Creation Story, Take 2

Genesis 2: 1-25

Tanakh, Genesis 2: 3-4

“And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that He had done. Such is the story of heaven and earth when they were created.”

NIV Bible, Genesis 2:3-4

“And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Adam and Eve

This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.”

I put that subtitle in there for a reason. In the NIV, Verse 4 is set apart, and reads as if it is a preface for Genesis 2, rather than the ending statement of the story in Genesis 1. Another big difference is the use of the word “story” in the Tanakh, versus “account” in the NIV. In modern language, “story” is often used to describe a fictional event, “account” to relate something that actually happened. I find the difference in terminology very interesting.

Genesis 2, starting at verse 4, is written in a very different style from the last chapter. Genesis 1 is poetic, Genesis 2 is prose. In Genesis 1, creation is divided into days; no specific time period is mentioned in Genesis 2. Genesis 2 focuses almost exclusively on earthly creations, and ignores the greater cosmos. There are some divergences between the two, such as the way in which women were created. Which, as many scholars believe, is one clue that Genesis 2 was written by a different author from Genesis 1. For a more in depth look at the theory of multiple authors of the Pentateuch, check out this article. 

NIV, Genesis 2: 10-14

“A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there). The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.”

This passage firmly places the mythological Eden in or near the Middle East. According to the above cited article, Genesis 2:4-3:3 is considered to be the oldest text in the Pentateuch, and has been dated to about 799-700 BCE. This places the writing 100-200 years before the Israeli exile to Babylon began. However, I also believe that the entire Pentateuch was edited and redacted in the post-exile period.

As an interesting side note, I did a bit of history as to what was going on in the world around 800-700 BCE, at the time that the Hebrew creation story may have been first written down. Here is a sampling:

Model of the Temple of Artemis. Image by Petitfrere.

-       The Olmecs build pyramids in Central America.

-       Alara established the Kingdom of Kush, an ancient African kingdom located in modern day Republic of Sudan.

-       The first Olympic games were held in Greece

-       Construction begins on the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

-       Destruction of the Zhou capital at Hao marks the end of the Western Zhou Dynasty in China.

-       753 BCE marks the traditional date of the founding of Rome.

-       744 BCE Tiglath-Pileser III succeeds in Assyria; conquers Syria, Palestine, Israel and Babylon

-       722 BCE Assyrian ruler Sargon II seizes power in Assyria; destroys the Kingdom of Israel.

Quite a volatile period for ancient Israelites; I can see how writing down oral traditions might have comforted and gave hope to people during a period in the Middle East that sounds tumultuous and violent.

NIV Genesis 2: 21-22

“So the Lord caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.”

I only mention this verse here, because this is what I was taught as a child, and didn’t know otherwise until I went to college. Really. Until I was 18, I firmly believed that all women came from one man’s rib, and that men have one less rib than women, because of this exact verse. Oy vey.

Enuma Elish

Photo by Kmiragaya

I like to do research. It goes along part and parcel with almost anything I read, it is rare that I take any statement at face value (except for those involving emotions, that is). I also like a good creation story. There are so many of them, you see. Enough to start a side project....but I digress! Did I say I like to do research? I am also easily side-tracked.

Back to Enuma Elish, a Babylonian creation story that some scholars have claimed to be the inspiration for Genesis 1. The Enuma Elish was discovered by archaeologists in the mid-19th century, while they were excavating the library of Assyrian King Ashurbanipal. Enuma Elish is written on clay tablets in Akkadian, a cuneiform script that--along with Sumerian--is one of the oldest written languages.  (Randomly, I happen to know all about Akkadian writing, thanks to the  Archaeology's Dirty Little Secrets course on Coursera. Highly recommend if it is offered again). Typically, Akkadian was used as a method of bookkeeping, to record laws, and other administrative manners. Finding an Akkadian tablet containing literature therefore, was quite a find.

According to the Enuma Elish, in the beginning, the world was covered in swirling waters. Out of this, the waters divided into sweet, fresh water, known as the God Apsu, and salty bitter water known as the goddess Tiamat. The union of these two entities gave birth to the younger gods. The beginning of the story is very poetic and striking:

When the skies above were not yet named 
Nor earth below pronounced by name, 
Apsu, the first one, their begetter, 
And maker Tiamat, who bore them all, 
Had mixed their waters together, 
But had not formed pastures, nor discovered reed-beds; 
When yet no gods were manifest, 
Nor names pronounced, nor destinies decreed, 
Then gods were born within them. 

The story then goes on to detail a very dysfunctional deity family. There are some parallels with Genesis: the world begins covered in swirling waters; in both stories light was created first and man last.

These are parallels that are found in many creation stories around the world. A creation story is an important mythological narrative, and creations stories have been found in almost every culture in the world. They are important, symbolic, fictive narratives that help humans cope with the fact that we do not understand the origins of the universe. Creation stories may not be literally true, but they hold immense value to self-identity. They often define a culture or society.