Genesis creation narrative: the biblical account of the world's origin

In Judaism, Gen 1:1-2:3 is the first reading in the weekly section Bereshit, so it has always been considered a unit of meaning. The Torah is a sacred text in the strict sense, which means that repetitions, omissions, the occurrence of the same word root and other peculiarities of the Hebrew text are carefully observed and questioned as to their meaning. This tradition of interpretation informs the Bible translations of Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber. The liberal Rabbi Benno Jacob wrote a comprehensive commentary on Genesis (published in 1934, reprinted in 2000), from which many individual observations on the text have been received in recent Christian exegesis.

In Christianity, the first three chapters of Genesis have traditionally been regarded as a unity: "Creation and Fall", an arc of tension ranging from the creation of the world to the creation of the primeval human couple to the Fall and the expulsion from Paradise. The fact that the priestly scriptural creation story crosses the chapter boundary is a visible indication to this day that the text was not recognized as a unity of meaning in the Christian Middle Ages. In Christianity the exact Hebrew wording has a much lower status outside the scientific sphere than in Judaism. The difference that can arise between a Christian and a Jewish translation can be seen in the comparison of the verse Gen 1:2c:

• "And the Spirit of God floats on the water." (Martin Luther: Biblia Deudsch1545)
• "Braus Gottes brütend allüber den Wassern" (Martin Buber/Franz Rosenzweig: Die Schrift, first edition. Rosenzweig, in a letter to Buber in 1925, expressed enthusiasm for the formulation thus found; nevertheless, the second edition changed "brütend" to "spreitend," and Buber finally settled on "schwingend.")

Mottovers (Gen 1:1)

The very first word of the Bible, Hebrew בְּרֵאשִׁית bereʾshit, German 'am Anfang, von Anfang an, zuerst', is controversial in its interpretation. After a word-field analysis, Bauks concluded that the ambiguity of the term was an artifice of the narrator. It allows "the interpretation as an absolute point of beginning, as the beginning of the divine creative action and as the early or prehistory of Israel's history."

If Hebrew בְּרֵאשִׁית bereʾshit is to be understood as status absolutus, the article is missing. Therefore, the Septuagint and Targum Onkelos translate, "In a beginning...". If there is a status constructus, then the noun rectum is missing, which could answer the question, "In the beginning of what?" One helps oneself here by taking the rest of Gen 1:1 EU as a substitute for a noun rectum. Syntactically, therefore, the beginning of the text is difficult: "Is 1:1 a main clause or a subordinate temporal clause? If 1 is subordinate, is the main clause verse 2 or verse 3?" Westermann, like the majority of translators, chose to take verse 1 as a main clause and heading. However, this is not mandatory. One can also understand Gen 1:1 EU as an adverbial prefatory clause: "When God began to create heaven and earth, the world was still desolate and confused, and the breath of God moved over the waters."

In Gen 1:1 EU we find a verb that is used exclusively for God's creative action and is never connected with a material specification: Hebrew ברא baraʾ. It is attested only in exilic or later texts, besides the Priestly Scriptures especially in the Book of Isaiah (so-called Deutero-Isaiah and updates). There it stands for past creative action as well as for future new creation, but in the Priestly Scriptures only for the creation of the world.

Today it is the consensus of research that "heaven and earth" as merism is the biblical Hebrew term for the cosmos. According to many exegetes, Gen 1,1 EU precedes the creation story like a heading and forms a framework with Gen 2,3 EU.

Pre-world narrative (Gen 1:2-3)

Westermann worked out that the statements in Gen 1,2 EU belong to the "as-yet-not" formulations well known from parallels in the history of religion. They delimit the world of creation from an actually not describable before.

Verse 2 introduces the reader to the three quantities earth (as tohu ṿavohu, Luther translation: 'desolate and empty'), Hebrew חֹשֶׁךְ ḥoshekh, German 'darkness' and Hebrew תְּהוֹם tehom, German 'primeval sea, primeval flood'. They are not created, but are presupposed at creation. Tohuwabohu, Hebrew תֹּהוּ וָבֹהוּ tohu ṿavohu, is proverbial in German: the first part of the formula (tohu) denotes an environment in which humans cannot survive. The second part (vohu) is onomatopoeic. It has no independent meaning. The "primeval night" ḥoshekh represents as "non-light" the contrast to the prelude of creation. Tehom is the deep sea, implying a certain danger, but also the primordial source that makes the land fertile. Since the narrator does not distinguish between fresh and salt water, the problem of how plants can grow through sea water does not arise for him. In contrast, Babylonian texts distinguish between the freshwater ocean (Apsu) and the saltwater ocean (water of death).

The range of meaning of Hebrew רוַּח ruaḥ includes "all kinds of moving air." The "ruaḥ of God" is translated by some commentators as "the storm of God," in the sense of a superlative: a strong tempest. This interpretation, originating in the Jewish tradition (Philo, David Kimchi), has some representatives in Christian exegesis as well, but can be considered a minority opinion. Two alternative interpretations are then available: While some exegetes see the ruaḥ as God's instrument in creation, others hold that it is possible that this ruaḥ is God in his pre-worldly form of existence. "Similar to an Israelite counterpart to the primordial lotus, urei, or the Nile goose, in the breeze the divine seems to be conceived as present without acting and having already unfolded its power."

Six days of creation

First day: day and night (Gen 1:4-5)

At the Creator's word, light has flooded in and "set the pre-world in a dim twilight." God separates the primordial light from the chaos-darkness. Thus day and night come into being. In naming them, God subjects them to his dominion. This is especially significant in the case of darkness and (on the following day) primeval flood, because here circumstances of the pre-world are transformed.

Day Two: Firmament (Gen 1:6-8)

God "makes" the firmament, Hebrew רָקִיעַ raḳiʿa, the vertical separation of the waters. The word actually means stamped, hammered. What is meant is "that sky-blue which seems to arch over the earth." How the vault is constituted, and what is above the vault, are of no further interest. Quite different are the visions in the Book of Ezekiel (Ez 1:22-26 EU; Ez 10:1 EU) and Mesopotamian texts that describe a celestial geography. Cornelis Houtman considered it inadmissible to insert elements from other biblical texts, such as the pillars or windows of heaven, into the creation story as an embellishment of what was meant. The narrator is interested here only in the purpose of the raḳiʿa: it protects the earth and its inhabitants from the upper waters, which it holds back.

Day Three: Mainland and Plant Life (Gen 1:9-13)

The third day of creation brings the work of the second day of creation to a close. There God separated the upper from the lower waters; here the lower waters are drawn together in their place, the sea, so that dry land emerges, to which the narrator's interest turns. God gives something of his creative power to the earth: "Let the earth be green with green." Plants were not considered living creatures because no breath of life was observed in them. "The narrator is not interested in the fact that there are mountains and valleys on the earth, but that it is the table set for living beings."

Fourth day: Sun, moon and stars (Gen 1:14-19)

Only day four brings, surprisingly for the modern reader at this point, the creation of the heavenly bodies - after the light has already been present since the first day.

Schmidt and others see in the passage Gen 1,14-19 EU a polemic against astral religions: The priestly narrator has degraded the lights of heaven to "lamps" and avoids to call sun and moon by name. Not all exegetes, however, take a polemical jab at other religions. It can also be argued that the priestly scripture consistently forms categories into which the forms of life are sorted; "lights" is the generic term for sun and moon.

You will be assigned three tasks:

1. to distinguish the day and the night (this task had been performed by God Himself on the first day of creation);
2. to enable orientation in the course of the year;
3. to illuminate the earth.

Fifth day: Beasts of the water and the air (Gen 1:20-23)

Starting on day five, the subject is the creation of living creatures. Just like in the speeches of God in the book of Job, in Gen 1,20-23 EU an animal world is described that is not judged by its usefulness for humans. It also includes scary, dangerous life forms. This is a potentially interesting impetus for environmental ethics today. The view begins with sea serpents (Hebrew תַּנִּינִם tanninim) and continues through the "teeming" of aquatic animals to those capable of flight. The variety of living creatures is painted out in verse 20 by a twofold figura etymologica:

• Hebrew יִשְׁרְצוּ ... שֶׁרֶץ yishretsu sherets, German 'Gewimmel soll wimmeln...';
• Hebrew וְעֹוף יְעֹופֵף ṿeʿof yeʿofef, German '...and flying animals shall fly'.

God endows - a new element in the narrative - the creatures with his blessing. They are to multiply and take up their habitat.

Day Six: Land Animals and People

Land animals (Gen 1:24-25)

The classification of the multiform animal world into groups is a form of ancient oriental "science" and especially for the priestly writing an important topic (sacrifice and food commandments). This has no resemblance to modern zoology, as the division of the land animals in Gen 1,24-25 EU clearly shows:

• Hebrew חַיַּת הָאָרֶץ ḥayyat haʾarets, German 'Wild';
• Hebrew בְּהֵמָה behemah, German 'Vieh';
• Hebrew רֶמֶשׂ remeś, German 'kriechendes Kleingetier', for example reptiles, small mammals, insects.

They all compete with man for the habitat of the mainland. That is why in their case the blessing and the associated mandate to fill the living space is omitted. This interpretation comes from Benno Jacob's commentary on Genesis and can be seen as an example of impulses that today's Christian exegesis takes up from the Jewish tradition of interpretation.

Humans (Gen 1:26-28)

The Gutenberg Bible's illustration of Genesis 1 (photo) shows that the creation of man Gen 1:26-28 EU was usually illustrated in the Christian tradition with the data from Gen 2:7, 21-22 EU. There is a primeval human couple, and the woman is created from the side or rib of the man. The Priestly Scriptures are different: God creates humanity; in the case of humans and animals, it is "genera, but not singletons, which only play a role for Noah's "ark.""

The following interpretations have been suggested for the unusual plural in verse 26 ("Let us make men...").

Grammatical:

• Pluralis Majestatis (Sovereign Plural);
• Pluralis Deliberationis (plural expression of intention / self-consultation);

Content:

• God the Father speaks to Jesus Christ. This understanding of the text is already widespread in the early church, for example in Ambrose of Milan: "To whom does God speak? Apparently not to himself; for he does not say: let me make, but: let us make. Nor to the angels, for they are his servants; but between servant and master, between creature and creator, there can be no communion of agency. Rather he speaks it to the Son, though it may not be agreeable to the Jews, though the Arians may object to it." This is a Christian Dogmatic Relecture.
• "God joins himself to the heavenly beings of his court, and yet hides himself again in this plural." Against this interpretation, favored by many exegetes, is the fact that the Priestly Scriptures do not otherwise mention a heavenly court. Within the Hebrew Bible as a whole, however, it is well attested. Jewish tradition has usually interpreted heavenly beings as angels. Jacob approvingly points to the classic Torah commentary of Rashi, which explains at this point that God conferred with his familia - here as a Latin loanword (פמליא) in Rashi's Hebrew text.
• In Mesopotamian myths, several gods cooperate in the creation of man. Each deity gives something of its own gifts and attributes. "It is the collective of gods and not the single deity that brings forth man." This may still be present to the narrator in the background, even though he does not unfold the motif.

Three sizes are assigned to each other in Gen 1,26-27 EU: God - man - environment. The understanding of the Hebrew text was long influenced by the Christian-theological concept of the image of God. Accordingly, it was about the determination of the relationship between God and man, about something in the nature of man (for example, language, intellect) that makes him the image of the Godhead. However, Hebrew צֶלֶם tselem, traditionally translated as 'likeness,' refers to the cult image representing the deity; Norbert Lohfink coined the term "statue of God" for it." By some recent interpreters (Walter Groß, Bernd Janowski, Ute Neumann-Gorsolke) a statement about the nature of man derived from the term tselem is consistently rejected. Based on parallels in the history of motifs in the Levant and in Egypt, the following understanding of the text emerges: The term tselem serves to define the relationship between man and his environment. Humans are as "statues of God" representatives of God in the world. A metaphor of ancient Egyptian royal ideology is applied by the priestly scripture to every man and woman. They perform tasks vicariously for God, just as Hadad-yis'is statue could replace this king in certain functions.

Frank Crüsemann translated for the Bible in just language: "Then God created Adam, the human beings, in the divine image, in the image of God they were created, male and female he, she, God created them." (Gen 1:27 EU) Jürgen Ebach explained this free rendering of the Hebrew text: "If male and female are God's images, God cannot be male alone." With this understanding of the text, Hebrew צֶלֶם tselem again becomes interesting for similarities of God and man. But if one takes tselem with Janowski and others as representing God to the environment, there is no room for such an interpretation.

Mission

God's blessing of humans (Gen 1:28 EU) includes ruling over other living creatures as God's agents (dominium terrae). The following verbs specify what is meant by dominion:

• Hebrew כבש kavash "to trample down". The violent connotation ("enslave, humiliate") is clear here, even though Norbert Lohfink and Klaus Koch suggested alternative interpretations.
• Hebrew רדה radah. Here it is debated in research whether the verb has only violent connotations ("to tread down", like grapes in the winepress) or also peaceful ones ("to tend"). The interpretation as violent action initially dominated. James Barr initiated a rethinking in 1972 with the thesis that the verb radah is to be understood from the ancient Near Eastern ideal of the royal shepherd. In the German-speaking world, Norbert Lohfink, Klaus Koch, Erich Zenger and others advocated this type of interpretation. The Good News Bible adopts the motif of the royal shepherd, which it also unfolds as a communicative translation: "Fill the whole earth and take possession of it! I set you over ... all the animals that live on the earth and entrust them to your care." The revised Einheitsübersetzung (2016) also places itself in this tradition and translates radah as "rule."

With regard to the reception, it should be emphasized that the Council of the EKD and the German Bishops' Conference formulated in a joint declaration in 1985: "Alarmed by the extent of the destruction of our environment that has become evident and prompted by the modern interpretation of Scripture, we question the Bible ... about the relationship of human beings to their fellow creatures as intended by God." A key role is played by the explanation of the terms kavash and radah (Genesis 1:28 EU): "To subdue (Genesis 1:28) means to make the earth (the ground) with its wild growth botlike, docile," that is, to create cultivated land where there was previously wilderness. "The dominion of man over the animal world stands out clearly from the subjugation of the soil ... . It is reminiscent of the rule of a shepherd over his flock .... God lays upon man the directing and shepherding of the animal species (Genesis 1:26, 28)." However, it is not clear what the management and care of the sea animals could have consisted of at the time of the writing of the Priestly Scriptures.

Walter Groß summarized the course of the exegetical discussion in 2000 as follows: authoritative exegetes had "at the height of ecological concern" tended towards the supposedly gentle image of the shepherd; since this concern had subsided, "rather violent concepts of rule" had again come to the fore. Andreas Schüle judged in 2009: the concepts of ruling in Hebrew had a "despotic and even violent tone." Man's ruling task in a crude world, he said, was "to prevent and hold down the spread of violence." Similarly, Annette Schellenberg 2011: Since the verbs radah and kavash occur as a pair, no particularly harmonious picture of the human-animal relationship emerges.

First food commandments (Gen 1:29-31)

The creation narrative and the flood narrative are related to each other in the priestly writing. In the world of the beginning the killing of living creatures is not necessary, not even for food. Humans and animals are vegetarians with separate diets according to Gen 1:29-31 EU. Since fish and domestic animals do not compete with humans for food, they are not specifically mentioned here. This dietary order relativizes the dominion mandate previously given to man. In any case, it is not necessary to kill living creatures in order to eke out one's own life. Since the Priestly Scriptures do not know of a fall into sin, there follows abruptly the description of a world that has filled itself with violence (Gen 6:11 EU) and narrowly escapes its destruction in the Flood. At the end of the priestly narrative of the Flood, meat is tolerated as food (Gen 9:3 EU).

Rest on the seventh day (Gen 2:1-3)

With the rest of God on the seventh day, the goal of the narrative is reached. Even though the verb used here, Hebrew שבת shavat, German 'to cease,' is to be separated linguistically from the noun Hebrew שַבָּת shabbat, "the later justification of the Sabbath is reflected in these sentences." Gunkel saw an etiology in verses 2:1-3 EU. When asked why the Sabbath was a day of rest from work, the myth answers with an anthropomorphism: because God himself rested from his work on the seventh day. The argument against this is that the text lacks an instruction for action. It describes a rest that is there independently of man's involvement or perception. Though not a living thing, the seventh day is blessed and sanctified by God. It is to endure and with it the weekly structure of time. In this, Gen 2:1-3 points beyond itself; the significance of the seventh day is not yet revealed here. This happens only in the manna narrative Ex 16 EU, which is a key text of the priestly writing: Under the guidance of Moses Israel learns to celebrate the Sabbath.

Gen 2:1-3 EU points ahead to other narratives that are important in the overall work of the priestly writing:

• After six days of silence, God speaks to Moses on Sinai on the seventh day (Ex 24:16 EU).
• The verbs complete - bless - sanctify are found again in Ex 39-40 EU at the completion of the tent sanctuary (Mishkan), where this sanctuary corresponds to the Jerusalem temple. When Moses sets up the Tent Sanctuary with the cult utensils, it corresponds to God's works of creation. "In this way, creation and temple foundation are placed in a relationship of correspondence, as in the multitude of ancient Near Eastern creation texts."