offense. 5. Paral- Before his journey thither he was lels in warned by his divine father to refuse Other the " food of death " and " water Litera- of death " which Anu would offer to tures. him. At the trial, Anu, who had been moved by the intercession of two lesser gods, offered him instead " food of life " and " water of life." These he refused, and thus missed the immortality intended for him; for Anu when placated had wished to place him among the gods. Some such story as this by a process of reduction along monotheistic lines may have contributed its part to the framework of the narrative of the rejection of Adam. It is indeed possible that Adam and Adapa are ultimately the same name.
An important element in the whole case is the general character of the literary material of which the story of Adam forms a portion. Apart from
Adam Adamites