If the above explanation be correct, there is a confusion of two
points of view which throws an interesting light on the origin of the
story. The rain is suggested by experience of a dry country, like
Palestine. The flood, on the other hand, is a reminiscence of the
entirely different state of things in an alluvial country like the Euphrates
valley, where husbandry depends on artificial irrigation assisted by
periodic inundations. While, therefore, there may be a Babylonian
basis to the myth, it must have taken its present shape in some drier
region, presumably in Palestine. To say that it "describes . . . the
phenomena witnessed by the first colonists of Babylonia," involves more
than 'mythic exaggeration' (Che. EB, 949).
7. Yahwe Elōhîm moulded man] The verb (
Hebrew characters) (avoided by
P) is used, in the ptcp., of the potter; and that figure underlies
the representation. An Egyptian picture shows the
god Chnum forming human beings on the potter's disc
(ATLO2, 146).—The idea of man as made of clay or earth
appears in Babylonian; but is indeed universal, and pervades
the whole OT.—breath of life] Omit the art. The phrase
recurs only 722 (J), where it denotes the animal life, and
there is no reason for supposing another meaning here.
"Subscribere eorum sententiæ non dubito qui de animali
hominis vita locum hunc exponunt" (Calvin).—man became a living being] (Hebrew characters) here is not a constituent of human
nature, but denotes the personality as a whole.
The v. has commonly been treated as a locus classicus of OT
anthropology, and as determining the relations of the three elements of
human nature—flesh, soul, spirit—to one another. It is supposed to
see G-K. § 112 e; Dri. T. § 113, 4 (β).—7. (Hebrew characters) . . . (Hebrew characters)] Both words are
of uncertain etymology. The old derivation from the vb. 'be red' (. . .
(Greek characters): Jos. Ant. i. 34) is
generally abandoned, but none better has been found to replace it (recent
theories in Di. 53 f.). According to Nöldeke (ZDMG, xl. 722), (Hebrew characters)
appears in Arab. as 'ānām (cf. Haupt, ib. lxi. 194). Frd. Del.'s view,
that both words embody the idea of tillage, seems (as Di. says) to rest
on the ambiguity of the German bauen; but it is very near the thought
of this passage: man is made from the soil, lives by its cultivation, and
returns to it at death.—(Hebrew characters)] Acc. of material, G-K. § 117 hh. Gu. regards
it as a variant to (Hebrew characters) from Jj.—(Hebrew characters)] This appears to be the only
place where the phrase is applied to man; elsewhere to animals (120. 24
etc.). (Hebrew characters), primarily 'breath,' denotes usually the vital principle (with
various mental connotations), and ultimately the whole being thus
animated—the person. The last is the only sense consistent with the
structure of the sentence here.
