Okay, day
six, when God finally gets around to people—
Time out!
I know, the
story hasn’t really started yet, but I’ve got to address something before we
get too deep. See, Genesis has two creations of mankind.
Yes. The
first begins in Genesis 1:26. The second begins in Genesis 2:7. The first has
Man created with Woman simultaneously. The second has Eve’s creation after
Adam. This is problematic, obviously, as these stories don’t mesh. The second
story is more detailed, so, in my experience, that is the one people favor.
Certain Jewish faiths look to the Talmud or the Midrash for explanation as the
belief is that the first five books of the Old Testament (known as the Torah)
were either directly inspired to Moses by God, or dictated to Moses by God, so
that every word must be correct.
In short
(too late), Both creation accounts would have to be correct. The two creations
of man show that Adam was created, and that a woman was created simultaneously.
However, this woman is not named as Eve. The rabbis of the Talmud theorize that
Adam actually had two wives, which is where the story of Lilith comes in. Since this is
not included as part of the Bible itself, I won’t delve into that story (at
least not now). But this is one way that both stories are reconciled.
The other method
is what’s known as Documentary
Hypothesis. The short version is simply that the Bible was told orally
before it was written down. And when it was written down, many different people
wrote it down. Scholars then tried to compile all of these versions together,
but when it came down to it, they couldn’t decide on which version was the
correct one, so they included both versions.
There are
different versions of the creation of mankind, the flood, and other stories.
Biblical scholars have actually combed through and looked at specific language
patterns and sentence styles to come up with four distinct authorial voices
within the first five books. They are listed as J, E, P, and D. I won’t go into
more info on this, but it is something to be aware of to avoid confusion as we
look at the creation story.
And, time
in!
So the
creation goes that either man and woman are either created simultaneously, or
that man was created first. The second creation is often looked at as the more
definitive version because it has more detail, so let’s focus on that.
Personally,
I think this is the more logical method, too, as it fits in better with the
progression of steps previously seen in the creation.
So, Adam
gets made, and he has this Garden to himself, and he’s lonely, so God zonks him
out, yanks a rib, presto change-o we have Eve.
The end,
right?
Not quite.
At least not for me.
See, there
are some interpretations, by some unsavory people I don’t subscribe to, that
believe that because Adam was made first, he is supposed to be superior to Eve.
But that isn’t said anywhere in the text. It’s not even implied throughout the
creation. If anything, we have to examine the processes of creation again, as
this is where we will gain our understanding.
As stated
last week, the progression of days is also a refinement process. This
refinement process culminates in the creation of mankind because, obviously, we
are the best. Mankind is given dominion over the earth. The animals must listen
to us; we are large and in charge. Everything that is created culminates in the
creation of man. Or does it?
See, that
refinement process had one more step.
Eve is the
ultimate creation. She came after Adam. She was refined from the stuff of Adam.
This is in holding with the pattern established over the previous days.
Heady
stuff, huh?
P.S. This
idea even holds true when taking into account the Lilith story.