User blog comment:CreatorTheta/Human Evolution Theory in RWBY/@comment-7622429-20140623153550/@comment-24994749-20140624030656

About the "dust" humans are said to come from, I always interpreted it as a metaphor. I get there is a biblical reference there as the Bible does say "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

But I went to a religious school and I was taught to take the Creation Myth as a metaphor. "Dust" being used there as a synonym of earth since Adan was literally made from earth. I assumed the opening narration of RWBY was, too, making a metaphor of men's origin.

And, since Dust looks like a mineral, it was named that way, not in reference to an actual magical substance from which man was born but because it was mined from underground thus it, too, came from "dust".