Prof Robert M. Price explains why Jesus was identified with the celestial Adam:
Scholars have quite naturally understood the Kenosis Hymn in Philippians 2:6–11 as describing the incarnation of Jesus Christ. James D.G. Dunn, for example, sees in these verses a contrast between Adam’s fatal misstep of seeking equality with God and Jesus’ disdain for such self-aggrandizement. I think this is not quite right. In my view the Kenosis Hymn not only reflects the story of Adam; it is the story of Adam, an alternative version analogous to that in Ezekiel 28.38 “Being in the form of God, he did not think equality with God a thing to be seized but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, etc.” This sounds to me like an express repudiation of the Genesis version, asserting not that Christ refused to make the same mistake that Adam had made, but rather that Adam did not make the mistake some said [39] he made. He did indeed depart from his original heavenly state to assume the burdens of earthly existence, but this was not a punishment as some believed. Rather it was voluntary (perhaps in order “to learn obedience” as in Hebrews 5:8). Originally the text lacked the phrase “even death on a cross” but referred only to death, mortality in general, the human lot. God then exalted Adam to heavenly glory, the state in which we see him in the Testament of Abraham, investing him with the divine Name, “Yahweh Is Salvation.” Just like Moses and Metatron and the angel Yahoel. Philippians 2:6–11 obviously applies the story to Jesus, but it is not about Jesus of Nazareth. “Jesus” (“Yahweh Is Salvation”) in the hymn referred to the Great Angel receiving the divine Name, just like Yahoel and the Lesser Yahweh. I suspect this is the theo-mythical background for the Ebionites’ and the Naassenes’ identification of Jesus with Adam.
(
Bart Ehrman interpreted: how one radical New Testament scholar understands another, p. 223-224, my underline)
Note
39 appears to attribute the exegesis to:
39. James A. Charlesworth, “The Portrayal of the Righteous as an Angel.” In George W.E. Nickelsburg and John J. Collins, eds., Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism: Profiles and Paradigms. Septuagint and Cognate Studies 12 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1980), p. 138.
I would add this explanation about the Philippians Hymn to my thesis of
a particular Nag Hammadi text being the mythological kernel of the Oldest Gospel Passion Story.
Paraphrasing Robert Price's words:
Philippians 2:6–11 obviously applies the story to Jesus, but it is not about Jesus of Nazareth.
...then I may say
with equal right:
On the Origin of World 115:23 obviously applies the story to Jesus, but it is not about Jesus of Nazareth
That is my final view, the key unlocking the
essentia of any Gospel narrative: the enigmatic dialogue between Pilate and Jesus.
...But before I should read a particular
book...