Today I wish to briefly review the first half of Karl Giberson’s book, Saving the Original Sinner. It is “Black Friday,” and I’m sitting at Starbucks, drinking my morning coffee. So consider this not so much of a “formal” book review, as it is more of a chat over coffee about a very good book I’ve recently read. Enjoy…
Chapter 1: First Man or First Jew? The Mysterious Patriarch of the Tribe of Israel
In chapter 1 of his book, Giberson first provides a brief overview of the events in Genesis 1-11. He then points out that any decent reader will see that there are a host of unanswered questions in Genesis 1-11. Because of that fact, people have tended to speculate on what the answers to those unanswered questions may be. The 1st century Jew Philo of Alexandria speculated that the first man was far superior to those living in the present day. Papers were written in 17th century France, arguing that Adam was 140 feet tall. Modern day young earth creationists teach that Adam was 12-16 feet tall, possessing superintelligence and a perfect genome.
The thing we must realize, though, is none of that sort of speculation is actually in the text of Genesis 1-11. The fact is, after Genesis 1-11, the figure of Adam simply fades away—very rarely is he ever mentioned or alluded to again. Simply put, in the larger scope of the biblical story, Adam is not a main character—important, yes; but main character, no. Nevertheless, as Giberson states, “Every generation of Christians brings new questions to the text, looking for insights into their issues, like the role of women or the contours of marriage” (25).
This is quite a natural thing to do—for as he mentioned in the introduction, regardless of whether or not people admit it, the fact is we read the early chapters of Genesis mythologically. We look to those chapters to get our bearings on how we are to understand human beings and creation—what our purpose is, and how we should interpret the world around us. That is, after all, what myths attempt to do: provide some sort of over-arching structure and worldview for society.
Chapter 2: The Two Essential Adams of the Apostle Paul
In chapter 2, Giberson focuses on the Apostle Paul’s treatment of Adam. Perhaps the quote that best sums up Giberson’s point about Paul is the following: “Paul’s engagement with Adam, however, is far from straightforward. His tradition read their scriptures with the assumption that Adam and Eve were historical figures, as real as Moses and David. But precisely because they assumed this history uncritically, it is hard to tell how important it was to them. Our historical questions were not theirs” (30).
Giberson’s point is simple: Did Paul assume Adam was a historical figure? Probably. Was that a question Paul ever really gave much thought to, or considered crucial to the proclamation of the Gospel? Probably not. Although it might seem that Paul implies all humans inherited their sinful natures from Adam, the fact is that no early Church Father within the first three centuries viewed Adam that way. It wasn’t until Augustine that such a view became so influential in Western Christianity.
When seen in light of the fact that Jewish tradition tended to see Adam as the first Jew, Paul’s treatment of Adam makes sense. He was taking the Gospel to the Gentiles, therefore he used the story of Adam to illustrate, not just the Jews, but all humanity.
Chapter 3: The Devil Made Them Do It
Chapter three is an interesting chapter, in that it provides a glimpse of how the early church in the early centuries dealt with the theological understanding of sin. Giberson points out that when talking about the reason for the evil world, early Christians pointed to Satan and demons, and never really referred to Adam and his fall into sin. The main question in regards to Adam was simply this: “Did he pass something down to us that makes it impossible for us to avoid sin? Or do we have the same chance to avoid sin as Adam did?” (50).
Therefore, there was a strand of thought that Adam was simply Everyman, and that we, like Adam, have the capacity to resist sin—we face the same challenge as Adam did. Perhaps the most famous promoter of this idea was heretic Pelagius, whose views clashed with Augustine. (Giberson focuses on him in chapter 4). Personally, I’ve always found this idea somewhat humorous: the point of the story is that Adam doesn’t resist sin. So to say we have the same capacity to resist sin—well, we don’t. I would say, “Yes, the story of Adam is our story—but it’s not about how we have the capacity to resist sin; it’s about how we don’t.”
In any case, one of the related topics that got tied up with the issue of Adam and Eve was the topic of sex and virginity. (Indeed, Augustine’s sexual temptations as a young man no doubt affected his reading of Genesis 2-3). On one end of the spectrum were people like Jerome (the man who translated the Vulgate), who viewed sex, marriage, and family as inferior and less holy way of life. For him, virginity was the epitome of holiness. He “…transform[ed] Eden into a paradise of virginity, arguing that the curse on women is actually a curse on those who forsake virginity and accept the spiritually inferior life of the family” (55). On the other side there were men like Jovinian, who argued that marriage was just as holy as virginity, that God created sex, and it was a good thing within marriage.
Well, if there’s one thing that Church history reveals, it is that Jerome was pretty much an old curmudgeon. He savaged Jovinian’s views, and even characterized Jovinian’s views as the “hissing of the old serpent…” (56). Jerome’s exalted views of virginity had a tremendous impact on the Catholic Church.
Chapter 4: The Original Sinner: Augustine’s Attack on Adam as Everyman
Giberson points to Augustine, the one who established the “original” doctrine of original sin, as the one who probably is most responsible for American Christianity’s rejection of evolution. If that sounds like quite a stretch, be patient and read through Giberson’s book. Although I don’t think we should “blame” Augustine for this, it is quite clear that his views on Adam and Eve have impacted the current creation/evolution debate.
What makes Augustine so important is that, as Giberson states, “Augustine establishes Adam, once and for all, and in a most compelling way for the Western church, as both the original sinner and the source of original sin” (62). His arguments were a reaction to Pelagius, who taught that human beings were innocent, and had the ability to not sin. Adam was a “bad example,” nothing more.
As I mentioned in my comments on chapter 3, I think Pelagius’ view was ultimately wrong. His claim that we are innocent and have the ability to not sin isn’t true. Yet Augustine’s reactionary view isn’t right either. The problem with Augustine is that in his attempt to argue that we are all sinners (which we are), he placed the source of that sin in the two historical figures of Adam and Eve.
To simply things: (A) Irenaeus in the 2nd century said, “The story of Adam is the story of humanity—we sin.” (B) Pelagius in the 4th century said, “The story of Adam doesn’t have to be your story—you can choose not to sin.” (C) Augustine in the 4th century said, “The story of Adam is his story—he sinned, and because he had sin and then later had sex with Eve, he passed on his sin nature to humanity.”
And so, if you’re like me, if you want to know where your church’s negative attitude toward sex and insistence on a historical Adam came from, look no further than Jerome and Augustine. Because of Jerome’s and Augustine’s influence, the Church in the West came to both equate virginity with holiness, and Adam and Eve as historical people who passed down their sin natures to the rest of humanity through, you guessed, sex.
Incidentally, as Giberson points out, Eastern Orthodoxy, although they respect and honor Augustine as an early Church Father, “has not to this day accepted Augustine’s theology of original sin” (66).
Chapter 5: The Late Middle Ages: Adam Everywhere
In chapter 5, Giberson gives us a glimpse of the Late Middle Ages. As anyone familiar with history knows, it was the work of Catholic Medieval scholars that opened the door to what eventually became known as modern science. The most influential scholar was no doubt Thomas Aquinas. He taught that when Adam fell, it affected his will, but not his reason. Coupled with Aquinas’ revival of Aristotelian philosophy, and his subsequent “Christianization” of it, Aquinas argued that human beings could use their God-given reason (which was not affected by the fall) to study God’s creation, and learn more about God.
This movement eventually became known as “natural philosophy.” Medieval scientists (known as “natural philosophers”) studied the natural world, not simply to learn more about the natural world, but also (and ultimately) to learn more about God. This was the genesis of modern science. Even when Copernicus argued for a heliocentric universe, Giberson points out that in his scientific argument, Copernicus described the universe as God’s “temple.”
Medieval scholars like Dante assumed that there had been an original “perfect language,” and this sparked interest in the study of languages. Their studies into the realm of science and linguistics always had a theological component to them. As Giberson points out, even Dante’s detail description of hell in his famous work, The Inferno, was not focused on the topic of sin, not geology. Yes, Dante was incorporated the understanding of the physical universe that was assumed at the time, but it was incidental to his larger point: to wrestle with the topic of sin and punishment.
Conclusion
Thus endeth my “bird’s eye review” of the first half of Karl Giberson’s book, Saving the Original Sinner. Check back tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion…
