The lost world of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the human origins debate

Proposition 1: Genesis is an ancient document

Proposition 2: In the ancient world and the Old Testament, creating focuses on establishing order by assigning roles and functions

Proposition 3: Genesis 1 is an account of the functional origins, not material origins

Proposition 4: In Genesis 1, God orders the cosmos as sacred space

Proposition 5: When God establishes functional order, it is "good"

Proposition 6: 'ādām is used in Genesis 1-5 in a variety of ways

Proposition 7: The second creation account (Gen 2:4-24) can be viewed as a sequel rather than as a recapitulation of day six in the first account (Gen 1:1-2:3)

Proposition 8: "Forming from dust" and "building from rib" are archetypal claims and not claims of material origins

Proposition 9: Forming of humans in ancient near eastern accounts is archetypal, so it would not be unusual for Israelites to think in those terms

Proposition 10: The New Testament is more interested in Adam and Eve as archetypes than as biological progenitors

Proposition 11: Though some of the biblical interest in Adam and Eve is archetypal, they are real people who existed in a real past

Proposition 12: Adam is assigned as priest in sacred space, with Eve to help

Proposition 13: The garden is an ancient near eastern motif for sacred space, and the trees are related to God as the source of life and wisdom

Proposition 14: The serpent would have been viewed as a chaos creature from the non-ordered realm, promoting disorder

Proposition 15: Adam and Eve chose to make themselves the center of order and source of wisdom, therby admitting disorder into the cosmos

Proposition 16: We currently live in a world with non-order, order and disorder

Proposition 17: All people are subject to sin and death because of the disorder in the world, not because of genetics

Proposition 18: Jesus is the keystone of God's plan to resolve disorder and perfect order

Proposition 19: Paul's use of Adam is more interested in the effect of sin on the cosmos than in the effect of sin on humanity and has nothing to say about human origins

Proposition 20: It is not essential that all people descended from Adam and Eve

Proposition 21: Humans could be viewed as distinct creatures and a special creation of God even if there was material continuity.