As I was reading the passages from the Revised Common Lectionary for this week I read over Acts 17 again, the part where Paul is speaking to the Athenians.  In this passage Paul preaches that, "from one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live." I have always considered this Adam when I read it before, as all the commentators I have glanced at today concerning the passage.  Yet what dawned on me as I was reading was the significance of Abraham and Noah as possible "one man" stand-ins.  Abraham was to be the father of many nations, and Noah was the father of every nation as much as Adam was.  This seems to be a re-occuring tangent in Jesus' ministry as well as the apostles', that Abraham and Noah have great eschatological significance, especially when it comes to the Gentiles.  So I find it possible that there are undertones of Abraham and Noah in the "one man" as Paul preaches to the greatest academic audience in the Gentile world.

Here's the whole passage:

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."