Adam was "formed" not spoken into being.

The rest of creation was spoken,
from the heavens to the ant,
all created by God's voice.

As an Artist and Potter,
the Lord God molded him from clay,
from dust of earth.
Common dirt made into God's masterpiece,
the genesis of His own companion.
        
Man alone was made by the
touch and shape of God's intimate involvement,
a unique creation among all else,
man was a personal being, near to God.

A "touched being," was man.
He flowed from God's fingers and
was breathed upon by the Spirit of His Essence.
Nothing else - no other living thing -
was awakened by the breath of God.
No other creation carried within, a spirit,

Touch and breath,
intimate-making of man for God's loneliness.
All the magnificent universe reflects Almighty's glory,
His brilliance and perfection
but out of all creation,
humanity alone would
cast the shadow of His image and
bear the similarity of His likeness.
        
Adam and Eve were created at separate times,
in radically different ways,

Adam was "formed" from the dirt of earth,
formed by the Intimate touch of God
into a clay pot molded as by a Potter.
(Hebrew: yatsar - a common word for potter)

Eve was "fashioned" from a living bone
taken from the man
by divine surgery
and "built" by some mysterious construction
as of an Architect,
whose model is drawn and planned.
(Hebrew: banah - "fashioned as a thing of beauty"
implication as of a building)

Potter and Architect. This is our God.

Adam, first formed, first breathed upon. First human.
Originator of all else human, even woman.

Eve was created by God into an original being of His Idea
and not a prototype of Adam.
       
They were made entirely separate,
completely opposite and perfectly compatible.

He, as the earthy one to tend
the garden of their life's work,
she to bestow form and beauty on him,
the soft support for his labors.

Eve's identity, distinct from Adam's.
Her role, complementary but entirely different.
        
"She is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh . . . ."
"they shall be one flesh."
        
They were "one flesh" but not one soul.
They were two separate
and splendid first-beings . . .
pure and individual.

Copyright © 2001 Martha Blaney Kilpatrick