GEN2a
Genesis 1–11
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Canonical and Historical Context: Who’s on stage?
Genesis 1--11 is told retrospectively from a Yahwistic perspective and sets the stage for the Abraham story.
The book of Genesis is true to its name, meaning “origins,” and true to its opening phrase, “In the beginning,” which is how the book is named in the Jewish canon, “Bereshith.” Within the Old Testament and the Pentateuch in particular, it is principally about the origins and beginning of God’s people Israel.
Although the scope of the primeval narratives in Genesis 1–11 includes the peoples and nations scattered on the face of the earth, they set the stage for the spotlight to fall on Abraham’s family. The Ancestral Narratives (Gen 12–50) then set the stage for the story of Israel’s defining moments in the exodus out from Egypt and their special covenant with God at Mount Sinai. The lengthy story of Joseph in Genesis 37–50 is largely to explain how the Ancestors, promised the land of Canaan, end up settling in Egypt. Once this is clarified in Genesis 50, there remains a gap of centuries before Exodus 1—about which nothing is said. So Genesis is not meant to narrate an unbroken chain of tradition from Abraham to Moses; it is meant to set the stage for the remarkable liberation and formation of the people of God. In other words, the first “chapter,” so to speak, of the Bible is the book of Exodus. The book of Genesis functions as its prologue.
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The book of Genesis is written from a Mosaic perspective, not from that of Noah or Abraham. While the divine name “Yahweh” is first disclosed to Moses (Exod 3: 13–15, E; Exod 6:2–8, P), the J narrator (Yahwist) uses this divine name throughout the book of Genesis to indicate that the God of Abraham is the same deity known to the Israelites as Yahweh. In other words, the book of Genesis is written retrospectively.
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The Primeval Narratives (Gen 1–11)
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No chapters of the Bible are better known, yet also more controversial, than the creation stories of the book of Genesis. Their familiarity has actually fueled the controversy, because most readers assume they know what the stories are about and what claims are appropriate to them.
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In order to read the Primeval Narratives respectfully and according to their inherent "ground rules," we should read them literarily before presuming to read them literally.
But, out of respect for this ancient literature, we must step back and attempt to hear it on its own terms—for the first time, so to speak. We cannot read it literally until we have first read it literarily. A literal reading assumes that it is some kind of historical, scientific account. That may be our conclusion after we have done our best to ascertain its literary genre, but the genre question must inform our reading strategy.
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While people’s ideological and theological positions—whether secularist, liberal, or conservative—are no doubt very important to them, these considerations should not distract us from our responsibility as respectful readers. Our ideological and theological conclusions must come after a reading of these ancient texts that is subject to the “ground rules” and literary conventions appropriate to the ancient writers and their audiences. Our reading strategy should be “conservative” in so far as we attempt to conserve the meaning of these texts as understood within their original social and cultural contexts.
The cooperative reader, in order to hear the text properly, will adopt the interpretive strategy of the implied reader, that is, the reader for whom the author(s) wrote the text in the first place. While all readers may not personally hold to the beliefs of the implied reader, they should postpone those judgments until after they have “read” the text with due consideration. The challenge facing modern readers is this: to hear the Bible properly we must be willing to recalibrate our expectations of this literature based upon its own literary conventions.
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Each person has cried foul when their text has been interpreted out of context. We must concede the same respect to the biblical writer(s) and so begin by examining the opening chapters of Genesis within their wider literary (i.e., the book of Genesis) and cultural contexts (i.e., Israelite and ANE cultures).
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Literary Context. We will begin with the literary context of the older of the two creation accounts, the Garden of Eden narrative in Genesis 2–3. Prior to the stories about Abraham, Israel’s patriarch, the Primeval Narratives contain a series of “fall” stories: the Garden of Eden (Gen 2–3), Cain and Abel (Gen 4), the sons of God (Gen 6:1–4), Noah’s flood (Gen 6:5–9:27), and the Tower of Babel (Gen 11).
The thematic functions of the creation stories are to introduce the God of Abraham as the creator of all and to state the problem of human sin.
(As noted above, each of these episodes is part of the J strand.) They function principally to set the stage for the significance of what God is going to do with Abraham and his family. To grasp the significance and impact of Genesis 1–11 it might be best to ask, how would we read the Abraham narrative differently without these introductory chapters? First, we might assume “the God of Abraham” is simply that, namely a clan deity. But the Primeval Narratives introduce this deity as none other than the maker of the earth and of all humanity. They serve a theological function.
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Second, without the Primeval Narratives the significance of the Abraham story would be lost. Why should we care about a distant seminomadic chieftain living in the second millennium BCE? Without a statement of the problem, the importance of the solution is lost. The five narratives preceding Abraham state the problems of human evil and violence (Cain in Gen 4:8–10, the generation of the Flood in Gen 6:5; cf. 6:11–13) and particularly of boundary violations, where humans encroach on the divine to obtain prerogatives belonging to deity (Eden, sons of God, and Tower of Babel). In Eden the man and the woman by eating of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” Gen (Gen 2:9, 17) would become like God “knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5, 22). The most graphic and strangest boundary violation is when “the sons of God” have intercourse with “the daughters of man” (Gen 6:1–4). In fact, the first mention that human nature, to the very “form of their thinking,” became “evil” and “corrupted” (Gen 6:5, 11–13) appears not after the so-called Fall episode in the Eden narrative but after this story about the sons of God, which serves as a prelude to the Flood narrative. Later, “the children of man” attempt to build a tower with its head “in the heavens,” the realm of deity. Yahweh describes this achievement as “the beginning of what they can do, and now not a thing they plan to do will be inaccessible to them” (Gen 11:4–6).
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The point of these boundary violations is best illustrated in the transition from the Tower of Babel story (Gen 11) to the Abraham story (Gen 12). In the former, humans seek to make a “name” for themselves (Gen 11:4), but in the latter Yahweh promises to make Abram’s “name” great (Gen 12:2). Grasping for a name is contrasted with receiving a great name from God. Similarly while humans are intent on maintaining their own place in the “land” (Gen 11:2, 4), Abram must be willing to go from his own “land” to the “land” that Yahweh will show him (Gen 12:1). Clearly, declarations of independence from God are considered the root of the human dilemma (according to the J strand).
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In sum, the main points of the Primeval Narratives in Genesis 1–11 are (a) to affirm that the God of Abraham is indeed the one God who created the cosmos and humanity and (b) to state the problem of humanity’s propensity to declare itself independent from God.
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Cultural Context. While not indispensable to understanding the Primeval Narratives, their cultural context sheds considerable light on their meaning and significance.
Genesis reflects a high concentration of Mesopotamian parallels, which indicates the biblical writers used a common language to convey a radically new theology.
A feature that distinguishes the Primeval Narratives (Gen 1–11) from the Ancestral Narratives (Gen 12–50) is their strong parallels to Mesopotamian myths and epics. After Genesis 11, the parallels stop.
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Genesis ANE
7-Day Creation (Gen 1) Enuma Elish
Eden (Gen 2–3) Atrahasis, Adapa, Enki and Ninhursag
Flood (Gen 6–9) Atrahasis, Gilgamesh
Babel (Gen 11) Ziggurats
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Their interplay suggests that the biblical writers, writing within their Semitic culture, employed common symbols and storylines to narrate their distinctive understanding of God’s interactions with humans. Although some scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries may have regarded this dependence as an act of plagiarism, it would seem that the biblical writers would have assumed their readers’ prior knowledge of these common Semitic traditions in order to make the punchline of their narratives all the more effective. So, in order to grasp the significance of the Genesis primeval narratives, it would be best first to hear the common Semitic stories of beginnings and then to hear—for the first time—the novel twist of the Hebrew narrative.
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Garden of Eden (Gen 2–3)
The Eden narrative shares themes and motifs with other Semitic cultures: the special creation of humans as a combination of elements from the earth and the divine, why humans are denied eternal life, and the staging of two trees, four streams, and cherub figures.
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Info Box: Atrahasis (Part 1)
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Dating from the early 2nd millennium BCE this Babylonian epic includes the creation of humans and the flood, in which Atrahasis is the Noah figure. It begins with the (lower) Igigi gods digging out canals and the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Their work is described as “forced labor” and “drudgery.” After they threaten rebellion against Enlil, the (higher) Anunna gods decree the creation of humans—with a mixture of clay from the earth and the flesh and blood of a god—to “bear the yoke” and “assume the drudgery of god.”
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Info Box: Adapa
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Adapa was priest and servant of the god Ea, who endowed him with such wisdom that “his perception of what pertains to the Anunna-gods was vast.” While he was fishing on behalf of the temple of Ea, the South Wind blew and capsized his boat. In anger Adapa cursed the South Wind and broke its wing. The god Anu then summoned him to heaven. Before going, Ea commanded him to refuse from Anu what he called “food of death” and “waters of death.” After Adapa explained his actions, Anu asked, “Why did Ea disclose what pertains to heaven and earth to an uncouth mortal? … Since he has so treated him, what, for our part, shall we do for him? Bring him food of life, let him eat.” But the narrator informs us that after Adapa refused “food of life” and “waters of life,” “Anu stared and burst out laughing at him, ‘Come now, Adapa, why did you not eat or drink? Won’t you live? Are not people to be im[mor]tal?’ Ea my lord told me, ‘You must not eat, you must not drink.’ ‘Let them take him and [ret]urn him to his earth’” (COS 1.129). In this rivalry between the gods Anu and Ea, the human Adapa, to whom was disclosed the ways of heaven and earth, thus loses his chance to obtain eternal life because he chose to obey the command of Ea and refused Anu’s offer.
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Info Box: Mesopotamian Imagery and Terminology
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In this 13th century BCE ivory inlay from Asshur in northern Mesopotamia, four streams issue from a deity, flanked by two trees that are protected by two winged bulls.
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Some of the terms used in the Genesis Narratives are difficult to translate without consulting Mesopotamian literature. The Hebrew word translated “stream” or “mist,” which “goes up from the land and waters all the face of the ground” (Gen 2:6) is best explained as a loanword from Mesopotamia, meaning “inundation.”
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Although the Bible is a source for the theologies of Jews and Christians, we must be intent on first respecting how theology is presented to us in Genesis, namely as narrative, which has a setting, a plot, and characters—one of which is God.
As the Eden narrative is packaged as literature, we must understand Yahweh God as a literary character, rather than imposing our own theological system upon him.
“The Lord God” (Yahweh God, in Hebrew) must be interpreted as a literary character—before one can infer the narrative’s contribution to one’s theology. To hear the story properly we must restrict our expectations to the confines of the narrative: it sets a scene, characterizes the characters, describes actions, and reports speeches. But if, for example, readers read characteristics into God’s character that are beyond the bounds of the narrator, they are not reading the narrator’s story but one they have constructed themselves by their imported theology. In other words, our theological system can actually be an impediment, distracting us from hearing the Bible.
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Who is “Yahweh God”? The literary portrayal of Yahweh God in the Primeval Narratives is considerably different from that of standard Jewish and Christian theology. The gap between the human and the divine is much narrower.
Yahweh God is portrayed anthropomorphically (as potter, gardener, physician, craftsman, and tanner), not as the omniscient God of theology.
Once humans eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Yahweh God admits, “the man has become like one of us knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:22). In the Tower of Babel story, the physical realm of deity is not far and at least theoretically attainable: “the children of the man” attempt to build a skyscraper, “a tower with its head in the skies/heavens” (Gen 11:4, Hebrew has only the one word, shamayim). The Eden narrative portrays Yahweh God in several anthropomorphic roles: using soil he “forms/shapes” the man and the animals like a potter (Gen 2:7, 19), he “plants” a garden like a gardener (Gen 2:8), he anesthetizes the man and surgically removes his rib like a physician, and from it he “builds” woman like a carpenter (Gen 2:22), and finally he clothes them with skins as a tanner (Gen 3:21).
Yahweh God is not omnipresent. After the serpent’s conversation with the woman, Yahweh God suddenly appears on stage making a “sound” when he “strolls” (literally, “walks back and forth”) “in the garden at the breeze of the day” (Gen 3:8). As he has a “face/presence” from which the humans can hide, he appears to be portrayed in some bodily form. Nor is Yahweh God omniscient. He observes a deficiency in his garden and rectifies the problem by trial-and-error. He is curious “to see what” the man “would name” the creatures that he “brings” to him. After appearing in the garden he asks his gardener, “Where are you?” and “Who told you?” (Gen 3:9, 11). To modern readers this may seem incomprehensible but to the ancient Hebrews it was evidently “kosher.” And, as we shall see, this “bodily” incarnation of Yahweh God, so to speak, makes possible and comprehensible the lively interaction between God and the man and the woman.
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Genesis 2. The narrative’s opening interest lies in a local garden: there is none because there is no gardener. The stated reason the Lord God creates “the man” (’adam) is “to work/serve the ground” (’adamah) and to “keep/guard it” (Gen 2:5, 15). The garden exists not for the man but for Yahweh (cf. Isa 51:3), where he can enjoy his late afternoon strolls.
Using familiar ANE motifs of humans working the ground, a garden with 2 trees and 4 rivers, and the cherub, the OT presents Yahweh God as a unique deity who attends to the needs of humans.
Yahweh manufactures his laborer/gardener as a potter who “shapes” the “dust/soil” from the “ground” and combines it with his “breath.” Once the man is made, Yahweh himself “plants” a garden in “Eden” (a term that means “delight/bliss”) with “trees that are desirable to the sight and good for eating,” including two special trees. Watering this garden is “an inundation” that divides into four rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates (which form Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers, Gen 2:6, 10–14). Ancient readers would be familiar with this imagery from the gardens adjoining a deity’s temple or the king’s palace. Later, we learn of “cherubim” (otherworldly, extra-terrestrial, hybrid creatures with wings) that Yahweh stations to guard entry into the garden (Gen 3:24).
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Info Box: Paradise?
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Upon closer inspection the Garden of Eden is not the paradise that many readers have come to expect. Humans are made specifically to work the ground and to “guard” the garden. From what? Implicitly the garden and the humans live under some kind of threat. Moreover, Eden was not made for their pleasure, but for God’s.
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It was the Septuagint translators who translated the Hebrew word for “garden” as paradeisos, not to mislead readers but because its usage was based on the Persian word for an enclosed garden/park usually adjacent to the royal palace.
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Thus far, the motifs of Genesis 1–3 are familiar from ancient Near Eastern culture. Humans were made by combining earth with something divine for the purpose of working the ground in the service of deity. But what follows would make ancient Near Eastern heads turn: this Yahweh God attends to the needs of humans! He provides food and human partnership, and even seeks them out as conversation partners. Remarkably, the supervising deity permits the laboring gardener to eat freely from any tree in the orchard, aside from one—“the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (the significance of which will be explained below). Then Yahweh notices a deficiency in his garden: “it is not good that the man is alone.” He lacks “a helper corresponding to him.”
To rectify the problem he engages in an experiment to “find” (Gen 2:20), that is, to discover such a one. He resumes his role as potter by “shaping” from the “dust/soil” (without mention of divine breath) animals and birds and “brings/escorts” them to the man “to see what he would name them.” The literary character of Yahweh God wants to discover his gardener’s perception of naming and thus recognizing the suitability of “a helper corresponding to him.” The experiment fails.
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In the second experiment, Yahweh, as physician, anesthetizes the man and surgically removes a rib, from which as a craftsman he “built” woman, whom he “brought/escorted” to the man. In the narrative’s first poetic speech the man declares this experiment a success—“at last,” implying the process has been lengthy (Gen 2:23).
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