What Race Was Adam?
Thomas Allen
The following is an excerpt from
Adam to Abraham: The Early History of Man by Thomas Allen (Franklinton, N.C.: TC Allen Co., 1998), with some grammatical corrections. The footnotes in the original are omitted.
Creation of Adam
The last
species of men whom God created was Adam, the father of the Aryans. Adam was created about 8,100 B.C. on the Pamir Plateau. With Genesis 1:27 begins the cultural history of man with the creation of Adam.
Genesis 1:26 reads, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over . . . all the earth.” The Hebrew word in this verse translated as “man” is ̓
âdâm. This word is translated as “Adam” in the second chapter of Genesis. More than five hundred times,
'âdâm is translated Adam. If this word had been translated as “Adam” instead of “man,” there would be no doubt that the Bible deals only with the Adamic race. The Adamic, Aryan, or White race, is the race created in the likeness of God and given dominion over the earth.
A more literal and correct translation of Genesis 1:26 and 27 is “. . . God said, Let us make Adam (̓
âdâm) in our image, after our likeness . . . And God created the Adam [or, the Adamite](
ha-̓âdâm) in his own image . . . .” This translation clearly shows that Adam and the Adamite are the race whom God created in His own image. If the traditional translation of
̓âdâm as man is used, these verses should read, “. . . Let us make a man in our image . . . And God created the man in his own image. . . .” Such a literal translation clearly shows that a particular man is being created, not mankind in general. This record of Adam’s creation strongly suggests the existence of other races of men at the time of his creation.
God created the Adamic race to “have dominion over all the earth.” He created the Adamic race to civilize mankind. As shown below, the Adamic race is the source of civilization. He exalted this race, and other races have recognized it as God’s chosen (Acts 13:17). God also chose the Adamic race as the race from which He would bring His Son, who would be man’s savior.
The Scriptures do not claim that Adam was the first man or that he is the father of all the races of man. On the contrary, the Scriptures present evidence that other people already existed before Adam was created.
When God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden, He gave Adam two duties to perform. First, he was to tend or dress the Garden of Eden. Second, he was to protect (keep) it.
The word translated “keep” in the King James Version is
shâmar (Strongs O.T. #8104), which means “to hedge about (as with thorns), i.e., guard; generally to protect, attend to, etc.” Although most versions translate this word as “keep,” the Amplified Bible translates it as “guard and keep,” and Moffatt translates it as “guard.” Those who translate
shâmar as “keep,” translate it in the sense of preserving, watching over, and defending if they translate it according to the root meaning of the word.
From whom was Adam to defend the Garden of Eden? His enemy appeared not to be wildlife, for God brought them to Adam to name. That he was to defend it from Satan is also unlikely. God would not have asked Adam to protect the Garden of Eden from a being more powerful than he. The Bible clearly illustrates that man lacks the power to protect himself, much less anything else, from Satan. (He must rely solely on the power of God for such protection.) So, who was the enemy from whom Adam was to guard the Garden? The most logical answer is that he was to defend it from other men—most likely the ones to whom Cain fled in Nod.
Another indication that the world was well populated at the time that Cain slew Abel is that Cain lured Abel into the countryside to kill him. He goes into the countryside away from any population center, so no one would witness his murder. If the only people on Earth were Adam, Eve, Cain, and Able, and an unnamed daughter with whom Cain could flee, as the traditionalists claim, Cain would not need to take his brother into the country to kill him.
Furthermore, in Genesis 4:14, Cain claimed that he would be a fugitive and expressed fear that anyone who found him would slay him. Whom did Cain have to fear if Adam and Eve were the only people alive at that time? From whom would he be a fugitive? No evidence is given in the Bible that Adam and Eve had another child until after Cain had fled. Even if they did, Cain had no more reason to fear his brothers and sisters than his parents — perhaps even less fear since, according to the traditionalists, he married one of his sisters. Cain was not expressing fear of his family. He was expressing fear about people of other races who existed before Adam’s creation. God affirmed this conclusion in His response to Cain in Genesis 4:15 when He told Cain, “Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” Then He placed a mark on Cain. God was acknowledging that many other people were then living who could have slain Cain, and that He would avenge Cain’s death if any of them slew him. If only Adam and Eve were living, and some brothers and sisters, as the traditionalists claim, what purpose would the “mark “ have served? After all, his parents knew their own son. If he had any siblings at the time of his flight, surely they knew their own brother. The “mark” was so that the other people then living could recognize that Cain was under God’s protection. Cain was certainly aware that other people were then living who would delight in killing him.
Genesis 4:17 provides more evidence that Adam and Eve were not the first man and woman. This verse shows that Cain found a wife, who bore his children. If Adam and Eve were the only people at this time, then how was Cain able to find a wife? No evidence is given in the Scriptures that Adam and Eve had any daughters to whom Cain could marry at the time the Bible describes Cain's marriage. In fact, Adam and Eve do not appear to have had any daughters until well after Cain's marriage. His marriage, the birth of his son Enoch, and his building of a city all occurred before Eve gave birth to Seth. According to the Bible, Adam and Eve had no daughters until after Seth's birth.
The conventional explanation for Cain’s wife is that he married his sister. If Cain's wife was a daughter of Adam, why should she be punished along with Cain for a crime of which she was innocent? Why should she be banished along with him and forever separated from her parents? Why should her children be denied proper religious training and righteous rearing? The answer to these questions is that Cain’s wife was not a daughter of Adam. The scriptural evidence that Adam and Eve had any daughters for Cain to marry at the time the Bible describes his marriage is lacking.
Cain did not marry his sister. He married a woman of another race, probably a Turanian. Jude supports the belief that Cain married outside his race. In verses five through eleven, Jude condemns old and new apostates. He compares the new apostates with the old. The most common sin that he identifies with the old apostates is the sin of miscegenation. In verse seven, he states that Sodom and Gomorrah had “given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after
strange flesh.” That is, they lusted after people of a different race. In verse eleven, he states the apostates had “gone in the way of Cain” and had followed “the error of Balaam.” The error of Balaam was his advice to Balak, King of Moab, to destroy Israel by having his mongrel people integrate with the Israelites and intermarry with them. Using Cain’s name in parallel with Balaam, Jude strongly suggests that both of them were guilty of the same sin, miscegenation.
Further evidence that the world was populated at the time God created Adam is that Cain built his son Enoch a city (Genesis 4:17). The building of a city certainly implies the presence of a large population. Even if this city were no more than a village of huts, as some commentators claim, it still implies a population much larger than would have been the case if all mankind were descended from Adam and Eve. The building of a city strongly suggests that the land to which Cain fled was already inhabited. Why would he bother building a city if the area to which he fled was uninhabited? The dwelling that he, his wife, and son had would surely have sufficed.
In an attempt to prove that Adam was the first man of all mankind created and the father of all races, theologians who preach the doctrine of the unity of man quote Genesis 3:20, 1 Corinthians 15:45, Acts 17:26, Galatians 3:28, Romans 10:12, and Colossians 3:11. None of these verses, however, support their claims.
Quoting Genesis 3:20 (“. . . Eve . . . was the mother of all living”), these theologians claim that Eve is the mother of all the species of men. As discussed in detail in the chapter on the Flood, “all” does not always mean the whole number of or every last one. It frequently means many or a large number. In this passage, Eve is being called the mother of the Aryan race, the mother of all Adam’s descendants. She is the mother of all with whom the Bible is concerned, i.e., the Aryans. Expressions like this one that appear to refer to all the inhabitants of the Earth, nearly always only refer to those created in God's image, i.e., Adam’s descendants, the Aryans.
These theologians are fond of quoting the first half of 1 Corinthians 15:45: “So it is written, The first man Adam became a living soul.” Then they argue that all men are descended from Adam. They overlook the last half of the verse: “The last Adam became a live-giving spirit.” They omit it because it makes no sense considering their doctrine. It immediately raises the question: Who is the last Adam? (The answer, of course, is Jesus Christ, with which nearly all, if not all, theologians agree.) The correct reading of this passage is that Adam was the first man of the Adamic line, not of all the racial lines existing today. Then the answer that Jesus Christ is the last Adam becomes clear. Jesus was born out of Adam through Abraham, Judah, and David. Verse 47 supports this conclusion: “The first man [Adam] is of the earth, earthly: the second man [Christ] is of heaven.” Adam was the “first man” only in the same sense that Christ was the “second” man. Adam was the figure of Christ (Romans 5:14). If these verses are to be interpreted consistently, they cannot be understood as describing Adam in a physical sense. If they are referring to Adam in a physical sense, then Jesus was, according to verse 45, the last man, which is absurd. These verses outline a basic theme of the Bible: death in Adam and life in Christ. This is the light in which these verses should be understood—not as proof that Adam fathered all the races of men.
Perhaps the favorite verse of the preachers of the doctrine of the unity of man is Acts 17:26: “And he [God] hath made
of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.” This is the
King James Version. The
American Standard Version,
New American Standard Version,
Revised Standard Version,
Berkeley Version, and
The Holy Bible in Modern English, translated by Ferrar Fenton, omit the word “blood.” Weymouth, in his
New Testament in Modern English, gives in a footnote the literal translation, “from one,” and notes that “from one blood” is an alternative reading found in some manuscripts. “One blood” appears only in some later manuscripts and, therefore, probably is not in the original.
This verse does not prove that all the races of men descended from Adam. It does show that God created each race of man. He created them at different times or by “the times before appointed.” He placed each of them in their own specific zoological zone or geographical area (“bounds of their habitation”).
The preachers of the doctrine of the unity of man also like to quote Galatians 3:28, Romans 10:12, or Colossians 3:11: “Where there is neither Greek nor Jew.” The Jew and the Greek referred to in these verses are both descendants of Adam. They are both Aryans. These verses are referring to one race, the Aryan race, living in different countries and conditions, and being united under Christ. They do not prove the doctrine of the unity of man.
Thus, the verses often quoted to support the doctrine that all races of men descended from Adam fail to support this doctrine. Only the White race descended from Adam.
What Race Was Adam?
Adam was created White. The name “adam” is
̓âdâm in Hebrew and means a “ruddy human being” (Strong's O.T. #120). It is derived from “adam” (Strong's O.T. #119), or ̓
âdam in Hebrew, which means “to show blood (in the face), i.e., flush or turn rosy.” Only one race has the characteristic of blushing or showing blood in the face or skin, and that race is the White or Aryan race.
Adam was named “Adam” because he possessed a
ruddy or rosy complexion. He was fair and White and, therefore, the hemoglobin showed through his nonpigmented skin, giving a ruddy or flushed look. His name described his physical appearance. It is a physical characteristic that appears only in the White race.
The Bible further proves that Adam and Eve were of the White race with fair and ruddy or rosy complexion by the way it describes their descendants. 1 Samuel 16:12 and 17:43 describe David as being “ruddy and of fair complexion.” 2 Samuel 13:1 describes David’s daughter, Tamar, as “fair.” Genesis 12:11 and 14 describe Sarah as “very fair,” and Genesis 24:16 and 26:7 describe Rebekah as “very fair.” They are descendants of Adam. In Songs of Solomon 5:10, Solomon is said to be “white and ruddy.” In Lamentations 4:7, the Nazarites (consecrated persons) of Judah are described as “whiter than milk” and “more ruddy in body than rubies.”
Adam and Eve were White. The church has historically always depicted them as White and correctly so. As recorded in the Bible, Adam’s descendants end up being White or at least of a light complexion. This is a fact that no one seriously denies. Yet traditional creationists also claim that all the other races are also descended from Adam.
Adam was not the father of the human race. He is only the father of the Aryan race. Each race is a distinct and separate creation. God created each race independently of the others and at different times. Hence, each race is a distinct species.
Scientific evidence suggests a high antiquity of man, along with evidence of definite anatomical differences. Each race of man is descended from a different human pair whom God created with different external and internal characteristics.
The Scriptures and science agree. The fossil record supports the Bible, and the Bible supports the fossil record. Adam was not the first human that God created. Adam was only the first individual of a new species, the Aryan race of man.
Although traditional creationists and evolutionists view each other’s theories with enmity, their theories have much in common. Both claim that all races of men have a common origin. Both claim that early man possessed a wide variety of genetic traits that allow for the different races. Both claim that only minor variations exist among the races today. Both claim that the races are the result of climate, environment, natural selection, and group isolation. Both claim one species, race, or kind can produce others—the principle of speciation. Both claim that God did not create the individual races of men. Both claim that no pure race exists because gene flow can and has occurred among the races.
Only two areas of any real disagreement exist between the traditional creationists and evolutionists. First, the creationists believe in the Divine creation of the initial pair. Evolutionists, for the most part, believe in some sort of spontaneous generation. Second, the creationists believe that the races of men evolved (or developed, as they prefer to say) over a few generations. The evolutionists believe that they evolved over tens of thousands, if not several hundreds of thousands, of years.
Both the traditional creationists and evolutionists ignore the fact that man can only invent falsehoods in science and religion. True science is nothing more than God’s revelation through His work in nature. New discoveries in science may conflict with religious errors preached over the centuries. With religious truths, however, they can never conflict. Both science and Scripture have the same Author.
Image of God
“And God created man [Adam] in his own image, in the image of God he created him. . . .”(Gen. 1:27). Adam had the physical nature of the Universe. He possessed life as found in other animals. But he was more. God had made Adam distinctly different. Like other races of men, Adam possessed reason, personality, and free will. Unlike the other races of men, he was created in the image of God. He possessed special qualities of God lacking in other races. Adam was the first man that God made in His own image.
Pre-Adamic men were not created in the image of God — at least not in the sense that this phrase is used in Genesis. Pre-Adamic men had no closer union with their Creator than do their untutored descendants (Turanians, Negroes, Melanochroi, Khoisans, and Australians) have today.
Adam, however, was unique. God had made him as a special image of His own eternity. God made Adam immortal (this immortality Adam lost through sin). He was a creature, a species of man, with whom God could visit and have fellowship and communion (this unique fellowship with God, the Adamic race lost when Adam sinned). He possessed a spiritual quality lacking in others. This spiritual quality was directly related to kinship to God. He had the ability to think God’s thoughts in purity and holiness without corruption. Adam had the capacity to commune with God as no other race could. He could reach spiritual heights unattainable to the other species of men. God gave Adam a moral and spiritual nature that enabled him to understand his Creator, to commune with Him in this life, and to look forward to eternal bliss.
Among the Divine qualities identified by Campbell that God gave Adam was a conscience or moral sense. This conscience in the Adamic race differs entirely from that in the other species of men. In the other races of men, conscience is a perceptive faculty. It provides them with some idea of right and wrong, but it never causes them to feel as though they must do right except where doing right is expedient. When they do wrong, they seem to lack an inward accuser or judge. They seldom show remorse about their crimes or sins; they only have remorse about being caught. In Adamic man, conscience provides moral guidance and protection from sinning. It is an innate part of his moral and spiritual constitution. His conscience convicts him of sin. The conscience of Adamic man is entirely different from that of other men
Adam’s unique privilege before God was conditioned by his obedience and responsibility to God. God had created Adam and the Adamic, Aryan, race to be his representative and steward on the Earth. God had delegated to Adam a share of His own authority. He made Adam a responsible being. The Divine purpose for the Adamic race was world dominion. (Because of sin, the Adamic race can now only achieve its Divine purpose by the intervention of Christ Jesus.)
“And Jehovah God formed man [Adam] of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7) Thus, God breathed His spirit into Adam and made him a living soul. This, God did not do for the other species of men. This is what separates Adamic man from the other races. The other races do not possess the ever-living spirit of God as does Adamic man. Unlike other beings, he shared something in common with his Creator.
Copyright © 1998 by Thomas Coley Allen.
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