In the second paragraph of our article titled: “Idolatry”, I promised to discuss why God had to create a model human being in the person of Adam.  Why model?  How did I come to this idea of a model human being?  Let me do this really slowly.  We just need to review Genesis 1, Genesis 2, and the findings of Astronomy and Archeology.    

First, Astronomy tells us that the Andromeda galaxy that we see in the skies may not be there anymore because the light that brings the image takes 2.5 million years to reach our eyes.  That means that the image that we are seeing is 2.5 million years old.  Second, it looks like Archeology says that the oldest modern people appeared about 30,000 years ago.  According to religious teachers Genesis tells us that God created Adam about 6,000 years ago.  They tell us that Adam was the first man, while scientists believe that scientific evidences do not support that idea.  The controversy continues.  

Faced by scientific evidence, we have three options:  (1) reject the creation story as fiction; (2) accept the creation story as it is without question; (3) give justice to the effort of those who made the Bible available as it is today.  Our choice in this article is the last option—to re-examine Genesis since the contradiction between the so called scientific evidence and Genesis is unacceptable to us.  Let us set aside the errors and omissions that may have occurred during the translation and compilation of the Bible for a while. The effort and the intent of those who brought the scripture to us are more important.  Let us also assume that scientific dating used in archeology is reasonably accurate. To make our review simpler, we can confine our study in the first book of the Old Testament called Genesis because it is there where creation is being told.  The first thing that we may notice is that the order of things in Chapter 1 does not match that of Chapter 2.    

In Genesis 1: (1) the plants were created; then (2) the fishes and the birds were created; (3) beasts and all creeping thing; (4) man was created.  Chapter 2 could have been a detailed re-enforcement of creation in Chapter 1 if not because of some obvious inconsistencies.   The order of creations starts to differ at Genesis 2:7 where:  (1) man is created as a living soul and was placed in a garden eastward in Eden; (2) plant life appeared to serve as food and to please the eyes; (3) the beast of the field and the foul of the air were formed.   Something is missing the fishes. Genesis 2:5 is mysteriously repeated in Genesis 2:9 except for the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the latter verse. 

Genesis 2:5 and Genesis 2:9 leave us uncertain which took place first the creation of man or the plants.     The preceding observations make Chapter 2 look like another event that occurred in an entirely different location from that of Chapter 2. Chapter 1 is the order of creation in general as far as the whole earth is concerned.  Chapter 2 is the creation of Adam in a special location east of Eden.  Adam and Eve; the Tree of Life; the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; and the phrase “living soul” are not mentioned in Chapter 1.  The fishes are not mentioned in Chapter 2 because there are no oceans and seas in Eden. The days are not counted in Eden because the location is timeless.  Adam and Eve were immortal.  

It looks like Genesis 2:5 is being repeated by Genesis 2:9 because the former verse is still talking about Chapter 1.   If we try to read the last part of Chapter 1 continuously until verse 5 of Chapter two, it appears that Chapter 1 is prematurely ended at verse 31 and verses 1 to 5 of Chapter 2 are still rendering a summary of the preceding chapter.  If we assume that Chapter 2 should start with verse 6, it becomes clearer that the creation of Adam in Eden was really an entirely different and separate creation process than the general creation in Chapter 1.

This means that while Adam and Eve were being created in Eden, humans were already continuously replenishing the earth.  It is even possible that the creation in Chapter 1 occurred many years before the creation in Eden of Chapter 2.  Up to the time of Adam and Eve in Eden, Lucifer who was the angel of light, was still in charge of man’s development on earth.  In fact Lucifer had been in charge even until the Word became flesh in Bethlehem, because Yahushua called him the prince of this world (John 12:31, John 14:30, John 16:11).    

When God began His creation in Chapter 2, God was making clear to the angels His vision of what man should be in the person of Adam.  God wants to see man attain Godliness although he is taken from the dust of the earth.  This is commanded in Genesis 1:26 saying “Let us make man in our image after our likeness.”  This answers the questions about the mysterious phrases “Let us”, “our image”, and “our likeness” spoken by God instead of “I will”, “my image”, and “my likeness”.  God was talking to His Son and all the angels including Lucifer.    

This answers the question how Lucifer was able to be in Eden to temp Eve.  He was one of the angels and Adam and Eve knew him as the one in charge of human evolution that was why they gave in to the temptation.  Theirs was a case of misplaced trust.    

Now we have a question that this article is supposed to answer.  Why did God need to create a model like Adam?  This would serve as standard in the angels’ task of helping humans achieve God qualities.  This would also accelerate the process of soul evolution.  The creation of Adam is estimated to be 6,000 B. C.  Archeology says that humans on earth were already moving through the neo-lithic era at this time.  God’s plan became known to all angels.  God wants the descendants of the Cro-Magnons to attain the level of Adam.  God was actually looking forward to creating millions of Gods like Him from the non-living dust of the earth.  

Another question is answered.  Why would Lucifer do what he did?  He was actually upset to see Adam possess divine qualities greater than him for knowing only good without knowing evil.  Furthermore, it looked like he was given a task of helping humans who are destined to attain greatness exceeding him.  He hated his assignment and began working against it.  That is exactly what he is doing until now and it looks like he is ignoring the warning without any intention to change his Mind.  

Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden when they betrayed God’s blessing.  Cain killed Abel and was driven away to the land of Nod.  Adam and Eve had another son, Seth through whom the descendants of Adam continued to grow and multiply.  This answers the question of my classmate in Grade 1 during our Catechism class.  Who did Cain and Seth married the monkeys?  He was severely reprimanded for asking a foolish question.     

We have a picture of how civilization looked like then.  There were three ancestral lineages replenishing the earth:  (1) the evolving civilization already existing outside of Eden; (2) the descendants of Cain; and (3) the descendants of Seth.  The lineages of Cain and Seth were spreading the DNA code of God consciousness to the primitive souls of lineage 1 who were already here before Adam was created in Eden.   This answers the question posed by the title of this article.  Was Adam the first man? In a sense the answer is no, Adam was not the first man.  In another sense yes, he was the first of his kind to carry the seed of a “living soul”.  Adam was the true meaning of the word man.  Genesis 3:20 and 1 Corinthians 15:45 were written within this context.  

References

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http://www.biblegateway.com/
http://reluctant-messenger.com/