Dr. Dylan Johnson

So if you've got a friend called Adam today, you're actually just the man.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

So he creates man.

He fashions him from the dust which is upon the earth.

So think in terms of kind of almost a clay figurine here.

And really, they're conjuring imagery here of a potter, of a potter creating a figurine.

And he breathed the breath of life into this being which animates him.

And this is already steeped in Near Eastern traditions, thinking specifically about the formation of cultic statues.

Ritual ceremonies like the opening of the mouth and the watching of the mouth ceremony where these sculpted objects are given vitality, usually in the form of divine inhabitants through these ceremonies.

So God is kind of channeling that in the creation of humanity here.

And we'll get many parallels to this in Mesopotamian myths, which we can go on to later.

But that's the creation of the man.

And the man, unlike in the first chapter, starts to partake in creation.

He starts to name things.

And naming becomes a really important part of creation.

Because once you give a name to something, then it springs into existence in both chapter one and chapter two here.

but he's lonely.

So God decides to give him, and the word here is a helper, an ezer.

And so it's decided that from the rib of man, he will create a companion for him.