The Literal Meaning of Genesis (continued)
BOOK SEVEN THE CREATION OF THE MAN'S SOUL
CHAPTER 1
The creation of the man's soul must now be considered in the light of Gen. 2.7.
1. And God formed man of dust from the earth and breathed into his face the breath of life; and man was made a living being.
At the beginning of the preceding book I undertook to examine these words of Scripture; and I treated in a sufficiently thorough way, I believe, the creation of man, especially of his body, according to what seemed to me to be the meaning of Scripture. But since it is no simple matter to understand the soul, I thought it wise to leave that question to this book, not knowing how much the Lord would help me in my desire to say the right thing. But I did know this much: that I was not going to say the right thing unless He helped me.
To say the right thing is to say what is true and appropriate, not arbitrarily rejecting anything or thoughtlessly affirming anything so long as it is doubtful where the truth lies in the light of the faith and Christian doctrine, but unhesitatingly asserting what can be taught on the basis of the obvious facts of the case or the certain authority of Scripture.
2. First, then, let us examine the statement in Scripture which says, God breathed into his face the breath of life.2 Some manuscripts read, He inspired into his face.? But since the Greek codices have evedvonoey, it is clear that the Latin should be flavit or sufflavit.4
In the preceding book? I discussed the question of "the hands of God" when man was represented as formed from the slime