From Adam to Abraham
Anthropology may speak of Individualistic or Collectivist cultures. The meaning of these terms can help us think about the Biblical definition of Humanity. The Bible defines Humanity as being corporate. In the Bible the individual human being is not the definition of what Humanity is or is all about. The Torah states definitively about the creation of the first Adam that it was not good for Adam to be a solitary individual. The narrative is teaching that the solitary individual human being does not represent God's design of Humanity. A cultural norm that is built on this idea is therefore not based on the Bible. Nor is a collectivist cultural norm based on the Bible that is an expression of an attempt to counter or correct individualist alienation in a social structure by collecting many individuals together through human artifice in some hierarchical structure or some other structural network.
The Bible does not reveal a design of Humanity that establishes a whole by collecting individuals together but a design of Humanity that grows individuals out of an original organic corporate whole. The male/female structure of Humanity, the marriage structure, is the basis of the corporate nature of Humanity. As Paul said in Athens in Acts chapter 17, God made all Humanity of one blood.
When God made His One Eternal Covenant with Abraham and with Israel He began the corporate redemption of Humanity. This introduces a great mystery and difficulty into the challenge of understanding the corporate nature of Humanity itself, into the very meaning of the word, "corporate," in relation to Humanity, as defined by the Bible.
The Galut as Helping To Define the Meaning of the Word, "Corporate"
The promise of the land to Abraham is at the heart of the One Eternal Covenant. That the Land would itself expel the people if they did not prove faithful to the covenant is also therefore of the essential nature of the covenant. In terms of the Covenant and the Land, both in receiving the people of Israel and in expelling them if they prove unfaithful, the Land only recognizes the people corporately.
When Israel came up on G-d's eagle wings, so to speak, out of exile, the galut of Egypt, a representative corporate part of Humanity, of Adam, was being redeemed, in accordance with G-d's one eternal covenant. When Israel camped before the mountain to receive the Torah, Israel did so as if one person, one body. This is made clear by the singular form of חנה Chanah (khaw-naw') in the expression, וַיִּחַן-שָׁם יִשְׂרָאֵל "and encamped there Israel" in Shemot/Exodus 19:2. This says that Israel received the Torah in the singular, corporate form. In Israel's receiving the Torah, it was not every individual being addressed first in isolation and then asked if they would, or even told to, come together, form a collective and create a nation. Every individual was addressed because the corporate whole of the nation was addressed as the nation was defined by the word of G-d, by the one eternal covenant of G-d. There would be laws that were only for priests, laws that were only for kings, laws that were only for judges, etc. All 613 commandments would have to be fulfilled, all at their proper times, forever, and it would require one corporate nation to do this. Thus, taken as one, the whole Torah was a commandment of unity and a definition of Humanity as G-d defined it.
When Israel came up out of Egypt and received the Torah as one corporate entity, she was in the process of being redeemed. This stage of her redemption was only fully accomplished when she actually crossed the Jordan river and entered into the Holy Land. We will see that just as the exile, the galut, can only be a corporate action, so redemption can only be a corporate action. Theories of redemption and of atonement that centre on the individual human person, at best, only point toward the truth. Adam was not yet fully Adam, not yet the finished creation of Humanity, when he was alone.
