Seth D. Postell

Adam as Israel: Genesis 1-3 as the Introduction to the Torah and Tanakh Seth D. Postell

The story of Adam is the story of Israel writ small

In this text-centered interpretation of Genesis 1-3, Seth Postell contends that the opening chapters of the Bible, when interpreted as a strategic literary introduction to the Torah and to the Tanakh, intentionally foreshadows Israel's failure to keep the Sinai Covenant and their exile from the Promised Land, in order to point the reader to a future work of God, whereby a king will come in & the last days & to fulfill Adam's original mandate to conquer the land (Gen 1:28). Thus Genesis 1-3, the Torah, and the Hebrew Bible as a whole have an eschatological trajectory.

Postell highlights numerous intentional links between the story of Adam and the story of Israel and, in the process, explains numerous otherwise perplexing features of the Eden story.