Adam

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...sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned - Romans 5:12

He is made in the image of God. The first man who named all birds and beasts of the earth and tended to the garden in Eden. He took the first woman, Eve, as his wife. Through him, sin entered the world.

Cosmology

Adam is the embodiment of divine knowledge, acting as a mediator between heaven and earth. This knowledge transcends itself into a form of metacognition. Adam simultaneously refers to an individual and humanity at large because Adam is the principle of the entire human race, multiplied by a male-female dichotomy. Adam as the head provides meaning and purpose in exchange for power and support from the body, or the human race. We have a self-similar structure.

As a microcosm of creation, he is dust from the earth and breath from heaven, the union of heaven and earth. His impetus in the universe is informing matter with meaning and expressing meaning with matter. Life consists of breathing and nutrition, in which heaven's air is translated into Adam’s breath, and the earth’s soil is translated into Adam’s flesh. By simply staying alive, Adam contributes to the goal of creation. If Adam dies, a part of corporeal reality loses its higher spiritual purpose, and a part of spiritual reality loses its lower corporeal expression.

Breathing involves the ability to speak. It is a vehicle of language and information. Adam’s head represents the first principle (wisdom) as the source of meaning for the body. The head provides a unifying principle to answer the dark (subconscious) enigmas of the flesh. In exchange, the body expresses and supports the head with the actions of the arms and legs.

Adam alone can unite spiritual principles and corporeal facts with language through his spirit/breath.

Naming and eating are closely related in biblical cosmology as two examples of putting matter under the influence of your spiritual authority. Naming animals is the ultimate proof of Adam’s God-given authority because it makes him the very source of their identity.

(The Language of Creation: Cosmic Symbolism in Genesis - A Commentary by Matthieu Pageau, 2018. Pages 49-53, 59-61, 71-73)

Creation

Adam was formed of dust from the ground, and God breathed the breath of life into his nostrils. He was placed in a garden in Eden to work it and keep it, and he was allowed to eat of every tree of the garden besides the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Adam's Helper

God brought every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens to Adam to see what he would call them. Whatever he called them became their names. God found no helper fit for him from the beasts and birds, so He caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. When he woke up, God presented the woman He had made from one of Adam's ribs.

Adam said,

  • “This at last is bone of my bones
  • and flesh of my flesh;
  • she shall be called Woman,
  • because she was taken out of Man.”

He took the woman as his wife. They were naked and not ashamed.

(Genesis 2)

The Fall

The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” However, he ate of the forbidden fruit when his wife brought it to him.

Their eyes were opened, and they knew they were naked and tried to cover themselves with fig leaf loincloths.

When God was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, the man and woman hid among the trees. He called, "Where are you," and the man answered that he was afraid because he was naked. God asked who told him that, and he claimed the woman had given him the forbidden fruit. She blamed the serpent's deception, so ultimately, God cursed him to work the cursed ground in pain until he returns to the dust of the ground. However, He also cursed the serpent's offspring to ultimately be defeated by his wife's offspring.

The man called his wife Eve because she was the mother of all living, and God clothed them both in garments of skins. He sent the couple out of Eden and guarded the way back with the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way so that they could not eat of the tree of life and live forever.

(Genesis 3)

Adam and Eve's Offspring

Adam and Eve had Cain, and Eve acknowledged, "I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD." Again, she bore Abel. Abel offered of his firstborn of his sheep flock to the LORD, but Cain succumbed to sin when he was angry the LORD rejected his offering of the fruit of the ground and murdered his brother in the field. In Lamech, Cain's offspring furthered in their sin and rejection of the LORD's protection. Adam fathered Seth at 130 years old, as God's appointed another son for Eve.

(Genesis 4, 5:1-5)