Were Adam and Eve real people?

[Katieb123]

Hi everyone!

I was just curious about everyone’s opinion on Adam and Eve. Do you interpret the story as literal? As in, they were the first two people, the Apple was an actual Apple, etc.

Or do you think it’s more allegorical? If so, how do you interpret what Adam and the Apple mean? Why do you think humans sin?

 

[74x12]

Hi everyone!

I was just curious about everyone’s opinion on Adam and Eve. Do you interpret the story as literal? As in, they were the first two people, the Apple was an actual Apple, etc.

Or do you think it’s more allegorical? If so, how do you interpret what Adam and the Apple mean? Why do you think humans sin?

It's both literal and allegory like most of Genesis. But it wasn't necessarily an apple. Nothing says it was an apple.

 

[Rival]

No apple is mentioned.

I believe the story is not wholly literal, but written in a way that humankind can relate to.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Of course not. Even when I was still a Christian I did not believe that. It is best to test it as allegory or a morality tale.

 

[Katieb123]

No apple is mentioned.

I believe the story is not wholly literal, but written in a way that humankind can relate to.

YES my bad, I’m so used to the “fruit” being referred to as an apple that I forget it isn’t specified.

 

[calm]

@Katieb123
Adam and Eve were real people. Man was not made by evolution but by creation. God made Adam and Eve out of earth, and he made them similar in his own image. And because we are similar to God, We are above the angels and above every other creature.

 

[exchemist]

Hi everyone!

I was just curious about everyone’s opinion on Adam and Eve. Do you interpret the story as literal? As in, they were the first two people, the Apple was an actual Apple, etc.

Or do you think it’s more allegorical? If so, how do you interpret what Adam and the Apple mean? Why do you think humans sin?

It's obviously allegorical, as was recognised by early church thinkers, from 200AD onward (cf. Origen). The story is an allegory of the loss of innocence that is the flip side of attaining moral maturity, i.e. the ability to tell right from wrong.

The fruit, significantly, was the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

As Man arose from the other apes and gained moral awareness, he nevertheless continued to do things that he now knew to be wrong, i.e. he became sinful. Just as a tiny child does not know right from wrong and cannot sin, but once the age of reason is reached we hold him morally accountable - and he sins.

This innate tendency to sinfulness is what is meant by original sin. And Mankind yearns for the innocence of childhood, gone forever.

Or that is how I have always understood it, at least.

 

[Subduction Zone]

@Katieb123
Adam and Eve were real people. Man was not made by evolution but by creation. God made Adam and Eve out of earth, and he made them similar in his own image. And because we are similar to God, We are above the angels and above every other creature.

Then you are claiming that God is a liar since all of the evidence out there tells us that this wrong. God would have had to have made that evidence. That would make God a liar.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

Hi everyone!
I was just curious about everyone’s opinion on Adam and Eve. Do you interpret the story as literal? As in, they were the first two people, the Apple was an actual Apple, etc.
Or do you think it’s more allegorical? If so, how do you interpret what Adam and the Apple mean? Why do you think humans sin?

First, I find the forbidden fruit is Not named.
I have heard that when you cut an apple in half it makes a 5-point star and that is why people say it was an apple.
Mortal Adam was offered everlasting life on Earth only as long as he kept God's Law.
Once Adam broke God's Law then Adam lost his human perfection.
Adam passed down to us his then acquired human imperfection.
Because we are innocent of what father Adam did is why God sent pre-human Jesus to Earth for us.
A sinless Jesus could thus balance the Scales of Justice for us opening up the way for eternal life for us.

Gospel writer Luke used the temple records to trace Jesus ancestry back to relative Adam as per Luke 3:38.
Those genealogical records Luke used begin at 1st Chronicles 1:1
So, I am Not using opinion but what we can really learn from the Bible.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

I think all we know about evolution and our ancestors, now points to a lot of Genesis not being literal. After all, existence wasn't created in 6 days.

And though this is a difficult subject, I think Christ existed and did wonders, at least to a certain extent, but question stories about him feeding 5,000 and such in a literal sense.

But I won't say he never performed miracles, as being a plausible manifestation of the divine alone, I consider a bit of a miracle.

 

[sun rise]

Allegorical. They stand for the birth of the sense of right and wrong and the leaving behind of animal innocence.

 

[Windwalker]

Hi everyone!

Hello!

I was just curious about everyone’s opinion on Adam and Eve. Do you interpret the story as literal? As in, they were the first two people, the Apple was an actual Apple, etc. Or do you think it’s more allegorical?

No, not literally. They are symbolic of our human natures.

If so, how do you interpret what Adam and the Apple mean?

Genesis doesn't mention any apple. That's some artist's depiction of what the "fruit" was, I think from Medieval times.

As far as the fruit of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" goes, which is how it is described, that's a huge question. What I take that as is that instead of seeking the path of immortality as the parent mythology that the Genesis myth riffs off from, which was the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, the Hebrews took the myth and made it about the path of moral responsibility.

The Genesis myth is about choosing a path of knowing the difference between good and evil, and the result of that is an awakening to the knowledge of sin, which brings about guilt and shame and remorse. It's about the loss of the innocence of our childhoods, as naive souls who love everything, until we are told we're bad. Then the world turns to crap, and we end up needing a psychotherapist or a priest to help us deal with all that which comes along with that.

Why do you think humans sin?

You don't like easy questions do you? Hmmm.... personally, at this point in life, I'd say it's because we believe lies and the programs we're programmed with. An innocent child doesn't have the angst of adults, which comes from socialization, particularly through adolescence and the fear of judgement of others which then get projected onto God in our religious language and the ways we talk about God.

I think we want to protect our egos from coming to terms with our realities, which are imperfect compared to societal and cultural standards. So we don't live in freedom. We live in fear instead, which results in negative actions and views of self and the world. People worry about going to hell when they die, but once they taste actual Freedom, they realize they've already been in it, right along with everyone else. Living trapped in fear, not living Free, is hell.

 

[calm]

Then you are claiming that God is a liar since all of the evidence out there tells us that this wrong. God would have had to have made that evidence. That would make God a liar.

What tells us that this wrong?

 

[Subduction Zone]

What tells us that this wrong?

The endless evidence for evolution. But to understand this you would probably need to understand the concept of evidence first. I have yet to see a creationist that understands the concept.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Hi everyone!

I was just curious about everyone’s opinion on Adam and Eve. Do you interpret the story as literal? As in, they were the first two people, the Apple was an actual Apple, etc.

Or do you think it’s more allegorical? If so, how do you interpret what Adam and the Apple mean? Why do you think humans sin?

Its a favorite subject, particularly since watching a video series on Egypt. Genesis is filled with contrasts with Egyptian myth, and its stories counter Egyptian lessons. For example in Egypt the gods determine what is moral, but in Genesis we learn that Adam and Eve also have the power, individually, to know good and evil. The story here has humans successfully seizing morality from the gods at the cost of our lives, but there are also interpretations and lessons from the story.

In Christ, we read that judgment falls upon Adam and his kin. The law (knowledge of good and evil) causes us to sin, according to Paul in Romans 7.

As to your question in the OP, what I think is this that the story is not fiction so much as it is a truth which happens in another reality from ours.

 

[Bird123]

Hi everyone!

I was just curious about everyone’s opinion on Adam and Eve. Do you interpret the story as literal? As in, they were the first two people, the Apple was an actual Apple, etc.

Or do you think it’s more allegorical? If so, how do you interpret what Adam and the Apple mean? Why do you think humans sin?

Adam and Eve is a Story. I would not count on it being true.

If Religion did not find something wrong with you, would you need religion at all? From the start religion created a need.

Do you really believe God thinks like that story? WE, along with all life is Perfection. On the other hand, God is not through creating us all yet. We are all learning, growing and walking toward our perfection with every lifetime.

How could God think His children are dirty rotten sinners when the only path to perfection must include learning of the bad choices as well as the good?

As I see it. Everyone needs to take a few steps back and see the Big Picture. Get close to a painting and seeing all those brush strokes shows such an ugly picture. Take a few steps back and see the Masterpiece.

When one Widens the View, the Masterpiece becomes clear.

That's what I am seeing.

 

[Milton Platt]

Hi everyone!

I was just curious about everyone’s opinion on Adam and Eve. Do you interpret the story as literal? As in, they were the first two people, the Apple was an actual Apple, etc.

Or do you think it’s more allegorical? If so, how do you interpret what Adam and the Apple mean? Why do you think humans sin?

I think the people who wrote the story thought it was literal. But I believe it is as made up as the rest of Genesis.

 

[Terry Sampson]

Were Adam and Eve real people?

Not immediately, ...

 

[Terry Sampson]

Were Adam and Eve real people?

Picture: "The Sixth Day" by Charles Bragg.

Why do you think humans sin?

Initially, it looks like an interesting and/or neat thing to do.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

“Maimonides applied this principle to theories about creation. He held that if the eternity of the universe (what we would call the Steady State theory) could be proven by logic (science) then the biblical passages speaking about creation at a point in time could and should be interpreted figuratively in a way that is compatible with the eternity of the universe.

It is only because the eternity of the universe has not been proven that he interpreted the verses about creation at a point in time literally (Guide, II, 25), but he still insisted that the creation story as a whole was written metaphorically (Book I, Introduction).”

I’m in agreement with Maimonides

Genesis As Allegory | My Jewish Learning