Transcript: Genesis Chapters 1 – 3

This is the lecture accompanying the Genesis 1-3 reading and reading guide. While many
of the students I’ve taught are familiar with the story Genesis 1 through 3, very few
have been engaged in textual criticism and historical criticism when studying the
Hebrew Bible and the Greek Bible. So I want my students to really take a close look at
these chapters. The reading guide was developed to guide your focus and I hope that
once you completed it you realized that there are major differences (often times
contradictory ones) between Genesis 1 through chapter 2, verse 4a and Genesis chapter
2, verse 4b through chapter 3. Differences like the name of the deity, the order of
creation. So once you realize there are major differences, I want you think how can we
explain these differences? How do we explain these inconsistencies? For example, was it
watery chaos before creation or dry desert?

What we are reading here are two different myths about creation written 400 years
apart. Genesis chapter 2, verse 4b through chapter 3 is actually the oldest of the two
stories and was written by what biblical scholars call the J writer. The J writer wrote his
version around 900 BCE (before the Common Era), which is around the time when the
nation of Israel was formed. For those of you familiar with the stories of the Bible, this is
around the time of the united monarchy when Israel was ruled by 3 great kings (Saul,
David, and Solomon). Characteristics of the J writer are as follows. First the J writer calls
the deity Yahweh in Hebrew, which has been translated to LORD God in English. Second,
the J writer portrays the LORD God in an anthropomorphic way, in other words, LORD
God has human-like qualities. For example, God forms man, plants the garden and walks
through the garden, like humans. Third, the J writer also emphasizes geography, which
you can see in chapter 2 verses 10 through 14, as he tries to locate exactly where the
garden. Fourth, the J writer also emphasizes soil. Think of what was around before
creation and how man was formed from the dust of the ground. Fifth, the J writer also
has the view that humans become increasingly corrupt, which we can see in Chapter 3
with the story of the fruit and the serpent. So to recap Genesis chapter 2, verses 4b
through chapter 3 was written first in 900 BCE by the J writer. This was his myth and
interpretation of how the world was created.

This brings us now to Genesis chapter 1 through chapter 2, verse 4a. This is actually the
more recent of the two stories since it was written around 500 BCE (before the Common
Era) by what scholars call the P writer or the Priestly Writer. It’s important to note that
the audience for the P writer is people who have priests and follow the rules and
legalism of the Hebrew Bible. So the P writer is writing to justify and encourage his
audience to follow the rules and guidelines set forth by the priests of the communities.
So one of the primary places we can see this is when we think about the climax of the
story. What would you say is the climax of the story or what is the story building up to?
The way the story is written is that it finally reaches the last day, the seventh day of
creation. And what happens on this day? On the seventh day, God rests. In essence, God
is observing the Sabbath, which is the Jewish tradition of rest on the seventh day of the
way. So priests could point this out as the origin and reason for why their communities
observe the Sabbath.

A second characteristic of the P writer is that the writing style is very liturgical and
repetitive, like one would expect of a worship service led by priests. A third
characteristic of the P writer is that it often portrays God as a very distant God. God is
not human-like as we saw in the J writer’s story. This God seems very transcendent and
far away. Thus, because of this image of a distant God, one would confirm that they
need an intermediary to reach and talk to God- and who would this intermediary be? A
priest. Finally, a fourth characteristic of the P writer is his focus on genealogies. We
don’t see this in the chapters assigned for this class but the P writer also wrote Genesis
5, which even if you just take a quick look at it you realize it’s entirely a genealogy of
who is the son of who and so on. This is important to the priests because at this time the
priesthood was determined by genealogy and family. So it would be important for them
to have genealogies to confirm that they can indeed trace their roots to the important
men of the Hebrew Bible and thus are allowed to be priests. So the writer of Genesis
chapter 1 through chapter 2, verse 4a is the Priestly writer who wrote his sections 400
years after the J writer.

The J and P writers are part of a broader understanding of who the writers of the Torah
are. The Torah is the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers and Deuteronomy). This broader understanding of who wrote the Torah is
called the Documentary Hypothesis, and it argues that there are four different people
involved in the production of the Torah. We’ve discussed two of the authors (the J
writer and the P writer), but the other two are the E writer and the D writer. The E
writer wrote around 700 BCE and primarily is known because he calls God Elohim. The E
writer views Elohim as being very remote and a deity that can only be accessed through
dreams, messengers and prophets. The D writer wrote around 600 BCE and wrote
almost entirely in the book of Deuteronomy. He also has a strong emphasis on
prophecy.

So the Documentary Hypothesis asserts that the production of the Torah (those first five
books of the Hebrew Bible) took place over time. It started with the J writer, next the E
writer wrote his version followed by the D writer, and the P writer wrote his portions
and then acted like an editor putting them all together into what we know it as today.
You can also realize that because the P writer was the last writer and editor of the
Torah, of course he decided to put his story first before the J writer!

With all of this in mind, it’s important to realize that the P writer knew the J writer
existed and had actually read the creation myth of the J writer. So what does all of this
say about how we should understand Genesis 1 through 3? What are the implications
that the P writer knew the J writer’s story?
Since the P writer purposively left the J writer’s myth of creation, he did not have a
problem with having two very different creation stories right next to each other. The P
writer did NOT take his story or the J writer’s story LITERALLY. The creation stories were
not presented as historical fact. They were not meant to be read as TRUE or the
factually correct understanding of creation. So these stories are myth! They are written
to convey a truth. And the truth is simply that God was a part of creation. With myths,
the reader can judge the story by asking his or herself if the story works for them. If the
myth doesn’t work for a specific reader, it can be discarded for a different myth.

Another way we can recognize that the two Genesis creation stories are to be viewed as
conveying a truth, rather than conveying fact, is by studying syncretism. Syncretism is
when a writer borrows ideas from others and adopts it as their own. Both the J writer
and the P writer adopted other stories and tweaked and changed and make their own.
One of the oldest stories of creation is the story of Gilgamesh. It comes from around
3,000 BCE and is the Mesopotamian creation story. Some of the characteristics in
Gilgamesh can be found in the J writer’s story. Both include the presence of a snake,
who is associated with a plant of immortality and knowledge. Also in Gilgamesh, the
God Enkidu becomes humanized and realizes he is naked and needs to be clothed. This
is strongly similar to the man in Genesis 3, who after eating the fruit hides from God
because he realizes he is naked. So because of the story of Gilgamesh was a very old
creation myth, the J writer would have known of it. He then changed to fit his
community and their understanding of God, and thus is an example of syncretism.

There is another creation story and this one comes from the Babylonian community and
is called the Enuma Elish, which was written in 1,200 BCE. The creation myth by the P
writer has many similarities with the Enuma Elish. First, the sequence of creation is
identical with the Enuma Elish (plants, animals, then humans). Second, Earth is a watery
chaos before creation begins for the Enuma Elish, as well as the P writer’s version of
creation. Third, the God in the Enuma Elish, Marduk, creates by word and commands,
which is the same as the P writer. To help add to our understanding of syncretism, the P
writer was writing his version around the time that the Babylonians were taking over
Jerusalem. Thus, this would have been the time when the P writer would have learned
of the Enuma Elish and so he took many of the parts of the story and created it for his
people.

So I hope that this lecture was interesting and informative and has helped open your
eyes that biblical interpretation is not as easy as we first think. Yes, people can find
meaning in the text just by reading it but we can also go deeper and study it using a
variety of tools. For Genesis 1 through 3 we primarily looked closely at the text and the
historical circumstances around the creation of the text to help us understand how it
was originally intended to be interpreted. We discussed how it was never meant to be
read as TRUE or as historical fact and instead it is read as myth and conveys that larger
truth to the reader that God had a role in the creation of the world. With this mind, we
can see that there is room for scientific understanding of how the world was created
alongside the biblical understanding. We do not need to discard science to believe the
Bible. We can accept science and the Bible together because they are not contradictory
and are just explaining different aspects of creation. The Bible is simply saying that God
was there and played a role in creation.