These are the generations of the Heavens and the Earth when they were created.
In the day that the Lord God made the Earth and the Heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up--for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the Earth, and there was no man to till the ground; but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground-- Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
3 comments:
If I have this right... In the Hebrew, this does not necessarily have us starting with an entirely 'male' man who then has a female extracted from his body... but we may have 'man' created as an androgynous being who is subsequently separated into male/female parts.
My Bible here points out that in this chapter's version of the creation story, we have 'man' created before any other forms of life. (& I gather that the phrase "Lord God" here is also a different Hebrew name than "God" in the previous chapter.)
What I think is most significant here, though, is that our life comes from God's breath in us. We are not, as we customarily imagine, alive on our own, nor could we somehow live apart from God!
Why does the Creator change from God to Lord God after Genesis 2.4?
Okay, it gets translated into English as 'Lord God' because the word we're getting for 'God' changes, from 'the gods' (in previous chapters) to a combination of the Hebrew consonants for YHWH with the vowels for "The Lord."
We have just, in other words, switched from a priestly story to one from the source(s) called "j".
And we've just been visited, I believe, by an incognito Biblical scholar, with whom I am well pleased, for the day or so it's been since I first glanced at his writings for lay folks! Which I certainly expect to recommend when I've read more.
Also, we are here taking up a tale of the beginnings of human wisdom (aka "The Fall" in many Christian interpretations.)
"Knowledge of Good and Evil," he says, is not about "Good vs Evil" but means, rather: "knowledge of all things," ie of everything from one end of this spectrum to the other.
So, is this oncoming story about the change from hunter-gatherer ways of life to agriculture? As in Cain & Abel?... The discovery of "What do babies come from?"
I'd say, more a change in the felt relationship between human beings and God. A development, as I'm told it's seen in Judaism-- as well as a "Fall." Human beings beginning "to make our own decisions," & therefore facing anxiety about outcomes, having to recognize forces beyond our control which aren't, on the face of it, necessarily on our side.
But nothing says this is intended to be a final state of affairs.
So, a new question: What sort of divine/human interaction do you feel is supposed to result from all this subsequent history?
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