We begin at the beginning, with God of all gods creating it all, top to bottom. But it was a mishmash. Brooding over this, he huffed at the water. “Let there be light,” he said.
Not a mishmash, I think. More like how someone would aurally tell the tale to a group to make the biggest impression.
I have been told that the “good and evil” in this passage don’t connote moral good and evil, but something more like fortune and woe. Is this accurate?
I was just using what Prof Periwinkle had said about the phrase denoting “without form and void” occupying an aural role similar to our “mishmash” or “hurly-burly.”
In the Heliopolis version of the Egyptian creation story:
On the 1st day, there is only a chaos of churning, bubbling water (called Nu or Nun). Out of this appeared Ra, the sun god. He came out of a blue giant lotus, floating on top of the water, and brought light to the universe. On the 2nd day, Ra created the air god Shu and his wife Tefnut, goddess of moisture (clouds). On the 3rd day, Shu and Tefnut gave birth to Geb, the god of earth, and Nut, goddess of the sky, and so the physical universe was created. On the 4th day, against Ra’s orders, Geb and Nut married… On the 5th day, Khnum created living creatures on his potter’s wheel, creating the plants, animals and people. One difference between the Egyptian and the Hebrew versions is that Khnum never rests, he goes on creating life throughout the ages.
I’ll need to check my texts at home about this. I’ll get back to you.
nm. Maybe we can revisit when we get to that passage
That’s interesting. Is there some relation between this androgynous male/female, and what the narrator immediately goes on to mention - that Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed?
Also, does the word “tzela” imply a kind of supporting structure, or does it just mean the “side”? So that the ribs support the chest, and the “tzela” supports the Tabernacle. Is there even a separate word for “rib” in Hebrew?
Thanks, that was it.
Regards,
Shodan
From the Jewish Encyclopedia.com
"The El-Amarna Tablets.
Though there is no one Babylonian legend of the Garden of Eden with which the Biblical story can be compared as in the case of the stories of the Creation and of the Flood, there are nevertheless points of relationship between it and Babylonian mythology. On one of the tablets found at Tell el-Amarna, now in the Berlin Museum, occurs the legend of Adapa. Adapa, the first man, is the son of the god Ea, by whom he has been endowed with wisdom, but not with everlasting life. He lives in Eridu, and cares for the sanctuary of the god. One day while fishing in a calm sea the south wind suddenly arises and overturns his boat. In his anger Adapa fights with the south wind and breaks his wings so that he can not blow for seven days. Anu, the god of heaven, hearing of this, summons Adapa before him. Ea gives his son instructions as to his behavior before Anu; among other things he tells him: “Bread of death will they offer thee: eat not of it. Water of death will they bring thee: drink not of it.” Adapa does as he is told, but the bread and water Anu causes to be placed before him are of life, not of death. Thus Adapa loses his chance of eternal life. He puts on the garment, however, which is offered him, following Ea’s instructions. In this story the bread of life is parallel to the tree of life in the Biblical story. It is probable that the water of life also formed a part of the original story, and that the river of Eden is a trace of it. In Ezek. xlvii. 6-12 and, with some variation, in Rev. xxii. 1, 2 mention is made of a “river of water of life, . . . and on either side of the river was there the tree of life,” showing that the water of life was associated with the tree of life.
Further, in the Biblical story, as in the Adapa legend, man is prevented from eating the food of life through being told that it means death to him. “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. ii. 17); and it is Ea, who has formed man, who is the means of preventing him from attaining life everlasting, just as it is God who removes man from out of Eden “lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever” (ib. iii. 22). Jastrow (l.c.) remarks that the Hebrew story is more pessimistic than the Babylonian, since God even begrudges man knowledge, which the Babylonian god freely gives him. Adapa, who has been endowed with knowledge, puts on the garment given him by Anu, and Adam and Eve, after eating of the tree of knowledge, make for themselves garments of fig-leaves.
Schrader (“K. A. T.” ii. 1, 523) calls attention to the possibility of associating the name “Adam” with “Adapa.” The “garden of God,” situated on the mountain, in Ezek. xxviii. 13, 14, and the tall cedar in Ezek. xxxi. 3, may have some connection with the cedar-grove of Khumbaba in the Gilgamesh epic and with the high cedar in the midst of the grove. In this connection may be mentioned the attempt to associate Eden with the mountain in Iranian mythology, out of which rivers flow, or with the Indian mountain Maru with the four rivers (Lenormant). Jensen (“Keilschriftliche Bibliothek,” vi.) places the “confluence of the streams” in the Far West, and associates the island with the Greek Elysium."
I’ve heard a number of implications suggested from this. One is that when God made Adam in God’s image, Adam was a “whole” human, in other words, both male and female - implying that God also contains both the essence of male and female-ness. Later the human Adam was divided, into a male and a female, which is why the story goes on to point out that they become re-joined upon marriage. This is sometimes used to justify opposition to same-sex marriage or homosexuality in general, because two individuals of the same sex cannot make one whole created being (or whatever) like a man and a woman do.
Thank you, that explains Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image. That “our” was tripping me up. I’d read claims that it was to symbolize the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (trinity) instead which didn’t really seem to make sense. (SOURCE: See Wesley’s Notes)
I thought that was just part of Aristophanes’ speech in Plato’s Symposium. I didn’t know that had Biblical origins.
As I said, Hebrew’s a terse language, and words do multiple duties. Good (tov) can mean moral goodness, health, well-being, happiness, and evil (ra’) the opposite, so it can mean “fortune and woe”, but given its millennia-long interpretation with morality, that’s the traditional view. It is a union of opposites, so a number of scholars think it means “all knowledge”.
Some random thoughts, questions, observations…
Genesis is one of the more mythological/metaphysical parts of the bible, with regard to creation and also the very symbolic trees. I imagine that a lot of the Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah) stuff harks back to this section, is that right?
Lots of naming stuff. God names things, then has his progeny name things. It is like he is literally speaking things into existence. Like a voice activated Scribblenauts.
“Vault” seems like an odd word to use and also creates a strange picture. Instead of the sky being the space where air is contained, it is like a big blue arch, beyond which is more water. Did they think the sky was blue because it was an aquarium? This seems to paint a picture of a universe that is all water, and God creates a little pocket of land and air like a submerged terrarium. I guess the sun would be sort of swimming through the space water. What are the stars then?
What is with the constant “God saw that it was good” refrain? And what is the original word used for “good”? Interesting that God calls the light good, but not the dark.
OK so the stars are just lights in the archway.
It’s kind of weird that there are days and nights before the sun has something to circle around. How does that work?
Was “fruitful” a pun in the original language?
Let us create man to rule the animals - setting up a hierarchy here. Interesting though, a more sensible narrative would involve God instructing man to create the animals. The parallels would be clearer and more direct. Why give man the power of rule, but not the power of creation?
“Male and female he created them” - I wonder at what point in history we discovered that not every living species is divided into male and female?
Seems like God is a vegetarian. Why the emphasis on “seed bearing”? What plants did they consider not to have seeds?
Ok two different accounts, in one the animals are first, and on the other, man is first. Weird. In one, he creates a bunch of humans all at once, in the other just a man and then later a woman.
Going from the broad strokes to now the more specific scenes reminds me of procedurally generated computer landscapes.
OK so man rules the animals but has to tend the vegetables. But gets to eats them. So the hierarchy is God > plant > man > animal > plant?
OK if that tree is so dangerous, why did you put it right there in the open? Poor planning, God! Actually, why create the tree in the first place? It is like giving someone a big red button on which is printed the words “please do not press this button”. God seems like a real dick here.
This could be interesting metaphorically though. It sort of jives with some Asian philosophies - that suffering and strive are caused by false dualism. So it could be that good and evil are a falsehood that cause Adam and Eve to suffer when they start to believe in the concept. Interesting that God gets off so much on labeling things and separating things in general, but the specific labels/dichotomy of “good and evil” is a wrong turn. I wonder if this has psychological or neurological implications?
“It is not good for man to be alone”. Interesting, especially with things like “brides of Christ” in mind, that God does not consider himself to be an adequate companion for man.
But he is not getting a companion. He is getting a “helper”. WTF? Eve is Adam’s assistant?
“23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.””
And the woman said “you just wrote your wedding vows!”
“25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”
So God is a vegetarian nudist. Seriously, why aren’t more Christians vegetarian nudists? Wouldn’t the best way to wash ourselves of original sin be to live like we were in Eden before the fall?
Pretty much- only a bowl rather than just an arch. Think giant snowglobe in a fishtank:)
Chaos was definitely associated with water in this cosmology - compare the Babylonian Tiamat, the Chaos dragon-serpent who is also a personification of the sea.
I think they were all represented as either affixed to the firmament (the sky-bowl) or hanging from it. The Sun and Moon passed through windows in this firmament and travelled under it in their courses. As did precipitation (cf. the Great Flood, with the windows of heaven and the fountains of the deep)
Of possible interest about “knowledge of good and evil” (at the end of the column, the main focus is Was the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden an apple?
Also, of possible interest in terms of authorship: Who wrote the Bible? Part 1: Pentateuch
And finally, Were Adam and Eve vegetarians?
Now, some new comments from me. The Chapter divisions that we have were imposed in the 1400s by an English priest; they do not correspond to the J/P/E/D authorship, and they don’t even necessarily connect.
Chapter 1 (and the first paragraph of Chapter 2, say 2:1-3) is a creation story, probably mostly by the P-author (roughly 600 - 800 BCE.) Chapter 2 is a different creation story, probably mostly by the J-author (roughly 1000 BCE, merged with some E-work around 700 BCE.) They make for interesting comparison:
Ch 1 is about biological creation, creatures are commanded to eat and reproduce. Ch 2 is about “spiritual” creation, the stress is on naming animals rather than eating.
Ch 1:26 God “creates” man (as noted by Prof Pepperwinkle) the Hebrew verb is B-R-’ bara) and it’s a thing that only God does. The creation is done by words, God speaks and something happens. (I personally think, “God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light” is as beautiful/poetic a description of Big Bang as one could ask). The creation is evolutionary: it starts with the physical world (mineral, or earth, if you will) and then flora, then fauna, then humans.
In Ch 2:7, God “forms” or “fashions” man (Hebrew: Y-Ts-R yitser), the implication is artistry, like a sculptor moulding clay, there’s an implication of intimacy (which I also think is beautiful imagery.) The creation is focused on human beings, and the rest of the world is designed to serve mankind.
Some other misc thoughts:
- The use of the plural for God (Elohim in Hebrew, which can also mean “gods”) is interpreted by (much later) Christians as indication of the Trinity. Rabbinic interpretation (as noted by Prof Perriwinkle) is that God is above all other gods, in the way that a king used the royal “we.”
- In 1:1, the “darkness over the surface of the deep” – the Hebrew word for “deep” is like a proper name, for “deep primoridal raging waters”. The word is used only in a few places in the Hebrew bible: it’s used at the Flood (Gen 7:11), the splitting of the sea (Ex 15:8 and Deut 8:7).
- Also 1:1, God “hovers” over the waters (different translations in different texts), and the Hebrew word is used in Deut 32:11, applied to an eagle hovering over its young: a beautiful poetic image, I think.
- The constant refrain is more than “Saw that it was good.” The Hebrew for “good” is T-O-V tov and is a common word (unlike some of the others we’ve mentioned.) It’s followed by “And there was evening and there was morning, the Nth day.” So the poetry is that of completing a task, standing back and looking at it, deciding you like it, and then going on to the next task. There’s also the implication that time is being created. Time is “created” in day 1 (there was evening and there was morning) but the calendar is created on day 4 (sun, moon.) The repetition of the phrasing is a literary device that both connects and disconnects each section. (And, of course, makes the oral repetition of the story much easier to remember, assuming this was an oral tradition before it was written down.)
My addition to the comments about other creation myths;: Most of them are focused on the gods and what happens in the heavens; this story immediately gets to earth, the focus is on what happens here and not what happens in the abode of the gods. Most other creation myths are based on conflict, battles between the gods. This story is based on establishing order and harmony. I think that says something about the authors and their focus.
There’s a number of responses to that, but I think most of them will come up when we discuss Ch 3.
Responding quickly: the story is a creation story, and the author[s] want to wind up with the world that we have today. The world is NOT harmonious, not perfect, full of disorder. So how to reconcile that with the creation story? Other creation myths (as noted above) usually involved conflict from the start (the gods fighting, for instance). So the story needs to move from God’s beautiful, harmonious, wonderous creation to the real world. The story says that humans are responsible for that discord, upsetting the order. So the scene is set in Ch 2, and then the drama happens in Ch 3. (Again, remember that the chapter divisions are imposed much, much later.)
IIRC the royal “we” came into being after the split of the Roman Empire into Western and Byzantine divisions, when the Caesar spoke on behalf both of himself and his counterpart in Rome or Byzantium. Were there other Middle Eastern cultures that used the royal “we”?
Regards,
Shodan
Remember that the Hebrew audience was generally illiterate, and giving a refrain to help your audience remember what was said, and its order is a good idea in such a culture.
Combining the J and P texts may have had something to do with it. The story’s actually told twice, so there are somewhat contradictory duplications. I’ve read over a dozen rationalizations for it, so no one’s come up with a definitive answer, as far as I can tell.
No. The word “barak” means to bear fruit both literally and figuratively, and while there’s some wordplay with “blessing” (“parah”) and multiply (“rabah”), it’s not really a pun.
In-universe, I don’t really have a problem with days and nights before the creation of the sun. The first creation story seems to be describing a process of gradual differentiation: day is separated from night (presumably out of some intermediate level of light) much as land is separated from water. God then proceeds to further concentrate the daylight into one bright spot - the sun. So I guess the first three days would have been something like a cloudy day today…
Regarding the Trees of Knowledge and Life: I guess they could be a Macguffin as Dexter suggests; but it seems more probable to me that the original narrator had them intended as a source of food for God / the gods. Something like ambrosia, or soma, or the apples of Idunn: there are plenty of parallells in various mythologies.
One question: the line breaks in 1:27 and 2:23 seem to indicate that these verses should be read as poetry. How do they differ from the rest of the text in the original language? Are they metric? And are they considered to be excerpts from some older, poetic version of the Genesis?
My view has always been that the creation of day and night is the creation of time itself. For the ancients, time was measured by the transition of day/night, so it always seemed reasonable to me that the story would talk about the creation of light/darkness to mean the passage of time.
The line breaks in English depend on your translator. (My JPS does nothing with 1:27 but splits up 2:23) The ancient Hebrew text did not have line breaks, nor punctuation, nor vowels for that matter. It doesn’t read different from the rest of the text. There is not really any meter or rhyme; perhaps someone more learned in ancient Hebrew can comment (today being Saturday, we won’t get any comments from religious Jews.)
t is worth noting that the all the mammals that the Hebrews would have been familiar with have a baculum (penis bone). It’s absence in man would be a good topic for a story/myth. The word tzela may have been a euphemism or mistranslation.