Download Genesis 1-11 - cloudfront.net

CHAPTER 4
Pentateuch:
Creation, Covenant & the Exodus
Read the Ten Commandments on pg. 7475. What does obedience mean to you?
How is it important in our relationship to
God?
Lord, I know you are with me and love me.
Give me peace of mind as I prepare for this time
of study.
Help me to focus on my books and notes,
keep me from all distractions so that I will make
the best use of this time that is available to me.
Amen
Chapter Objectives:
1. Pentateuch
2. 2 Creation Stories
3. JDEP sources
4. Original Sin
5. Abraham>Isaac>Jacob>Joseph
6. Promise Land>Exodus>Promise Land
7. Ambrahmic, Exodus and Sinai Covenants
8. Sinai
9. Death of Moses
Today’s Objectives:
“Hebrew Bible” or “Old Testament”? Canon.
Structure of Tanakh and Old Testament.
Pentateuch. Sources. Plot. Date of final
publication. Aim.
Genesis 1-11. Genre: Creation-Flood Story.
Nearest parallel: Atrahasis, Akkadian, 1635 B.C.,
1245 lines.
Genesis 1:1-2:3, P account of creation of “heaven
and earth”.
Genesis 2-3, J account of creation of humans.
“Hebrew Bible” or “Old Testament”?

CANON. For OT/HB, 46 books in “Jewish diaspora”/early
church” canon versus 39 in “Jewish Palestinian.” In 4C, Jerome
(“hebraica veritas”) versus Augustine. In 16C, Reformers
distrusted Catholic count and went back to narrow canon,
whereas Council of Trent (1546-63) affirmed wider canon.
Early church resolved canon only in 4C!

Old Testament or Hebrew Bible? (“OT” as a title for the OT
books only given in late 2C; previously “Scriptures” or “Law
and the Prophets.”

Jews prefer acronym TaNaKh, which has 3 parts: Torah;
Nebi’im (= Prophets, “Former” = Joshua-Kings, and “Latter” =
3 major prophets and 12 minor prophets; Ketubim (= Writings,
all other books). Orientation to Torah, regarded as a gift.
Nebi’im illustrate or expound. Three concentric circles.
Christian understanding of Hebrew
Scriptures. Supersessionism
Christian OT inherited 4-part Bible of diaspora Judaism (Pentateuch, Historical
Books, Wisdom Literature, and Prophets (4 major and 12 minor), interpreting
it as a single narrative, i.e., Genesis the beginning , the Historical Books continuing
it, and the Prophets foretelling the Final Age. In Tanakh, prophets “forthtell”
the Torah’s demands, whereas in OT prophets “foretell” the New Age. “Tanakh”
and “OT” thus imply profoundly different understandings of the Bible.
Catholics and many Protestant churches reject “supersessionism,” i.e., Christian
Church as New Israel has replaced and displaced Israel. Pope JPII spoke of “the
covenant never revoked” in Mainz in the 1980s. In 2001, PBC wrote The Jewish
People and their Scripture in the Christian Bible: “Christians can and ought to
admit that the Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one, in continuity with the
Jewish Sacred Scriptures from the Second Temple period, a reading analogous to
the Christian reading which developed in parallel fashion. Both readings are
bound up with the vision of their respective faiths, of which the readings are the
result and expression. Consequently, both are irreducible.” (# 22)”
Pentateuch
Pentateuch: Greek for “five books,” Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy.
Sources: usually four sources: J (after word for God [Yahweh] in its
German spelling Jahweh), E (after the designation Elohim for God); P
(Priestly, archival, liturgical, and narrative material); and D (Deuteronomy).
Dates and mutual relationships are currently debated, the following is
accepted by many: pre-exilic traditions J-E (pre-exilic, pre-6C) and P were
edited and published in the 5th century for an exilic population to explain
the exile and offer hope of return and restoration.
Plot: Creation, fault, flood, new creation, migration of the nations to their
assigned lands (Gen 1-11), call of Abraham’s family and its three
generations (Gen 12-50), enslavement in Egypt and liberation (Exod 1-15),
journey to Sinai, covenant with Yhwh and Torah (Exod 19-Numbers 10),
resumption of journey to Promised Land (Num 10-36), four speeches of
Moses to Israel poised for conquest (Deuteronomy).
Genre of Genesis 1-11: Creation, Flood, New
Creation as a narrative template.






Atrahasis
No humans; lesser gods did menial work for
higher gods.
Lesser gods refuse to serve. Ea, god of
wisdom, CREATES human substitutes from
clay and the blood of the chief rebel god.
After 1200 years, land “bellowed like a bull,”
noise from over-population (FAULT),
provoking angry gods to send an annihilating
FLOOD.
Ea tips off his favorite Atrahasis, who builds a
boat for his family and survives.
Without servants, the gods languish, and
regret their hasty action.
Recognizing they cannot live without their
human servants, they allow Ea and the
mother goddess to NEWLY CREATE a
revised race, this time with populationlimiting features such as celibate women,
childhood diseases, and death, in the sense of
life span. (Previously, even a god might be
killed, but humans were not mortal, i.e., did
not have a life span.






Genesis 1-11
God CREATES “heaven and earth” = our
universe, including human race. Reason not
given.
man and the woman disobey God’s command
not to eat of Tree of Knowledge and are expelled
from Garden of Eden. FAULT. Further instances
of human rebellion (ch. 4; 6:1-13).
God commands Noah to build an ark for his
family and for animal species.
FLOOD (Gen 6:5-8:19).
NEW CREATION God re-affirms to Noah the
original charge of Gen 1 to increase and
multiply. Compare the revision of human
capacities in Atrahasis).
[No real parallels in Atrahasis for Gen 10-11, the
Table of Nations and their migrating to their
assigned territories, and the City with a tower in
it (11:1-9)].
Creation in ANE and Bible



Creation in Bible & ANE versus modern concept:
Process: ancient: model is human making or natural
process; absolutely no sense of evolution (things go
from simple to complex); modern: impersonal
interaction of physical forces over eons and
assumption of evolution.
Product: ancient: human society organized for
service of the gods; modern: physical universe, treats
life only in its most primitive sense; culture and
community do not come into consideration.
Outline of Genesis 1:1-2:3
The Precreation State (1:1-2)
Panel I : Creation of Static Domains
Panel I I : Creation of Their Mobile Occupants
Day 1. 1:3-5
[1] Light/darkness
Day 4. 1:14-19
[5] Luminaries
Day 2. 1:6-8
[2] Water/dome/sea
Day 5. 1:20-23)
[6] Fish and birds
Day 3. 1:9-13
[3] Water/dry ground (vv. 9-10)
[4] Plant life (vv. 11-13)
Day 6. 1:24-31
[7] Land animals (vv 24-25)
[8] Human beings (vv 26-31)
Day 7: God ceases from work 2:1-3
Genesis 2-3 J Account of Creation of The Man
and the Woman





Vestiges of ancient motifs (immortality and wisdom separate gods from humans)
and images, e.g., Gilgamesh, naked hero sees life-enhancing plant stolen by snake
(Gilgamesh, Tablet XI)
Two before and after scenarios.
(1) agricultural: Before the sin, agriculture consisted in tending a vast garden irrigated
by stream from the Deep and branching out in four great rivers to fertilize the earth.
After the sin, couple expelled into a new system–tilling the soil dependent on
uncertain rain. The soil had been there from the beginning, of course, but it was
dormant, for “there was no man to till the soil” (Gen 2:5).
(2) “anthropological: Before the sin, the man and the woman enjoyed full life and
knowledge by being in the presence of the living and wise God. Though not
inherently immortal or pre-eminently wise like heavenly, such “limits” did not
matter as long as they were in God’s garden. God’s prohibition against eating of the
tree of knowledge was meant to warn the couple not to attempt to acquire wisdom
and life from any other source. After the sin, “death” in the sense of a limited life
span was imposed on humans; as soon as a human was born, the clock of mortality
would begin to tick.
Questions: Meaning of garden and its four rivers? Two trees or one, Lord God or
Lord? Why did God forbid them to eat of the tree? Why did the snake speak to the
woman rather than the man? Why did they not die? Was the woman a temptress?
Why were they naked and not ashamed? Why those particular punishments?
Further Reflections on Gen 1 and 2-3, Part 1



Gen 1. Day 6: “Man” as sexed (male and female) and grouped (family,
clan, nation), not a monad. Hence, two defining imperatives, “increase
and multiply” (sexed) and “fill the earth and subdue it” (referring to
groups taking their territory. “Subdue” a proleptic reference to Israel’s
violent taking of land (cf. “subdue” in Josh 18:1). Keep in mind exiles’
questions: “Will we survive as a people?” “Will we ever return to our
land?”
Gen 1:26, 28; 5:1: “image” and “likeness” of heavenly beings/God is royal
language: humans represent God in their ruling over domains of sky,
earth, sea. Heb. radah, “to rule, have dominion”) vv. 26, 28, used of kings.
Church Fathers: in NT, only Paul cites “image” (apart from James 3:9) in
Col 3:10; 2 Cor 3:18, Rom 8:29. In OT, only in WisSol 2:23 and Sir 17:3.
Fathers located “image” in the soul rather than the body. They frequently
distinguished “image” and “likeness,” “image” referring to natural gifts
that cannot be lost, and “likeness” to supernatural gifts lost in Adam and
restored through Christ. For many Fathers, “image” was identified with
reason (logos) or mind (nous). Christian debate especially during
Reformation about how seriously damaged was the “image” and
“likeness” in humans.
Further Reflections on Gen 1 and 2-3, Part 1
•
•
•
For many post-Reformation interpreters, e.g., J. Richard Middleton,
“image” refers to humans’ function rather than their essence.
Humans represent God’s rule on earth in the same way that a
statute or stele represented a king’s rule on earth.
Gen 2-3. Best entry to this complex text: assume two “before and
after” scenarios, agricultural and anthropological, i.e., what God
intended for humans and “how we live now.” Attend to “voice,” i.e.,
who speaks? What does he/she know? The great distinction between
humans and gods was super-knowledge (with the capacity to act) and
eternal life. Were the actors punished or were their fates simply
decreed? Why does the man name his wife twice (2:23 and 3:20)?
Interpretation. Important in Christianity, but not in Judaism, where
the sin of the angels in Gen 6:1-4 played a major role. Paul probably
the first interpreter to focus on Adam (Rom 5 and I Cor 15). Type
and anti-type.
Further Reflections on Gen 1 and 2-3, Part 1
•
•
•
•
•
•
Genealogies. J: 4:17-26; P: 5:1-32; 11:10-26.
Marriage of divine and human beings 6:1-4
The Flood (6:5-9:17). ANE parallels. J and P versions integrated.
Noah and his sons (9:18-28)
Table of Nations and migration (or not) of the nations to their lands
(10:1-11:9)
Introduction of Abraham’s family. 12:1-9. V. 3: “All the families of the
earth will be blessed” or “”all the families of the earth shall bless
themselves by you”?
For HW: Page 77, 1-6
References:
Clifford, R. S.J. (2013). Old Testament Narrative Introduction
[PowerPoint presentation]. Chestnut Hill, MA.