Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Was Jesus Adam? Is the One Who Came After Him 'the Son of Man'?

Bultmann has already cleared much of the ground on this topic.  Indeed much has been written about this and the beliefs of the heretics - but I have something new to add.  It is an unrecognized fact about Galatians 4:4.  The same term that is used to describe God's son being 'sent forth' from heaven is used to describe the man God made with the help of (his wife) Wisdom being banished from Paradise:
So the Lord God banished (ἐξαπέστειλεν) him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken LXX Genesis 3:23

But when the fulness of the time was come God sent forth (ἐξαπέστειλεν) his Son
Coincidence? I am not so sure. Could be the key for understanding the heresies. Remember 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and its talk about the 'first Adam' and the 'second' etc.  We have to explain why God needed to be crucified - i.e. his personal motivation.  'To redeem us from sin' is only part of the answer.  Surely God was capable of waving his hand and doing this.  He was not limited by established paradigms or convention. Indeed arguing that God had to conform to existing 'rules' implies he was constrained and thus imperfect.

Was the crucifixion at once also his repentance according to the Marcionites and other heretical groups?  Was the symbol of Adam on the Cross somehow symbolic of the crucifying of 'enmity in the flesh' (Ephesians 2:15)?  The flesh he was given by God in the beginning.  There is a confusion in heretical authors about whether Jesus is the Son of the Father or the Son of the Creator.  This might have something to do with it.

It is worth noting that it is only the presence of 'the time' (ὁ χρόνος) which makes the reference seem apocalyptic. If 'the fullness' was left on its own it would be an obvious reference to Adam eating (and being satiated) in the Garden - and then expelled. Curiously, if we assume that the tree of knowledge, good and evil was a fig tree, Jesus's withering of the tree is significant. But then if we also look to Zacchaeus being in the tree of life (a sycamore) and that tree is allegorical symbolized by the Cross (the wood) - the idea of some else being crucified on that 'tree' - even Zacchaeus 'the pure one,' this is an interesting concept to consider.


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