The Creation - Day Six: Adam and Eve

Genesis 1:24-31 “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

I chuckle at paleobiologist' consternation over the Cambrian explosion or life's rapid diversification at that time in Earth's history. Ardent supporters of evolution can’t explain why life diversified in the Cambrian period so quickly. Their data says the rate of change should be much slower. So even though they believe in evolution they can’t explain the data.

Which brings me to this reprise on evolution. I don’t know how God created all the life on the Earth. It’s diversity and beauty is breathtaking. The redundancies in the biosphere, it’s “fault-tolerance” to random disruptive events leads me to the conclusion it’s designed this way. I just don’t see how entropy can be the cause of Earth’s biosphere.

What I do believe is it the biosphere in which we live was designed with a purpose in mind and built to do it. The designer is God. That said, I don’t know how He created man, but He did. Did He use evolution or some flavor there of? Maybe. In the end, for me, it doesn’t matter. I’d like to know, but for now I’m content to know that He’s the creative power behind not only this planet but all life upon it.

Man’s creation is where science and religion part ways. Science says mitochondrial Eve (the common mother of all mankind) and y-chromisomal Adam (the father of all men) are separated in time by a hundred thousand years or more and both existed in Africa. This “Eve” who came after “Adam” lived more than a hundred thousand years ago. So, how can they be the Adam and Eve in the creation accounts? I don’t think they are. A point to remember here is scientist don’t agree on the theories explaining the genetic commonality that exists. Additionally, the algorithm they use to determine when these people lived is based upon unproven assumptions. That said, genetic evidence shows all humanity has a common mother and all men have a common father. It's interesting to note the Bible says Eve is the "Mother of all living."

In scientific terms, according to the Biblical narrative, Eve was Adam's genetically engineered clone. Did God use a lab to do this? He didn’t need to. Consider this: when Jesus turned water into wine, He through God’s power, caused a chemical change in the water that resulted in synthetic wine. It was real wine, but since there were no grapes involved, it’s synthetic. Just as Jesus using God's power created the complex chemical chains known as wine, God changed the genetic blueprint in the rib He took from Adam to create Eve.


In any event, by the end of the sixth day, Adam and Eve are in the Garden and the Earth is up and running, ready for the grand drama of mankind. In the last essay of this series, I’ll give some thoughts on where the Garden of Eden was and what happened there.

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