WHO WAS ADAM?

1. He was the first ancestor of the Semitic, Hebrew lineage out of Mesopotamia, about 3000 B.C. (The existence of the red and yellow races is not addressed in the Bible.)

2. He was the Hebrew equivalent of the Mesopotamian hero, Adapa, who forfeited immortality by refusing the food and drink of eternal life, about 3500 B.C. (The mythical story says the gods tricked him into believing that their food and drink would poison him.)

3. He was the first man, created directly by God in 4004 B.C. (This is the chronology of Archbishop Ussher that is given in the margins of some Bibles. Judaism gives this date as 3760 B.C.)

4. He was the first pre-civilization man, i.e., before the time of cities, about 8000 B.C. In Jewish tradition, Adam’s son Cain was the first city-builder. (Note: Jericho, the oldest known city was founded about 8000 B.C.)

5. He was the first man to speak a language, before 35,000 B.C.

6. He was the first true homo sapiens, Cro Magnon man, about 50,000 B.C.

7. He was the first man who developed a religious consciousness, as evidenced in ritual burials, about 60,000 B.C.

8. He was the first man of the type that lived in the earthly paradise that existed before the last great ice age began, about 90,000 B.C.

9. He was the mate of the genetic “Eve,” a single female living in Africa about 200,000 B.C., to whom geneticists trace the common DNA of the whole human race.

10. He was the first hominid, homo erectus, who lived prior to the discovery of fire, about 700,000 B.C.

11. He was the first human progenitor of the type who learned to use tools, about 5,000,000 B.C.

12. He is the allegorical representative of all mankind. In the first chapter of Genesis, the Hebrew word adam is usually translated as “man.”

Richard L. Atkins