Creation Law Order and Transgression The Book of
Creation, Law, Order and Transgression The Book of Genesis, chs. 1 -3 Foster Chamberlin October 2, 2019 Humanities 101
Class Outline • Background on the Hebrews • Who were the Hebrews? • Who wrote Genesis? • Genesis Creation Stories • The First Story • The Second Story • Conclusions
Who were the Hebrews? • Hebrews, Israelites or Jews? • Why study the Hebrews? • The Tanakh and the Torah • The origins of the Hebrews • Polytheism, henotheism and monotheism • An (extremely) brief history of the ancient Hebrews • 1000 s BCE Semitic peoples in Canaan • ~1200 BCE a Hebrew speaking people in the region • ~1000 BCE Biblical kings of Israel • 722 BCE The Assyrians conquer Kingdom of Israel • 587 BCE The Babylonian Captivity • ~550 BCE Persian rule, the Israelites return to Palestine
That’s a lot of Abrahamic worldview!
Ancient Canaan
Kingdoms of Israel
Who wrote Genesis? • Why are origin stories important? • Origins in oral, polytheistic, tribal traditions • The “J writer” • The “P writer” • The redaction • The Documentary Hypothesis • Canonization
The First Creation Story • Two creation stories • The “P writer” about order and hierarchy • God-like humans- “God created the human in his image” (1: 27) • Relationship with nature- “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and conquer it, and hold sway over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the heavens and every beast that crawls upon the earth. ” (1: 28) • “I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the face of all the earth. . . they will be for food. ” (1: 29) • Creation as good
The Second Creation Story • The “J writer” • An anthropomorphic God- “the LORD God fashioned the human, humus from the soil, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life” (2: 7) • Differences between creation stories: • First: plants, animals, human • Second: man, plants, animals, woman • A closer link with nature- “And the LORD God. . . brought each to the human to see what he would call it, and whatever the human called a living creature, that was its name. ” (2: 19) • An origin story for patriarchy
Conclusions • Studying the Hebrews important for seeing the origins of our modern worldviews • Their traditions also show beliefs evolve as a people becomes civilized • Genesis an example of how origin stories can reinforce societal structures • The Documentary Hypothesis an example of how we can make educated guesses about the history and literature of a people based on fragmentary evidence • In the 1 st creation story, we can see how authority, order and hierarchy are important values for a civilized society • In the 2 nd story, we can see hints of an earlier oral tradition that emphasized storytelling, family and an intimate relationship between God, humans and nature
- Slides: 11