In the Beginning, I

Genesis means "in beginning," and opens with two accounts of creation. Both express the Hebrew faith in God as creator of the universe.

The Yahwistic Creation Story appears in Genesis 2:4b-25, and is the older of the two traditions. The order of creation is man, garden, trees, animals, and woman. Humans are the bookends, the focus, of creation.

Humans alone are animated by divine breath, separating him and setting him above the rest of creation. Our formation out of the ground acknowledges what people knew to be true about a body following death -- from dust we came; to dust we will return.

In Semitic culture, the power to name represents authority. Adam's naming of the creatures further supports his position as separate from, and above, the creation, but also puts him in a position of responsibility for it.

The location is cryptic -- "in the east." Geography is not the focus of the story, and that concern is equally absent in the description of the rivers. Cartographic pursuits were never intended, and such pursuits not only miss the point, but perverts the purpose of the account being preserved in the Bible. Interestingly enough, anthropologists believe that the African continent is where life began, and it is east of the culture of this creation story.

Eden means "delight." This was a GOOD place, idyllic, perfect. Personally, I think heaven will be a lot like Eden -- the context God chose for his interaction with humankind -- yet infused with the constant (rather than visiting, see the Fall) presence of the glory of God.

Notice that woman is made from Adam's side -- not from his heel that he should oppress her, nor from his head that she might oppress him, but from his side that they might stand together, completing and complementing one another. And she must have looked gooooood. Let me paraphrase Adam: "Now, that's what I'm talking about! THIS is the right stuff! I didn't know I had it in me!" We'll come back to the leaving and cleaving when we talk about Jacob, Leah and Rachel.

The obvious question, to me, is WHY did God put a tree in the middle and then tell them they couldn't eat it? Ever put something out on a table and told a child not to touch it?? We'll come back to this when we talk about the Fall.