Genesis 2:4-7 - Moses Recorded the Evolution of Man (Part 3)
7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
As discussed in Genesis 2:4-7 - Moses Recorded the Evolution of Man (Part 1) and Genesis 2:4-7 - Moses Recorded the Evolution of Man (Part 2), God created man from the dust of the ground, starting 4.5 billion years ago. He then “finished” perhaps as recently as 10,000-15,000 years ago, just before modern agriculture took off. To be specific, that is when God breathed life into Adam.
In order for this to work, we must realize that verse 7 is recording two separate things: the evolution of man, and breathing of life into his nostrils. The evolution of man was a process described by Genesis 1. It was a process that God was quite involved in. In fact, according to Proverbs 8, Jesus (i.e., Wisdom) helped oversee the entire thing. It is why Day 6 described the creation of man and woman, and not just man… because Day 6 records the evolution that led to biological mankind (again, not random Darwinian Godless evolution, but an evolution under the order and oversight of God).
Once we accept that the formation of mankind is what the first part of 7 is referring to, we can then characterize the conditions under which God breathed life into man’s nostrils:
- Mankind existed already, both he and she
- Mankind was alive biologically
- Mankind was not alive in some respect
- God blew some kind of life into mankind that was not there already
After a 16 month study of righteousness, it would seem that righteousness is the main quality of God to which all men must aspire. However, we cannot actually be righteous on our own. All we can do is believe God and obey Him. Our belief is accounted to us as righteousness, and that righteousness then manifests as obedience. God’s righteousness however manifests as justice. Ours does not. The only one we can show true justice toward is God, and we can only do this by believing and obeying Him. Being righteous therefore makes us like Him, but not equivalent to Him. I believe that it is what makes us in His image… our ability to believe Him and obey Him.
Now according to science, it would seem that mankind has been capable of believing and obeying God for far longer than mankind has been tilling the earth. Yet, we know from scripture that tilling the earth is the punishment for disobeying God in the Garden, when Adam and Even ate of the Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We therefore know that Adam and Even were banished from the Garden around 10,000 years ago. However, we also know that capacity for language has been around for at least 50,000 years, and altars for at least 200,000 years. And so it would seem that mankind was capable of believing and obeying God long before Adam was ever born. How to square that with scripture? Actually, it is not that hard.
Recall this section of Genesis 1:
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
So at the close of Day 6, both men and woman existed. They began subduing the earth through population. The ate seeded plants. They ate animals and birds. They ruled over the fish, the birds, and livestock. They did not farm.
God was done with the first half of Genesis 2:7… the creation of man from the dust of the ground. God rested.
Now, God was ready to take mankind to another level. He talked to one of them. His name was Adam. Adam was the first person to actually encounter God. As Genesis 2:7b puts it, God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”
The evolution of man’s body was now over. The age of spirituality had just begun.