Tough Questions for Christians #26—God’s After-Thought
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AZ claims that in Genesis 2, Adam was created as a gardener/zookeeper and the woman was created as an afterthought as “man’s best friend”.
This is insulting and wrong. Theologically it is wrong because it says that God created humanity’s destiny before creation—and do you think he didn’t include women in this? Just silly.
Secondly, there are two main accounts of creation. Genesis 2, as you quoted and Genesis 1. In Genesis 1 it says, “Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
27 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 God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
29 Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;
30 and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so.
In this account, both sexes were created equally and with the same purpose—to rule the earth. Not simply a gardener, but a king over the whole earth.
I think of Genesis 2 as being Adam’s version of creation, while Genesis 1 is God’s. In Genesis 2, Adam’s interpretation of God’s work is to help him. That may be part of the reason, but God’s destiny for woman is more than men ever gave credit to them for. Women were made to rule the earth. Adam may have seen himself as little more than a glorified gardener (what man hasn’t been dissatisfied with their job?) but when the garden covers the earth (and Eden covered the world from Iraq to Ethiopia—a large chunk of land), then more accurately he is an Emperor.
Women aren’t an afterthought to God, only to men. So this is more a side note about the sexes rather than anything about God.
I have been asking myself this question a lot. God gave Adam a chance to check out the rest of the creation before he created Eve for him.Doesn't this mean God did not intend for her to be there, at least not in the first few days after Adam.
ReplyDeleteLet's face it, more often than not, men are pretty self-confident, and self-reliant. They think that they don't need anyone. God was giving Adam a chance to realize his own need. And then God fulfilled the needy by making the man a husband. God made woman in such a way that she realizes her need for others, she is more social than man. Thus, God made man first because he had a weakness that he was unaware of, that could only be fulfilled by woman.
ReplyDeleteAnd, again, men and women were made together to rule the earth, both with their authority granted to them by God.