In both Genesis creation stories (Genesis 1.1-2.4a and 2.4b-24), God creates the heaven and Earth from the starting point. In the first version, the starting point was Earth as a “formless void,” and in the second Earth was a baron rock. Both creation stories presume the prior existence of matter.
Speaking personally, this is a huge revelation. Most of my anti-creationist contemporaries attack the Bible for attributing to God the ability to create something from nothing; in particular, with God doing what cosmologists now say happened according to the Big Bang Theory. The common refrain is, “If God created everything, what created God?”
The question is moot because the Bible does not ascribe to God the ability to create everything, only the cosmos called Earth.
I also am fascinated by the development of mankind’s creation myth from one of battling gods as seen in the Enûma Eliš, to allusion to a divine council in Genesis 1.26 by use of the plural “us” as creator, and eventually to the pure monotheism expressed later in the Hebrew Bible.
There exist shadowy parallels between the shift from polytheism to monotheism and the shift from widely disparate scientific theories (Classical Physics, Astronomical Physics, Quantum Physics, etc.) to unifying String and Quantum Gravity Theories. It is the migration from many to one, as we see in the over-arching trend from chaos to order. (Or, do we see order shifting to chaos?) At the same time, in Genesis we see the creation of inanimate objects, then fish and birds, then mammals, then humans, much as we see in Darwinian evolutionary theory.
I wonder whether Recapitulation Theory (Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny) can be applied to concepts as well as biology, and, if so, can it be applied to development of the creation story vis a vis evolution or creation itself.
Another way of putting it is: Does our changing image of God reflect the changing order of the universe?
Another way of putting it is: Does our changing image of God reflect the changing order of the universe?
++++
On a tangentially related topic, but one for which time prohibits full explication, I find it suspicious that two huge acts of creation are ascribed to God on the sixth day whereas only one act of creation is ascribed to God on the preceding days. There exist parallels between the creation of Light on Day 1 and Heavenly Bodies on Day 4, and between creation of the Dome on Day 2 and fish and birds on Day 5. On Day 3 God created Land and Plants then on Day 6 God created Land Animals and Humans. Why break the one-creation-per-day rhythm?
The humanitarian motivation for mandating at least one day off per week is emphasized in Exodus and Deuteronomy. It seems highly possible that two acts of creation were crammed into Days 3 and 6 to make room for a day of rest. It's notable that a shabbat was not indicated in the second Genesis creation story, all the more alluding to the possibility it was an afterthought of the redactors working in the troubling times of Babylonian Exile.
.jpg)
Counselor in Training,
ReplyDeleteGreat blog as you help us all reach after reading Coogan and listening to Lester’s lecture the reality that one of the greatest stories ever told was told in what I would call “Wisdom Reflection” After all what is the literary genre of this text? Clearly it is not an eyewitness account, nor is it instruction in history or geography. Rather, it is the reflection of wise men who are raising the great human questions. Where do we come from? Where are we going? What is the reason for life, suffering, and death? Why the mysterious attraction between the sexes? What is the relationship between man and God, man and nature (work), man and his fellows?
To try to reply to these questions, the author relies on his own reflections, but also on those of the wise men of other civilizations:
1. The Atrahasis epic (Babylon, before 1600 BC)1
2. The Gilgamesh epic 2
3. Babylonian theodicy (second Millenium) 3
Above all the starting point for his reflection is his faith: believers before him had already meditated on the Exodus and the entry into Canaan; in these events they discovered something of the aspect of their God. And it is above all in terms of what he already knows about his God in this way the author tries to respond using “Wisdom Reflection.”
God Bless,
Deacon JIm
1 Charpentier, E, (1992), How to Read the Old Testament, Cross Roads Publishing, N.Y.
2 Charpentier, E, (1992), How to Read the Old Testament, Cross Roads Publishing, N.Y.
3 Charpentier, E, (1992), How to Read the Old Testament, Cross Roads Publishing, N.Y.
Thank you for the references. I'm going to dig up a copy of Charpentier.
ReplyDelete