Genesis 1 3 Background Religion in Babylonian society

Genesis 1 -3

Background �Religion in Babylonian society serves a social and political function. �The portrait of the universe and its structure corresponds to and legitimates the structure of Babylonian social order.

Background �The position and the function of the humans in the scheme of creation corresponds to or the position of slaves in Mesopotamian society. �The position and function of the god at the top of the hierarchy of authority parallels and legitimates the Babylonian King.

Background �Humans are unimportant, they are the slaves of the gods. �The gods have little interest in or concern for them. �They create human beings to do the work of running the world.

God of the Hebrews �A different picture emerges in the biblical creation story about the nature of God and his relationship with humans. �Biblical writers drew upon the cultural and religious legacy of the Ancient Near East. �Stories and its imagery transformed in order to conform to a new vision of a non-mythological god. �Transformation of widely known stories to express a monotheistic worldview.

God of the Hebrews �In Genesis 1, the view of god is that �there is one supreme god, �he is creator and sovereign of the world �he simply exists �appears to be incorporeal �the realm of nature is separate and subservient to him �he has no life story, no mythology �his will is absolute.

Genesis �It's the biblical writer's contention that the god of Israel is not only all-powerful but is essentially and necessarily good. �Creation takes place through the simple expression of his will. �He expressed his will that there be light, and there was light. �In Genesis 1 humans are important. �Unique position and dignity of the human being.

Genesis �A sign of the humans' importance is the fact that humans are said to be created in the image of God (Genesis 1: 26, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. “ �What might that mean? �Because humans are going to be charged with specific duties towards, and rights over, the created world? �Perhaps the idea of being created in the image of God is connected with those special rights and duties.

Genesis �Being created in the image of God carries the implication that human life is somehow sacred and deserving of special care and protection (by God? ). �The concept of the divine image in humans breaks with other ancient conceptions of the human. �In Genesis 1, humans are not the slaves of God. �God’s concern for the physical needs and welfare of humans.

Genesis �In Genesis 1: 28 -29, he blesses them, "God blessed them and God said to them, 'Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky and all the living things that creep on earth. '“ �Humans are creatures of majesty and dignity and they are of importance to, objects of concern for, the god who has created them.

Genesis �Humans are created in the image of God, humans are not gods, they are created things and they are dependent on a higher power.

Genesis �God himself blows the breath of life, his own life, into Adam's nostrils. �Inn the second creation story just as in the first, human creation distinguished from the other creatures. �The human being is a mixture of clay (earthly) and divine (the breath of God) elements. �That marks the human as unique.

Genesis �The biblical creation stories present a portrait of the human as godlike in some way, in possession of distinctive faculties and characteristics, that equip them for stewardship over the world that God has created.

Genesis �In Genesis 1 there's a very strong emphasis on the essential goodness of the world. �After each act of creation God says "It is good“. �The world is good; humans are important; they have purpose and dignity. �The biblical writer is rejecting the concept of a primordial evil, a concept found in the literature of the Ancient Near East.

Genesis �The Genesis story isn't concerned to depict the ultimate origins of the universe. �It's interested in explaining how and why the world got the way it is. �Creation in Genesis 1 is not described as a process of making something out of nothing: creation ex nihilo, creation of something out of utter nothing. �Creation depicted as a process of organizing preexisting materials and imposing order on those chaotic materials.

Genesis �On day one, light and dark are separated. �On day two, the firmament is established. �On day three, land is formed to make dry spots from the waters below, vegetation is created. �On day four, the heavenly bodies that give off light by day or night are created. �On day five, the inhabitants of the skies and the waters are created, birds and fish.

Genesis �On day six you have the creation of land animals. �Humans are created after the creation of the land animals. �In Genesis 1: 29 expressly stated by God that humans are to be given every fruit bearing tree and seed bearing plant, fruits and grains for food. �No mention made of animals for food. �Humans, according to Genesis 1, were created vegetarian?

Genesis �Biblical not concerned or preoccupied with immortality. �The central concern of life is not mortality but morality. �And the drama of human life: moral conflict and tension between a good god's design for creation and the free will of human beings that can corrupt that good design.

Genesis �The serpent tells Eve that if she eats the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she will become like God. �God knows good and evil and has chosen the good. �The biblical writer asserts of this god that he is absolutely good. �By eating of the fruit in defiance of God, human beings learn that they were able to do that, that they are free moral agents.

Genesis �They're able to choose their actions in conformity with God's will or in defiance of God's will. �Is it meaningful to choose to do the good when you have no choice to do otherwise or aren't aware that you have a choice to do otherwise? �Adam and Eve to learn that they had the choice not to obey God so that their choice for God would become endowed with meaning. One interpretation for hundreds of years.

Genesis �Adam and Eve learn in this story that the moral choices and actions of humans have consequences that have to be borne by the perpetrator. �Evil is a product of human behavior, not a principle inherent in the cosmos. �Theme of the story of Adam and Eve is moral freedom and moral responsibility.

Genesis �Millennia of interpretation accompany this rather simple story, and depending on how we were raised and educated religiously, we have been trained to bring very different interpretations to it. �When we compare the story of Adam and Eve to that of Enkidu and the Harlot in Gilgamesh we may fall into the trap of thinking the Harlot is sinful, a fallen woman who destroys Enkidu's happy life among the animals.

Genesis �Within the context of ancient Sumerian civilization, the Harlot was NOT sinful. �The notion of sex as sin had not yet been really developed. �Notes from Introduction to the Old Testament