THE 1310 Lecture 5

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Topics:

• Priestly and Yahwist Creation Accounts
• Enuma Elish

Gen 1: The Priestly Creation Account

Characteristics:

• structured
• vague
• poetic
• ordered by complexity
• scope starts off broad, narrows later
• creation is infused with wisdom and order
• omnipotence and immediacy of God's Word

Order of creation

1. Light
2. Heavens & Waters
3. Land & Vegetation
4. Sun and Moon (to govern 1)
5. Creatures: Birds of Air and Fish of Sea (to govern 2)
6. Creatures of Land and MAN

Man created in God's image (we point to God) and likeness (we resemble God)

• relationship and origin
• reason and will
• heart and mind ("Creation of Adam" painting by Michelangelo)

Creation reflects the goodness of God

• everything sings back to God
• like creation in The Magician's Nephew or The Silmarillion: brought about by song

Enuma Elish

Stone tablet discovered with uncanny resemblance to Gen. 1

• Hebrew people correcting misconception of their Babylonian neighbors
• Beliefs unique to Judaism:
  • God transcends creation (i.e., exists outside of it)
  • creation brought about through love, order; not violence or chaos

Gen 2: The Yahwist Creation Account

• zoomed in look at Adam
• Adam formed from dust of the earth (matter)
• Spirit breathed into nostrils (Hebrew word means "inspiration", "intellect", "mind")
• Records intimate encounters between God and Adam
• Adam created first in the wilderness
  • God moves him to the garden later
  • Trees at center of garden: already a moral aspect to the story
  • Adam is (we are) called to participate in creation and cultivation

Problem: Adam needs a partner

• Plan A: make animals, let Adam name them
• Plan B: Make Woman from rib
  • From heart; side represents equality
  • Rib surrounds the heart

First human words in the Bible: "Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh"

• Wonder and marvel at Woman

Establishment of Marriage

• One of two key bookends of Bible:
  1. Marriage in Genesis between Adam and Eve
  2. Marriage feast of the Lamb in Revelation