Commentary on Genesis 1 - 2

The Priestly Account of Creation

Genesis 1:1 - 2:4a; 5:1-2a

Preliminary Observations

The Bible does not actually begin with Genesis 1, but with Exodus 1. It is actually with the Book of Exodus that Israel’s history, the history of the Hebrew people, begins. It is in the Exodus narrative that Biblical history in the strict sense, the history that culminates in Jesus of Nazareth, has its beginning. That narrative is prefaced by two “pre-histories”: that of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, in Genesis 12-50, and that of the primeval stories in Genesis 1-11. Both of those segments were added much later to the story that begins with the Exodus from Egypt, and they have been drafted in the light of it. They have also been drafted in light of the experience of the exile in Babylon.

These first chapters of the Bible are now set in the context of the Pentateuch (the Torah), in the middle of which is the account of the Exodus deliverance, the giving of the covenant on Sinai, God’s providential care and guidance in the wilderness, and the gift of a promised land—the focal points of Israel’s earliest history. Both of the pre-histories merely develop what is contained in the narrative of the Exodus events. In the Hebrew Bible we find the story of the deliverance from Egypt at the center, and only from this center is the story of creation in Genesis to be understood. To put it more simply, the story of the creation must be understood in its proper context. That context is the entire Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.

There is another sense in which the creation accounts in Genesis must be understood in proper context. In the past people have looked upon Genesis 1 and 2 as, not only the basic, but indeed, the exclusive Biblical evidence concerning creation. If we look at the Hebrew Bible in its entirety, however, we shall notice, even at first glance, that statements concerning both creation and the Creator are to be found throughout the entire canon. Some older approaches to Genesis understood the first two chapters as one coherent account that related, first, the creation of the world and humankind (1:1 – 2:4a) and then a still more detailed account of the creation of humankind (2:4b-24). By the mid-nineteenth century Biblical interpreters were calling attention to the presence of evidences in these two chapters (along with chapter 3) of two different sources, of two different creation accounts.

Nowadays, however, it is clear that Genesis 1 and 2 are only two of many such statements. And if it is our desire to listen to what the Bible really has to say about creation and the Creator, we must not isolate Genesis 1 and 2 from the rest of the evidence. Rather, we must seek to comprehend these chapters in the light of the many statements concerning creation that stretch over the entire Bible. The Bible contains numerous statements concerning creation, coming from many different times, couched in very different language, and presented in completely different ways. Genesis 1:1 – 2:4a is one of those ways; Genesis 2:4b – 3:24 is another way. And neither of them is the only way.

We should also note that we miss one of the essential aspects of the Bible if we fail to notice from the very beginning that the whole wealth of Biblical statements concerning creation and the Creator stand in conjunction with the praise of God. In fact, if we look carefully at the texts, we cannot escape the conclusion that, in the strictest sense, these are not really “statements” or “propositions” at all. Creator and creation are not spoken of in a descriptive or a factual way after the manner of a doctrinal discourse. Rather, the majority of such passages are intimately associated with God’s praise; and this is something quite different.

When the Biblical writers speak about Creator and creation they break forth in praise of God’s majesty, in a joyous, sincere, and spontaneous burst of praise. And the language of praise is poetry, metaphor, symbol, and even (perhaps especially) “myth.” When we compare Genesis 1 through 3 with the hundreds of other creation texts in the Hebrew Bible, these chapters may, at first impression, appear to be an exception. A reader might get an initial impression that we have here a sober historical account comparable with the accounts in 1 and 2 Kings (although it is now clear that even 1 and 2 Kings are not sober history either).

But such an impression misreads the purpose of Genesis 1 and 2. That purpose can be seen only when these chapters are compared with all the other passages praising the Creator. Or, to put it in yet another way, the real purpose is appreciated only when one considers that the original hearers of the Genesis creation narratives heard them as part of Israel’s total praise of God the Creator. For Israel, that praise had its setting especially in the Psalms (e. g., Psalms 8, 19, 29, 104, and 136; cf. Job 38).

An Ancient Near-Eastern World-View

Therefore, it may be helpful to examine some of those other texts and to take note of some of the terms and concepts that appear, before we examine the Priestly account in Genesis 1:

Psalms 18:15; 19:1; 29:10; 136:1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; 148:4-8; Job 38:4-11, 12-18, 19-24, 31-38; Isaiah 40:21-22 28; 42:5; Job 37:18; Psalm 33:4-9; 104:1-9; Genesis 7:11; 8:2; Malachi 3:10; Genesis 37:38; 42:38; 44:27-31; Jonah 2:6; Psalm 115:15-18; 121:1-2; Genesis 11:4-9; 28:11-19; Job 3:3-8; 7:12; 9:4-13; 26:7-14; Isaiah 27:1; 51:9; Psalm 74:12-17; Habakkuk 3:2-9, 15; Psalm 82:1; 89:5-11; Job 41:1-4; Psalm 104:24-30.

What kind of a world do those passages describe? How would such a picture look? What kind of language is being used? What kind of feelings are being expressed? Does the earth have “foundations”? Is the sky a solid dome? Are there hidden “storehouses” in the sky to hold the rainwater, the snow, the hail, and the thunder? Are there “gates” and “entrances” to some special “compartment” somewhere “up there” where God dwells? Are there other heavenly beings dwelling in that special “compartment” with God? If so, who might they be? Is there a special “compartment” underneath the earth where the dead dwell? Are there “bars” and “gates” to hold back waters that not only surround the dry land, but that are also located under the earth, and even above the sky itself, so that the world will not get flooded?

And are there great Sea Monsters or Sea Serpents or Dragons like Leviathan and Rahab and Yamm (“Sea”—personified as a being opposed to Yahweh) and Naharaim (“River”—similarly personified) out there that have some degree of “enmity” against the rest of God’s creation? Does the raging Sea, the Great Deep (Hebrew: Tehom) appear to be depicted sometimes in personal terms? Is there some story, presupposed but never told, some little private “joke,” as it were, that only the “insiders” have heard, about some great primeval battle, or struggle, at least, that Yahweh once had with the Sea or the Great Deep, or with Rahab or Leviathan or Yamm or Naharaim? What kind of historical or cultural or religious background is being pre-supposed when the Biblical writers have spoken about creation using such terminology and concepts?

And, having read those passages and similar ones, and having asked those hard questions, can we find some relationship between the kind of language and presuppositions found in those various passages and the kind of language and presuppositions that we encounter in Genesis 1-3?

Before we deal with those questions directly, I want to tell you a true story. Back in 1976 I was teaching an adult vacation Bible school class in a local church in Smithfield, NC. At my suggestion we chose to study Genesis 1 – 11. I spent some time describing the kind of worldview that we have been encountering in the texts we just examined. A member of that class, a local high school history teacher, said to the group, “At last, I have the answer to a question that has bothered me for a long time. Now I know what one of my students was trying to tell me a couple of years ago. It didn’t make sense back then, but now it does.”

When we asked him to explain, he said, “I was teaching a group of 10th and 11th graders about America’s space program, and specifically, about the moon landing in 1969. One student spoke up and said, ‘I don’t believe they landed on the Moon!’ So I asked her, ‘Then where did they land?’ She said, ‘My pastor told our church that they landed on the outside of the earth.’ I said, ‘Hold on, you’re getting me confused. What are you talking about?’ She said, ‘My pastor says the earth is a great big hollow ball. We all live on the inside of it. God lives outside. When the space ship carrying the astronauts went up there they went outside the ball of earth through one of the windows in heaven, and landed on the outside of the ball.’

“Now I understand what she was trying to describe. She was just taking those Biblical pictures literally!”

The Biblical World-View

In fact, this was the picture of the world held in common by almost all of the people of the Ancient Near East—the people of Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, and Canaan. That picture did not come to the Hebrews by Divine revelation, but rather, by people simply describing what they observed and experienced. They didn’t need God to tell them the world was organized that way. It was obvious to anybody with eyes, ears and other senses. The real questions about which people sought Divine guidance were, “How did the world get to be this way?” and even more importantly, “Why? For what purpose did whatever Creator-god(s) there might be make our world the way it is?” and “What is the relationship of human beings to that creation and to its Creator(s)?”

And it was precisely here that the Hebrew people parted company with the Egyptians and the Canaanites and the Assyrians and the Babylonians. Most of the texts we have been reading were set down long before the account in Genesis 1. So it’s not surprising that there are echoes of the same pre-suppositions in Genesis 1. And it is clear that the writers/compilers of that account are well aware of those older Near Eastern versions of the creation story, and aware especially of the version that came from Babylon.

The Enuma Elish Epic

And there is probably a good reason for that. The reason is that, more than likely Genesis 1 was composed in its present form while the Jews were still in Exile in Babylon, sometime after 586 BCE, and before about 400 BCE. And there they no doubt observed the Babylonians every year in their annual New Year celebration acting out their version of the creation myth in a kind of ritual drama. And those exiles, among whom were the compiler(s) or author(s) of Genesis 1, apparently felt impelled (or “inspired”) to protest: “Now wait just a minute! You Babylonians have got the whole thing wrong! There’s another, better way of understanding how our world got here, and for what purposes human beings and the rest of the creation came into being. Here it is.” And thus, this magnificent confessional hymn was proclaimed.

Just what was the Babylonian version of the creation story? We did not become aware of it until the 1870’s. An archaeologist named Layard had discovered the ruins of the Assyrian palace of King Asshur-Banipal of Assyria at Nineveh, in modern Iraq, about 1855. He further discovered the king’s private library of sacred texts written in cuneiform script on baked clay tablets, including the creation and flood narratives. But these texts were not translated until the 1870’s by an Englishman named George Smith. And when Biblical scholars read them, they immediately saw the similarities in world-view presented in those texts and in Genesis. By taking note of the similarities and even more especially, of the differences between these accounts and those in the Bible we are now better able to understand the purpose and meaning of the Genesis accounts.

The Babylonian creation epic, the Enuma Elish, was regarded as the most sacred of the Babylonian myths. Created by the ancient Sumerians, it developed over more than a thousand years in ancient Assyria and Babylon, and was known to the Hittites of Asia Minor. The public reading every New Year’s Day, it was believed, brought the human community into fellowship with the divine powers that had defeated chaos before time began, and helped to ensure that law and order would rule among the people in the year to come.

Enuma Elish told how the universe and human beings came into existence as the result of a battle between the forces of order and the powers of chaos. At the very beginning there were two great sexual principles, Apsu, the god/sea monster of the “Abyss,” the sweet, subterranean waters, and Tiamat, the goddess/sea monster of the salt water oceans. The name Tiamat is related to the Hebrew word tehom, which Genesis 1:2 and other passages in the Hebrew Bible translate as “the Deep,” or “the Abyss.”

All of the Mesopotamian gods were said to have their origin from these two. Because the younger gods annoy them, Apsu and Tiamat plot to destroy their own children. One of the gods named Ea kills Apsu by using magic. But Tiamat takes a new husband, a god named Kingu, and creates and leads an army of demons in an attack on the other gods. At this point, Marduk, the god of the city of Babylon, who is also called Bel (counterpart of the Canaanite Ba’al or Hadad), volunteered to meet Tiamat in mortal combat if the other gods would make him their king. This, the gods agreed to do. Marduk was god of the thunderstorm. He took his war bow (the rainbow) and arrows (the thunderbolts), and rode on his chariot, the storm, led by four steeds, the four winds of heaven, and went to do battle with the dragon-goddess Tiamat.

Marduk threw a net over Tiamat, to enclose her body. Then he sent the winds into her mouth so that she could not close it. Then he shot one of his arrows/thunderbolts into her opened mouth so that it tore her belly, cut through her inward parts, and pierced her heart. Then he separated her body into two parts, like a shellfish. From the top half of Tiamat’s body Marduk formed the firmament, the dome of heaven. From the bottom half of her body Marduk formed the dry land of the earth. He then built gates and locks to hold back the waters of the oceans, and the waters underneath the earth, and the waters above the firmament dome. He set the moon and the sun and the stars in the sky to determine the days and the months and the seasons and the years. Then from the cursed blood of the god Kingu he commanded the god Ea to make human beings to serve the gods as their slaves.

This myth does have many points of similarity to the picture of the world that we encounter in the Hebrew Bible and to various Hebrew Bible references to the creation. The Deep (Hebrew tehom) is a common Biblical metaphor for disorder and chaos, and several passages suggest a battle between Yahweh and a sea monster (e. g., Psalms 74:13-14; Isaiah 51:9; Habakkuk 3:8). But on the whole the Hebrew Bible moves on a very different level from the Mesopotamian myth.

We ought not to completely dismiss that myth as mere superstition, however. In it the Mesopotamian expressed his belief that law and order are never easily won. They come by the defeat of the forces of chaos and disorder, and can be preserved only by a continuous, year-in, year-out struggle against those evil powers.

The Priestly Creation Story in Genesis 1:1 - 2:4b

But in contrast to such ideas as those we encounter in the myths of Mesopotamia, the priestly writers/compilers of Genesis 1:1 – 2:4b deliberately oppose a somewhat different picture. The most obvious difference is that the Hebrew account asserts the notion of only one God as over against the many gods of the Mesopotamian traditions. And in place of the Mesopotamian mythology’s delicate and tenuous balance between the forces of chaos and the forces of order, the Hebrews believed in this single Power, majestically encompassing all the functions of all lesser gods, and in absolute control of all. In Genesis 1 there is no hint of any conflict or battle for control. There is only the absolute word of command by the one God.

It is perhaps less obvious, but just as important to notice that many of the phenomena that obediently respond to the simple word of the Hebrew God (Hebrew: ’Elohim—a plural word, perhaps signifying the plurality of all godly powers united into one) – these phenomena are the very gods we encounter in the non-Hebrew mythological traditions! They are the gods of the sun, the moon, the stars, the winds, the waters, the sea monsters, etc. On the first day the gods of light and darkness are dismissed, on the second day the gods of sky and sea, on the third day earth-gods and vegetation. On the fourth day, sun-, moon-, and star-gods, and on the fifth and sixth days, associations of divinity with the animal realm are rejected, and finally, human existence itself is emptied of any intrinsic divinity.

Perhaps most remarkable is the Hebrew depiction of “the Deep.” This “formless void” of emptiness and nothingness, for which the Hebrew word is “tehom,” is none other than that monstrous goddess Tiamat of the Enuma Elish story! That one who was the threat to all order and creation in Babylon is here made into mere “emptiness and nothingness” by the Hebrews. So here we have in Genesis 1 both an insult to the pagan pantheon of divinities on the one hand, and a bold statement of Hebrew faith on the other!

And perhaps least obvious to our modern eyes is what might have been most obvious to any Jew of that time (about 550-450 BCE): the stark contrast between the gutsy, war-like drama of Enuma Elish and the majestic poise of Genesis 1. In the place of a battle between two opposing camps of gods, the Hebrews depict a single Voice, Whose words of command explode into colossal acts.

As we trace the Mesopotamian myth to the end we can note at least one other remarkable difference between the two accounts. The people of Mesopotamia believed that human beings were created fundamentally to serve as slaves of the gods. But the Hebrews describe humankind as the chief steward of God’s good creation, designed in the very image of the Creator. Many things, both profound and silly, have been said about this concept of the “image of God.” Just what is it that sets human beings off from all other creatures here?

But speculations are not necessary, because we need go no further than the very verse which follows the first mention of that phrase (Genesis 1:27-28) to find out what the phrase meant to the Biblical writers themselves. And it is this: humanity’s god-like-ness consists in the task of governing the rest of creation as God’s stewards. Other creatures are told simply to “multiply.” Human beings are also told to “have dominion” on God’s behalf. Whatever else the phrase “image of God” might mean, the interpreter must always return back to this fundamental point.

There are some other points of importance in Genesis 1 that fall outside the scope of a comparison with Enuma Elish. The opening phrase is one such point. “In the beginning,” (בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית bereshith), is what we are used to hearing. Yet many Hebrew scholars have concluded that this is a weak translation. There is no “the” in the Hebrew text, and the point of it all is far more profound. The concept of “first of all” is wrapped up in the Hebrew word bereshith, and perhaps means primarily, “at first,” or perhaps even better, “of first importance.”

Such an idea shows up beautifully in a famous line in the Book of Proverbs which uses the same word: “The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom,” which means: “the most important thing about being wise is that one have an attitude of profound respect for God.” Using that analogy the sense of Genesis 1:1 may not be a reference to chronology at all, but may mean, “the most important thing to understand is that the One God is the Creator of everything that exists. This One God created the totality of everything that is in heavens and the earth.” Then that statement stands to serve as an appropriate introduction to everything else in the chapter.

Furthermore, the language with which the chapter continues suggests that the creative act was, in fact, an act of conquest—a mastering of unordered chaos, darkness, and primeval waters. Nothing in all of this chaos, however, is able to answer God back. Genesis 1 almost demands that we translate ourselves backward in time to hear it say to us: “If you would know the Hebrew ’Elohim as God, you must first ponder the inadequate alternative of believing in many gods.”

Like the Mesopotamians of old you must understand what it is to worship a balance of powers rather than one Creator. You must understand what it is like, furthermore, to be a slave to those gods. You cannot appreciate the shocking degree of freedom and responsibility that goes with this Hebrew concept of creation and of humanity unless you understand the alternative of religious slavery.

Finally, let us summarize at this point some of the key themes of this hymn of creation:

1. This account teaches that God alone is the Creator of all. God has no divine helpers. God is completely different from everything else. Nothing else in the world is Divine. The world is created out of emptiness and nothingness, and the world is not simply shaped out of pre-existing matter (Genesis 1:1). A further implication is that, since the world was created “out of nothing” and was originally pronounced “good,” human beings cannot blame God for the way the world has turned out since Creation. The world has not inherited a curse, but a blessing. Human beings are responsible for their own sins.

2. Creation occurs in response to God’s Word. God simply says, “Let there be . . . ” (יְהִ֣י yehi) and what has been spoken comes to be (Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, etc.). A human being might indeed say, “Let there be a chair, or a house, etc.,” expressing an intent to build one. But a human being can not say, “Let there be a star; let there be a sky.” But God’s Word is God’s Deed. (Goethe’s Faust was right! – Faust, Part I, lines 876-903).[1]

3. In this account God creates light; it is not the gift of the sun or the moon (gods in Mesopotamian religions), which shine only with the light that God has given them (Genesis 1:3, 14-15).

4. God separates the waters of the Great Deep (Hebrew: tehom) that are above from those that are below by hammering out a firm dome (firmament), and by gathering the waters below together into seas so that dry land appears. God thus controls the waters, which are the threatening forces of chaos that were feared by people of the ancient Near East (Genesis 1:6-10). God is in control of the world that has been created.

5. The heavenly bodies—sun, moon, plants, stars—that were thought to be gods elsewhere in the ancient Near East, are not given names here, for they are only creatures of God (Genesis 1:14-18).

6. In this account the earth shares in the task of creation, though only at God’s command; the earth brings forth plant life; the waters ring forth sea creatures and birds; the earth also brings forth animal life, but not in exactly the same way that it brings forth plants. Human beings share in God’s dominion over other created things. But God alone creates humankind (Genesis 1:11, 20-21, 24-25).

7. Human beings are created in God’s own “image,” and God has given them dominion over all creation (Genesis 1:26). The whole creation leads up to the creation of human beings. Human life is not created, as in the Mesopotamian myths, to provide a plaything or a slave to serve the gods. Humanity is created to be God’s representative in governing the rest of the creation.

8. God has created humanity both male and female, and this fact is closely connected with humanity’s being in the Divine image (Genesis 1:27). The God of the Bible is not a being of the male gender only. As many passages in the Hebrew Bible assert, God has both male and female characteristics (i.e., Yahweh is like a warrior, or like a mother hen brooding over her young), but transcends all such merely human traits.

9. God has blessed humanity with sex and with the gift of children (Genesis 1:28). God pronounced this process good.

10. There is no need to look to lesser gods for the fertility of the earth. To worship them would be to deny the power of the Creator.

11. The final work of creation that the writers of this account desire to emphasize is the Sabbath Rest of God on the seventh day (Genesis 2:2). Observance of the Sabbath first became important to the Jews during the Exile in Babylon as one way of preserving Jewish identity. Many interpreters conclude with good reason that, for the (presumed) priestly compilers of this account, the real climax and high point of the creation is not the creation of human beings, as important as that is, but the creation of the Sabbath Rest.

---

[1] But ah! Despite my will, it stands confessed,

Contentment welleth up no longer in my breast.

Yet wherefore must the stream, alas, so soon be dry,

That we once more athirst should lie?

Full oft this sad experience hath been mine;

Nathless the want admits of compensation;

For things above the earth we learn to pine,

Our spirits yearn for revelation,

Which nowhere burns with purer beauty blent,

Than here in the New Testament.

To ope the ancient text an impulse strong

Impels me, and its sacred lore,

With honest purpose to explore,

And render into my loved German tongue. (He opens a volume, and applies himself to it.)

’Tis writ, “In the beginning was the Word!”

I pause, perplex’d! Who now will help afford?

I cannot the mere Word so highly prize;

I must translate it otherwise,

If by the spirit guided as I read.

“In the beginning was the Sense!” Take heed,

The import of this primal sentence weigh,

Lest thy too hasty pen be led astray!

Is force creative then of Sense the dower?

“In the beginning was the Power!”

Thus should it stand: yet, while the line I trace,

A something warns me, once more to efface.

The spirit aids! from anxious scruples freed,

I write, “In the beginning was the Deed!”

The Concept of "Myth" in Holy Scripture

The Concept of “Myth” in the Holy Scripture

Assignment: The Priestly Account of the Creation (Genesis 1:1 - 2:4a) has been referred to as a “mythical poem.” Define “myth” as this term is used in the study of religious literature. In what sense might the Priestly Account of the Creation be considered a “mythical poem”?

The term “myth” may be used in many ways. In popular, unscholarly use, the word may refer to something fictitious, a story with no basis in fact, a fable, a tale, a figment of the imagination (cf. the way it is used in I Timothy 1:4). The 1933 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary defines “myth” this way:

A purely fictitious narrative, usually involving supernatural persons, actions, or events, and embodying some popular idea concerning natural or historical phenomena. Often used vaguely to include any narrative having fictitious elements. 

In a more technical sense philosophers and theologians speak of “myth” as a way of thinking, a method of interpreting ultimate truth. Myth is “a form of speculative thought that attempts to underpin the chaos of human experience so that it may reveal the features of a structure—order, coherence, and meaning.” 

Related to this is the sense in which Biblical interpreters use it: “myth” in religious studies and religious literature is basically a literary form that attempts to describe “other-worldly” matters by using “this-worldly” language and concepts. More specifically, a myth is a traditional story, usually focusing on the activities of gods or god-like heroes, often in explanation of natural phenomena, such as the origin of the sun, or the origin of the customs, institutions, or religious rites of a people.

This sense of myth as a literary form that describes other-worldly matters using this-worldly language and concepts would include any story that attempts to talk about God in human terms. In this sense, there is something “mythical” about the entire Bible. But two kinds of passages in the Bible especially have a mythical character. The first group includes the stories of the creation and primeval history or pre-history in Genesis 1-11, along with other scattered references to primeval events.

The second group includes those books and passages that deal with ideas about the end of history or the end of this present age and the “Day of the Lord.” These are primarily “apocalyptic” or “eschatological” passages in the prophetic books, and in the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible, II Esdras in the Apocrypha, and the Revelation in the New Testament.

Certain “pseudepigraphical” works that did not make it into the Jewish or Christian canons of Scripture also may be characterized as being heavily or entirely of a mythological character. Other parts of the Bible may occasionally use mythical language or ways of thinking but do not use myth as a full-blown literary form to the extent that it is found in the sections mentioned above.

Now any attempt to describe God, or ideas about God's activities and purposes, can be only partly successful. Human language simply is not capable of describing human relations with God and the supernatural. For example, religious people may refer to God as a “heavenly Father.” But if the word “Father” does tell us something about God, yet it can also be misleading. My father is the husband of my mother, but God is not.

Furthermore, most of us would probably feel that God has many characteristics that our fathers do not have. Some people, of course, have had fathers whose behavior has been the very opposite of what they consider Godly. Unfortunately, the very use of the term “Father” for God has led some persons to have a negative image of God for the very reason that God has been thought to be like some of those kinds of fathers!

So the word “Father” when used to characterize God, can say both too much and too little. It does not really describe God at all. At best it may give some of us a clue to some of the attributes of the God we might worship or in Whom we might believe. At worst it can be misleading. Thus, religious scholars would say that it is mythological to speak of God as a Father, because human, this-worldly concepts are being used to express something about the Divine and the other-worldly.

And if we then speak further of a “heavenly” Father, we are being even more mythological in our thinking. Just what does the word “heavenly” mean when a person speaks of God? When the first person in space, the Soviet Cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, came back from his trip into space indicating that he had seen neither God nor angels there, most Americans laughed at his naiveté, because we never really expected he would encounter the Divinity out there anyway.

In our modern world of space travel and knowledge of astronomy the myth has somehow lost a great deal of its meaning. The concept of a God located “up” there in “heaven” is seen to be a “mythological” idea, because we have become well aware that in outer space there is, in fact, no “up” or “down” at all. Those categories can only be used relative to one's location on earth. 

Originally this concept of a heavenly God simply was meant to say that God is not conceived of as a mortal, human being, a mere “earthling,” nor as a corpse whose body is buried beneath the ground in the place of the dead. Therefore, God must be “up” in heaven, beyond the skies, where He cannot be seen or controlled by mere mortals. And from there God can exercise some oversight over the world that He brought into being. So we begin to see that there is really a deeper, more profound meaning to the concept of a heavenly God than just a matter of geographic location.  And it is not difficult to get the point.

It is clear that the idea of a God in heaven expresses the concept of the sovereignty and transcendence of God, that God is utterly different from human beings, both “above” and “beyond” mere humanity. For the Hebrews, as for people throughout the ancient Near East this sense of “beyond-ness” was expressed in terms of a vast distance upward from earth into space. In other words, this “other-worldly” essence of their concept of God was conceived of in a “this-worldly” spatial category.

Now when we interpret Biblical texts using these kinds of mythical concepts or language, some scholars suggest that the interpreter has two alternatives. Either the interpreter must give up speaking of God at all, or else he must attempt to re-interpret the Biblical statements about God in terms that are more meaningful in the terminology and concepts of today's culture.  This process has sometimes been called “de-mythologizing.” I prefer to just call it what it is: interpretation. Sometimes it is a difficult or even a painful process, but it is often a necessary one, and it can be an exciting process as well.

When we talk about myth not just as a way of thinking, but also as a literary form, as in the stories of Genesis 1-11, we see that myth is, first of all, a story—it tells of actions that are done by someone. But it is different from most stories, in that we are not necessarily supposed to think that the action happened at some place and at some time that is just like other places and times. The time and the place are usually somewhat mysterious.  Even if the place is named in the story, and is well-known, it will seem different, changed, and timeless.

This is because the myth speaks of things that have to do with God or the gods, and when events or people or things are touched by the Divine or the supernatural they become somehow “different,” timeless and mysterious. Therefore in a myth it is pointless to ask if the things “really happened” as they are described. When we say “really happened” we usually mean that phrase in an every-day sense that common things happen, and this is just not the case in a myth.

But myths are more than just bits of literature. They speak of the most important things that lie at the heart of a religion. They are not just stories about events long ago, even very mysterious events long ago.  They speak of the deepest things of life at any time.

For example, if the myth is about creation, the point is not simply that long ago something happened that caused the world to be here. The point is that the created world and all that exists stands in a particular relationship with the God or gods who created it, and that relationship is what is being described in the myth.

Thus, the myth says something that is true about the world now, as the story-teller or narrator understands it. And thus, we need to overcome the common idea we may have gotten that myths are just childish fables. They are, in fact, the deepest expressions of truth that a culture or a society or a people understands about itself, and these truths cannot be simply re-stated in everyday street language without losing something from their meaning. Myths describe how people saw their own lives and actions and relationships under the conditions of their existence in the world before the deities they worshipped.

Thus, in the case of the first eleven chapters of Genesis, we have to do essentially with great confessions of faith that account for the realities of human life and religious experience as the ancient Hebrew story-tellers understood them. Here the Hebrew story-tellers answer the great questions that have always stirred human beings with a resounding affirmation of faith in a personal Creator Who is both righteous and cares for His creation, and Who has made human beings for fellowship with God and with each other. Here are pictured our repeated human sin and folly and their consequences. With uncommon clarity the capricious acts of human life are exposed, along with the unvarying purpose of God to bring “blessing” through a “chosen people” to all human beings.

The late German novelist Thomas Mann, speaking of myth, once said, “It is, it always is, however much men may try to say, it was.” That is to say, when we are talking about the kinds of events that happen in mythical stories, we can say, “These things never were, but they always are!”

It is true that some of the stories in the early chapters of Genesis are in fact quite similar to other myths of the ancient Near East, especially those of Mesopotamia. Perhaps they are even ultimately drawn from them. It is clear, however, that these stories, in the mouths and hands of Israel’s story-tellers and recorders, have already undergone a kind of theological refinement.

To a considerable extent the stories of Genesis 1-11 have already been somewhat “demythologized” prior to their being placed in the Hebrew Bible in the form in which we now have them. But in this one regard they still retain a quality of “myth”—namely, that these stories exist, and are told and retold, recorded, read, and re-read, not for their “was-ness,” but for their “is-ness.” They tell of things that may never have happened historically, but their narrators understood that these things happen every day to people just like you and me. 

Commentary on Genesis 2:4b - 3:24

The Yahwist Creation Narrative

Genesis 2:4b – 3:24

Biblical scholars usually designate this story as the “Yahwist” narrative, because the Name for God used here is “Yahweh,” a personal name of the tribal God, rather than (or in addition to) the simple generic noun for “God” (’Elohim).

There are at least three different levels of interpretation in this story. The first, and earliest level is that of the story's primitive origins, before the compilers of the Yahwist tradition organized it as a unified narrative. At this earliest level the primary motivation of the creation stories and most of the material in Genesis 1-11 is an etiological motivation. That is, these narratives are a pre-scientific, mythological effort to explain persistent and common questions about origins.

These questions are concerned with matters like the origin of the world (Genesis 1), the relationship of man and woman (Genesis 2:18 ff.), the nature of sex (Genesis 3:6 ff.), the reason for pain in childbirth (Genesis 3:16), and for the necessity of human labor (Genesis 3:17 ff.). They also are concerned with more peripheral matters like the origin of music (Genesis 4:21), or of people of unusually great stature (Genesis 6:1 ff.), of wine and its effects (Genesis 9:20 f.), or of the dispersion of peoples and the variety of languages in the world (Genesis 11:1 ff.).

The second level is the work of the Yahwist compiler(s). The entire work is constructed around the central theme of divine promise and fulfillment. Yahweh makes a promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:1 ff. (and subsequently repeats the promise to Isaac and to Jacob) that (1) Abraham's descendants shall become a great people and that (2) they shall be given a homeland. The promise is to be fulfilled in the formation of the people under Moses (the Exodus experiences) and the conquest and occupation of the land of Canaan//Palestine beginning with Joshua, and finished under David.

But the Yahwist compiler(s) also understand that God’s concern and activity have ultimate implications in a third promise that is not fulfilled in the scope of the Yahwist work: that in Abraham and in Abraham’s descendants all the nations of the earth will be “blessed.” Thus, the Yahwist work is prefaced with what is contained in the stories in Genesis 2-11. This “preface” is not for the purpose of etiology—understanding origins—but as a theological prelude—a prelude setting forth the fundamental terms of God’s relationship to human beings in the world. It is a prelude justifying and explaining the peculiarity of God’s particular activity on behalf of Israel.

The third level of interpretation is that of the post-exilic community, from whose perspective the whole of Israel’s history is surveyed in the Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy) and in the Deuteronomic History (Deuteronomy through Judges and 1 and 2 Kings). At this level the Yahwist traditions were combined with the Elohist and the Priestly traditions. What the Yahwist compilers essentially intended to communicate in his story of creation in the tenth century BCE is endorsed and confirmed in the fifth century BCE. At both levels the story serves a theological, not an etiological purpose: it reflects the faith of Israel, early and late, about the meaning of its existence. The later community, the mature community, simply underlines this with its addition of the first creation story, for example, the absolutely universal purpose of God in the choice of Israel and the Divine activity in Israel’s own history and in the wider environment of world history. The two creation stories are thus complementary.

The first creation story asserts that creation is good (Genesis 1:31) and that God is graciously disposed toward human beings (Genesis 1:28 f.). The storyteller expresses this in universal terms. In this second, and older creation story the storyteller reaffirms this in more intimate, more highly personalized terms. God Himself labors in the creation of humanity (2:7). God Himself plants the garden (2:8). Seeing His creature's loneliness Yahweh makes the human creation—almost—a partner in creation: every living creature is brought into being and presented for approval, and a name. And for Israel, to give the name is to share responsibly in the very being of that which is named. The entire passage, Genesis 2:18-22, understands humanity as the object of God's love—nothing less—and again, almost a partner in creation.

But love must give freedom, and freedom requires the ability to choose, and an understanding of alternative choices. It is a good creation, and an altogether good and loving Creator—but Israel knows not only in her neighbors, but in herself, the freedom of will to choose not the good, but the evil. Consistently, Israel looks realistically at human initiative, an initiative symbolized in this creation story in “the tree.” The forbidden tree represents the authority of the Creator over humanity; but it also represents the Creator’s love. The forbidden tree is the symbol of human freedom of will, freedom of choice. Humanity-in-the-image-of-God can be no robot; human beings possess will; humans are responsible beings.

The primary questions for the Yahwist writer(s) are, “How can it be that human beings sin?” “Where does sin originate?” “Is God responsible for sin?” The story may seem familiar, but note the following:

1. Nowhere is “Satan” mentioned. The snake is simply one of God’s creatures, “the most cunning of all the creatures Yahweh had made.”

2. The woman does not get a name (i. e., Eve = “living”) until the end of the story. Therefore it is incorrect to speak of “Adam and Eve” at this point.

3. The “forbidden fruit” is not an apple; nowhere is the kind of fruit stated.

4. “Good and Evil” are very broad terms, that also include such terms as “useful and useless,” “pleasure and pain.” This is not simply moral understanding, but rather the basic understanding of the nature of all things. To know “Good and Evil” is to know everything; the “Tree-of-the-knowledge-of-good-and-evil” is the “Tree of All Knowledge.”

5. “Nakedness” has nothing to do here with sexuality. Obviously they could see and know that they were naked before their disobedience. But before the disobedience they were “one flesh” in harmony with each other. After the disobedience they are alienated from each other, and this results in their shame to be seen naked in each other's presence. Something of their one-ness has been lost.

6. The Hebrew word, “cover” is also the Hebrew word for “forgive.” For the man and the woman to attempt to “cover” themselves with fig leaves is an attempt to “forgive” themselves, i. e., to “cover” their guilt. But it is Yahweh alone Who ultimately “covers” their nakedness with garments of skin, a sign of Yahweh’s forgiveness and grace.

7. Disobedience fractures the relationship between the humans themselves, between the humans and animals, between the humans and even the earth/ground from which they were created, and especially between the humans and God.

8. The snake told the truth! The man and the woman, in fact, did not die, and they did become “like God,” aware of the whole range of knowledge, from good to evil.

9. Even though the man and the woman hide, certain that God is only intending to punish, God seeks them out, and allows them to bear the consequences of their behavior, but then adds grace in clothing them.

10. The submission of the woman to the man is not portrayed as God’s intention or desire, but rather as a consequence of sin, something that is unnatural.

11. The problem of the origin of sin is never really resolved. Satan does not enter the picture. The humans are responsible for their own actions, but just why they were disobedient is never fully revealed. The reality of sin strikes home: humans do sin (there is no doubt about that) but the “why” is not really clear.

13. Traditionally among Christians this story is referred to as the story of “the Fall of Humanity.” But the Hebrew Bible does not really give the story that much significance. The Hebrew Bible does not, either in this story, or anywhere else, present a theory that says that the “sin” of this initial couple had permanent consequences for the rest of the human race. It does seek to describe the consequences of all human sin: fear, guilt, alienation. But it never defines the human race as being under any kind of curse, and the story is never again referred to in the remainder of the Hebrew Bible. If it bears the eternal significance that some have given it, this fact is rather strange.

But if this story gives no total solution to the problem of the origin of human sin it does analyze the human situation quite well. As the Yahwist tells the story, it seems that the problem of human sin is rooted not in the creation itself, which God created and declared to be good, but in the fact that something has gone wrong within God’s good world.

It may be helpful to ask of this story whether the act of disobedience was even the real problem for the human beings, or whether there was another problem already present:

1. What was it that Yahweh forbade in Genesis 2:17?

2. Did the woman add anything when she answered the snake in Genesis 3:3?

3. Suppose someone says, “Don't eat these mushrooms. They are poison.” You do not wish to commit suicide. Yet you eat the mushrooms. What does your act say about your relationship to the person who gave you the advice?

4. What appears to have been present in the woman even before she committed—or could commit—the act?

5. Compare the definition of “sin” in Romans 14:23 in the New Testament—in that passage “sin” is acting or living apart from faith, or trust, in God.

6. Thus, it appears that the act of disobedience is rooted in distrust (lack of faith). Note a possible paraphrase of the snake’s remarks: God didn’t give you this command for your sake (“lest you die”) but for His own sake (He’s afraid you’ll be as smart as He is). He's really looking out only for Himself, and therefore cannot be trusted.” The man and the woman, not believing (trusting) Yahweh’s word, then eat the fruit.

7. The result of this act of “unfaith”—this cutting off of a trusting relationship with the Creator does turn out to be a kind of “Fall.” It is a “falling out” and a “falling apart.” And to “fall out” with God is to “fall out” with everything:

a. Human beings “fall out” with themselves, finding it necessary to hide—not merely the private parts of the body, but the whole self (Genesis 3:7-11).

b. The man “falls out” with his closest companion: he shifts the blame to his wife (Genesis 3:12).

c. Human beings “fall out” with their fellow creatures—there is now enmity and war where once there was communication (Genesis 3: 13-15).

d. Humanity even “falls out” with the very ground (’adamah) from which it was taken (Genesis 3:17-19).

e. Indeed, Humanity’s whole existence seems to “fall apart,” to go to pieces. All of nature seems now to be at war with itself, and humanity is caught up in the processes of breakdown and decay that culminate in death. Disintegration and chaos accompany the “falling out” with God. The chief joys that humans experience are now turned to sorrow. The pleasure of sexual union is marred by pain and risk of death in childbearing (Genesis 3:16). The pleasure is taken out of work as humans find themselves engaged in fruitless and bitter toil (Genesis 3:17-19). Instead of being on an equal level as God intended, now one sex dominates the other (Genesis 3:16b).

Fortunately, the Yahwist relieves the tension with two brief rays of hope:

1. The man is not completely alienated from the woman—he now gives her a name, “Eve,” ( = “living”), that points to his continued hope for life (Genesis 3:20).

2. Yahweh is not without mercy: in a gesture of understanding, Yahweh “clothes” the couple (Genesis 3:21). The Hebrew word for “cover,” used here, is also, as we have already noted, the same word for “forgive.” This is deliberate.

This story is not history, but mythology. It takes a story about human beings and God, placing it back in primeval time, to say something about life here and now in the storyteller’s own time, and about life here and now in any time. We retell it not for its “was-ness” but for its “is-ness.”

We should not leave this story without giving attention to the views of certain feminist theologians as a necessary corrective to some traditional male stereotypes of its interpretation.

We begin by noting an ancient Jewish rabbinic saying:

[God] did not form woman out of the head, lest she should become proud; nor out of the eye, lest she should lust, nor out of the ear, lest she should be curious; nor out of the mouth, lest she should be talkative; nor out of the heart, lest she should be jealous; nor out of the hand, lest she should be covetous; nor out of the foot, lest she should be a busybody; but out of the rib, which was always covered. Modesty was, therefore a prime quality.

A more modern interpreter saw it differently. John R. Sampey, a Baptist Hebrew scholar, said (1922),

“ . . . woman was not made out of man's head to rule over him; nor out of his feet to be trampled on by him; but out of his side, to be equal with him; under his arm to be protected; and near his heart to be beloved.”

Another Jewish rabbinic tradition says similarly that God’s choice of a rib to make woman was significant.

“It was not the head, lest she rule over him. It was not the foot, lest he rule over her. But it was the rib that they might stand as equals.”

In more modern times feminist scholars have examined the entire story of Genesis 2-3 from a slightly different perspective. For example, Dr. Phyllis Tribble, a North Carolinian; who is professor of Biblical Interpretation at the Divinity School of Wake Forest University, has reminded us of the following facts in a recent essay:

1. The Hebrew word ’Adam is a generic term for humanity, not a sexual designation for a male human being.

2. Thus, in commanding ’adam not to eat of the tree, the Deity is addressing both female and male (Genesis 2:16-17). Until the differentiation into male (’ish) and female (’ishshah), ’adam is basically androgynous—one creature incorporating both sexes.

3. In the Priestly tradition of Genesis 1:27, God created ’adam as male and female in a single act at the same time. This is really not different from what happens in Genesis 2, when the woman is built from the rib of the human creature, so that male and female are differentiated at the same time.

4. Some traditional interpreters have suggested that in Genesis 2, the creation of the female from the body of a male implies that the female was inferior because the male was the first created. But if we were to use that logic, we would then have to take note of the fact that in Genesis 1, the human being—male and female—is last, after the animals, yet is clearly the crown of God’s creation. Using the pattern of Genesis 1, we might therefore come to the conclusion that later is better, and that woman in Genesis 2 is not an afterthought, but a culmination (this time God finally “got it right”)!

5. In Genesis 2:18 woman is created because the human creature needs a “helper” (Hebrew: ’ezer). In the Hebrew Bible an ’ezer is a relational term—it designates a beneficial relationship—it may pertain to God Himself, to people, and to animals—it does not imply inferiority. God is the helper superior to human beings; animals are helpers inferior to humans; woman is the helper equal to man.

6. In the creation of the human creature (Genesis 2:7), even if we do have a male here at the beginning of the process, and in the differentiation of the sexes when the woman is built from the rib (Genesis 2:21-22), it is still God alone Who creates. The man has no part in making the woman. The man is out of it. He exercises no control over the woman’s existence. He is neither participant, nor spectator, nor consultant. Thus, like man, woman owes her existence solely to God.

7. The rib means solidarity and equality, if it means anything (Genesis 2:23). The pun (’ish/’ishshah) proclaims both the similarity and the differentiation of female and male. Sexuality is simultaneous for both man and woman.

The sexes are interrelated and interdependent. Man as male does not actually precede woman as female in this story. Only in responding to the female does the human creature discover himself to be male.

8. The narrative does not sustain the judgment that the woman is weaker or more cunning or more sexual than the man. Both have the same Creator, Who explicitly uses the word “good” to introduce the creation of woman (Genesis 2:18).

9. Both are equal in birth, in responsibility, in judgment, in shame, in guilt, in redemption, and in grace, according to this story.

10. The character portrayals in this story are extraordinary for a culture dominated by men: The woman is the theologian, the interpreter of what God has said. She is fully aware when she eats the fruit. The initiative is hers, and the decision is hers alone. She does not consult with her husband. She seeks neither his advice nor his permission. She acts independently. By contrast the man is portrayed as a silent, passive, and bland recipient. His one act is belly-oriented, and is an act of quiescence, not initiative. The man is not dominant, not aggressive, not a decision-maker. He follows his wife without question, denying his own individuality. If the woman is portrayed as intelligent, sensitive, and ingenious—the man is portrayed as passive, brutish, and inept!

11. But the contrast between the woman and the man fades after their acts of disobedience. Now they are one in their new knowledge, one in hearing and hiding. First to the man come questions of responsibility—but the man fails to be responsible (Genesis 3:9, 11, 12), and in the end (3:12) he does not blame the woman, but the Deity.

12. The judgments describe—they do not prescribe. They protest; they do not condone. Genesis 3:16 is not a license for male supremacy, but a condemnation of that very pattern. It declares that subjugation and supremacy of male over female are perversions of God’s creation. It is only because of human disobedience that woman has become a slave, only because of human sin that her initiative and her freedom vanish. The man is corrupted also, for he has become a master. Thus, the subordination of female to male signifies their shared sin. This sin vitiates all relationships. Whereas in creation they know harmony and equality as God intended, in sin they know alienation and discord. But God’s grace makes possible a new beginning.

13. The Yahwist narrative tells the readers who they are (creatures of equality and mutuality; and it tells them who they become when they sin (creatures of oppression), and thus it opens up possibilities for change, for return to true liberation. In other words, it calls both male and female to repent.