Is Adam Israel?

http://biologos.org/blog/adam-is-israel/

There are two basic problems with his analysis:

i) Some of the alleged parallels are trumped up parallels. There is not “chaotic” motif in Gen 1. Furthermore, God doesn’t defeat other gods in Gen 1.

ii) Even more to the point, Enns collapses typology into identity. There may well be parallels between the creation account and Exodus. Genesis frequently foreshadows later events (while later events backshadow Genesis). Reading both backward and forward is mutually interpretive. We understand each event better by reference to its counterpart.

That doesn’t mean the narrator is equating two events. That doesn’t mean this is simply two different ways depicting the same event.

Bible writers frequently sense a correspondence between earlier and later events. But they don’t collapse the two. Indeed, an earlier event can’t prefigure a later event if it’s just a redescription (after the fact) of the same event.

Moreover, in a type/antitype analogy, the comparison generally includes an element of contrast. The background similarities bring any dissimilarities to the foreground. To the degree that they are alike, the degree to which they are also unlike is more conspicuous. That necessitates two separate events for the relation to work.