The Garden Story Never Happened. The Garden Story Always Happens

Westermann agrees.

“The divine name in Genesis 2-3 is always “yhwh Elohim”; in Genesis 1 it was “Elohim”; from Genesis 4 on (from J, the Yahwist), it is “yhwh.” “yhwh Elohim” (translated “the LORDGod”) as a divine name in Genesis 2-3 is prob- ably meant to form a transition between the two names.” Genesis pg 18

I’ll footnote it!

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Part 2 is out. Constructive criticism appreciated. i wonder if those lists are too long and should just be cut into a paragraph for readability…

Section 2: Scientific Problems and the Creation Accounts
Christianity has a long history of both advancing and fighting science. John Calvin famously wrote:

“We will see some who are so deranged, not only in religion but who in all things reveal their monstrous nature, that they will say that the sun does not move, and that it is the earth which shifts and turns. When we see such minds we must indeed confess that the devil possess them, and that God sets them before us as mirrors, in order to keep us in his fear. So it is with all who argue out of pure malice, and who happily make a show of their imprudence. “[1]

People who thought the earth moved were deemed deranged and possessed by the devil at one time but this isn’t as bad as it seems. Incorrect beliefs can be warranted and the proponents of them like Calvin can be intellectually forgiven. It is customary for pre-scientific people to embrace pre-scientific ideas and it takes time for major paradigm shifts to occur in human thinking. Conventional knowledge at the time would tell Calvin the sun moved and the earth stood still. The Bible is, after all, “unashamedly geocentric.”[2] Sometimes scientific progress is at odds with what has been considered the plain understandings of Scripture for hundreds if not thousands of years. In today’s world it is no longer heliocentric vs geocentric ideology. For most that issue has fully worked itself out but now we have biological evolution lopsidedly battling intelligent design in the limelight. It is true that scientific errors appear scattered throughout the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures . Parts of the Bible refer to the four corners of the earth (Is. 11:12) , think thoughts come from our kidneys (Psalm 16:7), believe there is a solid firmament in the sky (Job 37:18), proclaims as Galileo found out, the earth is immutable and does not move (1 Chron 16:30; Ps 93:1, 96:10, 104:5; Is 45:8), that the earth is flat (Mt 4:8, Dan 4:10-11), stars are small and close enough to the earth they can fall from the sky and land on it (Rev 6:13-16, 8:10; Mt 2:10, 24:29; Dan 8:10). A host of problems are also evident if the details of Genesis 1-2 are taken as literal, factual history. A sampling is presented below and all of these texts could be multiplied several times over. We can certainly quibble over some of these potential conflicts and debate their intended meaning but overall, they make a pretty compelling case that God did not intend to leave us a scientific guide to creation nor did he feel the need to override the incorrect scientific and cosmological background knowledge of the Biblical authors. They, unaware of the Scopes Monkey trial, clearly were not concerned with the same scientific issues as us. By proxy it doesn’t seem God was either when inspiring our Sacred Scripture. Maybe we should pattern ourselves after His likeness!

Some Problems With The First Creation Account:

    1. God creates the heavens and the earth together “in the beginning” but we now know that roughly 9 billion years separates the origin of our universe and the formation of the earth
    1. The earth is incorrectly described as being created before the sun. The earth and sun formed out of the same cloud of dust and gas (solar nebula) and that order should be reversed as the sun proper probably existed before the earth proper fully accreted.
    1. The text describes there being evening and morning without a sun!
    1. Describing the sun and moon as being created at the same time is also incorrect as the moon is thought to be the result of the coalescence of debris caused by the collision of a massive body with the early earth. This means the moon was formed after the earth.
    1. It describes plants and fruit trees existing before the sun and the moon. Obviously sunlight is needed for photosynthesis and the sun must predate plants. Ancient authors would presumably understand the importance of sunlight for growing things which is probably a hint this is not meant to be a historical-scientific narrative. Though many other creation myths also do something similar in having night and day before the sun! [3]
    1. Technically the moon is not a light as it only reflects sunlight but this phenomenological statement which occurs in several parts of the Bible, including the lips of Jesus, is not considered problematic by many. No more than mentioning a “sunrise” is despite us knowing that the sun does not actually rise.
    1. The stars in the sky are created after the earth on day four. We know stars predate the earth and we are literally composed of star dust and our sun is probably a third-generation star.
    1. The earth (in a formless void state) and waters predate the creation of light itself. Light formed shortly (seconds) after the big bang (photon epoch) many billions of years ago. The majority of the elements on earth, including all the oxygen in H2O, formed via nucleosynthesis in now deceased stars over billions of years. Water simply did not exist in the beginning of our universe and it most certainly does not predate light.
    1. The order of creation is off in that marine life started before fruit trees and grasses started on land. Also if the “great sea monsters” represent whales, we now know they are relatively recent on the evolutionary ladder appearing roughly 50 million years ago–after the non-avian dinosaurs were extinct. Life, both plant and animal, probably existed in the ocean for a very long time before on land.
    1. The account mentions a firmament in the sky separating the waters above and below probably representing incorrect ancient cosmology. Robert Alter says “The Hebrew raki’a suggests a hammered-out slab . . .”.[4] There are no waters above in space or solid firmament preventing space travel, much to the chagrin of conspiracy theorists who think the lunar landings were staged. The stars, our sun and moon are not held in the sky by any solid “dome” that God lives above. The account itself starts with God hovering over these waters, probably not what we would perceive as a global ocean today.
    1. The earth is much older than a literalistic interpretation of Genesis suggests (see radiometric dating, transit time for light, the fossil record and geologic column, etc.).

Some Problems With The Second Creation Account

    1. The first man is created, apparently as mature human being out of dust from the ground. Humans are actually part of a long product of evolution that started billions of years before them.
    1. Humans were also not around before land animals and the first woman was not created after both land animals and the first man nor was she created out of the first man’s rib!
    1. I also get the impression Genesis 2 incorrectly suggests the first human was created before it ever had rained!

Divine Accommodation
There is no realistic way to harmonize a literalistic interpretation of Genesis 1-2 or some other portions of the Bible with some of the most basic findings of modern science.[5] Physics, geology, astronomy and biology all stand at odds with a literal Genesis. From this, for one who subscribes to Biblical inspiration, it is only natural to conclude God accommodated his message through time-conditioned revelation. Some think this makes God out to be a liar but interacting with people on their level in their own culture, with ideas they can understand seems the most effective method of communication to me. God has to condescend himself no matter how he communicates with us sinful human beings. Much more needs to be said on accommodation but for those who label this lying, I wonder if Jesus was equally a liar or being deceptive when he used phenomenological language in conjunction with the conventional knowledge of the time in stating the sun rises in Matthew 5:45 or thinking that stars could fall from the sky (Mt 24:29)? Only a village atheist would find fault with Jesus for not saying, “God causes the earth to rotate and therefore, the sun appears to rise on the just and unjust.” Correct cosmology in this case is superfluous to the point Jesus is making and it doesn’t matter for Genesis either which doesn’t attempt to resolve whether or not we evolved or the first human was spontaneously created mature from the dust in the ground. That is a modern issue the authors of Genesis knew nothing about living in a pre-scientific culture. They knew next to nothing about the distance past and there were no witnesses aviailable. What is emphatically stated in the first two chapters of Genesis is that God is our creator, he is all-powerful with no rivals, humans are made in his image, man and woman are meant to join together and we are stewards of the earth. Science is left to ponder the question of how exactly we were created by God.

The true beauty of the creation accounts are diminished if we strip them from their ancient contexts and impose modern questions upon them they never intended to address. As Derek Kidner wrote in his commentary on Genesis, “The main point of Genesis 1 is about God. It is no accident that God is the subject of the first sentence of the Bible, for this word dominates the whole chapter and catches the eye at every point of the page: it is used some thirty-five times in as many verses of the story. The passage, indeed the Book, is about him first of all; to read it with any other primary interest (which is all too possible) is to misread it.”[6] The Bible is not at all interested in the specifics of how God created the earth and the universe. The Bible is interested in teaching us correct theology about God amidst a polytheistic sea of rival suitors. It dumps them all on their heads and this is why the charge of lying is inapplicable. Bill T. Arnold captured the profound meaning of Genesis 1:1-3 in his commentary:

“We fail to appreciate the profundity of vv. 1–3 for two primary reasons, among several others. First, it is exceedingly familiar to those of us in the West, who still benefit from the long years of Judeo–Christian education and influence. Second, we have overemphasized the similarities between Gen 1 and the other ancient cosmogonies without fully appreciating the differences. This text soars above them in such a way as to deny implicitly any possibility of the theologies expressed in the Egyptian or Mesopotamian accounts. If we consider it an ideological polemic, we must admit it is not specifically so and only indirectly. It contains no theomachy, or cosmic conflict among the gods, or victory enthronement motif. Both are excluded by “in the beginning when God created . . . ”! Israel’s God has no rivals. There can be no struggle with forces opposed to his actions or corresponding to his power. There can be no victory enthronement motif because God’s victory was never in doubt; rather, God has never not been enthroned. There can be no enthronement portrait here because God has not become sovereign; he has simply never been less than sovereign.”[7]

Amen.

[1] —John Calvin, “Sermon on 1 Corinthians 10:19-24”, Calvini Opera Selecta, Corpus Refomatorum, Vol 49, 677, trans. by Robert White in “ Calvin and Copernicus: the Problem Reconsidered “, Calvin Theological Journal 15 (1980), p233-243, at 236-237:

[2] To use Derek Kidner’s phrasing in regards to the fourth day in Genesis an Introduction and Commentary .

[3] Hugh Ross suggested that if we understand the Genesis account as being written from the perspective of an earthbound observer (through visions), then the sun and stars could have been created long before the earth but only appeared later on day or epoch four when the atmosphere went from opaque to transparent at some point in the earth’s long history. This has several difficulties, one being what a straight-forward translation of the text actually states, another is that it assumes a very narrow context and finally it does not resolve the majority of the problems in the text. This pattern is also evident in other ancient near eastern creation accounts. Ross accepts the antiquity of the earth but denies the overwhelming evidence for evolution. So what can initially appear to be an ingenious solution is actually bad, backpedaling eisegesis invented to circumvent clear errors in the text when the literary genre of Genesis is misidentified.

[4] Robert Alter, Genesis: Translation and Commentary.

[5] See above and also the following for a more complete listing of verses on creation that I shamelessly poached from McKnight and Venema’s Adam and the Human Genome : Job 38–41; Pss. 19; 74:13–16; 136; Prov. 8; Isa. 40–45; Jer. 10:12–16; 27:5)

[6] Derek Kidner, Genesis an Introduction and Commentary .

[7] Bill Arnal, Genesis New Cambridge Commentary , pg 32

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I consistently denounce all ideas of a genealogical Adam & Eve, because I repudiate the idea that our humanity is a matter of genetics. Is that what you mean by “hangup in regards to a genealogical Adam”… that I repudiate it? Does that mean you are an advocate of this???

Or… is it that you automatically equate any idea of an historical Adam with a genealogical Adam and thus your distaste for the latter makes you opposed to the former?

seems the truth is that you are VERY confused about what I believe…

Touché. I forgot, you just think God had interactions with a person named Adam (who existed alongside many other humans) some x thousands years ago. That makes your statement about the Garden story being true even more of a stretch.

Vinnie

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Just because one believes King Arthur, Robin Hood, and Santa Clause are historical doesn’t mean you think the Walt Disney productions are accurate accounts. Some of the issues with Garden story is a matter of the allegory and symbolism used in the story and some of it is a matter of interpretation. For example… when it says Genesis 2:7 then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being, I certainly do not understand this as necromancy of adding magical life to an inanimate object. But rather, God formed Adam of the stuff of the earth according to the laws of nature and then gave the divine breath (inspiration) which brought his mind to life. And to be a father and mother does not always mean genealogical descent.

This thread is relevant to this particular point:

Yes but it makes little sense call the Walt Disney production historical or say “The Garden story happened” when slightly more of it could be historical as compared to a Disney fairy tale.

I think of the other ancient creation myths having people come for the clay/dust in the ground from the ancient near east and all the clear overlaps in the Biblical accounts with other myths. I don’t think these authors or cultures who possess erroneous background knowledge by the standards of modern science somehow knew about evolution thousands of years before it was a thing

We have farmers and people living off the ground where things grow. A text without a context is a pretext and I prefer to take these stories in their historical context rather than impose modern meanings on them the authors couldn’t have possibly known or cared about. I see your interpretation as an anachronism. It is the textbook definition of eisegesis.

Vinnie

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You yourself stated “Calvin endorses a stationary earth.” I am not arguing Calvin was an anti-science YEC. Quite the opposite. I am not interested in apologizing or vilifying Calvin. Both postures are fruitless to me. Calvin was unashamedly Biblical and the Bible is unashamedly geocentric. There is no need for apologetical whitewashing. Links between Calvin and geocentrism are clearly evident in the extant literature and it fits the time period and issues of the day. The earth is immutable and does not move as the Bible says to Calvin. This does not mean he would not be open to science and change. He nonetheless compares belief with thinking the earth moves with thinking black is white, hot is cold, etc. He clearly did not think too fondly of the idea.

Vinnie

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As the earlier post said, he was quoting Cicero, and hence that does not necessitate a vehement disagreement, as opposed to the typical period “interesting idea, and it works well for doing calculations, but it doesn’t make sense for the earth to move”.

John Calvin, “Sermon on 1 Corinthians 10:19-24”, Calvini Opera Selecta, Corpus Refomatorum, Vol 49, 677, trans. by Robert White in “ Calvin and Copernicus: the Problem Reconsidered “, Calvin Theological Journal 15 (1980), p233-243, at 236-237: [The Christian is not to compromise so as to obscure the distinction between good and evil, and is to avoid the errors of] those dreamers who have a spirit of bitterness and contradiction, who reprove everything and prevent the order of nature. We will see some who are so deranged, not only in religion but who in all things reveal their monstrous nature, that they will say that the sun does not move, and that it is the earth which shifts and turns. When we see such minds we must indeed confess that the devil posses them, and that God sets them before us as mirrors, in order to keep us in his fear. So it is with all who argue out of pure malice, and who happily make a show of their imprudence. When they are told: “That is hot,” they will reply: “No, it is plainly cold.” When they are shown an object that is black, they will say that it is white, or vice versa. Just like the man who said that snow is black; for although it is perceived and known by all to be white, yet he clearly wished to contradict the fact. And so it is that they are madmen who would try to change the natural order, and even to dazzle eyes and benumb their senses.

Can you highlight what exactly you are claiming is a quote of Cicero and explain how it changes anything? Calvin’s thoughts here are very clear to me.

Here is Calvin on Psalm 93:

The Psalmist proves that God will not neglect or abandon the world, from the fact that he created it. A simple survey of the world should of itself suffice to attest a Divine Providence. The heavens revolve daily, and, immense as is their fabric, and inconceivable the rapidity of their revolutions, we experience no concussion — no disturbance in the harmony of their motion. The sun, though varying its course every diurnal revolution, returns annually to the same point. The planets, in all their wanderings, maintain their respective positions. How could the earth hang suspended in the air were it not upheld by God’s hand? By what means could it maintain itself unmoved, while the heavens above are in constant rapid motion, did not its Divine Maker fix and establish it?

The immutability of the earth and motion of the cosmos attests to Divine providence per Calvin! You can call him pre-Copernican instead of anti-Copernican. Same difference to me. The idea the earth moved, which was relevant issue at the time is deemed absurdity by Calvin. His commentary on genesis offers Geocentrism as well. I don’t see any way around that or the plain sense of his words.I hope all this is more than just needlessly embarrassed reformed theologians wanting to whitewash Calvin’s statement.

Vinnie

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Section 3: Seven Potential Indications the Creation Accounts are Figurative
[1] If we must take the days of creation as completely literal what are we then to make of Exod. 31:16–17: “ 16 Therefore the Israelites shall keep the sabbath, observing the sabbath throughout their generations, as a perpetual covenant. 17 It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed .” Does god really need to rest? Must we literally believe that our omnipotent creator grew tired after creating things? Miller and Soden write:

“The verb “refreshed” is used three times in the Scriptures, including Exodus 23:12 (“Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed”) and 2 Samuel 16:14 (“And the king, and all the people who were with him, arrived weary at the Jordan. And there he refreshed himself”). The latter verse makes it clear that it is weariness that requires refreshment. But was God literally weary? Had he become spent during the week of creation? No, but he was describing his figurative workweek in a way that corresponded with human experience, so that mankind would also rest even as God had “rested.” God is drawing an analogy here rather than an equation. If we do not understand God’s “rest” and “refreshment” to be the same as man’s, should we expect God’s “days” to be the same?”[1]

The framing of the creation week appears theological as it partly establishes the reasoning for the Sabbath. Caution is warranted by this in how literally we take some of the details of creation.

[2] There is a literary structure to the first creation story. On day 1 light is separated from darkness and on day four the sun and moon are created. On day two the water above is separated from the water below and day five naturally brings two things corresponding to that, fish and birds. On day three dry land appears and on day six land creatures are created. The chart shown here (fig 2.) is from Miller and Soden who point out this has little to do with scientific chronology, “Rather, the structure makes the point that both order and substance in the world originate with the purpose and plan of God.“[2] Arnold writes:

image

“These verses on the creation of “light” ( ìoˆr ) are not a deeply philosophical treatise on the nature of physics, on which some interpreters rave about light as the first-fruits of creation, the sublimest element, and the finest of all elementary powers. Instead, this author intends to describe creation in a six-day pattern, moving inexorably to an all-important seventh. For this reason, the creation of light is first and fundamental to the rest, because it makes possible the first separations and divisions of creation; that is, light from darkness, day from night, and therefore the alternating sequence of days. What God has created in vv. 3–5 is time , which is more important than space for this chapter.41 Only through this orderly progression through the six days will God now bring order to the cosmos, and this prepares for the importance of the seventh day (2:1–3), which is paramount for this author.”[3]

There is a theological order to the first creation story. We know God alone ordered the world and this is meant to explain its observed regularity (e.g., repeating patters such as seasons, sunrise, etc.).

[3] Genesis lists there being morning and evening three whole days before the sun is created. Would evening and morning not have been understood as relating to sunrise and sunset by ancient authors? I suppose other explanations for this could exist but furthermore, plants and trees come before the sun is created. Surely this order is not meant to be chronologically accurate from a modern scientific perspective?

[4] The two accounts in Genesis are mutually exclusive in some details if taken literally in a modernistic sense. One describes a creative week and the other the day in which things were made. One describes what appears to be the simultaneous creation of men and women while the other has a gap between the first man and woman. In the first creation account humans are created last, after the animals as the climax of God’s creative week before He rests. In the second one, Adam is created before the animals and Eve is created after them. Karen Armstrong writes: “By giving us two contradictory accounts of the creation, the biblical editors were indicating that both J and P were writing fiction. They offered timeless truths that could not be rendered obsolete by new cosmological discoveries. If P wanted to show us how to regard the universe in relation to the divine, J was more interested in humanity. He turned the spotlight from God in his heaven to adam in the garden. Above all he was concerned with the distance that seemed to separate God from humanity. How could human beings, who were sustained by the divine breath, feel that God was so remote?”[4]

[5] God’s behavior is comically naïve and perplexing if the account is not figurative when it comes to finding Adam a mate or companion. Armstrong writes, “When God had finished creating the animal kingdom, he paraded them all before Adam. . . . God’s purpose was . . . to find a mate for Adam from among “all cattle,” “the birds of the air,” and “every animal of the field” (2:20). It is a comic picture. Like an eager matchmaker, God presented the inexperienced Adam with one animal after another. Bison? Elephant? Kangaroo? We are not surprised to hear that at the end of the day, “for the man there was not found a helper as his partner” (2:20). How could God have imagined for one moment that Adam would find a mate in this way? The God who appeared to be so omnipotent and omniscient in Chapter 1 was now unable to fathom the desires and needs of his creature.”[5] Likewise, even moving forward in Genesis we see a talking snake, a magical tree granting eternal life and humans who do not know good and evil and the shame of nakedness, yet they are nonetheless given a command they are somehow expected to obey. In Genesis 1 we are created in the imago dei , in Genesis 3 we may have become more like God and the heavenly host only by sinning and disobeying God. Anthropomorphically, in the second creation account, God asks where Adam is, what he had done and is concerned he might eat of the tree of life and live forever. Many of these themes are common in ancient near east mythology and admittedly, talking snakes and a magical fruit tree granting eternal life resemble fiction.

[6] It is possible the seventh day might not have an ended in the first creation narrative as there is no “and there was evening and there was morning” to be found. If this day is not a literal 24 hour period then the rest of the days are not required to be so either. Miller and Soden write, “It is this concept of God’s unending rest that informs Jesus’ argument with some hostile Jews when he had miraculously healed on the Sabbath in violation of their tradition. Jesus said, “My Father is working until now, and I am working” (John 5:17). The point is that while God’s Sabbath never ended, he still continued to uphold the world and especially to do good: if the Father worked on his Sabbath, the Son could work on the Sabbath. Hebrews 3 and 4 refer to that unending rest in its eschatological significance: “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest” (Heb. 4:9–11).”[6]

[7] Finally, a knowledge of surrounding ancient near east mythology will show that the Bible is heavily dependent upon it and it presents a radically different and superior version of God. The parallels between the Biblical accounts and other religious mythologies are extensive and cast doubt on understanding the purpose of Genesis 1-2 as literal history. In fact, the primary points the two creation narratives make are entirely independent of whether not the text is a literal description of the cosmos and history. To be clear, let me affirm without equivocation that Genesis is part of our Sacred Scripture and it teaches whatever truth God intended it to. In that capacity it is absolutely true and accurate. When we laser in from that zoomed out perspective, the question of what it is teaching becomes a bit more complicated and some of it really comes down to individual hermeneutics, models of inspiration and possibly even Christology. Any answer to this question will be highly nuanced. For some, if history didn’t happen and the world wasn’t created exactly as a modern-literalistic interpretation of Genesis would require, the entire Bible including the Gospel is compromised. For others , since the original context and purpose of Genesis 1-2 was not to address modern concerns, we are imposing the wrong questions on Scripture when holding it up to the light of modern science. Genesis serves as a statement teaching God’s superiority and lack of rivals, amongst other things. It is absolutely true and cuts through a jungle of polytheistic tape that ensnared our ancestors. Granted what I see as the intended purpose of Genesis, I have no qualms with affirming it as true. Since its details are not meant to be accurate and precise scientific statements by modern standards, I will not judge its accuracy and merit by that standard. If you tell me a joke, I will not judge its comedic value based on its historical reliability. I won’t ask you, “Who walked into the bar? What bar? Did bars actually exist at the time? Why were they there?” Walton writes:

“In class, when I make a cultural allusion, its significance is lost if the class is not familiar with the movie, song or video game to which I am alluding. The line becomes a source of confusion to them because they are unaware of the connection I am referencing. Likewise, if Genesis is making allusions to the literary world of the ancient Near East (as observable in literature such as the Gilgamesh Epic ) and we as readers have no knowledge of that literary world, we will miss the significance of the allusion.”[7]

Walton also brilliantly uses the analogy of the Hubble Space telescope and Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting.[8]One should no more try to do astronomy with the painting than one should seek scientific understandings of the universe from Genesis. Getting the genre and historical context of Genesis correct is crucial to interpreting it accurately. Once we situate Genesis in its proper context, the issue of “Did it happen like this?” becomes meaningless. Admittedly, we have restricted the reasoning in our seven indicators mainly to the Hebrew Scriptures. A valid question to ask is, “Does the New Testament presuppose and/or necessitate historical creation accounts and a literal garden story?” We will turn to that very important issue in section six but for now we will look at what can astonishingly be considered a third type of creation narrative found sprinkled in scripture.

[1] Johnny V. Miller and John M. Soden, In the beginning We Misunderstood .

[2] Johnny V. Miller and John M. Soden, In the beginning We Misunderstood

[3] Bill Arnold, Genesis New Cambridge Commentary , pg 39.

[4] Karen Armstrong, In the Beginning

[5] Armstrong, ibid.

[6] Johnny V. Miller and John M. Soden, In the beginning We Misunderstood

[7] John Walton with NT Wright, The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate , pg 111.

[8] He also speaks of not using the Star Spangled Banner to reconstruct the bombing of Fort McHenry!

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The way figurative language is used and treated is the true art, since its relevant application enhances the intended message, brings more complicated meaning in a relatively brief manner, and/or can add clarity or vivid imaginings in writing. Figurative language may use words beyond their original literal meanings while engaging the audience, often by provoking an emotional response to create a more intense and focused message. This device enhances the author’s creativity for proper development and would require critical thinking from readers’ side and an appreciation of the cultural context for proper perception. Thus, figures of speech are widely used in poetry, in a variety of texts, and expressions that we come across in everyday life.

With these remarks in mind, I would imagine that a deeper understanding of Genesis discussed in this interesting discussion would require something few of us can bring, and that is the context, cultural/linguistic and theological understanding of the Hebrews. The latter point makes me question the emphasis often placed on accounts from pagan cultures of the time.

While I am hesitant at making scholastic comments on the text and work discussed here, I nonetheless am somewhat astonished that Genesis still brings a theological message with clarity and interest, even when we know it was written thousand of years ago – I suggest that with the extraordinary language used, we would also consider the impact of divine inspiration.

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I wouldn’t be trying to dig deep and understand Genesis if it was not my Sacred Scripture. I am not an expert in Hebrew (not even an amateur!) nor the Old Testament. I like to read and research and dig deep into scripture.

If it’s truly inspired by God, this pursuit is worthwhile. It is the opening of our Bible. Literally how it begins! My original goal was to make as concise a statement as I could for discussing Genesis and helping lead others with the same questions I have to good resources. I know the pain of literalism all too well. It’s scars are certainly still visible on my psyche.

This has been a blessing because I feel that even though I read the creation accounts tons of times and pretty much know all their details, I never really knew them until recently. “Did it happen like this” obfuscates everything. And please don’t be hesitant to critique my work! It’s expected and appreciated in the search for God’s truth in scripture!

Vinnie

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What I was trying to say was that it appeared to me to be critiquing the contrary attitude, rather than heliocentrism as a scientific proposition. The set of examples are proverbially ridiculous, and are in Cicero, as a well-known source at the time. It does not seem to be “whitewashing”, but noting that “heliocentrism is evil” is not the broader point he was trying to convey.

Calvin was an accommodationist at times. A footnote from section 2:

“[1] John Calvin would apparently agree, “The Holy Spirit had no intention to teach astronomy; and, in proposing instruction meant to be common to the simplest and most uneducated persons, he made use by Moses and the other Prophets of popular language, that non might shelter himself under the pretext of obscurity, as we will see men sometimes very readily pretend an incapacity to understand, when anything deep or recondite is submitted to their notice. Accordingly, as Saturn though bigger than the moon is not so to the eye owing to its greater distance, the Holy Spirit would rather speak childishly than unintelligibly to the humble and unlearned.” Calvin on Pslam 136"

Calvin probably could have been able to come around to heliocentric models based on this if there was enough time and evidence for him. But at the time, he does list thinking the earth moved and not the sun as one of these “contrary attitudes.” I don’t know how else to interpret this sentence: “We will see some who are so deranged, not only in religion but who in all things reveal their monstrous nature, that they will say that the sun does not move, and that it is the earth which shifts and turns.” Geocentrism is background knowledge to him. Heliocentrism was the equivalent of how we perceive a flat earth today. But in no sense am I trying to equate Calvin with someone anti-science. I do agree that Calvin is pre-astronomy, not anti-astronomy. My point was that historically the church has sometimes resisted scientific change that appears at odds with a literalistic interpretation of scripture. Calvin was not an anti-science modern literalist. That comparison is not valid. Luther on the other hand… :blush:

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I share your amazement. I think the meaning of that message holding up through the ages is testament to both God’s inspiration, and our commonality with humanity through the ages. Whether historical or not becomes a moot point.

Changed the name of section 4 as in writing I was taken in two directions.

Section 4: The Presence and Absence of Conflict Mythology in the Bible
Aside from there being two different creation narratives in early Genesis by different authors, ancient Israelites had other mythological views about creation that found their way into the Bible. Before jumping into that it might be instructive to summarize some of the conflict myths in the ancient near east and to see how their absence from Genesis 1-2, meaning what the Bible is not telling us, might be one the most important things it teaches us.

The Enuma Elish is an ancient creation epic that attempted to establish Marduk as the chief Babylonian god. Before any other gods were formed, the primordial waters Apsu (sweet sea) and Tiamat (salt sea) comingled together. They create the younger gods but war develops with them and Apsu is slain. The younger gods fear the older goddess Tiamat and they choose eventually Marduk to battle her. He defeats and kills Tiamat who is personified with the sea. After the battle she is split into two and he makes the sky with her and other parts of creation with different body parts. Subsequently, the creation of humans occurs from the blood of Tiamat’s champion and consort Qingu. This Babylonian work was popular enough to be poached by an Assyrian editor that changed the details to honor the God Ashur in place of Marduk.

We also have Anzu , which Ballentine writes , “ relates Ninurta’s victory over Anzu, a bird-like composite figure who stole the Tablet of Destinies ( šīmātu ) from Enlil. After several other deities refuse to challenge Anzu, Ninurta is chosen to fight him. As a reward for his victory the gods grant him kingship. This story survives in two versions, an Old Babylonian version (ca. 1850–1500 BCe) and a Standard Babylonian ver- sion (ca. 1500–600 BCe).”[1] A listing of mythical foes Ninurtia has defeated appear in his exploits (dragon, mermaid, Gypsum et al).

The Ugaritic Ba’lu Cycle features the Canaanite god Ba’al Hadad being repeatedly challenged by other characters and succeeding over and against them. In the first part he overcomes Yam, the Canaanite god of the sea, and his grand plan to become the most powerful of all. Eventually he gains dominion but after he dies a successor must be chosen and something interesting happens. Ballentine writes:

“ʾIlu tells ʾAṯiratu to choose one of her sons for ʾIlu to make king ( KTU 1.6 I 43–46). She chooses Yd ʿ -ylḥn , but ʾIlu objects that he is too weak to match Baʿlu’s physical capabilities ( KTU 1.6 I 50–52). ʾAṯiratu then chooses ʿAṯtaru, who ascends to Baʿlu’s throne, but, “His feet do not reach the footstool, his head does not reach its top.” ʿAṯtaru admits that he can- not be king on Mount Ṣapanu, so he descends from Baʿlu’s throne, but still reigns over the earth ( KTU 1.6 I 53–65). These alternative kings pale in comparison to Baʿlu and are unable to serve as adequate substitutes. This emphasizes Baʿlu’s “rightful” position as king. Thematically, the feature of characterizing a series of alternative kings as inadequate when compared to Baʿlu is parallel to the series of divine warriors who are inadequate in comparison to Ninurta or Marduk ( Anzu SB I 89–157; EE III, 111–112). By emphasizing the relative lack among even the best of potential alterna- tives, the narrative asserts that Baʿlu’s kingship is legitimate.”[2]

Clearly none of this is historical or actually happened as written and I doubt it ever was originally intended to be taken as such. The narrative is clearly giving primacy to Baal as the greatest king and elevating him over other gods. That is the point here. One should not be judging the merit of this story based on the fact-literal accuracy of its statements anymore, to use the analogy of the last section, than we should use van Gogh’s Starry Night painting to do astronomy. Creation mythology had specific goals and purposes in the Ancient Near East and this generally preclude modern questions of historicity. This was about the primacy of Baal amidst a heavenly pantheon that consisted of companions and competitors. Genesis has similar concerns but dumps everything on its head. This context is what makes the two creation stories in Genesis so remarkable. They aren’t just another elaborate case of “my god is better than your god.” While there could be a hint or nod to it in Gen 1:2, the conflict topos is entirely missing from Genesis 1-2. Within this context the strikin monotheism in Genesis 1-2 stands out. In Karen Armstrong’s words, Genesis offers us:

“ . . . the omnipotent, transcendent, and benevolent God of classical theism. The world that he created has pattern and meaning. It is also hierarchically arranged, with God at the apex of the pyramid and human beings as his deputies on earth . . . Yet many of P’s first readers would have found the first chapter of Genesis rather a shock. In the ancient Near East, this vision of the creation was radically new. God appears in the very first sentence without any introduction. P uses the formal divine title “Elohim,” a term that sums up everything that the divine can mean for humanity. In a world where there were many deities, a reader would be likely to ask, “Which god are we talking about?” or “What is Elohim?” Most of the Near Eastern deities had parents and complex biographies that distinguished them from one another, but P introduces his Elohim without telling us anything about his origins or past history in primordial time. The pagan world found the timeless world of the gods a source of inspiration and spirituality. Not so P, who ignores God’s prior existence. As far as he is concerned, his God’s first significant act is to create the universe. Again, the very notion of a wholly omnipotent deity was a new departure. All gods in the Near East had to contend with other divine rivals. None had a monopoly of power.”

It seems that Genesis 1 (and to a good extent 2) is about establishing God’s primacy and promoting blossoming monotheistic beliefs. There are no rivals, no prior lineage, there is a monopoly on power and only one true God. Unlike in the Atrahasis Epic, God doesn’t need a discussion amongst peers or the approval of anyone to create human beings. We weren’t created after he proved himself against Tiamat in some cosmic struggle and gained the renown of other gods. There is no conflict here because the author is plainly telling us God cannot gain what he never lacked. For Genesis 1 He is the C reator who merely speaks his word and his will comes to pass. The absence of conflict mythology, what is not written on thepage, screams at us and its worth requoting a snippet from Bill Arnold’s commentary on Genesis now that we have perused some of the conflict mythologies in antiquity:

“It contains no theomachy, or cosmic conflict among the gods, or victory enthronement motif. Both are excluded by “in the beginning when God created . . . ”! Israel’s God has no rivals. There can be no struggle with forces opposed to his actions or corresponding to his power. There can be no victory enthronement motif because God’s victory was never in doubt; rather, God has never not been enthroned. There can be no enthronement portrait here because God has not become sovereign; he has simply never been less than sovereign.”[3]

McKnight and Venema describe Genesis similarly , “Most notable perhaps about the Bible’s presentation is that the God of Genesis is not like the gods of the Mesopotamian accounts. In fact, the God of the Bible is the one and only God, as stated in Deuteronomy 6:4–9, which will become the Jewish creed, the Shema. There are many gods in the Mesopotamian stories: Marduk, Tiamat, Enlil, and others. The Bible’s own most important parallel to Genesis 1 is Isaiah 40–48, because what is implicit in Genesis is explicit in Isaiah: the God of Israel is all-powerful, while the gods of the pagans, especially the Babylonians, are powerless and, not to put too fine a point on it, nonexistent. Genesis 1, then, is a claim that “our God is the one and only true God.” . . . There is a notable difference not only regarding God but also regarding creation itself. The gods go back and forth and get in tangles with one another while working the earth. Those deities are irritable, worn down by working, in need of help—and not entirely able to resolve their own problem without permission from the higher-up gods, who seem at the same time to be at odds with themselves. No one seems to be totally in control. The God of Genesis 1–2 is different: this God, like Michelangelo’s creator God with the all-powerful, creative finger, controls the whole lot. God creates by a word deriving from God’s own sovereign choice. The fundamental event of Genesis 1 is God saying, “Let there be,” and there is. The waters may be primal chaos, but the waters are easily and simply subdued by God’s own command. The swirl of the tohu va-bohu , translated “formless and empty,” is untangled into orchestrated order, function, and purpose. This God is transcendent and exceedingly powerful, exalted above creation and responsible for all of creation; this God, then, is not part of the created order but outside and over the created order. All of the gods of the ancient Near East are eliminated in the theology of Genesis 1, and one supreme God, YHWH, is left standing.”[4]

Conflict Mythology in the Bible
While largely absent in the creation stories, there is conflict mythology scattered throughout the Bible. Or at least elements of it used to exalt God. Psalm 74 reflects genuine despair and suffering, praise for God through listing many of his mighty primordial deeds such as establishing the sun and moon and concludes with a very real and coaxing request for help. It assumes ancient near-eastern mythology as background knowledge and it utilizes this material ultimately to elevate and flatter God. Several of the mighty deeds are listed in Ps. 74:12-14 which reads: “You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters . You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.” This passage along with Isaiah 27:1, 51:9-10, Job 9:8, 26:12 and a host of other passages, refers to struggle or conflict models of creation where God demonstrates his sovereignty and superiority over the sea monsters and all creation. Unlike in other ancient mytholohy, the struggled aspect is missing in the Biblical versions.

Job 9:8 tells us God alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea (or trampled the back of the sea dragon). In a footnote Fishbane says, ““In iv. 129, it is stated that Marduk strode over the back of Ti’amat (ikbusma… isidsa). This phrase recalls the image in Job 9: 8, in which YHWH, the creator, is described as dorekh fal bamatei yam, as having ‘trod upon the back of Yam’ (understanding bamatei in the light of Ugaritic bmt, ‘back’). The mythic background of the image is further assured from v. 13, which states that ‘God does not restrain His fury, the warriors ('ozrel) of Rahab sink beneath Him’ (understanding 'ozrei in the light of Ugaritic gzr, ‘warrior’.”[5]

Job 26:10-13 reads, “He has described a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness. 11 The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astounded at his rebuke. 12 By his power he stilled the Sea; by his understanding he struck down Rahab. 13 By his wind the heavens were made fair; his hand pierced the fleeing serpent.” Regarding verses 12-13 the New Jerome Biblical Commentary says, “The divine creativity is portrayed in images derived from Ugaritic mythology: the battle with Yam(“Sea”), paralleled here with Rahab, the mythological monster. The serpent (Isa 27:1) is described bariah (fleeing, or primeval, or perhaps evil) and is another symbol of chaos.”

In Job 40:15-24, God admonishes Job to look at the behemoth, whom only its maker can approach with a sword. The NJBC thinks this creature is a hippopotamus as the description fits but of note is that it is identified as the first of the great acts of God (see also Prov 8:22). In Job 41 God turns to the splendor of the leviathan. Here the NJBC thinks a sea monster and mystical dragon is probably meant. God asks Job if he can make a pet of him? The answer is obviously no. Batto has a slightly different take on the Behemoth and Leviathan:

“In the ancient Near East there were two primary, equally powerful symbols of chaos. One was the primeval flood or ocean, frequently portrayed as a dragonlike monster; the other was the barren desert, sometimes portrayed as a dreadful land beast. Life—at least human life—was impossible under either of these conditions; hence the utility of the sea and the desert as symbols of nonexistence, or chaos.

The author of Job understood and utilized these symbols well. As part of his literary ploy to emphasize the Creator’s awesome transcendence vis-a-vis a mere human, the author of Job 40:15-41:34 has Yahweh challenge Job to play the role of creator, if he can, by subduing Behemoth and Leviathan, the traditional twin chaos monsters representing the dry wasteland and the unformed ocean, respectively. Since Job obviously cannot subdue the chaos monsters, Job has no right to challenge the Creator about the way he runs this world.”[6]

If this interpretation is correct, or at least the second half referring to the leviathan, it is important to note that in Job these are just creatures God has created. In the surrounding literature, these are rival gods and competitors. Marduk had to battle Tiamat but to Yahweh the leviathan (sea monster) is but a pet or a plaything. Another aspect of His good creation.

Micheal Fishbane writes, “The many-headed creatures of the deep (the tanninim and Leviathan) suggest some beastly aspect—comparable to the seven-headed sea dragon pictured on a third-millennium seal impression from Akkad. A similar image occurs in a Canaanite myth depicting BacaPs victory over the sea god Yam, which refers to the smashing of Lotan (a dialectal variant of the Hebrew name livyatan, Leviathan) and the defeat of a monster with seven heads. What is more, in this same text the serpent Lotan is described as both ‘slant’ and ‘twisted’ (brh and 'qltri) —apostrophes exactly like those used of Leviathan in Isa. 27:1 (who is called both bariah and 'aqalaton); and the verb that is used to describe the smashing (tmhs) of Lotan is identical to that used in Job 26: 12 (mahatz) when it depicts the defeat of the sea monster Rahab. Such battle scenes also recall the account of the lord Marduk’s battle against Ti’amat in Babylonian mythology, where we learn that 'He smashed (her) skull with his merciless staff ( ina mittisu la padi ulatti muhha ; Enuma elish iv. I3o).”[7]

Debra Scoggins Ballentine writes, “Passages from the Ugaritic Baʿlu Cycle , the fragmentary Ugaritic text KTU 1.83, and many books of the Hebrew Bible include epitomes of a battle between a warrior deity and a series of defeated enemies. Baʿlu, ʿAnatu, and Yahweh are each attributed victory over the sea, a multi-headed serpentine figure, and/or draconic figures. As discussed in the previous chapter, Ninurta defeats a similar list of foes, and the gods Marduk and Aššur each defeat the sea deity Tiamat, along with her army of serpentine, draconic, and composite figures.”[8]

Fishbane notes, “All these cross-references and shared depictions suggest that ancient Israel drew upon a bundle of mythic traditions that circulated throughout the Syro-Palestinian region, and used them in order to depict battles against sea dragons—albeit for its own purposes and in its own ways.”

It does not seem to me that the Biblical narratives are trying to teach us God actually and literally slew a sea dragon. This type of material is clearly being used as an accolade or praise for God in the Bible. Unlike the others who are said to have battled ferocious sea gods, they are, to use a modern analogy, but a goldfish in a bowl to Yahweh. Kidner, in his commentary on Genesis writes of 1:22 where God is said to have created the sea monsters,

“The sea monsters ( tannînîm ) (RV, RSV; whales , AV) are specially noteworthy, since to the Canaanites this was an ominous word, standing for the powers of chaos confronting Baal in the beginning. Here they are just magnificent creatures (like Leviathan in Ps. 104:26; Job 41), enjoying God’s blessing with the rest (22). Although in some scriptures these names will symbolize God’s enemies (e.g. Isa. 27:1), taunted in the very terms in which Baal exults over them, no doubt is left by this chapter that the most fearsome of creatures were from God’s good hand. There may be rebels in his kingdom, but no rivals. To the Canaanites, however, Baal’s adversaries were gods like himself, or demons to be propitiated; and to the Babylonians the chaos-monster Tiamat pre-existed the gods.”[9]

Kidner also had an interesting take on the Bible and history as a whole:

We have in the Bible some of the most beautiful poetry: pious, lyrical and erotic, and also some of the angriest. We have narratives of epic proportions, aetiologies and folktales that are at times stunningly profound and evocative, romances and adventure stories, some of them are ideologically tendentious or moralistic. There is patent racism and sexism, and some of the world’s earliest condemnations of each. One of the things the Bible almost never is, however, is intentionally historical: that is an interest of ours that it rarely shares. Here and there, the Bible uses data gleaned from ancient texts or records. It often refers to great figures and events of the past . . . at least as they are known to popular tradition. But it cites such ‘historical facts’ only where they may serve as grist for one of its various literary mills. The Bible knows nothing or nearly nothing of most of the great, transforming events of Palestine’s history. Of historical causes, it knows only one: Palestine’s ancient deity Yahweh. It knows nearly nothing of the great droughts that changed the course of Palestine’s world for centuries, and it is equally ignorant of the region’s great historical battles at Megiddo, Kadesh and Lachish. The Bible tells us nothing directly of four hundred years of Egyptian presence. Nor can it take on the role of teaching us anything about the wasteful competition for the Jezreel in the early Iron Age, or about the forced sedentarization of nomads along Palestine’s southern flank. . . . The reason for this is simple. The Bible’s language is not an historical language. It is a language of high literature, of story, of sermon and of song. It is a tool of philosophy and moral instruction. To argue that the Bible has it wrong is like alleging that Herman Melville has got his whale wrong! Literarily, one might quibble about whether Jonah has it right with his big fish, but not because the story could or could not have happened. On the story’s own terms, the rescue of Jonah is but a journeyman’s device as far as plot resolutions go. But no false note is sounded in Jonah’s fig tree, in Yahweh’s speech from the whirlwind in the Book of Job, or in Isaiah 40’s song of comfort.”

Genesis 1-2 and clearly, many other parts of the Hebrew Scriptures are, as we would expect, steeped in the mythology and background knowledge of their day. They are not interested in the same modern questions that we are and most of what we see is not meant to be fact-literal history. As a further example, in Job 41, God asks Job about the Leviathan, “were not even the gods overwhelmed at the sight of it?” Are we to take this as an indication that not only the Leviathan but also these other ancient-near eastern gods are real? This is, after all, a question straight from God’s mouth per the narrative. Or is the essential point of the story to show God’s superiority over everything around Him using the background mythology of the day? In lieu of this we should exercise tremendous caution in how literal we demand Genesis and parts of the Bible to be. If we want to get God’s word right, we have to understand it in context and know what genre of literature we are reading.

Extension to Jesus
With all of this mythology involving primordial waters and the conflict with sea gods and dragons, one might think Jesus’ stilling of the storm and walking on water (taming the sea?) would have conjured up a lot more imagery to some ancient audiences than it does to modern ones largely oblivious to these potential cultural references.

[1] Debra Scoggins Ballentine, The Conflict Myth and the Biblical Tradition , pg 23.

[2] Debra Scoggins Ballentine, The Conflict Myth and the Biblical Tradition , pg 55.

[3] Bill Arnal, Genesis New Cambridge Commentary , pg 32

[4] Scott Mcknignt and Dennis Venema, Adam and the Human Genome

[5] Michael Fishbane, Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking, pg 40;

[6] Bernard Batto, Slaying the Dragon: Mythmaking in the Biblical Tradition , pg 47-48

[7] Michael Fishbane, Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking, p. 39-40.”

[8] Debra Scoggins Ballentine, The Conflict Myth and The Biblical Tradition , p 75.

[9] Derek Kidner, Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary , vv 1:21-22.

Section 5: Creation and Flood Parallels with Ancient Near Eastern Mythology

All throughout the ANE (ancient near east) we find creation mythology with direct parallels to that found in the Hebrew Scriptures. For many scholars, some of this literature predates the Hebrew scriptures by thousands of years. We will see some very significant overlaps of the first Genesis creation story with Egyptian mythology below. We will also look at the Gilgamesh epic and compare it to the garden story and see how Atrahasis is similar to both the garden and flood stories. The Canaanites had their own mythology as well, as reflected in the Ugaritic Ba’lu Cycle. That story features the Canaanite god Ba’al Hadad being repeatedly challenged by other characters and succeeding over and against them. In the first part he overcomes Yam, the Canaanite god of the sea, who sought to become the most powerful of all. Eventually he gains dominion and even after he dies his successors are not as kingly as he is. Then we have t he Enuma Elish , which as we have seen, is an attempt at establishing Marduk as the chief Babylonian god. It features his battle and defeat of Tiamat (the sea) and subsequent creation of humans and our world out of the slain, divine carcass. It goes back further in story than any other creation myths in the region to a time before even the hierarchal ranks of the gods are established. As we saw, Genesis cuts right through all of this in short order.

Atrahasis: is an epic written in Akkadian, the language of Babylon. An old version survives on clay tablets usually assigned to the 1600s B.C. but this ancient story likely predates this time period. The first tablet describes the Sumerian gods of sky (Anu), earth (Enlil) and water (Enki). Enlil has lesser divine beings (dingirs) till the earth and build its water systems. Eventually they rebel, after digging up the beds for the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, refusing to do strenuous labor. Rather than punish them, Enki suggests humans are created to do such work. Mami the mother goddess is assigned the task and through a combination of clay, the spit of other gods and the flesh and blood of a voluntarily slain god, seven pairs of male and female humans are born. The second tablet features Enlil sending famine and drought at regular intervals to deal with overpopulation and the noisy humans. Eventually he decides to destroy these annoying humans with a flood. Tablet three depicts Enki warning Atrahasis, the hero of the story, to dismantle his house and build a multi-tiered boat of specific dimensions sealed with pitch. He is told to include two of each animals on board. He boards with his family and animals and the storm and flood, which lasted for seven days, was so severe even the gods were afraid. After the flood ends Atrahasis offers sacrifices to the gods. Enlil was of course upset that some humans survived but a bargain was struck. In order to control the population, women will now be barren, demons will cause miscarriages and steal babies and some women will remain lifelong virgins, consecrated to the gods. Atrahasis lives in paradise apart from these newly created humans.

The parallels to Genesis along with significant differences are obvious especially when it comes to the flood account and Noah’s ark. Here one God (Enki) preserves life against the wishes of another (Enlil). In Genesis, we have one principle God who creates everything and has sovereign control over it. Atrahasis features a fully heavenly host and hierarchy of divine beings pertinent to creation. In Genesis 1, God creates humans in his own image, he wants us to be fruitful and multiply, and shares his creation with us and gives us dominion over the earth. In Atrahasis the creation of humans is result of a rebellious divine soap opera and accomplished through a recipe involving spit, flesh and blood of a slain god and clay. We are meant to be slaves or perform strenuous labor for the gods, at least one of which who engages in regular population control—which has the exact opposite effect of filling the earth. It is my contention that early Genesis should be understood as a Jewish-theological retelling of older myths using ancient literary topos.

The Epic of Gilgamesh: older than Atrahasis but some think it’s flood account is thought to have been added later and possibly borrowed from its version. At any rate, tablet eleven features Utnapishtim (as opposed to Atrahasis or Noah) as the principal character. Gilgamesh is seeking eternal life and Utnapishtim explains how he was granted it. He was warned by Enki to build a boat of specific dimensions and seal it with pitch and bitumen (very similar to the Genesis version). His family, all the animals of the field and his craftsmen were taken on board. After 6 days and nights the storm ended and all humans turned into clay. His boat, like the Biblical version, lodges on a mountain and he releases a dove, swallow and raven. When the raven fails to return he opens the ark and releases its inhabitants. He offers sacrifices to the gods who are pleased by the aroma (as does Noah who’s roasting animal flesh was a pleasing to the Lord). Ishtar vows never to forget this time. The parallels to Genesis are extensive and don’t stop there. The story of Gilgamesh begins in tablet one with the people crying out about his oppression of them. As a solution, Enkidu was made from the dust/clay in the ground as a rival. He lives with the animals in the wild but a women is put in his path. She seduces him and after a lot of sex he loses his animal strength and gains the ability to reason (becomes like one of us?). Like Adam motivated by Eve’s voice to eat, Enkidu listens to Shamhat and eats bread which he did not know. After his encounter with Shamhat the animals are no longer comfortable with him. Upon leaving his prior residence, he first covers his nakedness. What is more is that much later, Gilgamesh has his plant which he hopes to bring him eternal life, stolen by a serpent as he bathed. There are, of course, tremendous differences between the two accounts but the common themes they share are scarcely coincidental.[i]

The Sumerian version of the Gilgamesh Epic has a similar flood story but features Ziusudra as opposed to Noah (Genesis), Atrahasis (Atrahasis) or Utnapishtim (Gilgamesh). The Egyptians had a story in, The Book of the Heavenly Cow , which features Ra sending the goddess Hathor to slaughter humans which had rebelled against him. He repented of his decision and basically intoxicated Hathor with beer dyed red to look like blood. She woke up and was now a loving goddess and friend of humanity. Flood or destruction of humanity stories were very common in ancient near east and several versions of many of these stories are evident as they evolved over time. For many scholars the seams and details creating friction within the story itself indicate the Genesis flood account was multiple stories about Noah put together. Of course, it is difficult to date most ancient works, or the first edition of them nor can we understand their full compositional histories but the flood story in the Hebrew Scriptures appear to be much later than the other one.[ii]

In the Instruction of Merikare , there are many parallels to the first creation account in Genesis 1:-2:3. John Walton cites a snippet of it from Miriam Lichtheim’s translation:

Well tended is mankind—god’s cattle,
He made sky and earth for their sake,
He subdues the water monster,
He made breath for their noses to live.
They are his images, who came from his body, He shines in the sky for their sake;
He made for them plants and cattle, Fowl and fish to feed them. . . .
He makes daylight for their sake, He sails by to see them.
He has built his shrine around them, When they weep he hears.

Humans have the breath of life, are made in his image and seem to be the goal or the climax of creation as other things were made for them. Walton writes, “This is the best-known and oldest example of human beings in general being described as in the image of god.”[iii] Arnold writes, “t he deity subdued chaos (or “the water monster”), created heaven and earth for the sake of humanity, breathed life into their nostrils, created them according to his likeness (“images” from his body), and finally, that he created for them plants and animals, fish and fowl for food.”

One the next several pages there will be charts from various scholars outlining the overlap of Genesis 1-3 and 6-9 with other ancient mythology. I took my own stab at creating the first chart for Genesis 1:1-2:3 as I wanted to list the source texts for each detail. Over time, I hope to build this to become a more extensive and comprehensive showcase of the breadth of ancient literary parallels to early Genesis, many of which appear to predate the Hebrew creation stories themselves. It is in this cultural context that we should seek to understand our own creation mythologies.

My Own Listing Based on My Readings

Chart below transcribed from John Sodem and John Miller, “In the Beginning. . . We Misunderstood: Interpreting Genesis 1 in its original Context.

The Garden Story: Genesis 2-3. John Walton offered the following “summary observations about humanity” as a chart describing contact points between the garden story and Enkidu in the Gilgamesh Epic. [viii]

Later in the story Gilgamesh secures an herb that would either grant him eternal life or restore his youth – his last chance at immortality and it is stolen by a serpent. Gilgamesh at last comes to his senses and reaches a reconciliation with his mortality. After the flood Uta-napishti is taken and sent to the mouth of the rivers which is an Eden like setting.[ix]

We have already witnessed how Genesis 1:1-2:3 turns ancient cosmogonies on their heads and we appear to have the same feature happening in Genesis 2:4-25. It is of note that whereas Enkidu is a companion to animals, none are suitable for Adam. Adam and Even were removed from the Garden for disobeying God whereas Enkidu appears to be settled in a garden like place after the flood. Sex is what “civilizes” Enkidu but in the Bible sex or marriages brings people back to their primordial whole. Unlike Shamhat, Eve was not just a mere plot device used to relocate Adam from inside Eden to outside of it. She was meant to be a co-laborer with him, sharing a sacred space and joined as one flesh. Walton writes, Again, Genesis turns the discussion upside down. Genesis is thus using common literary motifs to convey the truths about humanity that are the familiar topics of the conversation in the ancient world. They are operating in the same room of discourse, but Genesis has rearranged all the furniture. “ Ancient readers and listeners to this story would naturally get all of these cultural references we would not if we were unaware of the epic of Gilgamesh. Genesis is far more interested in the theological dumping of ancient myths on their head and establishing the primacy of the Jewish God than it is giving us a factual and precise scientific overview of how said Deity created the first two humans and the world.

Here is a list of Garden Story and Flood Account Parallels to the Atrahasis account in Genesis 6-9. The extant form of this list is from Peter Enns and it modified that found in Frank Batto’s Slaying the Dragon (pp 51-52). This version is more condensed and it is not worth me reinventing the wheel. What is of special note is Batto’s take on the Garden story overall where he rejects the typical interpretation: “The thesis I am expounding here stands, of course, in direct opposition to the opinion commonly encountered in commentaries on this passage, namely, that the garden was a place of sublime happiness for “our first parents” prior to their “fall.”“[x]

Most aspects of the primeval history in Genesis find many parallels with literature from the ANE.

[i] Now many conservative exegetes might be quick to posit a solution where the Biblical view gets creation right and all of these other stories are developments and perversions of the correct version. If you assume God has authored Genesis and it is infallible in all literal details then this solution is a natural corollary to take (or be force fit into!). The problem with this is from everything we have seen, the creation accounts have no real interest in modern science/history. They are theological statements about God and per the evidence that we do have, the Biblical stories appear later than some of these other stories. It is best simply to treat the Genesis creation accounts in their ancient context, rather than impose upon them ours.

[ii] Bernard Frank Batto, Slaying the Dragon, p. 40, “In Slaying the Dragon, wrote, “In each case, the authors of the three Babylonian epic myths, Gilgamesh, Atrahasis, and Enuma elish, were shown to have been highly creative thinkers who transformed their societies’ religio-politico-literary traditions into universal statements about reality, such that they became paradigmatic for all suc­ceeding generations of that society. The story and intention may have been different in each case, yet all three employed a sim­ilar method. Each of these authors consciously and deliberately adapted prior mythic stories and motifs, and created new ones as well, as they crafted their own new literary compositions.”

[iii] Walton, Genesis as Ancient Cosmogony

[iv] Bill Arnold, Genessis (New Cambridge), p. 39: “God’s method of creation – divine fiat , or spoken word – is known elsewhere in the ancient world. The Babylonian lord of creation, Marduk, proves his worth as divine king by means of a star, which is created at his command and disappears at his command. Similarly in the Memphite theology of Egypt, the god Ptah creates by means of his heart and tongue, which is to say, by the word of his mouth. Like a king issuing a decree, the creative orders are given and fulfilled. In this case, however, there is no one else there to receive the command and carry out the order. This is truly a creative command unlike others, because the very speech of God brings something into existence that did not have independent, previous existence. It is also interesting that this is the only time in Gen 1 that creation occurs by fiat alone. Elsewhere in the chapter God speaks and then takes action to “make” or otherwise bring about the feature of creation.

[v] This and the Coffin text information were attained from John Walton’s, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology” pp. 168-169. He also notes on p 169, ”In contrast to Egyptian literature, it is typically claimed that Mesopotamian cosmologies do not evidence creation by the spoken word. This assessment, however, is colored by what is understood as “creation.” If creation was viewed in terms of functional ontology, it would not entail deity calling material objects into existence by the spoken word but would refer to establishing and assigning functions by fiat. And if we grant this definition, Mesopotamian literature is replete with creation by the spoken word, in that the decreeing of the destinies is always accomplished in this way.”

[vi] Genesis is seen as a cessation of creation. These temple are places to worship theses deities and Genesis invites us at the end to join in God’s rest just as the people join the gods in their temples. The function is the same.

[vii] Naming and existence were often equated in the ANE. The names give an object its function Arnold pg 40

[viii] John Walton in the Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human origins Debate, p. 111

[ix] Walton, Lost World, pg 114 “Not only is Adam “taken” as Uta-napishti is (Gen 2:15); he is also situated at the source of the rivers (Gen 2:10). In Gilgamesh, Uta- napishti is “settled”22 there, whereas the word used for the placement of Adam is even more significant, since it is the causative form of the verb “to rest” ( nwḥ ). In God’s presence, Adam finds rest—an important allusion to what characterizes sacred space. Both Adam and Uta- napishti are placed in sacred space, where they have access to life.”

[x] Frank Batto, Slaying the Dragon, pg 52

Good work, Vinnie. Don’t you hate it when someone (like me) looks past the topic-at-hand and begins answering and questioning facts not in evidence? So first, to my ignorance: Are your submissions here to assume that creation did occur, leaving aside the obvious metaphorical, allegorical, and/or hyperbolic assumptions of many? If so, then I would only submit that the sequences from Genesis, no matter how much we choose to alter them, cannot be used even as a base-platform to explain what we know today. They are so far from our factual database that they MUST be considered irrelevant (at least to me). For example:

The 3 great domains of life are bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes (all plants and animals). Since eukaryotes came last (~2.1 Bya), finding commonalities of the first two are key to our origins. The DNA database now has >6,000,000 genes of bacteria and archaea. Genes that do the same thing in two different species are considered to come from a common ancestor. By that process, the 6M genes have been reduced to 355 meeting the criteria for a LUCA. These point to an environment of deep-sea vents for our beginnings. Scientists today are almost unanimous in that belief.

The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) is NOT the first life on earth, but rather the latest life that is ancestral to all current existing life. In fact, LUCA used alphabets of 20 amino acids and 4 nucleotides with which to construct itself. So what preceded that? So LUCA comes long after a lot has already happened. That would be where we re-think Genesis and the two stories.

Before pondering that, let’s think about the origin of life. On Earth today, all life comes from preexisting life. No scientist has yet been able to create a living cell from organic molecules. Defining ‘life’ is more difficult than one could imagine, but is usually reduced to the necessity to carry out 3 functions: metabolism, self-repair, and replication. To do this, any hypothesis must account for three processes: 1) The ability to reproduce and replicate hereditary information, 2) the enclosure in membranes to form cells and 3) the use of energy to accomplish growth and reproduction. The paradoxes are numerous, considering that for life to have gotten started, there must have been a genetic molecule capable of passing along blueprints for making proteins. But cells can’t copy DNA/RNA without the help of proteins themselves. Furthermore, none of these molecules can do their jobs without fatty lipids necessary for the cell wall membranes to hold contents inside. And even still, protein-based enzymes encoded by genetic molecules are needed to synthesize lipids.

Origin of Life (OoL) research was originally dominated by chemistry, searching for organic molecules required for life that could be generated by the elements present on early Earth. There are many organizations actively exploring the possibilities. Stephen Freeland (here from an essay) leads the Gordon Research Conference for origins. (He is admittedly a Christian, but he is desperately searching for answers that avoid the necessity for a God). So what about organic molecules from the earliest elements? Experiments, many awarded Nobel Prizes, have found that. But the challenge is not the production of organic molecules, but how to account for the small subset of those—the ones actually used by life— to find each other and organize to work together among the countless combinations…and to accomplish the 3 things necessary at the same time.

The next level of complexity necessary for life creates problems. Amino acids must link up to work together in a soup of chaotic combinations. First you must have the aa’s necessary, then the specific order of aa’s to form a protein. Look at the alphabet of 27 characters including a space. To string together a sentence of 66 characters, such as…“the sequence of letters I am typing gives meaning to this sentence”… offers 27^66 power ways to make the sentence. That is the same as 2.95 x 10^95. That is orders of magnitude larger than the total number of atoms in the universe. (which is only 7 x 10^27).

A problem for OoL is that the sequences must be meaningful and useful, and most proteins have many more than 66 characters. Darwinian selection works fine once we get genetically encoded proteins to work with. But how does it begin? Around 1990, we found that RNA could fulfill many of the roles played by proteins and transmit genetic information. This RNA World Hypothesis has dominated OoL thinking, however it does not solve the challenge that a total mass of RNA far exceeding the mass of our planet would be required to create one sequence capable of catalyzing its own replication by chance alone. The best funded and most prestigious researchers in the field are working to find a way through this puzzle, but none claim to have solved the problem.

In 2016, NASA and the NSF collaborated for the first time in a think-tank (IdeasLab) to rethink the issue. The most important thoughts surround the idea that life seems to have arisen very quickly. Geology and planetary science working together! Nuclear physics tells us that C, H, O2 and N2 are most abundant and capable of forming covalent bonds. Covalent bonds (the opposite type are called ionic bonds) are necessary because carbon molecules interact that way, and thus can share electrons to create long chains of compounds with complexity of life. Ionic bonds, like NaCl or Fe2O3, contribute an electron (from the metal Na or Fe) to the non-metal Cl. or O2. Covalent bonds share electrons. These 4 elements are enough to produce simple cell membranes and sugars and 18 of the 20 aa’s (we need sulfur for the other 2). Now astrobiology is taking center stage on origins because, e.g. Mars has no tectonic plates and is a better geological record of the minerals and conditions present on Earth at the time of origins. And astronomy tells us now that (all ?) stars in the universe are orbited by planets. So there are conditions out there for independent origins for life.

The three major hypotheses for the sequence, even though not reproduced experimentally are:

  1. Oparin-Haldane: 1920s, Russian scientist and an English scientist, separately proposed this gradual arising from inorganic molecules forming aa’s first then combining for complex polymers like nucleotides. An O2 poor atmosphere would donate electrons (reducing)

  2. Miller-Urey: In 1953, experiments showed that organic molecules could be formed from inorganic components. Various aa’s, sugars and lipids were formed, but larger molecules like proteins and DNA never formed. They used H2O, NH3, CH4, and H2 as ingredients. But we now know that the early atmosphere was not what they used and not rich in ammonia and methane.

  3. RNA World: random/chance formation of self-replicating genetic molecules were first.

  4. Living organic compounds arrive by meteorite: Organic molecules from space is another idea, and is supported by reasonable evidence. Various meteorites have contained organic compounds derived from space, one blasted from Mars 17 Mya fell to Earth 13,000 years ago (ALH84001) was discovered in 1984, containing multiple ring structures. Another (Murchison meteorite) carried nitrogenous bases like those found in DNA and RNA as well as aa’s.

History of observations: 3.5 Bya were stromatolites from Western Australia, layers of single-celled microbes such as cyanobacteria.

So assuming that the monomers, building blocks, could be formed, how could they have assembled into polymers or actual biological macromolecules on early Earth? They are put together by enzymes which are themselves polymers. But no one knows whether genes came first or metabolism did. The RNA-World hypothesis favors the former. A self-replicating RNA could pass information from generation to generation. The alternative is that self-sustaining networks of metabolic reactions were first, predating nucleic acids. Then simple pathways might have produced molecules that then act as catalysts for more complex molecules, eventually proteins and nucleic acids. Cell membranes would have been the last step. This could have occurred by simple chemical evolution, not biological evolution.

So how did modern humans evolve? Either by a) evolution simultaneously from earlier, non-modern populations throughout the occupied world, or more likely…b) emerged in a circumscribed geographic region and replaced non-modern populations elsewhere (out-of-Africa). The LUCA for all living humans would have been ~200,000 y.a. The earliest apes were 10 Mya, Gorillas splitting off 9 Mya, Chimpanzees 8 Mya, bipedals 4 Mya, Neanderthals 750,000 y.a. and Homo sapiens 200,000.

In conclusion, there had to be an intelligent designer of some form. Somewhere in the universe. It can not, could not, have happened (statistically) without such. But everything we see and know evolved from some precursor, and it did not begin at Genesis.

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What about the Fungi, etc.?