Article July 18, 1983 Issue

The mist myth

GRACE FLYNN

The first chapter of Genesis informs us that God created man in His image and likeness, and gave him dominion over all the earth. Also that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."^{Gen. 1:31.}

In the second chapter we read: "But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground."^{Gen. 2:6, 7.}

So from Genesis 1 we know that God created man of His own substance, Spirit. He formed man in His own likeness: immortal, eternally harmonious, reflecting His wholeness, holiness, and perfection, and having dominion over all the earth. The question is this: Is the following account—the "mist" account of creation—really telling us that then God capriciously, in a moment of beclouded whimsy, changed His Mind and formed man "of the dust of the ground"? Did God actually withdraw His gift to man of dominion over all the earth? If taken literally, Genesis 2 indicates that He did—that He made man a bondslave to an artful, cunning force: materiality. It shows that He made him subservient to material laws; hence subject to disease, deterioration, and death—indeed, to all the challenges that now face mankind in its seeming separateness from God: loneliness, unemployment, poverty, hunger, inhumanity, war, the threat of nuclear holocaust.

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