The Creation of Adam and Eve

      In Genesis, chapter 1, we read that during the sixth day of creation:

    Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

     So God created man in his own image, in God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.

     God blessed them and said to them, “Be frutiful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”

      This passage shows that God definitely created human beings in two flavors:  male and female.  It seems to flow naturally into the commandment he gave them to reproduce, which everyone who has taken high school biology knows requires gametes from each flavor.  Two female cells won’t work; nor will two male cells.

     It also implies, strongly in my opinion, that both the male and female are required to fully represent or reflect God.  RIght after the text repeats that ”man” was created in God’s image it points out that “man” includes both male and female.  These opposite poles seem to be opposite aspects of God’s image and, therefore, of God’s nature.

     In Genesis 2 we read:

     The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.  Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.

      Later in that chapter a problem surfaces:

     The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable helper for him. 

     The first marriage is about to take place.  Even with a meaningful job to do (tend the garden) and even with all the delights of the garden, the man needs something else–someone to help him.  The Hebrew expression is actually ezer knegdo–a helper corresponding to him.  (This phrase has been interpreted in different ways, but to me it seems to carry the idea of two complementary opposites needed to make a balanced whole.)

     After realizing that none of the animals quite fills the bill, God provides a solution:

     So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was asleep, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh.  Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 

     The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman (Heb. ishah) for she was taken out of man (Heb. ish).”

     For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

       The way I read this passage is that God first divided the male and female aspects of humanity into two separate persons and then reunited  them in the world’s first marriage.  Eveything about the creation of mankind strikes me as complementarian–the words for man and woman, God’s creation of the woman from the rib (some say side) of the man, and the man’s “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” comment.

     Notice that in the comment about marriage it mentions a father and a mother–not a father and a father or a mother and a mother.  From the earlier account we know that God created two sexes for the express purpose of reproduction, and that requires a father and a mother.  But God’s plan is for adult children to leave their parents and join their spouses.  In this joining, there is a return, in some sense, to the original human being–before the female was separated from the male.  A husband and wife create almost a single person that combines the male and female sides of humanity and that better represents God than the male or the female alone can do.  And, furthermore, better than two males or two females can do.

     The order of the family includes a father and a mother, I believe, so that children can see a balanced picture of humanity right in their own homes.  It also provides the chidlren with the proper dual glimpse into the nature of God.  Two fathers cannot show the children femininity, and two mothers cannot show the children masculinity.

     God put many dualities into this universe:  north and south magnetic poles, positive and negative electrical charges, night and day, life and death, good and evil.  He purposely put male and female into it, too.  These dualities not only have practical purposes, but they mean something.  We should preserve and honor them.