Many -- perhaps most -- commentators on the creation story in Genesis accept the conventional scientific understanding that at least several hundred hominids formed the ancestral group which gave rise to modern humankind, treating 'Adam' as a metaphor for this group and using the word as a play on adamah, which means 'from the earth'. This is consistent as far as it goes, but it has the danger of being subservient to science and requiring hermeneutical gymnastics to accommodate robust interpretations of the relevance of the 'Fall story' and original sin, especially the force of Paul's analogy in Romans 5:12-19 between the 'first man' and the 'last man'. These difficulties disappear if we treat Adam as an individual imbued with God's image, which does not spread through conventional Mendelian mechanisms, but depends on and is transmitted by God's divine (and mysterious) action; God's image in us reflects our relationship with him, which can be broken (as it was in the 'Fall'), but is restored when we are 'in Christ'. Our role on Earth is to foster this God-given relationship and the responsibilities implicit in caring for our fellows and other parts of creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
CITATION STYLE
Berry, R. J. (2011). Adam or Adamah? Science & Christian Belief, 23(55), 23–48.
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