Throughout the ages, we’ve been told, and though it sounds fictitious, we somehow believe by faith that God created the first human Adam from dust, or some say from clay.
But, what the Bible actually says in Genesis 2:7 is;
“Then Yehovah God (יהוה אלהים) formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”
Both in original Hebrew scripture and in English translation, it is exact and clearly said “dust of the ground”, not just “dust” or “clay”.
In the original Hebrew scripture, it is written as; עפר מן האדמה
- עפר : dust, powder, ashes etc,.
- מן : of
- האדמה : the ground, the earth
Let’s see what does it mean by “dust of the ground”. Some 3,500 years after Genesis was penned down, we now know that human body is made up of these elements listed here that come from the earth:
Carbon, Calcium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Sulfur, Sodium, Magnesium; and a long list of the following other trace elements such as Iron, Zinc, Silicon, Gallium, Rubidium, Strontium, Lead, Copper, Aluminium, Cadmium, Cerium, Barium, Tin, Iodine, Titanium, Boron, Selenium, Nickel, Chromium, Manganese, Arsenic, Lithium, Mercury, Caesium, Molybdenum, Germanium, Cobalt, Ruthenium, Antimony, Silver, Niobium, Zirconium, Lanthanum, Tellurium, Yttrium, Bismuth, Thallium, Indium, Gold, Scandium, Tantalum, Vanadium, Thorium, Uranium, Samarium, Tungsten, Beryllium and Radium.
This explains what particular dust of the ground God used to form the first human being Adam (אדם). For detailed composition of these elements to form a human body, we got to study and talk about DNA.
Then, God “breathed into his nostrils the “breath of life” (נשמת חיים), and the man became a living being”.
So, what is the “breath of life”? The “breath of life” is what we breathe in, a mixture of “oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and few others”.
Now, we can understand that this is how the first human Adam (אדם) was created, he was made of very specific kinds of dust from the earth, not made of some random dust from road side, nor from clay.
Shalom (שלום).