I liked this rereading this part again, Gen. 1:26-27.
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
In v. 26, man is made (from pre-existing matter) without a soul, but in “our likeness,” which some Christians think refers to the Trinity. Prager actually addresses challenges to the Jewish concept where the plural is no problem for them. The word uses the single verb with a plural noun. He says that the plural means the word encompasses all gods. Also, man is a creature in this verse. Interesting stuff. I actually just finished his commentary the other day.
In v. 27, “the man” is created (from scratch) with a soul in “the image of God.” (Also, note that male and female are only in this verse.)
I do like reading the Jewish teaching, since it is the foundation on which our faith stands. For my part, I have read another commentator who suggested a “second or special creation.” Regular non-spiritual man was already in existence before the garden. Hence, my post on the Hebrew conception of the universe, where I point out the scriptural references and allusions to that conception which to me solve some issues, like Cain’s wife and age of the Earth.