part0028

The Myth: This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. (Gen. 5:1-5)

The Reality: Adam and Eve were the Egyptian deities Geb (earth) and Nut (heaven). Their children were the children of the earth and the heavens.

At the beginning of the second Creation account in Genesis, we are told that the stories that follow are about the family of the heavens and the earth (see Myth #17). The chief characters in those stories are Adam and Eve and their children, Cain and Abel, implying that the family of Adam is the family of the heavens and the earth.

Initially, the Bible refers to Adam and Eve as “the Adam” (see Myth #11) and Eve as “the woman.” During the course of the story, a subtle transformation in terminology takes place and they become known as Adam and Eve. Although it is implied in these early tales that Adam and Eve were the first humans, it is not until Genesis 5:1 that a direct connection is made. At that point, the Bible presents the first of several genealogies that make Adam the ancestor of the human race, tracing a line of descent through Noah and down to the biblical patriarchs.

In Myth #12, we learned that Adam and Eve were not the same as the humans created on the sixth day. They were created “in the day that God made the earth and the heavens,” which is the second day. Were they a different set of humans from those created on the sixth day or were they originally some sort of cosmic deities?

In the Babylonian Creation myth, heaven and earth were the severed halves of a dead monster known as Tiamat. Since these two inanimate chunks of corpse did not give birth to any children, Babylonian myth can’t serve as a prototype for the biblical story. But, if we look to the Heliopolitan Creation myth, we find some of the source material for the second biblical Creation story.

According to Heliopolitans, Geb (earth) and Nut (heaven) had three sons— Osiris, Set (or Seth), and Horus—and two daughters.

The relationships among members of this family play an important role in Egyptian mythology. One story tells how Geb (earth) and Nut (heaven) disobeyed the chief deity and how he punished Nut with difficulties in childbirth. Another tells how Shu (the sky, son of Atum and father of Geb) pulled Nut from Geb’s body and separated heaven and earth. And still another tells of how one of the brothers killed one of the other brothers, and how the third brother founded the line of legitimate heirs to the Egyptian throne.

These plot lines should sound vaguely familiar to those who know the story of Adam and Eve. God separated Eve from the body of Adam; the two of them disobeyed God’s order; God punished Eve with difficulties in childbirth; Adam and Eve had three sons—Cain, Abel, and Seth—one of whom (Cain) murdered one of the others (Abel) and the third of whom (Seth) went on to found the line of heirs from Adam to Abraham.

The two genealogical patterns coincide so closely that one can’t help but conclude that the Egyptian model influenced Genesis. This means that Adam and Eve had an original incarnation as the Egyptian deities Geb and Nut and their three sons (Cain, Abel, and Seth) corresponded to the three sons of Geb and Nut (Osiris, Horus, and Set).

Later biblical editors, however, had problems in presenting these stories about the ancient Egyptian deities. On the one hand, the Hebrews were monotheistic and didn’t believe in these gods; on the other hand, these stories were widespread and well-known. The biblical editors hit upon the solution of demystifying the deities and recasting their stories as if they were about humans instead of gods.

Subsequently, when they attempted to integrate the two biblical Creation stories into a single continuous account, they reworked the stories so as to convey the impression that Adam and Eve were the first humans, identical with the humans born on the sixth day, which interpretation has remained highly influential throughout history among Jewish and Christian theologians. Yet, despite the editors’ skillful and successful efforts, we still see a good deal of the original mythological symbolism.