Chris Brady on Genesis 1

Chris Brady has started a series on the creation narratives of the book of Genesis. His first post is here. My, he writes well. In this post, I interact with some of his points.

Genesis 1:1-2 describe realities pre-existent to God’s beginning to create the heavens and the earth, to wit: a formless earth; darkness, and the abyss. Albeit in the background, it is “the spirit of God” (at least, that is how I understand the relevant Hebrew), not the word of God, that initiates a process described in terms that suggest a mother-bird bringing an egg to hatch. The imagery does not scream out at the reader, but I think it’s there. Here is Gen 1:1-3 and a translation:

בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ
וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ
וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵי תְהוֹם
וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל־פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם
וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים יְהִי אוֹר וַיְהִי־אוֹר

When God began to create sky and land,
and the land was welter and waste,
with darkness on the surface of the deep
and the spirit of God hovering over the water’s surface,
God said, “Let there be light!” And there was light.

It’s complicated syntax - like that at the beginning of Enuma Elish, and like that of Gen 2:4b-7. Before EE was discovered, ibn Ezra and other medieval exegetes understood the syntax of Gen 1:1-3 along the above lines.

On this understanding of Genesis 1:1-3, something of the process of divine creation is described. God is, at least implicitly, a faber who works with pre-existing materials. Furthermore, the description of water as pre-existing and not created in 1:2 is the narrative presupposition in 1:6.

The above is not in necessary contradiction with the (later, and theologically correct) claim that God created all that is ex nihilo - from nothing. It is outside the scope of Gen 1 to take up that particular issue. As it is outside the scope of the same passage to say anything about when, how, and why “the sons of Elohim” came into existence.

How scientific is Genesis 1? In comparison to the presentation of Gen 2:4b and following, I think it does have scientific pretensions – by science, of course, I mean the closest thing to it that existed in ancient times. That is, Gen 1:1-2:4a is, over against EE , other rival accounts of the day, and Gen 2:4b-2:24, demythologizing in more than one sense. No time to go into detail, but I will note this: relative to the rival accounts, and the Chaoskampf myth of creation attested in Scripture (a myth meant to express truth of the highest order, I would add), Gen 1 disenchants the cosmos. For that reason alone, it may be described as proto-scientific in outlook.

None of the above if true does away with the points Chris makes. For example, harmonistic exegesis of Gen 1 relative to modern science has clear limits. Furthermore, in Gen 1:1-3 and throughout the account, the emphasis is on fiat as God’s method of creation, just as Chris emphasizes. Even if creation by fiat is not to be construed unilaterally so as to exclude the idea of God as faber who makes things as a craftsman would.  

For more extensive treatments of the subjects at hand, go here and here.

Comments

[Chris]

John, these are some of the nicest comments I have received. Thank you. And the engagement is like cool water on a very hot day. It was your comment on my earlier post that encouraged my to continue this study and I am very grateful for it.

I take all of your points, might quibble with a few (see my comment about myth here, and hope to respond to some others in my future posts. I am still not sure how things like water can be pre-existing and yet Gen 1 be a story of creatio ex nihilio (or perhaps you simply mean that in all of God's work it was ex nihilo?) but your reference to the Spirit is an important reminder.

When I learned how to perform the Eucharist Prayer I was taught to breath gently over the cup and bread as a reminder of the presence of God's ruach in creation. A Christian appropriation to be sure, but interesting nonetheless.

Thanks again for being my inspiration in this study!

[JohnFH]

I look forward to the continuation of your series, Chris.

The teaching of creatio ex nihilo is reconcilable with Gen 1 on the assumption that, before God began to create the cosmos, he created, ex nihilo, a few of the basic components: water, darkness (if that is understood as more than the absence of light), and inchoate matter. The alternative is to deny the truth of creatio ex nihilo since it is not taught in Genesis - that is problematic for other reasons. Or one can read Gen 1:1 as detached from what follows grammatically - and semantically, and derive creatio ex nihilo from it. A subterfuge if you ask me.

[Jeremy]

Good post. Many get so caught up in talking about Genesis 1 as myth that they miss the demythologizing. I remember recognizing this most clearly when listening to a lecture by Gary Rendsburg in which he discusses the circumlocution involved in using the Hebrew equivalents of "greater light" and "lesser light" instead of simply "sun" and "moon" (1.16). His interpretation was that the circumlocutions were used in order to avoid using the Hebrew words for "sun" and "moon" which were also the names of other ANE gods (Canaanite if I remember correctly off the top of my head). Using these names would have potentially given the impression that the celestial bodies were deities.

[JohnFH]

I agree with Rendsburg on 1:16. It's part of a larger disenchantment of nature.

It is worth noting that disenchantment of the natural world has its risks. Once it's done, the natural world is treated as an object, and is more easily abused.

[Karyn]

Oh, I like "welter and waste."

The JPS Illustrated Children's Bible chooses to translate that text as "this world was without rhyme or reason."

Interesting comment about disenchantment leading to an objectified natural world that is more easily abused.

[Jeremy]

John,
Yes, Rendsburg goes into a lot more detail on the disenchantment of nature. And, good point about the potential abuse of nature. You certainly don't want to chop down trees if they are invested with spirits.

In line with Karyn's comment, is "welter and waste" your own rendering? Or, did you draw upon Alter's translation? Or, does he draw on someone else? I'm just wondering if anyone knows where it originated because I like to use it when I talk about the first couple of verses of genesis. I normally reference Alter, but I didn't know if he was drawing on a more widely accepted rendering that attempts to draw out the literary artistry of tohu vabohu.

[JohnFH]

Hi Jeremy,

Analogously, people like to think that war was more savage when it was carried out in a deity's name, after looking at the entrails of a sheep or the flight of a bird. I doubt the interface with ritual and especially the need for the spirit to fall - as in Judges - before taking on the enemy, made war more destructive. On the contrary, it slowed the process down, made it less rational and for that reason less effective.

As I've written elsewhere:

I think Alter proposed “welter and waste.” REB’s “vast waste” has a lot going for it, but if one wants to preserve the hendiadys, perhaps “waste and void.”

When I put this post together, I was searching for my first preference in terms of translation for tohu vavohu, and couldn't find it in my RAM.

So I plugged in "welter and waste," which is not as good as "waste and void" in my eyes, since "welter" is over-specific. But Alter's "welter and waste" is a suggestive translation and nicely equivalent in terms of sound-rhyme.

[Daniel O. McClellan]

David Tsumura offers an interesting interpretation of תהו ובהו in Creation And Destruction: A Reappraisal of the Chaoskampf Theory in the Old Testament. He argues, basically, that the phrase refers not to chaos, but to a desolate wasteland. He finds the cosmogony of Genesis 1 far removed, mythologically, from the Chaoskampf motif. It's an interesting read.

Regarding this disenchantment of nature, it seems to be ignored in a lot of other literature. Heaven and earth (an Ugaritic deity pair), for instance, are called upon as witnesses on several occasions, and in Deut 4:19 the hosts of heaven are explicitly said to be deities set up by YHWH over the several nations (alluding to Deut 32:8-9). Are we dealing with disparate ideological sensitivities, is Genesis 1 later, or is there another reason?

[JohnFH]

That sounds right. The Chaoskampf motif in Gen 1 is conspicuous by its absence.

Theologies of monolatry, henotheism, and monotheism coexisted in the culture of ancient Israel in the late First Temple period and early Second Temple period and in the Diaspora in the same time frame. A dualistic world like that attested at Qumran is later. That much I think we can say with some confidence. The sequence of appearance also seems clear: monolatry, henotheism, monotheism, and dualism.

[Alan Lenzi]

Just a note: you can't "demythologize" a creation story and keep a god in it. That just totally messes up us secular people's intuitive notion of myth. "Disenchantment of nature" is better. BTW, don't forget that instead of crushing the head of the Tanninim (Ps 74:14), Elohim creates them in Gen 1:21. That says a lot about what the author's ideas.

[JohnFH]

I'm not so sure it's that simple, Alan. First of all, is it the case that the suggestion that the phenomenal world is not the product of a mind that imbued it with order, symmetry, and purpose a viable concept in the long run? The jury is still out on that.

It is remarkable how often scientists, even if they make no robust confession of religious faith, are deists or panentheists or the like.

Secondly, secularization, sociologists have shown, has grave limits. Even when it imposed from on high, even when people don't have a clue about whom they might pray to, they still do, by large majorities. I'm referring to studies made in the old DDR.

Yes, it can be claimed that the human propensity to seek order in the cosmos, to address an "other," to imagine that life has a purpose, that things happen for a reason, that there is a moral order to which it is possible to appeal - it can be claimed that all of these are evolutionary adaptations to a hostile environment, premised however on illusions, false consciousness.

I guess that is what you believe.

But I have noticed that many people in the sciences cultivate mysticisms of various kinds. Kindler, gentler gods if you, kind of like talismans, good luck charms. I'm sure someone has studied what I'm alluding to.

I wonder whether a purely amythic view of oneself and the universe is even possible. In fact, as I've pointed out in my philosophy posts (on Verene), that doesn't seem to be the case at all.

[Colin Toffelmire]

Not just "kindler, gentler gods" but also gods that are more broadly culturally acceptable. Gods who, to put it another way, you would not be particularly surprised to see at a PTA meeting or on the elliptical machine at your local gym. In defense of such gods I also know a lot of people who hold to a similar version of Jesus.