The Creation of Humanity

Humanities is a renaissance word. It is defined as the condition of being a person distinguished from an animal. It is of or relating to the characteristics of people or human beings. Human culture comes from the knowledge of death, which leads humans to have a desire for immortality. The idea of an afterlife and hell tells us that life continues after death. Although human beings and animals are both living things, they do have differences from each other. In Genesis, God creates humans to control and to have supremacy over the animals. God said to “let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” (p. 12) This shows us that in the beginning there was already an established hierarchy amongst humans and animals because humans were superior to animals. Genesis also portrays animals as being helpers of mankind because God said that he would create a helper as a partner to “the man” because a man should not be alone. Genesis defines human beings as having the ability to gain knowledge and wisdom and having the knowledge of death. Humanity began with a creator, God and Adam the first man alive that was made from the dust of the ground and the breath of life. God instructed Adam that he “may freely eat of every tree of the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (p. 13-14) God also warned Adam that if he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that he would die. This principle tells us that society in Adam’s times were very strict on having knowledge. At the end of chapter 2 in Genesis, God creates another helper for Adam’s partner; a woman. As the story goes on, this woman, Eve, is tempted by a serpent who tells her that God doesn’t want her to eat from the knowledge of good and evil because God knows that when she eats from the tree your eyes will be opened and you will be like God. Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and also shared the fruit with her husband Adam. Once they ate the fruit, both their eyes were opened and they noticed that they were naked and were afraid to face the Lord God. This encounter allowed us to see that society values knowledge and being aware of what is going on around you. With knowledge there are consequences such as hostility between men and woman, children and their parents and pain during childbearing. The disobedience towards God caused a great curse over humankind forever. God also describes human beings as evil after the flood that he sent on Earth. “And when the Lord smelled the pleasing odor, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.” (p. 21) In this chapter of Genesis, God lets us know that human beings have a tendency to be evil because they were basically born with an evil heart. This story tells us that the society that helped to create this myth strived for virtuosity rather than evilness. Genesis shows us that even though humans are all made in God’s image and likeness and He is perfect, all-knowing, omnipotent and omnipresent, human beings still disobey God and his commands.