Adam in Romans 1

Morna Hooker’s classic article “Adam in Romans 1” gets a basic point right: Adam is a model of fall into idolatry that Paul outlines. She also gets some things wrong.

First, strangely, though she acknowledges the link between Romans 1 and Psalm 106, she never develops the point by noting that the fall Paul describes is also the fall of Israel (at Sinai, vv. 19-20 ). This doesn’t nullify an Adamic reference; Israel is the new Adamic people. But it does add a layer that would have helped her explain some of the details of Paul’s text.

Second, she tries to explain Paul’s sequence of idolatry, sexual sin, and general wickedness by finding all of this in Genesis 3. It doesn’t work, and she has to resort to “rabbinic tradition which associated the Fall with sexual desire,” concluding that “Paul would naturally have associated the Fall with sexual lust and perversion.” There is something to this: Paul does think of the fall as a seduction (2 Corinthians 11:1-3).

Still, it would be more apt to follow the story of Genesis past chapter 3. Genesis, after all, records not a single fall of Adam but a series of three falls – Adam, Cain, and the sons of God. That sequence arguably provides a better way to explain Paul’s account of sin.