Esoteric Evolution - 12 

The First and the Second Creation

In the book of Genesis in the Bible there is not one story of the creation but two.

In the first creation story (Genesis 1:1-31) we are told that God, in the old-Hebrew text of the Bible called Elohim, created heaven and earth in six days. The culmination of this creation story is the creation of the human being, created in the image and likeness of God.

The second creation story begins in Genesis 2:4. It is sometimes called the "second creation." Again it is about the creation, but in a different way. And the related events also take place in a different sequence. This causes considerable differences between the two stories.

In Genesis 2:4 God is suddenly called "the Lord God." In itself this is not strange, for the old-Hebrew text also uses a different name here. Instead of Elohim, it now reads YHWH. YHWH is the abbreviation of Yahweh. In the second creation story in Genesis 2, God has the name Yahweh in the old-Hebrew text instead of Elohim.

Another difference is that in the second story, Genesis 2, the human being Adam was the first to be created, and only later the trees, plants, and animals. In Genesis 1, however, the first creation story, it says that the human being was created after the animals. How do we reconcile that?

There are still more discrepancies. One of them relates to the creation of woman, Eve. In the first creation story, Genesis 1:27, it says, according to the Revised Standard Version, that God created the human being male and female, as two separate persons therefore, man and woman. Then it says in Genesis 2:21 that the Lord God first created Adam, man, and only later, out of him, Eve, woman.

Theological debates

The discrepancy between the two stories has been a subject of confusion and fierce theological debate for centuries, both in Judaism and Christianity. In the course of time, many Bible exegetes have made efforts to reconcile the stories with each other and present them as a consistent whole. Eventually, they came up with the following solution. The two stories were, so they said, written by different authors at different times and come from different traditions within the Jewish people. Genesis 1 thus goes back to the Jewish priestly tradition; the use of the concept of Elohim points to this. And Genesis 2 shows the Jewish Yahweh tradition, hence the use of YHWH, Yahweh. Both stories, Bible scholars opine, were combined in about the sixth century before Christ, with the current text as the result.

Whoever is a little more familiar with the hidden, spiritual backgrounds of the Bible knows, senses, that this is a purely rationalistic, superficial explanation of something that can only be understood and answered out of profound spiritual sources. In this and the following contribution I want to relate what Rudolf Steiner has to say about both creation stories and how, according to him, they hang together. Through his insights many pieces of the puzzle will fall into place.

To be clear about things I am beginning with a review of the two developmental streams the human being has gone through since the beginning of time: the physical one and the spiritual one. Initially they both had their own path and developed separately from each other. At a certain moment they came together. That happened during Lemuria. Then only the very first beginning of the human being came into existence, as he was intended and as we know him today.

The following review helps to understand those initially separate paths, as well as the process of coming together and, therefore, also the secret that hides behind the two creation stories.

1. Higher spiritual world higher Devachan) Spirit man (atma)
	Astral world Spirit man (atma) Life spirit (buddhi)
		Etheric world Spirit man (atma) Life spirit (buddhi) Spirit self (manas)
			Etheric-physical world Spirit man (atma) Life spirit (buddhi) Spirit self (manas) The I
				Earthly world Spirit man (atma) Life spirit (buddhi) Spirit self (manas) The I Solid physical body Water/astral body Air/gas/etheric body Warmth/warmth body
			Solid materiality to warmth element (physical body) (astral body) (etheric body) (warmth body)
		Water air/gas warmth (astral body) (etheric body) (warmth body)
	Air/gas warmth (etheric body) (warmth body)
2. warmth (warmth body)
Polaris	Hyperborea	Lemuria first half	Lemuria second half	Atlantis

It is important always to remember that the entire gigantic and encompassing process of evolution of the human being had from the very beginning on the physical level no other purpose than to create a housing, a corporeality in which the human being, as spiritual individuality from high spiritual worlds, could live on earth and develop in body, soul, and spirit. This explains why the creative divine powers, the Elohim, and through them the Sun Logos, the Creative Word, began their creative work in the beginning days of the Earth with the development of the bodily sheath, the earthly housing, for the future human being.

The development of corporeality

The bottom sequence (no. 2) shows the development of this bodily housing as it was realized step by step in the earth period. During Polaris, there was only a warmth body. In the course of Hyperborea, which was characterized by a sphere of air/gas as well as light, the etheric body was added and came to development. In the first half of Lemuria the Elohim, by the addition of the watery element, were able, with the aid of other high spiritual beings, to create the astral body. When that was achieved, not only had everything been repeated that had been created during prior states of the Earth, but the Elohim had also brought the creation to a higher level.

Because of this, in the second half of Lemuria new elements could again be added to the creation. These new elements had to do with solid earthly materiality, mineral matter, and with the physical creation of the human being. It meant in the first place that besides the warmth body, etheric body, and astral body, the very first beginning of the material, physical body could then also come to development.

This physical body also formed itself step by step and densified very gradually over long, long periods. As mentioned before, it arose first in a form of warmth, then in air or gas, followed by a watery form, and finally very gradually took up the solid mineral element. Thus, via watery, slimy, wax-like and cartilage-like substances, the strong muscles and hard bones developed in the physical body that we now possess.

But it did not come to that point in the second half of Lemuria by a long shot. A beginning was indeed made with the formation and densification of the physical body, but it did not get beyond the stage of the warmth element. The above overview shows this.

The development of the spiritual part

As that process on the physical, earth side (no. 2 in the overview) was happening, on the spiritual side (no. 1) human beings descended step by step as beings of spirit and soul, out of the spiritual world down to their earthly corporeality. They did not do this as autonomous spiritual beings, but as part of the Godhead and of high spiritual beings such as the Elohim, within which they lived.

On this spiritual side a kind of densification also took place in the sense that human beings, as spiritual beings originating from high spiritual worlds, were slowly brought down. Thus, they descended as atma, later as life spirit or buddhi, and even later as spirit self or manas, step by step, until they had come to the point that they could enter into a connection out of their I with the bodily envelopes that were waiting for them on Earth. This all-important event, this very first connection between spiritual and physical nature, took place in Lemuria. During the time that followed, Atlantis, both natures actively worked into each other and more and more formed a unity. Thus, the human being we presently are came into being.

Both creation stories, the one from Genesis 1 as well as the one from Genesis 2, can be recognized in the processes described above. The first creation story took place during Hyperborea. The second in the second half of Lemuria. This already explains some of the differences between them.

The first creation

Genesis 1:1-31, which describes the creation in six "days," relates that on the third day the plants were created, on the fifth day the animals that live in air and water, while on the sixth day the land animals and, finally, the human being were created.

Rudolf Steiner indicated that this sequence was not accidental. For what would have happened if human beings had already in the time that was called the fifth day of creation descended into an earthly body and become earthly human? Because of the then still animal-like form of corporeality, they would have taken on an animal-like form, not a human form. In other words, they would not have been able to become human beings. They would have remained stuck at the stage of the fish in the water or bird in the air. The same would have happened if they had descended into their earthly housing already in the first part of the sixth day. In that case in their form they would have become land animals and would not have had the possibility to raise their corporeality to the human level.

We see therefore that earthly circumstances and human corporeality on the fifth day of creation and in the first part of the sixth, were not yet appropriate to let human beings become human on earth. Hence, they had to wait in the spiritual realm until their corporeality was so formed and transformed by the Elohim that there existed a human body for them in which they could come to development as human beings. Thus, they came to the earth after the animals.

The work on the human being on the sixth day

Only in the second half of the sixth day had the Elohim come to the point that they could begin the great work, the creation of the human being. First of all, they purified the astral body from the wildest passions and instincts. Next, they created in the existing corporeality - which then still had an astral, animal-like character - something we may call the archetypal form of the human figure.

By bringing in this archetypal form of the human figure, they made the corporeality able to be the bearer of an I, and thus also of the higher spiritual self, the three higher spiritual aspects of the human being, the spiritual being.

Now, the archetypal form of the human figure is the image of the figure of the Godhead, the Elohim. That is why, says esoteric Christianity, Genesis 1:26 reads: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him."

With the creation of the human being in the physical the Elohim placed the crown on their work of creation.

Androgyny

At that time human corporeality was still androgenous, both male and female. Rudolf Steiner pointed out that the correct translation of the Old-Hebrew text of Genesis 1:27 is not: "male and female he created them," but male-female he created him." At that stage there was not yet a separate man and woman. And therefore, neither an Adam and an Eve. That only came later, when the separation of the two sexes had taken place during Lemuria.

The development of the Elohim

Rudolf Steiner relates in his book Genesis, Secrets of Creation, that during their work on the human being the Elohim went through a radical change, because of which their creative capacities were increased to a formidable extent.

Until their work on the human being on the sixth day, the Elohim worked as a group in such a way that the different abilities each of them possessed individually were combined and brought together. As a result, they achieved together what would not have been possible for each of them separately. In addition, the Elohim cooperated closely with all the hierarchies that were involved in the creation, from the Angels and Archangels to the highest Seraphim.

When in the second half of the sixth day the Elohim jointly made the decision: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…" such a form of cooperation was no longer sufficient. More was needed. What was needed was a very specific contribution by the highest divine creative power, the Sun Logos, the Creative Word. To make the instream of this high divine creative power possible, the Elohim had to take steps that caused them to grow far above themselves. They did this. As a result, they developed far higher creative capacities. Only at that dizzying height, says Rudolf Steiner, was it possible for the divine powers of the Sun Logos to work into the existing corporeality in such a way that the human aspect, the image of God, could be created there.

The Elohim reached that great height by, for the sake of the work on the human being, going through a profound process as a group. During that process they transformed into a unity. In other words, in their sevenness they became one whole. This unity was so strong that they developed a kind of unity-consciousness.

Rudolf Steiner points out that this change in the Elohim can be traced in the Bible, namely there where the name Elohim is no longer used, but Yahweh. From the moment the Elohim had risen to become a unity at a higher level, they are in the old-Hebrew text of the Bible called Yahweh-Elohim, or just YHWH, Yahweh, the name that English Bible scholars translated with "the Lord God."

The seventh day

However, with this Elohim-unity or Yahweh-Elohim, at the end of Genesis 1 and the beginning of Genesis 2, something extremely important happened. Part of their being separates off and from that moment works from the Moon, which at the time was still connected with the Earth. This separate part of the Elohim is called Yahweh. Yahweh, through whom both the being of the Elohim unity and the Sun Logos worked, is the Godhead who from that moment led human development on Earth.

The other part of the Elohim unity withdrew to the Sun. They worked from that moment no longer directly on the Earth and were for some time devoted to their own continuing evolution. This is what it means when the Bible says in Genesis 2:2-3: "And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done." Thus, the first creation process was concluded.

The following chapter relates how Yahweh, the Lord God, achieved the second creation.

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Sources

Rudolf Steiner, Genesis, Secrets of Creation, CW 122.

Quotations from the Old Testament are from the Revised Standard Version, published 1952.