Richard Potter 20 April 2007

CCRS Module – Old Testament Lent 2007

Why are there two accounts of the creation story in Genesis 1

and 2? What are the writers attempting to say in these stories?

How can we understand these ‘mythical’ accounts and see them

as relevant?

‫בראשית ברא אלהים‬

‫את השמים ואת‬
‫הארץ׃‬
‘In the beginning God made Heaven and Earth’ 1

In this essay, I intend to begin with a brief analysis of how the two accounts came to

be written. I will then discuss the nature of the two accounts. I will then explore how

the interpretation of these

texts at various times through the ages has been dependent on the historic, cultural and

scientific context and finally try to propose an ‘evolutionary theology’ that expresses

these ancient ideas in terms that are relevant today.

I started this essay with a quote in Hebrew. Partly this was because I find the script

quite beautiful, but also to emphasise that the scripture originates in a culture that is

quite distant from our own. Even more so when we are talking about God we are

talking about something that is beyond our comprehension. We should not forget that

he writing of the scriptures was a long process that was bound up in the process of a
1
Gen 1.1 The Hebrew is taken from ‘Parallel Hebrew Old Testament’ online at
http://www.hebrewoldtestament.com/B01C001.htm

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people coming to a realisation of their relationship with God. Nothing they could

discover or try to describe can be fully adequate. Herbert McCabe explains how all

the words and images we use to try to describe God are borrowed from our own

culture or our neighbours. He says, “We always do have to speak of our God with

borrowed words … he is always dressed verbally in second-hand clothes that don’t fit

him very well.”2

So it is that when we look at the first two chapters of Genesis, we see the result of a

collection of traditions possibly covering more than a millennium. There are surely

few serious scholars today who still follow the tradition that Moses wrote the books of

the Pentateuch. Most scholars seem to agree that the ‘history’ of the chosen people

was kept as an oral tradition until about the time of Solomon, when the nation was

settled enough for a literary culture to begin. This was the beginning of the Yahwist

tradition3 that we see in chapter 2 of Genesis. Other traditions, namely the Elohist and

Deuteronomist, originated in the northern kingdom when the nation was split, but

these seem to have little influence in the early chapters of Genesis. An important

influence was the period of exile in Babylon. With the danger of the people being

absorbed by the culture of the local people, it fell to the priests to preserve the ancient

religion by stressing the key tenet of monotheism, the observance of religious rites,

and by keeping the historical roots of the people alive through genealogies. This then

survives as the priestly tradition, which is seen in Chapter 1 of Genesis4. Most books

I have read seem to agree that there is no final agreement among scholars as to how

the final version of the Pentateuch as we know it today was redacted, but clearly it has

passed through many hands. What results is not a continuous slick narrative, nor is it

2
Herbert McCabe ‘God Still Matters’ p3
3
Etienne Charpentier How to Read the Old Testament p27
4
Whether the priestly tradition was the work of one editor or several, I will refer to the author(s) from
now on using the common form ‘P’

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a closely argued theological treatise. Some may think it a, sometimes contradictory,

mish mash of myths and legends typically illustrated by there being two different

creation stories, but as Gerhard von Rad says, “It is doctrine that has been carefully

enriched over centuries by very slow growth. Nothing is here by chance;”5 I will

draw out some of the evidence for different sources in the priestly account in the next

section.

In the book of Joshua we read, “From time immemorial, your ancestors, Terah, Father

of Abraham and Nahor Lived beyond the river and served other Gods.”6 It is possible

that stories and myths from these times linger in the images of the creation stories. It

is also possible that back, in exile, in Babylon, part of P’s intention was to write a

polemic against the local religious practices that were opposed to the One true God.

While the Babylonian myths7 show the beginnings of the earth and mankind arising

from the squabbling of a rabble of gods, The opening words of the Jewish sacred

book begin firmly with the statement, “ In the beginning God created heaven and

earth”8 , emphasising once and for all the oneness of God and his sole creative

responsibility for everything. Von Rad says, “ It is correct to say that the (Hebrew)

verb bara “create” contains the idea both of complete effortlessness and creation ex

nihilo, since it is never connected with any statement of the material.” 9 However

Adrian Graffy says “the narrative of genesis 1 does not envisage creation from

nothing. This concept is found later in the old testament (2 Maccabees 7.28). ”10 In

this view God’s actions are to put order into a primeval chaos. The debate centres on

5
Gerhard Von Rad Genesis a Commentary P45
6
Joshua 24.2
7
Most books mention the Enuma Elish- see http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/enuma.htm and
Atrahasis – see http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/Atrahasi.htm
8
Genesis 1.1
9
Gerhard Von Rad Genesis a Commentary p47
10
Adran Graffy Alive & Active p15

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alternative interpretations of the first two verses of Genesis. Does the first verse as

quoted above stand as a sentence on its own, followed in time by “now the earth was

a formless void” or is it just a general title? Or only the first part of a complete

sentence, which could read, “When God began creating heaven and earth, the earth

being a formless void …”?11 Whatever the intention of P, the reference in Maccabees

indicates the interpretation taken up by the Jewish people and subsequently

Christianity. Generally P seems to write in an orderly, logical way. His writing is

consistent with the cosmological ideas of his time (though it would be stretching the

point to call it ‘the science’ of the time).12 Edmund Hill says, “P was the great

demythologizer of those times. For him man is in fact Aristotle’s ‘rational animal’ a

part of the natural order of the cosmos; the crowning part indeed”.13 P constructs his

narrative around six days. This is rather contrived (not least because he has three

evenings and mornings before God has created the sun!) and there is evidence of his

compressing previous tradition to fit. For example on day three creating land and sea

would benefit a day of their own, but he adds the creation of vegetation also. This

structure reveals the priestly nature of the tradition because it lays the foundation for

the ritual of the Sabbath, the day God rested. Some other important contributions P

makes which mark out his theology from that of neighbouring countries are that God

‘saw it was good’. This is repeated after each main creative act. In his creation of the

‘lights in the vault of heaven’ he explains that they are to ‘indicate the festivals’ 14

(even though there was no one yet to celebrate them), but this indicates that creation is

for mankind. For me the most astounding revelation is that ‘God created man in his

11
See footnote b of the Jerusalem Bible
12
See Arthur Koestler The Sleepwalkers for a clear exposition of ‘man’s changing vision of the
universe’ but for now p19
13
Edmund Hill Being Human p41
14
Genesis 1.14

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own image and likeness’ This is an amazing difference to the Babylonian myths

which indicate man being created as slaves to the gods.

Chapter two has a different feel to it. Here we have the Yahwist tradition, so called

because of the name given to God throughout. This portrays God in an

anthropomorphic way. It is the story that looks not so much at cosmology and

abstract theology but looks at mankind in his condition on earth and his relationship

with God. It sets the scene on an arid earth with ‘no man to till the soil’15 . This

recognises the struggle man has in that region to survive what can be a hostile

environment. It portrays God as the good provider. Continuing into Chapter 3 with

the Fall, it is an attempt to explain how man can live in a difficult sinful world that has

been created by an almighty all –caring God. The answer is simple God placed man

in a garden and provided all his needs it was man that rejected this and now has to live

with the consequences. This story is beautifully vivid and evocative.16 It also shows

signs of borrowing from ancient legends.17 The ‘tree of life’18is a symbol found in

many cultures.19 This tree seems something of a ‘remnant’ of earlier stories as the

focus shifts to the much more interesting ‘tree of knowledge of good and evil.’20 It is

a significant insight that it is the attainment of this knowledge and with it the ability

to act independently of God that gives rise to sin in the world.

15
Genesis 2.6
16
I must refer you here to my favourite paraphrase of this story "The Creation" (from God's
Trombones, James Weldon Johnson 1927) see
http://web.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap9/jwjohnson.html#creation with such lines as
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in his own image;
17
Eg. From the story of Atrahasis we have men and women fashioned from clay
The womb-goddesses were assembled
He [Enki] trod the clay in her presence
18
Genesis 2.9
19
Even to this day – I have a modern African carved ‘tree of life’ on my hearth.
20
Genesis 2.9

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The two stories then give us two different perspectives, both considered so important

that the final editor of the Torah saw the need to keep them both. The second sets up

the basis for our relationship with God and the need for a salvation history. It is

significant however that the other story is put first. It shows God with power over all

things and that fundamentally those things are good.

This then is the Jewish tradition that then develops its salvation history through

covenant with God and his chosen people. Christianity takes this a step further with

the theology of Christ the second Adam through whom the world is recreated.21 It

seems that it is the theology of Genesis 2 that then takes hold particularly with an

influence from Aristotle’s thought.

Stepping back a little about the time of the exile when the old testament was reaching

its final form, across in the greek world scientific thought as we know it today was

being born in the school of Pythagoras. Indeed it was a descendent of this school

Aristarchus who, somewhere between 310 and 230 BCE, developed the heliocentric

theory of the universe that we know today. But by the time Greek thought really

impacted on Jewish thought, even the greeks had forgotten this. Philosophy overtook

observational science. What was more important for Aristotle ( ~ 384-322 BCE) was

ideas. The pervading cosmological idea for him was that the perfect shape was the

circle or sphere –it has no beginning or end. The perfect heavens represented by the

heavenly bodies must therefore reside in transparent sphere moving in perfect circular

motion. The earth was at the centre – not as a place of importance but because it was

motionless contained all that was corrupt.22 It was this philosophy in a Christianised

form that made it so difficult for the church to accept the ideas of Copernicus and

21
See for example Romans 5.12-21
22
See Arthur Koestler The Sleepwalkers p61

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Galileo as Heliocentric ideas re-emerged to account for the observation with the new

observations made possible with the development of telescopes. The Church was

wedded to the idea of The fall, original sin and the corrupt earth. The rift with

religion and science was opened. In the 19th century this rift was widened when the

theory of evolution seemed to threaten the idea of creation. It must be remembered

that documentary theories and literary analysis of the bible was in its infancy at this

time (and very protestant) and the bible was taken very literally23.

Fortunately now, despite the efforts of the extremes like Richard Dawkins24 and

American creationists, the rift is being closed. In 1992 speaking to the

Pontifical Academy of Sciences Pope John Paul II formally

announced that the church had been wrong about Galileo. In 1996

addressing the same body he made some significant statements. 25

He reminded us that a predecessor had said

26
‘We know that the truth cannot contradict the truth.’ He continued

‘my predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed that there is no

conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith regarding

man and his vocation, provided that we do not lose sight of certain

fixed points.’27 And he said ‘It is important to set proper limits to the

understanding of Scripture, excluding any unseasonable

interpretations which would make it mean something which it is not

intended to mean. In order to mark out the limits of their own

23
Although Catholics were not exactly encouraged to read the bible let alone realise that there were two
different creation stories that they were trying to take literally.
24
His ‘The God Delusion’ is a travesty, but his ‘Blind watchmaker’ is probably still the best
explanation of the evolution process.
25
The text of this speech can be found at http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP961022.HTM
26
Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus
27
In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950),

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proper fields, theologians and those working on the exegesis of the

Scripture need to be well informed regarding the results of the

latest scientific research.’

Only this week in the Tablet there is an article about a new book by

Pope Benedict on Creation and Evolution.28 Unfortunately there is

little that has impacted on the average Catholic that recasts the

stories of creation, the fall and the concept of original sin, in the

light of evolution. Tielhard de Chardin made a brave attempt in the

the Phenomenon of Man, but he was probably ahead of his time. 29

He sees man evolving to the ‘Omega point’ which he associates with

Christ. He describes the current area of evolution as in the

‘noosphere’ that is the sphere of culture and ideas. 30

I take the idea from Teilhard that the concept from Genesis 1 that

God made us in his image and likeness, is ‘a work in progress’. I

find evolution to be the answer to the conundrum ‘How can a

created being be independent of its creator, having worth in itself

and therefore be worthy of a relationship with God?’ God created a

system whereby mankind can pull himself as it were from the

primeval sludge, in an all but random fashion, to the point where he

can reach the ‘knowledge of good and evil’, and therefore

independently relate with God. If grace can be defined as the

closeness of our relationship to God, sin can be defined as the

28
Unfortunately it seems, this is only available in German at present.
29
Whether his ideas were difficult to grasp or the book was poorly translated, I found this almost
impenetrable. There is however a good summary of his ideas in Denis Edwards The God of Evolution
pp101 -104
30
Back to the realm of knowledge of good and evil I suppose.

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distance in terms of relationship between God and ourselves.

Original sin is therefore that distance that God has put between

himself and us that ultimately allows value in the relationship

between us. The history of the chosen people is the history of the

struggle of mankind to establish that relationship and the salvation

that comes through Christ is because God become man at last

demonstrated that love between God and man can know no bounds

not even the limits of death.

So in conclusion We can marvel in the message from Genesis 1 that

our potential is the image of God and rejoice at the message of

Genesis 2 that we achieve this through genuine relationship with

God.

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