The origin of Paul’s doctrine of the two Adams in 1 Cor. 15.45-49 has been the subject of much discussion. The most commonly argued background is Philo or Alexandrian traditions. Study of Philo, however, makes it unlikely that Paul is reacting either to Philo, to Alexandrian traditions, or even to a misrepresentation of Philo. Gnosticism also does not provide a plausible background. In 1 Cor. 15.46 Paul is not reacting against an over-realized eschatology, nor is he reversing an alleged priority of ‘spiritual man’ to ‘natural man’. Paul’s main object is to answer the question of 1 Cor. 15.35: In what kind of a body are the dead raised? The closest parallels to Paul from the history of religion are found in rabbinic literature. Paul knew Palestinian exegetical traditions about a first and last Adam. His encounter with the risen Christ gave concrete form to that abstract idea.

There is some debate about whether Paul is using the Philo’s categories of “earthly” and “heavenly” man. Although some see Philo’s influence, the connection is tenuous, especially with no proof that Paul uses Philo’s categories anywhere else. Most of Paul’s other terminology differs sufficiently from Philo that there is no reason to conclude that he is being influenced by him in this passage. This is all the more true when one considers that evidence for the influence of Genesis on this passage is much stronger. There is no reason to posit another major background influence since the Genesis influence sufficiently explains the passage.

Possible Rabbinic influences face the same problem; a superficial reading seems to support the conclusion that Paul was influenced by them, but analysis invariably exposes such links as forced.

stildude:

Take for instance, the scripture 2 Cor 5: 17 that reads. If any man be in christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away and all things are become new could be used to mean new birth or salvation. But with the light of the spirit, when logos turn to rhema, a christian sister received her healing. She was suffering from a deadly disease. She came to church one day and heard the message of salvation. After receiving Christ. She later learnt about the above scriptures and thought to herself. '' I am no more that person that had that deadly disease'' With faith in her heart, she received her healing. Another example is an old illiterate woman that was taught that if you have a little faith, you could tell a mountain to move and it shall move (matt 17 : 20) Thereafter approach her pastor and said ''concerning that scripture, My husband left me a plot of land that I would have converted to economic activity to alleviate my plight. But the problem is, there is a big rock in the middle of the plot. Based on this scripture can I tell this rock to move?'' The pastor said ''well that is what the bible said'' But the woman left with a great conviction and was praying that the rock should move. not long after that. A construction company approached and paid her to blast off the rock. The rock was totally removed and the woman was able to convert the plot into profitable venture. The point here is whatever the Holy spirit interpretes, that is the meaning of the WORD thereof. There could be two seemingly unrelated scriptures, but through the help of the Holy Spirit, you will be able to join them together and the scriptures will form pictures  or revelation to you and it becomes profitable to you.

Enigma:

Just so as the kabbalah Adam Kadmon stuff (from Wikipedia) is not left unchallenged, a short extract from a very recent piece:

http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j23_3/j23_3_70-75.pdf

Similarly, far too much is being made of the absence of the word "them" with unsubstantiated accusations and allegations. Everyone knows that many English conjunctive/disjunctive etc words have to be and are added to make sense of some sentences/passages. Ask anyone who speaks Arabic for example, especially of the Egyptian everyday variety and see if it can be translated sensibly into English without adding far far far more than words like "them" etc.

Enigma:


Similarly, far too much is being made of the absence of the word "them" with unsubstantiated accusations and allegations. Everyone knows that many English conjunctive/disjunctive etc words have to be and are added to make sense of some sentences/passages. Ask anyone who speaks Arabic for example, especially of the Egyptian everyday variety and see if it can be translated sensibly into English without adding far far far more than words like "them" etc.

Mafious:

I don't know what rabbinical exegesis is but I'm sure it but I can assure you it is a senseless word if you don't believe me
look up the meaning of both words and you would see they do not belong together.

It appears Pastor AIO is a theologian; simply defined it is making the simple and pure word of God that can be easily
understood by even the unlearned complicated.

Jesus said the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat "true" that the pharisees are the one with Authority to interpret
the scriptures is a lie from the pit of hell sold to us by theologians. No where would you find Moses interpreting
a single scripture to anybody rather he sat in judgment resolving disputes and providing General Foresight to the nation
of Israel the pharisees where basically Lawyer (learned in the law of God just as lawyer today are learned in civil litigation)

Lack of personal discipline is the reason Bible Colleges thrive Joshua 1:8 says this book of the law shall not depart out of
thy mouth not out of theological class.

When Paul says "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn" he was quoting an old testament scripture which
forbade farmers from muzzling the threshing Ox so that the would not starve because

1 Oxen need a lot of food and it they were let to roam free they could very well fend for them self so if you denied them the
right to find their own food be prepared to feed them.

2 The risk of underfeeding them is genuine so not muzzling them is guarantee that they would not starve God is not an abuser of
his creations.

If you read the Acts of the Apostles and all the epistles of Paul you not find a single place where he takes from the Church
coffers even though he founded every single one of them, the Church council and decides what he gets and some members of his
congregation give him a prophets offering.

Even though the Ox is not muzzled their is a limit to how much it can eat cause their is still a yoke around it neck that makes
it uncomfortable if it bends to eat too often.

When petrol became scarce in the 80's everybody opened a Filling station, when recharge card business was booming everyone
sold recharge cards, it has become apparent that the Gospel is a money spinner so don't be surprised when you see hundreds of
Churches springing up. If Pastor's did what Paul did and let the Church council determine a fixed income most people would
not be called of God as many say they are, believe me if you want to be called of God everything that happens to you would point to God
calling you whether he does or not.

Enigma:

"Them" because of what is considered the best reading from the context.

Ergo, God knows how many Bible versions/translations, including even Jewish ones ------ with different groupings of scholars (some even theological opponents) ---- accept that reading.

Enigma:

Ah, just as I expected about that article. 

OK, here is another similarly more recent piece which is more rigorous and which actually addreses the Hultgren article of which extracts are relied upon in post 35.

http://files.wts.edu/uploads/images/files/71.2.Gladd.The%20Last%20Adam%20as%20the%20Life%20Giving%20Spirit.pdf

Enigma:

Unresolved questions.

How many Adams have there been?

1. The "primordial Adam" or Kabbalah "Adam Kadmon"?
2. The second Adam - who was later divided into Adam and Eve?
3. The last Adam of Paul?

Was Paul's last Adam the same as kabbalah "Adam Kadmon"?

What is most striking to me is Paul’s insistence on the “order” of being. Paul pointedly states the “spiritual Adam” was not first. I take that to mean that Paul is making sure his readers understand that what he is teaching is markedly different from what they might assume. And that indicates to me that Paul is both aware of and modifying for his own theologic purpose an already well-known doctrine of a “spiritual Adam” that people believed preceded the earthly Adam. Since Jesus came millenia after human creation, Paul finds it necessary for the spiritual Adam be the culmination of humanity, rather then its origin. So in response to the question, all in all, I would think that this idea of being incorporated into the "body of Christ" is likely a specifically Christian re-retooling of the Jewish esoteric doctrine.

It is important to point out again that these examples in ancient Jewish beliefs only serve to illustrate not that Paul borrowed from these speculations, but that he sometimes presented his teaching either to refute or to demonstrate a far superior teaching about the glorious inheritance of the saints in Christ. Our knowledge of these speculations, I suggest, enhances our understanding of the background of Paul’s teaching.

Enigma:

^^^ If you say so. I have read it too and I see different. Even the argument of Hultgren, the article of whose extracts you relied upon, was addressed.

ADAM ḲADMON (more correctly, ḲADMONIThe oldest rabbinical source for the term "Adam ha-Ḳadmoni" is Num. R. x., where Adam is styled, not as usually, "Ha-Rishon" (the first), but "Ha-Ḳadmoni" (the original). Compare the very ancient expression "naḥash ha-ḳadmoni" (the original serpent, the devil).—Adam, Hebrew for "man"; Ḳadmon or Ḳadmoni, "first" or "original":


This doctrine concerning the Logos, as also that of man made "in the likeness" ("De Confusione Linguarum," xxviii.), though tinged with true Philonic coloring, is also based on the theology of the Pharisees. For in an old Midrash (Gen. R. viii. 1) it is remarked: "'Thou hast formed me behind and before' (Ps. cxxxix. 5) is to be explained 'before the first and after the last day of Creation.' For it is said, 'And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,' meaning the spirit of the Messiah ["the spirit of Adam" in the parallel passage, Midr. Teh. to cxxxix. 5; both readings are essentially the same], of whom it is said (Isa. xi. 2), 'And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.'" This contains the kernel of Philo's philosophical doctrine of the creation of the original man. He calls him the idea of the earthly Adam, while with the rabbis the  (spirit of Adam) not only existed before the creation of the earthly Adam, but was preexistent to the whole of creation. From the preexisting Adam, or Messiah, to the Logos is merely a step.

The above-quoted Midrash is even of greater importance for the understanding of the Pauline Christology, as affording the key to Paul's doctrine of the first and second Adam. The main passage in Pauline Christology is I Cor. xv. 45-50. According to this there is a double form of man's existence; for God created a heavenly Adam in the spiritual world and an earthly one of clay for the material world. The earthly Adam came first into view, although created last. The first Adam was of flesh and blood and therefore subject to death—merely "a living soul"; the second Adam was "a life-giving spirit"—a spirit whose body, like the heavenly beings in general, was only of a spiritual nature. The apparently insuperable difficulty of the Pauline Christology which confronts the expounders of the New Testament (see, for instance, Holtzmann, "Lehrbuch der Neu-Testamentlichen Theologie," ii. 75 et seq.) disappears entirely when reference is made to the Midrash. As a pupil ofGamaliel, Paul simply operates with conceptions familiar to the Palestinian theologians. Messiah, as the Midrash remarks, is, on the one hand, the first Adam, the original man who existed before Creation, his spirit being already present. On the other hand, he is also the second Adam in so far as his bodily appearance followed the Creation, and inasmuch as, according to the flesh, he is of the posterity of Adam. Paul, therefore, is not dependent upon Philo for his Christology, as most scholars hold; indeed, he differs from him on most essential points. With Philo the original man is an idea; with Paul he is the personality of Jesus. With Philo the first man is the original man; Paul identifies the original man with the second Adam.

Pastor AIO:

I do not see what was written in that link as any sort of challenge against the notion that Paul was influenced by rabbinical sources.  It just makes a statement:

Possible Rabbinic influences face the same problem; a superficial reading seems to support the conclusion that Paul was influenced by them, but analysis invariably exposes such links as forced.

This happens too often in the writings of christians apologists.  I think the motivation is that if you say something authoritatively enough then it will go unchallenged.  Since everybody has been reading the matter 'superficially' what the writer needs to do is go deeper into the matter and demonstrate for us the analysis that exposes the links as forced. 
Or at the very least point us to a link where it is done.  It is not enough to just say the connections are forced and our readings are superficial, show us how and where we are being superficial and where we are forcing links. All that dismissive rhetoric without back up was exhausted a long time ago by Davidylan. 

As Albert Schweitzer so aptly puts it, ‘‘The Second Adam is, in Paul, an eschatological not a mythical conception’’

It is common to view ‘‘man’’ in 1:26-28 and 2:7 as distinct from 5:3. Cf. Richard S. Hess, ‘‘Splitting the Adam: The Usage of Genesis I–V,’’ in Studies in the Pentateuch (ed. J. A. Emerton;VTSup 41; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990), 1-15. Typically, when  dℵappears without the article, it is translated ‘‘Adam.’’ But if the noun is articular (,dℵh), then the general noun ‘‘mankind’’ is normally used. Perhaps the root cause of this confusion is the so-called ‘‘J’’ and ‘‘P’’ traditions. Sections 1:1–2:4a and 5:1-28 are the ‘‘P’’ document and 2:4b–4:26 is ‘‘J.’’ The two documents purportedly reflect two creation accounts. But in 5:1 the P tradition uses the proper name ‘‘Adam,’’ whereas in 1:26-27 the generic ‘‘mankind’’ is used (see Victor Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1–17 [NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990], 160, for a discussion of this higher-critical problem). Though in 2:7 ‘‘man’’ occurs, in the remainder of the narrative in 2–3 (esp. 3:17-21) ‘‘Adam’’ and ‘‘Eve’’ are certainly names. Therefore, though ‘‘man’’ (,dℵ) occurs in 1:26-28 and 2:7, in the light of 5:1 and 3:17-21, it is appropriate for us to view these accounts as the creation of Adam and Eve.

Enigma:

^^^ If you say so. I have read it too and I see different. Even the argument of Hultgren, the article of whose extracts you relied upon, was addressed.

Originally, Jewish scholarship was oral. Rabbis expounded and debated the law (the written law expressed in the Hebrew Bible) and discussed the Tanakh without the benefit of written works (other than the Biblical books themselves), though some may have made private notes (megillot setarim), for example of court decisions. This situation changed drastically, however, mainly as the result of the destruction of the Jewish commonwealth and the Second Temple in the year 70 CE and the consequent upheaval of Jewish social and legal norms. As the Rabbis were required to face a new reality—mainly Judaism without a Temple (to serve as the center of teaching and study) and Judea without at least partial autonomy—there was a flurry of legal discourse and the old system of oral scholarship could not be maintained. It is during this period that Rabbinic discourse began to be recorded in writing.

Enigma:

First, you have not shown us from anywhere, not even from the Hultgren article, that Paul believed in the myth about Adam Kadmon! You have simply asserted but shown us nothing to support the idea that Paul believed in the Adam Kadmon myth.

Further, an argument that Paul believed in the Adam Kadmon myth and speculation and other, arguably, minority Jewish mythology and/or was teaching them in his 'first and last Adam' theology is a misunderstanding of the literature and scholarship and, not to say the least, of Paul! It is one thing to say Paul was aware of Jewish/rabbinical tradition & mythology and another to say Paul accepted and taught such tradition & mythology as part of Christianity (Jews and even the vaunted rabbinical tradition  even consider Paul a heretic for seeing the last Adam as Christ or Messiah!)

'Thou hast formed me behind and before' (Psalms  139:5) is to be explained 'before the first and after the last day of Creation.' For it is said, 'And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,' meaning the spirit of the Messiah ["the spirit of Adam" in the parallel passage, Midr. Teh. to cxxxix. 5; both readings are essentially the same], of whom it is said (Isaiah  11:2), 'And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.'

The argument in the literature is that being aware of the Jewish/rabbinical traditions and that his audience was similarly aware, Paul took advantage of imageries from such tradition to paint a picture and make an imagery of his own for the purposes of his own different theology.

1. Who is the first Adam according to Paul? What was the nature of this first Adam according to Paul? Was he androgynous according to Paul? Was he Adam Kadmon, according to Paul?

How many Adams have there been?

1. The "primordial Adam" or Kabbalah "Adam Kadmon"?
2. The second Adam - who was later divided into Adam and Eve?
3. The last Adam of Paul?

2. Who is the second Adam according to Paul? What was the nature of this second Adam according to Paul? Was he androgynous according to Paul? Was he Adam Kadmon, according to Paul?

3. Who is the last Adam according to Paul? What was the nature of this last Adam according to Paul? Was he Androgynous according to Paul? Was he Adam Kadmon, according to Paul?

B. The Adam Kadmon myth in Judaism

5. How much of Judaism believes in the Adam Kadmon myth today?.

6. How much of Judaism has ever believed in the Adam Kadmon myth?

7. How much of Judaism has always believed in the Adam Kadmon myth?

Enigma:

Well, I will keep this brief.

1. Where in Genesis does it suggest that the Adam referred to in that book was a "spiritual Adam"?

2. Assuming it is a "spiritual Adam" and it is Jesus as we are being told, that means Jesus is a created being; Jesus was created; and Genesis 1 is telling us how Jesus was created -- in which case WHEN?

3. To show the incongruity and nonsense of this, then who was having the conversation "Let us make man in our image" in verse 26, which precedes the creation of "Jesus" in verse 27, with God the Father?

4. If Paul was not seen by Jews as a heretic, point to one Jew i.e. believer/practitioner of Judaism who sees Jesus as the Messiah! 


And the information about kabbalah is not wholly right either but I'm not going to bother myself with that. If people have noticed, I don't generally bother myself with other people's faiths and beliefs be it Islam, Grail, Kabbalah (even atheism until the special case that arose with that one). In so far as people of these faiths do not pass it off as Christianity, I generally mind my own business.

1. Where in Genesis does it suggest that the Adam referred to in that book was a "spiritual Adam"?

2. Assuming it is a "spiritual Adam" and it is Jesus as we are being told, that means Jesus is a created being; Jesus was created; and Genesis 1 is telling us how Jesus was created -- in which case WHEN?

3. To show the incongruity and nonsense of this, then who was having the conversation "Let us make man in our image" in verse 26, which precedes the creation of "Jesus" in verse 27, with God the Father?

4. If Paul was not seen by Jews as a heretic, point to one Jew i.e. believer/practitioner of Judaism who sees Jesus as the Messiah! 

Enigma:



I see the argument is now running away from saying Jesus was created! Not only that, but also that He was created in Genesis 1! Why am I not surprised? 

So who were the people created before Jesus that God was talking to "Let us make man" before proceeding to create Jesus?

And it is an untruth to say Christians have not addressed the issue of Jesus being begotten. I have seen a number of posters do it (and who cares what the Moslems, Eckists, Kabbalah people etc are asking anyway?). In any event, even I addressed the question of Jesus being begotten in a number of posts on this thread:  https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-497445.0.html

So when was Jesus created and who are those "created" or existing before He was created.

2. Assuming it is a "spiritual Adam" and it is Jesus as we are being told, that means Jesus is a created being; Jesus was created; and Genesis 1 is telling us how Jesus was created -- in which case WHEN?