Creation in Genesis 1-3 (Part 7-Summary and Conclusion)

By The Yellow Dart

This concludes my analysis of creation in Genesis 1-3, although there is certainly more that I believe could be said. I have attempted to analyze what I perceive to be the most relevant literary, grammatical, and historical-cultural data that pertain to the text in question; and, inasmuch as one can determine the original meaning of any ancient text, it is clear in my judgment that Genesis 1 precludes the notion that the cosmos were created ex nihilo. Rather, it both assumes and argues for a position contrary to such a notion.

I will now briefly recount the most important arguments that I believe have lead to this conclusion. For purposes of conciseness I will assume that the reader has read the preceding series of posts, and so I will use any technical terminology used previously without further clarification. Of course, such a summary cannot do justice to the depth, scope, and interrelatedness of the treatment(s) given previously, and so I refer readers to those sections for more explanation and detail as necessary.

First are grammatical and lexical arguments. Genesis 1.1 begins with the preposition bereshit in the construct state and introduces a subordinate temporal clause. This clause, in turn, is followed by circumstantial disjunctive clauses providing parenthetical material coterminous with the preceding clause. Additionally, the first act of creation occurs in verse three where the apodosis of the temporal clause begins and the conjunctive clauses resume with God’s creating light. The verb b-r-’ in Genesis 1.1 has no categorically special creative significance in itself  by virtue of the fact that, in the G stem, only God is ever used with this verb; rather, through semantic comparisons and contextualization, it is seen to have a virtually identical semantic range in the context of creation as other common Hebrew verbs to create, such as ‘-s-h and y-ts-r. The Hebrew words tohu and vohu are asydetically joined and describe a formless chaos or wasteland, a notion which specifically precludes the idea that (as translated in the KJV) “absolute nothingness” is what is being described. Moreover, the word typically translated as “the deep” in Hebrew is tehom, and represents deep waters, not an abyss of absolute nothingness. Further, this word never occurs with the definite article in the singular, and is most probably linguistically related to the name of the goddess Tiamat known from Enuma Elish. This, in turn, links the Genesis story to an identifiable historical tradition of creation texts in which chaos always precedes creation of the earth and sky(ies).

The account of creation beginning in Genesis 1 (the P account) is clearly separated from the following depiction of creation (the J account) by numerous literary evidences. For instance, the literary device termed inclusio most likely frames the first section, which ends the account beginning at Genesis 1.1 at Genesis 2.4a. For terminological and literary reasons, it is further clear that Genesis 2.4b was the original opening for the J account, and not 2.4a. That there are two narrative sections here is further indicated through the use in Genesis 1.1-2.4a of a seven-day creative scheme, an organization not found in the second depiction of creative activity in Genesis 2.4b onward. Moreover, through a detailed analysis (not to be recapitulated here) of various sequential inconsistencies between the two narrative sections, as well as differences in vocabulary, literary style, and theological emphases, there are clearly two separate accounts or sources which have been placed parallel with each other. In the first account (again, labeled P), Each day of creative activity begins and ends with a specific formula, and through these formulae the text clearly indicates that God’s first act of creation is the creation of light in verse three.  Moreover, there is no indication that creation supposedly precedes days one through six of the narrative. Furthermore, other significant formulae or phrases exist within the six days of physical creative activity which are absent from both Genesis 1.1-2 and day seven and thereafter. Additionally, the days of creation parallel each other, with similar elements being created on days one and four, two and five, and three and six. This leaves day seven as a post-creation conclusion which directly parallels Genesis 1.1-2, thus indicating that verses one and two are a pre-creation introduction describing the pre-creative state of the cosmos. That there is a pre-creation introduction parallel with day seven’s post-creative activities is further strengthened by both of these sections’ obvious use of the literary device of alliteration. Further, by identifying Genesis 1.1-2 as an introduction which serves as a title summarizing themes to be discussed in the following narrative (as is found in other ancient Near Eastern accounts of creation) and which begins with a temporal clause (again as in other ancient Near Eastern accounts of creation), an important narrative inconsistency that would otherwise be a significant problem is resolved: namely the fact that it isn’t actually until days two and three that the heavens and the earth, respectively, are formed. Moreover, by properly separating P and J and comparing them through form analysis, both sources are seen to begin with parallel grammatical structures, namely a subordinate temporal clause followed by (a) circumstantial clause(s), and concluded with the independent clause of the apodosis. Finally, the literary depiction in the P account describes creation in terms of ordering previously disorganized elements, separating and dividing to establish proper order. This, in connection with those points already made previously, helps us understand another otherwise problematic question: why would God supposedly create the heavens and the earth in verse one ex nihilo in a disorganized and chaotic state just to proceed to organize them through a process of separation and division later? The answer from the text is simple: he didn’t–the chaos already preexisted at the first moment of creation on day one, which really begins in verse three.

Last are cultural and historical evidences. The P account assumes a specific pre-scientific view of the cosmos which was ubiquitous in the ancient Near East among Israel’s neighbors. This world-view helps make sense of why creation is seen in terms of separation and differentiation in the P account. Moreover, this cosmological worldview helps make sense of the numerous literary parallels held in common between P and other ancient Near Eastern texts. Additionally, this cosmological worldview helps make sense of (the) Israelite understanding(s) of the meaning or purpose of the nation of Israel and the organization of society as a whole. Ancient Israelites believed that the creation of the earth by means of God’s establishing order and boundaries on the primeval chaos mirrored God’s creating Israel, which was separated from the other nations by giving God’s holy covenant and ordered by its attending laws. Another important point is that the P account’s terminology and description of creation places it clearly within the tradition of other ancient Near Eastern creation accounts. For instance, the use of tehom (‘the deep”), and the description of a wind hovering above it, invokes the image of creation, albeit demythologized, found in the Babylonian creation story Enuma Elish where the goddess Tiamat, the divine personification of the salt waters, battles the storm god Marduk, who, after defeating Tiamat in part by his mighty storm winds, separates and organizes Tiamat’s body to form the cosmos (such a primordial battle can be clearly seen in various other biblical passages). This, in turn, parallels the depiction of creation by separation that is seen in P. Other parallels with Enuma Elish are also worth noting. For instance, it too begins with a subordinate temporal clause (followed in turn by circumstantial clauses and then finally a dependant clause), a clause which also functions are the title of the story summarizing important themes to come, just as in P. Lastly, it is worthy of note that none of ancient Israel’s neighbors held a notion of creatio ex nihilo, nor are there any clear or unambiguous references to the philosophical idea of creatio ex nihilo until the late second century, the time in which most scholars place the actual origins of the development of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo.

I believe that all of the above data (and other evidences not summarized here) undoubtedly point to the conclusion that Genesis 1.1 assumes and argues for creatio ex materia as opposed to creatio ex nihilo. However, the strength of the above analysis, in my judgment, is not derived from any one of its individual components alone, but in their convergence and overall explanatory power. Several independent lines of evidence (grammatical, historical- cultural, lexical, and literary) line up together with very few rough edges, and very often fit seamlessly together. When seen together their explanatory power is cogent and, in my judgment, cannot be easily dismissed. This fact provides perhaps the greatest argument of all. I thus agree with Harvard’s Jon Levenson who said:

Nowhere in the seven-day creation scheme of Genesis 1 does God create the waters; they are most likely primordial. The traditional Jewish and Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo can be found in this chapter only if one translates its first verse as “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” and understands it to refer to some comprehensive creative act on the first day. But that translation, subject to doubt since the Middle Ages, has fallen into disfavor among scholars, and the rest of the chapter indicates that the heaven was created on the second day to restrain the celestial water (vv. 7-8), and the earth on the third day (vv. 9-10). [1]

Notes

[1] Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 5.