Adam In The Ancient Legends Of Creation

Adam In the ancient legends of creation in many cultures the characters are symbols representing the life that is given and the god who gives it. So most Christians read of Adam as Man and Eve as Woman, the symbols of our humanity. We can only regard them as historical if we also deny all the evidence of geology, palaeontology and biology – which some Christians still feel able to do.

The two Hebrew narratives of creation in chapters 1 and 2 Genesis reveal humankind as both part of nature and apart from nature. At home in the natural world, man is formed of the dust of the earth. Alone in awareness of the divine, man is set apart to oversee and cherish the world of nature. This vital balance – part and apart – was largely neglected

The garden may be lovely but that is not enough, for if something is forbidden then that is what we seek. The knowledge of good and evil was forbidden for the intention of the Creator was for humanity to rejoice in singleness of vision. It is precisely the loss of that singleness, so Genesis suggests, that makes us people with divergent possibilities – but also with the richness of experience that makes us interesting and creative.

Adam was taken to be a historical figure who begets a marred humanity. So it was possible to understand Jesus as the second Adam who restores humanity to fellowship with God. It is, perhaps, an unhelpful description for readers in an age when the follies and failures of churches have been on display, the old Adam still very much alive.

Arius and Athanasius were great contenders and debaters in the early church, both of them utterly convinced they were right about the incarnation, ready to do battle for the truth. It all seems remote to us. Arius fought for the doctrine that the Son was created by the Father and was subordinate to the Father. Athanasius held that Father and Son were eternal, one divinity, so that Jesus Christ was divinity in flesh. The difference between ‘’of like nature’’ and ‘’of one nature’’ became the war of words. The issue was settled at the Council of Nicaea in 325 where Athanasius prevailed. Neither man came to a happy end for their bellicose nature did not win

In small places it was a simple hall with a platform at one end for the judges; in the post-Constantine period, this could be used for worship with the clergy or elders occupying the seats on the platform, with the table or altar before them. When the growing church developed its own buildings, the Roman technology for domes was used to create larger spaces and this technique reached its apogee in Byzantium where the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople was an awe-inspiring construction. The Russian Church developed intricate and colourful domes and often built in wood. In the Western Church most of the significant building was associated with the monastic movement. Part of the monastery complex was a church designed for the religious community, with the monks seated facing across a central aisle, so that the psalms and prayers could be sung or spoken responsively. The public area, the nave, was secondary to this choir, often with a screen separating the two