The Fall

I have been thinking lately about the subject of the fall of man as recorded in Genesis chapter three. The issue I have been considering is whether or not the fall was a historical event, or whether it was a story meant to symbolically represent some truth about the human experience and condition. So the question is, was Adam a real man, Eve a real woman, and their rebellion a historical event?

The spark for this pondering was a discussion that my roommate had and told me about in one of his classes. Of course there a two basic camps, one says yes it was, and another says no it was not. No one in the class claimed that it was not historical, but some did say that too big of a deal is made about the issue. I had been thinking about it, and then in the providence of God, my theology class spent some time thinking about it, and in the course of reading for that class, I was treated to a treatment of the issue by Anthony Hoekema. So I thought that I would spend some time thinking about this on my blog.

The issue is interesting because on first glance I was tempted to say that this is not such a big deal, so what if the fall isn't historical, but as I began to think it through and hear and read sound teaching, I became convinced that it is very important. First of all, if the fall is just folklore or some kind of saga to teach us something, what else in Genesis can we claim this about, and what do we do with the genealogies in Genesis that stem from Adam. More important than those genealogies, what about the one in Luke that ends with words, "the son of Adam, the son of God." Luke writes this with the idea that Adam was a real, historical figure which is the start of the lineage of the line of Jesus Christ, the messiah. If Adam is not real, is Jesus?

Another issue to consider is, Paul's writing in Romans 5. Paul spends half a chapter establishing Adam as the one from whom we receive the sin nature that we have, that he was the first Adam, but that a second Adam has come, namely Jesus. From Jesus we receive new life, we have been resurrected from the death we received in Adam, and brought into newness of life with Christ. This treatise in Romans five seems to assume that Adam and Jesus were both very real, historical figures, which begs the question, if Paul considers Adam real, why don't we.

At the end of the day, I don't know how we could not make a big deal about this issue. It is certainly not the most important issue we could think about, but it is crucial to the story of redemption, and we cannot afford to erase Adam from the historical record, and not stand the chance of erasing Jesus from the historical record, and that we certainly cannot afford.