From one man...

Standing before the great and the good of first century Athens Paul says in his speech that God

‘made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us’
Acts 17 v 26, 27

That quote is taken from the ESV – an excellent and well respected translation of the Bible – but here their use of the word ‘man’ is interesting. The Greek word is haima and it means blood. The KJV says ‘hath made of one blood all nations’ and it consistently translates the word as blood (in every one of its 99 occurrences). The ESV itself usually translates haima as blood so it seems that this is an example of a pre-conceived idea influencing translation. The difference changes the sense of the phrase completely.

Having said that there are senses where it would be true even if it did mean ‘from one man…’ In other places Adam is described as the first man, and Eve as the mother of all living. So Adam and Eve were certainly ‘firsts’ but we must be careful how we understand that idea.