Review of Genesis (Chapter 2)

In the second chapter, we get more details of God’s manic episode. He’s furnishing and adding final details now. He’s made everything so far out of nothing. So why does he need dust to make the first human? Why not just poof him out of nothing like everything else?

He plants a garden for this man he made, and in the middle of this garden he places a tree that he has no need for but also that the human he made can’t touch. There’s literally two non-animal beings on Earth at this point- God and the first human. One doesn’t need the tree, and the other is told he will die if he eats from the tree.

WHAT IS THE POINT OF HAVING THIS TREE?

And also, why would the knowledge of good and evil kill him? That makes no sense. Wouldn’t God want the human to know good from evil?

The human names everything, which is a lot for anyone to do on their first day of existing, and then is put into a deep sleep by God. The Bible says that while the man slept, God took out of one of his ribs and then closed up the opening.

I’m sorry, what? He can create everything out of nothing (except the man he created from dust and magical breath), but he can’t remove a rib without cutting open the man’s body? I also think it’s weird that he even needed a rib, but I get that they tried to explain that with the bit about them being “united into one”, so I won’t go into that.

So God takes the rib, makes a woman, and then brings her to the man. The man is awake all of a sudden and says “at last!”, as if he was already wanting a woman (which literally did not exist before this happened). Where did God run off to in order to make the woman out of a rib? Does he have some secret lab where he makes things? And how long did this process take, if he took long enough that the man was already awake and waiting by the time he brought the finished results? When he made the man, it seemed to be an instant thing. Did creating a woman take longer?