Two Creation Stories

Two Creation Stories

Thomas Allen

In Pre-Adamite Man (1866), Mrs. George John C. Duncan argues that the creation described in Chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis are two different creations. Genesis 1:27 describes the creation of the pre-Adamite while Chapter 2 describes the creation of Adamic man.

According to Chapter 1, God created plants and animals before He created the pre-Adamite. Moreover, He created the pre-Adamite and the plants and animals ex nihilo. Yet, according to Chapter 2, He fashioned man from the dust of the earth. Furthermore, He also fashioned the plants and animals from preexisting material after He had made Adam. Thus, Chapter 1 describes God creating ex nihilo while Chapter 2 describes God creating with preexisting material.

Unlike the pre-Adamite, whom God created fully and instantaneously, He created Adamic man in stages. First, He molded Adamic man; then He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Finally, He animated his whole frame and gave him understanding.

The pre-Adamite came into the world complete and had power and dominion over all the earth. On the other hand, Adamic man’s power and dominion were limited. Moreover, God taught him humility and dependency. While pre-Adamite entered a world fully created, Adamic man entered a world that was blank and sterile, which was void of plants and animals.

Duncan believes that the “days” in Chapter 1 are eras of various long lengths and not literal 24-hour days. (Before the Reformation, most clergymen held the notion that the “days” in Chapter 1 were eras and not literally 24-hour days.) Moreover, the creation of Chapter 2 occurred on the eighth day. During the seventh day, which was the day of God’s rest, the earth was a paradise until the rebellion of Lucifer, Satan.

According to Duncan’s argument, the pre-Adamites were sinless, and they were angels. However, they became extinct on earth before God made Adamic man. Instead of dying like Adamic man, they were spiritualized and etherealized or caught up like the saints of the rapture and removed to another world. This event probably occurred when Michael defeated Lucifer. (The geological features that proponents of a young earth credit to the Noachian Flood, Duncan credits to the war between Michael and Lucifer.)

Duncan refers to Chapters 18 and 19 of Genesis and to Chapter 19 of 1 Kings to support her claim that pre-Adamites were angles. They looked like a man and ate like a man. Luke 24:4 gives another example of an angel looking like a man. Further, resurrected humans are similar to angels. Consequently, she contends that if saints and angels are alike in heaven, then in an earlier earthly life, pre-Adamites could have been like Adamic man.

After the war between Michael and Lucifer, God reformed the world as described in Chapter 2 of Genesis. He made a paradise in Eden in which He placed a new man, Adam, who is the father of Adamic man and whom He formed from the dust of the earth.

Further, God created for the first time animals and plants or recreated animals and plants that failed to survive the catastrophic war of Lucifer’s rebellion (Genesis 2:19, 20). God formed these plants and animals from preexisting material and for the benefit of Adam. However, many types of plants and animals that had survived the war lived outside Eden.

In addition to some of the differences discussed above, Duncan notes several other differences between the pre-Adamite and Adamic man. Unlike the pre-Adamites, the family of Adam, Adamic man, is federal and united under one head and is dealt with as one, i.e., all suffer from Adam’s curse.

Another difference is that the pre-Adamite saw all of the earth as an unlimited sphere that was to be filled and subdued. Adamic man was limited to a garden in the eastern part of Eden with no sea and only one river.

Further, God created both male and female pre-Adamites at the same time. For Adamic man, God formed woman from Adam after He had formed Adam and after He had finished preparing Adam’s sphere of life.

Thus, Duncan discusses two different creations: one is depicted in Chapter 1 of Genesis and the other, in Chapter 2. Chapter 1 describes the original creation of the earth and the pre-Adamites, who are angels. Chapter 2 describes another creation, which is the creation of Adamic man. These two creations refer to two distinct species: the pre-Adamite and Adamic man. The pre-Adamites passed away after an indefinite period of inhabiting the earth. Some time afterward, God created Adamic man.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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