Genesis 1-15, Volume 1

ISBN-13: 9780310521761

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Zondervan Academic

Publication Date: 12-23-2014

Pages: 408

Product Dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 4.20(d)

Series: Word Biblical Commentary

Gordon J. Wenham (Ph D, University of London) is tutor in Old Testament at Trinity College, Bristol, England, and professor emeritus of Old Testament at the University of Gloucestershire. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including Story as Torah and commentaries on Genesis, Leviticus, and Numbers. David Allan Hubbard (1928 – 1996), former president and professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, was a recognized biblical scholar. In addition to over 30 books, he has written numerous articles for journals, periodicals, reference works. He was a general editor of the Word Biblical Commentary (1977 - 1996). Glenn W. Barker (d. 1984) was a general editor of the Word Biblical Commentary (1977 - 1984). John D. W. Watts (1921 – 2013) was President of the Baptist Theological Seminary, Ruschlikon, Switzerland, and served as Professor of Old Testament at that institution, at Fuller Theological Seminary, and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. His numerous publications include commentaries on Isaiah (2 volumes), Amos, and Obadiah. He was Old Testament editor of the Word Biblical Commentary (1977 - 2011). Ralph P. Martin (1925-2013) was Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Fuller Theological Seminary and a New Testament Editor for the Word Biblical Commentary series. He earned the BA and MA from the University of Manchester, England, and the Ph D from King's College, University of London. He was the author of numerous studies and commentaries on the New Testament, including Worship in the Early Church, the volume on Philippians in The Tyndale New Testament Commentary series. He also wrote 2 Corinthians and James in the WBC series.

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Genesis 1-15, Volume 1

Word Biblical Commentary

ZONDERVAN

In the Beggining (1:1–2:3)

Form/Structure/Setting

Gen 1 (more precisely 1:1–2:3) is the majestic opening chapter of both the Hebrew and the Christian Bible. It introduces the two main subjects of Holy Scripture, God the Creator and man his creature, and sets the scene for the long tale of their relationship. It is at the same time the opening of the Torah, or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Canon, which relate the origins of the people of Israel. Although Torah is customarily translated "Law," this conveys too narrow a conception of what the Torah is. Rather Torah is "a unique combination of story and commandment that makes a fundamental statement about what God expects by saying as forcefully as possible what the people of God is" (Coats, 321). The narratives in Genesis teach ethics and theology just as much as do the laws and theological sermons found elsewhere in the Pentateuch, and for this reason these also belong to the Torah.

More immediately, Gen 1 introduces the primeval and patriarchal histories that constitute the Book of Genesis. The relationship of Gen 1–11 to Gen 12–50 on the one hand and its relationship to ancient Near Eastern tradition on the other have already been briefly discussed in the introduction. Here it is necessary to focus more closely on 1:1–2:3, which stands apart from the narratives that follow in style and content and makes it an overture to the whole work.

1:1–2:3 form the first section of Genesis; the second starts with 2:4. 2:1–3 echoes 1:1 by introducing the same phrases but in reverse order: "he created," "God," "heavens and earth" reappear as "heavens and earth" (2:1) "God" (2:2), "created" (2:3). This chiastic pattern brings the section to a neat close which is reinforced by the inclusion "God created" linking 1:1 and 2:3.

The correspondence of the first paragraph, 1:1–2, with 2:1–3 is underlined by the number of Hebrew words in both being multiples of 7. 1:1 consists of 7 words, 1:2 of 14 (7 × 2) words, 2:1–3 of 35 (7 × 5) words. The number seven dominates this opening chapter in a strange way, not only in the number of words in a particular section but in the number of times a specific word or phrase recurs. For example, "God" is mentioned 35 times, "earth" 21 times, "heaven/firmament" 21 times, while the phrases "and it was so" and "God saw that it was good" occur 7 times.

The majority of modern scholars hold that the opening section of Genesis ends with 2:4a, not 2:3. The vocabulary of v 4a is typical of P, to which 1:1–2:3 is also conventionally assigned; therefore v 4a must go with what precedes it, not what follows. It is, however, recognized that it is most anomalous for "This is the story of" (2:4) to conclude a section: everywhere else in Genesis (e.g., 5:1, 11:27) it introduces a major new development in the story. Furthermore, the tight chiastic structure of 2:4 (see below on 2:4) makes it unlikely that the sources split in the middle of the verse. For these reasons the opinion of Jacob, Cassuto, Cross (Canaanite Myth, 293–325) and Tengström (Toledotformel, 54–58) that 2:3 closes the opening section of the book and that 2:4 opens the next section is the basis of the ensuing exposition.

The arrangement of 1:1–2:3 is itself highly problematic. Briefly, the eight works of creation are prompted by ten divine commands and executed on six different days. Many attempts have been made to discover a simpler, more symmetrical arrangement underlying the present scheme. None of these suggestions has proved persuasive. More objective are the efforts of Cassuto, Beauchamp, and Pasinya to explicate the present form of the text.

Gen 1 is characterized by a number of recurrent formulae: (1) announcement of the commandment, "And God said" (10 times; vv 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 28, 29); (2) order, e.g. "Let there be ..." (8 times; vv 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26); (3) fulfillment formula, e.g. "And it was so" (7 times; vv 3, 7, 9, 11, 15, 24, 30); (4) execution formula or description of act, e.g. "And God made" (7 times; vv 4, 7, 12, 16, 21, 25, 27); (5) approval formula "God saw that it was good" (7 times; w 4, 10, 12, 18,21,25, 31); (6) subsequent divine word, either of naming or blessing (7 times; vv 5 [2 times], 8, 10 [2 times], 22, 28); (7) mention of the days (6/7 times; vv 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31 [2:2]). It is worth noting that although there are ten announcements of the divine words and eight commands actually cited, all the formulae are grouped in sevens. Indeed, the fulfillment formula is omitted in v 20, the description of the act in v 9, and the approval formula in vv 6–8. In each case LXX adds the appropriate formula, but it is characteristic of P to indulge in "dissymmetric symmetry" (McEvenue, Narrative Style, 113–15), and these additions obscure the sevenfold patterning of this section.

The narrative structure also highlights the third and the sixth days of creation. Both days have a double announcement of the divine word "And God said" (vv 9, 11, 24, 26) and the approval formula twice (vv 10, 12, 25, 31), so that they correspond to each other formally. But there is also a correspondence in the contents of the days. Day 3 deals with the creation of the land and plants, while day 6 deals with the animals that live on the land and man, and God permits them to eat the plants. Similar correspondences link days 1 and 4: day 1 mentions the creation of light, day 4 the creation of the light-producing bodies. Day 2 discusses the creation of the sky, day 5 the birds of heaven. Diagrammatically this may be represented as follows:

Day 1 Light
Day 4 Luminaries
Day 2 Sky
Day 5 Birds and Fish
Day 3 Land (Plants) Day 6 Animals and Man (Plants for food)
Day 7 Sabbath

The narrative has two poles, heaven and earth (1:1, 2:1), and its focus moves from heaven to earth, finishing with a close-up on man (vv 26–30). This shift of focus is again reflected in the arrangement of the creative acts.

Day 1 heaven
Day 2 heaven
Day 3 earth
Day 4 heaven
Day 5 earth
Day 6 earth

Day 4 is, of course, half way through the week and, as Beauchamp (Création, 94) has shown, is elaborately constructed in a palistrophic pattern of terms introduced by the preposition "to." (See Comment on vv 14–18.)

Such crossover patterns are quite common in the OT, and it is very fitting that there should be one at this midpoint of the creation narrative. Its presence suggests the author was particularly interested in the work of the fourth day of creation. The sun, moon, and stars dictate the seasons, days, and years, and the narrative's focus on their function is appropriate in an account of creation that allocates the work of creation and God's rest on the Sabbath to the days of the week.

However, 2:1–3, the account of the seventh day, stands apart from the standard framework of each of the other six days. The terms "heaven and earth," "God," "create" reappear in the reverse order to that of 1:1, and this inverted echo of the opening verse rounds off the section. The threefold mention of the seventh day, each time in a sentence of seven Hebrew words, draws attention to the special character of the Sabbath. In this way form and content emphasize the distinctiveness of the seventh day.

It has often been argued that the present text of 1:1–2:3 is based on a brief source, describing creation merely in terms of divine actions (Tatbericht). This account was subsequently expanded by including divine commands (Wortbericht) as a prelude to the divine activity. Westermann and W. H. Schmidt (Schöpfungsgeschichte) exemplify this approach.

The hypothesis that Gen 1 rests on an earlier written source describing only divine actions has been thoroughly discussed by O. H. Steck (Schopfungsberieht). He concludes that the Tatbericht is too fragmentary ever to have existed as an independent literary entity and that various features in the present narrative which Schmidt would describe as later literary developments cannot be separated from the earliest Tatbericht material. At most the Tatbericht was an idea in the author's mind when he wrote Gen 1. Beauchamp (Création) adopts a similar approach. Loretz (UF 7 [1975] 279–87) on the other hand argues that a poetic Wortbericht was the basis of the present form of the chapter. While he is right to draw attention to various poetic features of Gen 1 (see below), the seven-strophe poem that he reconstructs as the original Wortbericht is too fragmentary and uneven to be plausible.

Another source-critical theory sometimes held in conjunction with the Tatbericht view (e.g., W. H. Schmidt, Schöpfungsgeschichte) holds that Gen 1 either used the Babylonian creation story, Enuma elish , or at least is generally dependent on Mesopotamian traditions. Indeed, this used to be the consensus view: from Gunkel, Schöpfung und Chaos, 1895, to Speiser in 1964, it was repeatedly asserted that Gen 1 is indebted to Enuma elish. Speiser (10), following Heidel (Babylonian Genesis, 129), noted a number of parallels between Enuma elish and Gen 1 that could suggest dependence of the latter on the former, e.g., creation of light, firmament, dry land, luminaries, and the divine rest on the seventh day. All advocates of this view noted that the overall purpose of Enuma elish and many of its details were quite different from those of Gen l. Enuma elish is concerned with glorifying Marduk and justifying his supremacy in the Babylonian pantheon. The creative acts of this god constitute very minor illustrations of his power: His victory over Tiamat is central to Enuma elish, whereas in Genesis, of course, God's work of creation is the central theme of chap. 1. Nevertheless, scholars felt that because Genesis evidently knew some form of the Mesopotamian flood story, the slight points of contact with Enuma elish suggested a similar relationship in the accounts of creation.

However, Lambert (JTS 16 [1965] 287–300) pointed out that there were decisive objections to postulating the dependence of Gen 1 on Enuma elish. The latter text does not represent normative Mesopotamian cosmology. "It is a sectarian and aberrant combination of mythological threads woven into an unparalleled composition ... not earlier than 1100 B.C." (291). Many of the supposed parallels between Enuma elish and Genesis are commonplaces in many Near Eastern cosmologies, e.g., the watery origin of the world and the separation of land, while the creation of man and the rest of the gods is mentioned in other earlier Babylonian sources, such as the Epic of Atrahasis, ca. 1600 B.C. The relative lateness of Enuma elish in Lambert's opinion also tells against its being a source of Genesis.

Subsequent discussion of the relationship between Babylonian thought and Genesis has therefore concentrated on the Atrahasis epic. A stronger case can be made for asserting a relationship between Genesis and Atrahasis in that Atrahasis also presents primeval history as a sequence of creation–divine displeasure–flood. In other words this, the standard Babylonian account of creation, sees creation as a prelude to the flood, just as Gen 1–11 does. Nevertheless, it is still quite improbable that there is direct literary dependence of Genesis on Atrahasis. The general thrust and the various details of the narrative are too different to make this probable. The similarities can be explained by the origin of both accounts in neighboring countries in roughly the same chronological period.

Herrmann (1961), Kilian (1966), Notter (1974), and Ultvedt (1980) have argued that closer parallels are to be found in Egyptian literature. Notter notes many motifs in a wide variety of Egyptian texts which resemble features in Gen 1 and 2, e.g., the creation of chaos as the first step, the concept of a firmament, the making of man in God's image, man being made from clay and then inspired by God, the symbolism of sevens. Notter is not claiming that any of the Egyptian material he cites served as a direct source of Gen 1, simply that the writer was quite familiar with Egyptian ideas of creation. However, Ultvedt argues that Gen 1 must be dependent on the cosmogony expressed in the Teaching of King Merikare (21st century B.C.) which he suggests was probably known to the Hebrew writer in a Phoenician version. Ultvedt holds there is no evidence for supposing Genesis to have been dependent on Mesopotamian sources, least of all Enuma elish. These writers underline the tenousness of the relationship between Mesopotamian and Hebrew tradition. But it is doubtful whether the parallels cited actually demonstrate dependence on Egyptian sources.

Furthermore, the known links of the Hebrew patriarchs with Mesopotamia and the widespread diffusion of cuneiform literary texts throughout the Levant in the Amarna period (late 15th century) make it improbable that the writers of Genesis were completely ignorant of Babylonian and cognate mythology. Most likely they were conscious of a number of accounts of creation current in the Near East of their day, and Gen 1 is a deliberate statement of Hebrew view of creation over against rival views. It is not merely a demythologization of oriental creation myths, whether Babylonian or Egyptian; rather it is a polemical repudiation of such myths.

Hasel (1972, 1974) detects five areas in which Gen 1 appears to be attacking rival cosmologies. First, in some Near Eastern cosmogonies, dragons tnn are rivals whom the Canaanite gods conquer, whereas in Gen 1:21 the great sea monsters are just one kind of the aquatic animals created by God. Second, these cosmogonies describe the struggle of the gods to separate the upper waters from the lower waters; but Gen 1:6–10 describes the acts of separation by simple divine fiat. Third, the worship of the sun, moon, and stars was current throughout the ancient orient. Genesis pointedly avoids using the normal Hebrew words for sun and moon, lest they be taken as divine, and says instead God created the greater and the lesser light. Fourth, Babylonian tradition sees the creation of man as an afterthought, a device to relieve the gods of work and provide them with food. For Genesis, the creation of man is the goal of creation and God provides man with food. Finally, Genesis shows God creating simply through his spoken word, not through magical utterance as is attested in Egypt. There thus runs through the whole Genesis cosmology "a conscious and deliberate anti-mythical polemic" (Heidel, Babylonian Genesis, 91). The author of Gen 1 therefore shows that he was aware of other cosmologies, and that he wrote not in dependence on them so much as in deliberate rejection of them.

Extrabiblical creation stories from the ancient Near East are usually poetic, but Gen 1 is not typical Hebrew poetry. Indeed, some writers endeavoring to underline that Gen 1 is pure priestly theology insist that it is not poetry at all. There is no "hymnic element in the language" (von Rad, 47). On the other hand, Gen 1 is not normal Hebrew prose either; its syntax is distinctively different from narrative prose. Cassuto (1:11 [1961]), Loretz (1975) and Kselman (1978) have all pointed to poetic bicola or tricola in Gen 1, while admitting that most of the material is prose. It is possible that these poetic fragments go back to an earlier form of the creation account, though, as Cassuto observes, "it is simpler to suppose ... the special importance of the subject led to an exaltation of style approaching the level of poetry" (1:11).

Gen 1 is unique in the Old Testament. It invites comparison with the psalms that praise God's work in creation (e.g., 8, 136, 148) or with passages such as Prov 8:22–31 or Job 38 that reflect on the mystery of God's creativity. It is indeed a great hymn, setting out majestically the omnipotence of the creator, but it surpasses these other passages in the scope and comprehensiveness of vision. In that it is elevated prose, not pure poetry, it seems unlikely that it was used as a song of praise as the psalms were. Rather, in its present form it is a careful literary composition introducing the succeeding narratives.

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Excerpted from Genesis 1-15, Volume 1 by Gordon J. Wenham, David A. Hubbard, Glenn W. Barker, John D. W. Watts, Ralph P. Martin. Copyright © 1987 Thomas Nelson, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of ZONDERVAN.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

Author's Preface ix

Editorial Preface xi

Abbreviations xii

Main Bibliography xix

Introduction xxi

Name and Contents xxi

Text of Genesis xxiii

Genesis in Recent Research xxv

J: The Yahwistic Source xxviii

E: The Eiohistic Source xxx

P: The Priestly Source xxxi

The New Literary Criticism xxxii

Evaluation of Current Critical Positions xxxiv

Literary and Source Criticism xxxv

Source Criticism xxxvii

Date xlii

Theology of Genesis I-II xlv

Genesis I-II and the Ancient Near East xlvi

Genesis I-II and the Rest of the Book l

Genesis I-II and Modern Thought lii

Text and Commentary 1

In the Beginning (1:1-2:3) 1

The Garden of Eden (2:4-3:24) 41

The First Human Family (4:1-26) 92

Adam's Family Tree (5:1-32) 119

Spirit-Human Marriages and Their Aftermath (6: 1-8) 135

The Story of Noah (6:9-9:29) 148

Blessing on the New Humanity (9:1-17) 191

Coda to the Noah Story (9:18-29) 197

From Flood to Babel (10:1-11:9) 209

The Table of the Nations (10:1-32) 210

The Tower of Babel (11:1-9) 232

The Family History of Shem (11:10-26) 247

Patriarchal History (12-50) 255

The Story of Abraham (11:27-25:11) 256

The Call of Abram (11:27-l 2:9) 264

Abram in Egypt (12:10-20) 283

Abram and Lot Separate (13:1-18) 292

Abram Rescues Lot (14:1-24) 301

The Covenant Promise (15:1-21) 322

Indexes 337