I asked this a couple of years ago, and got nothing resembling an answer to the OP–only some discussion on the riddle itself:
http://possumsal.homestead.com/godmadeadam.html
What is the earliest cite for this riddle? Is there any evidence of this riddle dating back before the Internet, let alone a cite from 1890? Those are the GQs. It’s not a question about the rather inexact translation of the Hebrew words as they ended up in the KJV.
We know the date and the dollar amount offered for the wager and we have the entire text of the riddle, (and we have, on some web sites, the information that an 8-year-old guessed the answer–presumably first), but we do not have the name of the man who offered the wager or the woman who won it?
I have not found the real origin, but I’m voting that it is a recent invention.
We know the date and the dollar amount offered for the wager, the location (state) of the woman who won and the location (city) of the man who initiated the wager, and we have the entire text of the riddle, (and we have, on some web sites, the information that an 8-year-old guessed the answer–presumably first), but we do not have the name of the man who offered the wager or the woman who won it?
Howzabout one of these:
abase
abiah
adder
ahiah
alpha
alter
amiss
annas
apply
arpad
ashan
attai
azgad
(From here: http://www.apostolic-churches.net/bible/allwords/)
I did the A’s (by hand, since I can’t program) – somebody else can do the rest.
Could Sam Loyd be the man who initiated the wager?
No, it’s a…
whale!
This form of puzzle riddle was certainly a common form of recreation in the 19th century, almost as popular as crossword puzzles are today.
Lewis Carroll wrote many, and puzzle books from the period are full of them.
Although some puzzlers continued to produce them, they are so characteristic of the 19th century that I’d say the date is a point in favor of this one’s authenticity. Of course, a good faker would know that. 
On preview I see Ross’s answer, which looks like a good one, except that Strong’s Concordance only finds the word twice. Not sure if that’s meaningful or not, since there’s lots of room for error.
I count two occurrences of (word), and one each of (word)s and (word)'s. I suppose if you count those all as the same, then the answer is legit.
Satan??
If Satan can’t go the hell, then you’ve invented a whole new theology.
Ross’ answer makes a lot of sense for most of the riddle: pole to pole, thousands fearing, bringing light, not going to heaven.
But how does it fit with the bit about God giving a soul and then taking it back?
I mean, who cares who wrote it, I want an answer, darnit!
Dudes (and dudettes), the answer’s in the link.
Jonah
OK, that’s officially weird. I saw the bit about putting the cursor over the “wide old owl” and scrolled down twice. Each time I thought I hit the end but my view stopped just before the owl.
I got the owl to dip its head a bit and a reflection appeared in its eyes but that wasn’t much use.
Let the cursor rest on the owl for a few seconds and see what pops up.
Aha, I’ve established what the problem is. The page isn’t Opera-friendly.
Works fine in IE.
The fact that the part about the wager could have been made up doesn’t mean that the riddle itself is recent.
The part about “providing light” would make me think it could indeed be old. Who would get this reference, now? On the other hand, it says “I once furnished light”. So presumably, the…the answer… didn’t furnished light any more when the riddle was written, but possibly did quite recently before. When did the “thing” stopped being used for this purpose? Does someone know?
Didn’t work in my browser (Firefox under XP). Had to go browsing the source. Yet another web site that assumes everyone is in lock-step with the Microsoft Hegemony. 
JOhn.
It was largely replaced by kerosene around the 1850’s.