"the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." (Gen.2:7)
Please tell me in what sense is this allegorical. Are you really trying to make sense or are you just trading everything off for the sake of preference of opinion? I really cannot see how I am being unreasonable here.
It's a theological proposition in opposition to the pagan creation narratives of the Middle East.
Genesis 1 begins similarly enough to narratives such as the Enuma Elish which begins,
"When the heavens above were not yet named, nor the earth below pronounced by name, Apsu, the first one, their begetter, and maker Tiamat, who bore them all, had mixed their waters together, but had not formed pastures, nor discovered reed-beds; when yet no gods were manifest, nor names pronounced, nor destinies decreed, then gods were born with them."
Apsu is the masculine personalization of the underground waters, whereas Tiamat is the [feminine] ocean, the chaotic depths.
Look at how Genesis 1 puts it,
"the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters." (verse 2)
However in the narrative in Genesis, the chaos and formlessness does not precede God, nor is He in any way identified with the current chaotic and formlessness.
"In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth,"
Here the God is prior to and distinct from from the formless and chaotic waters.
God is above and prior to the Apsu and the Tiamat, and these do not have personalizations in the Genesis narrative. They are wholly demoted to impersonal things.
God is prior to these in Genesis, where in the Enuma Elish the gods come out from the chaotic and formless watery depths.
In the Enuma Elish the gods are borne out of this formless chaos, and they themselves are a violent, disorderly lot, and they must compete and fight amongst themselves to form a hierarchy of divinity. The creation of the world is disorganized and chaotic, land and luminaries and beasts and man are all part of this chaotic primeval war of the gods.
Contrast this with Genesis, "And God said, Let there be..." It is with purpose, this God who exists before anything proclaims by the power of His word all things into existence. In doing so Genesis dimisses the notion of creation as chaotic, it is summarily purposeful, direct and deliberate. Each stage of creation is an act of the one God done with purpose and deliberation.
It is a theological statement, a deliberate subversion of the creation motifs and narratives of the Canaanites and other cultures surrounding Israel, and forms the beginning of the grand pre-historic and pre-Abrahamic narrative, a mythos which turns well known motifs and narratives into a narrative prologue leading up to the Call of Abraham out from Ur. The whole of Genesis serves as a sort of Prologue, the real meat of Israel's story being told begins with Moses in the Exodus, but it has to be set up. We therefore need the Prologue, which tells us about this God who liberated Israel out from Egypt; He is the God who created all things, He is above and before all so-called gods. He, not any of the other so-called gods, was the One who sent the Deluge so prominant in Near East mythology; but He is also the One who called Abraham out from ur. He promised Abraham a son of promise, Isaac, and then chose Jacob among his sons, whom He renamed Israel. And Jacob's sons are the twelve patriarchs from whom the Childre of Israel are so named, and due to the work of this one God through the tragedy-turned-triumph of Joseph the Israelites found their way in the land of Egypt.
And here, here is where the story really begins, the defining moment for Israel. For this God reveals Himself to Moses in the burning bush, and subsequently liberates Israel out from bondage, and then gives them His Torah on Mt. Sinai, making His Everlasting Covenant with them. They are His people, He is their God.
That the ancient Hebrews combined history, legend and myth into an interwoven tapestry of narrative is far from unusual, all ancient people did this. What, for the Christian, makes this narrative stand out of single importance--indeed as the inspired and written word of God--is what these myths tell us about our God, the very God who came and revealed Himself through His Incarnate Son and Word, our Lord Jesus Christ.
-CryptoLutheran
