Genesis Narrative Research Articles

Genesis 14: A Diaspora Novella?

The influence of the Babylonian golah on the redaction of the biblical material is widely attested. This article suggests that the redaction of Genesis 14 addresses specific diaspora concerns, and for this reason should be located within a diaspora setting. In light of this, Genesis 14 is examined in two ways. First, Meinhold’s characteristics of a diaspora novella are traced throughout the narrative of Genesis 14. Second, the argument for a specific diaspora redaction is enhanced through a reading of the text from a diaspora perspective. Overall, this article argues that the narrative in Genesis 14 can be classified as a diaspora novella.

Adam's Ancestors: An Interview with David N. Livingstone

Adam's Ancestors:An Interview with David N. Livingstone Donald A. Yerxa (bio) Donald A. Yerxa: Your most recent book, Adam's Ancestors, is a history of pre-Adamite thinking. What is pre-Adamism? David N. Livingstone: Pre-Adamism is actually a notoriously simple idea, though its consequences are multifaceted. It's the idea that the Adam of the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament is not the first human being. In some incarnations Adam is simply the father of the Jewish people, whereas in other versions Adam is viewed as the father of Caucasian people. But the material point of pre-Adamism, at least in its early days, is that there were, and perhaps indeed continue to exist, peoples who are descended from a pre-Adamic or at least non-Adamic source. This would mean that there were at least two (and arguably more than two) creations of the human species. In pre-Adamism lie the origins of what anthropologists used to call polygenesis. And, indeed, that has been and continues to be something of an issue right up to contemporary paleoanthropology. Should we look at all humans as derived from a single source, let's say, a "mitochondrial Eve"? Or did the human species emerge in many different places? So the debate in that sense, without the biblical significance of Adam, continues to be important in thinking about human origins more generally. Yerxa: How significant was pre-Adamism in Western intellectual history prior to Darwin? Livingstone: There are a couple of things to be said about this. Another historian who worked on this subject some years ago, Richard Popkin, made the arresting suggestion that pre-Adamic theory was much more destabilizing to European intellectuals in the 17th century than the Copernican revolution or indeed the mechanical universe of the Newtonians. Popkin reasoned that pre-Adamism challenged human beings' sense of their own identity, of who they really were. For a very long time, going back to the church fathers, to Augustine, and indeed to much earlier times, descent from Adam came to be a definition of what it was to be human. So I'm inclined to agree with Popkin because while you can scarcely find an advocate for the idea after 1655 when it first began to achieve wider publicity, you find many, many refutations. Although pre-Adamism seems initially to have had few converts, a lot of people felt the need to refute it. Yerxa: Throughout your book it is clear that this notion is quite versatile and can be [End Page 10] adapted to a number of arguments. Could you speak to that? Livingstone: Pre-Adamism can be used for many contradictory purposes and is hugely adaptable in different environments. Let me just pick out three or four of these. Initially, when it was first put forward in the 1650s by Isaac La Peyrère, it was rapidly castigated as a heresy. Emissaries from the Vatican picked up La Peyrère when he was traveling in what is now Belgium and took him off to Rome, where he was forced to recant before the pope. Clever devil that La Peyrère was, however, the recantation never really admitted he was wrong. Pre-Adamism was considered heretical because it plainly challenged a literal reading of the Genesis narrative. One has to rethink a sequence of other related theological precepts if one accepts the notion that there were pre-Adamites. For example, did they also fall from grace? How representative is Adam of the human race? How does original sin come into the world? How is it transmitted? Pre-Adamism has been quite versatile, however. In the 19th century—and indeed on into the 20th century—the idea was promulgated by those who were much more conservative in their theological outlook. It was adopted in a new guise by conservative believers who wanted to hold onto the historic significance of Adam while at the same time take some notion of human evolution seriously. So pre-Adamism, once deemed a massive heresy, was later taken up by conservative, orthodox believers. Let me provide another instance of its adaptability. In the 1650s La Peyrère thought that Adam was...

The Realignment ofthe Priestly Literature: The Priestly Narrative in Genesis and Its Relation to the Priestly Legislation and the Holiness School, by Thomas J. King

The Realignment ofthe Priestly Literature: The Priestly Narrative in Genesis and Its Relation to the Priestly Legislation and the Holiness School, by Thomas J. King

CREATION CARE: RELIGION AND ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION

American faith communities across the political spectrum are increasingly aware of the need for greater environmental stewardship. This is often expressed as a duty of “creation care” that stems from God's directive to humanity in the Genesis narrative. Five environmental priorities characterize recent efforts: the problems of climate change, toxic chemicals, species extinction, deforestation, and marine degradation. The overall trend appears to be toward greater religious support for serious environmental leadership by the U.S. government, but the next administration should be aware of distinctive patterns of religious engagement and differences between religious groups.

Gender, Power, and Persuasion: the Genesis Narratives and Contemporary Portraits – By Mignon R. Jacobs

Gender, Power, and Persuasion: the Genesis Narratives and Contemporary Portraits – By Mignon R. Jacobs

Redeemed by His Love? The Characterization of Shechem in Genesis 34

This article gives consideration to the apparent `rehabilitation' of the character of Shechem in the narrative of Genesis 34, following his initially negative portrayal as the rapist of Dinah, Jacob's daughter. Through a close analysis of the Hebrew language used by the narrator within this text to describe Shechem's actions and emotions, this article argues that this biblical rapist's depiction is perhaps not as `redemptive' as it may first appear. Furthermore, the article takes to task those interpreters who not only argue in favour of a textual basis for Shechem's seeming `rehabilitation', but who also suggest that such a redemption is understandable, if not merited.

Reopening the Discussion: Another Contextual Look at the Sons of God

Using Lyle Eslinger's work on the text as a stepping stone, this article contends that—in contrast to general opinion—Gen. 6.1-8 is a carefully structured, unified section which was consciously inserted to inform the reader about the developments that led to the flood. The Genesis passage is preceded by the depiction of two opposing groups of humanity, one of which is almost lost in the verses immediately following the pericope. Through textual and contextual analysis, this article tries to show that the sons of God passage serves to clarify this disappearance. A non-mythological reading of the text is proposed, one which integrates Gen. 6.1-8 into the narrative of Genesis 1-11.

Paul, Allegory, and the Plain Sense of Scripture: Galatians 4:21–31

Abstract This article deals primarily with presuppositions associated with allegory/figural reading and its relationship to what we might call the plain sense of Scripture. Paul's allegorical appeal in Gal 4:21–31 will serve as an illustration of the major themes addressed. This article seeks to place Paul's allegorical appeal squarely within the church's exegetical tradition of figural reading. Drawing on the terminology of Brevard Childs, it will query whether Paul's allegorical reading of the Sarah/Hagar story fits within the "family resemblance" of Christian reading of the OT. Two questions are central to this inquiry: (1) What is the relationship between typology and allegory? (2) What is the relationship between the sensus literalis and figural reading? Following from these two central questions is a third: Can Paul's allegorical reading be called a "plain sense" reading of the Genesis narrative?

Paul, Allegory, and the Plain Sense of Scripture: Galatians 4:21–31

Abstract This article deals primarily with presuppositions associated with allegory/figural reading and its relationship to what we might call the plain sense of Scripture. Paul's allegorical appeal in Gal 4:21–31 will serve as an illustration of the major themes addressed. This article seeks to place Paul's allegorical appeal squarely within the church's exegetical tradition of figural reading. Drawing on the terminology of Brevard Childs, it will query whether Paul's allegorical reading of the Sarah/Hagar story fits within the "family resemblance" of Christian reading of the OT. Two questions are central to this inquiry: (1) What is the relationship between typology and allegory? (2) What is the relationship between the sensus literalis and figural reading? Following from these two central questions is a third: Can Paul's allegorical reading be called a "plain sense" reading of the Genesis narrative?

Vreugde en verdriet in die huis van Jakob

Happiness and lament in the house of Jacob
 
 The birth narrative in Genesis 29:31-30:24 is a coherent mini drama in its own right, although it is embedded in the patriarchal narratives and as such furnishes important background to the unfolding drama in Jacob's house. In this narrative, the reader is invited right into the intricate family relations of a dysfunctional polygamous marriage, where two rivals communicate with each other and their mutual husband by means of the names given at birth to their children and the children of their slave girls. This article focuses on the quest for happiness, which is evident in the births and name-giving in the house of Jacob. Although true happiness remains elusive, at the end both women receive their dues. God keeps a balance between the two contenders, but the birth of Rachel’s son calls for a resolution still to come. The text is thus left open ended.

Gender, Power, and Persuasion: The Genesis Narratives and Contemporary Portraits

Gender, Power, and Persuasion: The Genesis Narratives and Contemporary Portraits

Tsunami, Hurricane, and Jeremiah 4:23-28

Jeremiah 4:23—28 depicts one of the most stunning visions and imagery in the Hebrew Bible. The language and metaphors portray large scale devastation, an un-creation, of the entire world. Paying attention to the hermeneutical features of the metaphor and intertextuality, this study explores the ways in which this text is intended to be read and interpreted in dialogue with other interrelated texts, such as the creation accounts and flood narrative in Genesis. The intertextual correlations of key metaphors intensify the impact of threat and warning as well as their rhetorical functions both within the larger unit of Jeremiah 2—6 and within the entire book of Jeremiah. These devices signify that just as the text needs to be read from various intertextual dimensions, these visions as metaphors should be interpreted from various hermeneutical angles toward the implications in the aftermath of the recent natural tragedies in today's world.

Feminist Criticism of the Old Testament: Why Bother?

Despite the apparent contemporary irrelevance of the Old Testament, the Adam and Eve narrative in Genesis 2–3 is a deeply engrained element within Western cultural mythology. As such it virtually demands a feminist critique, because its common interpretation as a narrative demonstrating women's inferiority and legitimizing their subordination has a mutually reinforcing relationship with the patriarchal world-view that still pervades much of Western culture. A feminist reading of Genesis 2–3 highlights the difficulties with the traditional subordinationist reading, and suggests other possibilities for interpretation that relativize the absolutism of patriarchal authority claims, thereby making it possible to envisage, and work towards, a different world-order.

Biblicized Narrative: On Tobit and Genesis 22

The book of Tobit is dense with biblical allusions, particularly to the books of Genesis Job (the latter, according to a Jewish tradition to which the pattern of allusion in the book of Tobit may itself attest, is also set in the patriarchal period).1 While readers have long taken note of many of these allusions, an important one appears to have gone unnoticed. I argue here that Tobit 6, which describes Tobiah's journey from Nineveh to Ecbatana in the company of his kinsman Azariah (in fact the angel Raphael), is patterned after Isaac's journey, in the company of his father Abraham, to the land of Moriah in Genesis 22. After arguing for this allusion in the first part of this essay, I turn in the second part to a discussion of its function in the book. I suggest that this the other biblical allusions in Tobit should be understood not (or not only) as literary allusions of the sort that we find in literature of all periods but as manifestations of a particular sort of canon consciousness originating in the Second Temple period. I. TOBIT 6 AND GENESIS 22 Tobiah's expedition to Ecbatana in Tobit 6 shares certain basic plot elements with Isaac's journey in Genesis 22. In both cases, an only son is led by a kinsman into a life-threatening situation. The fact that Genesis 24, which describes the search by Abraham's servant for a wife for Isaac, serves as a (if not the) fundamental intertext for Tobiah's marriage to Sarah, bolsters the identification of Tobiah with Isaac.2 More pertinent to the argument for allusion than these general similarities are the striking parallels in the staging of Isaac's Tobiah's respective journeys. In the Genesis narrative, after Abraham sees the place from afar (22:4), he orders the servants to remain with the ass continues forward with Isaac the sacrificial necessities (22:5-6). In the next scene, we overhear a conversation between Abraham Isaac: Isaac wonders about the absence of a lamb to accompany the fire wood, Abraham assures him that God will provide it (22:7-8). In the first stop during Tobiah's journey, Raphael instructs him to collect the gall, heart, liver of the fish that they have encountered, because they are medicinal (6:26a).3 Then, as they approach Media (6:6b), Tobiah asks Raphael what medicinal properties inhere in the fish organs. Raphael explains that the smoke of the heart liver expels demons from possessed persons the gall cures blindness (6:79). This conversation should naturally happen immediately after Raphael asks Tobiah to retrieve the organs, or immediately after Tobiah obeys. Indeed, we might expect Raphael to detail the medicinal properties of the fish in the context of his initial request, without any prompting from Tobiah. The latter sequence of events is in fact attested in medieval versions of the book.4 The reason for having Tobiah initiate a new conversation in a separate scene, as the two interlocutors near their destination, is evidently better to mirror the sequence of events in Genesis 22. There, as here, the young man, after proceeding some distance with his kinsman, wonders about the function of the objects that they took up in the previous stage of the journey, in both cases the response carries an implicit threat of danger to the young man.5 This structural similarity is enhanced by key linguistic parallels between the two chapters. The most important concerns the phrase and the two of them went along together. The Hebrew equivalent, ..., occurs twice in Genesis 22, just before just after the conversation between Abraham Isaac (22:6; 22:8). The phrase is not a common one in the Hebrew Bible; outside Genesis 22, the only verse in which all three components occur together is Amos 3:3 (... ). Even this verse, however, is an inexact parallel. For what is striking about the phrase ... in Genesis 22 is that, since the reader already knows that two figures are on a journey together, the verb . …

Insights from children's perspectives in interpreting the wisdom of the biblical creation narrative

In a western educational context that evidences a decrease in the use of the Bible, this research uses qualitative data to offer insights into how children encounter the creation narratives of Genesis I–III. In order to comment on the meaning‐making interpretative process that children employ at different key stages of development, the insights of hermeneutic phenomenology and of developmental psychology are used. At each of the British educational Key Stages 2, 3 and 4, children's perspectives are given, alongside a hermeneutical commentary.

Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible (review)

Reviewed by: Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible Ziony Zevit Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible, by Ronald Hendel. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 200 pp. $35.00. There are true memories and there are false memories, as in the case of false memory syndrome. True memories are constructed, a mélange of facts and [End Page 186] partial recollections, of reexperiences (since they are recalled) filtered through perceptions of the past. False memories are a mélange of fictions, construed the same way. Think "The Manchurian Candidate." To talk of memory is to evoke the presence of Freud and Nietzsche and to raise the possibility of the unreal as real. To talk of true memories is to talk of the past but to address it through ethereal, gossamer filaments of fact, interwoven with shafts of maybes, wafting in breezes of time. And that is what Ron Hendel undertakes in this interesting book. In this collection of six short studies, four of which were previously published, Hendel inquires whether or not historical-like narratives in the Bible, dependent largely on Israel's national and/or cultural memories, were true or false memories of real persons and events. And if true, in what way or with regard to what may they be considered historical. Chapter 1 situates ancient Israel in the cultural context of the Ancient Near East and illustrates well how the Bible's presentation of Israel as a people set aside, somewhat different from its neighbors, despite objective indicators that this was not necessarily the case, created a narrative framework through which Israel perceived the world and comprehended its evolving present and its evolving past. Chapter 2, "Remembering Abraham," written for this book, leads directly into chapter 3, "Historical Memories in the Patriarchal Narratives." The first of this pair explores how Israel's memories of Abraham function in the literature and how the earlier compositions in Genesis attracted later comments and reactions in texts that were composed later. The second focuses on the question of how much of what is predicated about Abraham may be considered factual. Hendel concludes that patriarchal names can be considered historical, that the "El" religion that they practice can be considered historical, and that an Egyptian "Fort Abram" mentioned by Pharaoh Sheshonk, the biblical Shishaq of 1 Kings 14:25–26, as being somewhere in the Negev ca. 925 BCE, imports a vague historicity to an actual heroic Abram, the self-same Abram/Abraham portrayed in Genesis. But when it comes time to parse the literary and archaeological data in order to discern when this character actually lived in the past, Hendel dates the patriarchal era to "the time forever recreated in the biblical narratives of Genesis 12–50. This era consists of myth and memory, mingled in a way far more compelling than ordinary history. It is an era in sacred time" (p. 55). Chapter 4 explores "The Exodus in Biblical Memory," and concludes on the basis of both biblical and extra-biblical data that some veracity may be assigned to the memories linking bondage and Egypt, even though there is no necessary truth to the Bible's claim that all of Israel was in Egypt and that all Israelites in the Central Highlands of Eretz Israel during the divided [End Page 187] monarchy were descendents of former Egyptian slaves. Some of them, however, may very well have been individuals with direct or indirect memories of Egyptian slavery (p. 62). Nevertheless, when the plague narratives and the signs and wonders are factored into the equation and the extant Exodus narrative is comprehended as a memory, Hendel concludes that "the memory of the Exodus is not just a memory of historical events, but a conflation of history and memory that suits the conditions of different qualities of time" (p. 73). In chapter 5, Hendel searches for Solomon in history and memory. Using literary hints and archaeological clues, he disentangles the shadowy historical figure barely discernible behind the elaborate Biblical narrative text from the fictional one. In chapter 6, a well-composed encapsulation of "The Biblical Sense of the Past," Hendel ties together the threads from...

Genesis 1 and the Spirit: A Narrative-Rhetorical Ancient Near Eastern Reading in Light of Modern Science

AbstractThe creation narrative in Genesis 1 has historically presented a number of interpretive difficulties to Torah and Old Testament scholars. That this ancient account might correlate in a harmonious manner with physical reality seemed difficult to believe. It has been considered to be a myth, while some have adopted it to ideology. But these interpretive perspectives have proved to be insufficient and premature. When confirmation of a cosmic beginning was found in 1963, Gen. 1.1 and the ensuing account of the Spirit's role in Earth history became a topic of serious investigation. With the ongoing discoveries of many anthropic-looking aspects of cosmic history, giving the cumulative and substantial impression that the universe had been designed for humankind, a divine role in optimizing Earth for life became an attractive consideration. The ensuing abrupt appearance of diverse life-forms, eventually including humankind, as sequentially described in this creation narrative, now appears to be heuristically compatible and consistent with experimental scientific findings. These findings are increasingly unharmonious with the speculation of the non-existence of God and with the impossibility of divine action, from the cosmic to life's biochemical realm. The present study argues, against the background of ancient Near Eastern literary texts, that the Genesis creation narrative was specifically designed by the Spirit and composed by a firmly guided littérateur so as to be understood from within its contextual literary setting, and that it is a unique written prophecy, originating in a distinctive Sabbath-keeping culture. On this hypothesis the text serves originally to remind attentive like-minded readers of the cultural significance of Sabbath observance, while detailing a series of unobservable creative events. However, the text appears also designed to be read, still within the original cultural perception of literary-minded Sabbath-keepers, from a perspective that is aware of the Spirit's intentional transparent design of the universe for the benefit of humankind. Using the narrative techniques of point of view, resumptive repetition, and rhetorical or communicative intention, techniques found in ancient literature, the present study suggests that previous interpretive difficulties yield to a literary solution, which offers an explanation for the potentially mysterious features of this prophetic composition. In divine foreknowledge the current modern witness of this remarkable narrative to the Spirit's past creative deeds now becomes more visible as a testimony to the invisible God.

Eve and Lilith: Two Female Types of Procreation

In the mythology specific to the Christian narrative of original sin the symbolism of death is placed in close association with work and sexuality. In Paradise Adam and Eve are asexual elements who are not yet mortal and required to provide for their needs in terms of food. Once they taste the fruit, the situation is reversed and humankind is cast into corruption, sin, sexuality and death.

Maternity, Marriage, and Contract: Lucy Hutchinson's Response to Patriarchal Theory in Order and Disorder

Maternity, Marriage, and Contract:Lucy Hutchinson's Response to Patriarchal Theory in Order and Disorder Shannon Miller Since C. A. Moore's 1927 essay "Miltoniana (1679-1741)," the then-unattributed Order and Disorder has been compared with Milton's Paradise Lost. Moore refers only to the first five cantos, which were published in 1679, thus explaining his comment that this poem of twenty cantos is "very small."1 While assuming male authorship of this poem, Moore describes Order and Disorder as "an imitation" and "also a veiled rebuke of Milton."2 David Norbrook's recent attribution of this poem to Lucy Hutchinson and his edition of the poem, previously unavailable in print, is likely to initiate extensive explorations of the interaction between Hutchinson's and Milton's poems; this project has already begun in Norbrook's detailed introduction to the poem.3 Like Milton's Paradise Lost, published in 1667, Lucy Hutchinson's poem takes as its subject the narrative of Genesis and thus considers the event of and the consequences of the Fall. The points of contact between the two writers suggest that comparisons between their work will be fruitful. Like Milton, Hutchinson was both a Puritan and a parliamentary supporter. In fact, her husband had signed Charles I's death warrant, and [End Page 340] his struggle to regain his freedom after the Stuart Restoration forms a significant segment of her Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, written during the 1660s. Her extensive body of work also includes a translation of Lucretius's Epicurean poem De rerum natura, a work of theology addressed to her daughter, and a series of elegies. Like Milton, then, her engagement with the political turmoil of mid-seventeenth-century England prompts textual production in the genres of history, theology, and biblically-inspired epic poetry. Order and Disorder is of particular use since it allows a comparison of contemporaneous narratives of the Fall from a male and a female perspective: one's perception of the role of gender and its relationship to social order in seventeenth-century England was largely determined by one's interpretation of the biblical story of the poem. Intertextual studies of these two poems will also allow us to place Milton's poem in conversation with those of his contemporaries, particularly with newly discovered or rediscovered women writers of the period. This essay will begin the productive process of placing Hutchinson's poem in dialogue with Milton's, though I wish to expand the texts and voices with whom Hutchinson seems to be in conversation throughout her poem. It certainly is the case that in Order and Disorder Hutchinson is in part "rebuking" Milton's theological assumptions. She announces in the Preface that "I found I could know nothing but what God taught me, so I resolved never to search after any knowledge of him and his productions, but what he himself hath given forth. Those that will be wise above what is written may hug their philosophical clouds, but let them take heed they find not themselves without God in the world, adoring figments of their own brains, instead of the living and true God."4 Hutchinson does see her poem as a kind of check on Milton's narrative of "things invisible to mortal sight";5 for Hutchinson, the "figments" of his "own brain" deny him access to the "living and true God" whom she can engage through her closer work with the Bible. Yet her twenty-canto-long poem in heroic couplets, modeled closely on the events within Genesis, engages in a conversation with numerous texts, including Milton's poem, seventeenth-century political theory, and motifs from her own translation of Lucretius's De rerum natura. [End Page 341] Hutchinson's poem allows us access to a seventeenth-century woman's perspective on the actions of Eve and the consequences for gender and social order. While Hutchinson may be said to "rebuke" Milton's representation of the Fall and the other events in Genesis, she is explicitly rethinking Milton's representation of a more material topic: the presence of the mother. While critics of Milton's poem have engaged the issue of the elided mother in Paradise Lost, I...

Od więzów krwi do wspólnoty wiary. Narracyjna analiza procesu budowania wspólnoty (Rdz 37-50)

It is not by means of the theological system or theory that we come to know Israel's identity. It is expressed rather in and through stories. They tell us not so much about its past as about the events which have made the people of Israel a covenantal community. The Joseph narrative in Genesis 37 - 50 has a special significance in this context because it presents a family as a foundation and prototype of the community Israel has become at the foot of Mount Sinai. A narrative analysis of Gen 37 - 50 has demostrated that in a process of building up a community a set of rules operates: an ability to acknowledge one's wrongdoings against others, a concern for the weak and vulnerable, a willingness to stand surety for another, and finely a readiness to allow experiences and sufferings of others to get entangled in one's own history of life.