The Diablogue Who is fearless enough to be wrong?

(This is a repost from my old blog)

There’s been a few times in my life when I’ve been asked to explain my thoughts on the Creation stories in Genesis 1 & 2, this series is an attempt by me to explain my interpretation of Genesis and the reasoning behind it. Its my prayer that I and all who read this may approach the subject with humility and faith looking to God for answers.

Until fairly recently I would have been extremely offended by the title of this blog post. However, in studying Postmodernism and its very literary view of the world I’ve come upon a very different understanding of mythology. Simply put, mythology is a collection of stories which may, or may not, have any factual basis, but seek to explain the origins of certain, usually natural, phenomena. To repeat: the word myth in literary terms makes no claim as to the actual verity of the story. So with that definition in mind, lets explore the ancient Hebrew creation stories of Genesis and why they were written.

First of all, its vitally important to understand in what context these two stories were written. All around the Israelites at this time were nations asserting the power of their violent warrior gods. These nations had their own accounts of how the world came to be, and most often for them it originated from violence. Of particular note at this time was the Babylonian story of creation. I think wikipedia sums it up best in saying:

According to the Enuma Elish, which has the closest parallels with Genesis, the original state of the universe was a chaos formed by the mingling of two primeval waters, the female saltwater god Tiamat and the male freshwater god Apsu. The two waters engendered six successive generations of gods, at the end of which the god Marduk slew Tiamat, cut her hide in two, and used one half to form the earth and the other half to form the firmament of the heavens. (The Euphrates and the Tigris were believed to emerge from the eye-sockets of the slain Tiamat – a faint trace of this can perhaps be seen in the river which emerges to water Eden in Genesis 2). The gods then consulted and decided to form mankind, whom they made – in seven pairs, male and female – from clay mingled with their own spit and the blood of another slaughtered god. Mankind was set on earth to be the servant of the gods, while Marduk was enthroned in Babylon in the Esagila temple, “the house with its head in heaven,” near his ziggurat of Etemenanki, the Bible’s Tower of Babel.

The Babylonian myth is a very violent and almost disturbing story, especially for a modern reader. The world is created from chaos and violence — more theologically important though, out of death and war comes human life. Naturally in a war-torn Mesopotamian context in which only the strongest nations survive this made for some excellent theology.

In direct contrast to this story we have the theology of Genesis. The Hebraic mythology gives us a God who creates ex nihilo and entirely without violence. There is no chaos, but a very deliberate creative act culminating in the creation of man, who is quickened by the very breath of God (lit. spirit). The most stunning contrast to the Babylonian story though is that the Israelite God then goes on to live at peace with man, wanting direct fellowship with him. God even walks in the garden with Adam and speaks to him regularly. The capricious gods of Babylon however, only created humanity as an afterthought to be their slaves. There is no desire expressed whatsoever by Babylonian the gods for a relationship with their new creation, but instead demands of tribute and praise. One last point of contrast is that suffering and death (particularly murder) did not come about from original sin in the Babylonian version. War, murder, death, and suffering were a necessary prerequisite for man’s advent.

Where we had senseless violence in the Babylonian story, we have purposeful creation in Genesis. Where there was slavery and war in Babylon, there is freedom and peace in Israel. Where God was law and love, Marduk was matricidal and capricious enough to throw laws at humanity only as an afterthought to his orgy of death.

The contrast really couldn’t be more strong in the two myths, and there’s no question that this was deliberate. The Israelites were constantly bombarded with theological attacks in the form stories like this, so it was only reasonable, necessary even, form them to create their own myths, reflecting their unique God. The Creation in Genesis was written partly as a political statement against Israel’s neighbors, but mostly to highlight their own God as a god who is not indifferent or capricious. For the Israelites, He is a God of love involved and living with His creation right from the very beginning.

However, there is one interesting and particularly glaring similarity between the accounts though. They both use essentially the same cosmology. In both stories the earth is “built” like so:

• The Heavens
• The Waters Above (from where rain comes)
• Firmament, sun, moon, stars (to hold back the waters)
• The earth
• The waters below

This is intriguing not only because its so different from our own understanding, but in that the Israelites incorporated the most up to date knowledge of their universe into their Creation stories not appearing to care in the least that the same views were shared by their pagan enemies.

To be continued.