Creation of mankind..Have we all existed since Genesis 1:26-27?

[Cfritzler (Casaja https://discourse.biologos.org/c/open-forum/17)]

I’ve been reading and studying Genesis 1:26-27.

I’m getting this sense that all of mankind was ‘created’ in Genesis 1:26-27 but we aren’t ‘formed’ until we are in the womb as it speaks in Jeremiah 1:5 & Psalm 139:13, Isaiah 44:2, Isaiah 44:24, Isaiah 49:5,

There seems to be a difference between creation and formation.

And this is what I feel I’m understanding so far…
That we were all created in Genesis 1:26-27 but formation comes in the womb when we are given a body.
Did we all exist since Genesis chapter 1?
If so it means we are reading about ourselves in Genesis 1:26 & 27!
It brings it home and makes it more personal the way Jesus’s prayer does in John 17:20 which says “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message."

Jesus prayed for you and I! But that’s another amazing subject.

In regard to Genesis 1:26 & 27… were we all created then?
It says mankind was created in Genesis 1:26 & 27, but Adam wasn’t formed until Genesis chapter 2:7!

The implications are huge with regard to our True created Identity!

Jesus came to restore us back to before the fall of mankind. Back to Genesis 1:26 & 27.

What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear!

[KJTurner]

The humans created in Gen 1 are embodied creatures. So if that includes us, then Gen 1 could only be a literary construct and say nothing about history (i.e., your distinction between created and formed doesn’t work); and there’s no reason to worry about how Gen 1 and Gen 2 relate.

If Gen 1:26-27 is ready more historical, it’s still about us in a sense, b/c the theological points of the text (e.g., image of God) do relate to us.

[jpm (Phil McCurdy)]

A book that might interest you is Denis Lamoureux’s The Bible & Ancient Science: Principles of Interpretation.
In it he mentions the ancient idea that people were fully formed in miniature in the sperm, sometime referred as a homunculus. The man then planted the seed in the woman, who was just the soil in which it grew. That view is expressed multiple times in the Bible. It is a good example of how God communicates in the cultural stream of the time, but is not meant to be science fact which it obviously is not.
I think the verses refer to us being part of a collective humanity regardless of when the date of our birth happens to be.
Welcome to the forum! We are glad to have you here! When you feel comfortable, feel free to share some of your story, as it is always nice to have an idea of where your comments are coming from, and helps me better respond. For me, I am a retired family doc, active in a moderate leaning Baptist church, and have been blessed by the diverse group here on the form, as my small town central Texas community is sometimes lacking in cultural diversity.

[Christy (Christy Hemphill)]

@Cfritzler

There seems to be a difference between creation and formation.

The difference is between collectives and individuals. Humanity is a collective made up of different individuals over time. So, no, obviously not all individuals existed in the beginning. A collective identity was established and we are born into that identity as individuals, same as we are born into our collective identity as citizens of our countries or as members of our gender. Verses about the Body of Christ apply to all individual Christians today, it doesn’t imply those individuals existed when the Body of Christ as a collective identity was established.

[Terry_Sampson]

@Cfritzler

What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear!

If you think you’re reading about yourself in Genesis and that we humans get created somewhere at one point in time and “get formed in the womb when we are given a body” in some other place at some other point in time, you’ve either been hanging around Mormons–whether they told you they are or not–or chances are that you’re channeling one. Mormons won’t admit it any more but at one time they were bolder in claiming that: "As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.”

According to their doctrine of Eternal Progression, before being "formed in the womb and getting a body,’ we humans were first conceived the good old-fashioned way by Father God and Mother God, as “Intelligences” (kind of “spirit-children”) presumably, “in heaven.” Eventually, each of us was “transported and installed” [my words] into a newly fertilized egg in our biological earth-mother’s womb.

Sound familiar?

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

You’re running far beyond the metaphor Casaja, and picking up more on the way. In a purely poetic sense we were all in (the metaphoric) Adam and are all in Christ.

[Kendel]

You are working hard to combine two separate, different, distinct stories of creation, which drastically alters the meaning of both texts as well as other biblical texts.

My few brushes with Mormon belief regarding creation of humans is much like what you are describing and is based on the understanding that the biblical texts we have today are so corrupted that the cannot be properly understood without the revelation Joseph Smith claims to have received.

I do not accept Smith’s claims about his revelation nor it’s value or meaning.

While the Gospel of John records Jesus’s prayer for all believers to come, including you and ME, that does not imply that those believers yet existed outside of the time-coordinated plan of God. Reviewing John 17, I see no indication that “those who will believe in me” had already been created, but that God would continue to exercise his will in bringing them to birth and faith, when it was their time.

[Cfritzler (Casaja https://discourse.biologos.org/c/open-forum/17)]

Thanks for the replies everyone! I’ve never talked to a Mormon about any of this lol, so I definitely wasn’t aware of the Mormon doctrine or beliefs. Just pondering this and studying this all.

So thanks for sharing! Going to continue to study this all