Denial of a historical Adam
Serious error
The teaching that Adam and Eve were not real individuals, but a symbol, a myth, or a picture of humanity in general.
Also called: Adam as a myth, Adam as a literary figure
What it means
Some teachers hold that Genesis 2 and 3 are not history in any sense. Adam stands for "everyman," or for an early population of humans, and the story of the fall is a way of describing the human condition rather than an event that happened. This view is usually offered as a way to reconcile Scripture with certain scientific accounts of human origins.
Those who hold it often still affirm that people are sinful and need Christ. But they deny that there was a first man whose disobedience brought sin and death into a good creation. The historic confessions, and the New Testament writers themselves, treat Adam as a real person.
What Scripture says
One man's disobedience made many sinners; one man's obedience makes many righteous.
Paul names Adam the first man and Christ the last Adam.
Jesus grounds marriage in God's making them male and female at the beginning.
Death and the curse on the ground follow from Adam's disobedience.
Luke places Adam in the same genealogy as Jesus' other real ancestors.
What is wrong with it
The New Testament does not treat Adam as a symbol. Jesus speaks of the creation of male and female as a real beginning. Luke lists Adam in a genealogy of real people. Paul's argument in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 compares two individuals, and it only works if both are real: one man's act brought condemnation, and one man's act brings justification. Making Adam a myth means saying the apostle built his doctrine of salvation on a mistaken premise.
How it undermines the truth
It undermines the goodness of the original creation, since sin and death then become part of how God made the world rather than an intrusion into it. It weakens original sin, because there is no first transgression to account for our condition. And it loosens the link between the first Adam and Christ, the last Adam, which is how Scripture explains why one man's death and resurrection can save many. It also implies that Scripture's plain historical claims may be set aside when they are inconvenient, which weakens the authority of the Bible on every other subject.
How it can harm a church
A church that teaches this leaves its people with a Bible whose history cannot be trusted where it touches the gospel. Members may be unsure whether evil is part of God's design or an enemy He will defeat, which matters deeply in suffering. And the habit of reading Scripture's history as myth rarely stops at Genesis; it tends to spread to the miracles, the resurrection, and the Bible's teaching on marriage and sexuality.
This page describes a teaching, not the faith of any person who holds it.
Where it comes up
Confessions: WCF 4.2; WCF 6.1-3; LBCF 1689 6.1-3
On this site: Creation & the fall
Related terms
Historical AdamHistoric orthodoxy
Adam and Eve were real people, created directly by God, from whom the whole human race descends and through whom sin entered the world.
Original sinHistoric orthodoxy
Because of Adam's first sin, every person is born both guilty before God and corrupt in nature.
Theistic evolutionA view held among orthodox Christians
The view that God created life, including human bodies, through the long process of evolution that biologists describe.