THE GENESIS OF EVERYTHING The thought-world of the Bibles
account of creation
By Dr John P. Dickson Honorary Associate: Department of Ancient
History, Macquarie University, Sydney.
INTRODUCTION: A NOISY DEBATE
In recent years the biblical account of creation in Genesis chapter
1 has been the subject of an increasingly heated debate between so
called biblical fundamentalists, on the one hand, and those
branded scientific materialists, on the other. Of course, these
labels are often used pejoratively, so let me flag that my use of
these epithets in this paper is one of convenience not
criticism.
The fundamentalists insist, principally on the basis of Genesis 1,
that the universe was created in just one week about 6000 years
ago. The materialists retort, principally on the basis of
scientific data, that such a view is ridiculous and that the
universe is closer to 14 billion years old. The Judeo-Christian
account of origins is therefore dismissed by materialists as
irrelevant for our day.
In this paper, I hope to show that both sides of the debate as
they typically present themselves make a similar mistake. They
form their conclusions about the biblical account of creation in
almost total isolation from the conclusions of the majority of
contemporary biblical historians. And it is as an historian that I
wish to address this theme.
Fundamentalists and materialists approach Genesis 1 in what one
might call a literalistic fashion. I use the word literalistic
here deliberately, as I want to distinguish between literalistic
and literal. A literal reading asks: based on the literary style
and historical setting of a text, what was the authors intended
message. A literalistic reading, on the other hand, takes the words
of a text at face value, interpreting them without sufficient
attention to literary genre and historical context.
Both fundamentalists and materialists interpret Genesis 1 as if the
original author were offering an historical prose designed to
narrate the mechanics of creation. Biblical historians, however,
have for over a century, understood Genesis 1 as falling into a
completely different literary genre something other than
historical prose and containing a drastically different
rhetorical purpose something other than a mechanical account of
creation. These two issues genre and purpose are critical for
understanding this fundamental portion of the Jewish and Christian
Scriptures. In what follows I want to unpack what modern scholars
are saying about these issues, and I hope to demonstrate that,
properly understood, Genesis 1 contains nothing scientifically
problematic for the modern enquirer. I emphasise the adverb
scientifically because there is plenty in Genesis 1 that is
philosophically and existentially confronting. That, as well see,
is the aim of the text.
1. INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 1 IN THE PRE-SCIENTIFIC ERA
Before I give an account of what modern scholars are saying about
the genre and purpose of Genesis, I want to make clear that a
non-literalistic interpretation of Genesis 1, such as that
advocated below, is by no means a recent phenomenon.
1
Ive been asked by sceptical friends in the past whether the
interpretation offered by biblical historians today is simply an
act of acquiescence in the face of the troubling conclusions of
modern science: We now know that life took billions of years to
form, my friends say, so now you guys change what you teach about
Genesis. Interestingly, this is also what my fundamentalist
friends think. They politely accuse me of being captive to the
Zeitgeist (the spirit of the age), and weak in my stand for
biblical truth.
Be that as it may, the antecedents of a non-literalistic approach
to Genesis 1 lie in the very distant past indeed.
1.1. The Jewish scholar Philo
The prolific Jewish scholar, Philo (10 BC AD 50), who lived and
worked in Alexandria in the first century AD, wrote a treatise
titled On the Account of the Worlds Creation Given by Moses. In
this work, Philo says that God probably created everything
simultaneously and that the six days spoken of in Genesis
indicate not temporal sequence but divine orderliness (Creation 13,
2
.1 Keep in mind that Philo was the leading
intellectual of the largest first century Jewish community outside
Palestine.2
1.2. The Greek Fathers
Philo is followed in this interpretation by the second century
Christian theologian and evangelist, Clement of Alexandria (AD
150-215), for whom the six days are symbolic (Stromata VI, 16). A
generation later, Origen (185-254), the most influential theologian
of the third century Greek church again, an Alexandrian
understood Days 2-6 of the Genesis account as days in time but he
regarded Day 1 as a non-temporal day.3 Whats interesting here is
that a leading Christian scholar of antiquity is comfortable
combining both concrete and metaphorical approaches to Genesis
1.4
1.3. The Latin Fathers and beyond
Moving to Latin speaking scholars, Saint Ambrose (AD 339-397), the
fourth century Bishop of Milan, taught a fully symbolic
understanding of Genesis 1.5 Moreover, his greatest convert,
and
1 In the introduction to the Loeb Classical Library edition of On
the Creation the translators summarise Philos view thus: By six
days Moses does not indicate a space of time in which the world
was made, but the principles of order and productivity which
governed its making (original emphasis), LCL 226 p.2.
2 For a concise history of the Jewish community of the intellectual
centre of Alexandria (and Philos place in it) see Binder, D. D.
Into the Temple Courts: The Place of the Synagogues in the Second
Temple Period. Vol. 169, SBL Dissertation Series. Atlanta: SBL,
1999, 246-254.
3 He reasoned that without matter which was not created until Day
2 there is no time. In this Origen may well be following Philo
who makes almost exactly the same point about Day 1 (Creation 15,
26-27, 34-35).
4 Origen Homilies on Genesis 1.1 (see The Fathers of the Church: A
New Translation 5, 71 (Origen: Homilies on Genesis and Exodus),
trans. Ronald E. Heine. Washington: The Catholic University of
America Press, 1982.
5 For a history of interpretation of these sections of Genesis see
Genesis 1-3 in the History of Exegesis: Intrigue in the Garden (ed.
Gregory Allen Robbins). New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1988. For
an account of the interpretations of the ancient Fathers, in
particular, see Clark, A. E., Heresy, Asceticism, Adam, and Eve:
interpretations of Genesis 1-2 in the later Latin Fathers (99-133)
in the same volume. Clark makes this interesting suggestion that
the more literal interpretation of Genesis 1-3 of most fifth
century Fathers arose in part as a response to the ascetic,
anti-creation, heresies that a non-literal interpretation was
thought to allow. A detailed account of patristic (both Greek and
Latin)
2
perhaps historys most influential theologian, Saint Augustine,
famously championed a quite sophisticated, non-literalistic reading
of the text. Augustine understood the days in Genesis 1 as
successive epochs in which the substance of matter, which God had
created in an instant in the distant past, was fashioned into the
various forms we now recognise.6 Augustines view was endorsed by
some of the biggest names in the medieval church.7
My point is: a non-literalistic interpretation of Genesis 1 is not
necessarily a nervous, modern reaction to the rise of contemporary
science. It is a viewpoint with a long and venerable history in
both Jewish and Christian traditions.
Having said this, there are aspects of the modern interpretation of
Genesis 1 that only became possible in the 16th 19th centuries,
at precisely the time of the scientific revolution. This is no
coincidence. The Renaissance and Enlightenment periods precipitated
a literary revolution in parallel with the scientific one. This was
a time of increasing sophistication in the historical-critical
analysis of ancient texts in their original languages. Out of such
analyses have come particular conclusions about the genre and
purpose of Genesis chapter 1.
2. THE GENRE OF GENESIS 1
Firstly, then, let me speak about genre.
2.1. The importance of genre
With the rise of literary criticism modern biblical scholars have
begun to appreciate the importance of genre for interpreting
ancient texts. When you and I pick up the daily newspaper we have
no problem moving from news-report, to editorial, to satire, to TV
guide, to comics, and so on. We dont need a heading which says:
Now for a work of satire. We all just understand the literary
forms and read the relevant pieces appropriately.
Ancient people operated in much the same way. Within the Bible
alone we can discern not only poetry and prose but also legal
formula, historical report, parable, aphorism, prophecy, creed,
hymn, epistle, homily and apocalyptic.
2.2. The example of apocalyptic in Revelation
Actually, apocalyptic offers a good parallel for the present
discussion. In the book of Revelation, the closing text of the
Bible, the writer narrates cosmic visions replete with symbols and
codes
interpretations of Genesis 1 is also found in Appendix 7 of St
Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae, vol. 10. London: Eyre &
Spottiswoode, 1967, 202-210.
6 Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, 1.1, 1.29. (See The
Works of Saint Augustine: a translation for the 21st century, part
I, vol. 13. New York: New City Press, 2002).
7 Including the Venerable Bede in the 8th century (Hexaemeron 1,
1), and St Albert the Great (Commentary on the Sentence 12, B, I)
and the incomparable Thomas Aquinas (II Sentences 12, 3, I) in the
13th century. For Aquinas own careful and even comparison of
Augustines view of creation with other ancient Fathers see Summa
Theologiae Ia. 74, 1-3. Excellent articles on the interpretation of
the Six Days (Hexaemeron) among medieval theologians are found in
Appendices 8 and 9 in St Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae, vol. 10.
London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1967, 211-224.
3
involving numbers, colours and even animals (the famous 666, the
mark of the Beast comes from the book of Revelation).
A literalistic interpretation of, say, Revelation 19 to take just
one example would have us believe that Jesus will return to earth
one day with eyes of fire, riding a white horse, wearing a
blood-stained robe upon his back and multiple crowns upon his
head.8 Some Christians sincerely expect things to pan out in just
this way.
However, scholars have long pointed out that large sections of the
book of Revelation correspond to the ancient literary device known
as apocalyptic, in which numbers, colours, animals and so on,
were employed with specific referents. The writer of Revelation
would never have predicted that audiences might one day read his
work as offering a concrete description of things to come.
A similar situation pertains to the first book of the Bible.
Genesis 1 isnt written in apocalyptic, of course, but it is
composed in a style quite different from the historical narrative
of, say, the Gospels in their accounts of Jesus resurrection, for
instance. There is no getting around the fact that the Gospels
writers were endeavoring to write history at that point whether
or not readers end up believing what is claimed.
Genesis 1, on the other hand, is not an historical report. Nor is
it even written in prose. The original Hebrew of this passage is
marked by intricate structure, rhythm, parallelism, chiasmus,
repetition and the lavish use of number symbolism. These are
features we never observe together in the parts of Scripture we
normally recognise as historical prose.
2.3. Number symbolism in Genesis 1
I dont intend to take you through all of these literary devices in
Genesis 1 but I will draw your attention to the number symbolism
which is quite compelling.9 It is well known that in Hebrew thought
the number seven symbolises wholeness as a characteristic of
Gods perfection. Some of you will have seen, for instance, the
seven candle lamp stand, or Menorah, which has long been a symbol
of the Jewish faith. Menorah: emblem of the State of Israel
In Genesis 1, multiples of seven appear in quite extraordinary
ways, and for ancient readers, who were attuned to observing such
things, these multiples conveyed a powerful message. The first
sentence of Genesis 1 consists of seven Hebrew words. Instantly,
the ancient readers attention is focused. The second sentence
contains fourteen words. The word earth one half of the
created
8 Revelation 19:11-13 I saw heaven standing open and there before
me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With
justice he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like blazing fire,
and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that
no one knows but he himself. 13 He is dressed in a robe dipped in
blood, and his name is the Word of God.
9 A very good introduction to the literary characteristics of
Genesis 1 can be found in Wenham, G. J., Genesis 1-15. Waco: Word
Books, 1987, 1-40.
4
sphere appears in the chapter 21 times, as does the word
heaven, the other half of the created sphere.10 Moreover, God,
the lead actor, is mentioned exactly 35 times, and the refrains
and it was so and God saw that it was good occur seven times
each. And it hardly needs to be pointed out that the whole account
is structured around seven scenes, or seven days of the week. The
artistry throughout the chapter is stunning and, to ancient
readers, unmistakable. It casts the creation as a work of art,
sharing in the perfection of God.
My point is this: short of including a prescript for the benefit of
modern readers the original author could hardly have made it
clearer that his message is conveyed in a literary, rather than
prosaic, form.11
2.4. Literary style and the question of truth
None of this should trouble modern Christians, as if truths
expressed by literary device were somehow less true than those
expressed in simple prose. When Romeo says: What light through
yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!, we
all understand whats being said. The statement is no less an
expression of truth than if Romeo had said, Juliet is at the
window and she is pretty. Only someone unacquainted with the
English literary tradition would quibble over the ontological
differences between Juliet and the sun!
Did God create light on Day 1 of creation? Well, he might have
and I guess in view of Big Bang theory this is not such an
outrageous idea! But this is not the point of Genesis 1:3. The
highly literary presentation style of our passage makes it
unlikely, in my opinion, that the author intended us to link any of
his statements with a particular physical event in time. Again, the
example of the book of Revelation comes to mind.
3. THE PURPOSE OF GENESIS 1
But genre is only half of the matter. Equally important is an
appreciation of the historical purpose of Genesis.
3.1. Avoiding anachronism
As citizens of a scientific age we assume that any document which
mentions the origins of the world must be concerned with the
mechanics of those origins, in other words, with how the universe
was made. But that is surely anachronistic. One of the first rules
of historical enquiry is: thou shalt not read contemporary
assumptions into ancient artifacts. In the case of Genesis we
absolutely must remember that this text was composed two and half
thousand years before the scientific era, at a time when
intellectuals were not even asking questions about the mechanics of
creation.
10 I use the word chapter loosely. It is commonly noted that the
opening literary section of Genesis runs from 1:1 through to 2:3.
Appropriately, the NIV places the heading for the second section at
2:4. For the details see Wenham, Genesis 1-15, 6.
11 In contrasting Genesis 1 with prose I am not suggesting that
the passage conforms to the genre of poetry such as we find in the
Psalms.
5
3.2. Paganism and biblical subversion
So what is the purpose of this portion of Scripture, according to
biblical historians? In a nutshell, the opening section of the
Bible appears to have been written to provide a picture of physical
and social reality that debunks the views held by pagan cultures of
the time. In short, Genesis 1 is a piece of subversive
theology.
To anyone familiar with the Old Testament this subversive
anti-pagan intent will come as no surprise. One of the golden
threads of the Old Testament is its sustained critique of the pagan
religions of Israels neighbours the Egyptians, Canaanites and
Babylonians. The first two of the Ten Commandments, for instance,
are all about shunning the pagan deities of the ancient world.12
Moreover, the book of Psalms the hymn book of ancient Jews
regularly and explicitly declares that the creation owes its
existence not to the pagan gods but to Yahweh, the God of Israel.13
Given the prominence of this motif in the Old Testament it would in
fact be surprising if the Old Testaments longest statement about
creation did not take a swipe at pagan understandings of the
universe.
Fortunately, we dont have to speculate about all this. Through a
stroke of very good fortune, scholars are now able to see just how
the writer of Genesis has gone about this task of debunking his
ancient rivals.
3.3. Enuma elish: a Babylonian Creation Myth
Just as Darwins On the Origin of Species was about to be published
(185, archaeologists working in Mosul in Northwest Iraq
(ancient Mesopotamia) in the early 1850s discovered tablets almost
three thousand years old.14 On these tablets was written in
cuneiform an account of creation held sacred by Israels near and
dominant neighbours, the ancient Babylonians. Suddenly, we were in
a position to compare Genesis 1 with a pagan creation tradition
which, according to most scholars, predates the biblical account by
several centuries.15
We now know that if you were raised in Babylonian culture of the
second millennium BC your view of origins would have been based on
a story that was as popular as our Santa Claus fable and as
socially influential as Darwinism. The story came to be called
Enuma elish,16 and to make a long,
12 Exodus 20:3-5 You shall have no other gods before me. 4 You
shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in
heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You
shall not bow down to them or worship them.
13 Psalm 95 1 Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD
3 For the
LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. 4 In his hand
are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry
land. Psalm 96 4
great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; he
is to be feared above all gods. 5 For all the gods of the nations
are idols, but the LORD made the heavens.
14 Hess R. S., One Hundred Fifty Years of Comparative Studies on
Genesis 1-11: An Overview, in I Studied Inscriptions from before
the Flood: Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic
Approaches to Genesis 1-11 (eds. Richard S. Hess and David Toshio
Tsumura).Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1994, 3-26.
15 For the dates of the documents and inscriptions in question see
the relevant chapters in I Studied Inscriptions from Before the
Flood.
16 The title comes from the opening words of the cuneiform text:
When on high (enuma elish)
The texts of various Mesopotamian
myths, Enuma elish, can be found in Dalley, S. (trans.), Myths from
Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1992.
6
seven-tablet story short, it basically concerns the violent
adventures of the original family of the gods. Apsu and Tiamat, the
father and mother of the gods, go to war against their offspring
because of all the chaos the youngsters bring to their peaceful
kingdom. Both divine parents are killed by the greatest of the
junior warrior gods, Marduk, who goes on to fashion the universe
out of the various bits and pieces of the vanquished gods.
As bizarre as all this sounds, stories like Enuma elish were
critical expressions of ancient peoples understanding of the
purpose and significance of life. Indeed, Enuma elish was so
important in Babylon it was publicly recited in the capital every
New Years day. It was their national mythic story. It was
Christmas and ANZAC Day rolled into one.
The fascinating thing about all this is that Genesis 1 shares
numerous thematic and stylistic features with the pagan myths weve
uncovered in the last 150 years. Enuma elish provides the simplest
point of comparison. Both Enuma elish and Genesis begin in the
first paragraph with a watery chaos at the dawn of time. Instantly,
then, we know we are dealing with similar thought-worlds. Both
stories, furthermore, proceed in seven movements: seven days in
Genesis 1 and seven scenes written on seven tablets in Enuma elish.
The narratives even share the same order of creation, beginning
with the heavens, then the sea, then the earth, and so on,
climaxing with the creation of men and women which, incidentally,
occurs in the sixth scene, or day, in both accounts.
Let me make something very clear. After initial speculation that
Genesis had plagiarised pagan creation motifs17 it soon dawned on
scholars that what we read in Genesis 1 is philosophically
antithetical to the message of the pagan myths. Historians soon
realised something they should have expected already given the
criticism of paganism elsewhere in the Old Testament: Genesis 1 is
a polemic against pagan theology.18 Genesis uses stylistic elements
of its pagan equivalents in order very cleverly to debunk the view
of the world expressed in those traditions. The parallels
constitute not an emulation or endorsement of paganism but a parody
or subversion of it. Genesis storms onto the ancient Middle Eastern
stage with guns blazing, so to speak, making profoundly
controversial claims about God, the environment and the purpose of
human life.
Exactly how Genesis achieves these subversive aims is the concern
of the remainder of the paper.
17 Leading the charge with the theory that Genesis was deeply
dependent on the Babylonian myths was Herman Gunkels monograph of
1895, Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit: Eine
religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung über Gen 1 und Ap Joh 12.
Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. For an abridged English
translation of the relevant parts of Gunkels study see Anderson,
B. W. (ed.). Creation and the Old Testament (Issues in Religion and
Theology 6). Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984, 25-52.
18 Standard introductions to this theme in scholarship are found in
Sarna, N. M., Understanding Genesis. New York: Schocken Books,
1970; Kapelrud, A., The mythological features of Genesis chapter I
and the authors intentions, Vetus Testamentum vol. 24, no. 2,
(1974) 178-186; Tsumura, D. T., Genesis and Ancient Near Eastern
Stories of Creation and Flood: an Introduction, in I Studied
Inscriptions from before the Flood: Ancient Near Eastern,
Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1-11 (eds. Richard
S. Hess and David Toshio Tsumura).Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1994,
3-26. A vigorous attempt to rebut the majority view espoused
above is found in Kaiser W. C., The literary form of Genesis
1-11, in New Perspectives on the Old Testament (ed. J. Barton
Payne). London: Word Books, 48-65.
7
4. THE SOLITARY GOD
The most prominent theme in Genesis 1 will have struck ancient
pagan readers as a perverse novelty. The creation of the universe,
says Genesis, was a solo performance. Behind the entire cosmos, in
all its intricacy and variation, there is just one God. To give it
a modern philosophical tag, Genesis 1 proclaims an uncompromising
monotheism. It does this in a number of ways.
4.1. A striking introduction
Firstly, it begins with a striking introduction: In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth. The writer doesnt bother
to warm us up to the notion of one Creator; he just puts it on the
table right up-front. A single God, says Genesis, created not just
this particular mountain or that particular constellation but the
the heavens and the earth, which is the ancient way of saying
everything.
4.2. A solo performance
Secondly, the chapter has just one performer. There is plenty of
activity in the account lots of speaking, making, seeing,
separating, naming and so on but only one actor.19 Compared with
other creation accounts of the time, Genesis 1 is a conspicuously
lonely affair.
4.3. The use of god instead of Yahweh
The third way the passage proclaims monotheism is subtle but highly
effective, especially for ancient readers. It has to do with the
use, or rather non-use, of Gods personal name. Pagan creation
myths always named their gods so that readers could know which god
did what. So, in the Babylonian Enuma elish no fewer than nine
separate deities are named in the first two paragraphs.20
The ancient Jews also had a personal name for their god: Yahweh,
or the more anglicized, Jehovah,21 and it appears many times
throughout the rest of Genesis. What is fascinating is that of the
35 references in this chapter to Israels Lord not one employs the
divine name. The author simply uses the noun God elohim in
Hebrew.22 The effect of this is to undercut any suggestion that
Yahweh was simply a Hebrew member of the pagan pantheon. There is
not Yahweh and Apsu and Tiamat and so on, says the author of
Genesis. There is just God. And by repeating the noun 35 times
the writer makes his point loud and clear.
19 The second paragraph sets up the pattern well (v.3): And God
said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the
light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God
called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And
there was evening, and there was morning--the first day.
20 Apsu, Tiamat, Lahmu, Lahamu, Ansar, Kisar, Anu, Nudimmud, and
Mummu.
21 The name Yahweh is represented in English Bibles by the word
Lord, written in capital letters. This is rather unhelpful really
because the word doesnt mean lord at all; its a personal name
and was intended to be used as such.
22 Only in the introduction to the next section, in chapter 2:4,
does the author name this Creator-God as Yahweh elohim, the God
named Yahweh. This is such a striking feature of the text that some
scholars have proposed that chapters one and two were written by
different authors. The first they call the elohist because he
preferred the generic word god or elohim, and the second they
call the yahwist because he preferred Gods personal name. The
phenomenon is far more easily explained, as above.
8
5. COHERENCE IN CREATION
A corollary of pagan polytheism was a belief in the essential
incoherence or randomness of the universe. In Enuma elish, for
example, the physical world is said to have been fashioned as an
after-thought, out of the bloody carnage of the war of the gods.
The creation, in this view, is haphazard in origin and tainted
in character. This was the broad viewpoint of ancient
societies.
By contrast, Genesis 1 insists upon the elegance and intention of
creation, in other words, upon its coherence. The universe is not a
mindless collection of unpredictable forces, but the ordered
accomplishment of a single creative genius. Monotheism in the
Creator, says Genesis, results in coherence in the creation. This
theme is emphasised at almost every point in the chapter.
5.1. The number 7 and wholeness
Ive mentioned already the artful use of multiples of seven
throughout the chapter. In accordance with Hebrew literary
conventions, this underlines the ordered perfection of
creation.
5.2. The careful structure of the passage
A more obvious device is the careful literary structure of the
passage. Each creative scene follows a deliberate four-fold
pattern: a creative command (let there be light, for example)
followed by a report of the fulfillment of the command (and there
was light), an elaboration of creative detail (he separated the
light from the darkness) and, finally, a concluding day-formula
(and there was evening, and there was morning the first day).
This pattern carries on through the whole account. The effect of
all this is to underline the order and coherence of
creation.23
5.3. Repetition of the word good
The repeated affirmation of the goodness of the creation serves
the same point. Verses 4, 7, 12, 16, 21 and 25 tell us that what
God made was good. The seventh and climactic reference in v.31
says the creation was very good. One gets the impression that the
author is trying to counter the low view of creation present in
just about every pagan culture of the time.
5.4. The demystification of the heavens
The final contribution to this theme of coherence is particularly
subversive in an ancient context. Many ancient societies worshipped
the sun and moon as gods in their own right.24 Genesis 1, however
(vv.14-16),25 describes these heavenly bodies simply as lights
a big light for the day
23 This insight corresponds to that of the first century Jewish
author, Philo, as mentioned at 1.1.
24 In fact, in Egypt, Amon-Re, the Sun-god, was said to rule the
entire Egyptian pantheon, a collection of no fewer than 2000
deities.
25 v.14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the
sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs
to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in
the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so.
16 God made two great lights--the greater light to govern the day
and the lesser light to govern the night. 9
and a small one for the night.26 Moreover, these lights are said to
have been given by God to serve the inhabitants of the earth,
rather than to be served by them. Anyone familiar with paganism
will not have failed to see the significance of these
comments.
The number symbolism, the careful structure, the affirmation of the
creations goodness, and the demystification of the heavenly
bodies, all combine to challenge pagan notions of the capricious
nature of the physical world. The creation is not random or
possessed by spiritual powers, says Genesis 1; it is the coherent
masterpiece of a creative genius.
6. THE PLACE OF MEN AND WOMEN
The subversive intention of Genesis 1 reaches its climax in its
description of the place given to men and women in the world by the
Creator.
6.1. Man in Enuma elish
As I said earlier, Enuma elish essentially recounts a primeval war
of the gods. The eventual victor is a young buck named Marduk. He
and his armies destroy the patriarch and matriarch of the gods and
out of the bloody remains create the various items of the universe.
Those gods who had supported the vanquished deities were sentenced
to an eternity of servitude, collecting and preparing food for the
victors.
Here is where human beings come in. The defeated gods begin to
complain about the sheer indignity of being used merely to fetch
food for other gods. They petition Marduk to create some other
creature more well-suited to a life of slavery. The idea quite
pleases Marduk and so, out of the goodness of his heart and the
pools of blood left over from the battle, Marduk fashions a man, a
being whose central task in life is to serve the gods with food
offerings.27 To read from Tablet 6:
When Marduk heard the complaints of the gods, he said: I will
establish a savage, 'man' shall be his name. He shall be charged
with the service of the gods, that they might be at ease! Out of
Kinjus blood they fashioned mankind. Marduk imposed the service on
mankind and let free the gods.
The clear message of the story is that humans must know their
place at the bottom of the divine scheme of things. Their role is
to serve the needs and pleasures of the gods.28
It is against just such ancient views of humanity that our passage
has something striking to say. According to Genesis 1, men and
women lie at the centre of the Creators intentions and affections
for the world. The theme is conveyed in a number of ways.
26 He even refuses to use the normal Hebrew words for he sun and
moon, shamash and yarih, which might have been construed as divine
names corresponding to Amon-Re in Egyptian.
27 This same basic story, though in more detail, is narrated in
Tablet 1 of the Babylonian Atra-Hasis Epic which dates about the
middle of the second millennium BC. On this see Millard, A. R., A
New Babylonian Genesis Story, in I Studied Inscriptions from
before the Flood: Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic
Approaches to Genesis 1-11 (eds. Richard S. Hess and David Toshio
Tsumura).Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1994, 114-128.
28 The ancient practice of placating deities with food offerings
derives from stories such as this.
10
6.2. Interruption of the rhythm
First is the deliberate interruption to the rhythmic structure of
the chapter. I mentioned a moment ago that each creative scene
follows a careful four-fold pattern: a creative command followed by
a report of the fulfillment of the command, an elaboration of
creative detail, and a concluding day-formula. What I didnt tell
you is that in the final scene this pattern breaks down. Verse 26,
which describes of the creation of humankind, is introduced not
with a creative command but with a divine deliberation a pause in
the rhythm of the text that tells us something special is about to
happen. God does not say Let there be man as we should expect
from the pattern set up throughout the chapter. Rather, the Creator
declares to himself: Let us make man in our image. The break in
the rhythm is obvious and flags to readers that they have arrived
at something special, a climax in the message of the chapter. The
contrast with Enuma elish is striking. Humans were last in the list
of creative acts in Enuma elish because they were an afterthought.
They are last in the list of creative acts in Genesis because they
are the highpoint of the account.
6.3. Men and women in the image of God
The contrast with paganism deepens in the elaboration of the act of
human creation. In Enuma elish the first man, as we saw, was
fashioned out of the blood of the vanquished god, Kinju. The man,
in other words, was a product of the losers left-overs, to put it
crudely. In Genesis 1, however, were told that men and women were
created in the very image of God. Verse 27 makes the point
emphatically:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created
him; male and female he created them.
The phrase, the image of a god was used in two related ways in
antiquity.29 Firstly, it was used of the many statues of deities
set up throughout pagan cities. These were regarded as
representatives, images, of the divine presence. The second use
of the epithet was in relation to kings. Ancient cultures,
particularly Egyptian and Babylonian, described their kings as
divine images. The idea was similar to that in connection with
religious statues. Kings were considered divine representatives or
ambassadors. They exercised the rule of the gods over the people.
Genesis 1 appears to endorse this notion of the divine ambassador
but it does so in a completely democratised fashion. According to
the author, all people, not just kings, have been fashioned in the
image of the one true God.30
Human beings are not the product of a defeated gods blood; they
are divine representatives, created to exercise Gods careful rule
over the creation, to ensure that his interests are realised in the
world.31
29 There are all sorts of philosophical suggestions about what it
means to be made in the image of God. Some take the phrase as a
reference to our critical faculties, others to our moral
perception, still others take it to mean we possess a spirit just
as God is a spirit. The historical analysis above, however, offers
a more cogent interpretation.
30 Notice also that v.27 makes a point of including both male and
female persons within the image of God.
31 Its precisely this logic that leads to the words added in v.26:
let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air
and so on. The point is reiterated in v.28: God blessed them and
said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth
and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the
air and over every living creature that moves on the
ground.
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6.4. The service of God
There is another striking point made in these paragraphs. I noted
earlier that the purpose of humanity according to Enuma elish (and
other pagan myths) was to serve the gods with food offerings. In
light of this, Genesis 1:29 will have sounded very odd to ancient
ears. Having urged men and women to exercise the divine rule over
the earth, God then offers food to them:
Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of
the whole earth
They will be yours for food.
God serves us. What a subversive thought this was in ancient times!
Its a theme which reaches its climax in biblical tradition in the
equally radical notion of Christs offering of himself for the sins
of the world. What Genesis conveys metaphorically, Jesus would
embody historically. But, of course, that is to range outside my
brief in this paper.
CONCLUSION: GENESIS AND THE SEARCH FOR MEANING
I have argued in this paper that the author of Genesis 1 would not
have been even vaguely aware of the assumptions that would be
brought to his text years later by biblical fundamentalists and
scientific materialists. He was not concerned with how the universe
originated. Rather, he sought to answer the more urgent questions
of antiquity: (1) From whom did the creation originate?; (2) What
is the nature of that creation?; and (3) What place do men and
women occupy in the creation? This amounts, of course, to the
question of the significance of life. And so I want to conclude,
perhaps a little provocatively, with the words of the French
philosopher and Nobel Laureate, Albert Camus (1913-1960), who,
although an atheist, insisted that the greatest question of life
was one broached not by science but by philosophy:
Galileo, who held a scientific truth of great importance, renounced
it with the greatest of ease as soon as it endangered his life. In
a certain sense he did right. That truth was not worth the stake
On the other hand, I see many people die because they judge that
life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed
for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what
is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for
dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most
urgent of questions.32
In its highly literary way, and against the backdrop of competing
pagan claims, Genesis chapter 1 declares not a scientific truth but
an answer to this most urgent of questions.
