Why start at Berashit?
Rashi begins his commentary to Genesis by citing his father, Rabbi Isaac, who asked: Why does
the Bible start with Creation when it only needed to begin with the Exodus and
the first commandment to the Jewish people (Exodus 12:2)? Rabbi Isaac’s own
answer was that God wanted the peoples of the world to know that the Land of
Canaan was to be given as an eternal inheritance to the children
of Israel -- as God is the Creator and owner of all lands.[1]
This eternal promise, often repeated in the Chumash and Tanach[2],
is the legal argument that has been at the heart of Jewish claims for a
restoration of a Jewish state and the Promised Land for some 2000 years prior
to 1948 and even to the present.
Rabbi Isaac's question and answer, however, miss a fundamental
point that was not an issue in his day, the 11 century C.E., as the world of
Jewry was either under Christian or Islamic rule -- and both those faiths
accepted the Bible's Genesis ch 1 Creation as divine truth.
But in the ancient world, prior to Emperor Constantine (ruled
306 to 337 CE) and his conversion to Christianity and efforts to eradicate
Paganism and make Christianity the official religion of the world empire, there
was a long tradition of diverse Creation narratives.
As
Stephen Hawking notes[3], there
is a universal, basic impulse in every culture and religion to answer fundamental
questions: How did the world we see come about? How do we humans fit into the 'plan'?
He
gives the Creation tradition of the Boshongo people of central Africa as an
example.
A
fuller version is available at http://www.mircea-eliade.com/from-primitives-to-zen/051.html
and below is my own summary and wording.
At the start, there was only darkness and water
and the flat earth. One day, Bumba, the
great god, felt pain in his stomach and vomited up the sun. The sun dried up
some of the water, leaving land and sandbanks and reefs visible. Bumba, continued to suffer pain, and vomited
up the moon and the stars. The pain continued and he vomited up various primal animals
who in turn created all the animals: the heron created all the birds, the goat
all horned animals, the beetle all
insects, etc. And finally, he vomited up
various humans only one of which was white.
Bambu’s three (3) sons tried to add their own
creations but only produced ants and the kite, though Chonganda, the second
son, did create a marvelous living plant from which all the world’s trees and
grasses and flowers and other plants have sprung forth.
Ancient Middle East
In the ancient Fertile Crescent, with Egypt to the south and a
series of overlapping great civilizations in the Mesopotamian north, two
Creation traditions were long established by the time of Abraham.
Abraham and Lot and Terach and Laban were all part of that
northern culture and familiar with its popular religious beliefs and Creation
tradition, and, if nothing else, Moses, the Egyptian raised prince, and the Children
of Israel who lived in Egypt for generations must have been well aware of Egyptian
beliefs re: creation.
The Northern view:
The ancient Cuneiform text, called Enuma Elis, first discovered in 1849 in the ruins of Nineveh and
later at Babylon, dates back to Hammurabi and represents an even older, oral
tradition.[4]
The epic poem describes the creation of the gods from primeval
deities Apsu (fresh water) and Tiamat (salt water) and how when Tiamat became
pregnant with many offspring who groined inside her, Apsu plotted their murder
so he could have peace and quiet. But Tiamat refused and had Ea, the god of
magic, still inside her, kill Apsu and emerge as the new male ruler. He in turn marries Damkina and produces
Marduk, who has the power to create winds and tornados.
Eventually, a war of the gods erupts between Tiamat and her
fetal deities and new monsters she creates on the one side, and Marduk and the
other gods who agreed to have Marduk as their leader and chief god thereafter.
In a climactic battle, Marduk faces off against Tiamat, kills
her and cuts her body in half: one part forming the earth and the other, the
skies. He then creates and arranges the planets and stars, the moon and the sun.
Finally,
he kills Tiamat’s new husband, Kingu, and uses his blood to create humanity – so
they could serve the gods.
Greek connection[5]
The creation
poem, Theogony, by the Greek poet,
Hesiod (c. 7th century BCE) echoes this ancient Mesopotamian view:
incestuous families of gods, intergenerational wars, primary-gods swallowing
their offspring to eliminate competitors, and the eventual defeat of the older
generation by the younger.
The Greek
Uranus (Sky), son and husband of Gaia (Earth), is the Apsu figure and imprisons
his first offspring within the belly of Gaia. He too is overthrown by Cronus, a
son, who is thereafter the new leader of the ruling Titan generation. In turn, Cronus swallows all chidren he
fathers with sister/wife Rhea but eventually Zeus, who has been hidden, leads a
revolt and after a battle of 10 years the Olympians are victorious and Zeus,
their elected leader, becomes the chief god and ruler.
Humans,
in this tradition, were intended to be amusement for the gods, but Prometheus,
assigned to their creation, formed them from clay mud to stand erect like the
gods; and he had Athena breathe life into these figurines and give them a share
of her intelligence. Prometheus also
gave them fire[6].
In this
Greek account, then, the sky, planet Earth and water have remained unchanged , and
in their current forms forever, and pre-existed
Cronus and the Titan gods and Zeus and the Olympians: with both groups
living on the mountain tops of Greece.
Zeus,
when born, was also hidden in a cave in the island of Crete.
Finally,
the sun, in Greek mythology, is simply the Olympian god Apollo riding across
the sky in his golden chariot.
And the
defeated Titan giant, Atlas, must stand on the western edge of the flat Earth
(Gaia) and hold upon his shoulders the equally flat sky (Uranus) so the two
cannot touch; i.e., so they cannot mate and produce as before powerful and
divisive gods. So, the blue
zone above is the sky god, while the transparent air close to the ground is a ‘gap’
created by Atlas’s body and uplifting arms[7].
Ancient Egypt
Originally there was Nu (Chaos), dark water encompassing the
vastness. Then, a hill (Ben Ben) emerged and upon it arose the god Atum. He was
lonely and spontaneously gave birth to the gods Shu (air) and Tafnet (moisture).
After they left him to create all things, Atum eventually became worried, and
sent his eye to look for them. When the eye returned, brought back by Shu and
Tafnet, Atum wept for joy. And when his
tears touched the soil of the Ben Ben, humans were born.
Now Shu and Tafnet gave
birth to Geb (earth) and Nut (sky), and the latter siblings fell in love but
Atum disapproved. So Atum separated the
two placing Nut (sky) high up above Geb (earth). But Geb was already pregnant
and gave birth to five (5) gods: Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys, and Horus.
When Atum saw how intelligent and wise was Osirus, he made Osirus
the chief god of the world, and simply left.
Osiris married his sister Isis and they ruled jointly. Osiris
created Egypt and the Nile as the most perfect of lands.
But Set, Osiris’s brother, tricked Osiris to squeeze into a
chest, locked it and threw it into the Nile.
He then claimed Osiris had died and he would rule next.
Isis did not despair and eventually found the chest and planned
to use magical herbs to restore him. But Set intervened: he found the chest’s
new location and cut the body of Osiris into 42 pieces which he flung
throughout Egypt.
Isis found 41 pieces eventually; all except for the penis
which a fish had swallowed. Undaunted,
she replaced the organ and they mated giving birth to Horus. Thereafter, Osiris
left and became the ruler and judge of the underworld, the land of the dead.
Horus, after a war of 80 years, overthrew Set and governed
thereafter with the advice of isis and her sister Nepthys.[8]
Genesis vs. the above
The ancient mythologies of Mesopotamia, inherited, it seems, by
the Greeks as well, and even that of Egypt, are markedly and fundamentally different from
the Bible.
No pantheon and multiplicity of deities. No rivalry and infanticide, patricide or
fratricide.
And no fixation on struggles for control and power and rule over
the world and universe.
Instead, there is a clear and singular diety. One who creates with joy: constantly saying
“it is good.” And, at the end, “It is very good.”
And the steps or process of creation are addressed systematically
and directly, with enough detail to meet the curiosity of ordinary humans re:
the fundamental elements of life on Earth: land, sky, rain clouds and flowing
land based rivers and seas and oceans;
fixed cycles of the Sun, Moon and Stars; vegetation; creatures of the
sea, animals of the land and air; and, finally, as the epitome and ultimate
achievement of creation, humans.
The basic human questions of “How did this all begin?” and “How
do we fit into the ‘plan’? “ are
addressed.
And with the repeated “It was good.” and closing, “It was very
good.”, a deep, human psychological need was met as well.
Consequently, to have the Chumash begin at the Exodus and omit
describing the creation of the world and all life on earth would have been a disservice to the Jewish people as ordinary humans
trying to better understand their world, and, more importantly, would have left them without a rebuttal or response
to the Creation mythologies believed by
the mighty cultures and nations among which they dwelt: Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and ultimately
Greco-Roman.
Put simply, Creation (Genesis ch 1 -2:3) is there to set the
record straight and help clarify and defend monotheism.
Importance
of Context
As I have stated at the outset of this
blog, the Patriarchs and all ensuing generations of Jews did not live in a
vacuum, but were exposed to and part of the greatest and most culturally
dynamic area of the ancient world, the Fertile Crescent.
Hertz,
in his Chumash, recognized full well that Judaism cannot ignore archaeological
evidence that restores the real, if lost, past[9];
and we, to better understand the Torah and Chumash, must not ignore such real
evidence, or we do so at our peril.
[1] Rashi to Genesis 1:1
[2]
Genesis 15:18-21, Gensis 26:3, Gensis 28:13,
Numbers 34:1-12, Leviticus 26:42-45. Deuteronomy 1:8 Isaiah 43:5,6. Jeremiah 31:8-10, Ezekiel 36:19,
24, 28; Ezekiel 37:11, 12, 21, 25, Zechariah 2:12.; Zechariah 8:7,
8, 22; Zecharia 12:6, Amos 9:15.
[5] I do not include Hesiod’s other story of
human creation called “The 5 Ages of Man” as it clearly was not of ancient
origin and is an allegory. It sees 5
epoch in which humans were created and then died out; naturally or violently, one after the other
until the time of Hesiod. Each time a
god invents or reinvents humanity and there is a decline from a golden age of
simplicity and happiness through an age of heroes and adventure –to the present
5th epoch of ordinary morals and daily life. Cronus created the first Golden Age, Zeus the
Silver Age which he destroys. Zeus again creates mankind in the Bronze Age, a race
filled with violence and disrespect for the Gods which ended in self
destruction( though another sources blame a divine deluge). The 4th epoch
created by Zeus was the Age of Heroes: Hercules, Jason and the warriors of
Trojan war. This human race also died
out and Zeus started afresh a 5th time with the current iron Age of
ordinary mortals with short lives filled with troubles.
See http://www.greek-gods.org/mythology/five-ages-of-man.php
[6] See
http://www.timelessmyths.com/classical/creation.html#Hesiod;
http://www.desy.de/gna/interpedia/greek_myth/creationMan.html
[7] See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_(mythology) Images of Atlas holding a globe – either the
Earth itself or the Celestial sphere of the sun and moon and stars -- are
misunderstandings of the original Atlas tale.
[8] See https://www.ancient.eu/Egyptian_Mythology/, For regional variations, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_creation_myths. For more on Atum, see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atum
[9] Hertz, J. H., The
Pentateuch and Haftorahs (1958). He addresses
Enuma Elis and other findings re: the
Book of Gensis on p. 193 and thereafter.
