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From One Man – A Look at Acts 17:26
Acts 17:26 is often cited as biblical evidence in support of the claim that Adam and Eve were the first humans. Many popular English translations, including the ESV and NIV, say that God made from one “man” or “blood” all the nations of mankind, a man who is then assumed to be Adam. Let us set that assumption to the side and consider a more pressing issue—the one word upon which this whole argument rests, αἵματος (haimatos), is not in the Greek text as written. The whole edifice has its feet planted firmly in midair.What the Text Is Not Saying
As the translators themselves acknowledge in the Study Notes to the New English Translation, the word “man” is inferred—an interpretive addition by the translators—and has no corresponding word in either the earliest Greek manuscripts or in the critical text (e.g., Nestle–Aland 28) on which translations such as the ESV and NIV are based. The text as originally written reads:- ἐποίησέν τε ἐξ ἑνὸς πᾶν ἔθνος ἀνθρώπων
- From one, God made every nation of mankind.
- ἐποίησέν τε ἐξ ἑνὸς αἵματος πᾶν ἔθνος ἀνθρώπων
- From one blood, God made every nation of mankind.
If αἵματος is not original, then “from one man” or “from one blood” is not what Paul actually wrote. Appeals to Acts 17:26 as a clear statement of Adamic progeniture—that all humanity descends from Adam—thus rest on a later explanatory gloss. What is often presented as a “plain reading” is, in fact, a plain reading of a modern English translation, not of the Greek text as written.
What the Text Is Saying
In our passage here, Paul doesn’t designate anyone, much less Adam, as the referent of ἐξ ἑνός (“from one”). The phrase is grammatically indefinite and plausibly by design; C. K. Barrett treats it as strategic, given Paul being a sophisticated rhetorician who adapts his message to his audience. It functions rhetorically to emphasize the ontological unity of humanity under one sovereign Creator God, in a polemic against Athenian polytheism and ethnocentrism. Any identification of the “one” with Adam is a traditional inference, not an exegetical conclusion drawn from the text itself, either Greek or English. This passage is not about Adam but God—Creator, Sustainer, and sovereign Judge.Looking at Luke–Acts as a whole, one should notice that Luke shows little interest in Adamic theology anywhere else (especially compared to Paul's epistles). The primary Lucan concern here is not protology—a doctrine of origins—but providence and the unity of humanity under God’s sovereign rule. The concept of a single origin or principle (ἀρχή) from which all things come was common in Stoic and popular philosophy of the period. By using an indefinite ἐξ ἑνός, Paul engages that conceptual world even as he subverts it, redirecting the claim away from impersonal principle and toward the personal, sovereign creator who orders history and nations. [1]
The interpreter must therefore look to context for an answer to the question, “One what, or who?” There is no credibility in imposing a conclusion and retroactively justifying it. I believe an answer can be found in the surrounding context (vv. 24-29; cf. Mal 2:10), especially a historical understanding of the first-century Athenians and their religious ideas. Against the Stoics and Epicurians (v. 18), Paul explained (a) that we are all of one God, not many gods, (b) that the visible world is not identical to God but is rather his purposeful creation, and (c) that God is personally and deeply invested in this world. This message would also constitute a subversive polemic against these Athenians who maintained a sharp, radical distinction between themselves and the outside barbaric world. Not so, said Paul. There is one humanity under one God who is, in fact, the God of all because he created and governs all, determining the times set for every nation and the exact places where they should live. “Everything about their ‘religiousness’ was in error except for their admission of ignorance.” [2]
Who the One May Be
Once we recognize ἐξ ἑνός as a purposefully indefinite expression, the interpretive question shifts. We can instead explore which biblical figure, if any, best explains what Paul is doing rhetorically in Acts 17—because Adam is not the only candidate, despite his popularity. That assumption is understandable within a broader biblical theology, but it does little exegetical work in the context of Acts 17 itself. Making it explicitly Adamic would reduce its philosophical resonance with the Greek audience, tilting too sharply toward a specific Jewish-Christian reading that would be foreign to his hearers.Others infer Noah, noting that the world after a global flood was repopulated from a single family; and Noah also stands at the head of the nations in Genesis 10. This reading has the advantage of dealing directly with “nations,” but it would still be foreign to his Greek hearers—the flood narrative, covenantal renewal, table of nations—and nothing in the speech requires a postdiluvian framework.
I find a reference to Abraham more compelling. Abraham is the one to whom God explicitly promised to constitute a multitude of nations (Gen 12:2; 17:4-6, 16), and in later Jewish and Pauline theology Abraham functions as the representative source of the nations in covenantal-historical terms. That emphasis aligns closely with Paul’s argument in Acts 17, where the focus falls on God’s sovereign ordering of peoples, times, and boundaries, and on the universal accountability of the nations before one God. In this context, Abraham does more explanatory work than either Adam or Noah. He fits the covenantal horizon of Paul’s mission to the Gentiles, the theme of nations gathered under one divine purpose, and the rhetorical aim of dismantling ethnic privilege. The point is not that Acts 17:26 must refer to Abraham, but that Abraham fits Paul’s argument better than the traditional appeal to Adam.
Conclusion
Acts 17:26, then, cannot bear the weight it is often made to carry. Once the textual gloss is removed, the grammatical indefiniteness of ἐξ ἑνός recognized, and the rhetorical setting of the Areopagus address taken seriously, the verse no longer functions as a prooftext for Adamic progeniture. Paul is not adjudicating questions of human origins so much as proclaiming the one God who created all, governs all, and now calls all—Athens included—to repentance.None of this requires denying Adam or minimizing Genesis. It requires only that Acts 17:26 be allowed to say what it actually says, in the context in which it was spoken. Adam may belong to a broader theological synthesis; Abraham may better illuminate the covenantal horizon of the nations. But the text itself does not press either. What it does press, and forcefully, is the unity of humanity under one sovereign Creator and Judge.
If we are to read Acts 17:26 plainly, we must plainly read the Greek text as written and in context both locally and broadly. Anything less is not fidelity to the text, but convenience reinforced by the comfort of tradition.
Footnotes
[1] C. K. Barrett, Acts of the Apostles, vol. 2, International Critical Commentary (London: T&T Clark, 1998); John Barton and John Muddiman, eds., Oxford Bible Commentary (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Walter A. Elwell, ed., Baker Commentary on the Bible (Baker Books, 1989); Kenneth L. Barker and John R. Kohlenberger III, Expositor’s Bible Commentary—Abridged Edition: New Testament (Zondervan, 1994); William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary, 2nd ed., edited by Art Farstad (Thomas Nelson, 2016).[2] D. A. Carson et al., eds., New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition (InterVarsity Press, 1994).
