Parashat Bereshit, Part I

Genesis 1 begins like so:

בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃

Bereshit bara elohim et hashamayim v'et ha'aretz.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth—

Bereshit starts the first sentence of the Bible, a sentence that begins Genesis with an account of creation, an account of separation, order, and spoken words. In the beginning we do not have the creation or birth of God, but the formation of order out of lack of order:

the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—

The narrator describes a welter and waste, a formless void, a chaos of primordial waters and deep waters that a mysterious figure called Elohim (אֱלֹהִ֑ים) sweeps over. Who is this Elohim? No matter, the very first act of creation is Light:

God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.

Elohim, God, speaks the light into existence, and instantaneously does it exist, separate from the darkness that floated above the deep - our first act of separation. God calls this light good, but what is this light if it exists separate from the Sun and stars? The creation of light concludes the first day:

God called the light Day and called the darkness Night. And there was evening and there was morning, a first day.

God's second act of creation speaks into existence a firmament, an expanse or dome, that separates two waters from each other, creating the Sky:

God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the water, that it may separate water from water.” God made the expanse, and it separated the water which was below the expanse from the water which was above the expanse. And it was so. God called the expanse Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

God continues to separate the waters below the Sky into Earth and Seas:

God said, “Let the water below the sky be gathered into one area, that the dry land may appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth and called the gathering of waters Seas. And God saw that this was good.

God then creates vegetation, fruits and vegetables that bear seeds, and this concludes the third day.

In three days, we have Light, Sky, and land with vegetation. The next three days detail the creation of the lights of the Sky, that being the sun, moon, and stars, and then the sea and Sky creatures, and finally the land creatures. The six days parallel each other, from the spaces to the objects within those spaces:

Light

Sky

Land and Plants

Lights - Sun, Moon, Stars

Sea and Sky Creatures

Land Creatures

God separates and calls objects into existence through spoken words in an organized and structured way. This structure is peculiar, however: we have Light before the lights, we have Day and Night before the Sun, Moon, and Stars. We have Sky before Land, and plants that exist before the creatures that consume them, and before even the Sun that helps them grow.

What is not said is even more peculiar. Why does God call all these things good? What's the purpose for Day? Why create creatures? For what purpose does this universe exist? Who is God and from where do they come?

The peculiarity of these omissions becomes apparent if we investigate another account of creation from the Ancient Near East.

The Epic of Creation (Enuma Elish)

The Babylonian version of Enuma Elish originates sometime before 1000 BCE as a story of Marduk's primacy in the Mesopotamian pantheon, shown at times through attributing the stories of other gods to Marduk (e.g., Ninurta's flood-weapon and net in Anzu and Lugal-e). It begins like so:

When skies above were not yet named Nor earth below pronounced by name, Apsu, the first one, their begetter And maker Tiamat, who bore them all, Had mixed their waters together, But had not formed pastures, nor discovered reed-beds; When yet no gods were manifest, Nor names pronounced, nor destinies decreed, Then gods were born within them.

This epic begins with Apsu and Tiamat, the groundwater and the primordial sea, that mix their waters together to form the first gods Lahmu and Lahamu, and the rest of the gods. Already do we see a difference here between the Biblical account of creation and Enuma Elish. Elohim in Genesis 1 creates through spoken word separate from the waters, the deep, and the rest of the universe. Conversely, Apsu and Tiamat are the waters; Tiamat means 'Sea', and Apsu means 'Deep' or 'sweet waters', the origin of the freshwater of rivers, lakes, and floods. The creation of the universe in Genesis 1 is structured and strictly ordered by a transcendent deity that speaks objects into existence, but here creation is the result of noise and violence, the gods taking on human qualities. Most importantly, Enuma Elish narrates the creation of many gods and goddesses, but Genesis 1 does not.

The gods of that generation would meet together And disturb Tiamat, and their clamour reverberated. They stirred up Tiamat's belly, They were annoying her by playing inside Anduruna. Apsu could not quell their noise And Tiamat became mute before them; However grievous their behavior to her, however bad their ways, she would indulge them.

The gods begotten by Apsu and Tiamat create a lot of noise that annoyed them. Tiamat patiently indulges them, but Apsu does not:

Apsu made his voice heard And spoke to Tiamat in a loud voice, 'Their ways have become very grievous to me, By day I cannot rest, by night I cannot sleep. I shall abolish their ways and disperse them! Let peace prevail, so that we can sleep.'

Tiamat became furious at the suggestion that Apsu would kill their sons. She reiterated that they should bear the noise patiently, but the vizier god, Mummu, disagreed and suggested to Apsu that killing the sons would help Tiamat sleep. Unfortunately for Apsu, the gods heard of their plan, and Ea (aka. Nudimmud, or Enki) put Apsu and Mummu to sleep and killed them. He then set up his dwelling on top of Apsu. Inside of Apsu, Ea and Damkina (aka. Ninhursag, through syncretism) bear Marduk, the patron god of Babylon and creator of the world.

Anu, the son of Anshar and father of Ea, creates the four winds and gives them to Marduk, who plays with them to create the whirlwinds and flood-waves that stirred up Tiamat. The other gods go to their mother, Tiamat, and tell her to do something about the four winds that are keeping them up and restless. Tiamat listens and vows action against Marduk, Anu, and Ea. They all prepare for war.

Tiamat, the Mother of Noise, creates giant snakes with venom instead of blood, a horned serpent, a mushussu-dragon, a lahmu-hero, umu-demons, a fish-man, a bull-man, and eleven more creatures for the war. She held control over these creatures that they could not disobey her. Finally, she promotes Qingu as leader of her army, conferring to him the power of leadership (the anu-power), making him greatest in the assembly of the gods.

Ea was relayed Tiamat's preparations for war. Ea tells his father Anshar of these plans. Anshar responds that Ea must deal with this war, as he had started the fight by slaying Apsu, telling him to "sooth her uprising." Ea moves toward Tiamat but then turns back, saying to Anshar:

My father, Tiamat's actions were too much for me. I searched for her course, but my spell was not equal to her. Her strength is mighty, she is completely terrifying. Her crowd is too powerful, nobody could defy her. Her noise never lessens, it was too loud for me. I feared her shout, and I turned back. But father, you must not relax, you must send someone else to her. However strong a woman's strength, it is not equal to a man's.

Anshar tells Ea to go back to Tiamat. As Ea starts, he turns back again, and again relents to his father, Anshar. As the Anukki (or anunnaki, the offspring of Anu) assemble, Marduk presents himself as the one who will defeat Tiamat. Anshar sends his vizier to tell Lahmu and Lahamu, the first two gods born of Tiamat and Apsu, of Tiamat's plans for war, how the gods have turned to her side, to get them to decree their destiny for Marduk to face Tiamat, conferring to him the power of leadership (the anu-power), sovereign kingship of the universe, and the power to create and destroy with his speech.

"The Lord," Marduk, then sets out for war, creating a net to ensnare Tiamat, and assembles the four winds to keep her locked in place. He creates the evil wind, the whirlwind, the tempest, the tornado, the unfaceable facing wind, and the seven winds and releases them to "make turmoil inside Tiamat." He then mounts his storm-chariot, raising the flood-weapon, and faces Tiamat, the gods thronging about him as he looks into the middle of Tiamat and becomes confused.

Tiamat casts her spell, holding lies in her lips in an attempt to persuade, saying "How powerful is your attacking force, O lord of the gods! The whole assembly of them has gathered to your place."

Marduk raises his flood-weapon again, and says to Tiamat:

'Why are you so friendly on the surface When your depths conspire to muster a battle force? Just because the sons were noisy (and) disrespectful to their fathers, Should you, who gave them birth, reject compassion? ...'

Tiamat lost her temper, screaming in passion, reciting incantations and casting spells against Marduk as they stand face-to-face. Marduk spreads his net to encircle her and casts a wind, forcing the wind into Tiamat's open mouth, which distends her belly as she stretches her mouth wide. Marduk shoots an arrow, piercing her belly, and splits her down the middle, slitting her heart and extinguishing her life. Marduk had slain Tiamat. The gods on her side turned back in panic.

As the news was spread by the North Wind, Marduk trampled Tiamat, smashing her skull and severing her arteries. He sliced her in half, one side to be put up as the roof of the Sky, and arranged her waters so that they could not escape. He leveled Apsu and measured the dimensions of its temple that Ea built there, called Eshgalla, and created another temple in its image as the Sky, called Esharra. He then founded cult centers for Anu, Ellil, and Ea.

In the Ancient Near East, stories of gods that backstab and kill each other were more common. The story of the Sea, which is usually a god or goddess in Egyptian and Canaanite mythology, being killed by the storm god was also common in Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Canaanite literature. The splitting of the Sea to create the Sky, the creation of a home or Temple after the defeat, and the flood story are all deliberately referenced in the Bible. But for what purpose? To look at what Genesis 1 omits, we must also look at what it references and why.

The Creation of Sky

Both Genesis 1 and Enuma Elish recount the creation of the Sky in strikingly similar, yet also very different, ways. Let us reread what Enuma Elish has recounted to us:

The Lord [Marduk] rested and inspected her [Tiamat's] corpse. He divided the monstrous shape and created marvels (from it). He sliced her in half like a fish for drying: Half of her he put up to roof the sky, Drew a bolt across and made a guard hold it. Her waters he arranged so that they could not escape.

And now here is the story in Genesis 1:

God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the water, that it may separate water from water.” God made the expanse, and it separated the water which was below the expanse from the water which was above the expanse. And it was so. God called the expanse Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

In both accounts we see waters being divided to create the Sky. In Enuma Elish, Tiamat is shown as the waters that are split in half. In Genesis 1, God splits the primordial waters with an expanse. Enuma Elish has a violent tone, Genesis 1 has a distanced, transcendent tone. Enuma Elish shows the separation as a slicing in half, the final act of a violent battle, Genesis 1 shows the separation through spoken word. In Enuma Elish there is chaos, in Genesis 1 there is order. Most importantly, Genesis 1 does not give the waters creative or deity status, whereas in Enuma Elish, the primordial waters are Tiamat, the Mother of all the gods alongside Apsu.

This scene is similar to what's told in the Baal Cycle from Canaanite literature, which is more closely related to Israelite literature, when the Canaanite-Phoenician god Prince Sea (Yam) is killed:

The club swooped from Baal's hands, like a vulture from his fingers. It struck Prince Sea on the skull, Judge River between the eyes. Sea stumbled; he fell to the ground; his joints shook, his frame collapsed. Baal captured and pierced Sea; he finished off Judge River. Astarte shouted to him by name: "Hail, Baal the Conqueror! Hail, Rider on the Clouds! Prince Sea is our captive, Judge River is our captive."

Here we have Prince Sea, the prospective King of the gods as preferred by El, defeated by the Canaanite Storm god, Baal. Interestingly, Prince Sea here is male, not female. Later, we see a scene where Baal must descend into the depths of Death (aka. Mot) for killing Prince Sea's creatures:

When you killed Litan, the Fleeing Serpent, finished off the Twisting Serpent, the seven-headed monster, the heavens withered and weakened, like the folds of your robe. ... Now you must descend into the throat of El's son, Death, into the watery depths of El's Darling, the Hero.

Death's throat is described as "watery depths" that are reminiscent of Apsu's depths in Enuma Elish. Just as the Sea goddess Tiamat had serpent creatures, Prince Sea also had serpent creatures. In both stories does the Storm god kill the Sea god/goddess and their creatures. Litan, the fleeing, twisting serpent with seven heads, is mentioned in various places in the Bible.

In poetic fashion, later in the story, Anat kills and splits Death, giving life to seeds sown in the field that the birds eat, signifying Baal's revival:

She seized El's son Death: with a sword she split him; with a sieve she winnowed him; with fire she burned him; with millstones she ground him; in the fields she sowed him. Birds ate his flesh; fowl consumed his parts; flesh cries out to flesh!

Another story from ancient Egypt, called the Astarte Papyrus or Astarte and the Insatiable Sea, shows a battle between Astarte and Yam (Sea), both deities that originate from the Canaanite pantheon but were also worshipped in ancient Egypt. It is another reference to the battle between a god and a Sea god/goddess. Yam is also frequently compared to the Hurrian Sea god Kiase, and the Sea-dragon Hedammu.

Genesis 1 seems to deliberately omit the battle that led to the splitting of Sea and creation of the Sky, but elsewhere in the Bible the story is still referenced in some of its earliest poetry, including Job 26:12-13:

With his power he stilled the sea, with his skill he smote Rahab, with his wind he bagged Sea, his hand pierced the fleeing serpent.

The story is also referenced in Isaiah 27:1, Psalm 18:16, 74:13-14, 89:9-10, and Nahum 1:4, and allusions are made in Habakkuk 3:8, Psalm 46:3-4, Isaiah 51:15, Jeremiah 5:22, and 31:35. This shows the familiarity of the story among the writers of various parts of the Bible, and the attribution of the defeat of Yam with the patron god of Israel, YHVH, although the story seems to have been deemphasized over time. Psalm 74:13-14 is a good example of a direct reference to the story:

it was You who drove back the sea with Your might, who smashed the heads of the monsters in the waters; it was You who crushed the heads of Leviathan, who left him as food for the denizens of the desert;

Here, NJPS translates the Hebrew "yam" (יָ֑ם) as sea. "Leviathan" is commonly understood by scholars as a reference to Litan, the fleeing/twisting serpent with many heads, servant of the Sea god Yam, and beloved of El.

Genesis 1 is making a statement by omitting this traditional Ancient Near Eastern story of a battle between the Storm god and Sea, and it starts with the very first line of the text:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth—the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—

Genesis 1 denies creator and deity status to the Sea and the Deep, to Tiamat and Apsu, to Prince Sea and Death, to the fleeing twisting serpent Leviathan, and to the deities of the surrounding civilizations that led to a rival of kingship and the creation of the Sky and earth. Tiamat is the mother of the gods, but Genesis 1 denies the Sea its motherly title. We no longer have creation of the Sky and earth out of violent anthropomorphic waters, but rather their creation out of the inanimate primordial waters by a transcendent orderly God that merely speaks creation into ordered existence.

The Creation of Humans

To continue from Enuma Elish, Marduk used the other half of Tiamat to create the earth, opening the Euphrates and Tigris from her eyes, creating mountains out of her udders, boring waterholes to drain catchwater, and tying her tail as a cosmic bond. Marduk became the king of the gods, and a house was created for him, called Babylon.

Marduk told Ea of his plan to create primeval man. Notice the purpose Marduk gives his human creation:

He spoke his utterance to Ea, And communicated to him the plan that he was considering. 'Let me put blood together, and make bones too. Let me set up primeval man: Man shall be his name. Let me create a primeval man. The work of the gods shall be imposed (on him), and so they [the gods] shall be at leisure. Let me change the ways of the gods miraculously, So they [the gods] are gathered as one yet divided in two.'

So, Ea creates humankind out of Qingu's blood as punishment for Tiamat's war and imposes the toil of the gods on humans. Marduk then splits the gods between those who will guard the Sky, and those who will dwell on earth. The gods create Babylon out of mud bricks, a shrine for Marduk, a high ziggurat for the Apsu. Finally, Marduk is declared the god of the humans, he who "imposed the work of the gods (on them) so that they might rest."

Imposing the work of the gods on human creation is another motif in Ancient Near Eastern literature. A similar sentiment is found in the Mesopotamian story Atrahasis, from around 1700 BCE, when Ea spoke to the gods of the creation of humans:

Ea made his voice heard And spoke to the gods his brothers, '... Let her create primeval man So that he may bear the yoke [()] So that he may bear the yoke, [the work of Ellil], Let man bear the load of the gods!'

And so Nintu made humankind with the slain god Ilawela's flesh and blood, mixed with clay, to bear the load of the gods, seven males and seven females. Notice that unlike in Enuma Elish, here we have a womb-goddess and clay involved in the creation of humankind.

Let us contrast these stories with that of Genesis 1:

And God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.” And God created humankind in the divine image, creating it in the image of God— creating them male and female. 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.” God said, “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food. And to all the animals on land, to all the birds of the sky, and to everything that creeps on earth, in which there is the breath of life, [I give] all the green plants for food.” And it was so. And God saw all that had been made, and found it very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

The very first subtle detail that we notice is what God says first:

Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness.

God uses the plural here, referencing an "us" and "our." Who is God speaking to here? Christians might immediately go to the Trinity, however there was no concept of the Trinity when Genesis 1 was written. Had Moses, Abraham, or any other religious figure of the Tanakh known the Trinity, like they should have had they written or read this verse according to this interpretation of the plural, it would be an emphasized tradition in Israelite and Jewish religion, but it is not and does not show up explicitly anywhere in the Tanakh. Either they deliberately omitted the Trinity in Israelite and Jewish tradition by ignoring this verse, or much more logically, the Trinity was not thought of at the time, let alone something Israelites and Jews interpreted in the text, in the Torah, the Prophets, or the Writings.

The use of the plural here is somewhat mysterious as the referents are not mentioned, and we cannot know for sure what it refers to, but there are at least two different theories outside of the Trinity theory. The first is that God here is speaking to the angels. This is a common interpretation in Jewish exegesis. The second is that it is a hint of the existence of other gods who may not be the creator, the patron, or head of the pantheon, but are known to exist. This implies the author(s) of Genesis 1 was monolatrous, that they worshipped one god over and above other gods. Importantly, while God here refers to other beings, God alone creates humankind without the involvement of angels or other gods, continuing the primary status that God is granted throughout this creation story:

And God created humankind in the divine image, creating it in the image of God— creating them male and female.

Humans are said to be created in the divine image. While this is similar to Atrahasis and Enuma Elish which show humans created out of the blood of a deity, Genesis 1 here is also conveying something very different: Humans are created in the divine image despite not being created out of the blood of a god, or out of clay. Interestingly, this text does not explicitly detail how humans are created and seems to skip over it, unlike the rest of creation being spoken into existence.

Theologically, the divine image of humans is paralleled with the common attributes humans share with God: (pro)creation, speech, blessing, organization, categorization, caretaking rulership, physical creation of objects, logical reasoning, and emotional expression. In the Ancient Near East, Kings were seen as the images of gods, but here all humanity is presented as the image of God. It is one of the most important ideas in Genesis that influences the thought of Martin Buber, Abraham Heschel, and Martin Luther King Jr. in their aspirations toward the I-Thou relationship, the equal dignity and worth of every human being, and the Social Justice that doesn't tear down and restrain others but lifts them up as friends and equals.

After humankind's creation, God blesses them, tells them to be fertile, and grants them rulership of the animals of the earth. Enuma Elish and Atrahasis omit the creation of animals, but here the creation of animals precedes and are explicitly connected to human creation. In Enuma Elish and Atrahasis, humans are created to bear the toil and work of the gods, but Genesis 1 grants humans a rulership and caretaking role of creation; the contrasting tones emphasize different roles: work vs. caretaking, submission vs. rulership, toil vs. freedom.

Lastly, plants are given to the animals and humans for food. Humans are explicitly not given meat for food in this text, so it logically follows that the human rulership over animals does not extend to the use of animals as food.

Sabbath

The final verses of this creation story extend into Genesis 2 and explain God's rest on the seventh day:

The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array. On the seventh day God finished the work that had been undertaken: [God] ceased on the seventh day from doing any of the work. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy—having ceased on it from all the work of creation that God had done.

This passage appears to be an explanation of the existence of the Sabbath, the 7th day of the week, which is the day of rest, and of ritual, particularly for the Temple priests in the first and second temple periods. The use of the sacred number seven in the Ancient Near East symbolized completeness. It can be seen in Gilgamesh, the Baal Cycle, Enuma Elish, and further in Genesis 1 when "God saw that it was good" is repeated seven times. Enuma Elish seems to suggest a monthly mid-rest, but here the rest is placed weekly and connected to the number seven and its symbolic connection to the completeness of creation.

Ex Nihilo

Many Christian and Jewish sources attribute Creation Ex Nihilo, Creation out of Nothing, to Genesis 1's creation story on the basis of other texts in the Bible that reference creation. However, Genesis 1 itself is not explicitly Creation Ex Nihilo. While one could say that the creation of Light, the Sun, Moon, and stars, the animals, humans, and the plants may be created out of nothing, spoken into existence, the formation of the sky, seas, and land are the result of a separation and ordering of the primordial waters that seemingly already exist at the start of the text. I therefore suggest a middle-ground, that some objects are created out of nothing (i.e., the lights, plants, animals, and humans), and some objects are not (i.e., sky, seas, and land), taking just the text of Genesis 1 itself into account.

The way creation is told in Genesis 1 is significantly different from that of other creation stories in the Ancient Near East, while simultaneously using similar motifs. Enuma Elish suggests Marduk was given the power to create and destroy with speech, yet the creation of the heavens, earth, and humans are told through action. In Genesis 1, most everything is created through speech.

Psalm 104

Psalm 104 is a highly poetic creation story structured on Genesis 1’s creation story, but incorporating traditions from Job’s catalogue of creation in Job 38-39 and the Egyptian Hymn to Aten.

Psalm 104 describes God as “wrapped in a robe of light” while creating the heavens and earth. While Genesis 1 describes creation as the result of divine speech, Psalm 104 uses physical language: make, spread, set, move. God is also pictured as a divine being that controls all of creation, particularly the waters, clouds, and weather, using Storm-God imagery, as in verse 3:

He sets the rafters of His lofts in the waters, makes the clouds His chariot, moves on the wings of the wind.

In this rendition of the creation story, in verses 6-9 God divides the primordial waters, similar to Genesis 1 during the creation of the firmament and land, and reminiscent also of Marduk and Baal battling the Sea:

You made the deep cover it as a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. They fled at Your blast, rushed away at the sound of Your thunder, —mountains rising, valleys sinking— to the place You established for them. You set bounds they must not pass so that they never again cover the earth.

In Genesis 1, God creates all living things from his speech. Here in Psalms 104:29-30, God’s breath is seen as the animating force of all living things:

hide Your face, they are terrified; take away their breath, they perish and turn again into dust; send back Your breath, they are created, and You renew the face of the earth.

Psalm 104 makes a reference to Leviathan, or Litan, the fleeing serpent and servant of Yam. In the Baal cycle, Litan was seen as a beloved of El. As is common in much of the Bible, Psalm 104:26 suggests that this tradition of Litan and El was appropriated to YHWH:

There go the ships, and Leviathan that You formed to sport with.

Psalm 104 describes many of the same elements of creation as Genesis 1, including the light, the firmament, the waters/deep, creation of the plants, animals, and birds, the large sea creatures (Leviathan), and the creation of the sky lights to signify seasons and times. Psalm 104 also shares many similarities to the Egyptian Hymn to the Sun god Aton (ANET, 369-71), including the mention of ships, the creation of fish and waves upon the mountains, and how Aton sustains and animates all of creation:

The world came into being by thy hand, According as thou hast made them. When thou hast risen they live, When thou settest they die.

The emphases in Genesis 1 to the Sabbath, to order, creation through speech, and the equal creation of humans seem to leave hints of who the authors of Genesis 1 are, but before we look at that, we must look at Genesis' other creation story... which will be covered in Part II.