The Theology of Genesis One

The Theology of Genesis One Colossian 1:15-17 Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things were created through him and for him and he is before all things and in him all things hold together. Theology found in the science of that time an instrument it could use unhesitatingly to unfold the content of faith. - Gerhard von Rad When I mention the theology of Genesis 1, I m guessing that the first thing most people think of is creation. Which makes sense, the first verse of the Bible says In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (ESV). There is an ongoing debate about how to make sense of the creation account in Genesis 1 and the claims of modern science. One of the problems that arise from this debate is that often the conversationloses its focus on God, focusing rather on peripheral issues and making them paramount. Certainly the text speaks of God s creative activity in the world, but is that all it speaks of? For this session we re talking about the Theology of Genesis 1, next time we ll discuss issues of Evolution and the Big Bang. I think it is important, though, to understand the theology of Genesis 1 before we try to understand how to read it today. Genesis 1 isn t the only ancient creation account that exists. We have pagan creation stories from Egypt and Mesopotamia. So considering that the Ancient Hebrews thought more along the lines of their cultural counterparts than they did us Modern, Western folk, I think it is important to see how the text spoke Truth about God in the cultural milieu from whence it came. In other words, I think it is valuable to compare Genesis 1 to other ancient creation accounts before we compare it to modern ones. This will hopefully lead to some valuable theological insights that will transcend the vast cultural rift between us and ancient Israel. Figure 1 - The Universe according to Ancient Near East Culture

Egypt Three main creation accounts came out of ancient Egypt each named for the city they were found in: Memphis, Heliopolis, & Hermopolis. Each account follows a very similar pattern we ll look at two. Israel Israel s account of creation has many structural similarities with the Egyptian ones. What is interesting is not only what is the same, but what differs (bolded in the list below). Hermopolis 1. Pre-creation condition: lifeless chaotic watery deep (Nun) 2. Breath/wind (Amun) moves on the waters 3. Creation of supernatural light (generation of Atum) 4. Emergence of primordial hill in midst of Nun 5. Procreation of sky (Shu) when Nun was raised over the earth 6. Formation of heavenly ocean (Nut) by separation 7. Formation of dry ground (Geb) by separation 8. Humanity accidentally created by tears of Atum 9. Sun created to rule the world as the image of Rê 1 1 These lists were adapted from: Johnston, Gordon H. "Genesis 1 and Ancient Egyptian Creation Myths." Bibliotheca Sacra 165, no. 658 (April 2008): 183-184. Memphis 1. Pre-creation condition: lifeless chaotic watery deep (Nun) 2. Breath/wind (Amun) moves on the waters 3. Thought and word of Ptah creates Atum (light) 4. Emergence of primordial hill in midst of Nun 5. Procreation of sky (Shu) when Nun was raised over earth 6. Formation of heavenly ocean (Nut) by separation 7. Formation of dry ground (Geb) by separation 8. Sun created to rule the world as the image of Rê 9. Earth sprouts plants, fish, birds, reptiles, animals 10. Creation of gods statues cult sites, food offerings 11. Ptah completes activity and rests in satisfaction Genesis 1 1. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep (waters) (v. 2) 2. The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (v.2) 3. God said, Let there be light, and there was light (v. 3) 4. God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters (v. 6) 5. God separated the waters creating an expanse and God called the expanse sky. (v. 7-8) 6. God made the expanse and separated the waters under the expanse from the waters above the expanse (v. 7) 7. God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together and let dry land appear (v. 9) 8. God calls forth vegetation from the earth later animals (v. 11-12; 20-25) 9. God create lights in the heavens to separate day and night and to mark the seasons, etc (v. 14-18) 10. God created the human in his own image//in the image of God he created him//male and female he created them (v. 27) 11. On the 7 th day God rested from all his work that he had done (2:2)

Babylon From Babylon we get one of the best-known ancient creation accounts, Enuma Elish. Enuma Elish is written in praise of the god Marduk who becomes the head of the pantheon through defeating the god Tiamat. After the battle it recounts Marduk s creations, and again there are interesting parallels with Genesis 1. 1. Before heaven and earth there was only primordial Apsu, their begetter, And Mummu-Tiamat, she who bore them all, Their waters commingling as a single body (I:1-5) 2. Marduk split [Tiamat] like a shellfish into two parts: Half of her he set up and ceiled it as sky (Tiamat was the god of the primordial waters) (IV:137-8) 3. Marduk fixes Esharra (other god) as the firmament (IV:145) 4. He makes the gods of the Sky, Land and Sea occupy their places (IV:146) 5. Marduk sets up the stations of the great gods as stars in the sky. He sets astral likenesses to designate years, months, & days. (V:1-6) 6. Marduk creates the moon to govern the night (V:12) 7. Marduk resolves to create mankind charged with the service of the gods/that they might be at ease! (VI:6-7) 8. Marduk creates mankind by slaughtering Kingu (Tiamat s partner and cause of the battle). Out of his blood [the gods] fashioned mankind (VI:29-33) 9. After Marduk finishes setting the cosmos in order the city of Babylon and Marduk s temple are built. (VI:45-81) 2 Israel Israel s account of creation shares many similarities with Enuma Elish. While the structure has similarities the main correlations here are conceptual and even linguistic. For example, the deep (waters) of Genesis 1:2 in the Hebrew are tĕhôm, which is a word related to the name of the Babylonian god Tiamat. 1. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep (waters). And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (v. 2) 2. God made the firmament and separated the waters that were under the firmament from the waters that were above the firmament. God called the expanse sky. (v. 7-8) 3. God made the firmament (v. 7) 4. God gathers the water of heaven into one place and dry land appears. (v. 9-10) 5. God creates lights in the heavens for signs and seasons and to mark days and years (v. 14-15) 6. God makes the lesser light to rule the night (v. 16) 7. God resolves to make mankind in our own image, after our own likeness. And let them have dominion (v. 26) 8. So God created the human in his own image//in the image of God he created him//male and female he created them (v. 27) 9. God finishes his work of creating, of setting the cosmos in order, and rests (with the cosmos as his temple? cf. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One). 2 This list is based off of the text of Enuma Elish as found in: O'Brien, Joan, and Wilfred Major. In the Beginning: Creation Myths from Ancient Mesopotamia, Israel and Greece. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982.

Similarities between Accounts From the lists above is should be clear that there are many similarities between the creation accounts of the different cultures. This should not be a surprise to us as it affirms the historicity of the Biblical text. The writers of the Bible had their own time and context and their understanding of the way the world works was very similar to the cultures around them. This is to be expected if we believe God worked in history and truly called Abraham, truly knew Moses, truly inspired the prophets, and so on. We must acknowledge that the Bible was written to the ancient Israelites, but for all humanity throughout history, including us. The writers of the Bible were human writers, inspired by the Holy Spirit and we do great disservice to the Bible if we diminish either part of the dual-authorship. Now, on to some comparative discussion. Egypt and Israel As the lists above show, the creation accounts of Egypt have some structural parallels to Genesis 1. Each starts with a primordial, chaotic, futile watery deep. A breath/wind/spirit (the Hebrew word ruah can mean all three of these) moves over the waters. Light is created by various methods. A firmament is made and it separates the waters, forming sky. Dry ground comes from the waters. It is at the ending of the accounts that most of the differences take place and these will be discussed below, but in general the Egyptian and Israelite accounts have many of the same features in their creation accounts and many of them occur in the same order. Babylon and Israel There are many similarities between Enuma Elish and Genesis 1 as well. Both are written to extol a god, Marduk in Enuma Elish and God in Genesis. Again both start with a primordial, formless watery deep. Both speak of the waters being divided and sky being formed between them, showing that they shared a similar cosmic geography (see Figure 1, and Handout 3: Worldview & Cosmic Geographies). There is an interesting linguistic parallel between the two also. In Genesis 1:2 there is darkness over the face of the deep (waters). The Hebrew word for deep (waters) is tĕhôm. Enuma Elish was written in a language called Akkadian (an old Babylonian language) which was a sister language to Hebrew (much like French & Italian, or Spanish & Portuguese are today). The Hebrew word tĕhôm is related to the Akkadian word Tiamat. Tiamat is the god of the primordial sea that Marduk battles in Enuma Elish. This parallel has led many to suggest that the human author of Genesis knew the story of Enuma Elish and was implying that even the Babylonians gods were under God s control, since God tames the tĕhôm. Again there are many similarities between what is involved in creation and what order things are done in. These similarities beg some questions: Is the author of Genesis aware of these other creation accounts? Is Genesis 1 adapted from these accounts? Did the author rely on these accounts at all? These questions are popular in scholarship but too often the conversations delve into speculations that are of little help. Here is my understanding of the reason for the similarities. Like I mentioned above, the author of Genesis 1, whoever it was, lived in a world where creation stories were told. The whole nation of Israel was formed amidst nations like Egypt and Babylon. It is to be expected, if the Bible is historically reliable, that there will be commonalities in the way people talked about the world and even its creation. Israel wasn t formed in a vacuum and we have every reason to believe that they thought like their neighbors did in many fundamental ways. There was probably a common understanding that before God (or the gods) brought order and function to the cosmos all there was a kind of primordial water. There seems to be a common understanding that these waters were divided by a firmament thus creating sky and the potential for land. And so on. It is too simplistic

to say that the author of Genesis 1 borrowed from the Egyptians or Babylonians. Rather the author was immersed in the same kind of worldview and same kind of cosmic geography and the same kind of stories about how things came to be as they were. 3 Now onto the difference, for this is where the true theology of Genesis 1 is found. Differences between Accounts To truly understand the theological statement that Genesis 1 would have been making in its day, we should look at the differences between it and the creation accounts of the surrounding cultures. These differences would have stood out to the original hearers, especially if they had only heard pagan creation accounts before. Let s explore. Egypt and Israel One of the most noticeable differences between the Egyptian accounts and Genesis 1 is that Egypt was clearly polytheistic. Not only that, but every aspect of the cosmos was a god. The primordial water was Nun, Amun (breath/wind) moved over it, Atum (light) was created. All ancient cultures believed that the gods were active in the world and that the world operated by the gods, even Israel believed this (in a monotheistic way). But most other cultures also believed that the gods were part of the creation. Within this context In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth is remarkable because it speaks of a God that is wholly other than creation. The God of Genesis 1 is not in any way part of the creation; he is before and therefore beyond it. The implications for this are far reaching within an ancient conceptual mindset where gods are bound to the limitation of how the world worked. In the ancient world the gods worked through aspects of creation (sun, water, etc.) but they were still bound by the greater cosmos. None of them transcended creation. This wholly other God is also beyond manipulation. In the ancient world gods were served and appeased so that favor would come to the worshippers. In other words the gods could be manipulated by those who worshipped them. The gods could be coerced into doing certain things, and they often were. Genesis 1 speaks of a God who cannot be manipulated because he is beyond the things of this world. A final aspect that comes from this wholly other God is that he is not, even in part, human. There is no anthropomorphizing the God of Genesis 1. In the ancient world the gods were viewed as having all the same qualities, good and bad, as humans but without as many limitations 4. Viewing gods as super-humans made them open for manipulation, morally ambiguous, and ultimately not sovereign. The God of Genesis 1 cannot be manipulated, sets the moral standard, and is utterly sovereign. Babylon and Israel While Enuma Elish and Genesis 1 share many of the same differences as discussed above, there are some more that show up as well. The most striking differences is the element of theomachy (war between gods) in Enuma Elish. This is part of the anthropomorphizing discussed above and leads nicely towards manipulation. If there are many gods, and they acts as humans, then enough petitioning, sacrificing, etc. may be 3 David Lindberg makes the observation that There is a strong tendency within oral traditions to identify causes with beginnings, so that to explain something is to identify its historical origins. Within such a conceptual framework, the distinctions that we make between scientific and historical understanding cannot be sharply drawn and may be nonexistent. David C. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, page 7 4 (Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible 2006, 103)

able to manipulate a god to take up war against another god for your benefit. The God of Genesis 1 has no rivals, is not flippant and cannot be coerced, by you or your enemies. The second biggest difference that sticks out in comparing Enuma Elish and Genesis 1 comes with the creation of humanity. Marduk creates mankind by slaughtering the god who betrayed him thus starting the battle between him and Tiamat. Marduk creates mankind to serve the gods, so that the gods might be at ease. Genesis 1 offers a stark contrast: Then God said, Let us make mankind in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created the human in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (v. 26-27). Not only is God s place in the universe different in Genesis 1, but so is humanity s. Humans were not an accident like in the Egyptian account, and they weren t created to serve the gods as in Enuma Elish. In Genesis 1 humans are made in the image of the One True God. Not only this, but humans are given dominion over all the earth. In the pagan creation accounts it is the gods who have this dominion. Genesis 1 elevates humanity to the same level as the pagan gods, even if they don t have all the powers. Conclusion In its own context it is clear that Genesis 1 is telling us more than just the material origins of this world. 5 When read next to competing claims of origin we can see that Genesis 1 agrees with the pagan literature on many fronts. It is in the differences that the theology explodes and the One True God of Israel, eternal and sovereign becomes known. The text is far more about God and his people than it is about how the various material elements of this world came into being. Our challenge today is to keep our focus on what the text focusses on and not allow ourselves to get sidetracked by issues that the text does not directly address. I980 Old Testament scholar Gehard von Rad wrote concerning Genesis 1: Theology found in the science of that time an instrument it could use unhesitatingly to unfold the content of faith. Do we have the same liberty? Can our theology find in the science of our time an instrument that we can use to unhesitatingly unfold the content of our faith? Next time we discuss Evolution and the Big Bang. Recommended Reading Walton, John H. Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006.. The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009. 5 John Walton argues persuasively that Genesis 1 doesn t even concern material origins. See The Lost World of Genesis One