Dust or Slime? Maybe Mud!

English: The Creation of Adam is a fresco painted by Michelangelo, the work started at 1508 and finished 1512, it appears on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It illustrates the Biblical story from the Book of Genesis in which God the Father breathes life into Adam, the first man. Chronologically the fourth in the series of panels depicting episodes from Genesis on the Sistine ceiling, it was among the last to be completed. Français : La Création d'Adam Deutsch: Die Erschaffung Adams (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The record of creation that begins in Genesis 2:4 may be the observations or insights of a different writer than the one who wrote Genesis 1.  In this account man is formed out of the dirt, the same substance the earth is made of with the exception that God breathed into his nostrils breath so that he became a living being.  


This account is not compatible with evolution any more than the first one.  God created a shape that he liked out of dirt, or the Wycliffe Bible says, he made man out of  slime.  A child playing with mud may fashion a house, or an animal, or a playmate in the mud, but God went a step further and made the man alive with breath from his own being; the Spirit of God made the man alive.


Since the creation of man, humans have had access to God, being made by him and having an identification with him in spirit.  


All the rest of the Bible and the story of God's dealing with mankind rest on this one fact:  God created us and then, even in the face of our sin and failures, he loved us and provided a way for us to enter into his love and grace.


Read the rest of the story in the Bible.