On 11 Dec 95 15:02:39 EST you wrote:
>Stephen, you wrote:
>
SJ>The Bible in context affirms that man was made from "dust" (Gn 2:7;
3:19; Job 34:15 Ps 103:14, etc).>>
JB>I agree. Sorry, Stephen, if my post wasn't clear. Here's what I
>meant. I brought up creation ex nihilo as a setting for the context
>of man's creation. My point was not that man was made from
>"nothing," but from "non-living [inorganic] matter," and that the
>immediate context of God bringing forth the universe "from nothing"
>supports that view. In other words, it is closer to creation ex
>nihilo than it is from creation from pre-existing, organic matter.
>Genesis 2:7 is teaching a miracle. "Dust" means dust (as any
>literalist ought to agree). In fact, nowhere does the Bible use
>"dust" to mean anything else. For instance, when God through Aaron
>caused the "dust" to become "lice," it was not a fixing up of
>something inanimate but lice-like. It was a miraculous
>transformation of something unlike anything living, into lots of
>little living things!
I agree that "dust" normally means "non-living [inorganic] matter",
however as Bill points out:
BH>Oops! What about Genesis 3:19? Here God refers to Adam, obviously
>a living being, as "dust".
But even conceding your point, since animals are also made of the
earth (Gn 1:24; 2:19), I do not see that this necessarily rules out
man being made from an intermediate living ancestor, ie.
Dust -> man
or
Dust -> animal -> man
Either way, man is ultimately made of dust and decays to dust (Gn
3:19).
God bless.
Stephen
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