Cindy K

I hope I’m not driving you all nuts with too many early morning posts.

I intended to say more directly before that I don’t think that it is expressly “pagan” to believe that the “they” of Genesis 1:27 means that there was one person named Adam who was a “they of male and female,” and not necessarily a reference to the species of mankind. (It may not be Eve or female, but an “Eveishness”) But to say that Adam contained something of Eve in some sense amounts to paganism is akin to a fallacy of distribution. What is true of the parts need not be true of the whole, and what is true of the whole need not be true of the parts. To believe something similar to what a pagan believes does not make one a pagan. It could well be that the pagans took the ideal and altered it. Every society tends to have an account of the great flood, but that does not make the flood pagan. So in and of itself, stating that Adam contained an aspect or quality of Eve when he was made, something that need not be a gender quality at all but “Eveishness,” is neither sacred nor profane. Again, this is so fixed on gender, and it need not be a gender quality at all. God could have added the gender aspect later.

Some people who are not familiar with the Hebrew style of telling and retelling as a literary device understand that Eve was made after God rested, though I do not find that to be cogent, because Genesis 2 said that God rested and was finished. But the chronology is not abundantly clear, and though I ascribe to a young earth, I think that many good Christians believe that God did create Eve after day 6. I would bet that there are a great many that have not even thought about it much, and some explain it by way of an extended day earth. There are some problems with conceiving of how Adam did all that he accomplished on the first day. How clear is the chronology, and how much credulity can some find in that chronology? I don’t know, but I think it might be an intramural consideration.

The question is whether or not it makes any kind of difference to anything later on. Why would it matter one way or the other? I think it makes a big deal if you are fixated on anthropomorphizing God, and egal and comp can do that both alike.