Adam and Eve in the New Testament

[An English translation of the article "Adam i Ewa w Nowym Testamencie" , link]

The biblical stories from the Book of Genesis about the creation of the first humans, Adam and Eve, are among the most frequently attacked passages by various kinds of rationalists and atheists.

They accuse these narratives of being naive, contradictory, and incompatible with science—which, they claim, has definitively proven that humans do not descend from first ancestors directly fashioned from clay by God. Instead, the human species is said to be the product of millions of years of evolution across numerous hominid populations (Homo habilis → Homo erectus → Homo heidelbergensis → Homo sapiens), in exactly the same way as all other animal species.

According to proponents of extreme (naive) realism—who are usually, whether consciously or not, neo-atheists—humans are essentially no different from animals, and thus, there never was any Adam at all.

Yet the description of the creation and fall of the first humans in the first three chapters of Genesis appears to be a deeply allegorical narrative. As such, interpreting it literally seems to be an issue only for fundamentalists. Nonetheless, many atheists attempt to use this story as a "gotcha" against the Catholic doctrine built upon these accounts—especially the doctrine of original sin, which was committed by the first parents and inherited by all humanity. They claim that science—especially the theory of evolution—has “proven” that there was no original sin, because there was no Adam. And if original sin were to exist, it would require the existence of a single primeval human who consciously violated a command of God.

In this study, however, we will not focus on the detailed issues surrounding the origins of humanity, nor even on the concept of “original sin.”

That very concept was, in fact, specifically formulated by Saint Augustine of Hippo around 400 AD, and it had a profound impact on the doctrine of the Western Church (to simplify: the Catholic Church).

Augustine’s influence on the Eastern Church (again simplifying: the Orthodox Church) was significantly smaller, and so the precise notion of “original sin” does not appear there. Nevertheless, the underlying intuition of the issue was present among early Christian writers, starting with the New Testament, and the Eastern Church’s teaching on Adam’s sin and its consequences is analogous to the doctrine of the Western Church.

It is quite possible that the doctrine of “original sin” could be formulated in a slightly different, yet essentially equivalent, way—using different terminology.

What concerns us here, however, is how the story of Adam and Eve is referenced in the New Testament, which for Christians constitutes a kind of fulfillment of the Old Testament.

The teachings of the Old Testament receive their proper Christian interpretation in light of the New Testament, which describes the redemption of humanity through Christ and fully reveals the true meaning of the Old Covenant.

Therefore, Christians ought to interpret the story of Adam and Eve in the way it is treated by the New Testament itself.

Here, we will list all mentions of Adam and Eve in the New Testament—primarily those made by Saint Paul, who addresses the topic more than any other New Testament writer. And as an Apostle of Christ, inspired by the Holy Spirit, he reveals the full meaning of the story of the first parents—what is truly essential in it. After all, Paul’s writings are just as much the Word of God.

For the sake of completeness, let us now briefly mention a few other references to Adam in the New Testament, although they are not particularly significant for our purposes.

Luke 3:38 refers to Adam as an ancestor of Jesus:
“…the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.” (Luke 3:38, NIV)

Jude 14 notes that Enoch was the seventh in the line from Adam:
“Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: ‘See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones…’” (Jude 14, NIV)

In this study, I mark the texts from the letters of Saint Paul in brown, passages from the Acts of the Apostles in light purple, verses from the Gospel of Matthew in blue, those from the Gospel of Mark in green, and those from the Gospel of Luke in red.
All biblical quotations are presented using the New International Version (NIV) translation.

God Made All Nations from One Man

“From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth…”
(Acts 17:26)

Commentary: One of the key references to Adam in the New Testament, delivered in Saint Paul’s speech at the Areopagus in Athens. Paul states that the entire human race, scattered across the whole earth, actually originates from one ancient progenitor by God’s design. There are no people descended from a different ancestor or created in any other way. Modern science agrees with this, too, stating that all humans are truly related—that the entire human species descends from a specific branch starting with the very first representative. If there were such a thing as a “humanity gene,” one could say that the first hominid possessing it was the common ancestor of all humanity. No matter what racists claim, no person descends “from a different ape.” That is the scientific truth.

The theological truth is that this happened not by chance, but by God’s will—it was the Creator’s intention, regardless of the way He carried it out.

(Genesis 1:26-28)

“Then God said,(26)
‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’

(27) So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

(28) God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’”
 

Woman and Man Equally Originate from God

(1 Corinthians 11:7-12)

“A man ought not to cover his head, (7)
because he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.
(8) For man did not come from woman, but woman from man;
(9) neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.
(10) It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her head, because of the angels.
(11) Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.
(12) For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman, but everything comes from God.”**

(Matthew 19:3-6)

“Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, (3)
‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?’(4) ‘Haven’t you read,’ he replied, ‘that at the beginning the Creator “made them male and female,”
(5) and said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh”?
(6) So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’”**
 

(Mark 10:2-9)

“Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, (2)
‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’

(3) ‘What did Moses command you?’ he replied.
(4) They said, ‘Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.’

(5) ‘It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law, (6)
but at the beginning of creation God “made them male and female.” (7)
‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother, (8)
and the two will become one flesh.’ (9)
So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’”**

Commentary: Here we have three passages that, almost incidentally, affirm that God’s intention was to create humanity as both male and female.
The first text is a passage from 1 Corinthians, where Paul is discussing the order of worship and whether men and women should cover their heads during the service.
While considering why a woman should cover her head and a man should not, Paul takes a moment to reflect on the biblical account of Eve’s creation (Genesis 2:18-24):

(Genesis 2:18-24)

“The Lord God said, (18)
‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’

(19) Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

(20) So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals, but for Adam no suitable helper was found.

(21) So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh.

(22) Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

(23) The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called “woman,” for she was taken out of man.’

(24) That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”

Paul, recalling this biblical story, states that woman was created for man, from man himself, and not the other way around.After a moment of reflection, however, he acknowledges that this is only part of the truth, because after Adam at least, every man is born of a woman. Both sexes are indispensable to each other. And all of this is according to God’s design

The next two passages describe Jesus’ discussions with the Pharisees about divorce in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Jesus quotes the statement that, in fact, at the beginning God created humans as male and female. This was God’s original intention. This is based on Genesis 1:27, which appears first in the biblical narrative, before the rather imaginative story of Eve’s creation from Adam’s rib in Genesis 2:18-24 (did the All-Knowing not know from the start that a guy really needs a babe?).

This fairy-tale-like story is meant to convey a deeper truth: although animals, birds, and man are all made from the “ground” (adamah, cf. Genesis 2:7), only the “woman” is truly “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” taken from the man.

Bone, as the most durable of human tissues, is a symbol of ontological unity for the Semitic peoples, which is why Jews emphasize the respect and preservation of the bones of the deceased — as long as the bones remain, one can say the person’s body is preserved. Animals and humans are made of the same chemical substances, but their substance in a philosophical sense is different.
Meanwhile, the substance of man and woman is the same; they are one flesh — and what God has joined together, let no one separate.

Adam’s Sin Brought Death, Christ’s Obedience Brings Justification

(Rom 5:12-19)

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law.
14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!
16 Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.
17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!

18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.
19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

Commentary: Now comes another key issue about Adam’s role according to the teaching of the New Testament. Paul’s explanation in the Letter to the Romans shows how the fall of man happened and how his redemption came about. Through one original man, Adam (whose “bone and flesh” is Eve, so her direct role can be omitted here), sin entered the world, and through sin (no matter exactly how it was committed), death came upon people. Man lost access to the tree of life in paradise (Genesis 3:22–24) and, being dust (Genesis 3:19), he and his offspring had to return to dust. Since, using a biblical metaphor, we all sinned while still “in the body” of Adam (cf. Hebrews 7:9–10):

“And, so to speak, Levi himself, who collects the tenth, paid the tenth through Abraham, because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor.” (Hebrews 7:9–10)

We are indeed flesh of his flesh. And the fact that we were all under the dominion of sin, Paul explains from the very beginning of the Letter to the Romans, listing both the sins of Gentiles who do not know the Mosaic Law and the sins of Jews who do know the Law. He says:

“What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one;’” (Romans 3:9–10, Paul qoutes Ps 14:3 and further fragments of a few other Psalms)

The consequences were, as described earlier, the same even before Moses, when the Law directly dictating what sin is had not yet been given to the Chosen People.

But those consequences could be reversed when the second Adam appeared in the world — that is, Christ, the forefather of a renewed humanity — and through His obedience obtained God’s grace for all people, both Jews and Gentiles alike, regardless of the previously given Law. Christ is the antithesis of the fallen first man, Adam.

And what exactly our redemption looks like, Paul had already explained earlier in his First Letter to the Corinthians.

The First and the Last Adam: Natural Body and Spiritual Body

(1 Corinthians 15:20–22)

20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.
22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

(1 Corinthians 15:44–49)

44 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.
46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.
47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven.
48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven.
49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.

Commentary: Christ, a descendant of Adam (cf. Luke 3:38), though He died because of Adam’s sin, is also the firstfruits of the Resurrection. Christ is the forefather of the resurrected humanity. In Him we have life — in His resurrected spiritual body, that is, a body united with the Holy Spirit, which we receive in Holy Communion.

Romans 6:11:

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 2:20:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

In 1 Corinthians 15:44, Paul refers to the story of Adam being formed from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7):

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

In Greek, the first part of verse 44 reads:

Ἐγένετο ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος Ἀδὰμ εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν (Egeneto ho prōtos anthrōpos Adam eis psychēn zōsan) — except for prōtos ("first") and Adam, this is an almost exact quotation from the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint.

However, Paul adds a second part, which is not found in the Septuagint:
ὁ ἔσχατος Ἀδὰμ εἰς πνεῦμα ζῳοποιοῦν (ho eschatos Adam eis pneuma zōopoioun).

Here Paul introduces the story of Christ. The first Adam did not(yet) have a spiritual body — he was a “living being,” exactly the same term used for the other animals that God brought to him to be named (Genesis 2:19). In this way, Adam recognized — just as sensory, natural-minded people do today (1 Corinthians 2:14) — including atheistic neo-Darwinists and the like,
that in his physical nature he was no different from the animals. Just another ape, really.

Well then:

Psalm 49:7–14:
⁷ No one can redeem the life of another
or give to God a ransom for them—
⁸ the ransom for a life is costly,
no payment is ever enough—
⁹ so that they should live on forever
and not see decay.
¹⁰ For all can see that the wise die,
that the foolish and the senseless also perish,
leaving their wealth to others.
¹¹ Their tombs will remain their houses forever,
their dwellings for endless generations,
though they had named lands after themselves.
¹² People, despite their wealth, do not endure;
they are like the beasts that perish.
¹³ This is the fate of those who trust in themselves,
and of their followers, who approve their sayings.
¹⁴ They are like sheep and are destined to die;
death will be their shepherd
(but the upright will prevail over them in the morning).
Their forms will decay in the grave,
far from their princely mansions.

When God at last breathed the breath — the spirit — of life into Adam’s nostrils, the story had to find its completion in Christ, the ultimate (eschatos) Adam:

Psalm 49:15:
15 But God will redeem me from the realm of the dead; he will surely take me to himself.

So in the New Testament, we see a new Adam: Christ.

But where is the new Eve?
After all, Paul wrote that “in the Lord, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman” (1 Corinthians 11:11).

The Church as the Bride of Christ, the New Eve

(2 Cor 11:2-3)
2 I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.
3 But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

(Ephesians 5:21-32)
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.
24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,
27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—
30 for we are members of his body.
31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

(1 Timothy 2:11-15)
11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission.
12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.
13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve.
14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.
15 But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

Commentary:Here is the Bride of the new Adam! It is the new Israel, the community of the faithful, the Church. The allegory of the marriage of Adam and Eve, as an indissoluble union, reaches back to the Apostles—Paul and John among them. To quote a passage from Revelation about the reign of Christ, our God:

(Revelation 19:7)
“Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
and his bride has made herself ready.”

Paul teaches this while giving instructions to his disciples and the communities he founded in Corinth and Ephesus. However, these communities were not always faithful; sometimes they listened to the serpent’s words, just like the first Eve—as Paul mentions in 2 Corinthians, complaining that his apostolic authority and teachings were being challenged again. It is also clear here why man and woman are one body, because as the Church we are members of the body of Christ, “coming from the side” of Christ, the new Adam.

(1 Corinthians 6:15)
“Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?”

Paul describes this in the quoted passage from the Letter to the Ephesians, where he explicitly speaks of the allegorical image of Adam and Eve foreshadowing the union of Christ and the Church.

So to all kinds of atheists, unnamed but boasting on the Internet that supposedly the Church in the old dark ages, before science existed, understood the story of Adam and Eve purely literally—well, what do these brats really know?

There is also a third passage in which Paul instructs Timothy that women should not teach publicly but instead learn quietly and with full submission (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:34-35). The reason given is the priority of Adam in creation and the priority of Eve in sin. This may seem chauvinistic, but considering the context of those times, Paul did not want Christianity to be dismissed as “women’s chatter.” However, it’s also worth looking at a broader context and seeing these verses as containing allegorical truths. The Church, the new Eve, will never lead over her husband, the new Adam—Christ. It is from Christ that she, the Ecclesia, learns; she adds nothing on her own. Christ rose first, and only from His body was His Bride, the new Eve—the Church—formed. Christ was not deceived, but the Church, the new Eve, can fall into transgression again by trusting the serpent’s words anew. The Church is our Mother, and we are joined to her as her children; through this union, we will be saved.

Yet verse 1 Timothy 2:15 can also be related to the actual Mother, the Immaculate Woman, about whom God said to the Serpent:

(Genesis 3:15)

“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

...that is, to Mary. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman,. (1 Corinthians 11:12). Christ was born of Mary (Galatians 4:4: ‘But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman’), and the world, Creation (and thus Mary herself) came from Christ, the Word, who was with God in the beginning and through whom all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made (John 1:1-3, paraphrased).

And so, having moved from the Omega to the Alpha, it becomes clear why the original story of the creation of Adam and Eve speaks of her being made from him. Yet truly, at the beginning, God created mankind as male and female. That was God’s original intention...

24 December 2021, Christmas Eve, commemoration of Adam and Eve (original Polish version)

July 2025 (English translation)