The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #2 Beginning of mankind

After the fifth period in creation the sixth session brought forth ‘living souls‘ or ‘living things’ or ‘living beings’ which could multiply, making the earth having more of their sort. They were not in the image of God, but on the ‘sixth day‘ the Divine Creator decided to make some living being after His image.

This image and likeness of God in man is expounded, Ephesians 4:24, where it is written that man was created after God in righteousness and true holiness, meaning by these two words, all perfection, as wisdom, truth, innocence, power, etc. (Annotations in the 1599 Geneva Patriot’s Edition)

24 And put on the new man, which 1after God is created unto 2righteousness, and 3true holiness.

1 After the image of God.
2 The effect and end of the new creation.
3 Not fained nor counterfeit. (Annotations in the 1599 Geneva Patriot’s Edition)

Man had received everything in him to be happy living for always. Though he was not immortal. The first living being, “a soul” that would be called “man”, was receiving a higher status than the previous created living beings. Man was made in the image of God, indicating that Adam had some similar elements of God and being in the likeness of the Most High Elohim he received in this way a sort of “royal authority” to govern over God’s creation.

All over the world we can find creation myths, showing that the “being” of it makes only sense when there is a reason for “being”. It is that sense of life so many people are looking for. Genesis uses a similar approach found in other ancient documents: Existence depends on function.

Jackson Wu looks at creation and John H. Walton’s view in this way

Genesis indeed explains the origins of the world but it tells a particular kind of story. It provides a “functional” (rather than a “material”) account of the world origins.

and continues with a good example

If I move beds and dressers out of a “bedroom” and replace it with a desk and file cabinets, what would we say? A “bedroom” no longer exists. I have now “created” a office or study.

Similarly, Genesis 1 explains how God created the world to be a sacred space, a Temple where He would dwell with his people. This view of Genesis helps us to see who God is, who we are, and God’s design for the world. {When Did God Make China?}

That original manly being was “to be red” (=Adam). Adam occurs approximately 500 times with the meaning of mankind. In the opening chapters of the Bereshith (the Book of the Beginnings or Genesis), with three exceptions (1:26; 2:5,20) it has the definite article indicating “man” or “the man” rather than “Adam”.
The first undisputed occurrence of the name of Adam is in the genealogy of Genesis 5:1-5.

Adam and Eve with Cain and Abel – Catacomb of the Via Latina

1 This is the 1book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created Adam, in the 2likeness of God made he him,
2 Male and female created he them, and blessed them, and called their name 1Adam in the day that they were created.
3 Now Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a child in his own 1likeness after his image, and called his name Seth.
4 aAnd the days of Adam, after he had begotten Seth, were eight hundred years, and he begat sons and daughters.
5 So all the days that Adam lived, were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died.

The 1st Adam indicates to be the first living creature of “red blood” (hence red blooded or adam), flesh and bones. Of necessity that first fleshly creature out of which mankind would grow could be called the first created man or “the man” and the designation is equivalent to a proper name: Adam.

This first soul or living being, came from the earth, and by receiving the Breath of God came to live. Animated by the divine breath created in the image of God was allowed to have dominion over all other life, animate and inanimate. He is other than God, with no actual physical descent from the Supreme Being or from any inferior deity. Notice also how only by the creation of this human being is mentioned that God “breathed … the breath of life”

Genesis 2:

7 The Lord God also 1made the man 2of the dust of the ground, and breathed in his face breath of life, band the man was a living soul.

8 And the Lord God planted a garden Eastward in 1Eden, and there he put the man whom he had made.
9 (For out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree pleasant to the sight, and good for meat: the 1tree of life also in the midst of the garden, 2and the tree of knowledge of good and of evil.

Genesis 1:

Satan Watching the Caresses of Adam and Eve — William Blake (1757-1827); William Blake’s illustrations of “Paradise Lost”, 1808.

27 Thus God created the man in his image: in the image of God created he him: he created them imale and female.
28 And God 1blessed them, and God said to them, jBring forth fruit, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heaven, and over every beast that moveth upon the earth.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given unto you 1every herb bearing seed, which is upon all the earth, and every tree, wherein is the fruit of a tree bearing seed: kthat shall be to you for meat.
30 Likewise to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the heaven, and to everything that moveth upon the earth, which hath life in itself, every green herb shall be for meat, and it was so.
31 lAnd God saw all that he had made, and lo, it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Genesis 2:

18 Also the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be himself alone: I will make him an help 1meet for him.
19 So the Lord God formed of the earth every beast of the field, and every fowl of the heaven, and brought them unto the 1man to see how he would call them: for howsoever the man named the living creature, so was the name thereof.
20 The man therefore gave names unto all cattle, and to the fowl of the heaven, and to every beast of the field: but for Adam found he not an helper meet for him.
21 Therefore the Lord God caused an heavy sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in stead thereof.
22 And the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man, 1made he a 2woman, and brought her to the man.
23 Then the man said, cThis now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called 1woman, because she was taken out of the man.
24 dTherefore shall man leave 1his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh.
25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not 1ashamed.

The Divine Creator had out of nothing or out of the blackness created elements which became ordered and received a function. As such the Most High Elohim Jehovah is the One God Who brings order out of (primordial) chaos and as such also being the God of order. [Chaos representing “non-order,” not “disorder.”]

Man being set in God’s Garden, the Garden of Eden, got the allowance to name the other things but also got the obligation of obedience to the divine Will, in connection with the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

When you follow the storytelling of creation you shall find God speaking or bringing out words, and then matter came into being. Every time it was God’s Word that brought action and life. Each stage of creation is also approved with the words

“And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1: 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, cf. 31),

and the inference is that the creation of man was its consummation and climax.

God wanted to have His Kingdom full of plants, animals and human beings in his likeness. He wanted to see a beautiful world where all of His creatures could live in peace with each other.

The first Adam wanted a partner and God made him one. This person taken out of man, the mannin became the first woman and was to be Adam’s partner giving him children as part of God’s family.

* Bible quotes from 1599 Geneva Patriot’s Edition

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