The Lost World of Adam and Eve (9 page)

When we return to the relationship between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, we find that there is therefore no precedent by which to conclude that the introductory formula in Genesis 2:4 is bringing the reader back into the middle of the previous account to give a more detailed description of a part of the story that was previously told. Such introductions never do this in the rest of Genesis, and the word
tōlĕdōt
(account) argues against such an understanding. Furthermore, Genesis 2 does not follow the pattern of the recursive examples that follow a genealogy of the unfavored line before returning to the story of the favored line. This evidence then leads us to give strong preference to the view that Genesis 2 is not adding further detail to what happened during the sixth day in Genesis 1. It would therefore also mean that, though Adam and Eve may well be included among the people created in Genesis 1, to think of them as the first couple or the only people in their time is not the only textual option.
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Regarding the role of Genesis 2:5-6, we note that the plants referred to in Genesis 2:5 are qualified so as to indicate that they refer to cultivated crops rather than the general vegetation of Genesis 1 available to the gatherer. After all, the land is generally being watered, so we would infer it is not totally without vegetation. In the discussion of Genesis 1:2 (
tōhû wābōhû
) we examined the concept of an inchoate cosmos. Here, attention turns to an inchoate terrestrial setting, which is also well known from ancient Near Eastern cosmologies.
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One early-second-millennium text found at Nippur describes this setting with phrases such as the following:

• “No water was drawn from the deep, nothing was produced”
  
• “Enlil’s great
  išib
  priest did not yet exist, sacred purification rites were not yet performed”
  
• “The host of heaven was not yet adorned”
  
• “Daylight did not yet shine, night spread, but Heaven had lit up his heavenly abode”
  
• “The ground could not by itself make vegetation grow long”
  
• “The gods of Heaven and the gods of earth were not (yet) performing their duties”
  6
  

More focus on humankind is seen in a Sumerian text from Ur dating to about 1600
B.C.
:

• The high plain was not being tilled
  
• Canals, ditches and dikes were not being built
  
• No ploughing was being done
  
• Humans were not wearing clothes
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Most notable is the description found in the Royal Chronicle of Lagash in relation to the re-creation after the flood:

These texts offer rich information for comparative studies, but, unfortunately, this is not the place for such a detailed study.
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Suffice it to say that, as always, such a study would have to take careful note of both the similarities and differences. For our purposes, we should note that the kind of description found in Genesis 2:5-6 is of the same sort that is common in cosmological texts of the ancient world when a terrestrial pre-ordering condition is being described. Genesis is featuring the same sorts of discussions known in that world, though it often has a different perspective on them.

We can see in these texts that sometimes an inchoate terrestrial situation is discussed alongside an inchoate cosmic situation. But in other texts the two are not treated together. In Genesis 1:2, an inchoate cosmos is described, whereas an inchoate earth is described in Genesis 2:5-6. This is another reason to locate Genesis 2 chronologically after the seven days rather than in day six.

Applying this interpretation to Genesis 1–2 would result in a number of conclusions:

• Genesis 1 recounts the creation of all humanity in God’s image as it presents the idea that God has ordered sacred space to function on behalf of humanity.
  
• Genesis 1 pertains to generic humanity, as indicated by the indefinite term used. This coincides well with the common way of reporting the creation of humans in the ancient world, so it is no surprise that generic humanity is the referent.
  
• Genesis 1 does not report the mechanisms or processes used in that creative act—indicating only that it is an act of God.
  
• Just as Genesis 1 began with a state of non-order in the larger cosmos, Genesis 2 begins with a state of non-order in the terrestrial realm.
  
• Genesis 2 explains how humans function in sacred space and on its behalf (in contrast to Genesis 1, which addressed how sacred space functioned for humanity).
  
• Genesis 2 locates the center of sacred space (the garden) in contrast to Genesis 1, which only indicated that the cosmos was set up to be sacred space.
  

The question remains as to the significance of Genesis 2 if Genesis 1 had already told about the creation of humanity. If Genesis 2 comes sometime later, or even represents a different process (e.g., individual focus vs. corporate focus), why do we have forming accounts that could easily look like they describe the unique formation of the first human beings? These are the questions that we will take up in the next several chapters of the book.

Proposition 8

“Forming from Dust” and “Building from Rib” Are Archetypal Claims and Not Claims of Material Origins

When people first become acquainted with my view of Genesis 1 as an account of origins connected with order rather than material (summarized in the first several chapters), it is not long before they ask, “But what about Genesis 2?” They go on to state what to them seems obvious: that “forming” is transparently a material term and that “dust” is a material ingredient. It is therefore easy for the reader to conclude that even if Genesis 1 is focused on order, at least here in Genesis 2 we have an account of
material
human origins.

Certainly if the Bible is here making a claim about the mechanisms and process of material human origins, we would insist on taking that seriously. If we read Genesis 2 as an account of God making human beings in a quick and complete process, not developed materially from any previously existing species, we would be affirming a de novo creation of humans (and I will use that terminology throughout the rest of the book).
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The alternative to de novo is creation that features material continuity between species.
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In this book, we are not going to be suggesting a scientific explanation of what happened. We are focusing our attention on what the Bible claims or does not claim. Even if we should discover that the Bible does not claim a de novo creation of humans, the scientific question would not be settled. We would still have to explore the options or explanations that science has to offer and consider them on their own merit. But if the Bible does not make a clear de novo claim, and thus does not rule out material continuity, then the Bible would not be inherently contradictory to scientific models that are based on material continuity. In other words, we could not reject the idea of material continuity by saying that the Bible rules it out by a competing theory that constitutes a mutually exclusive claim.

Forming

We will first address the assumption that the word translated “formed” (Hebrew
y
ṣ
r
) necessarily implies a material act. The simple fact is that it does not, as usage demonstrates. One of the clearest examples is found in Zechariah 12:1, “The L
ORD
, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms [
y
ṣ
r
] the human spirit within a person.” Here the direct object of the verb is the human spirit, which is categorically not material. This demonstrates that “forming” is not essentially or necessarily a material act. This is not an isolated incident. In the forty-two occurrences of the verb in the Hebrew Bible,
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it is used in a variety of nonmaterial ways:

• God speaks of events that are taking place as having been
  formed
  (
  NIV
  : “planned”) long ago (2 Kings 19:25//Is 37:26; cf. Is 22:11; 46:11; Jer 18:11).
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• When God
  forms
  the heart, the statement is not referring to the blood pump but to thoughts and inclinations (Ps 33:15).
  
• God
  formed
  summer and winter (Ps 74:17).
  
• A corrupt administration
  forms
  (
  NIV
  : “brings on”) misery for the people through its decrees (Ps 94:20).
  
• Our days are
  formed
  (
  NIV
  : “ordained”) by God (Ps 139:16).
  
• Israel is
  formed
  by God (Is 43:1, 21; 44:2, 21, 24; 45:11; Jer 10:16; 51:19) as a people; therefore not a material act.
  
• God
  forms
  light and creates darkness (Is 45:7).
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• Servant (having been identified as Cyrus) is
  formed
  by God in the womb (Is 49:5; cf. Jer 1:5) though he is born through a normal human process.
  
• God
  forms
  (
  NIV
  : “prepares”) a swarm of locusts (Amos 7:1).
  

More than half of the occurrences are shown by context to be unrelated to material. Many of the occurrences listed above communicate how God ordains or decrees phenomena, events, destinies and roles. Most of the occurrences not listed here could easily be translated by alternatives like “prepare,” “ordain” or “decree.” This understanding corresponds precisely with the perspective of functional origins proposed in Genesis 1. We therefore discover that our predisposition to understand “form” as a material act has more to do with the English translation than with the Hebrew original. Even those committed to literal interpretation must recognize that any literal reading must be based on Hebrew, not English.

Dust

The other element that often leads us to think that Genesis 2:7 is speaking in material terms is the reference to dust, presumed by many to be a material ingredient. By now, however, we have learned that we must think this through before jumping to conclusions.

The most basic way to think about dust would be to view it as part of the chemical composition of the human body. That approach immediately has several drawbacks. First, the Israelites would not be inclined to thinking in terms of chemistry. They would have no means to do that, and therefore they had something else in mind as they considered this detail. Second, we would have to consider it flawed chemistry from our vantage point, in that dust could hardly be considered the primary ingredient of the human body.

A common alternative to thinking in terms of chemistry is to understand the statement in the text as referring to craftsmanship. In this way of thinking, the imagery is of a “hands-on” God who has fashioned his creature with loving care and then bestowed on him the breath of life. The major problem with this is that the ingredient chosen would not make sense if the main idea were craftsmanship. One shapes clay, not dust. The latter is impervious to being shaped by its very nature.
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Therefore, we must look for another alternative, and there is no place better to look than in the text itself. We find the decisive clue in Genesis 3:19: “For dust you are and to dust you will return.” Here we discover that dust refers to mortality. This association would make sense to an Israelite reader who was well acquainted with the idea of a corpse that was laid out on the slab in the family tomb and deteriorating to merely a pile of bones and the dust of the desiccated flesh within a year.

Nevertheless, some have been reluctant to adopt this view because of a sense that other scriptural passages contradict it. Specifically, many have concluded that since Paul states that “death [came] through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned” (Rom 5:12), people were created immortal. We must carefully consider whether this is what Paul is saying. Besides the likelihood that Genesis 3:19 suggests people were created mortal, another piece of evidence in Genesis offers even stronger evidence. In the garden, God provided a tree of life. Immortal people have no need for a tree of life. The provision of one suggests that they were mortal.
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Now, lest we think that Paul’s statement might be out of sync with Genesis, we ought to look more carefully at what he is affirming. In Genesis, we find that people are cast from God’s presence when they sin and that a cherub is posted by the entry to the garden to prevent access to the tree of life (Gen 3:24). If people were created mortal, the tree of life would have provided a remedy, an antidote to their mortality. When they sinned, they lost access to the antidote and therefore were left with no remedy and were doomed to die (i.e., subject to their natural mortality). In this case, Paul is saying only that all of us are subject to death because of sin: sin cost us the solution to mortality, and so we are trapped in our mortality. He is therefore not affirming that people were created immortal and is precisely in line with the information from Genesis.