Genesis, 1
The first five books of the Bible are called the Pentateuch (pent=5; teuch=scrolls), or commonly the Five Books of Moses. The Hebrew word is Torah, meaning "teaching" or "law."
These books contain the main laws (including the famous Ten Commandments). Jewish scholars count 613 such laws. The Ten Commandments (also called the "Decalogue"; dec=10, as in decade) are the basic moral laws of Western culture.
Traditionally, these five books were thought to have been written by Moses. Even Jesus used Moses' name. But scholars now are almost certain this is impossible. Some reasons are obvious, such as when Moses' death is mentioned or when Moses is called "humble," since Moses would not have done so. There are more delicate reasons we'll go into.
The belief that Moses did not write the five books of Moses is part of the Documentary (or Source) theory ("Documentary Hypothesis"); namely that there were several texts that were then combined, called "redacted." These texts are then called "redactions" (edited). The Editor is the Redactor ("R").
The sources are, in usual order of their composition, J, E, D, P. These stand for Jehovah, Elohim (or El), Deuteronomy, and Priest.
The "J" text is so-called because God is called in that text Jehovah (Yahweh). The "E" text is so-called because God is called El or Elohim (plural of El). The "D" text is so-called because the writer wrote the final book of the Pentateuch called the Book of Deuteronomy. The P text was believed to have been written by a member of the Priest class, and is now considered the latest. Thus the P writer may have organized the other sources too.
The Bible in fact begins with the P writer, who wrote one of the texts of Creation; the second Creation text (ch. 2), which follows, was written by J, since God is called Jehovah.
The following are some of the most famous lines in Western literature. Note the "biblical style" here: many "ands," for example, which influenced Ernest Hemingway among others.
1: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2: The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.
3: And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.
4: And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
5: God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
First we note that God has dignity in this text. Just speaking makes the world. This is the later Priestly vision of God, far above humans. We also note that the day begins in the evening. This is common Jewish reckoning of time. For example, Wednesday begins at sunset on Tuesday until sunset on Wednesday, then Thursday begins. So we know that the Priest class must have written this, since this kind of reckoning of time would have come later in Jewish history. Note too that the Priest writer begins with the "heavens" but the next writer, J, begins with the earth. This may be a small detail but some scholars make a point of it.
6: And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."
8: And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.
9: And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so.
10: God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
11: And God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth." And it was so.
Note the image of boundaries ("each according to its kind"), probably a reflection of the Priestly class concern with purity, in the sense of separation.
12: And God saw that it was good.
13: And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.
16: And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also.
20: And God said, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the firmament of the heavens."
21: So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
The main point is that God sees everything as "good." This is a basic difference between Jewish history and most other histories or other religions which see the world as evil. Christianity will later depart from this idea and imagine a dualistic world of Good and Evil fighting each other on equal terms (the Devil offers Jesus the world because the world belongs to the Devil by the time of Jesus). But for Jews, even the sea monsters are good, because under the authority of God. Such a belief obviously minimizes (lessens) fear, since one feels God is always in control, even in difficult times: a good philosophy to live by.
22: And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."
There is no separation of soul and body in Jewish thinking: to be blessed is to be blessed in the flesh; that means sex too ("be fruitful and multiply"). The God of the Jews is mainly a God of this world and this life in terms of plenty.
23: And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
24: And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so.
25: And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the cattle according to their kinds, and everything that creeps upon the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
26: Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."
There is much to talk about in the above. The sea was always a fearful place for early people, especially for the Jews who were not good at sea travel. Then there was worship of planets in those days too. So the writer makes clear all these are under the control of God, thus lessening fear or worship of them.
Also the student should keep in mind that the Bible as most people know it is part of the Christian Bible. This is divided into Old and New Testament. Testament means covenant or agreement. Because Christians believe there was an old agreeement between God and man that was replaced by a new agreeement between Jesus (also God) and man. What this means for reading is that everything in the Bible is understood in a way that the Jewish people often did not understand their own Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Jews of course don't call their Bible "old." It's their book which is still new. Still in this class we must read the Bible in both ways, as Jews do and as Christians do; and certainly the way Christians read the Bible has had more influence in the Western arts due to numbers (more Christians than Jews).
Now as we read this text we can see where God speaks with someone ("let us make man"). Who is "us"? For Jews this is only an expression or a trace of early Jewish history when the Jewish God was just the most powerful of many Gods. (Monotheism, or belief in one God, developed slowly in Jewish history.) Later Jewish history rejected the idea of many Gods.
But Christians believe "us" would refer to Jesus, to Christians, the "Son of God." Moreover, when the "Spirit" of God breathes upon the waters (above) Christians see this as a reference to the other "person" of the three-personed Christian God called the Holy Spirit. Together they are called the Holy Trinity (tri=3).
The student must keep in mind that for Christians it was impossible to get rid of the Old Testament since the early Christians were all Jews and whatever faith they had in Jesus could only be because they had faith that Jesus fulfilled the Jewish Law (the Law is the most important thing in Jewish religion) and also fulfilled the Covenant (Promise) to King David of an eternal Kingship. We shall study this matter more later, when Jesus replaces the Jewish Law for good, according to Christians.
27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Note the beautiful rhythm (v. 27) of this entire text. The Bible is one of the few books that is admired as much in translation as in the original. And luckily Hebrew poetry depends more on word order and repetition than on other factors commonly associated with poetry, so it's easily translated.
28: And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."
The key concept in the Hebrew religion is that God made everything and so everything is good. There is no trace of dualism (evil/good) in Hebrew thought. God controls everything. Therefore sex is good too; in fact people are encouraged to have sex and babies (babies of course were important in those days because a society needed numbers to survive).
29: And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.
30: And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so.
31: And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.
The emphasis on "every" could be verbal irony, related to J's chapter 2: a reminder that though Man had "everything" he still wanted more. Some scholars go so far as to read the entire first books of the Bible as a "backward" history to "explain" King David's kingdom and its collapse after David's son, Solomon died. The Garden of Eden, in other words, is King David's kingdom (about 1000 BCE=before the common era). It was lost because of greed and also Solomonic knowledge (Eve eating the apple illustrates Solomon's ungodly quest for more power and knowledge, etc.).
2
1: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2: And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.
3: So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation.
This is where the P text ends, at 4a. Students should learn early that the Bible was the first book to be numbered by lines or verses and chapters. So for example, the next line would be referred to as Genesis 2:4; that is, the Book of Genesis, chapter 2, verse 4. Abbreviations differ, though they used to be more standard. Today Genesis might be shortened as Gen. or even Ge. (Of course, for personal notes, students can use just G if referring only to the Old Testament.)
Now scholars go even further sometimes, as when a verse is long. So in the below verse, 4, the student will see that there are two sentences there. If the scholar wants to refer to only one part of v. 4 he or she would use either 4a or 4 b. So Ge 2:4b would refer to the sentence that begins, "In the day that the LORD God," etc. Many scholars believe the J Creation account begins on 2:4b and 2:4a was added to smooth out the two accounts (P and J).
Anyway, the J account is older than the P account and may go back to the ninth century BCE. So now we must discuss dates.
The Western calendar is dated at what was believed to have been the birth of Jesus. So Jesus would be born in the year 1. This is the year of the Lord (Anno Domini in Latin). (We not know Jesus was born shortly before that date, but that's another matter.) So any date after Jesus was called A.D. (Anno Domini). Note "anno" as in the English "annual" (yearly) and "Domini" as in "dominate" ("to lord it over another person, to control him or her"), domicile, domestic (the place where the lord of the house lives, or his homely affairs, etc.).
The years before Jesus are even more simple: BC means "before Christ." Now this is the tricky part. Student have to remember that years are subtracted BC but added AD. So fifty years after 800 BC would make it 750 BC but 50 years after 800 A.D. would make it 850 A.D. From 500 B.C. to 100 A.D. would make it six hundred years later.
Now there's been a change in modern thinking. Most people don't like to name years after a God they don't believe in (Jesus). This is true of course of Jews or atheists (people who don't believe in God). So scholars now prefer to use the shortened forms BCE and CE. These would replace B.C. and A.D.: "BCE" means "before the Common [=Christian] era," and CE means the Common Era. The goal is to keep "Jesus" out of people's lives while doing scholarship, because it's considered disrespectful to impose one's religious beliefs on others.
So now we are into the J account of creation. Note in 2:4b that the J writer puts "earth" before "heavens." Note also God is more humanlike in this story. We say "anthropomorphic" (man-shaped). He walks; he talks to people. This is an earlier idea of God, whereas the P account is a later development: more dignified. Note also that here we find the word LORD (it's mixed with "God," which the P writer used, probably to smooth out the difference). "Lord" is commonly the English translation for Jehovah (Yahweh in the Bible); that's where we get the "J" in the "J" version, because God is always called Jehovah in this version.
7: then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
8: And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9: And out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Scholars today consider "evil" a bad translation of the Hebrew word, which really means "bad," not "evil." There has always been a "normative" (prejudicial) pressure on Bible translations to suit later concerns, especially as dualism (Good vs. Evil) developed in Christian thinking, beginning with Christ. The meaning of this tree is not certain. What does the "knowledge of good and evil" mean? Is it good or bad? Obviously, before eating from this tree, people are innocent; afterwards they are guilty, as is made clear. My own belief is that "good and evil" simply means better and worse. That is, before eating from this tree, everyone was satisfied with what they had, to fulfill their basic needs. Afterwards, their needs became desires in envy of others (desire is not natural, but needs are). This is clear in the Cain and Abel story and in all sexual desire too. (We usually desire a certain person and especially persons who are desired by others: This is good and evil (better and worse). Wise people just want a shelter over their heads, a bowl of simple food, water, etc. But after the Fall people want special (and expensive) food, drinks, a great house, etc. But each person will have to understand this key text in their own way. However, there is no reason to believe that sex is the main idea here, as later "normative" thinking would have it. The Hebrew mind was not concerned with sex, anymore than the toilet. These are natural needs in a religion that believed in a unity of flesh and spirit.
15: The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
16: And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;
17: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil [bad] you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."
18: Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him."
19: So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
20: The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him.
21: So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh;
22: and the rib which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
23: Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."
Note that in the P version, man and woman are made together, as equals. But in the J version, they are unequal, the man coming first. Feminists like to put a spin on this and turn it around: the Woman was actually first from the human (Adam came from the earth). Also, as the joke goes, first God made Adam for practice then he perfected Adam in Eve. Adam by the way means "earth" and Eve means "life." (Names often have meaning in the Bible.)
24: Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.
25: And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
3
1: Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, `You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?"
The nature of this serpent is unclear. Christians later (as in the book of Revelation) saw the serpent as Satan, though there is no hint of this in the Jewish Bible.
2: And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden;
3: but God said, `You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'"
4: But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die.
5: For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil [bad]."
Here already Eve is tempted to compare one way of life with another. So this kind of comparison (called "envy") is really the basis of our problems and becomes worse after the Fall. Note the fruit is not named, though it is commonly called an apple. From there we get the folk myth that the lump in the man's throat is the remains of the apple his ancestor Adam ate: the "Adam's Apple."
6: So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate.
Here we get a development of the idea of "desiring" to be other than what one is: envy. Yet note that envy makes us aware of what we lack, not what we have! After they eat they realize what they don't have: clothes. And of course from now on all humans will base their lives on not being satisfied with what they have but desiring only what they don't have. Note the more anthropomorphic (manlike) image of God compared with the P version:
7: Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.
8: And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
9: But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"
10: And he said, "I heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself."
11: He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?"
12: The man said, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate."
13: Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent beguiled me, and I ate."
Note the human comedy here: Adam blames God and Eve, while Eve blames the snake.
14: The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all cattle, and above all wild animals; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
15: I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."
Here we introduce a new word, important for the way that Christians read the Jewish Bible. It's called "typology." Readings based on typology are called typological readings. This kind of reading is in view of Jesus Christ who is seen as fulfilling the Jewish Law and writings. So everything points to Jesus, according to Christians. For example, Adam is seen as a figure or type of Jesus; but where Adam sinned, Jesus kept from sin. Where Adam condemned the human race, Jesus saved the human race. Also with Eve, who is the type of Jesus' mother: the Virgin Mary: where Eve rebelled against God's command, Mary humbly accepted God's command.
Now 2:15 (the protevangelium, or "First Gospel") is given an important typological reading. Because it is seen as a warning that the snake (for Christians, the Devil) will be at war from now on between Eve's seed (offspring: us) and devils (the serpent's seed). "He shall bruise your head" refers, according to Christians, to Jesus, who will defeat the Devil, while Jesus will suffer on the cross ("you shall bruise his heel") due to the Devil (though by God's permission). That's just the way Christians must read the Bible: they cannot ignore it but they cannot accept the Jewish Law either, because Jesus fulfills and finally replaces the Law according to Christians.
16: To the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."
17: And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, `You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18: thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19: In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
This is what is known as "etiology" (sometimes spelled "aetiology"). Etiology explains events by stories. For example, why do women suffer to have babies? Why must man work hard? The Bible explains these in its own way. The great American writer, Henry David Thoreau has a fine twist on v. 19, in his book, Walden, where he argues for a life of simplicity and says that "Man should not have to earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do."
20: The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
21: And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them.
22: Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever" --
23: therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.
24: He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Note that death has entered the world as the first couple is sent east of Eden, which later became the name of a famous novel and movie, starring James Dean. Eden and Paradise mean the same thing: a lovely place.
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