Plaything of Sekhmet (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ikhet_sekhmet) wrote2006-09-20 08:12 pm
ikhet_sekhmet) wrote2006-09-20 08:12 pm
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The World of Genesis
I recently read a couple of scholarly essays on the book of Genesis in a collection called The World of Genesis: Persons, Places, Perspectives. People who know their Bibles may find all this very ho-hum, but to me it's all new and exciting! As usual, what follows are notes on whatever happened to interest me: I'm especially interested in finding parallels between Hebrew and Mesopotamian religious writings.
The first of the two essays is by Dutch theologian Ellen van Wolde:
Van Wolde argues that Genesis 1-11 can be read not as centred on human beings, but on the relations between all the different elements of the creation, of which the humans are just one element. "The creation turns out to be not only a generation of life, but also an assignment of functions by which the created phenomena are related to each other." For example, the earth can't bring forth vegetation (meaning food plants, I guess) until human beings are created - from the earth - to till it. "The trees that grew independently in the garden of Eden are replaced by crops that are dependent on human attention." Later, God sends the Flood to protect the earth from human beings who are destroying it. van Wolde calls this an "anti-creation" - "Everything disappears under a boundless mass of water."
Apparently scholars split Genesis 1 and 2 up into the story of creation, Genesis 1-2.4b, and the story of Eden, Genesis 2.4b-3.24. That means both stories open with a "time indicator": "In the beginning" and "On the day YHWH made earth and heaven" and by describing what's lacking - the earth is "not-yet distinct", then "'not yet' filled with vegetation".
Is it possible to draw parallels here with Mesopotamian texts? "When on High" - Enuma Elish - always makes me think of In the Beginning. The Epic of Atrahasis starts "When the gods instead of man / Did the work". What I'm wondering is if it's a general feature of literature of this time and region. Or maybe it's just a natural way to start a story. (Similarly, is there are a relationship between the possibly subterranean source of the mist that rises up in 2:6, and the apsû? More on this sort of thing in my next posting.)
van Wolde's analysis supports what![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
synaesthete7 suggested to me a while ago - that parts of the creation account serve as "a kind of caption of the entire story" - for example, "1.1 precedes creation" because God has not yet spoken, so this verse "expresses at the outset the main thought of Genesis 1". Similarly, Genesis 1 (and a bit) acts as a caption for the more detailed outline for creation in Genesis 2. (This would explain why the ancient redactors didn't edit the two chapters for continuity - if you read them chronologically, they contradict each other.)
More to come.
___
Davies, Philip R. and David J.A. Clines (eds). The World of Genesis: Persons, Places, Perspectives (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 257). Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield, 1998.
The first of the two essays is by Dutch theologian Ellen van Wolde:
Van Wolde argues that Genesis 1-11 can be read not as centred on human beings, but on the relations between all the different elements of the creation, of which the humans are just one element. "The creation turns out to be not only a generation of life, but also an assignment of functions by which the created phenomena are related to each other." For example, the earth can't bring forth vegetation (meaning food plants, I guess) until human beings are created - from the earth - to till it. "The trees that grew independently in the garden of Eden are replaced by crops that are dependent on human attention." Later, God sends the Flood to protect the earth from human beings who are destroying it. van Wolde calls this an "anti-creation" - "Everything disappears under a boundless mass of water."
Apparently scholars split Genesis 1 and 2 up into the story of creation, Genesis 1-2.4b, and the story of Eden, Genesis 2.4b-3.24. That means both stories open with a "time indicator": "In the beginning" and "On the day YHWH made earth and heaven" and by describing what's lacking - the earth is "not-yet distinct", then "'not yet' filled with vegetation".
Is it possible to draw parallels here with Mesopotamian texts? "When on High" - Enuma Elish - always makes me think of In the Beginning. The Epic of Atrahasis starts "When the gods instead of man / Did the work". What I'm wondering is if it's a general feature of literature of this time and region. Or maybe it's just a natural way to start a story. (Similarly, is there are a relationship between the possibly subterranean source of the mist that rises up in 2:6, and the apsû? More on this sort of thing in my next posting.)
van Wolde's analysis supports what
synaesthete7 suggested to me a while ago - that parts of the creation account serve as "a kind of caption of the entire story" - for example, "1.1 precedes creation" because God has not yet spoken, so this verse "expresses at the outset the main thought of Genesis 1". Similarly, Genesis 1 (and a bit) acts as a caption for the more detailed outline for creation in Genesis 2. (This would explain why the ancient redactors didn't edit the two chapters for continuity - if you read them chronologically, they contradict each other.)More to come.
___
Davies, Philip R. and David J.A. Clines (eds). The World of Genesis: Persons, Places, Perspectives (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 257). Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield, 1998.