Tag: Creation
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A Fresh Look at Genesis One (ii)
In part (i), I suggested the current Genesis chapter 1 was as an earlier version of what’s now the first creation story with Genesis 2:1-3 added. These three verses are stylistically different, as might be expected if written by a different hand. For example, three structural phrases, repeated over and over in chapter 1, suddenly…
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A Fresh Look at Genesis One
In the beginning, the Bible had no chapters and verses. The creation of biblical chapters took place around the year 1227; of verses in the Hebrew Bible around 1448; and of verses in the New Testament around 1555. In other words, these internal divisions are neither original nor ‘authoritative’, though now more or less universally…
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Genesis One as a Work of Literature
Genesis 1:1- 2:3 was one of the last contributions to the opening five books of the Hebrew Bible. It was added when they were reaching their final shape, at the hands of Priestly editors. The following Genesis 2:4 to 3:24 ‘creation’ account is much earlier, with a human-like God strolling around his garden, talking to…
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The Bible and Babylonian Myth (ii)
My previous post showed how the Hebrew Bible writers made use of the Babylonian myth ‘Enuma Elish’ in finalising their own great national epic, and how the conflict between the god Marduk and the goddess Tiamat, hinted at in Genesis 1:2, finds clear parallels in the books of the Psalms and Job. In the Babylonian…
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The ‘Final’ Reality
For the final time (for now), let’s think again about the fascinating fact of a different level of ‘reality’. Let’s consider a picture that should make immediate sense to us. Wherever we are right now, passing through us, are radio, television, and internet ‘waves’. They are real, but we can’t see them. Common sense would…
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Genesis One – Its ‘Beginnings’
The Book of Genesis is neither a science book, nor a history book. It’s a story book, containing some of the world’s most memorable tales. In its final form, involving the work of one or more editors, it’s a collection of traditional stories, originally shared by word of mouth, before being written down. These stories…
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Rethinking ‘God’ (1) ‘Two Different Universes’
Some people don’t have a problem with ‘God’. I’m not writing for them, but for people who do .… The early chapters of the Bible are not about the creation of the Universe. Firstly, they’re not about ‘creation’, but a reshaping of what already existed. Secondly, what that reshaping resulted in, wasn’t so much a…
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‘Once Upon a Time’ (i) Atrahasis
If we imagine that the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament dropped ready-made from the skies above, we do it, and ourselves, a disservice, and miss out on some interesting and amusing stuff. The people of Israel were late arrivals in the ancient near east, others having already been there for thousands of years, especially in Egypt and…
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Genesis 1: A Critique (i)
GENESIS 1, a mythical account of the ‘creation’ of the world, is an impressive piece of work. We have a self-confident and authoritative God, unseen but heard, whose mere word, like a verbal snap of the fingers, creates order, structure and life, from what was originally chaotic, barren and inert. The six daily stages of…
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