First book in the Bible.
First book in the Torah.
Title
Means “beginning” or “origins” and derives from the Greek translation of the Bible (The Septuagint).
Authorship
We do not know who wrote it.
Believed to be composed around the time period of Moses around the 13th century B.C.
Several stories are very similar to the stories of the nations that surrounded Israel during this time period.
The theology of the biblical stories is quite different than that of Israel’s neighbors.
Content
Genesis is made up of 50 chapters and is divided into two parts.
Primeval narratives/traditions
Chapters 1-11
“Contain narratives about the world out of which Israel’s ancestor Abraham came to follow God’s call.”
“Look back at the universal setting of the birth of the nation Israel.”
Patriarchal narratives/traditions
Chapters 12-50
“The stories of Israel’s great ancestors - the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
Two Creation Accounts
“The first account (1:1 – 2:4a) is a summary description of the creation of the world and everything in it. This account may be called a theocentric account because God and his majestic work of creation is its primary focus.”
“The second account (2:4b-25) is a more specific treatment of the making of man, the animals, the woman, and the divine assignment of work to the man in the garden. It is an anthropocentric account in which the emphasis is on humanity’s nature, destiny, and vocation.”
The Priestly Source (P)?
Evidence:
Emphasis on the Sabbath day of rest
Contains a list and numbers
The Yahwistic Source (J)?
Evidence:
Poetic and highly elegant style
Some other source?
Evidence:
Uniqueness of the story
Difficult to categorize
Creatio ex nihilo
Creatio ex nihilo refers to “creation out of nothing.”
Most of the other ancient near eastern creation myths are about gods who created the universe and the earth out of material that already existed.
Genesis 1 gives the impression that God caused all that exists to exist in the first place.
In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul describes Abraham as one who believed in the God “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Rm. 4:17, NRSV).
The Creator of Heavens and Earth
The focus of the first creation story is on the Creator and what the Creator made.
The book of Genesis opens with the words, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
This establishes the theme of the story – God as creator.
God is creator of both the physical and the spiritual realms.
Light and Darkness
Genesis 1 describes the earth after it has been created as being a chaotic, dark, watery mass without any shape or form.
God’s Spirit enters into this creation to investigate it and decides to begin bringing order to this chaos.
God commands that there be light, and then He separates light from darkness.
Distinction between good and evil.
I dub thee…
God names the light “day” and the darkness “night.”
In other ancient near eastern creation stories, the deities also named their creation.
This shows that the deity not only creates but has authority over the creation.
A creation that has been given a name is a creation with value and purpose.
God is described as examining his own creation to see if it is good or not. He decides that it is good.
Days and Seasons
After this, the text says that “there was evening and there was morning – the first day.”
Evening and morning without the sun, moon and stars?
Literature throughout all of history uses the images of “morning and evening” as symbols of the beginning and the end of a season or time period.
The Waters
The text then says that God created some sort of expanse in order to separate different kinds of waters from each other.
In other words, the physical realm now consists of more than just the waters of chaos. God is bringing further order to his creation.
After separating “water from water,” God again exercises His authority over his creation by naming His creations “sea” and “sky.”
At the end of the day God examines his creation again and decides that what he has made is good.
“Evening and morning” again.
The Creative Creation
On the third day, God separates water from land.
The text indicates that God gives the land the ability to produce life, in this case plant life.
At the end of the third day, God examines His creation again and decides that it is good.
At the end of the first three days, God has gone about separating:
The physical from the spiritual
Good from evil
Various elements of the physical realm
At this point the narrative describes in greater detail the creations within the creations of the first three days.
The first three days of creation correspond to the last three days:
Days within Days?
The creations of the first three days are incomplete without the creations of the last three days.
These different creations were made to exist together.
What does the Hebrew language actually mean by these “days within days”?
The Creation story of Genesis 1 is like a play.
2 acts providing 2 perspectives on same event
3 scenes for each act with different perspectives on same thing
Epilogue: God rests
The Climax of the Play
God creates sun, moon, and stars on day four.
In the text, God says that these heavenly bodies will serve as measurements of time and seasons.
Within the framework of the creation of “light and darkness” is seen the creation of both the physical elements of space, including sun, moon, and stars, but also that which these things signify – time.
On day five, water and sky are filled with fish and birds
The text is building up to the creation of mankind.
Mankind is the pinnacle of God’s physical creation.
God causes living things to grow out of the ground:
First, plant life.
Second, animal life.
Finally, human life.
Humans are God’s final creation.
The text says that God creates humans in “His image and likeness.” What does that mean?
Humans are given authority over creation, just as God has authority over creation.
Humans are given intellect, just as God has intellect.
Humans have the ability to create, just as God creates.
Humans are given a spirit, just as God is Spirit.
Humans have the ability to exist as both body and spirit, which God is also capable of.
Humans are given the ability to distinguish between the physical and the spiritual, like God.
Humans are created to be perfect, just as God is perfect.
While humans share all of these things with God, they are still subject to their creator.
Humans were created to represent God, but they were not created to be God.
Male and Female
Genesis 1 gives equal status to both men and women, saying that they are both made in the image and likeness of God and are made to fulfill the same tasks in the created order.
“So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.”
~~ Genesis 1:27
Epilogue: The Seventh Day
God sits back and admires His creation.
He proclaims it all to be good.
On the seventh day, God rests from creating things.
God charges humanity with the task of being creative.
“God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’”
~~ Genesis 1:28 (NIV)
The seventh day is the day of completion or perfection.
Qualitative vs. Quantitative
“The use of numbers in ancient texts was often used to determine quality rather than quantity.”
“This means that numbers were used because they held some symbolic value to the author.”
“The number seven is often associated with perfection or divine completion.”
The number seven and numbers divisible by seven are all over the place in Genesis 1:
Verse 1:1 consists of seven words
Verse 1:2 consists of fourteen words
2:1-3 has 35 words (5x7)
Elohim is mentioned 35 times
“Heaven/firmament" and "earth" 21 times each
The phrases "and it was so" and "God saw that it was good" occur 7 times each.
Modern science would seem to disagree with an Old Testament understanding of the universe.
What does this mean for us? Should we disregard the creation stories because modern science disagrees with them? Should we disregard modern science because it disagrees with the Bible?
Should we read the Bible as a science text book?
How might the biblical authors have been affected by their own cultural understanding of the universe?
Should we read poetry and exalted prose literally?
What might be some examples of word-pictures in the Creation stories? What are they symbols of?
Theological Reading vs. Scientific Reading
We must first recognize the importance of the Biblical stories of Creation.
The theology of creation does not change.
It is also important to remember that the Bible is not first and foremost a science text book.
The Bible does contain some scientific references, but the Bible writers were writing from a worldview that was limited to their own cultural understanding of the way the world worked.
Poetic Language
The creation stories are told in the literary format of “exalted prose.”
The other passage in the Bible that is most similar to the style and format of Genesis 1 is John 1 - "In the beginning was the Word..." We must read both stories in the same way - through the lens of "exalted prose." When John 1 says, "In the beginning was the Word," we do not ask "Was the Word an adjective or a verb? What's the grammar here?" Likewise, when Genesis 1 says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," we should not ask, "Did he create with evolution or not? What's the science here?" Both sets of questions completely miss the points of the narratives.
These stories are partially historical, but mainly poetic.
Exalted prose in the Bible is never intended to be taken only in the literal since.
When studying exalted prose and the poetic works of the Bible we must always look for the deeper theological meaning of what is being presented.
The Bible often uses word-pictures and imagery to describe things about God and God’s relationship with people.
Reading in Cultural Context
Throughout history, God has chosen to reveal himself to people in different ways.
God has always chosen to meet people where they are.
In the case of Israel, God chose to reveal himself to them in a way that they would understand, in a way that fit in to their understanding of the world.
Israel was a part of the Ancient Near East and they looked at the world as ancient near easterners would.
At the same time, God revealed to them a picture of himself as Creator that was different than other ancient near eastern ways of thinking, as seen when compared to something such as the Enuma Elish.
At the end of the first creation story in Genesis 1, the entire cosmos has been set up to be the residence of God.
This is similar to other ancient near eastern creation myths including the Enuma Elish where at the end of the story a temple is created for the god to dwell in. Genesis 1 portrays the entire cosmos as God’s temple.
In other ancient near eastern creation myths, the creator god reigns over the “lesser deities” or “sons of god” and stands over them as the leader of their assembly in the temple.
Jewish tradition also believes that God reigns over an “assembly” of lesser deities or “sons of God.”
These “sons of God” are also known as “angels” or “servants of God.”
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Sources
Mellish, Dr. Kevin. Lecture on Old Testament, Olivet Nazarene University, 2009.
Walton, Dr. John. The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. IVP Academic, 2009.
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