Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text: Ideas
The customs, offices and ideas a first reader knew without being told, what each meant then, and the nearest thing you already know.
Adam in Jewish tradition
The Old Testament says little about Adam outside Genesis, but by Paul's day Jewish writers spoke often of his lost glory and of the sin and death he brought into the world. Each person, they added, became his own Adam.
Every family has a founder, and the stories about him explain why things are the way they are. In Genesis Adam disobeys God and is driven out of the garden. The rest of the Old Testament hardly mentions him. By the first century, though, Jewish teachers said a great deal about him: how glorious he had been, how that glory was lost, and how his sin let death into the world. They also held that each of his children chose sin for themselves. Many hoped that the glory Adam lost would be given back to the righteous in the age to come.
Adam is hardly mentioned in the Old Testament outside Genesis, Keener notes, but Jewish traditions had made him far more prominent. They dwelt on the glory Adam had and lost when he fell. In their view his sin opened the door to sin and death, and every one of his descendants bore his guilt; some traditions stressed this biblical idea. Yet 4 Ezra 7:118 and 2 Baruch 54:15 also say that each descendant chose to follow Adam, and 2 Baruch 54:19 calls each person "our own Adam." Falling short of God's glory in Romans 3:23 may allude to the idea that humanity lost God's glory when Adam sinned. The hope ran the other way too. Most Jewish interpreters expected the righteous to get Adam's glory back in the coming world. Israel would reign in that world as Adam and Eve reigned before the fall. Wright and Bird set Israel in Canaan in the place Adam held in Eden. They add that the sectarians at Qumran looked for a day when the sons of light would recapture "the glory of Adam." Ancient Israelite thought could picture one person standing for or affecting many, which the cultural backgrounds notes call corporate identity. Jewish texts often described Adam, or people as a whole, as bearing God's image. The old self of Romans 6:6 could be translated old humanity, humanity in Adam. Later Jewish stories made Eve's guilt or deception larger than Genesis does. Some argued from it that women were less able to reason, and parts of Judaism tied the curse on Eve to death in childbirth.
An analogy: a family that tells the story of the ancestor who lost the estate. Every generation knows the story, every generation repeats some of his mistakes, and every generation hopes someone will win the estate back.
Because Jewish tradition made Adam the door through which sin and death came in, Paul can set Adam and Christ side by side in Romans 5:12-21 and expect his Jewish hearers to follow. The same pairing returns in 1 Corinthians 15:22, where all die in Adam and all are made alive in Christ. 1 Timothy 2:13-14 argues from the order of creation and from Eve's deception, a story Jewish tradition had already enlarged.
Not a family memory. In a family the ancestor's loss is a story, and each heir's mistakes are his own. Many Jewish traditions blamed Adam's sin for the sin and death of everyone after him, and Israelite thought could picture one person standing for many.
Whether Jews thought Adam's guilt passed to his descendants. Keener writes that Jewish traditions held that all Adam's descendants shared his guilt, and the cultural backgrounds notes say some traditions stressed it; the cultural backgrounds article Adam in Jewish Tradition says "Jewish tradition did not normally speak as if people genetically inherited Adam's sin" or his guilt, but held that Adam brought sin and death in and that his descendants then sinned as he did. Both agree that Jewish tradition counted everyone a sinner.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/romans-5-1-21\/","n":"Romans 5:1-21, Peace with God, and Adam","s":"Justified by faith, believers have peace with God and are reconciled to him by the death of his Son. As sin and death came through Adam, grace and life come through Christ.","r":"Romans 5:1-21"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/romans-6-1-23\/","n":"Romans 6:1-23, Slaves of a new master","s":"Baptized into Christ's death, believers are dead to sin. Once slaves of sin, they have been set free to become slaves of God, whose gift is eternal life.","r":"Romans 6:1-23"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/1corinthians-15-12-34\/","n":"1 Corinthians 15:12-34, If the dead are not raised","s":"Against some who say there is no resurrection of the dead, Paul argues that then Christ was not raised either, calls Christ the firstfruits, and asks why anyone is baptized for the dead or why he fights wild beasts if the dead are not raised.","r":"1 Corinthians 15:12-34"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/1corinthians-15-35-58\/","n":"1 Corinthians 15:35-58, Seeds, stars and the last trumpet","s":"Asked what kind of body the dead will have, Paul answers with the seed that dies and rises as a plant and with the differing glories of sun, moon and stars, sets the first Adam beside the last, and ends with the trumpet and death swallowed up.","r":"1 Corinthians 15:35-58"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/colossians-3-1-17\/","n":"Colossians 3:1-17, Things above, and no Greek, Jew, barbarian or Scythian","s":"Raised with Christ, the believers are to set their minds on things above, put to death the old ways, take off the old self and put on the new, in which there is no Greek or Jew, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, and above all put on love.","r":"Colossians 3:1-17"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/1timothy-2-8-15\/","n":"1 Timothy 2:8-15, Lifted hands, braided hair, women learning, Eve and childbearing","s":"Paul wants men to pray without anger or arguing and women to dress modestly; women are to learn quietly, and he does not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man, arguing from Adam and Eve, before a hard saying about being saved through childbearing.","r":"1 Timothy 2:8-15"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/genesis-3-1-15\/","n":"Genesis 3:1-15","s":"The nachash in the garden, and the sentence passed on it.","r":"Genesis 3:1-15"}
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Romans 3:23, 5:12-21, 5:12-14, 5:16-21, 6:6-7 and 8:29
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Romans 5:12, 5:17 and 6:6
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 16, A Primer on Pauline Theology
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article Adam in Jewish Tradition
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on 1 Timothy 2:14 and 2:15
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 1 Timothy 2:14 and 2:15
