Was Adam a literal man?

Back in October, I posted this blog "Why I am not a Young Earth Creationist."

The point of my post was to say that too many evangelicals plant a flag on YEC and then stand willing to make it of first importance (or so it seems to me.)

I wrote to say that making secondary issues the forefront of one's evangelical convictions can be far more harmful than helpful.

Ultimately, how long it took God to create the world is not an essential point of doctrine.  Maybe it was 6 days...although natural revelation seems to suggest otherwise.  However, if it took 14 billion years - so what?  The emphasis is that GOD created.  I'm even willing to concede theistic evolution if it gets me past the issue and on to the Christian nucleus.

That is, I want to clearly point out that I refuse to make creation an issue because I want to be able to stay off the rabbit trails and get right to the Gospel (which is the core of our faith).  I want to talk with people about Jesus instead of explaining my view on if men and dinosaurs lived contemporaneously.

Recently, Ben posted a comment/ question to my post:
If you have non-literal days, was Adam a literal man?

Let me say a quick word about my thoughts on that here.

YES, Adam was certainly a literal man.

How was he created...???  The Bible says that God made him from dust and breathed life into him.  Pretty vague.  Maybe it was special, independent, supernatural creation.  Maybe God used natural processes to bring forth the first homosapiens and then "breathed" a soul/ spirit into that flesh. 

I am not sure on how, but I definately believe that Adam was literal.  Even though I don't think God made all things in 6 human days, I do think that God made all of creation.  Likewise, even though I am unsure of how God made Adam, I think he did make him.

I didn't talk about this issue in my post because there is no evidence to suggest that God making Adam in a one time act of imagination or thru natural means would go aganist natural revelation, as one faces in the creation debate.  One choice is simply unproveable, the other could be fairly consistent with humanistic fossils.

T push further, I am also unclear about how exact the Eden story is.  Could parts of it be simplified or embellished for literary flare...yeah, they could.  Moses could have conveyed the creation story (which I believe he was inspired to write about) in a narrative that isn't 100% literal...does that necessarily impact the truth therein...no.

The early chapters of Genesis tell us 6 main things:

1)  God DID make man (and woman).
2)  God made them in His image
3)  God made them in fellowship with Himself
4)  Through their own volition (at the temptation of Satan), they chose to leave the fellowship of God
5)  This choice impacted all their descendents and we are therefore born into the curse of sin
6)  God promised and planned to restore that broken relationship

The whole rest of the Bible tells the story of His love and our redemption at His hands.

Those 6 things listed above MUST be literally true in their content (even if the account is overly-colorful) or else the rest of the story means nothing.

If Adam wasn't literal, or if the fall wasn't real - we wouldn't need Jesus.
We do need Jesus.
Therefore, Adam was literal and the fall was real.

Try that syllogism with other stuff:

If a 6 day creation isn't literal - we wouldn't need Jesus.
We do need Jesus.
Therefore, the 6 day creation is literal
NO

Does the thing we are debating about impact the reality or importance of Christ's death on the cross and subsequent ressurection? - Will our debate topic actually impact whether or not a person understands their own personal need for redemption? If not, I call it secondary and I ask that we not get hung up on it, lest we lose track of our ultimate joy in Jesus and our ultimate mission in spreading the Good News.

Thats my message about YEC and the literalness (is that a word) of the early Genesis accounts.