Creation in Genesis 1-3 (Part 6-Ancient Near Eastern Context)

Another issue worthy of consideration in our discussion is found in verse two of chapter one, which states that the earth was a “formless waste” (tohu wa–wohu). In the King James Version (KJV) it is translated as “formless and void”. What does this phrase mean? It may first be noted that wohu never occurs alone in the bible, but always in conjunction with tohu. This is because the nouns tohu and wohu are used together in hendiadys [1] (hence the better translation “formless waste,” as found in several recent scholarly translations, rather than as two separate translations as in the KJV). Together they denote a shapeless, chaotic substance without form or structure, and, as virtually all biblical scholars agree, do not refer to absolute nothing (as precluded by the translation “formless”, which implies that a substance already exists, albeit in a disorganized or chaotic state). Another intriguing question concerns what is meant in verse two by the word tehom, often translated as “the deep” (as in deep waters, not as in a deep abyss of nothingness) or “the seas”? This word is linguistically interesting, for it never occurs with the definite article. This is likely because, as many modern commentators have noted, it is probably linguistically related to the name of the Babylonian goddess Tiamat, who, in the Mesopotamian creation account Enuma Elish is the primordial goddess of the salt waters. Tiamat, after a series of events (including her begetting of the first generation of gods by mixing her waters together with the god Apsu, the primordial god of fresh waters), eventually duels the Babylonian high god Marduk (who is one of the children of Tiamat and Apsu), the god of the storm, and is defeated. Marduk then divides and stretches out Tiamat’s body to form the cosmos. It is likely that the word tehom in Genesis 1.2 traces back to such an epic battle or story, although in its current context in this Priestly account it has been stripped of its more mythological implications. Instead of an epic struggle with the chaotic waters or “[the] deep”, God now instead simply speaks and the waters move effortlessly according to his royal command. [2] However, it should be noted that this epic battle of creation, with the Creator God battling the chaotic, primeval sea or the sea monster/god(ess) (often referred to as Rahab or Leviathan in the Hebrew Bible), is alluded to or mentioned in numerous other biblical passages (see, for instance, Ps. 33. 6-7; Ps. 74. 12-17; Ps. 89. 9-12; Is. 27.1; Is. 59. 1-10; Job 9..13; Job 26. 5-13). Other verses of relevance in our discussion of tehom and “[the] deep” also include Job 38.16, Ps. 36.6, Ps. 42. 7, Ps. 77.16, Prov. 3.19-20, Amos 7.4, and Hab. 3.10 (and these verses, in turn, may be profitably compared to the cosmological worldview assumed by ancient Israelites, to be discussed below). Given the above contextualization, tehom does not refer to an “abyss of nothingness” as some older commentators who have desired to see creatio ex nihilo in Genesis 1.2 have suggested. Rather, tehom refers to the primordial chaotic waters.

This brief discussion of Enuma Elish and the goddess Tiamat also leads nicely into a discussion of other important historical-cultural contextual comparisons between the Genesis creation narratives and other ancient Near Eastern texts and the cultures that produced them (of course, this doesn’t necessitate that the biblical authors never differ with surrounding cultures; rather, by analyzing the cultural similarities, we can more thoroughly understand and appreciate the truly unique aspects of these biblical accounts). Simply, the biblical authors did not live in a vacuum, and studying the cultural milieu in which the these texts were written provides important help for properly interpreting Genesis 1.1(-2). The opening of Enuma Elish, for instance, notably parallels both the openings of the P and J accounts in Genesis by beginning with a subordinate temporal clause, followed by (several) circumstantial clause(s) describing the pre-creative state of the cosmos, followed by the main clause in the apodosis.

Enuma Elish opens:

“When on high the heavens had not been named, Nor earth below pronounced by name, Apsu, the first one, the begetter, And maker Tiamat, who bore them all Had mixed their waters together, But had not formed pastures, nor discovered reed-beds, When yet no gods were manifest, Nor names pronounced, nor destinies decreed, Then gods were born within them.” [3]

Here in this Mesopotamian creation account we find, importantly, identical overall structure with the opening of both of the Genesis accounts of creation—1) subordinate temporal clause, 2) circumstantial clause and 3) main clause. (It may further be noted that other ancient Near Eastern stories also begin with temporal clauses, such as the epic of Gilgamesh.) This, then, may perhaps be seen as a typical way of beginning literary texts about creation in the ancient Near East. What is further striking about Enuma Elish and other ancient Near Eastern creation stories is that they directly parallel the notion in P of creation by organizing, dividing, separating, and giving order as I have discussed previously. Moreover, Genesis 1.2 states that a “wind” (Hebrew ruach, often translated as “S/spirit” [though this translation fits the context less comfortably]), of/from God “[was] hovering” over the chaotic world. This wind, blowing over and churning the waters, nicely fits the cultural and literary setting, albeit now demythologized, in which the Genesis author(s) wrote. For example, Enuma Elish states that Marduk, god of the storm, utilized the powerful winds of the storm in his battle with Tiamat to defeat her (YHWH, the God of Israel, was often viewed as God of the storm as well.)

That the ancient Israelites indeed viewed the cosmos as formed from a primeval chaotic state may be further understood through a sharper look at their overall worldview of the order and structure of the cosmos. Bernhard Anderson briefly summarizes their cosmological world-view as follows:

“The Bible takes for granted a three-storied structure of the universe: heaven, earth, and underworld (Ex. 20:4). According to this Weltbild, the earth is a flat surface, corrugated by mountains and divided by rivers and lakes. Above the earth, like a huge dome, is spread the firmament that holds back the heavenly ocean and supports the dwelling place of the gods (Genesis 1:8; Ps. 148:4). The earth itself is founded on pillars that are sunk into the subterranean waters (Pss. 24:2; 104:5), in the depths of which is located Sheol, the realm of death. In this view, the habitable world is surrounded by the waters of chaos, which unless held back, would engulf the world, a threat graphically portrayed in the flood story (Genesis 7:11; c.f. 1:6) and in various poems in the Old Testament (e.g., Pss. 46:1-4; 104:5-9).” [4]

This explanation of the ancient Israelite cosmological worldview makes excellent sense of the P account, which views creation as one of providing order through separation and the maintaining of boundaries. For instance, Genesis 1.6-8 (NRSV) reads: “And God said, ‘Let there be a dome [raqi’a] in the midst of the waters, and let it separate [b-d-l] the waters from the waters.’ So God made the dome [raqi’a] and separated [b-d-l] the waters that were under the dome [raqi’a] from the waters that were above the dome [raqi’a]. And it was so. God called the dome [raqi’a] Sky [shamayim]. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.” For P, the purpose of the raqi’a, which is literally an extended solid surface that encircled the earth (translated as “firmament” in the KJV, “expanse” in the NIV, and “dome” in the NRSV), is to separate the heavenly waters above the earth from the subterranean waters below, so as to provide a space in which God can fashion the remainder of his earthly creation, and in order to hold back these waters from destroying the earth thereafter. Within this “bubble” the earth/land (Hebrew ‘erets) sits upon the subterranean waters with pillars supporting it. Within the raqi’a are holes or “windows” (e.g., Mal. 3.10) which God may at times (from above) open and pour down rain from heaven, and through which (from below) the water for rivers and springs flow upwards. Additionally, as noted previously, the waters above and below the earth, if not restrained by God, may surge forth upon creation rendering it as chaotic as it was before God had formed the cosmos by establishing order through separation and forming boundaries. This is dramatically portrayed in P’s corresponding account of the flood in Genesis 7.11-12. It probably is thus more appropriate then to render raqi’a as “dome,” or something similar, such as the NRSV and several other modern scholarly translations have done, rather than as “firmament” as is found in the KJV.

Furthermore, Israel’s cosmological worldview (as outlined above) coincides substantially with the cosmological worldviews of its ancient Near Eastern neighbors. As mentioned, ancient Israelites did not exist in an ideological and social vacuum, and in this case it seems virtually certain that they shared the dominant cosmological worldview of their day. In fact, as most recent scholarly treatments of the origins of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo have concluded, no ancient Near Eastern societies held such a view until sometime in the late second century. Although I believe that novel ideas can come about, the fact that no other ancient Near Eastern societies contemporaneous with ancient Israel held this view, combined with the fact that there are no clear or unambiguous references to the notion of creatio ex nihilo until post-biblical times, cuts decidedly against its historical plausibility. In any event, the very fact that this ancient cosmological worldview described above can be so easily superimposed on so many different biblical texts, in conjunction with its overall explanatory power of P’s literary depiction of how God created the earth, and in addition to the fact that it also perfectly aligns with its ancient Near Eastern context, further demands that Genesis 1.1-2 is describing the pre-creation state of the cosmos.

Finally, there is one additional point I would like to briefly mention. Just as in Enuma Elish and many other important literary works of the ancient near east, the first clause of the P account in Genesis serves the function of the title of the work as a whole (enuma and elish are the first two words of the story) in addition to functioning as a subordinate temporal clause introducing the pre-creative status of the cosmos. Thus by taking the first words or clause of Genesis, as in Enuma Elish, as a title for the work, summarizing themes which will be elaborated upon later in the narrative, another significant tension regarding the integrity of P’s creation story is resolved that would otherwise be a problem if one were to take Genesis 1.1 as an absolute statement describing God’s first creative act(s) ex nihilo: namely, how God’s creating “the heaven(s)/sky(ies) (Hebrew shamayim) and the earth (Heb. ‘erets)” may (supposedly) occur in Genesis 1.1, when, in fact, it is not until day two (after the separating the waters) that the “heaven(s)/sky(ies)” (shamayim) actually come(s) into being and is so named (Genesis 1.6-8); and it isn’t until day three that the earth (‘erets) is formed (Genesis 1.9-10)! Thus, in additional to the numerous literary, linguistic, grammatical, and historical-contextual arguments, this point further establishes that Genesis 1.1-2 is serving as an introduction, with verse two as a parenthetical circumstantial statement describing what already exists when God actually begins to create by first calling forth “light.”

Notes

I have here at times drawn from Blake Ostler’s article at http://www.fairlds.org/New_Mormon_Challenge/TNMC04.html, accessed July 23rd, 2008, and specifically the section entitled “3.2.3 The argument From Near Eastern Sources.”

[1] Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), xx. Professor Levenson also remarks on pages xx and xxi, “If one equates the “nothing” from which God created the world with a void, as the traditional English translation of tohu wabohu implies, then the belief in a primordial, uncreated chaos is obviously a denial of the doctrine of creation out of nothing. The question remains, however, whether the ancient sources held this rather abstract conception of “nothing.” It seems more likely that they identified “nothing” with things like disorder, injustice, subjugation, disease, and death. To them, in other words, “nothing” was something—something negative. It was not the privation …but a real, active force, except that is charge was entirely negative. When order emerges where disorder had reigned unchallenged, when justice replaces oppression, when disease and death yield to vitality and longevity, this is indeed the creation of something out of nothing.”

[2] Creating by word or speech is not unique to biblical literature, and certainly does not somehow entail creation out of nothing in itself. In an Egyptian creation story, for instance, the god Ptah creates other gods through his thoughts and speech, and this creation is certainly not ex nihilo. See Michael Coogan The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 9.

[3] Stephanie Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh and Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 231.

[4]See Bernhard W. Anderson’s From Creation to New Creation, OTB (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994), 20.