Creation according to Genesis

Creation according to Genesis refers to the creation of the heavens and the earth by the Hebrew deity YHWH Elohim as depicted in Genesis, the first book of the Pentateuch (as well as of the Hebrew and Christian Bible). The text spans chapters 1 and 2 of the book of Genesis. There are many English translations, including those from the original Hebrew and from the Latin Vulgate.

The Genesis creation accounts have long been the subject of debate among scholars on several fronts; the most hotly debated issues relate to authorship, textual criticism (specifically, whether there is a single or dual account), and interpretation of the text (particularly in the context of scientific knowledge regarding the age of the Earth and origins of biological species).

Overview

Genesis is part of the canonical scriptures in Christianity and Judaism, and to a lesser degree in Islam, and thus to believers is taken as being of spiritual significance with most treating it as being inspired by God in some manner.

The opening of Genesis tells the biblical story of creation and how it was completed. The first verse of Genesis 1 begins with a description of how God (Hebrew: Elohim) created Heaven and Earth. The text thus begins by establishing a series of dualisms (heaven and earth, light and dark, day and night etc) by which the created order is progressively completed, with God creating or completing by means of the movement of his "spirit" (Hebrew: ruach) moving across the deeps (Hebrew: tehom). Creation is started or completed both by speaking (e.g. "Let there be light") and actively working ("dividing the light from the darkness") over a period of six days.

The text

Note that the chapter and verse divisions in modern Bibles were added in the 13th century C.E. and are absent in the original Hebrew text.

The account opens with the statement: "In the beginning, Elohim (God) created the heavens and the earth." This is taken by some interpreters as a summary statement for what follows, and by others as a description of God's initial creative act. Some translators (eg. NRSV) prefer "In the beginning when Elohim created the heavens and the earth, ..." thus linking the first and second sentences.

תהו ובהו

"Tohu Vavohu" (transliteration) is used in the Hebrew Bible to describe Earth's condition at the point in the creation narrative when everything was "formless" and "void". In most Bibles it is normally translated by an arcane combination of adjectives which translators have attempted to use to capture the flavor of the primeval terrestrial moment which תהו ובהו is describing. This phrase is shrouded in ancient obscurity, and although it has some limited traffic in Modern Hebrew is deemed to be a deep kabbalistic concept.

Prior to the beginning of the Christian era, the ancient Greek Septuagint (LXX) translators of the Hebrew text rendered this term as ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος which is an understanding of Earth's primordial status quo at the moment in time.

"Creation week"

The "creation week" narrative consists of eight divine commands, or fiats, executed over six days; days three and six each contain two commands. This is followed by a seventh day of rest.

• First day: Light is created ("Let there be light.") The source of light is not mentioned; it is described by some as a "primordial light". The light is divided from the darkness, and called "good" by God. The statement in verse 8 that "there was evening and there was morning" is often cited as the reason that the Jewish day starts at sunset.
• Second day: The firmament of Heaven is created. The waters above it are separated from the waters below.
• Third day: Land appears, separated from the waters, and named. The water is also named. Then God lets the earth put forth Grass, herbs and fruit-bearing trees.
• Fourth day: Lights are created in the firmament of Heaven, appearing regularly, aiding time-keeping. Two particularly large lights are made, the lesser one the Moon and the greater one the Sun.
• Fifth day: Air and sea creatures are created, including "great sea-monsters" or "great whales". They are commanded to be fruitful and multiply.
• Sixth day: God lets the earth bring forth Land animals, and God calls them good. Man and woman are created in God's image. They are told to "be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it." Humans and animals are given plants to eat. The totality of creation is described by God as "very good".
• Seventh day: God rested, and blesses the seventh day, and sanctifies it.

Commentators have noted that the number seven has been embedded into the text of Genesis 1:1-2:3 in a number of ways. The word "God" occurs 35 times (7 × 5) and "earth" 21 times (7 × 3). The phrases "and it was so" and "God saw that it was good" occur 7 times each. The first sentence of the account contains 7 Hebrew words, and the second sentence contains 14 words, while the verses about the seventh day (verses 1-3 of the second chapter) contain 35 words in total.^[1]

Toledoth of the heavens and the earth

The phrase "These are the toledoth ('generations') of the heavens and the earth when they were created" lies between the "creation week" account and the account of Eden which follows. Scholars are divided as to whether the toledoth phrase is a summary statement of creation week which closes off that account, or the introduction/heading to the next section. It should be noted that this is the first of ten toledoth phrases which constitute a series of headings in the book of Genesis.

Eden narrative

See also: Garden of Eden

The text continues with what some consider to be a different account of creation. (Others consider it to be an account of the details of Day 6, whereas the previous chapter presents a broader view. [1] [2]) It is often referred to as the "Yahwist" version (see below) because it refers to the deity as YHWH elohim (where the first account simply uses Elohim). This account has man (adam) being created first out of the dust of the ground (adamah), when "no bush of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprung up." A garden is then planted "in Eden, in the east" and God puts the man in the garden to tend it.

We are given a description of four rivers which water the garden: the Pishon, the Gihon, the Hiddekel (Tigris) and the Euphrates. Several locations are mentioned, including Cush and Assyria. Scholars thus generally consider that Eden was located in Mesopotamia, though differences of opinion exist and creationist advocates of a global flood theory contend that due to the total destruction of the antediluvian world it is impossible for Eden to be precisely located.

We are introduced to the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God then decides the man needs a companion and makes the animals and birds, presenting them to him for naming, but none are suitable. Lastly, he creates woman (ishah) from one of the man's (ish) ribs. A statement instituting marriage follows: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."

The story of man's expulsion from Eden then follows, building upon the setting and characters introduced here.

Authorship

The text does not name its author, and a variety of theories have arisen regarding its authorship.

Mosaic authorship hypothesis

According to many of the Hebrew and Christian traditions, the first 5 books of the Bible, or Pentateuch, were written by Moses. John the Evangelist presents Jesus as having accepted Mosaic authorship (John 5:46-47).

It is often accepted that parts of the Pentateuch were added by later authors. Most commonly cited is Deuteronomy 34, which records the death of Moses, and the list of Edomite kings (in Genesis) which includes the kings who lived after Moses had died. Most scholars (whether Jewish or Christian, conservative or liberal) conclude that this shows the claim of total and exclusive Mosaic authorship to be effectively disproven. Traditionalists claim that it was Joshua appended this to Moses' writings. There are, however, a number of other passages that may indicate that Moses wrote texts, which may be part of the Pentateuch as a whole; e.g. Exodus 17:14; 24:4-7; 34:27; Numbers 33:2; Deuteronomy 31:9, and 31:22&24 but no passage explicitly ascribes the book of Genesis to Moses (Benware 1993).

However, traditionalists argue that Moses seems to have all the right criteria to be the author. The books show immense familiarity with the customs, geography, fauna and flora of Egypt, which is consistent with an author who grew up there. But there is a curious naivety about Palestine, which seems inconsistent with being written after Israel was a nation [3].

Several possibilities have been suggested as to how Moses came to write the text:

• he may have received it all by oral traditions, passed down over the centuries from father to son, which he then collected and wrote down, (Morris 1981).
• he may have taken actual written records of the past as part of his education as an Egyptian prince, collected them, and brought them together into a final form. (Douglas 1990). Or as leader of the Israelites, he may have been in possession of written records of the past handed down from the Israelite ancestors, thus providing the possibility of direct witness to the events by the authors.
• he may have been given visions of the great events of the past, which he then put down in his own words. (Morris 1981).
• he may have received it all by direct revelation from God, which Genesis seems to indicate.

Some believe that Moses wrote the Pentateuch by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Others believe that Moses wrote the text, but not under any divine inspiration.

Critics argue that belief in Mosaic authorship is unjustified because the text does not claim to be written by Moses; because large portions of the text were written about events long before Moses lived, or (in a few cases) after he died, were therefore not firsthand knowledge, and must have originated elsewhere (although there is no proof for this); and because stylistic, vocabulary, and structural changes exist in the text indicating multiple authors and redaction.

A computer study was undertaken to determine the authorship of Genesis. The study did not demonstrate that it was produced by a single author (the P source stood out just as much to the computer as it always did to those studying the Bible critically), but it did raise problems for the traditional scholarly distinction between the J and E sources [4].

JEPD authorship hypothesis

Main article: Documentary hypothesis

Modern textual critics posit that the first two chapters of Genesis are a composite of two different literary strands: the "Jehovist" (10th century BC), and the "Priestly" (7th century BC); and that the strands were compiled by an unknown redactor (but often suspected to be Ezra). One such scholar wrote, "The book of Genesis, like the other books of the Hexateuch, was not the production of one author. A definite plan may be traced in the book, but the structure of the work forbids us to consider it as the production of one writer." (Spurell xv). These strands were first identified by their different choice of the name of God.

The postulated sources are:

• Genesis 1:1 to 2:3, which exclusively uses the word Elohim to describe God, is ascribed to the Priestly source, which biblical critics believe to have used only Elohim until the revelation of the Divine name YHWH (Yahweh) to Moses (Exodus 6:3).
• Genesis 2:4 to 2:24, which uses the words Yahweh Elohim to describe God; this is ascribed to the Yahwist, who biblical critics believe used Yahweh exclusively. The combined form Yahweh Elohim, which appears only in Genesis 2 and 3, is thought to be the work of a later editor (known as R, for Redactor), who combined P, J and other texts into a single text, the five-book Torah, in the post-Exilic period.

Textual critics assert that the two passages tell the story of creation in different ways, and that there are inconsistencies between the two accounts. They conclude that the most probable explanation for the two inconsistent accounts is that a redactor combined the two independent creation stories into the final text which we have today. Bible defenders argue that the inconsistencies are apparent rather than real.[5]

The small minority^{[citation needed]} of academics rejecting the methodology of textual criticism, as well as non-academic Creationists, argue that when a biblical text is measured against the scholar's own concept of unity and found wanting, this probably says more about the biblical scholar's sense of unity than about the text's prehistory. (Carr 24).

Many of Julius Wellhausen's assumptions are no longer held today, e.g. that there was no writing at the time Moses was alleged to have written. Also, J. P. Holding has argued that Deuteronomy is written as a suzerain–vassal treaty in the form common from 1400 to 1200 BC, centuries before the time Wellhausen thought it was written.[6].

Single vs. dual account

The single account theory

Some scholars believe that the Genesis account is a report of creation, which is divided into two parts, written from different perspectives: the first part, from 1:1 to 2:3, describes the creation of the Earth from God's perspective; the second part, from 2:4-24, describes the creation of the Garden of Eden from Humanity's perspective. One such scholar wrote, "[T]he strictly complementary nature of the accounts is plain enough: Genesis 1 mentions the creation of man as the last of a series, and without any details, whereas in Genesis 2 man is the center of interest and more specific details are given about him and his setting." (Kitchen 116-117).

The dual account theory

Other scholars, particularly those ascribing to textual criticism and the Documentary hypothesis, believe that the first two chapters of Genesis are two separate accounts of the creation. (They agree that the "first chapter" should include the first three verses of chapter 2.) One such scholar wrote: "The book of Genesis, like the other books of the Hexateuch, was not the production of one author. A definite plan may be traced in the book, but the structure of the work forbids us to consider it as the production of one writer." (Spurell xv). The distinction between the 'two' creation stories is concealed by some translations, such as the New International Version. For some religious writers, such as Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, the existence of two separate creation stories is beyond doubt, and thus needs to be interpreted as having divine importance.

The first chapter is associated with the Priestly source which typically portrays God as transcendental and remote. The very human story of the Garden of Eden with a strong female character is typical of the Jahwist-source.

The dual perspective theory

Other scholars, such as Pamela Tamarkin Reis, assert that the text can be read either as one account or as two accounts from different perspectives, as the text uses a literary device to describe the same events first from the perspective of God, and second from the perspective of Humanity. According to the documentary hypothesis the existence of two creation stories is the result of the merging of two distinct traditions into one unified text. Literary and linguistic analysis by various authors offer a number of theories concerning modifications and editing which produced the text that exists today. Some readers of the Bible deny that two distinct creation stories exist; they have created a detailed set of religious readings which attempt to show that any differences are only apparent, but not actually real.

Specific issues of textual interpretation

Literary intent

• Some understand the passage literally, as meaning that God created the Earth exactly as described.
• Some interpret the passage figuratively, as meaning that God created the Earth and Life by his own power, that he created it Good, that he entrusted it to Humankind; since they see such power in the allegory, they see no reason to necessarily understand the passage literally.

"In the Beginning"

• Some understand the text to refer to the creation of the entire universe, and translate the first verse of Genesis as "In the Beginning." Related to this is the belief in creatio ex nihilo, creation out of nothing.
• Some understand the text to refer to the creation of the entire universe, but suggest that God must have withdrawn some of his own being to make room for the creation. Related to this are various beliefs meant to explain the presence of evil in the world
• Some understand the text to refer to the creation of order in the universe. They point out that In the beginning is not a literal translation of the Hebrew text into English. The Hebrew text lacks the definite article, and many have suggested it should be translated as When God began to create the heaven and the earth. This interpretation implies that there was unordered matter in the universe before God began to order it, and implicitly rejects the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo.

Timescale

• The dual account theory asserts that the first story describes the creation of plants, animals, and humans over a period of many days, the second story describes these things as happening on the same day.
• The single account theory asserts that the first segment of the story describes the creation of plants, animals, and humans over the course of several days, and the second segment picks up where the first leaves off, focusing on the creation of the Garden of Eden, and the creation of domesticable plants, ("plants of the field and herbs of the field");
• Another theory, propounded by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, holds that the word "day" may also be understood to mean "separate period of time," and thus the time-scale for God having organized the earth from existing matter could extend over thousands or even millions of years of "earth time," though by living on another sphere in the universe God's time-scale is at least a thousand years of earth time per one day. (Pearl of Great Price, Abraham 4,5:13)

Use of different words for God

The first section exclusively refers to God as Elohim (often translated God), whereas the second exclusively uses the composite name Yahweh Elohim (the former word is often "translated" Lord or LORD, though it is sometimes rendered as God).

• The single account theory asserts that Hebrew scriptures use different names for God throughout, depending on the characteristics of God which the author wished to emphasize. They argue that across the Hebrew scriptures, the use of Elohim in the first segment suggests "strength," focusing on God as the mighty Creator of the universe, while the use of Yahweh in the second segment suggested moral and spiritual natures of deity, particularly in relationship to the man. (Stone 17).
• The dual account theory asserts that the two segments using different words for God indicates different authorship and two distinct narratives, in accord with the Documentary hypothesis.

Writing style

Though not so obvious in translation, the Hebrew text of the two sections differ both in the type of words used and in stylistic qualities. The first section flows smoothly, whereas the second is more interested in pointing out side details, and does so in a more point of fact style.

• One of the principles of textual criticism is that large differences in the type of words used, and in the stylistic qualities of the text, should be taken as support for the existence of two different authors. Proponents of the two-account hypothesis point to the attempts (e.g. The Book of J by David Rosenburg) to separate the various authors of the Torah claimed by the Documentary Hypothesis into distinct and sometimes contradictory accounts.

• Proponents of the single account argue that style differences need not be indicative of multiple authors, but may simply indicate the purpose of different passages. For example, Kenneth Kitchen, a retired Archaeology Professor of the University of Liverpool, has argued (1966) that stylistic differences are meaningless, and reflect different subject matter. He supports this with the evidence of a biographical inscription of an Egyptian official in 2400 B.C., which reflects at least four different styles, but which is uniformly supposed to possess unity of authorship. Similarly, the different names of God reflect his different attributes.[7]

The likelihood of parallel inconsistent accounts

The single account theory asserts that it is unlikely that the text would have survived for three to four thousand years in such an obviously contradictory state, and that it is therefore much more likely that the two segments are consistent with each other, with the first being general and the second being more specific to the creation of humans and the garden.

However, those who argue that the differences in the accounts are irreconcilable point to several historic factors that would have allowed the contradictory accounts to survive uncorrected. Prior to the modern era, factors that would have made correction difficult included mass illiteracy, hand copying of manuscripts prior to the printing press, early rules preventing translations of the scriptures into common languages, church discouragement and punishment of critical analysis of scripture, and the church's canonization of texts as they were. In early times, there were few incentives or opportunities to criticize or correct scriptural text.

How apparent the differences are depends on the translations. For example, some modern English Bibles translate the two different words for God--Yahweh and Elohim--both as God. Others, however, such as the King James and Revised Standard Versions, translate Elohim as God, and Yahweh as LORD. In addition, some translations (e.g. the New International Version) have rendered the start of the second section as the day when, since the Hebrew beyom ("in the day") is an idiomatic expression for "when". So the NIV regards Ch. 2 as a review of past events--rather than the literalistic on that day, as if it were a first recording of events.

The dual perspective theory

Biblical scholar Pamela Tamarkin Reis (2001) proposes that Genesis 1 and 2 can be seen as either one story from two perspectives or two separate stories. Both are appropriate. She draws the parallel with the ancient story-telling technique of telling the same sequence of events through the eyes of several different people. This method is best known from its use by Kurosawa in the movie Rashomon. One can make sense of that movie either as four different stories or as four people having four different realistic narratives of the same story.

Ms. Reis analyzes Genesis 1 as God's narrative and Genesis 2 as man's narrative. In Genesis 1, the style of narration is very orderly and logical, proceeding from basics like heaven and earth, through plants and animals to man and woman. And everything is "good" or "very good." Ms. Reis suggests that the story-teller has a bit of whimsy in noting how perfect everything is from God's view.

In contrast, in Genesis 2, man tells the story from his own self-centered perspective. Man is created first, and there are a few flaws. For example, Man is alone, without a woman (in contrast to Genesis 1, where the two were created simultaneously). Where Genesis 1 repeats the phrase "heaven and earth" several times, Genesis 2 uses "earth and heaven." Moreover, Genesis 2 contains a notice that "there was no one to till the ground." The implication that the ground must be tilled contrasts with the completeness implied in Genesis 1.

Even the words used in Genesis 1 suggest serenity, the godly plane of existence. For example, in Genesis 1, the word for God is Elohim, the generic and distant God, while God's name in Genesis 2 is the personal and sacred YHWH Elohim, the Lord of Gods. Even the verb of making is different in the two narratives; in the first narrative the verb is the Hebrew "arb" which means "create from nothing," something that only God can do. In contrast, the verb in the second narrative means "make;" God "made earth and heaven." Furthermore, Man and Woman are both formed from pre-existing matter, in contrast to their creation ex nihilo in the first chapter. This brings God's act within the range of human experience. There are also details about where to find gold and lapis lazuli--but only in the second narrative.

Ms. Reis argues that Genesis 1 and 2 make sense either way, just as for Kurosawa's Rashomon. They make sense as two different stories. Or they make sense as two narratives of the same story from different personal perspectives: that of God and that of man.

Summary of interpretations — Genesis 1:1-2:3

The "creation week" story (which spans the whole of the first chapter of Genesis and the first three verses of the second), and its relationship to actual events of history, has been interpreted in various ways.

Literalist

Biblical literalists believe that the seven "days" in the account correspond exactly to actual 24-hour days of history during which God created the world in eight divine acts, or "fiats". (Hence the view is also referred to as "fiat creation".)

1. Let there be light (Gen 1:3)
2. Let there be a firmament... (1:6)
3. Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together... (1:9)
4. Let the earth sprout vegetation... (1:11)
5. Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven... (1:14)
6. Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly... (1:20)
7. Let the earth bring forth living creatures... (1:24)
8. Let us make man in our image... (1:26)

The corollary of such an interpretation is usually young Earth creationism, a view that creation week occurred a mere six to ten thousands years ago.

Alternatively, some literalists prefer to insert a "gap" of time into the creation week story, most typically between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, into which geologic time can be inserted. This is a response to the findings of modern science regarding the age of the Earth, and is known as Gap creationism. Gap creationists believe that the events of creation week constitute the "restitution" of the planet Earth from a pre-existent state of chaos.

Day-Age

See also: Day-age creationism

Another response to scientific findings is the day-age theory. This holds that each "day" (Heb. yom) of creation week represents a long "age" (perhaps millions or even billions of years) of time in which God acted upon creation. Proponents argue that time in the account should be measured in God's terms rather than human terms, and therefore literal 24-hour periods are not in view.

Literary framework

Main article: Framework interpretation (Genesis)

A growing number of theologians and laypeople support the "framework interpretation", which has a precedent in the writings of St. Augustine^[2], and has been further developed by such authors as Meredith G. Kline and Henri Blocher. This perspective argues that the story of Genesis 1 is built upon a literary framework where the sequence of events is topical rather than chronological. It is held that Genesis 1 was written to provide religious instruction concerning the theology of creation, as a polemic against pagan creation myths, and to establish the Sabbath commandment; not as a scientifically or historically accurate record.

Days of proclamation

According to this interpretation, the seven days are in fact "days" in which God "proclaimed" his creative plans in eternity past, prior to fulfilling these plans in history. Alternatively, it might be held that the seven days correspond to seven literal days during which the author of the creation account "proclaimed" God's creative acts to Israel.

Summary of interpretations — Genesis 2:4-3:24

A similar spectrum of views is encountered in relation to the interpretation of the second creation story (which follows on to the story of the Fall of Adam).

Literalist

Many biblical literalists and fundamentalist Christians read the story of Eden and Fall as strictly literal and historical. That is, God literally breathed into the nostrils of a being formed out of dust, turning it into a living man; there was a literal Garden of Eden with a literal Tree of Life; a literal couple (Adam and Eve) ate a literal forbidden fruit at the urging of a literal talking serpent; Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden and barred from re-entering it by a literal flaming sword.

Symbolic history

Other conservative Christians and Jews treat Genesis 2-3 as a record of real events in space-time (i.e. creation and Fall), but consider that the actual details are re-cast as symbols. Thus the forbidden fruit, the serpent, the fig leaves and so forth—possibly even the Garden itself—are actually metaphors for religious or spiritual concepts that underlie the original sin of Adam.

Metaphor or allegory

Some scholars believe that Genesis 2-3 is not a historical account at all, but in fact an allegory describing the creation and sin of each individual human being.

References

Bibliography

• Rouvière, Jean-Marc, (2006), Brèves méditations sur la création du monde L'Harmattan, Paris.
• Anderson, Bernhard W. Creation in the Old Testament (editor) (ISBN 0-8006-1768-1)
• Anderson, Bernhard W. Creation Ver Bernhard W.]] Understanding the Old Testament (ISBN 0-13-948399-3)
• Reis, Pamela Tamarkin (2001). Genesis as Rashomon: The creation as told by God and man. Bible Review 17 (3).
• Kitchen, Kenneth, Ancient Orient and Old Testament, London: Tyndale, 1966, p. 118
• G.J. Spurrell, Notes on the Text of the Book of Genesis, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896.
• Davis, John, Paradise to Prison - Studies in Genesis, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1975, p. 23
• P.N. Benware, "Survey of the Old Testament", Moody Press, Chicago IL, (1993).
• Bloom, Harold and Rosenberg, David The Book of J, Random House, NY, USA 1990.
• Friedman, Richard E. Who Wrote The Bible?, Harper and Row, NY, USA, 1987.
• Stone, Nathan, Names of God, Chicago: Moody Press, 1944, p. 17.
• Nicholson, E. The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen Oxford University Press, 2003.
• Tigay, Jeffrey, Ed. Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, USA 1986
• Wiseman, P. J. Ancient Records and the Structure of Genesis Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, TN, USA 1985
• J.D. Douglas et al, "Old Testament Volume: New Commentary on the Whole Bible," Tyndale, Wheaton, IL, (1990)

Headline text

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See also

• Origin belief
• Allegorical interpretations of Genesis
• Biblical criticism
• Higher criticism
• Textual criticism
• Source criticism
• Documentary hypothesis
• Form criticism
• Redaction criticism
• Rhetorical criticism
• Narrative criticism
• Tradition history
• Psychological Biblical Criticism
• Linguistic Criticism

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