The Lost World of Adam and Eve (29 page)

Proposition 5: When God Establishes Functional Order It Is “Good”

1
See the similar conclusions by I. Provan,
Seriously Dangerous Religion
(Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014), p. 283.

2
The only explanations that we have to offer for these exclusions are that the absence of the phrase in day two may be due to a copyist’s error somewhere in the transmission of the text and that the isolation of the
tannînim
in day five may be more Masoretic interpretation than factual detail of the Hebrew text. Nevertheless, these should only be a last resort, and I am reluctant to go this direction.

3
Observed by Ronald E. Osborn,
Death Before the Fall: Biblical Literalism and the Problem of Animal Suffering
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2014), p. 29.

Proposition 6:
ʾ
ādām
Is
Used in Genesis 1–5 in a Variety of Ways

1
Many of the data in this chapter are derived from Richard S. Hess, “Splitting the Adam: The Usage of
ʾ
ādām
in Genesis i–v,” in
Studies in the Pentateuch,
ed. J. A. Emerton, Supplement to Vetus Testamentum 41 (Leiden: Brill, 1990), pp. 1-15.

2
In Hebrew, when there is an attached preposition, the only determination of whether it has a definite article is in the vowel pointing that the Masoretes assigned in reflection of their received tradition.

3
An archetype differs from a prototype in that the latter is simply the first in a series and does not imply representation; it is only a model.

Proposition 7: The Second Creation Account (Gen 2:4-24) Can Be Viewed as a Sequel Rather Than as a Recapitulation of Day Six in the First Account (Gen 1:1–2:3)

1
Some translations render Genesis 2:19 as “Now the L
ORD
God
had
formed out of the ground all the wild animals” (
NIV
, emphasis added), but all admit that the Hebrew constructions used in the verse are not the usual means by which the past perfect is conveyed.

2
Such a view is known and was widely circulated as early as the seventeenth century in the work of Isaac La Peyrère, discussed at length in Willem J. van Asselt, “Adam and Eve as Latecomers: The Pre-Adamite Speculations of Isaac La Peyrère (1596–1676),” in
Out of Paradise: Eve and Adam and Their Interpreters,
ed. Bob Becking and Susan Hennecke (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010), pp. 90-107. La Peyrère saw evidence not only in Genesis 4 but in Romans 5:14 in Paul’s reference to those “who did not sin by breaking a command [that is, not like the transgression of Adam], as did Adam.”

3
I am not persuaded by the current scholarly theories that accept the premise that Genesis 1 and 2 represent competing origins stories and that they are inherently contradictory. I believe that sense can be made of them as sequel accounts.

4
This was also suggested by La Peyrère; see Asselt, “Adam and Eve as Latecomers,” p. 96. La Peyrère saw Adam and Eve as the first Jews, a view that I am not inclined to accept.

5
Discussion and examples can be found in Bernard F. Batto, “Paradise Reexamined,” in
In the Beginning: Essays on Creation Motifs in the Ancient Near East and the Bible
, ed. Bernard F. Batto (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013), pp. 54-85, originally published in
The Biblical Canon in Comparative Perspective
, ed. K. Lawson Younger Jr., William W. Hallo and Bernard F. Batto, Scripture in Context 4 (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1991), pp. 33-66; and Gonzalo Rubio, “Time Before Time: Primeval Narratives in Early Mesopotamian Literature,” in
Time and History in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 56th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Barcelona 26-30 July 2010
, ed. Lluís Feliu, G. del Olmo Lete, J. Llop and A. Millet Albà (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013), pp. 3-17.

6
Translations from Rubio, “Time Before Time,” p. 7.

7
See Batto, “Paradise Reexamined,” p. 70. Batto is interacting with Thorkild Jacobsen, “The Eridu Genesis,”
Journal of Biblical Literature
100 (1981): 513-29, translation on p. 516n7.

8
Jean-Jacques Glassner,
Mesopotamian Chronicles,
Society of Biblical Literature Writings from the Ancient World 19 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004), p. 147.

9
Discussion of the motif can be found in F. A. M. Wiggermann, “Agriculture as Civilization: Sages, Farmers, and Barbarians,” in
The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture,
ed. Karen Radner and Eleanor Robson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 663-89. See also Daniel DeWitt Lowery,
Toward a Poetics of Genesis 1–11: Reading Genesis 4:17-22 in Its Near Eastern Context
(Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013), pp. 140-52.

Proposition 8: “Forming from Dust” and “Building from Rib” Are Archetypal Claims and Not Claims of Material Origins

1
Note that
de novo
is not the same as
ex nihilo
. The former could use ingredients but not any process that we view as “natural.” It would reflect an origin of humans from that which is not human.
Ex nihilo
uses no ingredients—a claim that is never made for human origins in the Bible.

2
Evolutionary theory offers an explanatory model for thinking about material continuity, but accepting material continuity would not necessarily be the same as accepting evolutionary theory as the explanatory model.

3
Three times in Genesis 2, once in narrative (2 Kings 19:25), seven times in Psalms and the remaining thirty-one in the Prophets, with sixteen being in Isaiah 43–46.

4
Think of the impact on our understanding of Genesis 2 if we read “God planned the human from the dust of the earth.”

5
Not being used in a material sense because the Israelites certainly did not consider light to be material in nature.

6
Also noted on p. 7 of Bob Becking, “Once in a Garden: Some Remarks on the Construction of the Identity of Woman and Man in Genesis 2–3,” in
Out of Paradise: Eve and Adam and Their Interpreters
, ed. Bob Becking and Susan Hennecke (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010), pp. 1-13. Examples from the ancient Near Eastern literature will be documented and discussed in chap. 9.

7
Mark E. Biddle,
Missing the Mark: Sin and Its Consequences in Biblical Theology
(Nashville: Abingdon, 2005), p. 11; Terence E. Fretheim,
God and the World in the Old Testament
(Nashville: Abingdon, 2005), p. 77; and I. Provan,
Seriously Dangerous Religion
(Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014), pp. 280-81. See also Terje Stordalen,
Echoes of Eden: Genesis 2–3 and Symbolism of the Eden Garden in Biblical Hebrew Literature
(Leuven: Peeters, 2000), p. 291. Stordalen also argues that not only has the tree of life been allowed, but Adam and Eve have been eating from it. He effectively refutes the grammatical case that some have made against this from Genesis 3:22 (
Echoes of Eden
, pp. 230-32). See also Peter C. Bouteneff,
Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), p. 6.

8
This conclusion is actually represented early on in church history. The Antiochenes in the fourth century were already proposing two ways to think about mortality, referring to Adam’s pre-fall condition as a “natural,” not “punitive,” mortality. For discussion see George Kalantzis, “
Creatio ex Terrae:
Immortality and the Fall in Theodore, Chrysostom, and Theodoret,”
Studia Patristica
67 (2013): 403-13.

9
A difference without a distinction is that in Genesis 2:7
y
ṣ
r
is a verbal form whereas here the root is used in one of its noun forms. Nouns and verbs from the same root do not automatically or always share the same semantic footprint, but in this case usage shows that they do.

10
Some would see evidence in Job 15:7 that there is an early understanding that the first man was born, though I am not inclined to read this verse as making this sort of statement.

11
One of the Amoraim, considered the second great generation of rabbinic interpreters, third to fourth century
A.D.

12
It is not always legitimate to examine nouns and their related verb forms together because they can take different directions of meaning, but in this case both remain in the same semantic range and can be evaluated as a single group.

13
Michael V. Fox,
Proverbs 10–31,
Anchor Bible (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), p. 513.

14
M. Oeming, “
tardēmâ,” Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament,
ed. G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren and Heinz-Josef Fabry, trans. David E. Green and Douglas W. Stott (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 13:338.

15
Andrew Louth, with Marco Conti, eds.,
Genesis 1–11,
Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Old Testament 1 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), pp. 66-67.

16
This also makes much better sense of Matthew 19:5-6//Mark 10:7-8, 1 Corinthians 6:16-17 and especially Ephesians 5:31, where Paul is talking about being members of one body. Ontology is more central to this discussion than sex is. Genesis 2:24 may therefore have less to say about the institution of marriage and the nature of marriage than has been commonly thought.

Proposition 9: Forming of Humans in Ancient Near Eastern Accounts Is Archetypal, So It Would Not Be Unusual for Israelites to Think in Those Terms

1
This chapter is adapted from material first published in John H. Walton,
Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology
(Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011).

2
The Context of Scripture,
ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger Jr. (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 1:157. This text is also called
Praise of the Pickax
; see Richard J. Clifford,
Creation Accounts in the Ancient Near East and in the Bible,
Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series (Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association, 1994), p. 31.

3
Hallo and Younger,
Context of Scripture,
1:511.

4
Clifford,
Creation Accounts,
pp. 29-30.

5
W. G. Lambert,
Babylonian Creation Myths
(Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013), pp. 330-45; Hallo and Younger,
Context of Scripture,
1:159.

6
The reading proposed by Lambert,
Babylonian Creation Myths,
p. 505. This remains a controversial issue.

7
Lambert,
Babylonian Creation Myths,
pp. 350-60; Clifford,
Creation Accounts,
pp. 50-51. Benjamin R. Foster,
Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature,
3rd ed. (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 2005), pp. 491-93, merges the Sumerian and Akkadian versions into a single translation.

8
See discussion in Lambert,
Babylonian Creation Myths,
p. 511.

9
Ibid., pp. 366-75.

10
See the translation and notes of Foster,
Before the Muses,
pp. 236-37.

11
Hallo and Younger,
Context of Scripture,
1:130. For discussion of various details, see Tzvi Abusch, “Ghost and God: Some Observations on a Babylonian Understanding of Human Nature,” in
Self, Soul, and Body in Religious Experience,
ed. Albert I. Baumgarten, Jan Assmann and Guy G. Stroumsa (Leiden: Brill, 1998), pp. 363-83; and Bernard F. Batto, “Creation Theology in Genesis,” in
Creation in the Biblical Traditions,
ed. Richard J. Clifford and John J. Collins, Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series (Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association, 1992). In
Atra
ḫ
asis,
both flesh and blood are used, whereas in
Enuma Elish
and
KAR
4,
only the blood is mentioned. Only in
Atra
ḫ
asis
is a combination of common and divine materials clearly used. There is no indication in
KAR 4
that the two slain deities are rebels. The bilingual version of
Enki and Ninma
ḫ
suggests that some kind of mixture may also occur there. See W. G. Lambert, “The Relationship of Sumerian and Babylonian Myth as Seen in Accounts of Creation,” in
La Circulation des biens, des personnes et des idées dans le Proche-Orient ancien: Actes de la XXXVIIe Rencontre assyriologique internationale, Paris, 8-10 juillet 1991,
ed. Dominique Charpin and Francis Joannès (Paris: Editions Recherche sur la civilisations, 1992), pp. 129-35.

12
The Assyrian version is explicit about the number.

13
Lambert,
Babylonian Creation Myths;
Hallo and Younger,
Context of Scripture,
1:111.

14
Clifford,
Creation Accounts,
pp. 69-71.

15
James P. Allen,
Genesis in Egypt: The Philosophy of Ancient Egyptian Creation Accounts,
Yale Egyptological Studies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988); Ewa Wasilewska,
Creation Stories of the Middle East
(London: Jessica Kingsley, 2000); and James K. Hoffmeier, “Some Thoughts on Genesis 1 and 2 and Egyptian Cosmology,”
Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society
15 (1983): 29-39.

16
Hallo and Younger,
Context of Scripture,
1:8.