In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Creation by a master of Bible Historiale of Jean de Berry c1390-1400
So begins the section of the Bible called the Law, or the Pentateuch (referring to the fact that there are five books in all: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). My RSV study Bible has this to say about Genesis: “The primary purpose of this whole book … is to narrate God’s dealings with men and, in particular, to interpret Israel’s special role in his historical plan.” It then goes on to describe the role of Abraham as a turning point. Pre-Abraham is a time when human wickedness keeps messing with God’s creation, until God “gradually separated one family line” to be the instrument of divine blessing on the rest of us.
This makes me think of husbanders who select individual animals for breeding so that they eventually get a line with whatever the desired qualities are. This certainly puts a creepy (creepier?) spin on the idea that everything is just part of God’s plan…
But enough with the introduction, let’s get into the story!
So we start with an introduction: God created the heavens and the earth, and here’s tots how it happened… My study Bible notes that this is a the Priestly story of creation (“Priestly” referring to the theory that the books of the Old Testament can be divided into types, or classes, of authors – something I’ll probably make a post about someday).
Day 1
Everything is dark and chaotic, so God goes creates light and says that it was good, even if he does say so himself. An interesting note from my study Bible is that each day ends with something like “there was evening and there was morning, X day.” My book notes that the Jewish day begins at sundown, so we have that cultural remnant in the language that Christian readers may not get..
The first thing that struck me about this creation story is the idea of water. God doesn’t create the water, it’s already there. The association between water and chaos, and the idea that a deity is going to come along and bring order is a very common narrative theme in creation stories, particularly those from Middle Eastern-y cultures (at least that I can think of off-hand). So we have a bit of chaoskampf going on here… Epic.
Day 2
Now that we have light and can properly think of the rest of creation in terms of days, God decides that he’s going to start cutting up all this water. So he creates this thing called “firmament” to cut the water in half. We now have “bottom water” and “top water” with heaven in between (“God called the firmament Heaven” Gen. 1:8). Anyone who has ever spent any time looking into astronomy is probably scratching their heads at this point. Just how much firmament is there before we get to the next layer of water? And was the water divided in equal portions? If so, I’m imagining that with the size of the universe, there must only be a very thin layer left on the outer edge.
And while we’re at it, we were told earlier on that God was flying around over the “face of the waters” (Gen.1:2). This implies that there was something above the waters for God to fly around in. So what, exactly, is the firmament? I can conceive of God not needing air to breathe, so it’s possible that the firmament is the atmosphere – but then where is the second half of the water that’s supposedly above the atmosphere? And if the firmament is the universe, what exactly was this “non-universe” like? It’s all very confusing once you try to read the stories with the knowledge that the earth is round…
Day 3
So now God decides that we should have some dry land, so he causes the waters to gather up into “one place” (Gen. 1:9), which he then calls the “Seas” (plural in both the RSV and King James). I’m assuming that he’ll make landlocked water later on. In any case, this reveals the land underneath, so we now have earth.
Separating waters horizontally doesn’t take as long as doing it vertically, apparently, so God has a bit of time left over. He decides to go ahead and create vegetation (originally planned for Day 4, but by getting it done today, God gets to just hang out and rest on Day 7 – so yay!). But God’s a bit concerned about these plants. Apparently, there’s always a bit of a danger that apple trees will suddenly start spreading seeds for peach trees or something, because God specifies that each plant will only make seeds “according to its kind” (Gen. 1:12). This is separate from the process of making the plant itself, according to the Bible.
Day 4
So on the fourth day, God finally gets to creating “lights in the firmament of the heavens” (Gen. 1:14). So God makes “two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, he made the stars also” (Gen. 1:16). I hate to read too much into the wording of a translation, but I find it interesting that God creates the sun and also creates the stars. Also, the moon is not a light (oops!). Easy mistakes for earth-bound deities to make, I suppose.
The mention of these astronomical bodies as “lights” appears to be deliberate. My study Bible explains that the emphasis on the sun, moon, and stars as “lights” indicates that they are not divine powers in their own right, and therefore do not exert an influence over human destiny. It’s a bit of an “effyoo” to all those surrounding cultures that worship them.
Day 5
We’re starting to populate our new earth now, and we’re getting some rather significant differences between the RSV and King James. In both cases, God gets the waters to bring forth some living cultures, but the RSV says “and let birds fly above the earth” (Gen. 1:20). The King James, on the other hand, combines the two ideas so that God is getting the waters to “bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and the fowl that may fly above the earth.” The implication seems to be that God is using the water as a prima materia from which he is creating animals, birds included. Of course, we’re talking about a translation, so it’s hard to know what might be implied in the original Hebrew.
The next hilarious difference comes in the next verse, where God creates either “great sea monsters” (RSV Gen. 1:21), or “great whales” (KJ Gen. 1:21). That’s right, we can either be talking about monsters, or we can be talking specifically about whales (the only named animal species so far). Either way, whale or monstah, it’s created separately from all the other water animals. Perhaps monsters/whales are more complicated than other sea creatures, so the process is a bit different. I wonder how one distinguishes a sea monster from an ordinary sea creature? Is it size? Ugliness? Rarity?
God finishes up by reminding all these birds and sea creatures (fish and sea mammals are apparently created all at once) that they have a responsibility to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:22).
Day 6
The sixth is another busy day. God makes three different kinds of creatures: cattle, “creeping things,” and beasts. What makes the differences between, say, “cattle” and “beast” isn’t really explained, but there you have it. Next, God gets down to the real business at hand…
God makes man “in our image, after our likeness” (1:26). This is one of those totally overused passages that everyone seems to know, but that doesn’t really mean anything. Or, rather, it could potentially mean so many different things that it effectively means nothing. Are we made in God’s physical image? If so, what race is he? Does he have boobs or not? If we’re made in God’s intellectual image, one has to wonder where the idea that “God works in mysterious ways” comes from (the idea that we are too inferior to understand God’s plan). Or are we made in God’s moral image – created good (prior to original sin)? And if the answer is in either of the latter two realms, how can we explain the rest of the events leading up to the Fall?
Another interesting thing about this passage is that God says that he will make man “in our image” (Gen. 1:26, emphasis mine). My study Bible notes that this plural may refer to the beings that compose God’s heavenly court. I’ve read some theories that Judaism may have begun as a polytheistic religion in that they recognized the existence of a multitude of Gods, but that they choose to worship only one (something that wasn’t at all uncommon in the ancient world – many households would have a particular tribal/family god that they would worship, acknowledging the reality of their neighbour’s family god without ever praying to it). So I wonder how legitimate it would be to interpret this “our” to refer not to God and his angels, but to deities in general. God made us in the image of the gods (or, selectively, in the image of anthropomorphic gods rather than those with animal characteristics). In other words, could this passage be a description of God rather than a description of man? “This one is a man-god, as opposed to a bull-god.” Just a thought…
But putting all that aside, God gives humans “dominion” (Gen. 1:26) over all the animals. Because repetition is a classic element of storytelling, we now get all the previously created animal groups listed for us, with one glaring omission. Humans do not get dominion over the sea monsters/whales. So all you whalers and/or Nessy-searchers had better stop it, right!
Once we get through the list of Things Over Which Man Has Dominion, we get to the famous Gen. 1 line: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). Confused? God keeps telling us what he’s going to do and then we get a narration of him doing it. This narration then often is repeated at least once. Blame Hebrew poetic tradition.
In any case, a whole lot of ado has been made about this Gen. 1:27 line, particularly among Christian feminists who claim that this is the True creation story (unlike the patriarchal creation story we get later in Gen. 2). This is the one that God wanted us to have because man and woman are created simultaneously or, as I’ve variously heard it interpreted, were created as a single androgynous being (“him”) that God then separated into a male and a female (“them”).
Next, humans get the same commandment God gives to the rest of the animals: we’re to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” Of course, our first commandment has a little twist: We’re not just to “fill the earth,” but also to “subdue it” (Gen. 1:28).
The next passage is rather interesting in that it seems to suggest a commandment to be vegetarian (and my study Bible does refer to it as “the vegetarian requirement” which is “modified in Noah’s time”). Humans are given “every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food” (Gen. 1:29) (the word “food” is replaced with the word “meat” in the King James, by the way, which is rather funny). I didn’t know that this was going to be in the Bible, but I had heard from Ken Ham types that everything was peaceful and wonderful in Eden, so humans and animals were all vegetarians (which goes a long way to explain the dental structure of animals that have since become carnivorous…). Silly as the claim is, I didn’t realize that it actually had Biblical support!
In any case, humans get all plant/tree that yields fruit (I’m hoping that there weren’t too many poisonous plants in Eden) while the rest of the animals only get green plants. No fruit for you!
This time, God assesses his creation as “very good” (Gen. 1:31)!
And that, finally, brings us to the close of Genesis 1. Hoorah!
Nov 27, 2015 @ 14:56:49
You have mentioned this in places on your blog, but unless I missed it, I don’t know if you realize the extent to which the content of Geneses, Exodus and Leviticus is cut-and-pasted together from multiple sources, so bits of text from different writers are scattered in little pieces all through these books. This explains some of the deep weirdness.
An even deeper weirdness is that in the original Hebrew, the different writers used different names for God, but translators have harmonized them, helping to conceal how fragmented these books are.
Two names used for God are ‘El’ and ‘Elohim,’ which mean ‘god’ and ‘gods.’ The first line of Geneses reads, ‘In the beginning, gods created the heavens and the earth.’
The plural version of the name is used with a singular verb, so it doesn’t actually mean multiple gods. Christian apologists claim this as evidence of the trinity and some see this as a little bit of ancient polytheism leaking through. Elohim God uses an imperial ‘we’ when speaking in the first person (‘let us make man in our own image’), but under other names says ‘I.’
The same word, elohim, is used with a plural verb when speaking of the idolatrous multiple gods worshipped by other peoples.
Another name used is ‘El Shaddai,’ which is usually translated in English as ‘Almighty God.’ Wikipedia has an article about this name; here’s an excerpt:
__________
‘The translation team behind the New Jerusalem Bible (N.J.B.) however, maintains that the meaning is uncertain, and that translating “El Shaddai” as “Almighty God” is inaccurate. The N.J.B. leaves it untranslated as “Shaddai,” and makes footnote suggestions that it should perhaps be understood as “God of the Mountain” from the Akkadian “shadu,” or “God of the open wastes” from the Hebrew “sadeh” and the secondary meaning of the Akkadian word.[10] The translation in the Concordant Old Testament is ‘El Who-Suffices’ (Genesis 17:1) from the Hebrew Al-sh-di, Subjector-Who-Suffices.
__________
In addition, the usual Yahweh/Jehovah name is used, which most people assume is the name used all the way through. Different names are clues to the different times and places that the original fragments were written.
The different writers not only used different names for God, but gave him different characteristics. Sometimes he walks around like a regular guy (in Eden and when dropping by for an evening snack with Abram). Other times he’s more aloof and communicates from burning bushes or visions or dreams or sends messengers.
The cutting and pasting together was sometimes haphazard. For instance, when God gives Noah the initial instruction to build the Ark, the editor simply pastes this section of different versions together, one after the other, so that God tells Noah to bring two of each animal, then two of each but seven of the clean, then two of each again. If you are aware of what’s going on and read critically, you can see how much of not only the Noah story, but the whole narrative of these early books is made of little bits from different sources. It seems like the editor combined them, but since they were sacred texts, made no effort to smooth over the contradictions.
(By the way, if Noah did bring seven pairs of all clean animals, he would have spares to sacrifice when they disembark later. Otherwise, the ones he sacrificed had either been fruitful and multiplied while onboard, or else we don’t have those species anymore.)
Another aside: I’ve always understood the firmament to be a kind of transparent dome over the world, above which is water. Large bodies of water are blue, so the sky is blue because we are looking up through a layer of deep water. When the ‘doors of the heavens’ opened, this upper water could spill out and contribute to Noah’s flood.
Sometimes there are larger chunks of different versions of a story mixed together and often it’s hard to tell which version you’re reading. Sometimes the same bits are crammed together, in other places the repeats appear to be completely different stories — Abraham pimps out his wife twice, his son identically pimps out his own wife. Did this strange scenario really happen three times, or are these just versions of the same story written down at different times, all eventually ending up in the same document?
Notice how many times Abram and the other early wanderers came someplace and built an altar and gave it the same place name, and how often God promises the same thing at different places and times.
In Leviticus, part of the endless repeating of similar rules is because the editor just randomly pasted multiple copies of the same lists together.
Anyway, this cutting and pasting explains a lot of what makes these books so deeply strange.
Dec 04, 2015 @ 14:11:40
Definitely! And the translators’ habit of smoothing out the differences is something I’m finding very frustrating.
I’ve managed to pick up a copy of Friedman’s “The Bible With Sources Revealed”, which I’ve been told can help with this. But, of course, I’m well passed Genesis now and I’m terrified of going back before I’ve made it all the way through (I believe I’m about four years in now, if I start going back, I’ll never finish!). But that’ll be on my reading list once I’m through a first read and can go back for details.
I’ve found it interesting how sometimes the linguistic differences can sometimes come through even in translation. Books like Genesis are too scattered for me to really pick up the patterns, but I believe I mentioned when I started reading Deuteronomy just how different the language feels.
Dec 07, 2015 @ 04:13:31
I am the son of two generations of Lutheran pastors, but have been an atheist since age 12. A huge portion of my life prior to age 18 was spent in stupefying boredom, enduring endless church activities. To me as a child, an eternity spent praising God sounded like anything but heaven.
Anyway, I completely understand what you’re saying about not starting over. I thought I had a pretty good knowledge of the Bible from my youth, but actually trying to read it through nearly half a century later, I find it much more strange and alien and disjointed than I had expected, even thought I was expecting those things. This is the severalist time I’ve attempted to read it all the way through. Each previous time, I eventually got sidetracked reading about the Bible instead of reading the Bible itself, then ended up starting the whole thing over and rereading because of my altered perspective.
Like you’ve mentioned elsewhere, my biggest interest is trying to understand contexts, and like you, I’ve found most available material unhelpful.
This last read-through, I’ve been reading your blog in parallel to my own reading, and I’ve enjoyed your thoughts and analysis and humor. I in no way meant to talk down in my post above, and I’m happy you didn’t take it that way.
I will pick up a copy of Friedman’s book. That sounds like exactly what I’ve been longing for; thank you!
Dec 10, 2015 @ 14:14:08
Oh no! Don’t worry about talking down. I find precise language that doesn’t assume any knowledge base quite helpful in making sure that I understand correctly.
I definitely hear you on getting sidetracked with reading *about* the Bible. My solution so far has been to keep a Word document for every chapter, plus one for every book. That way, I can do both and keep my notes. When I sit down for a blog post, I just open up the relevant chapter and read both the chapter and my notes at the same time. It’s especially great for blog posts, where I might just save them for reading when I’m in the right spot.
I was recommended Friedman, but haven’t actually read it myself. So take my recommendation with a grain of salt!
Anyways, thank you so much for the comments 🙂