In the Beginning... Bereshit; Genesis 1:1 through Genesis 6:8

These comments related to the chapters and verses indicated in the lesson's title, above.
Genesis 1:1-5 thrusts the reader into the formless and void of nothing-ness from which creation emerges:

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

(Please note that I usually refer to the NRSV translation - unless otherwise specified.)

Targum Pseud0-Jonathan, also called Targum Yerushalmi (an Aramaic translation of the Torah of unknown date) relates the first moments of creation slightly differently:

With wisdom the Lord created. And the earth was vacancy and desolation, and solitary of the sons of men, and void of every animal; and the Spirit of mercies from before the Lord breathed upon the face of the waters. And it was evening, and it was morning, in the order of the work of the creation, the First Day.

It is a beautiful statement: "with wisdom the Lord created." And yet, are we to understand this "wisdom" as a descriptor of God's approach to creation...or maybe as "Wisdom," a second divine person present at the creation? Although this interpretation may seem far-fetched, we would do well to remember the words of Proverbs 8:22-31:

The Lord created me [Wisdom] at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water.

Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth—

When he had not yet made earth and fields,or the world’s first bits of soil.
When he established the heavens, I was there,

when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,

when he made firm the skies above,

when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit,

so that the waters might not transgress his command,

when he marked out the foundations of the earth,

then I was beside him, like a master worker;

and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always,

rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.

The Hebrew word for wisdom is Hokmâ, a female noun. We see that Proverbs envisions God creating Wisdom first, as almost a heavenly help-mate, who then joins the Lord in the creation of the world, and they rejoice together in their work. But how does God create? through speech: then God said, ‘Let there be light.’

In Aramaic translations of biblical texts, the term Memra is often used to denote the creative or directive word of God. The meaning of Memra is "the word," - understood to be a manifestation of the divine in the human realm. The Greek translation of this "word"? -- logos.

Although the Gospel of John is often said to be the "least Jewish" of the gospels, it is easy to see that the same sentiments expressed in Proverbs and preserved in the relatively late Targum are present in John's prologue where he describes Creation as a partnership: (John 1: 1-5)

In the beginning was the Word (logos) and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

As in Genesis 1:1-5 this New Testament text describes creation from "the beginning" to the separation of "darkness and light."

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Notice that the verses covered in this lesson describe not one, but THREE separate creations, three worlds through which humanity passes, striving and failing: the Garden of Adam and Eve, the world outside the Garden, and following the destruction of this world by water, the world after the Flood.

Please click on the following link to view a table comparing these three worlds side-by-side.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddbxqpcb_0cc9qxvht

You'll notice that there is a progression from world to world:

Garden -
The first story describing Adam and Eve in the garden envisions an intimate relationship between humans and God, parental. God explicitly forbids; God is the one who pronounces the curses. Sin is external. The attainment of knowledge threatens the boundary between God and humans.

Farm -
In the second story, God is more distant. He speaks to Cain, but interacts less. God warns rather than forbids; Cain is a free moral agent. God again pronounces the curse. Sin is an internal struggle. The theme of knowledge is addressed again - this time the problem is Cain's denial of knowledge and responsibility.

Vineyard -
In the third story, describing Noah's drunkenness, God is absent. There is no divine warning- and it is Noah who utters the curse. Sin is both external and confusing... it is difficult to understand exactly what sin occurred, and who was to blame (Ham? Canaan? Does Noah bear some blame as well?). Noah voluntarily forfeits knowledge.

Notice that the third and final world - the world of Noah's Vineyard after the Flood - is our world. Sin is complex and confusing, blame often difficult to discern and assign, and it is all too tempting to forfeit knowing-ness and choose sleep, or wine, television or similar distractions.

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Sura 23 of the Qur’ān verses 12-16, titled "The Believers," describes the creation and existence of humans like this:

وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا الإنْسَانَ مِنْ سُلالَةٍ مِنْ طِينٍ

Man We did create from a quintessence (of clay);

ثُمَّ جَعَلْنَاهُ نُطْفَةً فِي قَرَارٍ مَكِينٍ

Then We placed him as (a drop of) sperm in a place of rest, firmly fixed;

ثُمَّ خَلَقْنَا النُّطْفَةَ عَلَقَةً فَخَلَقْنَا الْعَلَقَةَ مُضْغَةً فَخَلَقْنَا الْمُضْغَةَ عِظَامًا فَكَسَوْنَا الْعِظَامَ لَحْمًا ثُمَّ أَنْشَأْنَاهُ خَلْقًا آخَرَ فَتَبَارَكَ اللَّهُ أَحْسَنُ الْخَالِقِينَ

Then We made the sperm into a clot of congealed blood; then of that clot We made a (fetus) lump; then we made out of that lump bones, and clothed the bones with flesh; then we developed out of it another creature. So blessed be Allah, the best to create!

ثُمَّ إِنَّكُمْ بَعْدَ ذَلِكَ لَمَيِّتُونَ

After that, at length ye will die

ثُمَّ إِنَّكُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ تُبْعَثُونَ

Again, on the Day of Judgment, will ye be raised up.

It is a vivid description, almost clinical in its specificity, and extremely reverent of the Creator, narrating the span of a human life - and afterlife - in the space of four verses.

What do you think about the stories and ideas covered?

Share your thoughts!