ADAM, red, the proper name of the first man. It has always the article, and is therefore originally an appellative, the man. The derivation of it, as well as adamah, earth, from the verb אדם, to be red, (in Ethiop. to be beautiful,) is not improbable, when we take into account the reddish or brown complexion of the orientals. But the word Adam may also be primitive.

The Almighty formed Adam out of the dust of the earth, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and gave him dominion over all the lower creatures, Gen. i. 26 ; ii. 7. He created him in his own image, and having pronounced a blessing upon him, placed him in two delightful garden, that he might cultivate it, and enjoy its fruits. At the same time, however, he gave him the following injunction: — "Of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat ; for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The first recorded exercise of Adam's power and intelligence was his giving names to the beasts of the field, and fowls of the air, which the Lord brought before him for this purpose. A short time after this, the Lord, observing that it was not good for man to be alone, caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and while he slept took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh ; and of the rib thus taken from man he made a woman (womb-man, Saxon,) whom he presented to him when he awoke. Adam received her, saying, "This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh ; she shall be called woman, be cause she was taken out of man.  He also called her name Eve, חוה, because she was the mother of all living.

This woman, being seduced by the tempter, persuaded her husband to eat of the forbidden fruit. When called to judgment for this transgression be fore God, Adam blamed his wife, " whom," said he, "you gave me ;" and the woman blamed the serpent-tempter. God punished the tempter by degradation and dread ; the woman by painful hopes, and a situation of submission ; and the man by a life of labor and toil ; of which punishment every day witnesses the fulfillment. As their natural passions now be came irregular, and their exposure to accidents great, God made a covering of skin for Adam and for his wife. He also expelled them from his garden, to the land around it, where Adam had been made, and where was to be their future dwelling ; placing at the east of the garden a flame, which turned every way, to keep the way to the tree of life, Gen. iii.

It is not known how long Adam and his wife continued in paradise : some think, many years ; others, not many days; others, not many hours. Shortly after their expulsion, Eve brought forth Cain, Gen. iv. 1, 2. Scripture notices but three souls of Adam: Cain, Abel, and Seth, and omits daughters: but Moses tells us, " Adam begat sons and daughters ;" no doubt many. He died, aged 930, ante A. D. 3074. This is what we learn from Moses ; but interpreters, not satisfied with his concise relation, propose a thousand inquiries relating to the first man ; and certainly no history can furnish more questions, as well of curiosity as of consequence.

In reviewing the history of Adam, there are several things that demand particular notice.

1. The formation of Adam is introduced with circumstances of dignity superior to any which at tended the creation of the animals. It evidently appears (whatever else be designed by it) to be tin intention of the narrator, to mark this passage, and to lead his readers to reflect on it. God said, " Let us make man, (1.) In our image ; (2.) According t our likeness ; and let him rule," &c. Gen. i. 2( These seem to be two ideas : First, " In our image, in our similitude. This could not refer to his figure (1.) Because the human figure, though greatly superior in formation and beauty to animals, is not so entirely distinct from them in the principles of its construction, as to require a special consultation about, after the animals had been formed. (2.) If all the species of monkeys were made before man, the n semblance in some of them to the human form greatly strengthens the former argument. (3.) The Scriptures, elsewhere, represent this distinction referring to moral excellency ; " in knowledge — after the image of him who created him," Col. iii. 10 " The new man, which, according to God, "is created in righteousness and true holiness" Eph. 4:24. In other places, also, the comparison turns his purity, his station, &c. Secondly, " According our likeness," is a stronger expression than the form and more determinate to its subject. If we connect this with the following words, and let him rule —  import of the passage may be given thus : — "  shall have, according to his nature and capacity general likeness to such of our perfections as fit him for the purposes to which we design him ; but he shall also have a resemblance to us, in the rule and government of the creatures ; for, though he be in capable of any of our attributes, he is capable of a purity, a rectitude, and a station of dominion, in which he may be our vicegerent." Thus, then, in a lower and looser sense, man was the image of God ; possessing a likeness to him in respect to moral excellency, of which the creatures were absolutely void ; and having also a resemblance to God, as his deputy, his representative, among and over the creation ; for which he was qualified by holiness, knowledge, and other intellectual and moral attributes.

As the day on which creation ended was immediately succeeded by a sabbath, the first act of man was worship; hence the influence and extent of the custom of setting apart a sabbath among his posterity ; since not in paradise only would Adam maintain this rite.

2. "Adam became a living soul;" by which we understand a living person, (1.) Because such is the import of the original, simply taken : (2.) Having mentioned that Adam was made of the dust of the earth, is a reason why the sacred writer should here mention his animation. But, (3.) It is very possible, that it implies some real distinction between the nature of the living principle, or soul, (not spirit,) in Adam, and that of animals. May we suppose that this principle, thus especially imparted by God, was capable of immortality ; that, however the beasts might die by nature, man would survive by nature ? that he had no inherent seeds of dissolution in him, but that his dissolution was the consequence of his sin, and the execution of the threatening, "dying thou shalt die V In fact, as Adam lived nearly a thousand years after eating the fruit, which, probably, poisoned his blood, how much longer might he not have lived, had that poison never been taken by him ? See Death.

3. The character, endowments, and history of Adam, are very interesting subjects of reflection to the whole human race; and the rather, because the memorials respecting him, which have been transmitted to us, are but brief, and consequently obscure.

In considering the character of Adam, the great est difficulty is, to divest ourselves of ideas received from the present state of things. We cannot sufficiently dismiss from our minds that knowledge (rather, that subtilty) which we have acquired by experience. We should, nevertheless, remember, that however Adam might be a man in capacity of understanding, yet in experience he could be but a child. He had no cause to distrust any, to suspect fraud, collusion, prevarication, or ill design. Where, then, is the wonder, if entire innocence, if total unsuspicion, should be deceived by an artful combination of appearances; by fraud and guile exerted against it? But the disobedience of Adam is not the less inexcusable on this account ; because, as was his situation, such was the test given to him. It was not an active, but a passive duty ; not something to be done, but something to be forborne ; a negative trial Nor did it regard the mind, but the appetite ; nor was that appetite without fit, yea, much fitter, supply in abundance all around it. Unwarrantable presumption, unrestrained desire, liberty extended into licentiousness, was the principle of Adam's transgression.

4. The breaking of a beautiful vase, may afford some idea of Adam after his sin. The integrity of his mind was violated ; the first compliance with sin opened the way to future compliance; grosser temptations might now expect success ; and thus spotless purity becoming impure, perfect uprightness becoming warped, lost that entirety which had been its glory. Hereby Adam relinquished that distinction, which had fitted him for immediate communion with supreme holiness, and was reduced to the necessity of soliciting such communion, mediately, not immediately ; by another, not by himself; in prospect, not instant ; in hope, not in possession ; in time future, not in time present ; in another world, not in this. It is worthy of notice, how precisely the principles which infatuated Adam have ever governed his posterity ; how suitable to the general character of the human race was the nature of that temptation by which their father fell!

5. It is presumable that only, or chiefly, in the garden of Paradise, were the prime fruits and herbage in perfection. The land around the garden might be much less finished, and only fertile to it certain degree. To promote its fertility, by cultivation, became the object of Adam's labor ; so that in the sweat of his brow, he himself did eat bread. But the sentence passed on our first parents, doubt less regarded them as the representatives, the very concentration, of their posterity, the whole human race ; and after attaching to themselves, it seems, prophetically also, to suggest the condition of the sexes in future ages, q. d. " The female sex, which has been the means of bringing death into the world, shall also be the means of bringing life — posterity — to compensate the ravages of death ; — and, to remind the sex of its original transgression, that which shall be its greatest honor and happiness shall be accompanied by no slight inconveniences. But the male sex shall be under the necessity of laboring for the support, not of itself only, but of the female and her family ; so that if a man could with little exertion provide for himself, he should be stimulated by far greater exertions, to toil, to sweat, for the advantage and support of those to whom he has been the means of giving life."

6. Death closes the sentence passed on mankind; and was also prophetic of an event common to Adam, and to all his descendants. But see how the favor of God mitigates the consequences announced in this sentence ! It inflicts pom on the woman, but that pain was connected with the dearest comforts, and with the great restorer of the human race ; it assigns labor to the man, but then that labor was to support himself, and others dearer to him than him self, repetitions of himself; it denounces death, but death indefinitely postponed, and appointed as the path to life. — [The curse pronounced on man includes not only physical labor and toil, the barrenness of the earth, and its tendency to produce shrubs and weeds, which retard his exertions, and render his toil more painful and difficult; it includes not only the physical dissolution of the body ; but also the exposure of the soul, the nobler part, to ' ever lasting death.' There is no where in Scripture any hint that the bodies either of animals or of man in the state before the fall, were not subject to dissolution, just as much as at present. Indeed the whole physical structure goes to indicate directly the contrary. The life of man and of animals, as at present constituted, is a constant succession of decay and renovation ; and so far as physiology can draw any conclusion, this has ever been the case. We may therefore suppose, that the death denounced upon man, was rather moral and spiritual death ; in that very day, he should lose the image of his Maker, and become exposed to that eternal doom, which has justly fallen upon all his race. Such is also the view of the apostle Paul ; who every where contrasts die death introduced into the world through Adam with the life which is procured for our race through Jesus Christ, Rom. v. 12, seq. But this life is only spiritual ; the death, then, in its highest sense, is also spiritual. So far, too, as the penalty is temporal and physical, no specific remedy is provided ; no man is or can be exempt from it ; and it depends not on his choice. But to remove the spiritual punishment, Christ has died ; and he who will, may avoid the threatened death, and enter into life eternal.

7. In regard to the situation of Adam before the fall, his powers and capacities, his understanding and acquirements, very much has been said and written, but all of course to no purpose ; since the Scriptures, the only document we have, are entirely silent on these points. The poetical statements of Milton in his Paradise Lost, are deserving of just as much credit as the speculations of Jewish Rabbins or Christian theologians. We can only affirm, that the Scriptures recognize man as being formed in his full strength of body and his full powers of mind ; that he possessed not only the capacity for speech and knowledge, but that he was also actually in the possession and exercise of language, and of such knowledge at least as was necessary for his situation. There is no suggestion in die Bible, that he was formed merely with the powers requisite for acquiring these things, and then left at first in a state of ignorance which would place him on a level with the brutes, and from which he must have emerged simply by his own exertions and observation. On the contrary, the representation of the Bible is, that he was at first formed, in all respects, a full-groton man, with all the faculties and all the endowments necessary to qualify him for his station as lord of a new and beautiful creation.

8. The salvation of Adam has been a subject of trivial dispute. Tatian and the Encratites were positive he was damned ; but this opinion the church condemned. The book of Wisdom says, (chap. x. 2.) " That God delivered him from his fell," and the Fathers and Rabbins believe he did hard penance. Some of the ancients believed, that our first parents were interred at Hebron, which opinion they whim sically grounded on Joshua xiv. 15, " And the name of Hebron before was Kirjath-Arba, which Arba was a great man (Adam) among the Anakim." — Origen, Epiphanius, Jerome, and a great number hold that Adam was buried on Calvary ; and this opinion has still its advocates. There is a chapel on mount Calvary dedicated to Adam.

Adam has been the reputed author of several books, and some have believed that he invented the Hebrew letters. The Jews say he is the author of the ninety-first Psalm ; and that he composed it soon after the creation. The Gnostics had a book en titled, " The Revelations of Adam," which is placed among the apocryphal writings by pope Gelasius, who also mentions a book called " Adam s Penance." Masius speaks of another "Of the Creation," said to have been composed by Adam. — On all these, see Fabricii Cod. Pseudepigr. V. T. vol. i. Hottinger, Histor. Oriental, pag. 22.— The Arabians inform us, that Adam received twenty books which fell from heaven, and contained many laws, promises, and prophecies.

The Talmudists, Cabalists, Mahommedans, Persians, and other Eastern people, relate many fabulous stories relative to the creation and life of Adam, some of which may be seen in the larger edition of Calmet

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II. ADAM was the name of a city near the Jordan, not far from Zarethan ; at some distance from which the waters of Jordan were collected in a heap, when the children of Israel passed through, Josh. iii. 16. The name was not improbably derived from the color of the clay in its neighborhood, which was used for casting the vessels of the temple, 1 Kings vii. 46.