What are you made of?

According to the Genesis1 account, God simply spoke and man was created. At least, that is what the Elohist author wrote. According to the transitional Yahwist author, YHVH-Elohim used mud or, more “accurately”, soil. And because the soil is adamah in Hebrew, man was called “Adam”.

I have seen movies where a pastor, at a funeral, will quote a variation of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) 3:20 “all are from dust, and all turn to dust again”. Here, the Hebrew word afar is used.

The Torah is insistent that man is made from inorganic matter, and you have the defenders of that position arguing that the Theory of Evolution makes no sense.

This brings us to Genesis 6:7, which is at the end of parashah Berashit, where the Yahwist author tells us that YHVH had decided to dissolve man, by bringing forth a flood.

That’s right. The reason that YHVH chose a flood (rather, than fire, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.) was because animals and humans were made of the same stuff: dirt, mud, and dust. To the primitive Yahwist, it seemed a pretty reasonable thing. After all, many civilizations have myths concerning people and animals being formed by some sort of clay by one or more Gods. There is even a Jewish legend of the Golem, a precursor to the Frankenstein story, where a giant man, made of clay by the local Rabbi, was made alive through magic in order to defend the village. In the end, however, he turned against its creator.

Even through the 12^th century, those who taught Scripture had no problem with God making man out of dirt or clay. To quote Rashi, a super-commentator from that time, speaking on behalf of Genesis 6:7:

“[Man] is soil, and I will bring to him water to dissolve him”. This is why the expression “dissolving” is used” [rather than שמד “to destroy” or כלה “to annihilate”]

It is something worth considering when reading the “perfect word of God”.

Here is a meme that sums up this view nicely, and a couple of "dirt/mud" related ones as well, just for fun: