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The Interpretation of the Bible of the Church (1993)

Narrative exegesis offers a method of understanding and communicating the biblical message
which corresponds to the form of story and personal testimony, something characteristic of holy
Scripture and, of course, a fundamental modality of communication between human persons. The Old
Testament in fact presents a story of salvation, the powerful recital of which provides the substance of
the profession of faith, liturgy and catechesis (cf. Ps 78:3-4; Exod 12:24-27; Deut 6:20-25; 26:5-11).
[...].Particularly attentive to elements in the text which have to do with plot, characterization and the
point of view taken by a narrator, narrative analysis studies how a text tells a story in such a way as to
engage the reader in its "narrative world" and the system of values contained therein. (I, B, 2)

→ J.-P. SONNET, “L’analisi narrativa dei racconti biblici”, in M. Bauks – C. Nihan, ed.,
Manuale di esegesi dell’Antico Testamento, Testi e Commenti, Bologna 2010, 45-85.

GENESIS 1

Gen 1: Who is telling?

→ The narrator, to whom the empirical authors have delegated the task and privilege to tell, with a
non-empirical authority, which transcends their own.

Omniscient: the narrator tells the story of creation, which no human being had witnessed, and has
access to inner psyche of the character, starting from God’s interiority (“And Yhwh was sorry that he
had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart” [Gen 6.6]), and interior monologues: “So
Yhwh said [or thought], ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground, man and
beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them’” (6.7). If the
narrator is able to do this for the divine character, he is capable to do it for the human characters (as in
Gen 17:17: “Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Shall a child be born to a
man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’).
→ The vision of the narrator is matching that of God, as by inspiration:

And God saw the earth, and behold [Divine point of view] it was corrupt,
[The Narrator:] for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. (Gen 6:12)

Omniscient, but powerless, unable to make anything happen in the world of the story, unlike the
character of God, who is omniscient and omnipotent. .

Reliable, as God, for that matter, in his word. It gives us the yardstick by which to judge all other
versions of history (lies and other distortions of truth on the part of the human characters).

Anonymous, never in the limelight (as a “I” or otherwise) and never addressing explicitly the reader,
operates as a voice-over from behind the scenes. Standing out for his reticence (minimalism,
discretion), particularly in the field of omniscience, the narrator puts forward his characters (not
himself), beginning with God: “When, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…”

► The verb bara’ always has God as its subject, and refers to wonders that only God can achieve: the
creation of Israel as a nation (Is 43:15), justice and salvation as a new human condition (Is 45:8) the
transformation of the human heart (Ps 51:12), or a new heaven and a new earth (Is 65:17).

Gen 1:1-3: Which syntactic construction? What is the point of the story?

1. A first translation, classical, established since the ancient versions of the Bible, and tied to the
doctrine of creation ex nihilo.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

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An independent clause, which tells the God’s first creative action; it raises however a problem: how
does one explain that the earth is still “formless” after its creation (elsewhere in Gen 1, the creatures
come out perfect after the intervention of the creator)?

2. An independent clause, title or proleptic summary of the entire creative week:

Beginning of creation by God of heaven and earth.

3. Vv. 1-3 form a long sentence in which v.1 becomes a circumstantial clause of time (bereshît, the first
word = “At the beginning of X...” [Jer 26:1, 27:1, 28:1, 49:34]), with v. 3 as main proposition: “God
said”:

At the beginning of creation / when God began to create the heavens and the earth
– Now the earth was tohu and bohu and darkness on the face of an abyss (Tehom)
and the wind (spirit) of God (was) moving on the face of the waters –
God said, “Let there be light” and there was light.

- An affirmation of creation ex nihilo? See 2 Mac 7:28 (second century b.C.): “I beg you, my child, to
look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not
make them out of things that existed (οὐκ ἐξ ὄντων ἐποίησεν αὐτὰ ὁ θεός; quia ex nihilo fecit illa
Deus); And in the same way the human race came into being”. Probably an answer to the challenge of
Hellenistic thought on the beginning (or lack of beginning) of the world.

→ In Gen 1:1-3, the primordial elements, notably wind and abyss, recall the thought and imagination of
Mesopotamian cosmology. Tehôm, “abyss”, in Gen 1.3 echoes Ti'amat, “the primordial sea” in
Akkadian.

(About the “tohu and bohu”, and “empty desert”, cf. Jer 4:23; “tohu” connotes in Is 24:10 a devastated
city, inhospitable, in Dt 32:10, a bleak desert, in Is 45:18 and Jer 4:23-27, the opposite of a created
world.)

Four modes of creation in the Ancient Near East (ANE):

1. By Generation
In Enuma Elish, the gods create primitive waters, which create the world; in the cosmogony of
Heliopolis, self-fecundation by Atum. It is the only mode excluded from the Hebrew Bible; the phrase
in Gen. 2:4: “These are the generations (’elleh toledot) of heaven and earth when they were created” is
explained in the light of the 9 similar formulas in Genesis, where the genitive designates the parent and
not the offspring; it bears upon what is generated from the heavens and the earth on the human scene of
Gen 2–3 .

2. By Manufacturing

In Egypt, the god Khnum is represented when fashioning the “primordial egg” on a potter’s wheel,
from which all things arise, including the greatest god, the sun. In the epics of Atrahasis and of
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Gilgamesh and in the Baylonian Theodicy, man is fashioned out of clay. In the Bible, cf. Gen 2:7: “And
Yhwh God formed man of dust”.

3. By Combat

Creation by “theomachy” (machè = “combat”), cf. the cosmogony of the epic Enuma Elish (XIV
century BC.), a poem that intends to justify the supremacy of Marduk, the god of Babylon, over the
other gods of the Babylonian pantheon, and that was recited during the New Year’s celebration.

When in the height heaven was not named,

And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsu, who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamut, the mother of them both
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
When of the gods none had been called into being,
And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained; 
Then were created the gods in the midst of heaven. (I,1-9)

The raging winds have provided Marduk with the ultimate weapon, especially “Imhullu, the evil wind,
the tempest, the hurricane,the fourfold wind, the sevenfold wind, the whirlwind, the wind which had no
equal” (IV,45-46).

And unto Tiamat, whom he had conquered, he returned.

And the lord stood upon Tiamat’s hinder parts,
And with his merciless club he smashed her skull.
He cut through the channels of her blood,
And he made the North wind bear it away into secret places.
His fathers beheld, and they rejoiced and were glad;
Presents and gifts they brought unto him.
Then the lord rested, gazing upon her dead body,
While he divided the flesh of the ... , and devised a cunning plan.
He split her up like a flat fish into two halves;
One half of her he established as a covering for heaven.
He fixed a bolt, he stationed a watchman,
And bade them not to let her waters come forth. (IV,128-140)

The model of combat is found in the Bible (always in poetic context).

Thou dost rule the raging of the sea;

when its waves rise, thou stillest them.
Thou didst crush Rahab like a carcass,
thou didst scatter thy enemies with thy mighty arm. (Ps 89: 9-10)

Was it not thou that didst cut Rahab in pieces,

that didst pierce the dragon?
Was it not thou that didst dry up the sea,
the waters of the great deep (tehôm)? (Is 51:9-10)

In that day Yhwh with his hard and great and strong sword
will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent,
and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea. (Is 27:1)
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(Cf. also Is 51:9-10; Ps 40:5; 72:9; 74:13-14; Job 7:12; 26:12-13; 40:15-32)

4. By the Word

Theology of Memphis, where the god Ptah created by the heart and tongue.

→The “wind of God” (ruah ’elohîm) in Gen 1:1-3 “imagine [...] a power quivering, trembling, as it is
held, suspended, waiting. As if God would calm his own power, ceasing to amplify the chaos. Then,
suddenly, he began playing with this breath, to modulate his breath, ‘And Elohim said: Yehî ’ôr’” (A.
WÉNIN, Da Adamo ad Abramo, Bologna 2008, 22).

v. 3: “And God said, ‘Let there be light’ (yehî) and there was light (wayehî)”.
v. 5: “And God called the light ‘day’”.

→ the point of Gen 1:1-3, against the backdrop of threatening elements: the “mild domination” of a
God who reveals himself “master of his mastery” (cfr. P. Beauchamp e WÉNIN, Da Adamo, 26-27):

For thy strength is the source of righteousness,

and thy sovereignty over all causes thee to spare all.
For thou dost show thy strength when men doubt
the completeness of thy power,
and dost rebuke any insolence among those who know it.
Thou who art sovereign in strength dost judge with mildness (Sap 12,16-18)

v. 21: “So God created (bara’) the great sea monsters (Is 27:1; Ps 74:13; Exod 7:9; Ps 91:13; Jer 51:34;
Ezra 29:3) […] And God saw that it was good”. The elements of chaos along with sea monsters get, as
creatures, a place in the plan of God (cf. Job 40–41).

Gen 1:3-5: The First Day, the First Divine Portrait

God said
Gen 1:3: “God said, ‘Let there be light’and there was light” – Yehî ’ôr wayehî ’ôr

→ Centrality of the direct speech in the characterization of God.

There is no gap between the spoken word “Light” and the created reality (the light). The sequence
creates decisive “first impressions”. In the psychology of perception, the law of first impressions
(Primacy Effect) states that what appears at the beginning of a message is imprinted deeply in the mind
of the reader and determines the reception of what follows. What is set out in Gen 1 is prophetic of
what God can do, even in the delays of history, cf. 1 Sam 3:9: God “does not drop any of his words”;
Jer 1:12: “I am watching over my word to achieve it”.

God saw
Gen 1:4: “And God saw that the light was good, ” (cf. 1:4,10,12,18,21,25,31).

→ Centrality of point of view (with the eyes, ears, perception of whom are things perceived?) in the
characterization of God.

“This surprised distancing is indeed not insignificant! Elohim is not content to deploy his power to
bring about order, transform, create, give life. He also suspends himself to watch – better yet: to let be
that which he has created, considering it with a look that opens a space in which it can exist. This is an
attitude that, yet again, calibrates the power that was deployed elsewhere in the creator’s action” (
WÉNIN, Da Adamo, 25).
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→ The adjective “good” (tôb) is found at the intersection point of God’s and the narrator’s point of
view: they share the same moral perspective.

Creation and Separation

Gen 1:4: “And God separated light from darkness” (cf. 1:4,6,7,14,18); cf. P. BEAUCHAMP, Création et
séparation, Paris 1969.

“The works of the Lord are done in judgment from the beginning: and from the time he made
them he disposed the parts thereof” (Sir 16:26).