another telling of the Creation Myth

“Yahweh God fashioned man of dust from the soil.” So I read in the 2nd chapter of Genesis. And thereby hangs a tale.

This is another telling of the Creation Myth. Kept alongside the variant in the first chapter. It’s very Neolithic in its implications. There’s nothing growing yet. There’s been no rain. Yahweh God hasn’t sent it yet. But the rivers are rising over the plain (Tigris and Euphrates? the Nile?) and needs must a man to till the soil. 

When I last studied Hebrew, courtesy of the Blackfriars in Oxford, while we were waiting for the tutor to arrive, I jested with my fellow students. ‘man’, Hebrew ‘adam’, was made from ‘the earth’, Hebrew ‘adamah’. ‘adam’ is masculine. ‘adamah’ is feminine. Hence, ‘man’ was created from ‘woman’. QED. 

A great shout of ‘Nonsense!’ from an unthinking Catholic priest, unable to comprehend ideas from outside the strictest teachings of the seminary. 

But Adam, created from Mother Earth. Just as the Pagans sing. “The Earth is Our Mother”. The Great Mother who appears in varying guises all around the hinterlands of Western Asia. And in the image of Isis with the infant Horus is absorbed into Roman Christianity and renamed The Virgin Mary with the Baby Jesus.

Quite a scenario. Wisdom conveyed in a cloak of mystery. Not to be lightly cast aside. 

And the woman came first.

francis cameron, oxford, 2016 january 06

vidimus stellam ejus in oriente

et venimus cum muneribus adorare dominum