ToB: The Second Account of Creation: The Subjective Definition of Man

The second (chronologically the older) account of creation has an especially subjective nature. The second chapter of Genesis constitutes, in a certain manner, the most ancient description and record of man's self-knowledge.

"The myth, in naming Adam, man, makes explicit the concrete universality of human evil; the spirit of penitence is given in the Adamic myth the symbol of this universality. Thus we find again...the universalizing function of the myth. But at the same time, we find two other functions, equally called forth by the penitential experience...The proto-historical myth thus serves not only to make general to mankind of all times and of all places the experience of Israel, but to extend to mankind the great tension of the condemnation and of mercy which the prophets had taught Israel to discern in its own destiny.

"Finally, the last function of the myth, which finds its motive in the faith of Israel; the myth prepares for speculation in exploring the point where the ontological and the historical part company."

The words which describe the unity and indissolubility of marriage are found in the immediate context of the second account of creation, which has as its defining characteristic feature the separate creation of woman (Gn. 2:18-23).

The Bible calls the first human being "man" ('adam), but from the moment of the creation of woman, it begins to call him "man" (ish), in relation to "woman" (ishshah). In referring to Genesis 2:24, Christ not only linked "the beginning" with the mystery of creation, but also led us to the limit of man's primitive innocence and of original sin. In Genesis 2 we have the creation of man and the creation of woman. We have them living in paradise, in blissful innocence. Immediately following this creation and idyllic life, we go into Genesis 3, wherein mankind falls.

"The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the line of demarcation between the two original situations that Genesis speaks of."

The first situation was original innocence, the second was original sinfulness. Fallen humanity, which is what we've all inherited.

"When Christ, referring to the 'beginning', directed his questioners to the words written in Genesis 2:24, he ordered them, in a certain sense, to go beyond the boundary which, in the Yahwist text of Genesis, runs between the first and second situation of man. He did not approve what Moses had permitted 'for their hardness of heart'. He appealed to the words of the first divine regulation, which in this text is expressly linked to man's state of original innocence. This means that this regulation has not lost its force, even though man has lost his primitive innocence."