Adam & Eve Were Not The First Humans
Adam was the first king, not the first man.
The creation of Adam and Eve is one of the most famous stories in the Bible. It has influenced many religions and cultures across the world since it’s first appearance in the Mesha Stele nearly 3,000 years ago. Ever since then, it has puzzled the world with it’s great tale of the Origins of YHWH and man. This singular God interested the Roman empire so much that they dropped their multiple gods and adopted the Hebrew Tanakh as the law of their land, starting the religion of Christianity.
In Genesis 1:26, “God said, Let US make man in OUR image according to OUR likeness”. I want to point out the verbiage in the literature. The word “our” is defined as relating to or belonging to us. This means God must have been speaking to a group. I also want to note that the Bible shows God speaking throughout Genesis. Moses wrote Genesis through either direct revelation or records kept through generations so his account would be a third-person point of view. But, the clearly printed text in the good book is not enough to form a basis.
It seems that as we dig deeper into the truth of Adam and Eve, Genesis seems more of a poetic fable than historical recording. The Bible was originally written in Hebrew. Adam in Hebrew translates to “man” or in non-theological text “red” which is the color of blood. Eve translates to “life” which was given to Eve at the expense of Adam’s rib. But, I must seperate the truth from the mythology with the mention of Lilith. Lilith is said to be Adam’s first wife.
In Genesis 1:27, “God created the man in his image… he created them male and female”. Man in this case must have spoken of the species of humankind since it includes both genders. So God had created a man AND woman in the Bible before Eve came into the picture in Genesis 2:22. The only account for Lilith in the Bible is Isaiah 34:14 to describe a night monster. Lilith is more-so a figure in Jewish folklore, but it clearly says in the text that one woman was created alongside Adam and another created later on with Adam’s rib.
The modern “Homo Sapien” species of man, which Adam is said to be the first, is an evolution of the Homo Neanderthal species. The Neanderthals were actually more intellegent than we were taught to think. They created art, jewelry, weapons, hunting and building tools. New evidence shows us that Neandarthals even buried their dead. Given the knowledge that Neanderthals were simply early humans, we now understand that humans were around centuries before the story of Adam and Eve. But, Moses only had an understanding of the world from what had been discovered in his time period.
The biggest factor to point out is that God made man “in his image”. Genesis 1:27 says, “Thus God created the man in his image: in the image of God created he him: he created them male and female”. The verbiage shows that man was created in the image of God. The word “of” is defined as “a function word to indicate origin or derivation”. This shows us that the Bible could be referring to man’s likeness to God through his derivative, meaning Adam was made to be a representation of what God is not what God looks like. Adam was simply the first man to act according to God’s will. God already ruled over a population prior to the story of Adam and Eve. God, originally named YHWH, was ruler of a Canaanite cult.
Man’s image made them different from animals. Hence, being able to have some superiority and the ability to rule over all things on Earth. This is also pointed out in Genesis 1:26 where God says to let them rule over “everything that creepeth and moveth on the Earth”. This is where we will get to Adam being a man of royalty.
Adam has been pointed out to have many similarities to King Alulim: Both were tested by a God, both failed the test and both passed the consequences to humankind. Adam was also told by God to rule over the Earth and multiply humanity under God’s instruction, but he greatly failed to do so. Adam was kicked out of the Garden of Eden with Eve, which was located eastward of Israel. This signified the fall of man. It is the first chapter of the Bible written by Moses because it gives a backstory to the land in which the Israelites escaped to after leaving Egypt and how the war with the Canaanites over their land.
Adam was also a representation of the land of the Canaanite cult that worshipped Baal as well as many other Gods. Adamah in Hebrew means ground or land, which was given to the Israelites by YHWH to live upon after escaping Egypt so long as they obeyed the Mosaic laws. They were supposed to live in the land of milk and honey alongside the Canaanites.
Seeing as though the Bible is a Hebrew book documenting the lives of Israelites it makes sense to say Genesis is the stories of the Israelites, not mankind. Israelites broke Mosaic law by going to war with the Canaanites and forcing them into slavery. They were then punished from God for breaking the Mosaic laws. It is a story of the potential of mankind, but the free will to sin and turn our back on our leader.
