0163 What is proposition nineteen?

Paul does not mention Adam in terms of human origins in his letters to the Romans and the Corinthians.  He is interested in the effect of sin on the cosmos, as well as on humanity.

0164 Certain questions arise when we read Paul in our age of modern science.  We are curious about Adam as a source, a literal founder, and how his founding entangles all of us.

0165 If Adam is a founder, then what does Adam find?

Adam finds that he is held into account for his deeds.

This keys into the hypothesis of the first singularity, as shown below.

Figure 34

0166 If Paul does not know about the first singularity, then what is Paul talking about?

Walton hands the question to N.T. Wright, a scholar studying the words of Paul for a very long time.

0167 Wright writes that Adam has a vocation.  God calls Adam to do something.  The Garden of Eden is sacred space.   Adam is to minister to the garden.  So is Eve.  The Garden is God’s kingdom.

0168 To me, Genesis 2.4-3 is not about creating humans per se.  It is about creating humans anew.  Adam and Eve are literally born again, as far as human evolution goes.

Wright illuminates core questions in the scientific hypothesis of the first singularity (even though he is not aware of the hypothesis at the time of writing).

0169 The Ubaid is the first culture to practice speech-alone talk.  It expects to live like the surrounding cultures, which practice hand-speech talk.  They do not know that speech-alone talk potentiates unconstrained social complexity.  They just muddle along with spontaneous manifestations of greater and greater labor and social specializations.

The problem?

Each specialization takes on a life and a “language” of its own.  Each specialization orders work and society in its own way.  Ubaid folk try to maintain their traditions, but they are constantly faced with spontaneous innovations and changes.

0170 Ubaid folk are challenged, over and over again, with two questions.  How do we establish and maintain order?  What is real and what is not real?  Like the people of the Ubaid, Adam and Eve have no clue as to what they are up against.