Genesis biography book

A BIOGRAPHYBy Ronald Hendel

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2013Princeton University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-14012-4

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..........................................................................xiINTRODUCTION The Life of Genesis........................................................1CHAPTER 1 The Genesis of Genesis........................................................14CHAPTER 2 The Rise of the Figural Sense.................................................45CHAPTER 3 Apocalyptic Secrets...........................................................63CHAPTER 4 Platonic Worlds...............................................................83CHAPTER 5 Between the Figure and the Real...............................................109CHAPTER 6 Genesis and Science: From the Beginning to Fundamentalism.....................145CHAPTER 7 Modern Times..................................................................196AFTERWORD Stories of Our Alley..........................................................242TIMELINE.................................................................................247NOTES....................................................................................249INDEX OF CITATIONS.......................................................................269GENERAL INDEX............................................................................271

Chapter One

The Genesis of Genesis

"The woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise."

The book of Genesis had a complicated birth, or rather, many births. It is composed of multiple layers of text, composed at different times and with differing interests and emphases. Like the biblical twins Jacob and Esau, who wrestled in their mother's womb, these texts often seem to be rivals. They stake out different claims about the authority of the past and the nature of God and humans. Let us consider what we can plausibly know about the beginnings of Genesis, and then turn to the different Genesis accounts of the beginning.

Old Poetry

The oldest part of Genesis is the tribal poem "The Blessing of Jacob," in Genesis 49. This is the only part of Genesis written in the oldest stratum of Biblical Hebrew. 1 This poem is a collection of tribal blessings and curses. It belongs to the same genre as the blessings and curses in "The Blessing of Moses" in Deuteronomy 33 and "The Song of Deborah" in Judges 5. It is likely that such lists of tribal blessings and curses were recited at tribal gatherings during times of war or during pilgrimage festivals, which were the main occasions when different tribes came together. In Genesis the tribal blessings and curses are spoken by the patriarch Jacob on his deathbed, and they are addressed to his sons, who are the ancestors of the twelve tribes. They are Jacob's prophecy of each tribe's future destiny.

The poem showers praise or blame on each tribe, often focused on the tribe's martial prowess. It does this by making elaborate comparisons with the world of nature. For example, Jacob praises Judah's majestic strength by comparing him with a lion:

A lion's whelp is Judah, From the prey, O my son, you rise up. He crouches and lies down like a lion, And like a young lion, who can rouse him? (Genesis 49:9)

And Benjamin, the youngest son, is fierce as a wolf:

Benjamin is a ravenous wolf, In the morning he consumes the spoils, And in the evening he divides plunder. (Genesis 49:27)

Notice the muscular animal power in the description of Judah—like a lion he rises up, crouches, and lies down. He is irresistible and immovable. Like the king of beasts, he is a force of nature. His descendants will be the Davidic kings, each one a "Lion of Judah"—an expression that derives from this verse.

Judah is a lion and Benjamin a ravenous wolf. These are poetic descriptions of fierce warrior tribes in the Middle East. This is how one still praises a man in the tribal cultures of this region: he is fierce as a lion or a wolf, and his enemies are defenseless prey—terms of high praise in a culture that values the warrior's art.

This ancient tribal poetry reminds us that Genesis is a book colored by a tribal ethos. The book as a whole is organized as a tribal genealogy that extends from the first ancestors—Adam and Eve—to the eponymous ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel. The repeating formula "These are the generations of X" is part of the book's connective thread. Again and again the stories focus on threats to the continuity of the tribal family, starting with the threat of death to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, then the murderous relations among their children and descendants (Cain, Lamech, the Flood generation), and most abundantly, the many the threats to the patriarchal families—barrenness and abductions of the matriarchs, deaths or near-deaths of sons, and the final descent of the extended family into Egypt. Genesis focuses on the genealogical tree that culminates in the tribes of Israel, and the trouble that this family faces along the way.

Literary Sources

The major portion of Genesis was written in a dialect that we call classical Biblical Hebrew. From clues of grammar, style, and content, scholars have been able to identify three literary sources for most of Genesis. The three major sources—known as the yahwist (J), the Elohist (E), and the Priestly source (P)—were carefully combined by one or more editors and later supplemented by some additional material (e.g., the battle with foreign kings in Genesis 14) to yield the final book of Genesis. Each of the major sources is an anthology of traditions featuring the ancestors of the people of Israel, who are bound together by the chain of genealogies. Two of the sources—J and P—begin with the creation of the world, and the other—E—begins with Abraham. Each of these sources continues through the other books of the Pentateuch.

Let us dip into the sources in Genesis to get a sense of their distinctive styles and outlook. Two versions of the Flood—from J and P—have been edited together in Genesis 6–9. Both introductions to the Flood have been preserved intact at the beginning of the story, one version following the other. The two introductions present subtly different perspectives on God's reason for bringing the Flood. (The words in brackets below are harmonizations that were added by the editor who joined the two sources together.)

J

Yahweh saw how great was the evil of man on the earth, for every design of their hearts was only evil all day long. Yahweh regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was pained. Yahweh said, "I shall wipe out man, [whom I created,] from the face of the soil, [from man to land animals to crawling creatures to the birds of heaven,] for I regret that I made them." But Noah found favor in Yahweh's eyes. (Genesis 6:5–8)

P

These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a man of virtue, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. Noah fathered three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now the earth was ruined before God, for the earth was filled with violence. God saw the earth, and behold, it was ruined, for all flesh had ruined its way on earth. God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I shall soon ruin them on the earth." (Genesis 6:9–13)

Notice that the two introductions are independent, each with its own beginning, and they cover much the same ground—God's perception that things on earth have gone wrong, his decision to destroy all life with the Flood, and the exceptional status of Noah, who will be spared from destruction. Since the reference to Noah occurs at the end of the J section and at the beginning of the P section, it was a simple editorial decision to have the J section come first when the two texts were combined.

Even though these two introductions are equivalent in content, there are subtle distinctions in the character of God and his motive for sending the Flood. An initial difference is the name of God—in the J section he is called by the name Yahweh, while in the P account he is referred to by the generic title, God. This difference corresponds to the long-term theological plot in the two sources, for in J the deity is called Yahweh from the beginning of Creation (Genesis 2:4), and humans begin to worship him by that name at the time of Enosh (Genesis 4:26). In P the deity is called God beginning with Creation (Genesis 1:1) until the time of Moses, when God reveals his true name, Yahweh (Exodus 6:2–3).

But the divine names are not the only or most important difference. In J Yahweh is a God who is subject to strong emotions—"Yahweh regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was pained." He is heartbroken that his prize creations—humans—have gone wrong, "for every design of their hearts was only evil all day long." The evil of humans is a terrible blow to Yahweh, and he responds with a forceful decision, "I shall wipe out man ... from the face of the soil." The words "man" ('adam) and "soil" ('adamah) are related by a deliberate wordplay, for in the Garden of Eden story 'adam was made from the 'adamah, and when he dies he returns to the soil. But now Yahweh decides to end this cycle of life and death with a decisive destruction. And yet immediately after Yahweh announces his pained decision, we are told that this will not be a final end, for "Noah (noah) found favor (hen) in Yahweh's eyes." Through this wordplay—the consonants of Noah's name (nh) are reversed to yield "favor" (hn)—we find that Yahweh's initial sight of human evil is now modified by his sight of Noah's goodness. Because of his delight in Noah, humans will be saved from total destruction. Yahweh's agonized response to human evil is balanced by his favor for the one good man. He is moved by regret, wrath, compassion, and delight.

Notice that the concept of humans in J is starkly realistic, harboring no illusions about human perfectibility. Yahweh sees the human heart with all its flaws: "every design of their hearts was only evil all day long." At the end of the J Flood story, Yahweh sees that humans are still and always evil: "the designs of man's heart are evil from their youth" (Genesis 8:21). And yet, in spite of the deep-rooted evil of humans, Yahweh promises, "never again shall I destroy all life as I have done." Humans are corrupt and flawed creatures, but Yahweh learns to live with them, warts and all. This is a dark view of human nature, which is both disturbing and profound. Even the good man, Noah, is flawed—in the next story he gets drunk and passes out naked (Genesis 9:21).

Are humans really relentlessly evil? Does Yahweh suffer our existence merely because of his compassion, or because he feels responsible for having created us? This is a dark realism—not unlike the later view of Ecclesiastes—a view of reality that is suffused with pain, ambiguity, and complicated morality. The character of Yahweh has depths of which we see only hints, and the reality that he created is ambiguous and often deadly.

In contrast, the P Flood story portrays a God without emotion or regret. He is a transcendent deity who sees the cosmos as a whole and who is not focused on the human heart. This account is less anthropocentric, and its concept of God is less anthropomorphic. When God "sees" the ruined earth, the consequences unfold from this cosmic condition, and not from any emotional response: "God saw the earth, and behold, it was ruined, for all flesh had ruined its way on earth." His perspective takes in "the earth" and "all flesh," not just humans. The text is not clear on how "all flesh had ruined its way," but the earth is now "filled with violence because of them." As a result of this perception of global violence and ruin, God announces the necessary consequence: "The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I shall soon ruin them on the earth." Since all flesh has "ruined its way" and "ruined" the earth, God will redirect this ruin back at all flesh. The wordplay on different forms of the word "ruin" (šht) connects the problem to its consequence, from ruin to ruin. The "end of all flesh" is not a divine decision or emotional response, but a necessity, a verdict that has "come before me."

This is not a God of regret, wrath, or compassion, but a God who calmly sets out to repair the broken structure of the cosmos. To cleanse the earth of violence and ruin, he returns the physical cosmos to a watery chaos, as it was before Creation. The Flood in P is a reversion to primeval chaos—whereas in J it is a long rainstorm. The waters of the Flood cleanse the earth, washing away its ruin, whereupon God creates the world anew, with Noah as the new Adam. After the Flood God repeats the primeval command to "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth" (Genesis 9:1, echoing Genesis 1:28).

Humans are not the center of God's concern in the P account; rather, the harmonious order of the cosmos is his focus. If the earth has to return to watery chaos to cleanse it of violence and ruin, so be it. He will destroy it and start again. But Noah, who is "blameless in his generation," is not ruined, so he does not need to be washed away. God's decision to save Noah is as logical as is his destruction of all the violent creatures on earth. The order of things must be maintained in its goodness and purity, and so the impure, the ruined, and the violent must be destroyed in order that creation may be restored to its pristine order. This is a view of reality as an ordered structure in which all things have their place, and God is the prime mover of the desired state of order. This is a world that P—identifiable as a priest—participates in as a teacher and guardian of God's law on earth. The law serves to maintain the proper order of the cosmos.

The J and P introductions to the Flood illustrate well the style and the cosmological visions of the two sources. P's is a world—and a narrative—of clarity, order, and nested hierarchy. J's is a world of emotions, ambiguity, and ethical complexity. P portrays a transcendental God, a cosmic deity, while J portrays a deity with the human traits of regret, anger, compassion, and delight. These are different conceptions of reality and different conceptions of God and humans. When joined together, the Flood story and Genesis as a whole portray a multifaceted picture of reality, shot through with contradictions and a lingering sense of mystery.

When the editor combined the two accounts, he (not likely a "she" in this patriarchal world) inserted a few P-style words and phrases to the J text. The phrase "whom I created" uses the characteristic term in P for "created" (br'), and the list of creatures, "from man to land animals to crawling creatures to the birds of heaven," also draws on P diction. By adding these few words, the editor harmonized the two accounts, expanding J's focus from humans to all creatures and binding it to the P account of Creation. The two stories and sources have become one, and the text of Genesis has become that much more dense, complicated, and enigmatic. The combination of sources, as we will see later, creates a need for interpretation, in order to make sense of these internal contradictions. Genesis is a palimpsest, composed of different sources and texts, from different times and with different philosophies. With effort we can hear the distinctive voices of its constituent texts, and perceive their nuanced—and often differing—perceptions of reality.

Ancient Backgrounds

The sources and their combination are the end of a long process in the genesis of Genesis. Many of the stories in the literary sources have their roots in older oral and written traditions. For instance, the stories of the Flood and Creation have analogues and antecedents in other traditions from Israel and the ancient near East. The stories of Genesis are part of the larger matrix of ancient near Eastern myth and epic. Many of these old traditions have been rediscovered during the last two centuries of archaeological excavations. We now have thousands of texts from Mesopotamia, Canaan, Egypt, and other neighboring lands, and many shed light on the backgrounds of the Genesis narratives.

These ancient traditions were transmitted across cultures and languages by journeying traders, scribes, seers, and storytellers, and eventually became native to Israelite culture and religion. A couple of glimpses of the Israelite transmission of these oral traditions are given in the old poems "The Song of Moses" and "The Song of Deborah":

Remember the days of old, Consider the years of ancient generations. Ask your father, and he will tell you, your elders, and they will inform you. (Deuteronomy 32:8)

To the sound of (?), by the watering holes, There they recite the righteous deeds of Yahweh The righteous deeds of his villagers in Israel. (Judges 5:11)

These poems evoke the family, tribal, and village settings of oral traditions of the ancient past. The stories of Genesis are derived from these ancient traditions, transmitted through generations, recounted by fathers, elders, travelers, and bards who were the authoritative voices of tradition.

Let us turn to the Flood story on another level, now with an eye to its ancient background in oral and written traditions. There are several versions of the Babylonian Flood story, all of which are older than Genesis—the oldest Babylonian version is from around 1800 BCE, roughly a thousand years earlier than the J source. Most scholars agree that the biblical versions are descended from the Babylonian versions, presumably mediated by oral traditions. Once it was transmitted on Israelite soil—by fathers, elders, travelers, bards, and scribes—it became adapted to Israelite tradition.

The version of the Flood in tablet XI of the Standard Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh (ca. 1100 BCE) has many similarities to the J Flood story. When the Flood ceases, the Babylonian Flood hero (named Utnapishtim) is in his ark, which rests atop Mount Nimush in northern Mesopotamia:

When the seventh day arrived— I brought out a dove, setting it free: off went the dove. no perch was available for it and it came back to [me.] I brought out a swallow, setting it free: off went the swallow. no perch was available for it and it came back to me.

I brought out a raven, setting it free: off went the raven and it saw the waters receding. It was eating, bobbing up and down, it did not come back to me. I brought out an offering and sacrificed to the four winds of the earth, I strewed incense on the peak of the mountain. (Gilgamesh XI.148–58)

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Book of Genesisby Ronald Hendel Copyright © 2013 by Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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