Genesis 2 - Creation 2.0

The second chapter of Genesis is basically just another version of the creation story.  The traditional teaching in, at least, the catholic faith, blends these two stories together.  Catholics are typically taught all of the creation happenings of the days set out in Genesis 1, with the exception of the creation of man and woman, which are typically taken from Genesis 2.

Let's roll . . . .

"2 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. ² And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. ³ So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation."

Yep, we saw that coming from our last blog entry.  No surprise here.  God needed a break.

"These are the generations
of the heavens and the earth when they were created,
in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens."

Nothing controversial here.  It seems to simply be an introductory statement as to what the reader can expect from this chapter.

"⁵ When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, ⁶ and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— ⁷ then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature."

Here we see we are back to square one.  The beginning of Genesis 2 is describing creation not from the end of chapter 1, but from the very beginning (i.e. "when no bush of the field was yet int the land . . .").  God creates Adam from clay.  It should be noted here that the Sumerian creation myth involves the gods creating man from clay (http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/SumerianMyth.htm) ("In the clay, god and Man shall be bound").

 "⁸ And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. ⁹ And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

Ah, the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Stay tuned on this one because it becomes important to the plot when we get to it in a later blog post!

"
¹⁰ A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. ¹¹ The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. ¹² And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. ¹³ The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. ¹⁴ And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."

This is an attempt to geographically place the garden of eden on earth.  The passage is very descriptive of the rivers, minerals etc.  This places the garden of eden somewhere around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.  The problem is that the description given later in Ezekial places the garden of eden in Lebanon.  Which is to be believed?  It should also be noted that the location given is arguably the same we see in the Sumerian creation myths, which are most assuredly written before the first known bible.  Did I mention that location just also happens to be the birth place of the Sumerian society?  In the Sumerian text, the equivalent to the garden of eden is called "Dilmun", which scholars place in modern day Bahrain.

^"15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, ¹⁷ but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”"

The parallels between this passage (and the fruit theme in general) and the Sumerian text are astonishing.  In the bible passage it is a single fruit that must not be eaten.  In the Sumerian text, there are eight fruits, and also the opportunity for the first man to gain 'knowledge' through other means (let's leave this for the time being and revisit it during our analysis of the coming chapters).

Before we leave this passage, however, we need to look at one other oddity.  The first sentence of the passage states that god placed Adam in the garden to tend and keep it.  Later, we will see that god feels bad that Adam has to do all the work himself, and thus creates Eve.  But why was the focus of placing Adam in the garden to 'work and keep it'?  Why not just let him relax in paradise?  This again goes back to the Sumerian text.  In the Sumerian text, mankind was created as a labour force, designed to do the gods' bidding (i.e. manual labour).  The Sumerian texts describe a number of creations of man that failed - various deformities and faults are described.  Finally, a being of just enough strength and intelligence was made.

"I will produce a lowly Primitive;
"Man" shall be his name.
I will create a Primitive Worker;
He will be charged with the service of the gods,
that they might have their ease."


 Recall this passage from the Genesis 2, 5: "and there was no man to work the ground".

These oddities make sense when they are placed back with the original story -  the gods (recall from Genesis 1 that there other gods) made man to do manual labour.

"¹⁸ Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” ¹⁹ Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. ²¹ So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. ²² And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³ Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
    because she was taken out of Man.”^"

Not a companion, but a helper?  Interesting.

Why a rib?  This is one question to which christian scholars have never had a good answer.  Why?  Well, they would have to admit that their divinely inspired book was simply a rehashing of polytheistic mythology.  In order to answer 'why a rib?' we have to look again at the Sumerian texts.

The Sumerian texts describe a story where the god Enki brings water to Dilmun (the garden of eden parallel) (recall this passage from Genesis 2,5: "When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land") .  After this, the trees and plants are able to grow.  

The goddess Nihursag enters the garden and creates eight different plants.  Enki decides to try the fruits from these plants, all eight of them.  So he eats them.  Nihursag is furious with him and decides to curse him.  Enki then becomes ill in eight different body parts.  Enki is dying, but a fox convinces Nihursag to come back and help Enki.  Nihursag takes pity on Enki, and in order to help him, she creates eight goddesses corresponding to each body party that is ill.  The goddesses heal Enki and he is well again.  One of those eight goddesses is called Nin-ti ("the woman who makes life").  "Ti' is the Sumerian word for 'rib'.

(Further reading: http://www.bandoli.no/sumerianlegacy.htm) 

"²⁴ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. ²⁵ And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed."

What can we conclude from today's entry?  I think it's fair to say that there is reasonable evidence to suggest that both chapters 1 and 2 (and as we will soon see, more) of the book of Genesis are simply an edited version of the Sumerian creation myth.