Transcript

The Story of Adam · Gil I Am

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Speaker 1: The First Man. It's a story we all think we know,
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Speaker 1: right Adam, But I'm going to tell you behind that
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Speaker 1: one simple name lies a story that's way more complex,
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Speaker 1: a little contradictory, and frankly, a lot more fascinating than
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Speaker 1: you probably imagine. It's one of those fundamental questions, isn't
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Speaker 1: it seems to have a simple answer, one many of
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Speaker 1: us learned as kids. But what if that answer is
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Speaker 1: just the first page of a much much bigger book.
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Speaker 1: There it is, Adam, But that single name, it's a
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Speaker 1: key that unlocks the door to thousands of years of
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Speaker 1: interpretation of myth making and even scientific debate. Turns out,
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Speaker 1: the story of the First Man isn't one story at all.
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Speaker 1: It's a whole collection of them. Okay, So here's how
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Speaker 1: we're going to break this down. We'll start at the
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Speaker 1: very beginning with the original story in Genesis. Then we'll
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Speaker 1: see how Jewish tradition took that story and just ran
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Speaker 1: with it. After that, we'll look at how new faiths,
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Speaker 1: Christianity and Islam built on that foundation in very different ways.
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Speaker 1: And finally we'll bring it all into the modern day
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Speaker 1: and see how Adam's legacy is still with us even
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Speaker 1: in science. So first things first, we have to go
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Speaker 1: back to the source code, the Book of Genesis in
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Speaker 1: the Hebrew Bible. This is where it all begins, and
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Speaker 1: right away things get interesting because the Bible doesn't just
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Speaker 1: give us one creation story. It gives us two, and
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Speaker 1: they're different. In Genesis one, the word autumn means humankind,
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Speaker 1: and God creates them male and female together at the
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Speaker 1: same time. But then you flip the page to Genesis
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Speaker 1: two and the story changes. Now God forms a single
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Speaker 1: male the atom from the dirt.
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Speaker 2: You know. The name itself is just brilliant. In Hebrew,
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Speaker 2: Adam is doing a lot of work. It means mankind
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Speaker 2: as a whole. It could mean a single human being,
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Speaker 2: and it means male. And it's all tied with the
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Speaker 2: word autemah, which means ground or earth, so he is
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Speaker 2: quite literally the earthling. And of course this leads us
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Speaker 2: to the most famous part of the story, the fall.
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Speaker 2: It unfolds like a five act play. You've got the command,
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Speaker 2: the temptation, the big mistake, the judgment, and finally getting
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Speaker 2: kicked out of paradise. This simple narrative arc has shaped
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Speaker 2: so much of Western thought for thousands of years. And
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Speaker 2: the consequence the judgment. It's so poetic because it brings
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Speaker 2: everything full circle. It ties right back to his creation.
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Speaker 2: The man made from the earth is now sentenced to
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Speaker 2: work that same earth and eventually to go right back
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Speaker 2: into it.
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Speaker 1: And get this, The biblical story gives Adam an absolutely
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Speaker 1: epic lifespan. We're talking nine hundred and thirty years, and
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Speaker 1: in that time he and Eve have Cain, Abel, Seth,
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Speaker 1: and a whole bunch of other unnamed kids who go
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Speaker 1: on to populate the entire world. But the story didn't
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Speaker 1: just stop there, oh No. For centuries, Jewish scholars and
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Speaker 1: storytellers looked at the original text, saw the gaps in
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Speaker 1: the questions, and they started filling them in in some
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Speaker 1: really incredible ways. I mean, the Rabbinic traditions are just
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Speaker 1: filled with these amazing ideas. One says Adam was made
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Speaker 1: from dust from all over the world to that humanity
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Speaker 1: is universal. Another beautiful idea is that he once had
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Speaker 1: a body of light. They even came up with the
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Speaker 1: story of Lilith, a rebellious first wife, to explain those
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Speaker 1: two creation stories, and another idea that Adam was originally
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Speaker 1: both male and female, a single being that was later
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Speaker 1: split in two. So as we move forward in time,
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Speaker 1: Adam's story becomes this foundational pillar for both Christianity and Islam.
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Speaker 1: They share the same character, but man do they interpret
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Speaker 1: his meaning differently. The paths really diverge here. So for Christianity,
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Speaker 1: Adam's big mistake becomes the core of this huge doctrine
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Speaker 1: original sin. The idea really pushed by the apostle Paul
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Speaker 1: and later Augustine is that Adam's sin wasn't just his
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Speaker 1: personal failure. It was like a genetic flaw, a corruption
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Speaker 1: that gets passed down to every single person who's ever born. Islam,
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Speaker 1: on the other hand, sees Adam in a completely different light.
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Speaker 1: He's not the source of our problems. He's our first
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Speaker 1: great role model. In Islam. Adam is the first prophet
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Speaker 1: and the first Muslim, the first to submit to God.
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Speaker 1: His mistake was a permanent stain. It was a lesson
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Speaker 1: in how to mess up, ask for forgiveness, and be forgiven.
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Speaker 1: You can really see the split screen here, Kanha. In
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Speaker 1: the Christian view, Adam's fall creates a massive problem that
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Speaker 1: requires a savior to fix. But in the Islamic view,
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Speaker 1: his fall and forgiveness create the perfect model for how
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Speaker 1: every human should live. And look at Eve's role in Islam.
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Speaker 1: The guilt is shared right down the middle, not placed
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Speaker 1: mainly on her. Okay, let's fast forward all the way
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Speaker 1: to today, because amazingly, the name Adam, which has been
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Speaker 1: so important to religion for so long, finds a whole
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Speaker 1: new life in the world of genetics. Now we've got
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Speaker 1: to be really, really clear about this. Why chromosomal Adam
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Speaker 1: is not the atom from the Bible. He wasn't the
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Speaker 1: first man, he wasn't the only man alive at the time.
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Speaker 1: He is just the guy whose hy chromosome passed down
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Speaker 1: from father to son happens to be the one that
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Speaker 1: all living men share today. It's a genetic marker, not
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Speaker 1: a biblical figure. And to really drive the point home,
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Speaker 1: this scientific atom, he never even met his counterpart. And Eve,
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Speaker 1: she's the woman all living humans descend from through their
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Speaker 1: mother's genetic evidence shows they weren't a couple. In fact,
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Speaker 1: they lived tens of thousands of years apart. So at
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Speaker 1: the end of the day, we're left with this massive
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Speaker 1: question whether you see him as a prophet or the
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Speaker 1: source of all our problems or a genetic signpost. The
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Speaker 1: story of Adam is really a story about us. So
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Speaker 1: is he some historical ancestor from long ago, or is
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Speaker 1: Adam a timeless story about humanity itself, our grand potential,
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Speaker 1: our capacity to screw up, and our never ending search
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Speaker 1: to find our way back.