Topics: Creation; Creator; Dignity; Human Condition; Human Worth; Life; Perfection; Purpose
References: Genesis 1:26; 2:7; Job 32:8; Psalm 8:3–6; 139:13–16; John 3:16; Romans 5:8
Contrast the creation of the first man according to Genesis 2 with the creation of the first human beings according to Mesopotamian tradition. Both start with dust or clay, but then the accounts vary.
In the Mesopotamian creation account, Enuma Elish, humanity’s dust is mixed with the blood of a demon god killed for his treachery against the second generation of gods. Humans are demons from the time they’re born. According to Atrahasis, the second ingredient is the spit of the gods, a far cry from the glorious breath of the biblical Creator!
The creation process according to Mesopotamian tradition fits well with the overall low view of humanity professed by that culture. According to Atrahasis, humans were created with the express purpose of relieving the lesser gods from the arduous labor of digging irrigation ditches.
By contrast, the Genesis account teaches that human beings, male and female, were created in the image of God to rule over every living thing that has the breath of life in it (Genesis 1:30).
—Tremper Longman III, Immanuel in Our Place (P&R, 2001)