Soil and our genetic make up

[Hall7]

Since we were made from the dust of the ground which I assume is soil, do you think that is the reason why Jesus mixed His saliva with soil to heal the man’s eyes from blindness? (John 9:6-7)

Could it be that since soil contains some of our DNA it has some kind of healing properties for our human nature? Jesus could’ve simply commanded the man to be healed, or use His saliva alone to heal his eyes, but instead He used a combination of His saliva and soil. Thoughts? 

Genesis 2
7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

John 9
6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” . So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

[Hall7]

I did do some research online about dirt and our DNA but there are many arguments about this subject. I did like this answer though: Yes, the human body is made up of materials found on the surface of the ground. Oxygen, being the most abundant element on the earth's crust or on the ground, makes up 65 percent of the human body, and carbon, also abundant on the top soil of the ground, is 18 percent, and hydrogen is 10 percent. The 59 elements found in the human body are all found on the earths crust. This is amazing because what the Bible says perfectly match the scientific composition of a human body.

[ayin jade]

Where do you get that our dna is in soil?

[Hall7]

Where do you get that our dna is in soil?

From Genesis 2:7

[Hall7]

Here's a better explanation of what dust means in Genesis 2:7:

 

What is the Dust of the Ground from which Man is Formed?

 

Genesis 2:7, according to the KJV, has the creation of man “from the dust of the ground.” But why “dust”?

The Hebrew here is afar, and it doesn’t seem to mean “dust.”

From Genesis 2:7, we know that it’s something on the ground, but we don’t know what. “Dust” is a possibility, just from this verse, but — again, just from this verse — so is “grass,” “rocks,” “lichen,” “mud,” etc. So we look further.

 

Genesis 13:16 helps us a little. There we read that Abram’s descendants will be like the afar on the earth, so that if the afar can be counted, so can Abram’s descendants. So afar can’t mean “mud” or “clay.” It seems to refer to particles of some sort.

Genesis 18:27 is helpful in a different way. There we see afar used as a metaphor of humility. (The full phrase is “afar and efer.” I’ve explained elsewhere that the English “dust and ashes” doesn’t do justice to the repetition of sounds in afar and efer: “Doublets Are Part And Parcel of Bible Translation.”) I Samuel 2:8 emphasizes the connotation of lowliness: God “raises the poor from afar, lifts up the needy from the trash.” And the vivid imagery of Isaiah repeatedly uses afar to represent humility.

 

But next we look at Genesis 26:15, which explains that the Philistines had filled Abram’s wells with afar. And here we see the problem with “dust” for afar, because one would use “dirt,” not “dust,” to plug up a well. (And, indeed, the KJV goes with “earth” here for afar.)

The basic problem is this: “Dust” in English refers specifically to particularly fine-grained particles, of earth or otherwise. “Dirt,” by contrast, is just what’s on the ground, and we seem to be talking about dirt here.

 

In Numbers 5:17, the priest is instructed to take afar form the floor of the Tabernacle, so again afar seems to be “dirt,” not “dust” Dust would have been swept away as part of regular cleaning (I presume).

In Greek for afar we usually find gi, a word that pretty clearly means “land,” both in the sense of “dirt” and of “country.” So in addition to its use as the substance that filled the wells, we read that Jacob lived in the gi of his ancestors, the gi of Canaan (Genesis 37:1). The Greek gi also means “(the entire) Earth,” a usage we find, for instance, in Genesis 6:11.

 

So far we have yet to see any indication that afar is particularly fine-grained, so we see no support for “dust.” We do see “fine as afar” in Deuteronomy 9:21, but there the fineness is in reference to the golden calf. “As fine as dirt” works as well as “as fine as dust.” (Though if the calf was made of gold, I’m not clear how it was burned into dust or ash or whatnot. Why didn’t it melt? But I guess that’s for another time.)

And in II Samuel 16:13, we see that afar can be flung along with rocks, again arguing for “dirt” and not “dust.”

Similarly, afar is a common image in Job, and there the word is frequently translated “earth.”

 

But “dirt” or “earth” isn’t quite right, either, because afar isn’t limited to what’s on the ground. In Leviticus 14:41, concerning a contaminated house, scraping a house produces afar — perhaps “debris,” in English. It’s probably not “dust” because the afar can be collected and poured out outside the city. (You won’t find “dust” in most English translations here, so if you’re not reading the Hebrew, it’s hard to know that it’s the same word.)

 

But then in the very next verse, “other stones” and “other afar” are supposed to be used to rebuild the house. (I don’t know of any English translation that uses “dust” here.) Is this just poetic symmetry? (Leviticus 14:40 refers to stones, so both “stones” and afar in 14:42 might refer to that which was discarded.) Or does afar also metonymically refer to “plaster,” made from earth and water? This latter possibility is consistent with Leviticus 14:45, where houses seem to be made of “wood, stones, and afar.” Or, perhaps, is the idea here that new stones, wood, and dirt are supposed to gathered, and then worked in the way that stones, wood and dirt usually are?

Also moving away from “dirt” for afar is Numbers 19:17, where we see that afar is the result of burning a sacrificial animal. Most translations have “ashes” here, not “dust.”

So afar seems to refer generally to any granular material, and in particular to the granular material on the surface of the earth. Additionally, it symbolizes humility. In English, we usually call that “dirt.”

So I think Genesis 2:7 should read, “The Lord God formed man from the dirt of the ground.”

 

http://goddidntsaythat.com/2011/05/06/what-is-the-dust-of-the-ground-from-which-man-is-formed/

[ayin jade]

Sorry, I dont believe that dust contained human dna. God created man. He could just have easily created the dna within man at that same time. I dont think He needed to pre create dna in the dust in order to create man. There is nothing in the soil that suggests there was dna there already. Nor is there anything in the bible to say that there was dna present. Why He chose dust to create man, who knows. But I dont think it was because dna was in the dust itself. 

[Hall7]

Perhaps I said it wrong, DNA is a different thing. Post #2 describes what I mean by saying that we were made from dirt/soil/dust.

[xyluz]

Since we were made from the dust of the ground which I assume is soil, do you think that is the reason why Jesus mixed His saliva with soil to heal the man’s eyes from blindness? (John 9:6-7)

Could it be that since soil contains some of our DNA it has some kind of healing properties for our human nature? Jesus could’ve simply commanded the man to be healed, or use His saliva alone to heal his eyes, but instead He used a combination of His saliva and soil. Thoughts? 

Genesis 2

7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

John 9

6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” . So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

 

why Jesus used the soil and saliva no one knows (this is true for most other things he did...) 

 

I don't believe soil contains human dna, and if tested and maybe human dna is found in the soil... its probably from human. 

[Hall7]

Can a mod please change the title of this thread to "Soil and our genetic make up" or something of that sort besides DNA.

[thereselittleflower]

We are not merely made of dust.

 

God breathed into man and man became a living soul.    Man's soul comes from God.