Adam and Eve - episode 1

In His image

From this post, we start our Bible reading with the first 11 chapters of the Book of Genesis. Scholars questioned a lot about the interpretation of those texts, classifying them as a “metahistorical etiology” (a search for the causes that goes beyond history): not a chronicle of facts in the modern sense of the word, but a symbolical presentation of the deep meaning present in every age’s history. If we understand the word “myth” in all its religious range, as a people’s founding narration (hence, the “true” narration par excellence, the root of every other story), the result of their spiritual search about the origins, about their questions regarding the existence of humanity and of the world, then we can say that Gen 1-11 look like a myth in the literary form. The authors of those biblical pages knew and took a leaf from ancient Mesopotamian traditions, even if with substantial differences in the contents (as we will see along this post). Therefore, in the texts that we will read, we will have to recognize the religious meaning «for the sake of salvation», the only one that is «without error» thanks to God’s inspiration (see Dei Verbum, no. 11), separating it from old and surpassed “scientific” ideas. They are, for instance, the sky considered as a solid vault in which the stars are set, supported by the eternal mountains; the fresh waters above the sky (cause of the rain), surrounding God’s city; the earth as a flat island in the middle of the ocean, supported by big columns… We will also have to keep in mind the particular literary form the authors used; it is similar to the one used in the Bible Books of Wisdom: it looks for the sense of the existing creation that is valid for every age, projecting it back in an origin beyond history. For most of the cues about the first 11 chapters of the Book of Genesis, I follow the comment (and some of the translations) by André Wénin, Da Adamo ad Abramo o l’errare dell’uomo, EDB; I point out as interesting resources even C.S. Lewis’ original interpretation of Gen 1-3 present in The Chronicles of Narnia. The Magician’s Nephew and the book by Franco Festorazzi La Bibbia e il problema delle origini, Paideia.
«When God began creating the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and empty and darkness was on the surface of the deep and God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.



God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. There was evening and there was morning, one day. God said, “Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. God called the expanse sky. There was evening and there was morning, a second day. God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together in one gathering, and let the dry land appear;” and it was so. And the waters under the sky gathered to their gatherings, and the dry land appeared. God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called Seas. God saw that it was good. God said, “Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with its seed in it, on the earth;” and it was so. The earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with its seed in it, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a third day. God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth;” and it was so. God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of sky to give light to the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day. God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of sky.” God created the large sea creatures, and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, livestock, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind;” and it was so. God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.



God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” God said, “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food. To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;” and it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day. The heavens and the earth were finished, and all their vast array. On the seventh day God finished his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. God blessed the seventh day, and made it holy, because he rested in it from all his work which he had created and made. This is the history of the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens» (Gen 1,1-2,4).
The starting situation of the creation is a dark and uninhabitable water chaos; for the very concrete ancient Hebrew language this is the closest thing to the «nothing» the Catechism writes about. God intervenes, bringing order with His Word. Comparing it with the ancient Mesopotamian myths we spoke about, we find substantial differences: God is only one and there is a well-marked difference between Him and the creation (water, earth, stars are His works and not other gods; further, there are not battles or obstacles to His actions, every Word has immediate execution. The text editor uses a lot of times the verb “to divide”, and keeps saying that God creates all things «after [the] kind»; God’s way for ordering the primordial chaos is precisely differentiating His creatures: as we will better see in the next post, difference and limit are a necessary condition for every human relationship (with God, with other human beings, with nature). No difference and no limit mean no possible love, friendship or care for someone/something.
The sacred writer gives emphasis to another refrain: «it was [very] good»; in the world God created there is no room for evil. This refrain is significantly absent after the creation of sky and of man; we can suppose in both cases that the reason is the same: those works are not complete. In the second day, the sky separates the upper waters (fresh, of the rain) from the lower ones (salty, of the ocean), but the earth has not yet emerged (this will happen in the third day): the world is yet uninhabitable. Regarding man, the explanation is more complex; even his day of creation (the sixth) in Hebrew numerology points out something not perfect or complete. God uses the plural form when He orders his creation; He tells: «Let us make man in our image, after our likeness». Scholars give different interpretation of it: an “excellence” or plural of majesty to underline God’s greatness and the importance of the moment; a “deliberation” plural to refer what God decided with Himself; a plural meaning the consultation of a “celestial council”, a sort of “court” present with God during the creation. The quoted signals of incompleteness present in the text, together with the fact that God says He wants to create man “in His image and likeness” but He effectively create him only «in His own image» open us the way for another interpretation. The image of God tells us the inalienable dignity that any man or woman has because he/she is an intelligent and free (in a word: “spiritual”) being, the only speaking creature (like God) and the only one God can speak with («God said to them»: Gen 1,28). This «image» is a gift by the Creator and it cannot be destroyed by any sin; however, it is not sufficient: exactly because man and woman are special and free creatures, the «likeness» with God is a choice, the “task” that they have during their lives. They should “pass from the image to the likeness” (see Origen of Alexandria, Homily 13 on Genesis); the New Testament will give the precise reference for that «likeness», the model to whom they should conform: Jesus Christ, the new and definitive Adam (see Rom 5,12-21; 1Cor 15,21-22.45-49). Hence, here is the other possible meaning for «Let us make»: the generosity of God that gives the life and the commitment of man and woman are, together, the creators of humanity.
To man and woman God entrusted the «dominion» over animals and nature; a strong and determined yoke (as the two Hebrew verbs suggest), but gentle at the same time: violence is not necessary, because God only gave a vegetable nutrition and the herbs destined for humans and animals are different (no competition for the resources). The Creator’s order can even be referred to the inner animality present in human beings; after all, they were created with the other terrestrial animals on the sixth day. Indeed, they should govern those vital inner resources (that can bring them to beastliness if not controlled) though which makes them “special”: word, intelligence, free will. They should exercise their authority as the Creator does; He does not jealously keep every power, on the contrary He produces the conditions for an autonomous existence of the creatures: time regulation is given to the stars on the fourth day; animals and humans receive the blessing of fecundity on the fifth and sixth day, so that they can give life as God did. The fulfillment of creation (seventh day: in the Hebrew culture number seven means perfection), similarly, is not one more work: it is God’s rest. He, in His gentleness, does not impose His presence to the world but He “recedes” to give place to the creatures He blessed.
In the next post we will read the second story of creation.