Ge. 2: Naked without Shame

Further observations on previous reading:
Creation, although it could have been instantaneous, was a process. With that precedent, who am I to expect immediacy in certain aspects of life?

Chapter two begins with saying that the heavens and the earth were completed. What God did, He apparently did right the first time. No redos or mulligans.

Rest is blessed of God. Rest is separate from our work. Rest should take up a whole day. God didn't rest because He was exhausted. He rested because he should have.

The next part is too amazing to just break down into interpretation. From the King James Version, I give you Genesis 2:7:

"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

Spectacular. Ponder that for a moment.

This God breathes life into what heretofore was a pile of dust. Lifeless...soulless. Nothing.
What an amazing display of power. What a way for the Almighty to connect to man. Can two beings be drawn any closer together? What intimacy. What a way to begin life. Can you imagine? Exhaling from your lungs on your first breath the very breath of God. He could have spoken and told the man to breathe. Instead, God comes into our space, our face, and gives life from himself.

No animals are recorded as receiving this kind of treatment. The very idea that we are mere "great apes" does a disservice to all mankind, and completely negates the above exchange between God and Adam.

I wonder at what age Adam was? I wonder how old he would have been, had he been born? Something tells me that this was a land before time, before the ravages of age. Maybe he had the glorified body we are promised at our own resurrection?

Eden seems like it would have been a very cool place. Pristine streams watering every kind of beautiful flowers and fruited trees that were, "pleasing to the eye." You have your choice in this endless river valley of the best kinds of food available to you.

Then we are introduced to the concept of good vs. evil for the first time. The tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Adam was put in the garden to care for it. He was given a very clear instruction. "That tree...that is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Do not eat from that tree, or you will die." Die? Was there any concept of death? Could we fairly expect Adam to grasp the gravity of this command? Or maybe the command itself wasn't the point. It was the expectation of obedience. It was God issuing His will, and the choice suddenly being available to abide in it, or to wander outside of it.

I wonder what God had him doing the whole time that would make Adam be thankful for a woman.

As I reread that, I realize the slam on women that is inherent. It wasn't my intent. The intent was to wonder about the various tasks Adam had to do throughout the day(s?) of labor that completely exhausted him. Tasks that made him long for a companion. Again, the creation of the woman could have been instantaneous. Instead God goes through a rather bizarre process of causing Adam to sleep (to this point, sleep may have been unnecessary and an undiscovered treasure), taking a rib (a rib of all things, and the significance is currently lost on me, but I'll look into it), and closing up the place. Again, we can expect process from God. How rare it must be then when our requests are granted with immediacy or with simplicity in the way we expect it.

God's conventions are unconventional.

The idea of the woman being taken "out of man" combines man and woman in just the perfectly designed way. Man and woman are designed and created to be one flesh.

And they were naked, and they felt no shame.


Questions I have for God:
1. Why the choice of trees to begin with?
2. How did all these animals show up to be named, and who recorded it? Everything comes from some Latin or Greek name (which...has to come from somewhere I suppose.)