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Were Adam and Eve Black?

Russell Ballew | Updated May 27, 2021

The views expressed in our content reflect individual perspectives and do not represent the official views of the Baha'i Faith.

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Russell Ballew | Jan 2, 2015

The views expressed in our content reflect individual perspectives and do not represent the official views of the Baha'i Faith.

In Genesis, the story of Adam and Eve stands for the human struggle to conceive virtue from the fruit of knowing right from wrong. Baha’is see the creation story in the Torah as allegorical and symbolic, not literal—but if it were literal, would Adam and Eve have come from Africa?

Let’s look at the symbols. Knowledge delivers man from the womb of ignorant bliss into the rigor of life’s responsibilities and consequences. Reflecting on the parable of Adam and Eve gives us insight into the primordial heart’s struggle–subordinating the insistent self to the light of divine guidance.

So symbolically, the Garden of Eden represents the matrix of human potential. Eve is the gift of human conscience. The serpent stands for the promptings of self.

RELATED: For the Love of Eve

In the Torah, God says to Eve, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children.” This allegory shows us that virtues gestate and evolve through the painstaking process of learning. Being good and developing a sterling character, Adam and Eve learn, will require the pain of awareness and struggle.

Lucy-Fossil
Lucy, the oldest human fossil was found in Africa

Adam and Eve’s creation story traces that struggle. If we believe in science—and the Baha’i teachings do say that science and religion agree—then we know that the oldest human fossils have been found in the Rift Valley in Africa; and the oldest mitochondrial DNA in our human genetic code can be traced back to a small group of African women. Scientists have conclusively shown that our ancestors—the mothers of the entire human race—were Africans.

What does this prove? Well, from one perspective, we can see that gradually, painfully, through the fiery crucible of trial and error, individuals and societies do evolve, both physically and spiritually. Humanity has come a long way since our creation, evolving through multiple stages of growth and development.

Consider the emerging consciousness of the oneness of humanity. We have made extraordinary progress over the past one hundred years; however it has come at a high cost of human suffering.

In August 1914 the world went ablaze in the disastrous consequences of the fallacious notions of national supremacy – World War I killed 9.7 million soldiers and 6.8 million civilians. And this was only the first pass; another 50 – 80 million perished in World War II.

If the measure of our progress is the statistical decline in global armed conflict; we have matured. If we measure our progress by the decline in the popular adoption of racial and national supremacy dogmas, we have advanced.

Over time, our capacity to reflect God’s attributes individually and as a society has strengthened—for proof, just look at our diversity. We have more diverse peoples living in close proximity in more places than at any time in human history. We are learning to make it work, to an extent that would have confounded our forebears.

The Baha’i teachings say humanity is one–and finding ourselves more intimately associated with each passing decade shows that people are evolving toward that reality.

RELATED: A New, Unified Human Race

With the continued rapid growth and diffusion of the human family over the Earth, the capacity to fulfill our potential rises to an imperative, lest we return to the devastating conflagrations of the 20th century. We can reasonably expect, if we continue to mature in our appreciation of diversity, that we could progress to ever higher degrees of peace and prosperity.

For Baha’is, this progress hinges on our recognition and acceptance of our spiritual origin and our unity. Baha’u’llah, the prophet and founder of the Baha’i Faith, wrote:

Upon the reality of man, however, He hath focused the radiance of all of His names and attributes, and made it a mirror of His own Self.

Reflecting the image of God latent within us begins with turning to God, falling in love with His characteristics, and incorporating God’s guidance into our lives. When that happens personally we can flourish; and when a society collectively endeavors to uphold divine standards communities flourish. As the Baha’i teachings point out, this has absolutely nothing to do with skin color:

Let us now discover more specifically how he is the image and likeness of God and what is the standard or criterion by which he can be measured and estimated. This standard can be no other than the divine virtues which are revealed in him….

If a man possesses wealth, can we call him an image and likeness of God? Or is human honor and notoriety the criterion of divine nearness? Can we apply the test of racial color and say that man of a certain hue—white, black, brown, yellow, red—is the true image of his Creator?

We must conclude that color is not the standard and estimate of judgment and that it is of no importance, for color is accidental in nature. The spirit and intelligence of man is essential, and that is the manifestation of divine virtues, the merciful bestowals of God, the eternal life and baptism through the Holy Spirit.

The oneness of humanity is God’s gift to this enlightened, ever more intertwined 21st century; a necessary culmination of the promise embedded in the allegory of Adam and Eve as humanity’s first progenitors. No matter what their color, we all came from their symbolic union.

Over the next few articles we will explore this gift and the imperative requirement of its worldwide adoption.

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Comments

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  • David Rustin Lea
    Dec 14, 2020
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    In my opinion, all the ancient stories, whether Biblical or Mythical, are jam packed with levels of meaning and multiple connotations which are very hard to obtain without knowing more about the many meanings of the ancient languages. Genesis has many inconsistent statements. First humans are included in the creation, male and female and told to multiply and then we backtrack to the Garden of Eden.
    But if you are to look at it in a literal interpretation, then it is quite obvious that Adam and Eve are black. God fashions them from the soil! There is no soil ...in the ancient world before the plow that is not black!
    Read more...
  • Ephraim Adom Cooke
    Sep 12, 2018
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    Adam was black, while the woman and the serpent were white. You can tell by hamshemand japheth. They mirror the three gardners. That makes us rethink the garden narrative entirely. “He knows that when THOU eats of it THOU shall not surely die... but THOU shall become like god knowing both good and evil.” .... the serpent wasnt talking to adam, it was referring to eve.
  • John Cronin
    Jul 2, 2018
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    Dear Mr. Ballew, I am publishing a poem, and I would love to get permission to use that intensely beautiful painting you have illustrating your article "Were Adam and Eve Black?". I want to show that Adam and Eve were black, but I am using very old license-free illustrations and cannot find any that portray the first couple as black, much less as perfectly as this one does. Thank you.
    • Ephraim Adom Cooke
      Sep 12, 2018
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      Adam was black and eve was white.... i think that would be a better narrative and would illustrate where all the races come from
  • Ruth Chipperfield
    Jun 11, 2018
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    'Higher degrees of peace and prosperity...' How does this happen? You refer to the story of Adam & Eve as allegorical. What do you substitute for the allegory to explain Creation and the fact of sin? Looking at the word's state, the 'upholding of Divine standards' seems highly unlikely to be a natural progress towards 'oneness'. Jesus has said he will draw all men unto himself - not to each other.
  • Nov 1, 2015
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    Don't let anyone else decide how one should read the Genesis account.
  • Jan 3, 2015
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    To those who may understand Genesis literally, here is a mind opening joke that was circulated on the Inernet: If Adam and Eve were Chinese, we, their descendants, would have remained in Heaven. Because instead of eating the fruit, they would have had the snake.
    • Nov 1, 2015
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      Adam ('Ground') and Eve ('Lifegiver') had an avg. skin colour. Not too black, too yellow, etc. They had a certain age when God blew life into them, so they must have had a memory implant of the youth they never had. (Watch the classic 'The Manchurian Candidate' as well as 'Moon' (2009) by Duncan Jones.)
      The Garden was a controlled environment with a fence and a warden with a gun at the gate. No doubt this warden had a 'licence to kill'.
      The snake story seems to be about a single helix while this obviously was a double ...helix (DNA). Not sure about this part of the story, though.
      Read more...
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