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The Genesis creation narrative describes the creation myth motif in Judeo-Christianity in the Book of Genesis. The narrative is covered in Genesis 1–2:24 based on two sources, Chapter 1 prepared by the Priestly Writer (P) and Chapter 2, the Yahwist (J).[1]

In Genesis 1:1–2:3, the God of Israel (Hebrew אֱלֹהִ֔ים Elohim) creates the world in six creative days, then rests on the seventh. In Genesis 2:4–24, YHWH (Pro. Yahweh, the personal name of the God of Israel) forms the first man and woman in the Garden of Eden. God breathes his own breath into the man and he becomes a living soul/being (Heb. נֶפֶש nephesh). Mankind shares nephesh with all creatures, but only of man is this life-giving act of God described.[2] Robert Alter described the combined narrative as "compelling in its archetypal character, its adaptation of myth to monotheistic ends".[3]

Composition

Historical context

Cuneiform tablet with the Atra-Hasis Epic in the British Museum

Although tradition attributes the first five biblical books to Moses, today most scholars believe that they are "a composite work, the product of many hands and periods."[4] As for why Genesis was created, a theory which has gained considerable interest, although still controversial is "Persian imperial authorisation". This proposes that the Persians, after their conquest of Babylon in 538 BC, agreed to grant Jerusalem a large measure of local autonomy within the empire, but required the local authorities to produce a single law code accepted by the entire community. The two powerful groups making up the community – the priestly families who controlled the Temple, and the landowning families who made up the "elders" – were in conflict over many issues, and each had its own "history of origins", but the Persian promise of greatly increased local autonomy for all provided a powerful incentive to cooperate in producing a single text.[5]

Genesis 1, plus many other passages in Genesis, Exodus and Numbers and all of Leviticus, is the work of an author or group of authors called the Priestly source (P). These authors worked in Jerusalem and/or Babylon, in the period immediately after the Exile ended, and their purpose was to provide a blueprint for a society controlled by priests and the reconstructed Temple.[1] "Social order must mimic cosmic order, Israel and its priests carefully acting like Yahweh at creation and separating between what the worldview and the moral code allow and what they do not."[6]

Genesis 2 (and indeed much of the remainder of Genesis, as well as much of Exodus and Numbers) is the product of an author, or perhaps a group of like-minded authors, called the Yahwist (J). The Yahwist wrote among and for the Jews of the Babylonian exile, which lasted from 658 to 538 BC, and his purpose was to demonstrate that Yahweh, the god of Israel, would act to save his chosen people no matter how often they sinned and turned away from him.[1]

A common hypothesis among present day biblical scholars, is that the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (Genesis to Deuteronomy) was composed in the late 7th or the 6th century BCE by the Jahwist (J) source and that this was later expanded by the addition of various narratives and laws by the Priestly source (P) into a work very like the one existing today.[7] In the creation narrative, the two sources appear in reverse order where Genesis 1:1–2:3 is (P) and Genesis 2:4–24 is (J). The (P) source uses the Hebrew word for God, Elohim; and the (J) source calls God by the name YHWH (Referred to as Yahweh or Hashem).[8]

In Jewish tradition, as noted by Rashi, the different references to God indicate His different attributes, "Elokim" His justice, "Hashem" His mercy. The combined use of Hashem Elokim,[9] which occurs throughout the second story of creation,[8] indicates His divine qualities of both mercy and justice,[9] in that the world cannot endure one without the other.[10] The Israelites borrowed some Mesopotamian themes but adapted them to their belief in one God as expressed by the shema,[11] and their over-riding purpose was to establish a monotheistic creation in opposition to the polytheistic creation myth of Israel's historic enemy, Babylon.[12]

Structure

The creation narrative is made up of two parts, roughly equivalent to the two first chapters of the Book of Genesis. (There are no chapter divisions in the original Hebrew text, see Chapters and verses of the Bible.)

While Genesis 2[13] is a simple linear narrative proceeding from God's forming the first man through the Garden of Eden to the creation of the first woman and the institution of marriage, Genesis 1[14] is notable for its elaborate internal structure. It consists of eight acts of creation over six days, framed by an introduction and a conclusion. In each of the first three days there is an act of division: day one divides the darkness from light, day two the "waters above" from the "waters below", and day three the sea from the land. In each of the next three days these divisions are populated: day four populates the darkness and light with sun, moon and stars; day five populates seas and skies with fish and fowl; and finally land-based creatures and mankind populate the land.[15]

There are significant parallels between the two stories, but also significant differences: in the first account mankind (male and female) are created after animals, while in the second the man is created first, then animals, and finally the woman "as the climax of creation."[16] "[T]ogether this combination of parallel character and contrasting profile point to the different origin of materials in Genesis 1:1–2:3 and 2:4b–3:23, however elegantly they have now been combined."[16]

The two primary accounts in each chapter are joined by a literary bridge at Genesis 2:4a, "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created." This echoes the first line of Genesis 1[17], "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth", and is reversed in the next phrase, Genesis 2:4b, "...in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens". This verse is one of ten "generations" (Template:Lang-he tôledôt) phrases used throughout Genesis, which provide a literary structure to the book.[18] They normally function as headings to what comes after, but the position of this, the first of the series, has been the subject of much debate.[19] An allusion that can be drawn from the two chapters is Genesis 1 looking down from heaven and Genesis 2 looking up from the earth.[20]

Mythology

Marduk, god of Babylon, destroying Tiamat, the dragon of primeval chaos

Mesopotamian influence

See also: Panbabylonism

Genesis 1-11 as a whole is imbued with Mesopotamian myths.[21] Genesis 1 bears both striking differences from and striking similarities to Babylon's national creation myth, the Enuma Elish. On the side of similarities, both begin from a stage of chaotic waters before anything is created, in both a fixed dome-shaped "firmament" divides these waters from the habitable Earth, and both conclude with the creation of a human called "man" and the building of a temple for the god (in Genesis 1, this temple is the entire cosmos).[22] On the side of contrasts, Genesis 1 is uncompromisingly monotheistic, it makes no attempt to account for the origins of God, and there is no trace of the resistance to the reduction of chaos to order (Gk. theomachy, lit. "God-fighting"), all of which mark the Mesopotamian creation accounts.[11]

There also seems to be a direct literary relationship between Genesis 2 and the Enuma Elish. Both begin with a series of statements of what did not exist at the moment when creation began; the Enuma Elish has a spring (in the sea) as the point where creation begins, paralleling the spring (on the land – Genesis 2 is notable for being a "dry" creation story) in Genesis 2:6 that "watered the whole face of the ground"; in both myths, Yahweh/the gods first create a man to serve him/them, then animals and vegetation. At the same time, and as with Genesis 1, the Jewish version has drastically changed its Babylonian model: Eve, for example, seems to fill the role of a mother-goddess when, in Genesis 4:1, she says that she has "created a man with Yahweh", but she is in no way a divine being like her Babylonian counterpart.[23]

Scholars recognise close parallels between the Yahwist's creation story and another Mesopotamian myth, the Atra-Hasis epic – parallels that in fact extend throughout Genesis 2–11, from the Creation to the Flood and its aftermath. In addition to numerous plot-details (e.g. the divine garden and the role of the first man in the garden, the creation of the man from a mixture of earth and divine substance, the chance of immortality, etc.), both stories have a similar overall theme: the gradual clarification of man's relationship with God(s) and animals.[16]

Babylonian Map of the World, c.600 BC. The ancient Israelites' universe was very similar to the Babylonian world-map illustrated here.[24]

Exo-Genesis creation myths

The narrative in Genesis 1 was not the only creation-myth in ancient Israel, and the complete biblical evidence seems to indicate two contrasting models. The first is the "logos" (meaning speech) model, where a supreme God "speaks" dormant matter into existence. The second is the "agon" (meaning struggle or combat) model, in which it is God's victory in battle over the monsters of the sea that mark his sovereignty and might.[25] Genesis 1 is the supreme example of the "logos" mythology; an example of the "agon" myth can be seen in Isaiah 51:9–10, in which the prophet recalls both the Exodus and the ancient Israelite myth in which God vanquishes the water deities: "Awake, awake! ... It was you that hacked Rahab in pieces, that pierced the Dragon! It was you that dried up the Sea, the waters of the great Deep, that made the abysses of the Sea a road that the redeemed might walk..."[26]

The agon creation tradition also preserves the original polytheistic religion of Israel, in which Yahweh was the head of the bene elohim, the "sons of God," or Divine Council. The lesser deities, the "host of heaven," have military and messenger functions, have great powers and knowledge, and are immortal. "What remains of this pantheon today are the angels who inhabit the sacred universes of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, [and] do the bidding of God."[27] Despite the thorough-going monotheism of Genesis 1-11, and especially Genesis 1, there remain traces of this underlying, older, polytheistic inheritance: thus, when God says "Let us make man in our own image," the most probable reading is that he is speaking to the members of the bene elohim council, and it can be inferred from Genesis 3 ("See," says God, "the man has become like one of us, knowing good from evil...") that the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which give benefits with which the bene elohim gods were associated (knowledge, immortality), were placed in Eden for the benefit of the gods.[28]

Genesis 1

Creation of Light (engraving by Gustave Doré from the 1865 La Sainte Bible)

The cosmos created in Genesis 1:1–2:3 bears a striking resemblance to the Tabernacle in Exodus 35-40, which was the prototype of the Temple in Jerusalem and the focus of priestly worship of Yahweh; for this reason, and because other Middle Eastern creation stories also climax with the construction of a temple/house for the creator-god, Genesis 1 can be interpreted as a description of the construction of the cosmos as God's house, and the Temple in Jerusalem as a microcosm of the cosmos.[29]

The use of numbers in ancient texts was often numerological rather than factual - that is, the numbers were used because they held some symbolic value to the author.[30] The number seven, denoting divine completion, permeates Genesis 1: verse 1:1 consists of seven words, verse 1:2 of fourteen, and 2:1-3 has 35 words (5x7); Elohim is mentioned 35 times, "heaven/firmament" and "earth" 21 times each, and the phrases "and it was so" and "God saw that it was good" occur 7 times each.[31] The number four symbolises completion on earth: the four rivers of Eden water "all the earth".[32]

The beginning

Ancient of Days (William Blake, 1794)

Genesis 1:1–2

Main articles: Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2

Genesis 1:1 opens with the line Bereshit bara elohim, "In the beginning God created..." The word bara is translated as "created" in English, but the concept it embodied was not the same as the modern term. In the world of the ancient Near East, the gods demonstrated their power over the world not by creating matter but by fixing destinies: so the essence of the bara which God performs in Genesis concerns bringing "heaven and earth" (a set phrase meaning "everything") into existence by organising and assigning roles and functions.[33]

Genesis 1:2 presents an initial condition of creation - namely, that it is formless and void. This serves to introduce the rest of the chapter, which describes a process of forming and filling.[34] That is, on the first three days the heavens, the sky and the land is formed, and they are filled on days four to six by luminaries, birds and fish, and animals and man respectively. This correspondence is emphasised in the framework interpretation of the length of days in Genesis 1.

First to sixth day

Genesis 1:3–13

Day 1
Main articles: Genesis 1:3, Genesis 1:4, and Genesis 1:5

In Genesis 1:3, God creates by spoken command ("Let there be..."), suggesting a comparison with a king, who has only to speak for things to happen; each command is followed by name-giving ("And he called...").[35]

Creation of the sun and moon, Michelangelo - ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

God creates by spoken command and names the elements of the world as he creates them. In the ancient Near East the act of naming was bound up with the act of creating: thus in Egyptian literature the creator god pronounced the names of everything, and the Enuma Elish begins at the point where nothing has yet been named.[36] God's creation by speech also suggests that he is being compared to a king, who has merely to speak for things to happen.[35]

Day 2
And God said, “Let there be a rāqîa between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the rāqîa and separated the water under the vault from the water above it, and it was so, and God called the rāqîa “heavens”, and there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

Rāqîa, or firmament, is from rāqa, the verb used for the act of beating metal into thin plates.[37] Created on the second day of creation and populated by luminaries on the fourth, it is a solid dome which separates the earth below from the heavens and their waters above, as in Egyptian and Mesopotamian belief of the same time.[38] In Genesis 1:17 the stars are set in the raqia; in Babylonian myth the heavens were made of various precious stones (compare Exodus 24:10,Exodus 24:10 where the elders of Israel see God on the sapphire floor of heaven), with the stars engraved in their surface.[39]

Day 3

The waters withdraw, creating a ring of ocean surrounding a single circular continent.[40] After this, the last of three acts of separation - darkness from light, water from water, seas from land - the third day continues with preparations for populating the now orderly world.

God does not create or make trees and plants, but instead commands the earth to produce them. The underlying theological meaning seems to be that God has given the previously barren earth the ability to produce vegetation, and it now does so at his command. The reference to "kinds" appears to look forward to the laws found later in the Pentateuch, which lay great stress on holiness through separation.[41] At the end of the third day God has created a foundational environment of light, heavens, seas and earth.[42]

Genesis 1:14–2:3

Day 4

The three levels of the cosmos are populated in the same order in which they were created - heavens, sea, earth. The language of "ruling" is introduced: the heavenly bodies will "govern" day and night and mark seasons and years and days: this was of central importance to the Priestly authors and the religious festivals organised around the cycles of the sun and moon.[43] Our translation here says God puts "lights" in the firmament, but the Hebrew word ma'or means literally "lamps".[44]

Day 5

In the Egyptian and Mesopotamian mythologies the creator-god has to do battle with the sea-monsters before he can make heaven and earth; in Genesis 1:21 the word tanin, sometimes translated as "sea monsters" ("great creatures" in the translation here), parallels the named chaos-monsters Rahab and Leviathan from Psalm 74:13 and Isaiah 27:1 and 51:9, but there is no hint of combat and the tanin are simply creatures created by God.[45]

Day 6
God creating the land animals (Vittskövle Church fresco, 1480s).

When in Genesis 1:26 God says "Let us make man", the word used is adam; in this form it is a generic noun, "mankind", and does not imply that this creation is male. After this first mention the word always appears as ha-adam, "the man", but as Genesis 1:27 shows ("God created the human in his own image ... male and female he created them"), the word is still not exclusively male. In Genesis 2:7 a pun is introduced: God creates adam (man) from adamah (earth).[46]

The meaning of the phrase "image of God" is unclear. Suggestions include: (1) Having the spiritual qualities of God such as intellect, will, etc.; (2) Having the physical form of God; (3) a combination of these two; (4) Being God's counterpart on earth and able to enter into a relationship with him; (5) Being God's representative or viceroy on earth.[47]

The fact that God says "Let us make man..." has given rise to several theories, of which the two most important are that "us" is royal plural or plural of majesty,[48] or that it reflects a setting in a divine council with God enthroned as king and proposing the creation of mankind to the lesser divine beings.[49]

God tells the animals and humans that he has given them "the green plants for food" - creation is to be vegetarian. Only later, after the Flood, is man given permission to eat meat. This has led to some interesting modern proposals on the theological program of the Priestly author of Genesis: this author appears to look back to an ideal past in which mankind lived at peace both with itself and with the animal kingdom, and which could be re-achieved through a proper sacrificial life in harmony with God.[50]

God's first act was the creation of undifferentiated light; dark and light were then separated into night and day, their order (evening before morning) signifying that this was the liturgical day; and then the sun, moon and stars were created to mark the proper times for the festivals of the week and year. Only when this is done does God create man and woman and the means to sustain them (plants and animals). At the end of the sixth day, when creation is complete, the world is a cosmic temple in which the role of humanity is the worship of God. This parallels Mesopotamian myth (the Enuma Elish) and also echoes chapter 38 of the Book of Job, where God recalls how the stars, the "sons of God", sang when the corner-stone of creation was laid.[51]

Genesis 2

Genesis 2–3, the story of Eden, was probably authored around 500 BC as "a discourse on ideals in life, the danger in human glory, and the fundamentally ambiguous nature of humanity - especially human mental facilities." According to Genesis 2:10-14 the Garden is located on the mythological border between the human and the divine worlds, probably on the far side of the Cosmic Ocean near the rim of the world; following a conventional ancient Near Eastern concept, the Eden river first forms that ocean and then divides into four rivers which run from the four corners of the earth towards its centre.[52]

Seventh day

Day 7
Seventh Day of Creation (from the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle)

Creation is followed by rest. This is not quite "Sabbath", which is commanded in Exodus, but it looks forward to it. In ancient Near Eastern literature the divine rest is achieved in a temple as a result of having brought order to chaos. Rest is both disengagement, as the work of creation is finished, but also engagement, as the deity is now present in his temple to maintain a secure and ordered cosmos.[53]

The Yahwistic creation account opens "in the day the LORD God made the earth and the heavens," a set introduction similar to those found in Babylonian myths.[54] Before the man is created the earth is a barren waste watered by an ed (Genesis 2:6); the KJV translated this as "mist", following Jewish practice, but since the mid-20th century it has been generally accepted that the real meaning is a spring of underground water.[55]

In Genesis 1 the characteristic word for God's activity is bara, "created"; in Genesis 2 the word used when he creates the man is yatsar, meaning "fashioned", a word used in contexts such as a potter fashioning a pot from clay.[56] God breathes his own breath into the clay and it becomes nephesh, a word meaning life, vitality, the living personality; man shares nephesh with all creatures, but only of man is this life-giving act of God described.[2]

Eden, where God puts his Garden of Eden, is from a root meaning fertility: the first man is to work in God's miraculously fertile garden.[57] The "tree of life" is a motif from Mesopotamian myth: in the Epic of Gilgamesh the hero is given a plant whose name is "man becomes young in old age," but the plant is stolen from him by a serpent.[58] There has been much scholarly discussion about the type of knowledge given by the second tree, whether human qualities, sexual consciousness, ethical knowledge, or universal knowledge, with the last being the most widely accepted.[59] In Eden, mankind has a choice between wisdom and life, and chooses the first, although God intended them for the second.[60]

The mythic Eden and its rivers may reflect the real Jerusalem, the Temple and the Promised Land. Eden may represent the divine garden on Zion, the mountain of God, which was also Jerusalem; while the real Gihon was a spring outside the city (mirroring the spring which waters Eden); and the imagery of the Garden, with its serpent and cherubs, has been seen as a reflection of the real images of the Solomonic Temple with its copper serpent (the nehushtan) and guardian cherubs.[61] Genesis 2 is the only place in the bible where it appears as a geographic location: elsewhere, notably Book of Ezekiel 28, it is a mythological place located on the holy Mountain of God, with echoes of a Mesopotamian myth of the king as a primordial man placed in a divine garden to guard the tree of life.[62]

"Good and evil" may be a set phrase meaning simply "everything", but it may also have a moral connotation. When God forbids the man to eat from the tree of knowledge he says that if he does so he is "doomed to die": the Hebrew behind this is in the form used in the bible for issuing death sentences.[63]

Creation of first woman

The term "helper" is a customary English term used for the Hebrew phrase ezer kenegdo, which is notably difficult to translate. Kenegdo means "alongside, opposite, a counterpart to him", and ezer means active intervention on behalf of the other person.[64] God's naming of the elements of the cosmos in Genesis 1 illustrated his authority over creation; now the man's naming of the animals (and of Woman) illustrates his authority within creation.[65]

The woman is called ishah, Woman, with an explanation that this is because she was taken from ish, meaning "man"; the two words are not in fact connected. Later, after the story of the Garden is complete, she will be given a name, Hawwah, Eve. This means "living" in Hebrew, from a root that can also mean "snake".[66] A long-standing exegetical tradition holds that the use of a rib from man's side emphasizes that both man and woman have equal dignity, for woman was created from the same material as man, shaped and given life by the same processes.[67]

Marriage is monogamous ("wife", not "wives": in Judah at the time Genesis was canonised the issue of marriage, polygamy and divorce was a burning one) and takes precedence over all other ties. The end-point of creation is a man and a woman united in a state of innocence, but the word "naked", arummim, looks forward to the "subtle", arum, serpent about to be introduced in the next verse.[68]

Judeo-Christian reinterpretations

Eden (Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1472–1553)

Many of the elements which Christians today take as part and parcel of the Creation/Eden story are in fact the result of later interpretation: Genesis 1 was not originally concerned with establishing God as creator of the world (that was taken as given), or with explaining just how he created it (ancient peoples were not interested in that question), nor does the Eden story ever say that the serpent in the Garden is the Devil, or that Eden is a heavenly garden where the righteous will live live eternally, or even that this is the story of the Fall of man.[69]

The process of redefinition began when the original Hebrew text was translated into Greek for Greek-speaking Jews of the last few centuries BCE. A notable example is the word adam. In the original it signified both mankind in general and the specific first man. The authors of the Greek version took anthropos for the undifferentiated adam, and transliterated the Hebrew as Adam when a single first man seemed indicated, thus transforming adam, "man", into a personal name. Unfortunately for later readers, there was no way Greek could capture the word-play that linked adam, man/mankind, with adamah, the material from which he or they were formed.[70]

The next major development occurred in early Christianity, with the formation of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, the idea that Genesis 1 describes God's creation of the world out of nothingness. For the original authors of Genesis 1 the point was that God had brought order to chaos and so made the world habitable. In the second century CE Christian scholars schooled in Greek philosophy began to see a tension between this view of creation as world-formation, and the idea of the unconditional omnipotence of God advanced by the Greeks. In the following decades the older tradition was overturned, and by the third century CE the idea that Genesis 1 describes God's creation of matter itself had become a fundamental tenet of Christian theology.[71]

See also

Citations

  1. ^ a b c KuglerHartin 2009, pp. 14–16.
  2. ^ a b Davidson 1973, p. 31.
  3. ^ Alter 2004, p. xii.
  4. ^ Speiser 1964, p. xxi.
  5. ^ Ska 2006, pp. 169, 217–218.
  6. ^ Janzen 2004, p. 118.
  7. ^ Davies 2001, p. 37.
  8. ^ a b Wylen 2005, p. 108.
  9. ^ a b Kaplan 2002, p. 93.
  10. ^ Wylen 2005, p. 109.
  11. ^ a b Sarna 1997, p. 50.
  12. ^ Leeming 2004.
  13. ^ Genesis 2
  14. ^ Genesis 1
  15. ^ Ruiten 2000, pp. 9–10.
  16. ^ a b c Carr 1996, p. 64.
  17. ^ Genesis 1
  18. ^ Cross 1973, pp. 301ff.
  19. ^ Thomas 2011, pp. 27–28.
  20. ^ Friedman 2003, p. 35 (fn).
  21. ^ Kutsko 2000, p. 62, quoting J. Maxwell Miller.
  22. ^ McDermott 2002, pp. 25–27.
  23. ^ Van Seters 1992, pp. 122–124.
  24. ^ Keel 1997, p. 20.
  25. ^ Fishbane 2003, pp. 34–35.
  26. ^ Brettler 2005, pp. 203–204.
  27. ^ Penchansky 2005, pp. 23–24.
  28. ^ Penchansky 2005, pp. 29–30.
  29. ^ Levenson 2004, p. 13.
  30. ^ Hyers 1984, p. 74.
  31. ^ Wenham 1987, p. 6.
  32. ^ Stordalen 2000, p. 275–276.
  33. ^ Walton 2006, p. 183.
  34. ^ Carlson and Longman 2010, p. 109.
  35. ^ a b Bandstra 1999, p. 39.
  36. ^ Walton 2003, p. 158.
  37. ^ Hamilton 1990, p. 122.
  38. ^ Seeley 1991, p. 227.
  39. ^ Walton 2003, pp. 158–159.
  40. ^ Seeley 1997, p. 236.
  41. ^ Kissling 2004, p. 106.
  42. ^ Bandstra 1999, p. 41.
  43. ^ Bandstra 1999.
  44. ^ Walsh 2001, p. 37 (fn.5).
  45. ^ Walton 2003, p. 160.
  46. ^ Alter 2004, p. 18-19,21.
  47. ^ Kvam et. al. 1999, p. 24.
  48. ^ Davidson 1973, p. 24.
  49. ^ Levenson 2004, p. 14.
  50. ^ Rogerson 1991, p. 19ff.
  51. ^ Blenkinsopp 2011, pp. 21–22.
  52. ^ Stordalen 2000, p. 473-474.
  53. ^ Walton 2006, pp. 157–158.
  54. ^ Van Seters 1998, p. 22.
  55. ^ Anderson 1987, pp. 137–140.
  56. ^ Alter 2004, p. 20, 22.
  57. ^ Levenson 2004, p. 15.
  58. ^ Davidson 1973, p. 29.
  59. ^ Kooij 2010, p. 17.
  60. ^ Propp 1990, p. 193.
  61. ^ Stordalen 2000, p. 307-310.
  62. ^ Davidson 1973, p. 33.
  63. ^ Alter 2004, p. 21.
  64. ^ Alter 2004, p. 22.
  65. ^ Turner 2009, p. 20.
  66. ^ Hastings 2003, p. 607.
  67. ^ Hugenberger 1988, p. 184.
  68. ^ Kissling 2004, pp. 176–178.
  69. ^ Bouteneff 2008, p. 4.
  70. ^ Bouteneff 2008, p. 9-12.
  71. ^ May 2004, p. 179.

References

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Anderson, Francis I. (1987). "On Reading Genesis 1-3". In Freedman (ed.). Backgrounds for the Bible. Eisenbrauns. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Missing |editor1= (help); Unknown parameter |editor1 first= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor1 last= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor2 first= ignored (help)
Bandstra, Barry L. (1999). Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible. Wadsworth Publishing Company. p. 576. ISBN 0-495-39105-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Blenkinsopp, Joseph (2011). Creation, Un-Creation, Re-Creation: A Discursive Commentary on Genesis 1-11. T&T Clarke International. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Bouteneff, Peter C. (2008). Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narrative. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic. ISBN 978-0-8010-3233-2. {{cite book}}: External link in |title= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Brettler, Mark Zvi (2005). How To Read the Bible. Jewish Publication Society. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Brueggemann, Walter (1982). "Genesis 1:1-2.4". Interpretation of Genesis. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 382. ISBN 978-0-8042-3101-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Carlson, Richard F.; Longman, Tremper (2010). Science, Creation and the Bible: Reconciling Rival Theories of Origins. InterVarsity Press. p. 109. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Carr, David M. (1996). Reading the Fractures in Genesis. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 0-664-22071-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Carr, David M. (2011). "The Garden of Eden Story". An Introduction to the Old Testament. John Wiley & Sons. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Cross, Frank Moore (1973). "The Priestly Work". Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel. Harvard University Press. p. 394. ISBN 0-674-09176-0. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapter= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Dalley, Stephanie (2000). Myths from Mesopotamia: creation, the flood, Gilgamesh, and others. Oxford University Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Davidson, Robert (1973). Genesis 1-11. Cambridge University Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Davies, G.I. (2001). "Introduction to the Pentateuch". In John Barton (ed.). Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford University Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Dumbrell, William J. (2002). The Faith of Isarel: A Theological Survey of the Old Testament. Baker Academic. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Fishbane, Michael (2003). Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-826733-9. {{cite book}}: External link in |title= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Friedman, Richard Elliott (2003). The Bible with Sources Revealed. HarperCollins. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Hamilton, Victor P (1990). The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17. New International Commentary on the Old Testament (NICOT). Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 540. ISBN 0-8028-2521-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Hastings, James (2003). Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Part 10. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7661-3682-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Heidel, Alexander (1963). Babylonian Genesis (2nd ed.). Chicago University Press. ISBN 0-226-32399-4. {{cite book}}: External link in |title= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Heidel, Alexander (1963). The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels (2nd Revised ed.). Chicago University Press. ISBN 0-226-32398-6. {{cite book}}: External link in |title= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Hugenberger, G.P. (1988). "Rib". In Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (ed.). The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Volume 4. Eerdmans. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Hyers, Conrad (1984). The meaning of creation: Genesis and modern science. Westminster John Knox. p. 207. ISBN 0-8042-0125-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Janzen, David (2004). The social meanings of sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible: a study of four writings. Walter de Gruyter Publisher. ISBN 978-3-11-018158-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Kaplan, Aryeh (2002). "Hashem/Elokim: Mixing Mercy with Justice". The Aryeh Kaplan reader: the gift he left behind. Mesorah Publication, Ltd. p. 224. ISBN 0-89906-173-7. Retrieved 29 December 2010. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Keel, Othmar (1997). The symbolism of the biblical world. Eisenbrauns. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
King, Leonard (2010). Enuma Elish: The Seven Tablets of Creation; The Babylonian and Assyrian Legends Concerning the Creation of the World and of Mankind. Cosimo Inc. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Kissling, Paul (2004). Genesis, Volume 1. College Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Knight, Douglas A (1990). "Cosmology". In Watson E. Mills (General Editor) (ed.). Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press. ISBN 0-86554-402-6. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Kooij, Arie van der (2010). "The story of Paradise in the light of Mesopotamian culture and literature". In Dell, Katherine J; Davies, Graham; Koh, Yee Von (eds.). Genesis, Isaiah, and Psalms. Brill. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Kugler, Robert; Hartin, Patrick (2009). An Introduction to the Bible. Eerdmans. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Kutsko, John F. (2000). Between Heaven and Earth: divine presence and absence in the Book of Ezekiel. Eisenbrauns. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Kvam, Kristen E.; Schearing, Linda S.; Ziegler, Valarie H., eds. (1999). Eve and Adam: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim readings on Genesis and gender. Indiana University Press. p. 515. ISBN 0-253-21271-5.
Leeming, David A. (2004). "Biblical creation". The Oxford companion to world mythology (online ed.). Oxford University Press. Retrieved 5 May 2010. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Levenson, Jon D. (2004). "Genesis: introduction and annotations". In Berlin, Adele; Brettler, Marc Zvi (eds.). The Jewish study Bible. Oxford University Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Louth, Andrew (2001). "Introduction". In Andrew Louth (ed.). Genesis 1-11. InterVarsity Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
May, Gerhard (1994 (English trans. 2004)). Creatio ex nihilo. T&T Clarke International. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
McDermott, John J. (2002). Reading the Pentateuch: a historical introduction. Paulist Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
McMullin, Ernin (2010). "Creation ex nihilo: early history". In David B. Burrell, Carlo Cogliati, Janet M. Soskice (ed.). Creation and the God of Abraham. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
Penchansky, David (2005). Twilight of the Gods: Polytheism in the Hebrew Bible. U.S.: Westminster/John Knox Press. ISBN 0-664-22885-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
Propp, W.H. (1990). "Eden Sketches". In Propp, W.H.; Halpern, Baruch; Freedman, D.N. (eds.). The Hebrew Bible and its interpreters. Eisenbrauns. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Ruiten, Jacques T. A. G. M. (2000). Primaeval history interpreted. Brill. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Rogerson, John William (1991). Genesis 1-11. T&T Clark. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Sarna, Nahum M. (1997). "The Mists of Time: Genesis I-II". In Feyerick, Ada (ed.). Genesis: World of Myths and Patriarchs. New York: NYU Press. p. 560. ISBN 0-8147-2668-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Sawyer, John F.A. (1992). "The Image of God, the Wisdom of Serpents, and the Knowledge of Good and Evil". In Paul Morris, Deborah Sawyer (ed.). A walk in the garden: biblical, iconographical and literary images of Eden. Sheffield Academic Press Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Seeley, Paul H. (1991). "The Firmament and the Water Above: The Meaning of Raqia in Genesis 1:6–8" (PDF). Westminster Theological Journal. 53. Westminster Theological Seminary: 227–240. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Seeley, Paul H. (1997). "The Geographical Meaning of 'Earth' and 'Seas' in Genesis 1:10" (PDF). Westminster Theological Journal. 59. Westminster Theological Seminary: 231–55. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Ska, Jean-Louis (2006). Introduction to reading the Pentateuch. Eisenbrauns. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Smith, Mark S. (2002). The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (2nd ed.). William B Eerdmans Publishing Co. ISBN 0-8028-3972-X. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
Smith, Mark S. (2001). The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts (New Ed ed.). Oxford University Press USA. ISBN 0-19-516768-6. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
Speiser, Ephraim Avigdor (1964). Genesis. Doubleday. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Spence, Lewis (1916 (reissued 2010)). Myths and Legends of Babylonia and Assyria. Kessinger Publishing, LLC. p. 496. ISBN 1-56459-500-5. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
Stenhouse, John (2000). "Genesis and Science". In Gary B. Ferngren (ed.). The History of Science and Religion in the Western Tradition: An Encyclopedia. New York, London: Garland Publishing, Inc. p. 76. ISBN 0-8153-1656-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Stordalen, Terje (2000). Echoes of Eden. Peeters. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Thomas, Matthew A. (2011). These Are the Generations: Identity, Covenant and the Toledot Formula. T&T Clark (Continuum). {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Thompson, J. A. (1980). Jeremiah. New International Commentary on the Old Testament (2nd ed.). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 831. ISBN 0-8028-2530-3. it's as if the earth had been 'uncreated.' {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Turner, Laurence A. (2009). Genesis. Sheffield Phoenix Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Navarre, Faculty of Theology of the University of (1999). "The Creation of Eve". Navarre Bible: Pentateuch. Vol. 1 of 10. Dublin/Princeton, NJ: Scepter/Four Courts Press. p. 820. ISBN 978-1-889334-21-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Van Seters, John (1998). "The Pentateuch". In McKenzie, Steven L.; Graham, M. Patrick (eds.). The Hebrew Bible Today: An Introduction to Critical Issues. Westminster John Knox Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Van Seters, John (1992). Prologue to History: The Yahwist As Historian in Genesis. New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 0-664-22179-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Walsh, Jerome T. (2001). Style and structure in Biblical Hebrew narrative. Liturgical Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Walton, John H. (2006). Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible. Baker Academic. ISBN 0-8010-2750-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
Walton, John H. (2003). "Creation". In T. Desmond Alexander, David Weston Baker (ed.). Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch. InterVarsity Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Walton, John H. (2001). Genesis. Zondervan. ISBN 978-0-310-86620-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Walton, John H.; Matthews, Victor H.; Chavalas, Mark W. (2000). "Genesis". The IVP Bible background commentary: Old Testament. InterVarsity Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wenham, Gordon (2003). Exploring the Old Testament: A Guide to the Pentateuch. Exploring the Bible Series. Vol. 1. IVP Academic. p. 223. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wenham, Gordon (1987). Genesis 1-15. Vol. 1 and 2. Texas: Word Books. ISBN 0-8499-0200-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Whybray, R.N (2001). "Genesis". In John Barton (ed.). Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford University Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wylen, Stephen M. (2005). "Chapter 6 Midrash". The seventy faces of Torah: the Jewish way of reading the Sacred Scriptures. Paulist Press. p. 256. ISBN 0-8091-4179-5. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
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