GOD'S CREATION

We should take this text literally, "male and female he created them." In other words, in the beginning human beings were male AND female, not male OR female. In other words, these human beings were hermaphrodites. Human beings didn't become male or female until the rib story in Chapter 2.

The big question to ask now is this. Did life as we know it start in the Garden of Eden? Is this the beginning and end of God's creation? At the same time, we should also ask: when Eve spoke to the snake and surrendered to temptation was that really the downfall of the human race?

So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Gen 2:21-22.

The main problem with understanding what actually took place is that we think that human beings were the same then as they are now. How could that possibly be! For a start, who can talk to snakes now? Seriously, we need to understand the true evolution of the human being in body, soul and spirit. See Is there a Difference between Soul and Spirit? St Paul gives us many clues in Corinthians 15.

If we ever wonder what is wrong in the world today it is that these guiding principles are virtually unknown. Once we start to work with these three areas of our being, we have greater control of the way we respond to life bringing us to the experience of true freedom. This is why St John reports Jesus' words in Jn 8:32 "you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." (See full quote Jn 8:30-32) Another road to freedom is to become aware of the principles the disciples represent in our being. Then we will understand the ways in which God's Creation evolves.