REVISED Understanding the Evidence: Interpreting Genesis in Ancient Near Eastern Context 2016 Richard E. Averbeck Trinity Evangelical Divinity School It is one thing to affirm the truth, authority, and reliability (inerrancy) of the Bible in the early chapters of Genesis, which I do, but is quite another thing to understand how God himself intends that we read these first chapters of His Word. 1 Some would argue, for example, that Genesis 1 (meaning here Gen 1:1-2:3) clearly teaches that God created the whole universe in six literal days, one right after the other, followed by a seventh day of rest. After all, there is the evening and morning formula throughout the chapter, day by day, and the fourth commandment reinforces this when it bases the seventh day Sabbath on the creation week (Exod 20:11). Others say this is an overly literalistic way for us to read the text that is, it is a misreading that does not properly allow for the genre and intent of the text, the figurative use of language, or the ancient Near Eastern context of its writing. For example, the six/seven pattern is common literary pattern in biblical and ancient Near Eastern (ANE) literature. Could it be that God intended from the beginning that the ancient Israelites read the 6/7 pattern in Genesis 1 as a literary motif well known to them, and that we need to take that into consideration when we read it today? This and many other features of the chapter may suggest that perhaps the account has been schematized. The story has been given this literary shape for the effective telling of it in ancient Israel. I will return to this particular point later in this paper. The task of this essay is both to clearly set forth the main substance of the ANE historical, archaeological, literary, and iconographic background that sets the context for these early chapters of the Bible, 2 and to consider how that evidence may actually inform our reading of these chapters. My colleague and friend, Lawson Younger, has written well on the question of comparative method for this conference, and we will have already had that discussion before coming to this one. Therefore, I will not try to review all the basic methodological principles again here (e.g., both compare and contrast, the issue of propinquity, etc.). We will, of course, reflect on their application along the way in our review of some of the most important ANE comparative evidence for reading and interpreting Genesis 1-4 in context. As will be noted below at relevant places, methodological issues abound in the reading of these source materials themselves as well as in their application to the Bible. It will help us gain clarity in the discussion if we to distinguish between background and foreground. Genesis 1, for example, is something like a masterpiece painted by a fine artist. Often there are elements of the painting that stand in the background, serving as a backdrop 1 I am sincerely grateful to the Deerfield Dialog Group, made up of colleagues from the faculty of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, for their careful interaction with me over an earlier draft of this paper April 28, 2016. The group that evening included: Con Campbell, Steve Greggo, Dana Harris, Te-Li Lau, David Luy, Tom McCall, Lisa Sung, Doug Sweeney, Eric Tully, and Kevin Vanhoozer. I alone am responsible for the content of the paper and the shortcomings that remain. 2 For a recent helpful summary of the ANE literary materials for creation see John H. Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2011), and most recently for a collection of iconographic evidence as well as discussion of the literature, see now Othmar Keel and Silvia Schroer, Creation: Biblical Theologies in the Context of the Ancient Near East, trans. Peter T. Daniels (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2015).
2 against which to view the main subject in the foreground. The painting is not flat, so to speak, but shows depth perception. It is a matter of focus, not that the backdrop is unimportant. The backdrop is essential to the picture because the foreground would lack context without it. The literary description of creation given in Genesis 1 has this quality. In general, the common cultural foundations of the ANE world provide backdrop. The purpose here in this paper is to focus our attention on the interpretive issues that arise from consideration of this ANE comparative background material, not deal with every issue that one could raise in the interpretation of these chapters. I will leave that in the capable hands of Jack Collins. Aside from the Hebrew OT itself, my own competence is in Sumerian, Akkadian, and Ugaritic three of the main extant cuneiform languages and literatures of the ANE. This is a substantial body of literature. In fact, it is probably fair to say that there is more extant textual material written in Akkadian than all the other languages of the ANE put together. It was the lingua franc of the ANE from about the beginning of the second down into the first millennium perhaps a millennium and a half and was responsible for the spread of the so-called cuneiform culture from Iran and Iraq in the east all the way around the fertile crescent into Egypt in the southwest. The late bronze age Amarna letters in Egypt and the discovery of Akkadian clay tablets and literature in Palestinian excavations dating to the bronze and iron ages testify to the reality of this fact even for the most immediate world of the ancient Israelites. 3 Ancient Israel, of course, had its own cultural peculiarities. But even more importantly, the Bible is not just a human book. God himself is speaking here. This revelation of God applies to all people across all time, space, and culture, and the main issues all people of all time have faced are basically the same. It is important to remember, however, that God was intentionally revealing himself and his purposes into that same ANE world, at least in the first instance, through human authors who lived in that world. God took full account of this reality in the way he revealed himself in scripture. He spoke to them within their world context, but at the same time he also spoke against the context. He met the ancient Israelite readers where they were, but he also took them where they needed to go from there. This is how communication works divine revelation too. The ANE Evidence: A Brief Overview It will not be possible in this paper to deal with every possible piece of ANE evidence that might bear on the reading of the early chapters of Genesis. The goal here is to present a comprehensive overview without trying to be exhaustive. Thus, the first and longest part of this paper will present a relatively thorough review of the main features of the discussion, cite and explain some of the most important supporting data, and unpack its primary implications for a well-informed reading of Genesis 1-4 in its ANE context. We will walk through Genesis 1 and 2, 3 See the collection of the latter in Wayne Horowitz and Takayoshi Oshima, Cuneiform in Canaan: Cuneiform Sources from the Land of Israel in Ancient Times (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, The Hebrew University, 2006). I do not read Egyptian, so for those texts and pictures I rely on the primary work of others who do. See esp. the seminal article written over thirty years ago by another good friend and colleague, James K. Hoffmeier, Some thoughts on Genesis 1 & 2 and Egyptian Cosmology, JANES 15 (1983): 39-49. For the texts themselves and their interpretation see James P. Allen, Genesis in Egypt: The Philosophy of Ancient Egyptian Creation Accounts, Yale Egyptological Studies 2 (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University, 1988), and for translations and notes idem, The Context of Scripture, 3 vols. ed., William W. Hallo and K Lawson Younger (Leiden: Brill, 1997, 2000, 2002), 1.5-27, abbreviated here COS (vol. 4 is forthcoming).
3 and from there into some important connections to Genesis 3 and 4. After this overview the last section of the paper return to the beginning with a more expanded discussion of creation ex nihilo in terms of the larger theological discussion of the relationship between God and his creation. Creation ex nihilo? Genesis 1:1-3 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. (NIV) There is a good deal of discussion over the first three verses of the Bible these days. Traditionally, v. 1 is taken to be an independent temporal sentence stating the original creation of the formless and empty universe of v. 2 at the beginning out of nothing, creation ex nihilo. Many have moved away from this interpretation, suggesting that v. 1 is indeed an independent temporal sentence, but it serves as a summary title announcing what is to follow in the chapter. The latter interpretation is accepted in the notes of first edition of the NIV Study Bible, for example. Both are given as legitimate options in the second edition, where the note includes this remark: Although creation out of nothing is implicit in Gen 1, for more complete statements see Isa 45:7-18; Rom 11:36; Col 1:16-17. One might add Heb 11:3. The translation itself remains the same in either case, but if v. 1 is treated as a title of the chapter it stands parallel to the other unit titles in Genesis the generations (Hebrew tôl e dôt) formulas throughout the book (Gen 2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10, 27; etc.). Such a formula could not work in Gen 1:1 because these generations formulas always link what is before to what follows, and there is nothing written before Gen 1:1. Some other English versions read v. 1 as a temporal clause introducing a sentence that runs through v. 2. There are various forms of this but, for example, the NRSV reads, In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. This rendering assumes that Gen 1:1 does not refer to creation ex nihilo. All of vv. 1-2 provides temporal and circumstantial background for the creative words of God that begin in v. 3, And God said, Let there be light, so there was light. There are a total of nine of these And God said... units throughout the chapter. Issues of Hebrew grammar could also be raised here, but this is not the place to enter into that discussion. 4 The ANE context enters the discussion at this point. One of the well-known features of creation stories in the ANE world is the fact that many of them begin with a deep, dark, watery abyss, much like what is described in v. 2. Perhaps the most well-known of these creation accounts is the Babylonian creation myth Enuma Elish, the oldest extant tablets of which date to the Middle Assyrian period (1300-1100 BC). It begins this way: (1) When the heavens above did not exist, 4 For a relatively simple discussion of the Hebrew grammar involved here see Richard E. Averbeck, A Literary Day, Inter-Textual, and Contextual Reading of Genesis 1 and 2, in Reading Genesis 1-2: An Evangelical Conversation, ed. Daryl Charles (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2013), 9-11.
4 And earth beneath had not come into being There was Apsû, the first in order, their begetter, And demiurge Tiāmat, who gave birth to them all; (5) They had mingled their waters together Before meadow-land had coalesced and reed-bed was to be found When not one of the gods had been formed Or had come into being, when no destinies had been decreed, The gods were created within them:... 5 Tiāmat is the goddess of the depths of the sea (cf. tĕhôm in Gen 1:2b, and darkness was over the face of the deep ). She had serpentine characteristics. Apsû is the god of the underground waters. The name Enuma Elish comes from the first words of the composition, When (the heavens) above. The similarity to the beginning of Genesis 1 bĕrēšît In the beginning is obvious. Both compositions begin with a temporal clause, and at the beginning there was water only water. The deep dark watery abyss is also one of the standard starting points for creation in the Egyptian world. For example, in one Coffin Text we read:... on the day that Atum evolved out of the Flood, out of the Waters, out of darkness, out of lostness. 6 While there are similarities between Genesis and Enuma Elish, there are also differences. In Enuma Elish there follows a theogony (i.e., creation of the various other gods). Genesis 1 has no other gods at all. In fact, there appears to be certain amount of polemic against the common belief in multiple deities. Moreover, in Genesis 1 the creation of the cosmos follows immediately after the introduction of the deep dark watery abyss at the beginning of the account. The material creation of the cosmos in Enuma Elish comes much later in the composition, starting at the end of Tablet IV and ending with the creation of humanity in Tablet VI, each tablet consisting of about 150 lines of text. This is after a long account of disputes among the gods and the consummate and victorious battle of Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, against Tiamat, the serpentine mother of the gods. 7 After defeating her, Marduk split her body in two and set up one half as the cover, heaven, and the other as earth below which, in turn, is over the Apsû, the underground source of waters. Heaven became the realm of Anu, the god of heaven, Ea was already the god of the Apsû, and Enlil became the chief deity over the world of air and land that stands between them. After the whole cosmos was properly created, arranged, and assigned to the appropriate deities, Marduk also determined to make humanity to relieve the work of the gods by feeding and otherwise caring for them. He employed Ea, the god of wisdom and crafts, to kill Qingu, 5 This is the very beginning of the composition (lines 1-9), cited from the lamented W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 51 with commentary on p. 469. This volume also treats other Babylonian creation myths and the sources that stand behind them. See also W. G. Lambert, Mesopotamian Creation Stories, in Imagining Creation (ed. Markham J. Geller and Mineke Schipper; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 15-60; Benjamin Foster, Epic of Creation (1.111), in COS 1.390-402. See also the helpful discussion of this text in Wayne Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1998), 107-129. 6 See the Egyptian Cosmologies (COS 1.5-31) and specifically for the text cited here, From Coffin Texts Spell 76, translated by James P. Allen (COS 1.10 CT II 3d 4d). For a helpful discussion of beginning with a deep dark watery abyss in Egyptian creation accounts see Hoffmeier, Some thoughts on Genesis 1 & 2 and Egyptian Cosmology, 42-45. 7 COS 1.396-98, Tablets III and IV.
5 Tiamat s previous partner in crime, and used his blood and bones to create humanity. 8 In this account, it is difficult so see either any disregard for the material origins of the world or a separation between that material world and their gods. We will have to wait until later to pursue these issues further. So, we have evidence from Mesopotamia to Egypt that a deep dark watery abyss was a most natural and understandable starting point for a creation story in the ancient Israelite world. Thus, in Genesis 1 we watch God paint his literary picture of creation and the cosmos step by step, and he paints it against the same standard backdrop as would be normal in the ANE. The actual picture itself is really quite different in many important respects. In the Bible, for example, there is no battle between the gods and, in fact, there are no other gods at all. Nevertheless, one of the ways in which the Bible and the ANE accounts are similar is that God speaks his first creative word in v. 3 into the deep dark watery abyss of v. 2. As we follow this through the chapter, God progressively eliminates the conditions of v. 2. On day one he eliminates the total darkness. Each following day progressively eliminates some element(s) of the conditions in v. 2. If we take Gen 1:1 to be a title verse and initial temporal clause leading into v. 2 rather than original creation of matter ex nihilo, this should not surprise us for a creation story written in the ANE. They would not have expected a statement of creation ex nihilo. Perhaps that is why God did not bother including it in the account of creation as it is given in Genesis 1. It certainly would not have surprised the ancient Israelites, since they were ANE people. God met them where they were, but he also took them where they needed to go from there. It was essential that they understand that there is only one God, and no others. Other people believed in multiple gods and their close connection to the functions of the world around them. They must totally reject this common ANE worldview if they are going to worship and serve the one true God. A Phenomenal World, Genesis 1:6-8 6 And God said, Let there be a vault (Hb. rāqîa ) between the waters to separate water from water. 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault sky. (Hb. šāmayim heavens ) And there was evening, and there was morning the second day. (NIV) On day two God separated between the waters above and below so that there was not just one big watery abyss as in v. 2. The whole question of what the rāqîa is has been a subject of scholarly debate and variation in the translations. NASB, ESV, NET, and Tanakh render it expanse (= space in the NLT); the NIV has recently changed its translation from expanse to vault (= dome in the NRSV and firmament in the KJV, NKJV, RSV, ASV). We shall not enter into all the details of this debate here. 9 Another well-known ANE creation tradition comes into play here wherein creation does not begin with a deep dark watery abyss, but with the separation of heaven from earth to create a 8 COS 1.398-401 19-20. 9 For the details see Averbeck, A Literary Day, Inter-Textual, and Contextual Reading of Genesis 1 and 2,
6 three level universe: heaven above, earth below, and the region in between where man does the work and the gods have their temples. Actually, this has some basis in the texts cited above. For example, in the Akkadian tradition of Enuma Elish where the watery beginning leads immediately to a theogony, not a cosmogony, the battle against the evil serpentine sea monster, Tiamat, comes later in the composition. Her defeat leads to splitting her body in two so that one half was raised up to create the heavens above the earth, with the world of humanity and the temples of the gods in between. Sumerian texts, however, tend to begin immediately with the separation of heaven from earth and do not include a battle with the sea monster. Before dealing with this tradition in more detail, however, it is important to set aside what I and some other scholars believe is a common misunderstanding of how the Israelites and other ANE peoples saw their world. A Common Misunderstanding Scholars commonly represent the ANE and Israelite view of the cosmos with a picture in which there was a body of water above the stars held up by a dome (see NIV vault = Heb. rāqîa mentioned above), the dome had sluices for the rain water to flow through, the sun, moon, and stars were either imbedded in that dome or suspended below it, and so on. Many artistic representations of this supposed ancient world view have been produced and affirmed by scholars. 10 Consider, for instance, the picture of the cosmos as it is presented by T. H. Gaster in his article on cosmogony in the first volume of the Interpreter s Dictionary of the Bible: 10 T. H. Gaster, Cosmogony, in The Interpreter s Dictionary of the Bible (4 volumes; ed. G. A. Buttrick; Nashville: Abingdon, 1962), 1.703. See also, e.g., Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 54; Alan P. Dickin, On a Faraway Day...: A New View of Genesis in Ancient Mesopotamia (Columbus, GA: Brentwood Christian Press, 2002), 122. For an extensive argument in favor of this point of view see Paul H. Seely, The Firmament and the Water Above, WTJ 54 (1992): 31-46; idem, The Geographical Meaning of Earth and Seas in Genesis 1:10, WTJ 59 (1997): 231-55.
7 From Egypt we have their native ancient representation of something similar (see below). There the goddess Nut is stretched like a dome over the earth, the stars are embedded in her body, the earth god Geb lies on the ground, and the air god Shu holds up the sun and sky, among other things: 11 One can see a certain general correspondence between the first modern scholarly artistic representation and the second one from ancient Egypt; for example, the sky above, the earth (and netherworld) below, the atmosphere between. In the ANE, however, the first chart would be just as populated with deities as the second. In his introduction to his volume on Mesopotamian cosmic geography, Wayne Horowitz, for example, questions whether the ancient Mesopotamians would have really believed that such pictures represented material reality as they saw it. Perhaps they thought of them in metaphysical or mystical terms. 12 Othmar Keel, the doyen of ANE iconography as it relates to the Bible, takes the point further: The thought, pictorial representations, and language of people of that time were generally symbolic that is, neither entirely concrete nor purely abstract.... People in the ancient Near East did not conceive of the earth as a disk floating on water with the firmament inverted over it like a bell jar, with the stars hanging from it.... The textbook images that keep being reprinted of the ancient Near Eastern world picture are based on typical 11 I have scanned this picture from the front cover of Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology (see also his remarks on pp. 35-37), who took it from E. A. W. Budge, The Gods of Egypt, vol. 2 (1904), color plate facing p. 96. For simple line drawings and explanations of a similar scenes on sarcophaguses from various periods see Keel and Schroer, Creation: Biblical Theologies in the Context of the Ancient Near East, 79-81, 91. See the translation of the ancient Egyptian text(s) that explains this picture James P. Allen in COS 1.5-6 and Allen, Genesis in Egypt, 1-12. He makes an important point when he writes: As both text and illustrations make clear, the Egyptians lived in a universe composed not of things, but of beings. Each element is not merely a physical component, but a distinct individual with a unique personality and will. For example, The sky is not an inanimate vault, but a goddess who conceives the sun each night and gives birth to him in the morning (ibid., 8). See also the helpful remarks on creation by fiat and the motif of separation of heaven and earth in Egyptian literature in Hoffmeier, Some thoughts on Genesis 1 & 2 and Egyptian Cosmology, 45-46 and the further remarks below. 12 Wayne Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1998), xiii-xiv.
8 modern misunderstandings that fail to take into account the religious components of ancient Near Eastern conceptions and representations. All ancient Near Eastern world images imply the involvement of divine powers that, especially at the beginning, make possible the cohesion and functioning of the parts of the cosmos... Ancient Near Eastern Images are conceptual, not photographic. They combine aspects of (empirical) experience of the world and worldly outlook,... 13 Yes, these representations show a certain correspondence to how they actually observed and experienced the physical world, but increasingly scholars are beginning to doubt that the ANE peoples believed in such pictures in any kind of literal way. These representations do not take into account the fact that, for example, the ancients knew that it did not rain unless there were clouds in the sky. And they knew what clouds were because they knew what fog was. Moreover, the clouds sometimes obscured the sun, moon, and stars, so the water that fell from the sky was not above these heavenly lights. The point here is that this picture has been built from misunderstandings of the analogical expressions that are found in the texts, and a lack of recognition that the ANE peoples from Egypt to Mesopotamia considered the cosmos to be populated by gods who managed the various elements of nature and culture. They knew they were doing analogies when, for example, they made the waters of the deep into two deities who cohabited in order to birth the other gods (see the citation from Enuma Elish above). It is based on the human experience of marriage, family, house, and household an analogy that everyone could identify with from their own experience and could extend to the gods and the cosmos in the form of familial relationships on the divine level as it relates to the temple household and estate in their community. 14 Egypt is somewhat different but likewise analogical, with the union of Nut and Geb, heaven and earth, in the Egyptian depiction of the cosmos. Their religious cult gave them a means of engaging with it; again in analogical ways such as the feeding of the gods and festival rituals enacting their human concerns on the divine level. In general, mythology is analogical thinking and ritual is analogical action. Sometimes they are directly related; sometimes not. The Baal myth from Ugarit, for instance, clearly indicates that they knew these kinds of expressions were analogical. We will discuss this myth in more detail below, but for now we are interested in one particular point. When Baal, the god of rain and fertility, finally gains the courage to allow a window in his palace in the sky, he pronounces: I am going to charge [the craft god]... with opening up a window in (my) house, a latticed window in (my) palace, 13 Keel and Schroer, Creation: Biblical Theologies in the Context of the Ancient Near East, 78-79. 14 For discussions of myth as an analogical way of speculating about life and the cosmos see Mary Douglas, Leviticus as Literature (Oxford, 1999), 13-65; Richard E. Averbeck, Ancient Near Eastern Mythography as it relates to Historiography in the Hebrew Bible: Genesis 3 and the Cosmic Battle, in The Future of Biblical Archaeology: Reassessing Methodologies and Assumptions (ed. James K. Hoffmeier and Alan R. Millard (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 328-356; idem, Temple Building among the Sumerians and Akkadians (Third Millennium), in From the Foundations to the Crenellations: Essays on Temple Building in the Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible (ed. Mark J. Boda and Jamie R. Novotny; AOAT 366; Muenster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2010), 6-8.
9 with opening up a rift in the clouds. 15 The analogical metaphorical nature of the referents is clear in the parallelism here: window = rift in the clouds. To open the window in Baal s celestial palace was to open up the clouds to give rain on the earth. There are no literal windows or flood gates up there for the rain to fall through to water the earth. The waters above are the clouds. The Bible knows the same metaphors too (see, e.g., Gen 7:11, the floodgates of the heavens were opened ; cf. also 2 Kgs 7:2). This is all analogical in the view of the ancient Israelites in their ANE world. To argue that they actually thought there were windows or sluices or flood gates in the sky is to over-read the text. It is to misunderstand both the text and the ancients. God was depending on the fact that the Israelites knew some things about reality from an observational point of view and that they were bringing that to their reading of the account. The text, therefore, requires that we today read it with this in mind too. One of the main differences between such ANE analogical accounts of creation and that which we find in Genesis 1, of course, is in the Bible there are no other gods running things. The cosmos is not populated with multitudes of other deities. In fact, many have argued that the Genesis accounts contain a good deal of polemic against the religious context of the ancient Israelites especially on this count. 16 For example, in Gen 1:14-16 the choice not to give proper names to the lights on day four (i.e., lights, not sun and moon, and perhaps also the proper names for particular stars) is probably a polemic against the supposed divinity of the sun, the moon, and the stars common in the ANE world (e.g., Re, the sun, as the chief god of Egypt; Sin, the moon, as one of the chief gods in Mesopotamia; Venus [really a planet] as the star of the great goddess Inanna/Ishtar in Babylonia, etc.). They have been demoted to the physical phenomena they are and their celestial cosmic purposes (i.e., to divide between day and night, and designate regular cycles of nature and weather) and, as many scholars have noted, probably also liturgically. That is, seasons in Gen 1:14 is probably also associated with the annual cycle of festivals in the various parts of the ANE, and specifically Israel (see, e.g., the same term in Lev 23:2 and many other passages). The corresponding unit of Psalm 104:19-23 uses the same term. In my view, we must not ignore these polemics as we look at the ANE comparative background of the biblical creation accounts. Good comparative method will take both comparisons and contrasts seriously, along with the transformation of certain elements of this contextual material for making points in the Bible that are very different from what we find in the surrounding ANE world. For the latter point on transformation as part of the method, see the remarks on Genesis 3 below. The Three Level Universe Let s return now to the ANE pattern of the three level universe. Whatever the status of our speculations about their speculations might be, we have certain texts in which someone or 15 CTA 4.vii 15-19 (COS 1.262). The translator Dennis Pardee notes here that... the Ugaritians were well aware of the metaphors with which they were dealing (COS 1.262 n. 184). 16 See most recently, for example, the focus on such polemics in John D. Currid, Against the Gods: The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2013), esp. 33-46 on Genesis 1.
10 some group of them did in fact speculate about the origin and nature of the cosmos. At least three major elements of Sumerian creation and cosmology continue down through the centuries into Akkadian traditions: (1) the pre-existence of the Apsû, the subterranean waters of Enki, the creator God of Eridu in southern Sumer, 17 (2) the separation between heaven and earth, commonly associated with Enlil of Nippur, the primary creation god of northern Sumer, 18 and (3) thus, the three level universe of the heavens, the landed earth, and the Apsû (subterranean waters), or in some Sumerian texts heaven, earth, and underworld (sometimes with multiple levels of the heavens and the underworld). 19 The separation of heaven from earth, in particular, yields space for the landed regions of plants, animals, and humanity. For example, from the Old Babylonian period (ca. 1760-1595 BC), after two introductory lines, the Sumerian Song of the Hoe begins this way in lines 3-7: (3) Enlil who will make the seed of mankind rise from the earth not only did he hasten to separate heaven from earth, (5) and hasten to separate earth from heaven, but, in order to make it possible for humans to grow where the flesh sprouts, he first affixed the axis of the world in Duranki (= the middle of Enlil s temple in Nippur). 20 Enlil was the chief god of the Sumerian pantheon in the third millennium BC. Similarly, the Middle Assyrian (ca. 1400-900 BC) Sumerian and Akkadian bilingual known as KAR 4 begins in Sumerian with lines 1-11 as follows: (1) After heaven was separated from earth, its firm companion, so the mother goddesses could live there; after building up the earth to make the ground firm; when the designs were made firm in heaven and earth (5) to establish levee and irrigation ditch in good order, the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates being firmly fixed; (7-8) An, Enlil, Utu (and/or Ninmaḫ), and Enki, the great gods, the Anunna, the great gods, (10-11) sat down in a lofty dais grown high in awesomeness, (and) Enlil himself deliberated (before them): 21 17 Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, 335. 18 See the sources and remarks on this in Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, 112-114, 134-142. 142. 19 See the sources and remarks in Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, 113-114, 125-126, 134-20 COS 1.511.6-7 and the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL) 5.5.4. 21 Richard E. Averbeck, KAR 4: The Creation of Humanity (COS vol. 4, forthcoming).
11 The divine name Enlil means Lord (en) Wind (líl) (or Breathe ). The fact that Enlil is the deity who separated heaven from earth corresponds well to heaven and earth with the space in between them being a place of wind, air, clouds, etc. This, in turn, corresponds well to the waters above and below on the second day (Gen 1:6-8) and the dry ground/earth in the first part of the third day (Gen 1:9-10), yielding a three level cosmos: heaven (and waters) above, earth (and waters) below, with the surface of the earth (and the sky) of animals and humanity in between. 22 All three points noted above and all three levels of the cosmos have parallels in the creation account in Genesis 1. The firmament or expanse of day 2 seems to correspond somehow to the separation of heaven and earth, making room for the landed earth, which arose out of the waters on the third day as they receded (Gen 1:9-10). This yields the three level cosmos. 23 Thus, there is a certain fundamental ANE pattern underlying how the creation story is told in Genesis 1. God told the story in a way that would have made sense to the ancient Israelites as ANE people. And if we think about it, even today we experience the observable world on three levels: what is above us, what is below us, and where we stand, live, and breathe along with the land and sky animals amid the vegetation. In my view, a similar three level pattern appears also in a different way in a major Ugarit text from the Levant, to the west from Mesopotamia, and north from Palestine in the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1550-1200 BC), during the period of the Israelite exodus from Egypt. The Ugaritic Baal myth is not a cosmogony, but it does reflect upon the cosmology of Ugarit as it relates to kingship in the heavens among the gods. 24 In brief, the Baal myth falls into three major episodes. First, there is a battle for supremacy between Baal, the celestial fertility god, and Yamm, the god of the sea. Keep in mind that in this account, Baal is considered to be the good god and Yamm the evil god. The first two tablets of the myth are devoted to this part of the story. Second, since Baal is victorious over Yamm he earns a place of supremacy among the gods. So he petitions El, the head of the pantheon, to commission the building of a suitable palace from which to exercise his dominion. Eventually, El grants the petition and the celestial palace of Baal is built. Tablets three and four tell this second part of the story, and this is the focus of our concern here. Third, 22 Ellen J. van Wolde, Why the Verb brʼ Does not Mean to Create in Genesis 1:1-2:4a, JSOT 34 (2009): 8-13 and idem, Reframing Biblical Studies: When Language and Text Meet Culture, Cognition, and Context (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 184-200 proposes that bārāʼ created in Gen 1:1 means to separate or differentiate, and that v. 1 should be translated In the beginning God separated (or differentiated ) the heaven and the earth and, therefore, compares to the separation of heaven from earth in Sumerian texts. One problem, among many others, with this reading of Gen 1:1 is that the Sumerian texts consistently use the preposition from meaning separated heaven from earth and/or earth from heaven. In Hebrew this would require the preposition min from between heaven and earth or, more likely, the use of bēn between before both heaven and earth similar to Genesis 1:7, and He (God) divided between the waters which were from under to the expanse (rāqîa ) and between the waters which were from upon to the firmament (literal translation from Hebrew). See also the remarks in B. Becking, and M. C. A. Korpel, To Create, To Separate or to Construct: An Alternative for a Recent Proposal as to the Interpretation of ברא in Gen 1:1-2:4a, JHS 10 (2010): 1-21 and J. J. W. Lisman, Cosmogony, Theolgony, and Anthropogeny in Sumerian Texts (AOAT 409; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2013), 206-7 n. 928 and the lit. cited there. 23 On the Egyptian three level universe see Hoffmeier, Some thoughts on Genesis 1 & 2 and Egyptian Cosmology, 45-46. 24 For very helpful treatments of the Baal myth see especially The Baʽlu Myth, translated by Dennis Pardee (COS 1.241-274); and Mark S. Smith and Wayne T. Pitard, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle (vol. 2; Leiden: Brill, 2009).
12 and finally, in tablets five and six Baal and Mot, the god of death, do battle over the issue of who is more powerful. Baal loses this battle and ends up in the netherworld, but then comes to life again through the urgent intervention of other deities. At a certain point in the myth, Baal has defeated Yamm to gain dominion over the disputed territory, the earth of humanity, although Yamm maintains his dominion over his home territory, the waters of the abyss. So he is still a threat, which shows up in the text in the form of Baal s refusal to allow the craft god to install a window in his palace. At this point in the story the three daughters of Baal appear: Pidray, daughter of light (bt ʼar = Heb. ʼôr light ); Ṭallay (= Heb. ṭal dew ), daughter of rains (bt rbb = Heb. rĕbîbîm rain showers ); and Arṣay ( Earthy = Heb. ʼereṣ earth ), daughter of the wide world (? bt y ʽbdr?). The rendering of the last epithet is in dispute, but there is no question of the meaning of her name. Although the text is broken, it is clear that Baal fears that Yamm might rise up again, invade Baal s palace through the window, and perhaps kidnap (?, the text is unclear here) his first two daughters; Pidray and Ṭallay, light and rain. 25 These are both celestial and, thus, in Baal s realm. Baal himself is the god of rain and, therefore, fertility. The three daughters, therefore, seem to correspond roughly to the three levels of the cosmos outlined above for Mesopotamian texts, but even more closely to the first three days in Genesis 1; specifically, light (the first day) followed by the sky and the waters above and below (the second day), and then earth and vegetation in the most immediate world of land animals and humanity (the third day). Again, this would be an instance of both the Bible and the Baal myth reflecting the same underlying cosmological pattern common to both the observable world and the cultural world in which both of them were written. The myth speculates analogically on the larger ecological framework of the world, which is based on three elements and their spheres; namely, light, rain, and earth or ground, respectively. All three are necessary for vegetation, animals, and people. For Baal (and therefore the natural world) to function effectively, all three features of the ecological framework to which the daughters are analogous must work together in concert. Thus, all the consternation over having a window in Baal s palace relates to the maintenance and stability of that basic underlying ecological system without which there would be catastrophe. It would threaten the entire ecological system of the observable human world. The first set of three days in Genesis 1 corresponds to the names of Baal s three daughters who, in turn, correspond to the three fundamental structures or elements of the ecological system: light, sky/rain, earth. The second set of three days (days 4 through 6) elaborate on the first three days, taking the creation story behind the basic underlying framework. The point is that the Genesis 1 six-day sequence is intentionally built off this widely distributed ANE three level structure of the cosmos to begin with. Of course, many have noticed the parallels between the two sets of three days. This bring us back to the six/seven pattern of days in Gen 1:1-2:3. The Six/Seven Pattern 25 The major passages involved here are CTA 1.4.vi.7-13; 1.4.vii.13-20; and 1.4.vii.25-29 (see COS 1.261-262). For the technical details and a more complete discussion see Richard E. Averbeck, The Three Daughters of Baal and Transformations of Chaoskampf in the Early Chapters of Genesis, in Creation and Chaos: A Reconsideration of Hermann Gunkel s Chaoskampf Hypothesis, ed. JoAnn Scurlock and Richard Beal (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 237-56.
13 Earlier in this essay we made the point that the six/seven or seven pattern is wellestablished in the Bible and in the ANE. There is a good deal of evidence for this. Proverbs 6:16-19, for example, reads: There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him... (see also Job 5:19; cf. the three/four pattern elsewhere, Prov. 30:15, 18, 21, 29). 26 Consider also, six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the LORD called to Moses from within the cloud (Exod 24:16). The seven pattern is pervasive. The temple dedication by Solomon was celebrated at the feast of Succoth (i.e., tabernacles ), which is a seven-day feast in the seventh month (1 Kgs 8:2, 65; 2 Chr 7:8-10; cf. also the pervasive pattern of sevens for the dedication of Ezekiel s temple, Ezek 45:21-25). Solomon makes seven petitions in prayer to the Lord at the dedication of the temple (1 Kgs 8:31-53). It took seven years to build the temple (1 Kgs 6:38). The instructions for fabricating the tabernacle come in seven units, each marked by a narrative introduction (Exod 25:1; 30:11, 17, 22, 34; 31:1, 12), and the last one is about the Sabbath (Exod 31:12-17). 27 See also the seven day period for the consecration and ordination of the priests in Leviticus 8:33-35, and so on. Seven and six/seven patterns are common elsewhere in the ANE as well. For example, in Sumerian literature we have the seven day temple dedication feast of the gods in Gudea Cylinder B xvii 12-xxiv 8 after the patron god and goddess take up occupation of the temple. 28 The same (six-)seven day motif is used in a different context in the flood story as it is recounted in tablet 11 of the Gilgamesh epic (in Akkadian): Six days and seven nights the wind continued, the deluge and windstorm levelled the land. When the seventh day arrived, the windstorm and deluge left off their assault. And then a few lines later we read, The boat rested on Mount Nimush, Mount Nimush held the boat fast, not allowing it to move. One day, a second day Mount Nimush held the boat fast, not allowing it to move. A third day, a fourth day Mount Nimush... A fifth day, a sixth day Mount Nimush... When the seventh day arrived, I released a dove to go free... 29 Similarly, it took seven days to build Baal s celestial palace according to the Baal myth. 30 In the Ugaritic Kirta epic the king lost his seven wives, traveled seven days to another city to obtain another wife the first part of the journey was three days and he arrived on the seventh day and then besieged the city for seven days. 31 26 This is all part of a regular pattern of x/x+1 pattern in scripture. See W. M. W. Roth, The Numerical Sequence x/x+1 in the Old Testament, VT 12 (1962): 301-311. 27 For a very helpful treatment of the Sabbath frame around the golden calf incident in Exodus 32-34 (i.e., 32:12-17 and 35:1-3), see Daniel C. Timmer, Creation, Tabernacle, and Sabbath: The Sabbath Frame of Exodus 31:12-17; 35:1-3 in Exegetical and Theological Perspective (FRLANT 227; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2009). 28 See COS 2.432 n. 74; Averbeck, Temple Building among the Sumerians and Akkadians, 32-33. See also the remarks in Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, 118, 182, and the literature cited there. 29 COS 1.459-60. 30 See CAT 1.4 vi 16-40 in COS 1.261 and n. 175. See the full discussion in Samuel E. Loewenstamm, The Seven Day-Unit in Ugaritic Epic Literature, Israel Exploration Journal 15, no. 3 (1965): 121 133 and idem, The Seven Day-Unit in Ugaritic Epic Literature, in Comparative Studies in Biblical and Ancient Oriental Literatures (Verlag Butzon and Bercker Kevelaer, 1980), 192 209. 31 See CAT 1.14 i 7-25; ii 103- iii 123; iv 194- v 229 in COS 1.333-36.
14 Examples could easily be multiplied from both the Bible and other ANE texts. Clearly, the six/seven pattern is a well-known literary device that the ancient Israelites would have been fully aware of. In point of fact, it seems that literary patterning, ANE background, and anthropomorphism converge here. First, in light of the commonality of the six/seven pattern in their world, it would have been quite natural for them to read the seven days of Gen 1:1-2:3 as a literary device for effective telling of the creation story as a literary narrative. Second, the use of this pattern here seems to be a function of the three level universe background for the ANE, as noted above. The two cycles of three days, in turn, would quite naturally explain how we could have light on day one and the cosmic lights on day four, for example. This has been a longstanding problem for some readers of Genesis 1. Third, two anthropomorphic analogies converge, yielding substantial explanatory and life shaping force in ancient Israel. The first analogy arises from God working for six days and resting/stopping on the seventh. This could be seen an analogical pattern to exemplify and reinforce obedience to the Sabbath in ancient Israel (see Exod 20:11). 32 The analogical (or anthropomorphic) understanding of this parallel is expressed in an especially forceful way in Exodus 31:17, where God declares the Sabbath to be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he stopped (šābat) and breathed freely (wayyinnāƒaš). 33 The other two places the latter verb occurs in the Hebrew Bible it refers to people being exhausted to the point where they need to stop and rest (2 Sam 16:14 and Exod 23:12). For God it is an anthropomorphic analogy; for humans it is a harsh reality. A second analogy is at work here too. In the ANE, temples were places of divine residence and rest. 34 The same is true in Israel. The tabernacle and later the temple were places where God took up residence in the midst of his people. In the wilderness, they had their tents, and God had his tent too (Exod 40:34-Lev 1:1; Lev 9:23; 16:2; Num 9:15-23). Similarly, later as part of the dedication of the temple, the glory cloud of God s presence took up residence there (1 Kgs 8:10-11; 2 Chr 5:13-14; 7:1-2). Several passages in the OT pick up on this pattern and apply it analogically to God s creation of the cosmos and his sovereignty over all. Isaiah 66:1-2 is especially helpful here: Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being? (cf. 1 Chr 28:2; Pss 99:5-6; 132:7-9, and in the NT Matt 5:34-35; Acts 7:46-50). Day seven, therefore, draws from the ANE and Israelite pattern of completion of a temple, and the rest of the deity in the completed temple when the god and/or goddess took up residence in it. The analogy seems to go both ways; the temple and the cosmos are reflective of each other. But the temple is not a cosmos, and the cosmos is not a temple. This is an analogy, and it is anthropomorphic. People rest in houses (or tents), and so does God (or, in the ANE, gods and goddesses). But as Solomon once put it, will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, 32 See the helpful discussion in C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2006), 77-78. 33 For the latter verb see HALOT 711 to breathe freely, recover. there. 34 See the helpful discussion in Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, 178-92 and the literature cited
15 even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built! (1 Kgs 8:27). The cumulative effect of these explanatory and potentially life transforming analogies comes to its full expression in Genesis 1. God shaped this account of creation in this way to take advantage of all this potential in ancient Israel for revealing his person, plans, and purposes in ways that would or could have life shaping influence on the ancient Israelites in their day, and eventually on us today as well. The evidence shows that the six/seven pattern was already in the culture before Moses wrote the Pentateuch, and that the Sabbath practice, in fact, was already in place before it was instituted in the Ten Commandments (see Exod 16:22-26). God used this well-known literary pattern to meet the people where they were in their cultural place and time. He also used it to take them where they needed to go as a people whom he had redeemed out of slavery in Egypt where there was precious little rest to be found. The literary pattern, therefore, became a life giving pattern in Israel for every man, woman, and child; for every slave and foreigner; and even for every work animal (Exod 20:8-11; 23:12; 31:12-17; Lev 19:3; Deut 5:12-15; etc.). This is why the Sabbath was the sign of the Mosaic covenant (Exod 31:13, 17). Israel was to be known and marked as a nation that celebrated and lived by the rest that the Lord God gave them from slavery when he brought them out of Egypt. The whole Mosaic covenant and law is framed and shaped by this ethos. 35 Humanity in the Image and Likeness of God, Genesis 1:26-28 26 Then God said, Let us make humankind in our image (ṣelem) as our likeness (dĕmût), that they may rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the (wild animals of the) earth, and all the crawling animals that crawl on the earth. 27 So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living creatures that creep on the ground. There has been a good deal of discussion in the scholarly literature about ancient Near Eastern texts, images, and monuments that bear upon the meaning of Genesis 1:26-28. One particular inscription stands out. It is the bilingual (Aramaic and Akkadian) ninth century BC Tell Fekheriye inscription from northern Mesopotamia/Upper Syria. The inscription is on the lower part of the skirt of the statue of the king, Hadad-yith`i (see the pictures below). 35 See the full discussion of this in Richard E. Averbeck, The Egyptian Sojourn and Deliverance from Slavery in the Framing and Shaping of the Mosaic Law, in "Did I Not Bring Israel Out of Egypt?" Biblical, Archaeological, and Egyptological Perspectives on the Exodus Narratives, Bulletin of Biblical Research Monograph Series, ed. James Hoffmeier, Alan Millard, and Gary Rendsburg, (Institute of Biblical Research, forthcoming 2016).
16 The reason this text is so important is that the Aramaic version uses the same two words for image and likeness as Genesis 1:26-27, and it uses them interchangeably to refer to the statue of the king on which the inscription is inscribed: (1) The image (dmwt ) of Hadad-yith`i which he has set up before Hadad of Sikan,... (12) The statue (ṣlm) of Hadad-yith`i, king of Guzan and of Sikan and of Azran, for exalting and continuing his throne,... (15-16) this image (dmwt ) he made better than before. In the presence of Hadad who dwells in Sikan, the lord of Habur, he has set up his statue (ṣlmh).... 36 The statue itself functioned to represent the king before his god in the place where the statue was set up. The implications are obvious. True, we are not just an inanimate statue. The biblical text is using figurative language. Like the statue of a king, we are the statue of a king too, the 36 Aramaic is a Semitic language closely related to Hebrew. Image s lm = Hebrew s elem; and likeness dmwt = Hebrew d e mut (the vowels were left out in those early days). See Ali Abou-Assaf, Pierre Bordreuil, and Alan R. Millard, Le Statue de Tell Fehkerye (Paris: Editions Recherche sur les civilizations, 1982), p. 23 and plates XIII-XIV. The translation is from Alan Millard in COS 2.153-54.
17 divine king. And we have been set up in the midst of God s creation to represent him and his interests. It is not that we look like God physically, but that we are physical beings who stand within his physical material creation as God s stewards, assigned to manage it physically. It is important to emphasize the physical nature of the image. Historically, the discussion has often turned in the direction of our metaphysical characteristics rather than the physical bodily nature of the image and likeness. There has been a tendency to fight the basic lexicography and imagery of the passage. The term image recurs twice in v. 27, as if image can stand alone for image and likeness combined. In addition to the five times it refers to human beings in the image of God (Gen 1:26, 27 twice; 5:3; 9:6), the term image occurs only eleven more times in the Hebrew Old Testament and seventeen times in the Aramaic part of Daniel (all in Dan 2:31-35 for the great dream image of Nebuchadnezzar, and Dan 3:1-19 for the giant image of gold that Nebuchadnezzar set up). Most often image refers to statues or other three dimensional replicas; mostly statues of gods or men (e.g., Num 33:52; 2 Kings 11:18/2 Chron 23:17; Ezek 7:20; 16:17; Amos 5:26), but also replicas of tumors and mice (1 Sam 6:5, 11). It can also refer to images of men painted and/or inscribed on a wall (Ezek 23:14). 37 The term likeness appears 21 times in the Old Testament in addition to the three times it refers to our likeness to God (Gen 1:26; 5:1, 3). Like image, it can refer to a physical three dimensional replica or perhaps a two dimensional drawing (e.g., 2 Kings 16:10; 2 Chron 4:3). However, it is more often used for likenesses seen in a vision (e.g., Ezek 1:5, 10; 10:22; Dan 10:16; and many others). A few times it is used for some other kind of likeness: like the venom of a snake (Ps 58:4), and (noise) like that of a great multitude (Isa 13:4). Isa 40:18 is especially interesting: To whom, then, will you compare God? What image (d e mut) will you compare him to? The next verses contrast God with the idols that people worshipped in those days. The point is that idols are nothing and the true God is everything. It is certainly true that God created us with all the metaphysical capacities needed for us to fulfill our function within his design. But the passage itself keeps the focus on our function as God s physical statue set up in the midst of creation to serve as his authoritative representatives on this earth in his image as his likeness ; that is, in a way that manifests the qualities of God and his will as the creator of all things. We have been put in charge and made responsible for how things go here. This is stated clearly in the passage (v. 26): Let us make humankind in our image as our likeness, that they may rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky,... Our understanding of our image and likeness needs to be seen in direct connection with our purpose, which is to rule over all the earth on God s behalf (i.e., as God s image ) in a way that is somehow similar to the way God rules over all of everything (i.e., we do it as God s likeness ). This understanding of v. 26 is confirmed and reinforced by its repetition and expansion in God s blessing that makes up the conclusion of the passage, And God blessed them and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living creatures that creep on the ground (v. 28). 37 The other two passages are more obscure: a man s life in this world is only a mere phantom or shadow (i.e., just a breath; Ps 39:6), and the wicked are like a dream fantasy or phantom, as when you wake up from a bad dream and, thankfully, can just put it behind you (Psalm 73:20). Again, the term image in these verses refers to something that is physically visible in one state or another. In neither case, however, is there any real substance to the image, unlike the substantial nature of man created in the image and likeness of God.
18 Another major feature of the passage that requires our attention here is the alternation between the plural and the singular. God pronounces an edict in v. 26, Let us make humankind in our image, as our likeness, that they may rule... The most likely explanation for the plural us and our here is that God is calling out this creative proclamation within his heavenly council (for other references to God s heavenly council see, e.g., Psalm 89:6-7; Job 1:6-12; 2:1-6; Isaiah 6; 1 Kings 22:19-23). 38 This also has a great deal of background in the ANE world. 39 For example, in KAR 4 (cited above), the separation of heaven from earth is followed by the introduction of deliberation by Enlil, the head of the pantheon, in the heavenly council, which eventually led to the creation of humanity: (7-8) An, Enlil, Utu (and/or Ninmaḫ), and Enki, the great gods, the Anunna, the great gods, (10-11) sat down in a lofty dais grown high in awesomeness, (and) Enlil himself deliberated (before them): 40 The same thing can be seen in Enuma Elish and many other ANE mythical compositions. In Genesis 1 it is not that the heavenly council did the creating. As v. 27 puts it, God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them, referring to God with singular pronouns. There has been a good deal of discussion in the theological literature about whether or not the Trinity is being referred to in the plural pronouns in v. 26. In my view, this would include the Trinity, but does not actually teach it, and does not specifically refer to God as a Trinity. That comes later in the biblical canon. Caution is required here, however, in light of the fact that in Gen 1:1-3 we have first God (v. 1), then the Spirit of God (v. 2), and then the sequence of And God said... throughout the chapter. God created by fiat he spoke our world into existence by his Word. In Targum Neophiti, for example, the latter is rendered The Word (mēmraʼ) of God said... (from the Aramaic verb ʼamar = Hebrew ʼāmar to speak ), which 38 See the helpful summary of views and discussion in Wenham, Genesis 1-15, 27-28 and Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary, with Cathi J. Fredricks (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 64-65 (reference courtesy of Andrew Schmutzer). This plurality also occurs elsewhere in the primeval narratives in Genesis 3:22 and 11:7, as well as Isaiah 6:8. The fact that God speaks from within the heavenly council does not imply that there are other gods in the counsel (contra, e.g., Garr, In His Own Image, 87-92 and the literature cited there), although there are other passages that refer to the others as the sons of God (e.g., Job 1:6; 2:1; cf. also council of the holy ones in Ps 89:6-7). On the contrary, there is only one God who has ultimate authority in the council no matter what the other supernatural beings there might be called. Waltke suggests that the heavenly council interpretation of this plurality is mostly likely to be correct because in the other places where us is used in reference to God, human beings are impinging on the heavenly realm and he is deciding their fate (see Waltke, Genesis, 64-65; see Gen 3:22; 11:7; Isa 6:8). The same would apply here in Genesis 1:26 in that we are being made in his image and likeness, and thus related to the heavenly realm (cf. Ps 8:5a, You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings ). 39 For the ANE divine council among the gods see E. Theodore Mullin, Jr., The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature HSM 24 (Chico, California: Scholars Press, 1980) and now the very thorough but also more popular treatment of this topic in Michael S. Heiser, Supernatural: What the Bible Teaches about the Unseen World and why it Matters (Bellingham, Washington: Lexham Press, 2015). 40 Averbeck, KAR 4: The Creation of Humanity, (forthcoming).
19 may provide background for the introduction of Jesus as the Word (logos) of God, who created all things according to the prologue to the Gospel of John. 41 Perhaps the most important point to draw from the plural pronouns in God s pronouncement in v. 26 is that it shows that God is relational and, at the same time, so is his image and likeness:... that they may rule... The term rendered humankind (Hb. ādām), therefore, should be understood as a collective noun (i.e., singular in form, but plural in meaning), referring to humankind as a whole. The shift from the first person plural pronouns us and our in v. 26a to the third person singular his and he in v. 27, referring to God, corresponds to the shift from the third person plural pronoun they in v. 26b to the third person singular him in v. 27, referring to man ( ādām) as singular rather than plural, although again here probably a collective singular. Then comes the very striking shift back to the third person plural pronoun them in v. 27c, referring to the male and female together: male and female he created them. In sum, v. 26 has God in the singular ( Then God said ), but making a pronouncement from within a collective ( us and our ) to make collective humanity in his image as his likeness; v. 27 begins with God and humankind in the singular and concludes with dual humanity, male and female; finally, v. 28 once again has God speaking in the singular, but humankind is plural as a direct result of the divine pronouncement of blessing on our capacity to reproduce. Thus, by the time we get through v. 28 we know how the collective humanity referred to in v. 26 actually comes into being. The point here is that in Genesis 1:26-28 we were created as relational beings by a relational God. Not only individually, but also collectively we are the statue-like image and likeness of God that functions as the managerial team within God s creation. Functioning in this position requires our multiple presence, which in turn requires the male and female functioning together be fruitful and multiply. In other words, the image and likeness is about us functioning together with God and one another to fulfill our mandate to rule. 42 Creation of Man and Woman, Genesis 2:7 Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (NIV) As remarked above, the foundation for the whole extended discussion of the various facets of our creation in the image and likeness of God is the fact that we are God s statue in the world, so to speak. 43 This is metaphorical, of course. It is not that we look like God 41 My colleague Eric Tully points out to me that this Targum commonly uses this expression for God speaking, so perhaps John is not thinking specifically and only about Genesis 1 in his prologue. In any case, the fact that Genesis 1 and John 1 hold the subject of creation in common raises question. 42 This is the same basic conclusion reached in Schmutzer, Be Fruitful and Multiply, 154-158, 166, 173, 177-178, etc. as I understand him, although we might state it in different ways. The relational focus received a great deal of attention and affirmation in Karl Barth, The Doctrine of Creation, Church Dogmatics vol. III, 1; ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance; transl., J. W. Edwards, et al (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1958), 176-206 and 288-292. Many have followed his lead in this. See, e.g., the extensive discussion in Westermann, Genesis 1-11, 147-161, esp. his conclusion pp. 155-158.
20 physically. Neither are we just a dead rock or piece of wood carved into a certain shape. But we are still God s statue placed here to represent him and his purposes in the world. The same conceptual background extends into the creation of the man in Gen 2. Recent work has shown that there are a number of important motifs from the Mesopotamian and Egyptian rituals of washing the mouth and opening the mouth of statues of the gods in Gen 2:7ff. 44 After making an image it was enlivened through such rituals so that it could breathe, eat, and function properly. The Gen 1:1-2:3 account takes the larger view of the universe as a whole (the macrocosm), while Gen 2:4-4:26 focuses our attention down into the world of humanity (the microcosm), specifically the ANE world. And there is something of a literary genre shift that comes with it. For example, the four rivers in Gen 2:10-14 constitute historical geographical markers. There are no such markers in Gen 1:1-2:3. The first two rivers are not as well-known and there is debate about what they might correspond to in ANE geography, but this is not so with the Tigris and especially the Euphrates rivers. Everyone knew where the Euphrates was no further locators are given for it. Here we are standing within the world of human existence and history, not the design and creation of the whole cosmos. The Lord God s creation of the first man by shaping him out of the dust from the ground and breathing into his nostrils the breath of life has parallels in ANE literature. Some are more closely comparable to the biblical account than others. One of the closest comes from an Egyptian wisdom text, The Instructions of Merikare : Well tended is mankind god s cattle, He [the god Re] made sky and earth for their sake, He subdued the water monster, He made breath for his 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. 45 Humanity is Re s image according to this text (see Gen 1:26-28 above), and Re has subdued the water monster (see the remarks on Gen 3 below). But the main point for the present is that Re is the source of breath for the noses of humanity so that he can live. In Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation story cited above, after the defeat of Tiamat and creation of the cosmos out of her body, Ea killed Qingu, Tiamat s former divine assistant, and created humanity out of his blood. 46 According to the earlier Old Babylonian creation and flood 43 For a good review of the recent discussion of the various dimensions of the image of God in people see now John F. Kilner, Dignity and Destiny: Humanity in the Image of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015). See also the very helpful earlier treatment in Richard J. Middleton, The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2005). 44 See esp. Catherine L. McDowell, The Image of God in the Garden of Eden, Siphrut 15 (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2015). 45 COS 1.65. For a good discussion of this and other Egyptian evidence see Hoffmeier, Some thoughts on Genesis 1 & 2 and Egyptian Cosmology, 46-48.
21 story known as Atrahasis, man was created out of a mixture of the flesh and blood of a slaughtered god mixed with clay. 47 Similarly, in the bilingual Sumerian and Akkadian text often given the title The Creation of Humanity (i.e., KAR 4, cited above in the section on the three level universe), after the separation of heaven from earth, making the ground firm, and establishing the Tigris and Euphrates and the irrigation system, Enlil s deliberates in the heavenly council about what to do next. Two deities step forward and propose: (24) In Uzumua, the bond of heaven and earth, (25) we shall slaughter (the gods) Alla and Illa (26) to grow humanity (with) their blood. (27) Let the labor of the gods become its (humanity s) work assignment. 48 In these Mesopotamian accounts mankind s function is to serve the gods by relieving them of their labor in producing food from the ground for the senior deities. There is some similarity to Gen 2:7. The deities formed man out of clay mixed with the divine elements, somewhat like God formed the man out of dust and breathed his divine breath into his nostrils. Also, the Lord God put man to work in the garden in Gen 2:15. But the contrasts are many. Most importantly, God does not eat. Man cultivates the garden so he himself can eat, which is more in accord with the Egyptian text cited above. In Gen 2:7 the material out of which the Lord made the first man is referred to as dust and later, after the fall, it is said that he will return to the ground from which he was made, for you are dust, and unto dust you shall return (Gen 3:19; cf. Gen 18:27; Ps 103:14, etc.). The Hebrew word for dust here (ʽāfār) often refers to dry dust, but may refer to a clay-like mixture such as that used to plaster the walls of a house, as in Leviticus 14:41, 45, where the same term (ʽāfār) is used. In Leviticus 14:42 the NIV even translates clay because it refers to the plaster as it is smeared on the walls of a house, Then they are to take other stones to replace these and take new clay (ʽāfār) and plaster the house. There are also places where dust (ʽāfār) and clay (ḥōmer) are used in poetic parallelism for the constitution of people: Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again? (Job 10:9; cf. also Job 4:19; 27:16; 30:19). Later in the chapter the Lord built (bānāh) the woman from the rib or side (ṣēlāʽ) of the man. It is likely that the verb changes here because the material is different, being the kind of material one builds with (v. 22) rather than molds or forms (v. 7). This suggests that rib is probably the better translation here since the same term is used for the beams, for example, that held up the roof when Solomon built his palace (1 Kgs 7:3). A beam or rib is something you build with. You do not mold or form it. So the LORD God himself shaped and built the first two humans, male and female, respectively. Here in Genesis 2 the Lord gets his hands dirty, so to speak, and he loves it! The Serpent and the Cosmic Battle, Genesis 3:1, 15 46 COS 1.400-401 tablet VI lines 25-44. 47 COS 1.451. 48 Averbeck, KAR 4: The Creation of Humanity forthcoming.
22 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, Did God really say, You must not eat from any tree in the garden?... 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. (NIV) Genesis 1, of course, does not include a theogony and this is part of the underlying polemic against the ancient Near Eastern environment of the Israelites. This polemic also includes a reaction against the notion that God created the world by defeating the evil forces of chaos (i.e., German Chaoskampf ). 49 But the lack of Chaoskampf in Genesis 1 is not the end of the story. The fact of the matter is that there is a cosmic battle in the early chapters of Genesis, and it runs through the whole Bible to the end days (Rev 12-20). But it has been transformed in accordance with the nature and concerns of Yahweh. The battle really begins in Genesis 3. It is here where the correspondences to Chaoskampf in the early chapters of Genesis appear, but in a thoroughly transformed way. 50 In plain terms, then, Genesis 3 is where conflict first appears in the Bible. Genesis 3:1 is the first appearance of a serpent in the Bible. This serpent issues a direct and carefully crafted sinister challenge to Yahweh's rule by attacking what in Genesis 1 is referred to as his image and likeness people. We have argued above that we are his statue, his image and likeness so to speak, created and placed within creation to represent him, his authority, and his character (Gen 1:26-28). In Genesis 2 there is something similar. In Genesis 3 the serpent s actions are an attack upon the Lord himself, and his creation design. Yahweh responds with curses upon the serpent (Gen. 3:14-15; and the ground, v. 17) that involve, among other things, the woman s seed crushing, striking at, or bruising (or whatever 51 ) the head of the serpent s seed in Genesis 3:15. There is a battle engaged here a theomachy between God and the serpent and we stand right in the middle of it all. In fact, we are the territory under dispute. There are a good number of ANE accounts of battles with serpentine chaos monsters. In Egypt, for example, they had The Repulsing of the Dragon. 52 We have already referred to the serpentine Tiamat and Marduk s defeat of her and his creation of the cosmos out of her corpse. Perhaps the most likely myth that would have come to the minds of ancient Israelites would have been the story we find in the Baal myth from Ugarit, which we have referred to briefly in the remarks on Gen 1:6-8 above. In general, as noted above in the remarks on the three level universe, the Baal myth falls into three major episodes. In the first part Baal gains supremacy by defeating Yamm, which leads to building a celestial palace for Baal in the second part. At the turning point from the 49 This is contrary to the view presented Bernard F. Batto, Slaying the Dragon: Mythmaking in the Biblical Tradition (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox, 1992), 73-84 and now idem., among others. 50 See the more complete discussion in Averbeck, The Three Daughters of Baal and Transformations of Chaoskampf in the Early Chapters of Genesis and the literature cited there. 51 For the lexical difficulty here see HALOT 1146-47. 52 COS 1.32.
23 second to the third part of this myth, Mot challenges Baal s supremacy when he refers back to the time when Baal defeated Yamm/Leviathan: ktmhṣ.ltn.bṯn.brḥ When you smote Litan (=Leviathan) the fleeing serpent, tkly. bṯn.ʽqltn.[ ] made an end of the twisted serpent, šlyt.d.šbʽt.rʼašm the tyrant with seven heads. 53 Mot s point in the context is that Baal may have been able to Yamm/Leviathan, but he would not be able to defeat Mot, the god of death. We have iconographic evidence of the battle against such a chaos monster (see the example just below): One can see the seven heads of the beast and flames on its back. Four of the heads hang down because they have already been slain and put to death by the gods. This particular image comes from much earlier than the Baal myth and, therefore, shows the long enduring tradition about such a monster in the ANE. 54 The allusion directly to the Baal myth seems undeniable in Isaiah 27:1: In that day the LORD will punish Leviathan (Hb. lwytn = Ug. ltn) the fleeing (Hb. brḥ = Ug. brḥ) serpent with his harsh and great and mighty sword, even Leviathan the twisted (Hb. ʽqltwn = Ug. ʽqltn) serpent; and he will kill the dragon (Hb. tnnyn) who is in the sea (Hb. ym; cf. the Ug. god Yamm). The close parallels are highlighted in the citations as given above. Leviathan is obvious even in the English translations, but consider also the adjectives fleeing and twisted. The adjective brḥ rendered fleeing occurs only two or perhaps three other times in the Hebrew Bible. Other possible meanings are flashing as in fast, or hairless, slippery as serpents are. Whatever the correct meaning might be, it is obviously the same in Ugaritic and in Hebrew. The term ʽqltwn twisted occurs only here in the Hebrew scripture, which makes it difficult to avoid the conclusion that this is some kind of free quotation or perhaps close allusion to the Baal myth, depending on how you want to put it. The term for serpent here is Hebrew nāḥāš, not the same 53 For the iconography of the seven headed serpent see, e.g., Othmar Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms (transl. Timothy J. Hallet; New York: Seabury, 1978; repr., Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 54; and John W. Hilber, Psalms, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary (ed. John H. Walton; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), 5:382. 54 The picture is taken from James B. Pritchard, The Ancient Near East in Pictures: Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Univ. Press, 1954), no. 691.