The truth about man and woman, according to the record of God’s creation in the Bible, is that Eve was taken from Adam’s side and separately formed as a unique and different man. She is “woman.” She was not formed from the dust of the earth as was man. That would have made her a unique and different creature. She was not created using Adam’s sperm and a separately created egg. That would have created an offspring of Adam with a different relationship to him. God fashioned woman from Adam and formed a unique companion, who was in fact “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.”
Are we to accept the story as literal or symbolic illustration? If the story is mere myth, we have a major Bible authority problem. The Bible makes reference to Adam and Eve as if they really were the first man and woman and to the creation story as if it were historically accurate. The writer of the Chronicles traces the lineage of Hebrew people back to Adam. “Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth. . . .” (1 Chronicles 1:1-4). The Prophet Hosea does not write about Adam as though we should understand him only as a symbolic and non-historic figure.
For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. But like Adam they have transgressed the covenant; there they have dealt treacherously against Me. Hosea 6:6-7
When Luke recorded the lineage of Jesus, was he suggesting that Jesus and his family had their origins in some mythological person or was he giving a family record of real people?
When He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, the son of Eli, . . . the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan, the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. Luke 3:23, 37-38
Our doctrine of salvation is tied to our understanding of the origin of sin committed by the first man. Sin did not come into the world via an illustrative story of two make-believe people. The sinful fall of man was the result of actual sin by the historical first man and woman.
For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. 1 Corinthians 15:21-22
Jesus looked upon the story of Adam, Eve, and the first family as history and fact. Was Jesus mistaken? Were his references to Adam and Eve made in error?
And He answered and said, “Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh?’” Matthew 19:4-5
If the creation story is mere myth, Jesus was either deceived or he was deceiving. If creation happened as the Bible presents it and as Jesus teaches and confirms it, we are compelled to build our doctrine and the practice of our faith and family upon the facts of it. We are left with important questions. Was man created to be head of the home? What truths about the family do we find “in the beginning?” Is the family established at creation with an intentional order? Of course all this is only important if GOD’S WORD MATTERS.
(excerpt from Females in a Forbidden Zone by Norman Drummond)