At some point, however, Paul’s understanding of Adam comes front and center. Paul certainly seems to assume, as anyone living at that time did, that Adam was the very first human ever created a few thousand years earlier. For some, this settles the question of the historical Adam: “what Paul believes about human origins, I am bound to believe as well.”

This first post outlines the nature of the problem and the second part (next week) will focus more specifically on Paul. There I will outline several factors to be kept in mind when looking at what Paul said about Adam and why he said it.

There is no simple solution to this, but it is a topic worthy of considerable hermeneutical and theological attention.