Dürrer diptych
Adam ( Hebrew אָדָם - the Son of the Earth or a man ) and wife Eve ( Hebrew חַוָּה , Hawa - living or giving life ) are the first people on Earth in the Bible , created by God and the ancestors of the human race .
The Pentateuch ( Genesis 2-4 ) provides a fairly detailed description of the life of the first human couple. Key plot elements include the creation of Adam and Eve, temptation and the fall ; expulsion from Eden ; as well as the subsequent resettlement of people around the world outside the Garden of Eden .
Content
In the Old Testament
Creation
The book of Genesis contains two parallel stories about the creation of the world and man:
- First story: 1:26 - 2: 3 ;
- Second story: 2: 4 - 3:24 .
According to the first version ( Genesis 1: 26-29 ), the progenitors of mankind - a man and a woman - were created by God at the same time after the creation of all animals, birds and fish. According to the Bible, God said: “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness; and may they rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creeping things that creep on the earth ”( Genesis 1:26 ). The Holy Scripture further says: “And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them ”( Genesis 1:27 ) at the end of the sixth day of creation, and they were given dominion over the whole earth and living beings ( Genesis 1:27 ).
According to the second option, God first created one man, then created the Garden of Eden and planted a man in it as a gardener: “And the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it” ( Genesis 2:15 ) Then God created all the animals and birds and brought them to man so that he would choose an assistant from them ( Genesis 2: 18-20 ). However, there was no suitable assistant, so God put Adam to sleep, took one of his ribs and created from him the first woman - Eve , who became the wife of the first man ( Genesis 2: 21-22 ). " And there were both naked, Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed ."
The Fall and Exile from Eden
Among the Garden of Eden there were two special trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil . The Lord allowed Adam to eat “ from every tree in the garden, ” and only the fruits of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil forbade him to eat, warning that death would result from disobedience.
The serpent (the image of Satan), which " was trickier than all the animals of the field that the Lord God created, " persuaded Eve to try the fruit of the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil with tricks and cunning. The woman refuses, saying that God forbade them to eat from this tree, since the eaten fruit will die. The serpent answers her that she will not die: " You will be like gods who know good and evil ." Finally, the woman succumbed to the persuasion of the snake, violating the will of the Lord, after which she gave the fruit to Adam. As a result, Adam and Eve knew good and evil, realized their nakedness and hid from God. According to John Chrysostom, at first God created this man autocratic, otherwise he would not punish him for the crimes of the commandment or reward him for keeping it. The fall was the desire of man to appropriate the divine right to decide what good and evil are. A punishment followed the misdemeanor: the Serpent was cursed, and doomed to crawl on his stomach and eat dust, the woman was determined “ to have children in the disease ” and be subordinate to her husband; the man was appointed with sorrow and sweat to work all the days of his life on earth, which is " cursed for him ." People ceased to be immortal and after death must return to the earth in the form of dust from which Adam was created.
After that, God made clothes for people and sent a man from the Garden of Eden " to cultivate the land from which he was taken ." So that people could not taste the fruits of the Tree of Life , a cherub and a “ fiery sword circulating ” were placed at the entrance.
Life After Exile From Eden
Adam knew his wife Eve, and she gave birth to Cain . Then Adam once again knew Eve, and she gave birth to a second son - Abel ( Genesis 4: 1-2 ). At 130 years old, their third son was born - Seth (Sheta), who, being the ancestor of Noah , thereby became one of the founders of all mankind; the descendants of the other sons of Adam and Eve perished during the Flood ( Genesis 7:21 ).
In art
In Fine Art
Traditionally, the image of Adam can be found in four iconographic schemes:
- Creation of Adam
- The Creation of Eve
- The fall
- Expulsion from Paradise