1

The Status Questionis of the Adam

Typology in Paul
Modern scholars have sought to elucidate the Adam typology in Paul in light
of his religious, cultural, and literary backgrounds. Among them, under the
influence of the History-of-Religions School, there have been scholars who
propose Gnosticism as the background to explain Paul’s use of the Adam figure
in 1 Corinthians 15 and in Romans 5. Another trend has been to look to
early Judaism for the sources of Paul’s understanding of the Adam typology.
Nevertheless, in the end all agree that it is the stories of the creation and fall
in Genesis 1–3 that influenced Paul’s Adam typology most of all, as well as the
later Hellenistic or Palestinian Jewish interpretations of the Genesis narratives.
However, as we shall see, these studies have not identified two important aspects
of the Adam typology in Paul. First, they have not explained adequately how
the figure of Adam functions within the larger literary contexts of 1 Corinthians
and Romans. Second, they have not noted the ethical and social implications
that Paul may have drawn from the Adam motif.

Proponents of the Gnostic Hypothesis

Modern interpretations of the figure of Adam in Paul began with the
theological debate between Rudolf Bultmann and Karl Barth.1 Their exegetical
and theological works reflect an anthropological concern. In his analysis of
Romans 5, Barth states, “Man’s essential and original nature is to be found,
therefore, not in Adam but in Christ.”2 Bultmann replied that Paul “says

1. David Paul Henry captures this debate between Barth and Bultmann. The dialogue begins as early
as 1922, when the two authors agree that “the intent of biblical interpretation is to confront and involve
the reader in the ‘subject matter’ of the text,” which for Bultmann was “authentic human existence,”
whereas for Barth it was “the relationship between humanity and the transcendent God.” See David Paul
Henry, The Early Development of the Hermeneutic of Karl Barth as Evidenced by his Appropriation of Romans
5:12-21 (NABPR Dissertation Series 5; Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1985), 203.

5
6 | The Figure of Adam in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 1

nothing about the possibility of our recognizing in retrospect the ordering

principle of the kingdom of Christ also in the world of Adam.”3 Although
the former may emphasize the christological dimension and the latter the
anthropological dimension of Paul’s Adam typology, in the end both Barth and
Bultmann agree that Paul’s Adam typology is necessarily both christological and
anthropological.
The more influential study for the Adam typology has been Bultmann’s
analysis of Rom 5:12-21 and 1 Cor 15:21 and 47-49. Bultmann argues that
these texts reflect Gnostic influence: “The Adam Christ parallel, i.e. the thought
of two mankinds (or two epochs of mankind) and their determination each
by its originator, is a Gnostic idea which is conceived cosmologically and
not in terms of salvation history.”4 In The Old and the New Adam in the
Letters of Paul, Bultmann identifies “genuine analogies” between Paul and “the
Hellenistic mystery religions and . . . Hellenistic mysticism.”5 Similarly, in
his Theology of the New Testament, Bultmann finds what he calls “Gnostic
mythology” speculation in Rom 5:12-21 and 1 Cor 15:21, 44-49: “The contrast
‘psychic-pneumatic’ (‘man of soul’– ‘man of Spirit’) to designate two basically
different classes of men . . . is an especially clear indication that Paul’s
anthropological concepts had already been formed under the influence of
Gnosticism.”6 Indeed, taken together, the language, the myth of the fallen
world, the descent of a redeemer into the material realm, and the dualistic view
between the material and the spiritual world were particularly persuasive and
led Bultmann to conclude that Paul and other texts of the NT were influenced
by Gnostic material and mystery religions. As we shall see with other scholars
who followed Bultmann’s hypothesis, reliance on literary material that in fact
postdated the New Testament documents makes this thesis methodologically
untenable.

2. Karl Barth, Christ and Adam: Man and Humanity in Romans 5 (New York: Collier Books, 1962),
39–40. He states, “Jesus Christ is the secret truth about the essential nature of man, and even sinful man is still
essentially related to Him. That is what we have learned from Rom. 5:12-21” (pp. 107–8; emphasis in original
translation)
3. Rudolf Bultmann, “Adam and Christ According to Romans 5,” in Current Issues in New Testament
Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Otto A. Piper, ed. William Klassen and Graydon F. Snyder (London:
SCM, 1962), 163.
4. Bultmann, “Adam and Christ,” 154; see also 160.
5. Rudolf Bultmann, The Old and the New Adam in the Letters of Paul, trans. Keith R. Crim (Richmond:
John Knox, 1967), 18; see also 21.
6. Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, trans. Kendrick Grobel (2 vols. (New York:
Scribner, 1951, 1955), 1:174.
 The Status Questionis of the Adam Typology in Paul | 7

In a similar approach, Walter Schmithals argues that with the expression

ἀνάθεμα Ἰησοῦς (“cursed be Jesus”) found in 1 Cor 12:1-3 Paul is responding
to some Christians in Corinth who, under the influence of Gnosticism, despised
Jesus according to the flesh, but confessed the Christ according to the Spirit:
“Thus the Christology of the Corinthian ‘Christians’ which is expressed in the
ἀνάθεμα in 1 Cor 12.3 is the genuinely Gnostic Christology,”7 Schmithals
concludes. However, the distinction between “Jesus” and “Christ” in Paul seems
rather artificial. Paul uses these terms interchangeably, and even preferably
“Jesus Christ” together (Rom 8:34; 1 Cor 3:1; 8:6; 2 Cor 1:19; 13:5; Gal 3:1;
Phil; 2:11). Furthermore, in his argument of 1 Corinthians 12 Paul is arguing
about the spiritual gifts and not about spiritual people, spiritual gifts that each
member should use to build up the unity of the community.
In her critique of Schmithals’s thesis, Margaret M. Mitchell aptly
summarizes the problems scholars found regarding the identity of Gnosticism
or pre-Christian Gnosticism, as well as terminological inaccuracy and
anachronistic “Christian heresiological designations of ‘Gnostics’ for a mid-first
century Christian group.”8 Although the origins and nature of Gnosticism are
still under debate,9 we can conclude that the major difficulty is the reliance on
documents that postdate the New Testament texts.
One of the most comprehensive modern works among the proponents of
the “Gnostic hypothesis” for the Adam motif in Paul, particularly in Romans
5, is that of Egon Brandenburger.10 In chapter 1 of Adam und Christus, he
surveys the religious backgrounds of Rom 5:12-21. In chapter 2, he undertakes
the exegetical analysis of Rom 5:12-21. Section A of chapter 1 is devoted
to analyzing the Jewish understanding of sin and seath, and section B, to
understanding the “two Adam-Anthropoi” in Palestinian and Hellenistic
Judaism. Brandenburger claims that Paul’s opponents in 1 Corinthians 15 are
identified with those represented in 2 Tim 2:18 who supposedly espoused
a realized eschatology.11 After his analysis of Jewish and Hellenistic Jewish

7. See Walter Schmithals, “The Corinthian Christology,” in Christianity at Corinth: The Quest for the
Pauline Church, ed. Edward Adams and David G. Horrell (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004), 77
(extracted from Walter Schmithals, Gnosticism in Corinth: An Investigation of the Letters to the Corinthians,
trans. John E. Steely (Nashville, Abingdon, 1971], 124–30).
8. Margaret M. Mitchell, “Paul’s Letters to Corinth: The Interpretive Intertwining of Literary and
Historical Reconstruction,” in Urban Religion in Roman Corinth: Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. Daniel N.
Schowalter and Steven J. Friesen (HTS 53; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003), 312–13.
9. See Pheme Perkins, Gnosticism and the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993); Birger A.
Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism: Traditions and Literature (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007).
10. Egon Brandenburger, Adam und Christus: Exegetisch-religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zu Rom. 5,
12-21 (1 Kor 15) (WMANT 7; Neukirchen: Kreis Moers, 1962).
8 | The Figure of Adam in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 1

literature,12 including of Philo’s interpretation of the creation of the human

beings in Genesis 1–2,13 Brandenburger concludes that “the scheme and basic
underlying idea of the parallelism of Adam and Christ-Anthropos in 1 Cor
15:21f. 45ff and herewith also in Rom 5:12-21—alongside distinct motifs of
the ancient Jewish tradition in Rom 5:12ff- becomes evident in the light of
the Gnostic (christlich) Adam-Anthropos speculation background.”14 According
to Brandenburger’s hypothesis, the descent and ascension of the heavenly
redeemer to save the physical man from his dreadful situation perfectly suited
Paul’s Christology and soteriology.15
Several scholars have extensively analyzed and criticized Brandenburger’s
thesis,16 noting in particular three major difficulties. The first difficulty is the
identification of Paul’s opponents in Corinth as a Gnostic group. Apparently,
in 1 Cor 15:12 Paul replied to some who denied the resurrection of the
dead or questioned a bodily resurrection (15:35). However, the identity of
Paul’s opponents in Corinth is a matter of debate,17 for Corinth’s cultural and

11. Brandenburger, Adam und Christus, 69–77.

12. He surveyed the Adam motif in several Gnostic texts such as the Jewish-Gnostic prayers, the
tradition of Zosimus, the Naassene reflections, the Apocryphon of John, Poimandres (Corp Herm. 1), and
the Mandean texts, Adam, 77-109. Under the heading of “ ‘Pre, Early, and Late Jewish’ texts,” he analyzes
1QS 4.7-8, 23; 11.7-8; 1QH 17.15; CD 3.20. He also studies Apoc. Mos. and Vit. Ad.; 1–2 Enoch; 4 Ezra
(syr.); Baruch; and rabbinic testimonies (Adam und Christus, 110–17).
13. Brandenburger, Adam und Christus, 117–31.
14. Brandenburger, Adam und Christus, 157 (my translation).
15. Brandenburger, Adam und Christus, 157: “In dem einen sarkisch-psychischen Anthropos ist die
Menschheit insgesamt schicksalhaft dem verderblich-minderwertigen Seinsbereich, dem
Herrschaftsbereich des Todes und versklavender Mächte verhaftet; aber durch Ab- und Aufstieg des
himmlischen Erlöser-Anthropos ist ein Geschehen in Gang gekommen, durch das die Gesamtheit der
nach Ursprung und Wesen pneumatsichen Menschen in den himmlisch-pneumatischen Anthropos
hinein erlöst wird.”
16. A. J. M. Wedderburn, “Adam and Christ: An Investigation into the Background of 1 Corinthians
XV and Romans V. 12-21” (Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University, 1974), 22–34; Hans Conzelmann, 1
Corinthians: A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, trans. J. W. Leitch (Hermeneia,
Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 284–86; Seyoon Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel (WUNT 2/4;
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1984), 164–78; John R. Levison, Portraits of Adam in Early Judaism: From Sirach
to 2 Baruch (JSPSup 1; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988), 17-18; Sang-Won (Aaron) Son, Corporate Elements in
Pauline Anthropology: A Study of Selected Terms, Idioms, and Concepts in the Light of Paul’s Usage and
Background (AnBib 148; Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2001), 66–70.
17. For instance, Robert Jewett (Paul’s Anthropological Terms: A Study of Their Use in Conflict Settings
[AGJU 10; Leiden: Brill, 1971]) argues that “the main opponents of Paul within the Corinthian
congregation itself were radical enthusiasts who can be termed Gnostics because of their belief in
salvation through σοφία/γνώσις and because of their consistently dualistic world view” (p. 40; see also
 The Status Questionis of the Adam Typology in Paul | 9

religious milieu was so heterogeneous that we cannot state with confidence that
there was a single group or ideology that may have influenced the Christian
community in this city.18 Most important, the classification of Gnosticism and
Gnostic groups is a rather conjectural construal of a phenomenon that appeared
much later during the second century.
Related to the previous problem is Brandenburger’s contention that Paul
was using the language of his opponents. First, according to Brandenburger,
the contrast between the heavenly and earthly man in 1 Cor 15:45-49 reflects
the Gnostic myth of the “Primal man.”19 Yet in 1 Cor 15:21-22, 45-49 and Rom
5:12-21 Paul understands and interprets Adam and Christ as two antithetical
historical figures and not as the abstract and ahistorical heavenly redeemer
who evolves in two phases as proposed later in Gnosticism.20 Furthermore, as
Hans Conzelmann has concisely put it, “The figure in question belongs not
so much to myth as to mythological speculation.”21 Instead, it is more likely
that the contrast between the first and second Adam in Paul reflects earlier or
contemporary Hellenistic Jewish traditions about the story of the creation of
humanity in Gen 1:27 and 2:7, which some Corinthians may have known. A
thesis that will be discussed in chapter 2 is that some in Corinth knew Philo’s
commentaries on the story of the creation.22

28, 31, 34-40). On the other hand, Birger A. Pearson contends that Paul’s adversaries were Hellenistic
Jews in Corinth who, in interpreting Gen 2:7, “were espousing a doctrine of a-somatic immortality, and
denying the bodily resurrection” (The Pneumatikos-Psychikos Terminology in 1 Corinthians: A Study in the
Theology of the Corinthian Opponents of Paul and Its Relation to Gnosticism [SBLDS 12; Missoula, Mont.:
Society of Biblical Literature, 1973], 24).
18. James D. G. Dunn aptly describes the Corinthian milieu as “a melting pot of religious ideas and
philosophies, many of them Jewish in origin (the myth of Wisdom, as in Sir 24 and 1 En. I 42), others
common in different religious systems” (“Reconstructions of Corinthian Christianity and the
Interpretation of 1Corinthians,” in Adams and Horrell, Christianity at Corinth, 300).
19. See Brandenburger, Adam und Christus, 77–131.
20. As noted by Son, Corporate Elements, 69.
21. Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, 285. In his excursus, he noted the complexity of the origins and
meaning of this concept: “the one concept primal man is applied to heterogeneous things: the
macrocosmos, the protoplast, the prototype, the redeemer (‘redeemed redeemer’), to the God ‘Man’ in
Gnosticism, where ‘Man’ mostly means the highest God, but then also the revealing power of the deity”
(p. 284).
22. Gregory E. Sterling, “Wisdom among the Perfect: Creation Traditions in Alexandrian Judaism and
Corinthian Christianity,” NovT 37 (1995): 366–67; Wedderburn, “Adam and Christ,” 120, 129.
Furthermore, Wedderburn argues that Philo’s interpretation of the man of Gen 1:26 “is described in the
language of Plato’s theory of forms,” 157. “Philo is working here in a Hellenistic-Jewish tradition going
back to Plato’s doctrine of ideas.” See also Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, 286: Philo “distinguishes two types
of man, the heavenly and the earthly, Leg. all.1:31f (on Gen 2:7) [Greek text and translation provided].
10 | The Figure of Adam in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 1

Second, Brandenburger also claims that the Corinthians borrowed the

contrast between ψυχικόν and the πνευματικόν from a Gnostic group.
Subsequent scholars have provided alternative solutions to this apparent
dualism. Pearson argues that in 1 Cor 15:44-49 Paul was actually dealing not
with Gnostic opponents but with competing Hellenistic-Jewish and rabbinic
interpretations of Gen 2:7, to which Paul provided his own “eschatological
‘targum.’”23 He concludes that Paul introduced an eschatological dualism
between the present age and the age to come as opposed to his adversaries
in Corinth, who “were operating on a non-eschatological plane in dividing
man’s present existence into a duality of heavenly-earthly, spiritual-psychic,
incorruptible-corruptible, immortal-mortal, level.”24 Although Pearson’s
critique of Brandenburger’s thesis is right on target, his reliance on post–New
Testament rabbinic literature may undermine his thesis. A similar solution
is provided by Seyoon Kim, who argues that Paul himself introduced the
distinction between the ψυχικόν and the πνευματικόν to the Corinthians and
that “subsequently they abused it, rather than Paul borrowed it from them.”25
Whatever the case, what is at stake here is not really the identity of Paul’s
opponents so much as what Paul meant by using this contrast. Paul responds
to those who rejected a bodily resurrection (1 Cor 15:35), using an analogy of
the different bodies (15:40) to state that the body with which the believers will
be raised is not physical, but spiritual (15:44). Then in v. 45 he supports his
argument with his own interpretation of Gen 2:7. The contrast in v. 46 that the
spiritual follows the physical (body) is then the logical outcome of his argument,
and not necessarily Paul’s reversal of his opponents’ thesis.
Finally, Brandenburger argued that Paul counteracted his opponents’
realized eschatology, as evidenced in 2 Tim 2:18.26 However, 2 Timothy
postdates both 1 Corinthians and Romans. Most important, the opponents of
2 Tim 2:18 claimed that the resurrection of the dead has already occurred,
whereas in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul responds to those who claimed that “there
is no resurrection of the dead” (vv. 12, 29) or who questioned the bodily

He distinguishes the idea[l] man from the historical man, Op. mund. 134 (likewise on Gen 2:7) [Greek
text and translation provided].”
23. Pearson, Pneumatikos-Psychikos Terminology, 15–24.
24. Pearson, Pneumatikos-Psychikos Terminology, 26.
25. Kim, Origin of Paul’s Gospel, 170–71, analyzing Gal 6:1 and 1 Cor 2:12-15. This is a verbatim
expression from Wedderburn (“Adam and Christ,” 187), who is cited in n. 3 but not quoted. Kim’s
contention (p. 266; cf. 267–68) that Paul himself derived the Adam Christology from the “Damascus
Christophany,” where Christ revealed to Paul “as the εἴκων τοῦ θεοῦ,” is less convincing.
26. Brandenburger, Adam und Christus, 70–71.
 The Status Questionis of the Adam Typology in Paul | 11

resurrection (v. 35). Thus, in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul addresses the question of the
future and of bodily, although as spiritual body, resurrection of the believers,
and not a realized eschatology.
In his effort to elucidate the backgrounds of Rom 5:12-21 Brandenburger
thus diverted his attention to what was initially intended as only a parenthetical
analysis of 1 Corinthians 15 (as is shown in the title of his work). Indeed, this
would be the logical process, since the earliest explicit comparison between
Adam and Christ in Paul appears in 1 Corinthians 15. Brandenburger’s
contribution to the study of the Adam typology in Paul has illustrated the
complexity of the Adam figure in Paul. His analysis of extensive Palestinian and
Hellenistic Jewish interpretations of the story of the creation and fall of Adam
in Genesis 1–3 led Brandenburger to postulate Gnosticism as the background
for the contrast between Adam and Christ in Paul. On the contrary, further
research has demonstrated that it is more plausible that the language found in
1 Corinthians has influenced later forms of Christian Gnosticism.27 It is likely
that Paul and his audience were familiar with a tradition about Adam’s sin and
death that was passed on to his descendants (1 Cor 15:21-22; Rom 5:12 and 18),
and possibly also of the contrast between the “heavenly man” and the “earthly
man” (1 Cor 15:42-49).28 Furthermore, Jewish speculations about Adam and the
effects of his disobedience often enough conveyed ethical implications. Some
of these authors did not simply speculate about the origins of humankind or
the ancestors of Israel, but they inferred ethical and social consequences for
the communities they addressed. Eventually Paul inherited these traditions and
creatively interpreted and adapted them into his argument in 1 Corinthians 15
and Rom 5:12-21. In other words, the story of Genesis 1–3 and its subsequent
traditions intend to elicit an ethical and social reconfiguration in the audience.
Thus, Paul creatively adapted these traditions in his letters to convey ethical
and social implications. Our task in chapter 2 will be to identify these traditions
among the Palestinian and Diaspora Jews who interpreted the Scriptures in
a heterogeneous religious and cultural context like Paul’s. Then, in chapter 3

27. A. J. M. Wedderburn (Baptism and Resurrection: Studies in Pauline Theology against Its Graeco-Roman
Background [WUNT 44; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1987], 21) argues that the conceptual similarities
between 1 Corinthians and Gnosticism may possibly reflect “a type of Christianity en route to
Gnosticism.”
28. See Thomas H. Tobin, Paul’s Rhetoric in Its Contexts: The Arguments of Romans (Peabody, Mass.:
Hendrickson, 2004), 175–76. Tobin distinguishes two trends of traditions in 1 Corinthians 15, one that
takes up Jewish traditions about Adam’s sin and death (vv. 21-22) and the other (vv. 42-49) that reflects
the Hellenistic Jewish speculations, as found in Philo, about the heavenly/earthly man of Gen 1:27 and
2:7, respectively.
12 | The Figure of Adam in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 1

we will analyze Paul’s reworking of these traditions in his first letter to the
Corinthians and that to the Romans.

Proponents of the Jewish Hypothesis

Since Gnosticism did not explain Paul’s Adam motif in 1 Corinthians 15
and Romans 5, other scholars have investigated the possible background for
Paul’s use of the figure of Adam among Hellenistic and Palestinian Jewish
interpretations of the story of the creation and fall of Genesis 1–3 of the turn of
the first century.
In his influential investigation Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, W. D. Davies
analyzes the antithesis between the old and the new creation, and thus between
the old and the new humanity, the first and the second Adam.29 Davies asserts
that, “whereas the Christian Dispensation as a new creation was pre-Pauline,
the conception of Christ as the Second Adam was probably introduced into the
Church by Paul himself.”30 He claims that in 1 Corinthians 15, “Paul reverses
the order found in Philo and identifies the Heavenly Man . . . with Jesus, the Son
of David, who was later than the Adam of Genesis in time and therefore might
be called the Second Adam.”31 In regard to Rom 5:12-21, Davies argues that,
in addition to the “Rabbinic doctrine that through the Fall of the First Man,
Adam, all men fell into sin,” Paul incorporates and underscores the “Rabbinic
speculation about the creation of the physical body of Adam” to demonstrate
the unity of all humankind.32 Then Paul applies this doctrine and explains that
God now reconstitutes “the essential oneness of mankind in Christ as a spiritual
community, as it was one in Adam in a physical sense.”33
Davies’s contribution has redirected Pauline studies to focus on Paul’s
Jewish identity. It is apparent that Paul and his audiences in Corinth and Rome
were familiar with some interpretations of the story of the creation and fall

29. W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology (2nd ed.;
New York: Harper & Row, 1955), 36–57.
30. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 44. He argues that the story of the creation and fall in Genesis
1–3 is ultimately the background for the concept of Jesus the Messiah who restored the entire creation
(pp. 37–41).
31. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 52. He suggests that Christians in Corinth were acquainted with
“Philo’s distinction between the Heavenly and the earthly man,” via Apollos, but he also points out that
“it is improbable, though not impossible, that Paul was directly acquainted with Philo’s works.”
32. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 53–55. In a later study, Davies confirms that Paul “draws upon
well-defined elements from Judaism” (Jewish and Pauline Studies [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984],
194–95).
33. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 57.