(Genesis 18:1 - 18:33)
Jehovah visited Abraham again one day in the forests of Mamre when Abraham was sitting in the opening of his tent at the hottest time of the day. He glanced up and saw three men [Jehovah and two companions] standing before him. He ran to them and bowed to the ground.
"Oh, master, if I have found favor with you, please don't leave. Let me fetch water to wash your feet. Rest in the shade while I get some bread for you. Relax and refresh yourself before you go on your way, for you have come upon a servant."
"Very well, you may do as you have said," they replied.
Abraham hurried into the tent and told Sarah "Quickly, prepare three measures of flour, knead it into dough, and bake loaves upon the hearth." He ran out to the herd and selected a fine tender calf. He gave it to a young male servant who quickly dressed it and boiled its meat. Abraham served his guests the veal, along with milk and cottage cheese. He stood near them under the tree as they had their meal.
They asked him "Where is Sarah, your wife?"
"There, she's in the tent."
Jehovah told him "I will certainly be returning when her time is due, for Sarah, your wife, will be having a son."
Sarah was listening at the tent flap behind them. (Abraham and Sarah were advanced in age and felt their years: they had ceased having sexual relations.) Sarah laughed to herself and mused "My husband and I are both old folks, how can we still enjoy intimacy?"
Jehovah said to Abraham "why did Sarah laugh and ask 'can I, an old woman really bear a child?'. Is there anything too difficult for Jehovah? At the time appointed for her, I will return to see Sarah give birth to a son."
Sarah denied Jehovah’s assertion, saying "I did not laugh!" For she was afraid to admit it.
Jehovah responded "No, but you did."
The men then rose and gazed toward Sodom. When they departed, Abraham walked with them for a time to see them on their way.
Jehovah thought "Can I conceal from Abraham what I plan to do, considering that he is sure to become a great and mighty nation, through which all the nations of the earth will be blessed? I know him and I am assured that he will command his children and his household to follow the ways of Jehovah, to do what's right and proper, so that I will be able to fulfill the promises I made to him."
Jehovah spoke. “I have heard more and more reports that the wickedness Sodom and Gomorrah has become intolerable. Go down there,” he told his companions, “and investigate whether these reports are true or not, so I may know for sure.”
Abraham remained with Jehovah while his two extraterrestrial companions left them and made their way to Sodom. Drawing near to Jehovah, Abraham asked "Will you destroy the just along with the wicked? --- If there are 50 just men in the city, won't you spare the place for their sake, if they exist? It doesn't sound like you, to kill the just along with the wicked. To treat the just and the wicked alike is not in your character. You, who judges the whole world, would surely not make such a judgment.”
Jehovah agreed. "If I find in Sodom 50 just men, I will spare the city for their sake."
Abraham replied "Since I have ventured to speak to my god, though I am just dust and ashes, let me continue and inquire if you would destroy the entire city if there were less than 50 just men in it, say, only 45?"
"I will not destroy the city if I find 45 just men."
Again Abraham asked "How about if 40 are found there, what will you do?"
"I will not destroy the city for the 4o's sake."
"Let not my master be angry if I speak again. What if 30 are found there?"
"I won't do it, if I find 30."
"As long as I've broached the subject, let me continue to speak with my god. What if 20 are found there?"
"I won't destroy it for the 20's sake."
"I hope you won't become angry if I speak once again. What if 10 can be found there?"
"I won't destroy it for the 10's sake."
Jehovah departed after he had finished his conversation with Abraham, who went back to his home.
Notes
1. It is interesting to be reminded that Abraham is still living in a tent and was continuing to pursue a rather primitive lifestyle requiring no fixed abode. He is, of course, the hero of the story, not just the leader of a small tribe of herdsman, and becomes important because of his contact with Jehovah and the great destiny promised to him.
2. It is not explicitly stated in the text, but can be reasonably assumed that of the three men who appeared to Abraham, Jehovah was one. The three men seem to appear suddenly. No reference is made of their origin or how they came to Abraham's tent in the forests of Mamre. It is possible that they merely materialized, but the text does not quite say so. At any rate, Abraham is overjoyed to see them. He either recognizes Jehovah or notices immediately that they are men of Jehovah's race, that is, extraterrestrials. (At this point in the narrative nothing is said of the difference in appearance between the extraterrestrials and ordinary men. --- An extraterrestrial being a person not of this earth.) Abraham implores them not to leave and falls all over himself to be a good host. As a matter of respect and an acknowledgment of his inferior standing, Abraham does not sit or eat with them.
3. The three extraterrestrial beings enjoy a meal under a shade tree as would any earth men. This seems to settle the question of whether these extraterrestrials, Jehovah and his companions, angels, if you prefer, are spiritual or material beings. A spirit being might, in a vision or as a phantasm, seem to possess tangible human form, but a spirit would not sit down and eat boiled veal and cottage cheese. (By the way, Sarah went to all the trouble to bake bread, but there is no report of the guests eating it. Was it served with the veal (breaded veal cutlets perhaps)?
4. Sarah laughs and speaks to herself, that is, in her mind, not audibly. Yet Jehovah is aware of her thoughts and lets her know that he is. Obviously, Jehovah is endowed with certain telepathic, clairvoyant, and mind-reading abilities, which, however, as we have learned before, fall far, far short of God-like omniscience.
5. The miracle of the aged or infertile woman bearing a child is a familiar mythological theme. In this story one wonders why Jehovah, if he wished for Abraham and Sarah to have a son, waited so long to make it happen? If Sarah was infertile and Jehovah could remedy the situation, why didn't he do it when they were still young? Was Jehovah occupied elsewhere? Did he just want to show off his magical powers by making it possible for an aged woman to conceive?
6. Most translation have Jehovah saying he will go himself to Sodom and investigate the reports of sinful behavior there. That doesn’t make sense, since he specifically sends his two companions to do just that. I have, therefore, altered the text to reflect what actually is said to have happened.
7. When the two extraterrestrials leave for Sodom, Abraham is left alone with Jehovah. Apparently apprised of Jehovah’s plans to destroy Sodom, he takes the opportunity to plead for the inhabitants of Sodom who might be just men and undeserving of Jehovah's murderous wrath. In doing so he rather cheekily challenges Jehovah sense of justice and almost preaches to him. This is maybe the first time Abraham has shown any compassion or concern for anyone but himself. This is especially interesting since at an earlier time, after the Battle of Siddim, Abraham went out of his way to snub the King of Sodom.
8. Abraham taxes the patience of Jehovah (and the reader) by repeatedly asking how many just men would be needed in the town to spare it from being destroyed. He wheedles him down to only ten men and after that Abraham goes home.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
The History of Abraham, Part Three
(Genesis 16:1 - 17:27)
Sarai, Abram's wife, who was barren, owned a maid, an Egyptian named Hagar. She advised Abram that since she was unable to bear any of his children he should try to conceive children with Hagar. Abram decided to take his wife's advice and so at the point when they had lived in Canaan for ten years, Sarai availed upon Abram to take Hagar as a second wife.
Abram consummated his marriage with Hagar. However, when Hagar learned she was pregnant with his child, she began to treat her mistress contemptuously. Sarai complained to Abram about this. "I'm being treated unfairly. I was the one who arranged the marriage between you and my servant and now that she is about to have your child, she despises me. God must decide between you and me."
Abram replied " Look, she is your servant. Do what you want with her!"
However, when Sarai treated her harshly, Hagar ran away. At a well in the desert oasis on the way to Sur, she was found by an emissary of Jehovah. The extraterrestrial questioned her "Hagar, Sarai's maid, where did you come from and where do you think you're going?"
She answered "I am running away from my mistress Sarai."
"Return to your mistress and submit yourself to her authority. ... I will make your descendants multiply so that they will be beyond number. You are pregnant and will soon give birth to a son whom you will call Ishmael (because Jehovah has been made aware of your hardship.) Yes, he will indeed be a wild ass of a man. He will be at odds with his fellows and they will ever be at odds with him. He will live on the outskirts of society."
Hagar spoke to the being that had addressed her, "Your god does see me! And I have truly glimpsed the back of him who sees me and have remained alive." Thus, the well where they met was called Beerlahaioi, meaning the well of he who sees me and lives. (It lies between Kadesh and Bered.)
Hagar bore a son to Abram, who called him Ishmael. At this time Abram was 86 years old.
When Abram was 99 years old, Jehovah visited him and told him "I am the Almighty God, follow me and be a righteous person, and I will make a pledge with you and your descendants, and I will multiply you greatly."
Abram bowed and fell on his face. Jehovah told him "As for me, my pledge is with you. You will be the father of many nations. Because you will be the father of nations, you will no longer be called Abram, but Abraham. Your progeny will be great and produce many nations and dynasties of kings. I establish this contract with you and your descendants for all time, that I will be a god to your and your descendants. I will give to you and your descendants as a possession forever the land of Canaan, in which you now reside as a foreign immigrant. You and every generation after will keep this pledge, and I will be a god to you and to them. The provision of the contract that you and your descendants will observe is this: every male child will be circumcised. This removal of the foreskin of the penis will be a sign of our mutual agreement. Every child eight days old shall be circumcised, this means every child of your descendants, every child born into your household, every purchased slave, including servants who are brought into the house and are not of your race. This everlasting agreement will be manifested literally in the flesh. Anyone not circumcised should be banished, for he has not abided by our contract."
"And as for Sarai, your wife," Jehovah continued, "she shall henceforth no longer be called Sarai, but Sarah. I will bless her so that she will bear you a son. She will be the mother of many peoples and kings will be descended from her."
Abram fell again on his face, but laughed, thinking to himself "Shall a man a hundred years old father a child? Shall Sarah, who is 90, be a mother?" He told Jehovah "Would that Ishmael find favor with you!"
Jehovah responded "Sarah will give birth to your son and you will call him Isaac; it is with him and with his descendants that I will establish an everlasting contract. And as for Ishmael, I have heard your wishes concerning him. I have blessed him as well. I will make him prosper, and he will have many descendants. He will father twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But my contract will be established with Isaac, whom Sarah will bring into the world at about this time next year."
When Jehovah had finished speaking with Abraham, he departed into the sky.
On that very day, as Jehovah had instructed him, Abraham, his son Ishmael, and all his male servants, including foreign slaves who had been purchased were duly circumcised. Abraham, who was 99 years old, and Ishmael, who was 13, were circumcised on that same day along with the rest of the males in his household.
Notes
1. Jehovah maintains a rather ambiguous moral stance on marriage. Abraham is his man, his favored human, but he is an incestuous bigamist, hardly exemplary, at least by modern standards. Plural marriages seem to have been common at that time, at least among those who could afford to support more than one wife. And marriages between those of close consanguinity seem also to have been favored. While Jehovah seemed to signal in Eden that marriage would be an unbreakable bond between one man and one woman, in practice it seems otherwise.
2. Sarah's scheme of having her husband Abraham father a child with her servant Hagar does not seem to have originated with Jehovah. One wonders why Jehovah, who was so involved in the lives of Abraham's family, did not have some input on this decision. There often is the impression that Jehovah is absent for long periods of time and comes to earth at intervals to check up on his favorite, make some promises, and demand animal sacrifices. This is consistent, of course, not with an omniscient God, but with an extraterrestrial visitor.
3 Jehovah had promised Abraham that he would be not only a father, but a patriarch. Abraham must have taken the promise with a grain of salt, or else lost faith in it over the passing of years when he did not see Jehovah. Why else would he have consented to take a second wife in order to have children? And when Jehovah does come down to see him, he questions his assertion that his wife, definitely passed it, could conceive. One marvels at Abraham actually had the cheek to laugh at his god. Would a man doubt and laugh in the face of God?
4. Abraham takes Hagar as a wife, but does not really treat her as such, for her status as a servant of Sarah seems to take precedence over status as Abraham's wife. When Hagar, now expecting, acts uppity with her mistress and Sarah complains to her husband about it, Abraham does not take charge of the situation as one would expect a man of the house (or tent) to do. He does not say that he will have a talk with Hagar, put her in her place, or punish her. No, he cops out and throws it all into Sarah's lap. Sarah, of course, acts like a shrew and drives pregnant Hagar to run away from home.
5. In her flight Hagar encounters an extraterrestrial who is an emissary (angel) of Jehovah, perhaps a companion of Jehovah, an associate, or employee, who can say? Hagar is amazed that she can see this being and live to tell about it. Perhaps she had heard tell of these beings and is surprised -- and privileged to actually see one -- a normal reaction even for a modern. One can surmise that the meeting was not accidental. It seems likely that Jehovah dispatched this being to send Hagar back to Abraham, either because it was in Abraham's interest or that it suited his, Jehovah's agenda.
6. It is 13 years after the birth of Ishmael that Abraham sees Jehovah again. Jehovah repeats his promise ad nauseum, but this time demands something more than a few charred animal carcasses in return. He demands that Abraham and all his people (male people, that is) get circumcised as a sign of their mutual contract. It seems likely that circumcision was a Hebrew custom established for hygienic reasons or for reasons of maintaining a cultural identity separate from that of uncircumcised neighbors. It was probably in force at some time in the distant past -- from the standpoint of the Biblical authors who saw the need to justify it. This story was concocted to lend the custom divine sanction. That is one possibility. The other is that Jehovah did indeed demand circumcision so that he could recognize the people he had promised to assist. This does not seem likely, however, since circumcision was broadly practiced in the Middle East and Egypt from remote antiquity, (even though the Greeks and the Romans frowned on the practice.)
7. The change of name from Sarai to Sarah, Abram to Abraham -- rather modest as name changes go ( a Hollywood agent might have been more imaginative)-- seems rather unnecessary, but reflects the characters' change of status and destiny. It also exhibits Jehovah's control over them.
8. Jehovah's contract with Abraham and his descendants is a simple quid pro quo. Jehovah will do certain things, make Abraham the father of a great nation, give his descendants the Holy Land to live in forever, and so forth and they are, in turn, to worship him as a god. Jehovah is quite obviously not God, but an extraterrestrial being who wishes to be regarded as a patron god to one people. He may at times claim exalted titles, like God Almighty, the way monarchs have always done, or make claims to being the Creator, but there is nothing to indicate that he is anything but a physical, mortal being, even if he be a humanoid more highly developed than earth men and from a society far more technologically advanced.
Sarai, Abram's wife, who was barren, owned a maid, an Egyptian named Hagar. She advised Abram that since she was unable to bear any of his children he should try to conceive children with Hagar. Abram decided to take his wife's advice and so at the point when they had lived in Canaan for ten years, Sarai availed upon Abram to take Hagar as a second wife.
Abram consummated his marriage with Hagar. However, when Hagar learned she was pregnant with his child, she began to treat her mistress contemptuously. Sarai complained to Abram about this. "I'm being treated unfairly. I was the one who arranged the marriage between you and my servant and now that she is about to have your child, she despises me. God must decide between you and me."
Abram replied " Look, she is your servant. Do what you want with her!"
However, when Sarai treated her harshly, Hagar ran away. At a well in the desert oasis on the way to Sur, she was found by an emissary of Jehovah. The extraterrestrial questioned her "Hagar, Sarai's maid, where did you come from and where do you think you're going?"
She answered "I am running away from my mistress Sarai."
"Return to your mistress and submit yourself to her authority. ... I will make your descendants multiply so that they will be beyond number. You are pregnant and will soon give birth to a son whom you will call Ishmael (because Jehovah has been made aware of your hardship.) Yes, he will indeed be a wild ass of a man. He will be at odds with his fellows and they will ever be at odds with him. He will live on the outskirts of society."
Hagar spoke to the being that had addressed her, "Your god does see me! And I have truly glimpsed the back of him who sees me and have remained alive." Thus, the well where they met was called Beerlahaioi, meaning the well of he who sees me and lives. (It lies between Kadesh and Bered.)
Hagar bore a son to Abram, who called him Ishmael. At this time Abram was 86 years old.
When Abram was 99 years old, Jehovah visited him and told him "I am the Almighty God, follow me and be a righteous person, and I will make a pledge with you and your descendants, and I will multiply you greatly."
Abram bowed and fell on his face. Jehovah told him "As for me, my pledge is with you. You will be the father of many nations. Because you will be the father of nations, you will no longer be called Abram, but Abraham. Your progeny will be great and produce many nations and dynasties of kings. I establish this contract with you and your descendants for all time, that I will be a god to your and your descendants. I will give to you and your descendants as a possession forever the land of Canaan, in which you now reside as a foreign immigrant. You and every generation after will keep this pledge, and I will be a god to you and to them. The provision of the contract that you and your descendants will observe is this: every male child will be circumcised. This removal of the foreskin of the penis will be a sign of our mutual agreement. Every child eight days old shall be circumcised, this means every child of your descendants, every child born into your household, every purchased slave, including servants who are brought into the house and are not of your race. This everlasting agreement will be manifested literally in the flesh. Anyone not circumcised should be banished, for he has not abided by our contract."
"And as for Sarai, your wife," Jehovah continued, "she shall henceforth no longer be called Sarai, but Sarah. I will bless her so that she will bear you a son. She will be the mother of many peoples and kings will be descended from her."
Abram fell again on his face, but laughed, thinking to himself "Shall a man a hundred years old father a child? Shall Sarah, who is 90, be a mother?" He told Jehovah "Would that Ishmael find favor with you!"
Jehovah responded "Sarah will give birth to your son and you will call him Isaac; it is with him and with his descendants that I will establish an everlasting contract. And as for Ishmael, I have heard your wishes concerning him. I have blessed him as well. I will make him prosper, and he will have many descendants. He will father twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But my contract will be established with Isaac, whom Sarah will bring into the world at about this time next year."
When Jehovah had finished speaking with Abraham, he departed into the sky.
On that very day, as Jehovah had instructed him, Abraham, his son Ishmael, and all his male servants, including foreign slaves who had been purchased were duly circumcised. Abraham, who was 99 years old, and Ishmael, who was 13, were circumcised on that same day along with the rest of the males in his household.
Notes
1. Jehovah maintains a rather ambiguous moral stance on marriage. Abraham is his man, his favored human, but he is an incestuous bigamist, hardly exemplary, at least by modern standards. Plural marriages seem to have been common at that time, at least among those who could afford to support more than one wife. And marriages between those of close consanguinity seem also to have been favored. While Jehovah seemed to signal in Eden that marriage would be an unbreakable bond between one man and one woman, in practice it seems otherwise.
2. Sarah's scheme of having her husband Abraham father a child with her servant Hagar does not seem to have originated with Jehovah. One wonders why Jehovah, who was so involved in the lives of Abraham's family, did not have some input on this decision. There often is the impression that Jehovah is absent for long periods of time and comes to earth at intervals to check up on his favorite, make some promises, and demand animal sacrifices. This is consistent, of course, not with an omniscient God, but with an extraterrestrial visitor.
3 Jehovah had promised Abraham that he would be not only a father, but a patriarch. Abraham must have taken the promise with a grain of salt, or else lost faith in it over the passing of years when he did not see Jehovah. Why else would he have consented to take a second wife in order to have children? And when Jehovah does come down to see him, he questions his assertion that his wife, definitely passed it, could conceive. One marvels at Abraham actually had the cheek to laugh at his god. Would a man doubt and laugh in the face of God?
4. Abraham takes Hagar as a wife, but does not really treat her as such, for her status as a servant of Sarah seems to take precedence over status as Abraham's wife. When Hagar, now expecting, acts uppity with her mistress and Sarah complains to her husband about it, Abraham does not take charge of the situation as one would expect a man of the house (or tent) to do. He does not say that he will have a talk with Hagar, put her in her place, or punish her. No, he cops out and throws it all into Sarah's lap. Sarah, of course, acts like a shrew and drives pregnant Hagar to run away from home.
5. In her flight Hagar encounters an extraterrestrial who is an emissary (angel) of Jehovah, perhaps a companion of Jehovah, an associate, or employee, who can say? Hagar is amazed that she can see this being and live to tell about it. Perhaps she had heard tell of these beings and is surprised -- and privileged to actually see one -- a normal reaction even for a modern. One can surmise that the meeting was not accidental. It seems likely that Jehovah dispatched this being to send Hagar back to Abraham, either because it was in Abraham's interest or that it suited his, Jehovah's agenda.
6. It is 13 years after the birth of Ishmael that Abraham sees Jehovah again. Jehovah repeats his promise ad nauseum, but this time demands something more than a few charred animal carcasses in return. He demands that Abraham and all his people (male people, that is) get circumcised as a sign of their mutual contract. It seems likely that circumcision was a Hebrew custom established for hygienic reasons or for reasons of maintaining a cultural identity separate from that of uncircumcised neighbors. It was probably in force at some time in the distant past -- from the standpoint of the Biblical authors who saw the need to justify it. This story was concocted to lend the custom divine sanction. That is one possibility. The other is that Jehovah did indeed demand circumcision so that he could recognize the people he had promised to assist. This does not seem likely, however, since circumcision was broadly practiced in the Middle East and Egypt from remote antiquity, (even though the Greeks and the Romans frowned on the practice.)
7. The change of name from Sarai to Sarah, Abram to Abraham -- rather modest as name changes go ( a Hollywood agent might have been more imaginative)-- seems rather unnecessary, but reflects the characters' change of status and destiny. It also exhibits Jehovah's control over them.
8. Jehovah's contract with Abraham and his descendants is a simple quid pro quo. Jehovah will do certain things, make Abraham the father of a great nation, give his descendants the Holy Land to live in forever, and so forth and they are, in turn, to worship him as a god. Jehovah is quite obviously not God, but an extraterrestrial being who wishes to be regarded as a patron god to one people. He may at times claim exalted titles, like God Almighty, the way monarchs have always done, or make claims to being the Creator, but there is nothing to indicate that he is anything but a physical, mortal being, even if he be a humanoid more highly developed than earth men and from a society far more technologically advanced.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
The History of Abraham, Part Two
(Genesis 13:19 - 15:21)
It happened that King Amraphel of Shinar, King Arioch of Ellasar, King Chedorlaomer of Elam, and Tidal, king of many tribes made war against King Bera of Sodom and his allies King Bersha of Gomorrah, King Shinab of Admah, King Shemeber of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (or Zoar). They engaged in battle in the valley of Siddim, which is now a salt sea. The latter had paid tribute to Chedorlaomer of Elam for 12 years, but in the 13th year they revolted against his authority. Thus in the 14th year Chedorlaomer and his allies attacked the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emins in Sahveh Kiriathaim, the Horite on Mount Seir as far as Elparan, bordering the wilderness. On their return, the army came to Enmishpat, later known as Kadesh, and raided the lands of the Amalekites and the Amorites who lived in Hazezontamar. The Kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Bela mobilized their armies and engaged in a battle in the Valley of Siddim with Chedorlaomer, Tidal, Amraphel, and Arioch. The valley was full of tar pits and in retreat the armies of Sodom and Gomorrah were trapped in them. Those that were not, fled to the mountains.
The victorious army of Chedorlaomer looted Sodom and Gomorrah of treasures and provisions and withdrew with their booty. Taken, along with his possessions, as a captive of war, was Lot, Abram's nephew. One captive who had managed to escape reported the situation to Abram, who was living in the forests of Mamre the Amorite, whose brothers Eschol and Aner were allies of his. When Abram heard that his nephew was a prisoner, he armed what household servants had been trained to fight. With 318 of them he tracked Chederlaomer's army to Dan. With flanking forces he made a night attack upon the enemy forces and routed them. He pursued the enemy army to Hobah, to the east of Damascus. There he was able to free all the captives, including Lot, and retrieve all the booty that had been taken.
On his return from the defeat of Chederlaomer and his alliance, Abram was greeted by the King of Sodom at the Valley of Shaveh, which was in his land. Melchizedek, the King of Salem, brought out bread and wine. Being a high priest, he extolled Abram, "Blessed be Abram of the great god who rules heaven and earth! Blessed be the great god who has delivered your enemies into your hand!" And so Abram proffered to him a portion of the recovered booty as a tithe.
The King of Sodom told Abram "You may keep the rest of the booty for yourself; just let me take custody of the captives."
Abram replied. "I worship Jehovah, the great god who rules heaven and earth. I refuse take anything that is yours, not even a thread, not even a boot lace, in case someone might think that I have been enriched by you. I only accept payment for what the captives and for what Aner, Eschnol and Mamre, and the men who came with me may have eaten."
After these things had transpired, Jehovah appeared to Abram in a vision and consoled him "Don't be afraid. I will protect and reward you!"
Abram replied "Jehovah, what can you give to me, considering I am childless? You have given me no offspring and, as it is, Eliezer of Damascus, my steward, will become my heir."
The words of Jehovah that came into his head were these: "He shall not be your heir, for your heir will be of your flesh and blood." And he led Abram outside and made him look up at the night sky. "See if you can count the stars, for your descendants will be just as numerous." And he trusted in Jehovah and in the accuracy of his words.
Jehovah told him "I am the one who took you out of your home in Ur of Chaldea, so that I can give you this land, that you can occupy it."
"But, my god, how will I know when it's to be mine?' Abram asked.
"Bring me a three-year old heifer, a nanny goat and a ram that is also three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon."
Abram did so. He slaughtered the animals; he slit their carcasses and laid out one slice of flesh alongside another. (The birds, which he did not kill, landed on the carcasses, but Abram shooed them away.) At dusk Abram fell into a deep sleep and experienced an horrific nightmare. In it a voice proclaimed "Let it be known that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land where they shall be made slaves and undergo great hardship for four hundred years. But I will pronounce a judgment against the nation they serve and afterward your people will depart there with considerable wealth. You will go to your ancestors peacefully and be buried at a ripe old age. But four generations after, hard times will come again for your people, for the violence of the Amorites has not been fully expended."
After sunset, when it fell dark, there arose smoke like that from a furnace and glowing flames flickered between the strips of meat. On the following day Jehovah made a contract with Abram. "To your descendants I bequeath this land, from the River Nile to the great river, the Euphrates, the lands of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaims, as well as the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.
Notes
1. The location of the Battle of the Valley of Siddim was either just south of the Dead Sea or in an area now covered by water. Sodom and Gomorrah are thought to be in this area. Archaeologists have not located the ruins of those cities, although some recent excavations have shown promise. Kadesh, in the south on the border of the Sinai has long been considered the south border of traditional Israel. The Amorites, who spoke a Semitic language, were originally nomads from Syria who moved into southern Mesopotamia in the 22nd Century B.C. In the 18th Century B.C. they ruled all Mesopotamia under Hammurabi, the first king of the Babylonian Empire. But they were soon expelled from Mesopotamia and moved into Canaan. In the Bible they are often synonymous with Canaanites, or at least eastern Canaanite tribes. The Amalekites (the name is here used anachronistically) were nomads who inhabited northwestern Arabia. They would become the ancestral enemy of the Jewish people.
2. Much scholarship has been expended trying to identify the kings listed as participating in the Battle of the Valley of Siddim with known rulers of the time. About a hundred years ago Biblical scholars were confident that credible matches had been made, eg. identifying Amraphel with Hammurabi. However, further research thoroughly exploded the identifications. It seems likely that the kings mentioned, if they existed at all, were not even contemporaneous with one another. Moreover, the alliance is patently implausible. The leader of the coalition was the Elamite king. Elam, a kingdom southeast of Sumer, was a country of some importance in ancient times, but was not a dominant force. Although it was often ruled by Mesopotamian powers, it did maintain an empire of sorts in southwest Iran, but that was in the 13th and 12th Centuries B.C. The king of Shinar (Babylonia or Akkad) would have been an unlikely ally, as would the king of Ellasar (or Assyria in the northern Mesopotamia). No Mesopotamian power extended their control as far west as southern Canaan in the 2nd Millennium B.C. This occurred in the 1st Millennium B.C. when the Hebrew nations ran afoul of the Assyrians and Chaldeans. While the combatants in the Siddim battle are impressively recounted, the list is an instance of spurious detail employed to enhance the credibility of a fiction. The basis of this account is probably oral tradition, but the Genesis writers probably had access to Babylonian writings and from them learned of past rulers whose names, added to the tale, would lend it greater importance and interest. A modern analogy: a little-known sheriff in a little-known town in the Old West thwarts a gang of little-known outlaws. More than a half century later the real-life incident becomes a popular movie. In the film, the town is now Abilene, the sheriff becomes Wild Bill Hickock, and outlaw gang consists of the James Brothers, the Daltons, Sam Bass, Sundance, and Billy the Kid. Future generations have access to the movie, but know nothing of the true incident that inspired it. Will they accept the film as Gospel?
3. It is amazing how quickly Abraham springs in action to rescue his nephew from the Elamites, when he did nothing to rescue his wife from the lustful Egyptians. With a small party of armed servants, 318 of them, he was able to defeat, with superior strategy and a sneak, night-time attack, an army which surely would have numbered in the many thousands, if not tens of thousands. (The great powers of Mesopotamia would have had to taken a considerable force with them to subdue the rebellious Sodomites, if, indeed, that's what they did.) The tale is hardly credible, but it must be remembered that this is merely a propaganda piece to enhance ancient Jewish national pride by exalting its patriarch Abraham, making him a warrior who routs a far superior force and humbles the great kings of his time. (This is like Robin Hood and his merry men defeating in battle the combined forces of King John, Philip Augustus, and Frederick Barbarossa in order to rescue Maid Marian.) It is curious that Abraham who was so timid when he was in Egypt is now all of a sudden a bold man of action, a mighty warrior. Why this change of character? It is easily explained when one considers the likelihood that the two stories, passed down for more than a thousand years, may have applied to two different persons, perhaps living in different times.
4. It is written, not without purpose, that Abraham honors the King of Salem, because the city (later Jerusalem) would become the Hebrew capital and religious center. He rebuffs the generous offer of the King of Sodom, which is sin city and the anathema of Jehovah. It is noble that Abraham has offered his military services to the region' rulers pro bono, but this is certainly at odds with the man who accepted unearned gifts from the Pharaoh.
5. It would seem that his action in refusing the King of Sodom's generosity placed him in peril, so much so that Jehovah had to appear in a dream to comfort him -- and to reiterate the old promise of making him the father of a nation and the patriarch of numberless descendants. When Abraham starts asking too many questions, Jehovah falls back upon the familiar demand -- slaughter a few helpless animals for me, cut them up, and burn them. This, apparently, instead of the customary hand shake, was required to seal the deal. (The importance of the birds who were not sacrificed somehow escapes one.)
6. In this story there is also the prophecy of the 400-year bondage of the Israelites in Egypt. Since all that happens is the will of God, the writer of the Old Testament find it continually necessary to have Jehovah prophesy every significant future event -- with remarkable accuracy!
It happened that King Amraphel of Shinar, King Arioch of Ellasar, King Chedorlaomer of Elam, and Tidal, king of many tribes made war against King Bera of Sodom and his allies King Bersha of Gomorrah, King Shinab of Admah, King Shemeber of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (or Zoar). They engaged in battle in the valley of Siddim, which is now a salt sea. The latter had paid tribute to Chedorlaomer of Elam for 12 years, but in the 13th year they revolted against his authority. Thus in the 14th year Chedorlaomer and his allies attacked the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emins in Sahveh Kiriathaim, the Horite on Mount Seir as far as Elparan, bordering the wilderness. On their return, the army came to Enmishpat, later known as Kadesh, and raided the lands of the Amalekites and the Amorites who lived in Hazezontamar. The Kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Bela mobilized their armies and engaged in a battle in the Valley of Siddim with Chedorlaomer, Tidal, Amraphel, and Arioch. The valley was full of tar pits and in retreat the armies of Sodom and Gomorrah were trapped in them. Those that were not, fled to the mountains.
The victorious army of Chedorlaomer looted Sodom and Gomorrah of treasures and provisions and withdrew with their booty. Taken, along with his possessions, as a captive of war, was Lot, Abram's nephew. One captive who had managed to escape reported the situation to Abram, who was living in the forests of Mamre the Amorite, whose brothers Eschol and Aner were allies of his. When Abram heard that his nephew was a prisoner, he armed what household servants had been trained to fight. With 318 of them he tracked Chederlaomer's army to Dan. With flanking forces he made a night attack upon the enemy forces and routed them. He pursued the enemy army to Hobah, to the east of Damascus. There he was able to free all the captives, including Lot, and retrieve all the booty that had been taken.
On his return from the defeat of Chederlaomer and his alliance, Abram was greeted by the King of Sodom at the Valley of Shaveh, which was in his land. Melchizedek, the King of Salem, brought out bread and wine. Being a high priest, he extolled Abram, "Blessed be Abram of the great god who rules heaven and earth! Blessed be the great god who has delivered your enemies into your hand!" And so Abram proffered to him a portion of the recovered booty as a tithe.
The King of Sodom told Abram "You may keep the rest of the booty for yourself; just let me take custody of the captives."
Abram replied. "I worship Jehovah, the great god who rules heaven and earth. I refuse take anything that is yours, not even a thread, not even a boot lace, in case someone might think that I have been enriched by you. I only accept payment for what the captives and for what Aner, Eschnol and Mamre, and the men who came with me may have eaten."
After these things had transpired, Jehovah appeared to Abram in a vision and consoled him "Don't be afraid. I will protect and reward you!"
Abram replied "Jehovah, what can you give to me, considering I am childless? You have given me no offspring and, as it is, Eliezer of Damascus, my steward, will become my heir."
The words of Jehovah that came into his head were these: "He shall not be your heir, for your heir will be of your flesh and blood." And he led Abram outside and made him look up at the night sky. "See if you can count the stars, for your descendants will be just as numerous." And he trusted in Jehovah and in the accuracy of his words.
Jehovah told him "I am the one who took you out of your home in Ur of Chaldea, so that I can give you this land, that you can occupy it."
"But, my god, how will I know when it's to be mine?' Abram asked.
"Bring me a three-year old heifer, a nanny goat and a ram that is also three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon."
Abram did so. He slaughtered the animals; he slit their carcasses and laid out one slice of flesh alongside another. (The birds, which he did not kill, landed on the carcasses, but Abram shooed them away.) At dusk Abram fell into a deep sleep and experienced an horrific nightmare. In it a voice proclaimed "Let it be known that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land where they shall be made slaves and undergo great hardship for four hundred years. But I will pronounce a judgment against the nation they serve and afterward your people will depart there with considerable wealth. You will go to your ancestors peacefully and be buried at a ripe old age. But four generations after, hard times will come again for your people, for the violence of the Amorites has not been fully expended."
After sunset, when it fell dark, there arose smoke like that from a furnace and glowing flames flickered between the strips of meat. On the following day Jehovah made a contract with Abram. "To your descendants I bequeath this land, from the River Nile to the great river, the Euphrates, the lands of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaims, as well as the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.
Notes
1. The location of the Battle of the Valley of Siddim was either just south of the Dead Sea or in an area now covered by water. Sodom and Gomorrah are thought to be in this area. Archaeologists have not located the ruins of those cities, although some recent excavations have shown promise. Kadesh, in the south on the border of the Sinai has long been considered the south border of traditional Israel. The Amorites, who spoke a Semitic language, were originally nomads from Syria who moved into southern Mesopotamia in the 22nd Century B.C. In the 18th Century B.C. they ruled all Mesopotamia under Hammurabi, the first king of the Babylonian Empire. But they were soon expelled from Mesopotamia and moved into Canaan. In the Bible they are often synonymous with Canaanites, or at least eastern Canaanite tribes. The Amalekites (the name is here used anachronistically) were nomads who inhabited northwestern Arabia. They would become the ancestral enemy of the Jewish people.
2. Much scholarship has been expended trying to identify the kings listed as participating in the Battle of the Valley of Siddim with known rulers of the time. About a hundred years ago Biblical scholars were confident that credible matches had been made, eg. identifying Amraphel with Hammurabi. However, further research thoroughly exploded the identifications. It seems likely that the kings mentioned, if they existed at all, were not even contemporaneous with one another. Moreover, the alliance is patently implausible. The leader of the coalition was the Elamite king. Elam, a kingdom southeast of Sumer, was a country of some importance in ancient times, but was not a dominant force. Although it was often ruled by Mesopotamian powers, it did maintain an empire of sorts in southwest Iran, but that was in the 13th and 12th Centuries B.C. The king of Shinar (Babylonia or Akkad) would have been an unlikely ally, as would the king of Ellasar (or Assyria in the northern Mesopotamia). No Mesopotamian power extended their control as far west as southern Canaan in the 2nd Millennium B.C. This occurred in the 1st Millennium B.C. when the Hebrew nations ran afoul of the Assyrians and Chaldeans. While the combatants in the Siddim battle are impressively recounted, the list is an instance of spurious detail employed to enhance the credibility of a fiction. The basis of this account is probably oral tradition, but the Genesis writers probably had access to Babylonian writings and from them learned of past rulers whose names, added to the tale, would lend it greater importance and interest. A modern analogy: a little-known sheriff in a little-known town in the Old West thwarts a gang of little-known outlaws. More than a half century later the real-life incident becomes a popular movie. In the film, the town is now Abilene, the sheriff becomes Wild Bill Hickock, and outlaw gang consists of the James Brothers, the Daltons, Sam Bass, Sundance, and Billy the Kid. Future generations have access to the movie, but know nothing of the true incident that inspired it. Will they accept the film as Gospel?
3. It is amazing how quickly Abraham springs in action to rescue his nephew from the Elamites, when he did nothing to rescue his wife from the lustful Egyptians. With a small party of armed servants, 318 of them, he was able to defeat, with superior strategy and a sneak, night-time attack, an army which surely would have numbered in the many thousands, if not tens of thousands. (The great powers of Mesopotamia would have had to taken a considerable force with them to subdue the rebellious Sodomites, if, indeed, that's what they did.) The tale is hardly credible, but it must be remembered that this is merely a propaganda piece to enhance ancient Jewish national pride by exalting its patriarch Abraham, making him a warrior who routs a far superior force and humbles the great kings of his time. (This is like Robin Hood and his merry men defeating in battle the combined forces of King John, Philip Augustus, and Frederick Barbarossa in order to rescue Maid Marian.) It is curious that Abraham who was so timid when he was in Egypt is now all of a sudden a bold man of action, a mighty warrior. Why this change of character? It is easily explained when one considers the likelihood that the two stories, passed down for more than a thousand years, may have applied to two different persons, perhaps living in different times.
4. It is written, not without purpose, that Abraham honors the King of Salem, because the city (later Jerusalem) would become the Hebrew capital and religious center. He rebuffs the generous offer of the King of Sodom, which is sin city and the anathema of Jehovah. It is noble that Abraham has offered his military services to the region' rulers pro bono, but this is certainly at odds with the man who accepted unearned gifts from the Pharaoh.
5. It would seem that his action in refusing the King of Sodom's generosity placed him in peril, so much so that Jehovah had to appear in a dream to comfort him -- and to reiterate the old promise of making him the father of a nation and the patriarch of numberless descendants. When Abraham starts asking too many questions, Jehovah falls back upon the familiar demand -- slaughter a few helpless animals for me, cut them up, and burn them. This, apparently, instead of the customary hand shake, was required to seal the deal. (The importance of the birds who were not sacrificed somehow escapes one.)
6. In this story there is also the prophecy of the 400-year bondage of the Israelites in Egypt. Since all that happens is the will of God, the writer of the Old Testament find it continually necessary to have Jehovah prophesy every significant future event -- with remarkable accuracy!
Monday, March 25, 2013
The History of Abraham, Part One
(Genesis 11:10 - 13:18)
This is the genealogical history of Shem: When Shem was a 100 years old, two years after the flood, he became the father of Arphaxad. He lived 500 more years and fathered other sons and daughters.
Arphaxad was 35 years old when he fathered Salah. He lived 403 more years, and had other sons and daughters.
Salah was 30 when he became the father of Eber. He lived 403 more years and had other sons and daughters.
Eber was 34 when he fathered Peleg. He lived 430 more years and had other sons and daughters.
Peleg was 30 when he fathered Reu. He lived 209 more years had other sons and daughters.
Reu was 32 when he fathered Serug. He lived 207 more years and had other sons and daughters.
Serug was 30 when he fathered Nahor. He lived 200 more years and had other sons and daughters.
Nahor was 29 when he fathered Terah. He lived 119 more years and had other sons and daughters.
By the time he was 70 years old Terah had fathered sons Abram, Nahor, and Haran, who was the father of Lot. Haran predeceased his father Terah, dying in the country of his birth, Ur in the land of Chaldea [in southern Mesopotamia].
Both Abram and Nahor were married. Abram's wife was named Sarai and Nahor was married to his niece Milcah, the daughter of Haran and sister of Iscah. (Sarai was childless and unable to bear children.)
Terah, accompanied by his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai, and his grandson Lot, set out from Ur to travel to Canaan but upon reaching Haran, settled there. This is where Terah died at the age of 205. It was then that Jehovah communicated with Abram and told him "Leave your country, your family, and your home and go to a land that I will show you. I will make you famous and the father of a great nation. I will bless you and bless those who bless you, curse those who curse you and because of you the world will be blessed!" And so at the age of 75, Abram, following Jehovah's instructions, departed Haran with his wife Sarai and nephew Lot. With Sarai and Lot, with his household and followers, and with all the possessions he had acquired in Haran, Abram journeyed to Canaan. He traveled through Sichem and the forests of Moreh, which was inhabited by the Canaanites. Jehovah then appeared to Abram and told him "This land I bequeath to your posterity!” At the place where Abram had seen Jehovah, he built an altar to him. He then departed and traveled to a mountain to the east of Bethel. He made his camp there, with Bethel to his west and Hai to the east. He established another altar and called out to Jehovah. Abram continued traveling, now to southern Canaan. But there was a severe famine in that region, so he continued south into Egypt to settle there.
Before they entered Egypt, Abram told his wife Sarai "I know you are a good-looking woman. I'm afraid that when the Egyptians see you and find out that I'm your husband they will do away with me in order to possess you. It might be better for us if I say you are only my sister; it may save my life."
And so it happened that when they entered Egypt the Egyptians did take note of Sarai's beauty. Even the princes of the Pharaoh, when seeing her, commended her to the Pharaoh. The Pharaoh thus had her taken into his harem. Because of her, Abram found favor with the Pharaoh, who enriched him with servants, oxen, sheep, donkeys, and camels.
Because of Sarai, Jehovah put a curse on the Pharaoh and inflicted great misfortune on his house. The Pharaoh summoned Abram and questioned him "What is this that you have done to me? Why didn't you tell me Sarai was your wife? Why did you claim she was your sister instead, allowing me to take her as my wife? --- Well, here's your wife. Take her and be gone!"
The Pharaoh instructed his men to assist Abram in his departure from Egypt. Accompanied by his wife Sarai and Lot, Abram emigrated with all his possessions -- he was very wealthy with livestock, silver, and gold -- and journeyed through southern Canaan back to Bethel, the place where he had earlier pitched his tent between Bethel and Hai -- it was there he had built an altar and had called out to Jehovah.
Lot also had a great many tents, large flocks and herds so that when they both settled there the land was insufficient for both their needs. (Since their holdings were so great, they really could not live in one place together.) Disputes arose between the herdsmen of Lot's cattle and those of Abram. Moreover, the Canaanites and Perizzites were already living there.
Abram said to Lot "Let there not be strife between you and me, I pray, or between our herdsmen, for we are family. There is plenty of land for both of us. Therefore, let us go our separate ways. If you take the right path, I will take the left. If you take the left path, I will take the right."
Lot surveyed the Jordan valley and saw that as far as Zoar it was well irrigated and as fertile as Eden or Egypt (for this was before Jehovah destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah). Lot chose for himself the plain of Jordan and departing from Abram, he journeyed East. Abram, meanwhile, settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot dwelled among the cities of the plain, near Sodom. (The inhabitants of Sodom were displeasing to Jehovah, owing to their wickedness and immoral behavior.)
After Lot had departed, Jehovah spoke to Abram "Look abroad from where you now stand, to the north, south, west, and east. All that you can see I bestow upon you and upon your descendants forever. I will make your progeny as numerous as grains of dust and it will be counted only as the grains of dust can be counted. Travel through the length and breadth of the land, for I have given it to you."
Abram then packed up his tents and moved to live amid the oak forests of Mamre outside of Hebron. It was there he built an altar to Jehovah.
Notes
1. The shrinking of the human life span ordained by Jehovah after the Flood was apparently worked in gradually. Longevity decreases with each generation removed from the Flood and men are beginning to have children at normal age, in their thirties. Still, Abraham has an abnormally long life span.
2. A reading of the King James Version places the birth of Abraham (initially Abram) at 1948 years after Creation. However, the Septuagint somehow places the date at 3312. In the Jewish Torah, Abraham's birth is deemed to have occurred 2247 years after Creation. Dating Abraham's birth to a time B.C. has also been problematic. Jewish tradition usually assigns the dates 1812-1637 B.C. for Abraham's life, while Archbishop Ussher's calculations produce the years 1976-1801 B.C.
3. Abraham came from Ur (of the Chaldees or Chaldea) in southern Mesopotamia. The reference to Chaldeans is highly anachronistic. The people referred to as the Chaldeans did not exist for another 1200 years. But the writers of Genesis would not have known that. (Ur of Sumer or Sumeria would be more accurate.) There are many subsequent instances of references to countries and peoples that would not exist for many hundreds of years later than the time depicted in the account.
4. It must be mentioned at this point that most scholars and researchers have little confidence in the reality of Abraham and of most of the individuals cited in the Biblical accounts of early Jewish history. The consensus regards these as mythical figures. However, there is an argument to be made that the accounts of Abraham and the other Biblical patriarchs could have been based on real individuals or on composites of real individuals, not always accurately placed in place, time, or chronology. The facility of ancient man to create fiction out of whole cloth has never been shown to be anything but limited, while the proclivity to create legend from true events was broadly exercised. Homer's Iliad was long dismissed as a work of pure fiction, but we now know that Troy was a real place; most historians accept that the participants of the war so lavishly detailed by Homer may have been a part of history as well as tradition. It seems a great deal more likely that the Biblical accounts are not mere fiction and fantasy, but have some basis in fact, however much that history, retold and rewritten over a period of many hundreds of years, has been misunderstood by later generations, embroidered, conflated, confused, as well as refashioned to suit the needs of nationalistic propaganda and to conform to accepted tradition and religious doctrine. An example of the way in which even modern, sophisticated people such as ourselves distort the record and recast historical figures is the Hollywood period or costume movie, in which egregious anachronisms and blatant inaccuracies often abound. Sometimes these are the result of careless scholarship, sometimes there is an "agenda," sometimes there is an intent to make heroes and villains for motives dramatic, ideological, or nationalistic, often there is merely the desire to relate a better story.
5. We have the first proclamation of Jehovah's pledge to make Abraham the father of a great nation, the patriarch of numberless descendants, and the possessor of a vast land. These promises will be repeated to the point of annoying redundancy. To the Jewish people, who, at the time of the Old Testament's compilation, were in bondage in Mesopotamia, nothing was more important that securing the legitimacy of their homeland, a God-given title to the land that had been taken from them, but which they were determined to reclaim.
6. Bethel lies to the north of Jerusalem by about 12 miles. Hebron lies in the south portion of what is now the Left Bank, less than twenty miles south of Jerusalem.
7. Abraham's behavior on his family's arrival in Egypt is worthy of examination. He is fearful that the Egyptians will lust after Sarah (initially Sarai) his good-looking wife and will aspire to possess her. He is not concerned about her honor and well being, but only about his own safety. He fears that if it becomes known that he is her husband, he might be killed because of it. So he claims to be only her brother instead. (Later it is revealed that Sarah is his half-sister. It seems odd, though, that in those times a brother would not be expected to defend his sister's virtue as much as a husband would.) Here is a man of some stature, property, and, one would assume, power, even in a foreign land, and yet he is unwilling to protect and defend his wife, the most basic responsibility of a man in any society. It is hard to see Abraham as anything but a weak and dishonorable husband -- a gutless wimp! When the Pharaoh claims her as a wife, or is it concubine?, he does not protest. Instead he allows the Pharaoh to enrich him with lavish gifts. Abraham is now not only a wimp, but a pimp, for he pretty much sells his wife to the Pharaoh. The Pharaoh, though, is an honorable and forgiving man, and upon learning the truth releases Sarah and assists Abraham in emigrating from Egypt with all his loot.
8. Among the gifts Pharaoh gave to Abraham were camels. The reference is very telling. Camels, though known to the ancient Egyptians as wild animals of the desert, were not domesticated by them even in late Pharaonic history. Very few are the references to camels in Ancient Egyptian writings or depictions of them in art. The native camel, the one-humped dromedary, was herded and ridden only at a much later date. The Persians, when they conquered Egypt in the 6th Century, introduced the two-humped Bactrian camel of Central Asia, and by Roman times these were a common beast of burden on desert caravans. The anachronistic inclusion of the camel is one of many signs that the writers of Genesis had little understanding of social conditions in the previous millennium when early Jewish history took place. Just as they imposed upon their ancestors the mores and mindset of their own time, they also assumed that their society was no different from that which they knew. A real sense of history, an awareness of changing life and times, is probably only something known to people during the past couple hundred years.
9. The Pharaoh is cursed by Jehovah for unwittingly taking the married Sarah as a wife. How could it have been his fault and not the fault of the craven Abraham who lied to him and perpetrated a fraud? Jehovah continues the pattern of behavior of punishing those who are blameless or who have committed an infraction or incurred his displeasure only out of ignorance.
10. One wonders how the Pharaoh finally found out that Sarah was Abraham's wife. Did he muse, "I'm having bad luck lately, maybe I'm being cursed because one of the women in my harem is already married"? Who knows: Genesis omits that part of the story.
11. Implicit in the cursing of the Pharaoh (perhaps a foreshadowing of what will come in Exodus) is the exercise of what might be called tribalistic morality (which, unfortunately, we still see a great deal of even today). In it, my tribe is always favored, my people can do no wrong, our side is always right, we define what is good, when something bad happens guilt, shame, and opprobrium must always lie elsewhere -- an entirely subjective view of right and wrong.
12. In his inevitable dispute with Lot over land, Abraham is portrayed again as a man who seeks to avoid conflict and confrontation. Unlike the situation in Egypt when his actions were cowardly and dishonest, he is here admirably conciliatory and sensible.
This is the genealogical history of Shem: When Shem was a 100 years old, two years after the flood, he became the father of Arphaxad. He lived 500 more years and fathered other sons and daughters.
Arphaxad was 35 years old when he fathered Salah. He lived 403 more years, and had other sons and daughters.
Salah was 30 when he became the father of Eber. He lived 403 more years and had other sons and daughters.
Eber was 34 when he fathered Peleg. He lived 430 more years and had other sons and daughters.
Peleg was 30 when he fathered Reu. He lived 209 more years had other sons and daughters.
Reu was 32 when he fathered Serug. He lived 207 more years and had other sons and daughters.
Serug was 30 when he fathered Nahor. He lived 200 more years and had other sons and daughters.
Nahor was 29 when he fathered Terah. He lived 119 more years and had other sons and daughters.
By the time he was 70 years old Terah had fathered sons Abram, Nahor, and Haran, who was the father of Lot. Haran predeceased his father Terah, dying in the country of his birth, Ur in the land of Chaldea [in southern Mesopotamia].
Both Abram and Nahor were married. Abram's wife was named Sarai and Nahor was married to his niece Milcah, the daughter of Haran and sister of Iscah. (Sarai was childless and unable to bear children.)
Terah, accompanied by his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai, and his grandson Lot, set out from Ur to travel to Canaan but upon reaching Haran, settled there. This is where Terah died at the age of 205. It was then that Jehovah communicated with Abram and told him "Leave your country, your family, and your home and go to a land that I will show you. I will make you famous and the father of a great nation. I will bless you and bless those who bless you, curse those who curse you and because of you the world will be blessed!" And so at the age of 75, Abram, following Jehovah's instructions, departed Haran with his wife Sarai and nephew Lot. With Sarai and Lot, with his household and followers, and with all the possessions he had acquired in Haran, Abram journeyed to Canaan. He traveled through Sichem and the forests of Moreh, which was inhabited by the Canaanites. Jehovah then appeared to Abram and told him "This land I bequeath to your posterity!” At the place where Abram had seen Jehovah, he built an altar to him. He then departed and traveled to a mountain to the east of Bethel. He made his camp there, with Bethel to his west and Hai to the east. He established another altar and called out to Jehovah. Abram continued traveling, now to southern Canaan. But there was a severe famine in that region, so he continued south into Egypt to settle there.
Before they entered Egypt, Abram told his wife Sarai "I know you are a good-looking woman. I'm afraid that when the Egyptians see you and find out that I'm your husband they will do away with me in order to possess you. It might be better for us if I say you are only my sister; it may save my life."
And so it happened that when they entered Egypt the Egyptians did take note of Sarai's beauty. Even the princes of the Pharaoh, when seeing her, commended her to the Pharaoh. The Pharaoh thus had her taken into his harem. Because of her, Abram found favor with the Pharaoh, who enriched him with servants, oxen, sheep, donkeys, and camels.
Because of Sarai, Jehovah put a curse on the Pharaoh and inflicted great misfortune on his house. The Pharaoh summoned Abram and questioned him "What is this that you have done to me? Why didn't you tell me Sarai was your wife? Why did you claim she was your sister instead, allowing me to take her as my wife? --- Well, here's your wife. Take her and be gone!"
The Pharaoh instructed his men to assist Abram in his departure from Egypt. Accompanied by his wife Sarai and Lot, Abram emigrated with all his possessions -- he was very wealthy with livestock, silver, and gold -- and journeyed through southern Canaan back to Bethel, the place where he had earlier pitched his tent between Bethel and Hai -- it was there he had built an altar and had called out to Jehovah.
Lot also had a great many tents, large flocks and herds so that when they both settled there the land was insufficient for both their needs. (Since their holdings were so great, they really could not live in one place together.) Disputes arose between the herdsmen of Lot's cattle and those of Abram. Moreover, the Canaanites and Perizzites were already living there.
Abram said to Lot "Let there not be strife between you and me, I pray, or between our herdsmen, for we are family. There is plenty of land for both of us. Therefore, let us go our separate ways. If you take the right path, I will take the left. If you take the left path, I will take the right."
Lot surveyed the Jordan valley and saw that as far as Zoar it was well irrigated and as fertile as Eden or Egypt (for this was before Jehovah destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah). Lot chose for himself the plain of Jordan and departing from Abram, he journeyed East. Abram, meanwhile, settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot dwelled among the cities of the plain, near Sodom. (The inhabitants of Sodom were displeasing to Jehovah, owing to their wickedness and immoral behavior.)
After Lot had departed, Jehovah spoke to Abram "Look abroad from where you now stand, to the north, south, west, and east. All that you can see I bestow upon you and upon your descendants forever. I will make your progeny as numerous as grains of dust and it will be counted only as the grains of dust can be counted. Travel through the length and breadth of the land, for I have given it to you."
Abram then packed up his tents and moved to live amid the oak forests of Mamre outside of Hebron. It was there he built an altar to Jehovah.
Notes
1. The shrinking of the human life span ordained by Jehovah after the Flood was apparently worked in gradually. Longevity decreases with each generation removed from the Flood and men are beginning to have children at normal age, in their thirties. Still, Abraham has an abnormally long life span.
2. A reading of the King James Version places the birth of Abraham (initially Abram) at 1948 years after Creation. However, the Septuagint somehow places the date at 3312. In the Jewish Torah, Abraham's birth is deemed to have occurred 2247 years after Creation. Dating Abraham's birth to a time B.C. has also been problematic. Jewish tradition usually assigns the dates 1812-1637 B.C. for Abraham's life, while Archbishop Ussher's calculations produce the years 1976-1801 B.C.
3. Abraham came from Ur (of the Chaldees or Chaldea) in southern Mesopotamia. The reference to Chaldeans is highly anachronistic. The people referred to as the Chaldeans did not exist for another 1200 years. But the writers of Genesis would not have known that. (Ur of Sumer or Sumeria would be more accurate.) There are many subsequent instances of references to countries and peoples that would not exist for many hundreds of years later than the time depicted in the account.
4. It must be mentioned at this point that most scholars and researchers have little confidence in the reality of Abraham and of most of the individuals cited in the Biblical accounts of early Jewish history. The consensus regards these as mythical figures. However, there is an argument to be made that the accounts of Abraham and the other Biblical patriarchs could have been based on real individuals or on composites of real individuals, not always accurately placed in place, time, or chronology. The facility of ancient man to create fiction out of whole cloth has never been shown to be anything but limited, while the proclivity to create legend from true events was broadly exercised. Homer's Iliad was long dismissed as a work of pure fiction, but we now know that Troy was a real place; most historians accept that the participants of the war so lavishly detailed by Homer may have been a part of history as well as tradition. It seems a great deal more likely that the Biblical accounts are not mere fiction and fantasy, but have some basis in fact, however much that history, retold and rewritten over a period of many hundreds of years, has been misunderstood by later generations, embroidered, conflated, confused, as well as refashioned to suit the needs of nationalistic propaganda and to conform to accepted tradition and religious doctrine. An example of the way in which even modern, sophisticated people such as ourselves distort the record and recast historical figures is the Hollywood period or costume movie, in which egregious anachronisms and blatant inaccuracies often abound. Sometimes these are the result of careless scholarship, sometimes there is an "agenda," sometimes there is an intent to make heroes and villains for motives dramatic, ideological, or nationalistic, often there is merely the desire to relate a better story.
5. We have the first proclamation of Jehovah's pledge to make Abraham the father of a great nation, the patriarch of numberless descendants, and the possessor of a vast land. These promises will be repeated to the point of annoying redundancy. To the Jewish people, who, at the time of the Old Testament's compilation, were in bondage in Mesopotamia, nothing was more important that securing the legitimacy of their homeland, a God-given title to the land that had been taken from them, but which they were determined to reclaim.
6. Bethel lies to the north of Jerusalem by about 12 miles. Hebron lies in the south portion of what is now the Left Bank, less than twenty miles south of Jerusalem.
7. Abraham's behavior on his family's arrival in Egypt is worthy of examination. He is fearful that the Egyptians will lust after Sarah (initially Sarai) his good-looking wife and will aspire to possess her. He is not concerned about her honor and well being, but only about his own safety. He fears that if it becomes known that he is her husband, he might be killed because of it. So he claims to be only her brother instead. (Later it is revealed that Sarah is his half-sister. It seems odd, though, that in those times a brother would not be expected to defend his sister's virtue as much as a husband would.) Here is a man of some stature, property, and, one would assume, power, even in a foreign land, and yet he is unwilling to protect and defend his wife, the most basic responsibility of a man in any society. It is hard to see Abraham as anything but a weak and dishonorable husband -- a gutless wimp! When the Pharaoh claims her as a wife, or is it concubine?, he does not protest. Instead he allows the Pharaoh to enrich him with lavish gifts. Abraham is now not only a wimp, but a pimp, for he pretty much sells his wife to the Pharaoh. The Pharaoh, though, is an honorable and forgiving man, and upon learning the truth releases Sarah and assists Abraham in emigrating from Egypt with all his loot.
8. Among the gifts Pharaoh gave to Abraham were camels. The reference is very telling. Camels, though known to the ancient Egyptians as wild animals of the desert, were not domesticated by them even in late Pharaonic history. Very few are the references to camels in Ancient Egyptian writings or depictions of them in art. The native camel, the one-humped dromedary, was herded and ridden only at a much later date. The Persians, when they conquered Egypt in the 6th Century, introduced the two-humped Bactrian camel of Central Asia, and by Roman times these were a common beast of burden on desert caravans. The anachronistic inclusion of the camel is one of many signs that the writers of Genesis had little understanding of social conditions in the previous millennium when early Jewish history took place. Just as they imposed upon their ancestors the mores and mindset of their own time, they also assumed that their society was no different from that which they knew. A real sense of history, an awareness of changing life and times, is probably only something known to people during the past couple hundred years.
9. The Pharaoh is cursed by Jehovah for unwittingly taking the married Sarah as a wife. How could it have been his fault and not the fault of the craven Abraham who lied to him and perpetrated a fraud? Jehovah continues the pattern of behavior of punishing those who are blameless or who have committed an infraction or incurred his displeasure only out of ignorance.
10. One wonders how the Pharaoh finally found out that Sarah was Abraham's wife. Did he muse, "I'm having bad luck lately, maybe I'm being cursed because one of the women in my harem is already married"? Who knows: Genesis omits that part of the story.
11. Implicit in the cursing of the Pharaoh (perhaps a foreshadowing of what will come in Exodus) is the exercise of what might be called tribalistic morality (which, unfortunately, we still see a great deal of even today). In it, my tribe is always favored, my people can do no wrong, our side is always right, we define what is good, when something bad happens guilt, shame, and opprobrium must always lie elsewhere -- an entirely subjective view of right and wrong.
12. In his inevitable dispute with Lot over land, Abraham is portrayed again as a man who seeks to avoid conflict and confrontation. Unlike the situation in Egypt when his actions were cowardly and dishonest, he is here admirably conciliatory and sensible.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
The Babel Narrative
(Genesis 10:1 - 11:9)
This is the genealogy of Noah's sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and the sons born to them after the flood.
The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meschech, and Tiras. The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. The lands across the sea that were peopled by unbelievers were divided among the descendants of these, each with a distinct language and ethnicity.
The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan, The sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabtechah. The sons of Raamah were Sheba and Dedan. Cush also fathered Nimrod, who became one of the world's great rulers. He was a hunter of great prowess, so much so that his name became a byword. Initially, his kingdom comprised Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar. It was from out of that country that came Asshur came. It was he who founded Nineveh, the city of Rehoboth, and Calah, and the metropolis of Resen, which lies between Nineveh and Calah. Mizraim fathered Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, Pathrusim, Casluhim (who was the father of Philistim), and Capthtorim. Canaan fathered Sidon, his oldest son and Heth and was the patriarch of the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgasites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, the Hamathites. Afterwards these Canaanite tribes were dispersed. The borders of Canaan's land were from Sidon to Gerara as far as Gaza, until one reaches Sodom, Gomorrah, and Adama, and to Seboim as far as Lesa. Thus are the descendants of Ham, comprising distinct tribes, countries, ethnicities, and languages.
Shem, the patriarch of the tribes of Eber and the brother of the older Japtheth, sired children as well. They are Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram. The children of Aram were Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. Arphaxad fathered Salah and Salah fathered Eber. To Eber were born two sons, Peleg, who lived during the time when the world was divided, and Joktan. Joktan fathered Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All of these were the sons of Joktan and their country was from Mesha to Sephar, a mountain in the east. These are the descendants of Shem comprising distinct tribes, countries, ethnicities, and languages.
These are the descendants of Noah's sons who originated the tribes and countries by which the world was divided after the flood. Then the entire world spoke a single language.
It happened that when these people journeyed from the east they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and it was there they settled. They conferred with each other and agreed "Let us make bricks and fire them well." (for they had brick instead of stone and slime for mortar.) "Let's build a city and a tower that will reach to the heavens, so we can make a name for ourselves before we become dispersed across the face of the earth."
Jehovah came back down to earth to view the city and the tower that the descendants of Adam were building. He observed [to his companions] "Look, they are one people and speak a single language. They have embarked upon this great project, there is nothing now to stop them from accomplishing anything they may aspire to. Let us, therefore, go down and confuse them by rendering them unable to understand each other's language." Jehovah then scattered the people into other lands and they abandoned construction of the city. (The name of that place was Babel, for that was where man's language was diversified and mankind was made to migrate across the world.)
Notes
1. Since the narrative claims the world was populated solely by the offspring of Noah, an attempt is made here to identify every people with a specific descendant, often linking the name of the descendant to the tribe or nation they founded. While it is possible that certain tribes and ethnic groups may have taken the name from that of their founder and patriarch, seldom is this found to really be the case. The Romans claimed to be descended from Romulus, but was he an historical or a mythical figure? The Huns were not descended from a Mr. Hun, nor were the Franks the progeny of some guy named Frank. Americans do not claim Amerigo Vespucci as an ancestor. Native Americans were called Indians because of a huge geographic error. It is possible, indeed not at all uncommon for a man to produce hundreds of thousands of descendants in the space of five hundred, even four hundred years, but the evolution of a familial tribe into a nation is usually a complex one; racial admixture, cultural assimilation, the fusion of ethnicities is the rule, rather than the exception, even in ancient times.
2. It is not surprising that there is no Noahic ancestor assigned as founder for many important peoples, the Chinese, Indians, Native Americans, Black Africans, Polynesians, Germans and so forth -- these being races with which the writers of Genesis were unacquainted. Indeed, the bulk of humanity is unaccounted for and orphaned!
3. The sons of Noah are always listed as Shem, Ham, and Japheth, with the assumption that Shem was the eldest. However, in the genealogical lists of this narrative, the order is reversed and Shem is noted to be younger that Japheth. Was the customary naming of Shem first due to his being the most important in the eyes of the Hebrews and not because he was the oldest?
4. The tribe of Noah, apparently all living together at this point travels west to Shinar, which is in central or southern Mesopotamia. They should have been traveling south, but this would place the original settlement of Noah's family east -- where? This seems to be in conflict with the assertion that Noah's boat came to rest in the mountains to the north of Mesopotamia.
5. The main impetus for the descendants of Noah in building a city was the desire to make a name for themselves. Make a name for themselves with whom? They were supposed to be the only inhabitants on the earth!
6. Jehovah, who does not seem to be omniscient, as God would be, seems to merely check on his creations from time to time, as would an extraterrestrial space traveler who is apprised of humankind's progress only when he makes a return visit. It is very possible that Jehovah, as an extraterrestrial human, could have had the life span of an earthling (or, more likely, the antediluvian life span of 900 years) and still appear on earth over a period of thousands of years, owing to time warps that could occur in the interstellar transit.
7. In itemizing the tribes descended from Noah, it is clearly stated that each had its own language and culture as if that were a natural occurrence, but the confusion of languages by Jehovah at Babel comes later in the narrative.
8. For a second time, Jehovah seems to confer with his compatriots, members of his own race, and decides, perhaps with their counsel, to scatter the community of men and to cause them to speak a multitude of languages so they won't be able to understand one another. This is a facile explanation for the mystery of the many languages on earth. While it is easy to see how one language can evolve into dialects and, eventually into separate languages, the origin of human language itself remains a mystery, and if one reads the modern theories put forth to explain it, one is quick to realize we are still clueless on the subject. Interestingly, in the Eden Creation Narrative there is no mention whatsoever of Adam's speech. (The snake, in fact is the first to be actually quoted in the account.) He and his wife were created and immediately begin to speak, apparently Jehovah's language, but there is no reference to Jehovah endowing man with language or teaching him to speak. There is only the reference to Adam devising names for all the animals that Jehovah showed him, but no suggestion that Adam invented language. There is no mention either, in the account, of how the tempter snake acquired spoken language, but apparently he spoke the same tongue, even if, one might drolly add, he spoke it with a forked tongue. What the first, Adamic language was has been the subject of much speculation. There was a discredited body of opinion that if a child were left on his own and not subjected to any human speech, it would naturally speak the ancestral human tongue learned in Eden. Not so. (Generally, children unexposed to speech never learn to speak at all on their own and may even have difficulty learning to do so when taught in later life.) Jehovah, who endowed Adam with speech, now decided put a new language into every man's head. Why, though, did he do this? Men were getting together, getting along, creating a community, building a city, accomplishing something worthwhile -- doing what one would think would find favor in the eyes of their creator. Was Jehovah, notoriously hard to please, jealous, fearful even, of man's achievements? Was building a city an act of unforgivable hubris in his eyes? Was the tower these primitives were building (with bricks, no less, not stone) really going to reach Heaven -- is Heaven so low? (The height possible with a brick structure would not be very impressive.) Did Jehovah simply take delight in messing with men's minds, goading and provoking his pets, his zoo specimens just to see what they would do? There is no rationale given for the confusion of languages, unless it was part of a plan to precipitate the migration necessary to settle the earth. Or Jehovah had a preference for a multicultural and multilingual world. Or was he just trying to make things tough on his creations --- for their own good?
This is the genealogy of Noah's sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and the sons born to them after the flood.
The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meschech, and Tiras. The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. The lands across the sea that were peopled by unbelievers were divided among the descendants of these, each with a distinct language and ethnicity.
The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan, The sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabtechah. The sons of Raamah were Sheba and Dedan. Cush also fathered Nimrod, who became one of the world's great rulers. He was a hunter of great prowess, so much so that his name became a byword. Initially, his kingdom comprised Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar. It was from out of that country that came Asshur came. It was he who founded Nineveh, the city of Rehoboth, and Calah, and the metropolis of Resen, which lies between Nineveh and Calah. Mizraim fathered Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, Pathrusim, Casluhim (who was the father of Philistim), and Capthtorim. Canaan fathered Sidon, his oldest son and Heth and was the patriarch of the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgasites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, the Hamathites. Afterwards these Canaanite tribes were dispersed. The borders of Canaan's land were from Sidon to Gerara as far as Gaza, until one reaches Sodom, Gomorrah, and Adama, and to Seboim as far as Lesa. Thus are the descendants of Ham, comprising distinct tribes, countries, ethnicities, and languages.
Shem, the patriarch of the tribes of Eber and the brother of the older Japtheth, sired children as well. They are Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram. The children of Aram were Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. Arphaxad fathered Salah and Salah fathered Eber. To Eber were born two sons, Peleg, who lived during the time when the world was divided, and Joktan. Joktan fathered Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All of these were the sons of Joktan and their country was from Mesha to Sephar, a mountain in the east. These are the descendants of Shem comprising distinct tribes, countries, ethnicities, and languages.
These are the descendants of Noah's sons who originated the tribes and countries by which the world was divided after the flood. Then the entire world spoke a single language.
It happened that when these people journeyed from the east they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and it was there they settled. They conferred with each other and agreed "Let us make bricks and fire them well." (for they had brick instead of stone and slime for mortar.) "Let's build a city and a tower that will reach to the heavens, so we can make a name for ourselves before we become dispersed across the face of the earth."
Jehovah came back down to earth to view the city and the tower that the descendants of Adam were building. He observed [to his companions] "Look, they are one people and speak a single language. They have embarked upon this great project, there is nothing now to stop them from accomplishing anything they may aspire to. Let us, therefore, go down and confuse them by rendering them unable to understand each other's language." Jehovah then scattered the people into other lands and they abandoned construction of the city. (The name of that place was Babel, for that was where man's language was diversified and mankind was made to migrate across the world.)
Notes
1. Since the narrative claims the world was populated solely by the offspring of Noah, an attempt is made here to identify every people with a specific descendant, often linking the name of the descendant to the tribe or nation they founded. While it is possible that certain tribes and ethnic groups may have taken the name from that of their founder and patriarch, seldom is this found to really be the case. The Romans claimed to be descended from Romulus, but was he an historical or a mythical figure? The Huns were not descended from a Mr. Hun, nor were the Franks the progeny of some guy named Frank. Americans do not claim Amerigo Vespucci as an ancestor. Native Americans were called Indians because of a huge geographic error. It is possible, indeed not at all uncommon for a man to produce hundreds of thousands of descendants in the space of five hundred, even four hundred years, but the evolution of a familial tribe into a nation is usually a complex one; racial admixture, cultural assimilation, the fusion of ethnicities is the rule, rather than the exception, even in ancient times.
2. It is not surprising that there is no Noahic ancestor assigned as founder for many important peoples, the Chinese, Indians, Native Americans, Black Africans, Polynesians, Germans and so forth -- these being races with which the writers of Genesis were unacquainted. Indeed, the bulk of humanity is unaccounted for and orphaned!
3. The sons of Noah are always listed as Shem, Ham, and Japheth, with the assumption that Shem was the eldest. However, in the genealogical lists of this narrative, the order is reversed and Shem is noted to be younger that Japheth. Was the customary naming of Shem first due to his being the most important in the eyes of the Hebrews and not because he was the oldest?
4. The tribe of Noah, apparently all living together at this point travels west to Shinar, which is in central or southern Mesopotamia. They should have been traveling south, but this would place the original settlement of Noah's family east -- where? This seems to be in conflict with the assertion that Noah's boat came to rest in the mountains to the north of Mesopotamia.
5. The main impetus for the descendants of Noah in building a city was the desire to make a name for themselves. Make a name for themselves with whom? They were supposed to be the only inhabitants on the earth!
6. Jehovah, who does not seem to be omniscient, as God would be, seems to merely check on his creations from time to time, as would an extraterrestrial space traveler who is apprised of humankind's progress only when he makes a return visit. It is very possible that Jehovah, as an extraterrestrial human, could have had the life span of an earthling (or, more likely, the antediluvian life span of 900 years) and still appear on earth over a period of thousands of years, owing to time warps that could occur in the interstellar transit.
7. In itemizing the tribes descended from Noah, it is clearly stated that each had its own language and culture as if that were a natural occurrence, but the confusion of languages by Jehovah at Babel comes later in the narrative.
8. For a second time, Jehovah seems to confer with his compatriots, members of his own race, and decides, perhaps with their counsel, to scatter the community of men and to cause them to speak a multitude of languages so they won't be able to understand one another. This is a facile explanation for the mystery of the many languages on earth. While it is easy to see how one language can evolve into dialects and, eventually into separate languages, the origin of human language itself remains a mystery, and if one reads the modern theories put forth to explain it, one is quick to realize we are still clueless on the subject. Interestingly, in the Eden Creation Narrative there is no mention whatsoever of Adam's speech. (The snake, in fact is the first to be actually quoted in the account.) He and his wife were created and immediately begin to speak, apparently Jehovah's language, but there is no reference to Jehovah endowing man with language or teaching him to speak. There is only the reference to Adam devising names for all the animals that Jehovah showed him, but no suggestion that Adam invented language. There is no mention either, in the account, of how the tempter snake acquired spoken language, but apparently he spoke the same tongue, even if, one might drolly add, he spoke it with a forked tongue. What the first, Adamic language was has been the subject of much speculation. There was a discredited body of opinion that if a child were left on his own and not subjected to any human speech, it would naturally speak the ancestral human tongue learned in Eden. Not so. (Generally, children unexposed to speech never learn to speak at all on their own and may even have difficulty learning to do so when taught in later life.) Jehovah, who endowed Adam with speech, now decided put a new language into every man's head. Why, though, did he do this? Men were getting together, getting along, creating a community, building a city, accomplishing something worthwhile -- doing what one would think would find favor in the eyes of their creator. Was Jehovah, notoriously hard to please, jealous, fearful even, of man's achievements? Was building a city an act of unforgivable hubris in his eyes? Was the tower these primitives were building (with bricks, no less, not stone) really going to reach Heaven -- is Heaven so low? (The height possible with a brick structure would not be very impressive.) Did Jehovah simply take delight in messing with men's minds, goading and provoking his pets, his zoo specimens just to see what they would do? There is no rationale given for the confusion of languages, unless it was part of a plan to precipitate the migration necessary to settle the earth. Or Jehovah had a preference for a multicultural and multilingual world. Or was he just trying to make things tough on his creations --- for their own good?
Friday, March 15, 2013
The Noahic Flood Narrative
(Genesis 6:9 - 11:9)
This is the history of Noah's time. Noah was a just and admirable man of his era. And he had communed with Jehovah. He had fathered three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
The world was becoming degenerate and filled with violence. Jehovah witnessed how all men were becoming depraved. He told Noah "the end of mankind is imminent, for the earth has been corrupted because of them. Therefore, I will destroy them with the earth. --- Construct a boat of planked cypress wood. Make small cabins in the boat and caulk the seams within and without with pitch. You should construct it to these specifications: it should be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. A porthole should be made and, a foot and a half above it, a roof covering the length of the boat. A hatch should be set in the side, and the craft should consist of three decks. --- I declare that I will bring a deluge to destroy every living thing under the heavens; all life on earth will be exterminated. But with you I will make an agreement. You shall find refuge in the boat along with your sons, your wife, and your son's wives. Of every living thing take two specimens, one male and one female, and bring them into the boat and keep them alive with you. A pair of every species of creature, birds, cattle, reptiles, and so forth shall be taken into the boat with you so that they will be spared. You must acquire a store of feed and victuals and stow them in the boat as provisions for the animals and for yourself."
Noah accomplished all the tasks that Jehovah commanded of him.
Jehovah announced to Noah. "Board the boat, you and your family, for in this decadent age, I have found you worthy. Of every pure creature, take seven pairs of males and females; of those that are not pure take only two pairs, male and female. Of birds take seven pairs. Thus their progeny will repopulate the world. Seven days from now and for forty days and forty nights I will make it rain upon the land so that everything that I have created will be wiped off the face of the earth."
Noah did all that he was commanded to do by Jehovah. (Noah was 600 years old when the flood waters deluged the earth.) Because of the flood, Noah entered the boat with his wife, his sons, and his son's wives. The animals, pure and impure, birds, reptiles, and all the living creatures came to Noah in pairs, male and female, and boarded the boat, just as Jehovah had commanded. And thus it occurred that after the passage of seven days flood waters inundated the earth. In the 600th year of Noah's life, in the 17th day of the 2nd month the seas swelled and the sky poured down rain. And it rained upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.
On the same day Noah, his wife, his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth and their wives boarded the boat and with them, in pairs, all the animals, livestock, birds, reptiles, and creatures of every sort that exist on the earth. Those that entered the boat, males and females of every species, did so as commanded by Jehovah, who, from the outside, shut them in. The deluge lasted forty days. The water level rose and lifted the boat high above the earth. The waters, in an immeasurable inundation, deluged the earth and Noah's boat was carried away by the flood currents. The water rose so high that it covered the mountains, its level being more than twenty feet above that of the highest point of land. All living things that inhabited the earth were destroyed -- the birds and livestock and animals and reptiles and men -- every thing that drew breath and existed upon the land perished. Only Noah and those in his boat survived. The flood waters remained upon the earth for 150 days.
Jehovah remembered Noah and all the living creatures and livestock that were with him in the boat. And so he stirred up a wind that blew across the earth, and the flood was abated. The springs beneath the oceans and the apertures in the sky dome were closed and the downpour of rain ceased. The flood water, rushing in every direction, spilled off the edges of the earth, and its level began to go down after 150 days. On the 27th day of the 7th month the boat of Noah ran aground on the mountains of Armenia. The water contained to drain off and its height decreased until, on the 1st day of the 10th month, the tops of the mountains appeared above the flood waters. After 40 days had passed Noah opened the porthole of his boat and out of it dispatched a raven. The raven made flights back and forth to the boat until the earth had dried up. Also, to see how much the waters had subsided, Noah sent out a pigeon. It, however, could not find a dry spot to land and returned to the boat, for the waters still covered the earth. Noah thus reached out his hand, caught the bird, and pulled it back into the boat. After 7 days he sent the pigeon back out of the boat, and when it returned in the evening, it had the twig of an olive tree, with green leaves, in its beak. Noah thus realized that that the earth was no longer covered with flood waters. He waited another 7 days and sent the pigeon out again, but it never came back to him.
Thus on the 1st day of the 1st month of Noah's 601st year the waters of the flood had receded; Noah removed the roof of his boat, reconnoitered, and observed that the surface of the earth was drying. By the 27th day of the 2nd month, the land had thoroughly dried out. Jehovah then communicated with Noah and bid him to disembark from the boat with his wife, his sons, and his daughter's sons and to bring out all the living things that were with him, the animals and birds and livestock and reptiles so that they could repopulate the earth, propagate, and multiply fruitfully. Noah did so. Noah constructed an altar to worship Jehovah and upon the altar he made as a sacrifice, burned carcasses of all the livestock and birds that were deemed pure.
Smelling the savory aroma of the roasting meat, Jehovah thought to himself "I won't curse the earth again because of man, for man's thoughts and inclinations are evil even from childhood. Nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have just done. The seasons and cycles of the earth, planting and harvest time, heat and cold, summer and winter, day and night, will not be interrupted again."
Jehovah blessed Noah and his sons and bid them to propagate and be prolific.
"Let all the animals, the birds in the sky, and all that moves upon the earth have fear of you. The fish of the sea, too, I deliver into your hands. As I had already set aside vegetation as food for you, so I now allow you to regard as food any living, moving thing. The exception is that you should not eat anything that is still alive. Because man is of my image, I will punish anyone who takes a life. I demand that if any animal kills a human being that animal must be killed. And I demand that if any man kills a human being he must as well be put to death. --- Propagate and be prolific and populate the earth!"
Jehovah addressed Noah and his sons "I will established a contract with you and with your descendants, with the living creatures that are with you, and with future generations, with the fish, the livestock, the animals, all the creatures that exited the boat, with every creature on earth, I make this promise: never again will I bring a flood to wipe out mankind and destroy the earth. As a sign of this contract with you, with the living creatures of earth, with future generations in perpetuity, I will project a rainbow in the sky. When the sky is filled with clouds, it will appear and when I see it I will remember my contract with you and with all living things, that I will no more destroy the earth with a deluge. And this will be the sign of the contract that I have made with the creatures of the earth."
The sons of Noah that emerged from the boat were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham is the father of Canaan.) These are the three sons of Noah whose progeny repopulated the earth.
Noah became a farmer and planted a vineyard. He imbibed of its wine, became drunk, and lay naked in his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside about it. Shem and Japheth took a cloak, put it on both of their shoulders and walked backward into the tent and covered their father's nakedness, which, with their eyes averted, they did not glimpse. Noah awoke from his drunken stupor and became aware of the offense his younger son had committed against him in seeing him naked. He pronounced "Cursed be Canaan; he will be a servant to the servants of his brothers. Blessed be Jehovah, the god of Shem. Let Canaan be a servant to Shem. Jehovah will make Japheth prosper; Japheth will dwell amid the tents of Shem, and Canaan will also be his servant."
Noah lived 350 years after the flood. He lived to be 950 years old and died.
Notes
1. Jehovah, disgusted with the behavior of the men he has created, decides to destroy mankind with the earth. Yet, when he does exterminate mankind (save for the eight souls in Noah's boat) it is with water, a flood produced by torrential rainfall and not by earthquakes or volcanoes.
2. Noah is judged a righteous man, the only man worth saving of the antediluvian race. (Apparently long life did not succeed in endowing man with wisdom or goodness.) Noah is shown to be obedient to Jehovah; he does exactly as he is told. Does this constitute righteousness in the eyes of the Biblical authors? Noah showed no concern for his fellow men who were about to be drowned and no sorrow for the destruction of the earth on which he had lived for 600 years. After the waters receded, he dutifully kills and burns a great number of the animals he saved from the flood. Later on, the old man gets drunk and carelessly allows his son to see him buck naked. After this happens, he curses his grandson, Canaan, who was blameless. A righteous man?
3. The size of the boat would have seemed sufficiently large to house all the animals that an ancient inhabitant of the Middle East would have been acquainted with. The story of Noah would thus would have seemed plausible to them, however ludicrous it is to us moderns. The world was then thought to be a much smaller place and its fauna far less plentiful and diverse. However, the difficulty of feeding and caring for the number of animals that could squeeze onto a three decked, 450-foot boat would have been insurmountable for just eight people -- ask a zookeeper. The authors, of course, gave no thought to the myriad animal species now on earth, but not indigenous to ancient Mesopotamia and Palestine -- elephants, tigers, hippos, bisons, kangaroos, polar bears, penguins, pandas, pythons, giraffes, grizzlies, gorillas, not to mention skunks. Nor was there consideration given to insect life. There are something like 30,000 species of beetles. Would Noah's family have welcomed them as shipmates?
4. In describing Noah's boat (usually referred to as ark, which simply means vessel and is not used today outside of Biblical references, which is the reason I have not employed it ), I have used standard nautical terminology - hatch, porthole, deck, etc. And, for clarity's sake, I have substituted feet for cubits in the measurements of the boat.
5. Jehovah first tells Noah to take two of every creature, a male and a female, and then, later on, he commands him to take seven pairs of "pure" creatures and seven pairs of birds, but only two pairs of the "impure" creatures. What a pure and an impure animal was would be established later in the laws set down by Moses. Jehovah seems a bit previous.
6. That rain, however torrential, could cause a deluge of such proportions is, of course, absurd. However, the belief that rainwater might be sufficient to raise water levels on earth to the mountain tops seems possible if you believe that the rain comes not from water on earth that has evaporated, but from an ocean in the sky above the celestial dome, which can open to release water in any quantity. There are references in the account that point clearly to rain water issuing forth from an opening in the celestial dome and bubbling up from springs or fountains beneath the sea. That such vast amounts of water could evaporate or soak into the earth in a matter of months, however, seems a stretch. However, since the ancients believed in a flat earth, they naturally assumed the flood waters would drain off the edges of the earth, as is indicated in my translation of what is usually rendered "the waters returned from off the earth coming and going" which, as it is, is not very understandable.
7. Jehovah's part in the story is interesting. He informs Noah of the flood, provides him with instructions on how to build a boat and what to put in it, he tells him when to board the boat, he personally encloses the boat, then later bids Noah when to come out of the boat. Jehovah did not furnish Noah with a boat, but commanded him build one. At the end of the flood, he makes the waters recede and remembers Noah as if it were something insignificant that he had forgotten about.
8. When Noah is on dry land and his family and the animals have all disembarked, the first thing he can think of is to thank Jehovah for sparing him. This is natural, but it seems incongruous that he would then kill, as a blood sacrifice to Jehovah, the very animals he had spent so much effort to save. While the practice of animal and even human sacrifice was a part of almost ancient and primitive religions, one wonders why the "gods" demand of humans an act that was wasteful, distasteful, and, to modern sensibilities, depraved. The probable purpose was to enforce obedience. From the gods' point of view, if you can force a man to destroy his most precious possessions at your behest, then you have him securely under your control. One wonders if Noah was really a righteous man and superior to the other inhabitants of earth, or he found favor merely because he kowtowed to Jehovah, while the rest of humanity shunned him.
9. While there is no convincing evidence of a universal flood, the Biblical flood account is not unique. Flood stories seem to be universal. Similar stories of a catastrophic flood appear in Greek mythology and there are Babylonian accounts almost identical to the one of Noah in Genesis. This strongly suggests the Flood, or at least a flood of epic proportions must have occurred in the Middle East at sometime in not-so-remote antiquity. Flooding due to the melting of glaciers and continental ice shelves during the end of the most recent Ice Age is unlikely to have given rise to Flood narratives, since that would have occurred over a period of many years. Nor can an unusual number of rainy days or really huge spring thaw account for a flood of such magnitude. Other explanations have been presented, a meteor crashing into the Persian Gulf, Mediterranean waters spilling through a formerly closed Bosphorus and creating the Black Sea, various kinds of cataclysmic earth changes, but no theory is entirely convincing. The final resting place of Noah's boat, on the mountains of Armenia (the ancient Urartu -- the mountain currently known as Mount Ararat is not specified), suggests a location for the flood. Noah's boat was unlikely to have drifted there all the way from southern Mesopotamia, the location of Eden and the ancestral home of the Hebrews. However, if Noah lived just north of eastern Anatolia, then it is plausible that currents could have caused his boat to float through the flooded valleys of that region to run aground on the mountainside. Of course, the report of the flood covering the peaks of mountains as high as 17,000 feet above sea level must be taken with a grain of salt.
10. Jehovah decides not to destroy the earth again, having resigned himself to the deficiencies and evil tendencies of human nature. But what brings him to this decision is not any regret for the loss of life, but rather his food preferences. Apparently a chap who likes a well-done steak, Jehovah is moved to this momentous determination by the delectable aroma of roasted carcasses. This is, at best, appallingly ungodlike!
11. After the flood, Jehovah, who formerly enforced a vegetarian diet, now allows man to eat anything, any kind of creature, even any kind of pig, provided it is not still alive. There is no mention yet of the dietary restrictions that would be so meticulously itemized in Leviticus. Also, Jehovah inaugurates the death penalty for murder, which he did not enforce in the earlier case of Cain.
12. For the second time, the first being in the shame that Adam and Eve feel in their nakedness, we are reminded of the prohibition against nudity. Exposure was considered a serious offense not only by the Hebrew, but the Babylonians as well. The moral outrage it here engenders seems extreme: not only revealing one's self unclothed, but having the indiscretion or misfortune to see another unclothed seems almost tantamount to murder and sufficient to doom one's self and one's progeny forever. The premise, apparently held by the Hebrews, that humans naturally feel shame in nudity is, however, demonstrably untrue, for such shame must be taught. While medieval and modern Judeo-Christian culture perpetuated the belief that nudity is concomitant with dissolution and conducive to moral depravity and decadence, (as well as being sensibly undesirable from an aesthetic and hygienic point of view) other ancient peoples evinced no such neurotic revulsion to nakedness. The Egyptians wore transparent clothes. The Greeks regularly paraded about nude without much embarrassment.
13. The incident of Ham and the naked Noah has been interpreted by some to be symbolic or allegorical. This is highly unlikely. The story is presented in a straight-forward manner and should be accepted at face value. And the contention of some that Ham had improper relations with his drunken father is in no way supported by the text and seems simply a latter-day fabrication to excuse Jehovah's severe treatment Canaan. (This isn't the first or last time that Jehovah brings down punishment upon the guiltless.) The incident, though, does seem a convenient invention to justify the curse. The Israelites would invade the country of the Canaanites and make war against them. If Canaan had been cursed by God, this would give the Israelites the moral high ground in their conflicts with them, as well as divine sanction for their expulsion from Palestine. Nationalistic propaganda already is seeping into the chronicle!
14. Methuselah, Noah's grandfather, was the only antediluvian man whom we are told of that alive at the time of the Flood, excepting, of course, Noah and his sons. Did he die before the Flood or did the Flood cut short his life (at 969 years?) Did Jehovah deem him insufficiently righteous to merit saving, did he know he was going to die before the flood came, or did he simply think that Methuselah was too old to bother with?
15. All estimations based on Genesis date the Flood to 2500-2300 B.C. (Sumerian and Egyptian civilization was well underway at this time.) Archbishop James Ussher, a profound Biblical scholar and the Primate of the Church of Ireland in the 17th Century, calculated that the Flood occurred in 2350 B.C. Using the historical sources available to him at the time, in addition to the Bible, he was able to place the date of Creation at 4004 B.C., four thousand round years before the birth of Jesus. It should be mentioned that the originator of the Anno Domino system was a 6th Century Scythian monk named Dionysius Exiguuus, or Dennis the Short. He pegged Jesus's birth as occurring exactly two thousand years before the end of astrological Age of Pisces, in what would be 2000 AD., the time at which he believed the world would end. He was wrong about the end of the world. And he botched figuring the date of Jesus's birth, since Herod the Great, the King of Judea, was still alive at the time of the Nativity and is known to have died in what would be 4 B.C. Ussher and nearly all those who came after decided that 4 B.C. was the probable date of the Christ's birth. Thus the 4004 B.C. in Ussher's calculations, which, despite the impressive scholarship that went into them, seem a bit too pat. Ussher's calculations, however, do not differ by more than a few years from those of others, including Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton, both scientists, but religious men with keen interest in the Bible.
This is the history of Noah's time. Noah was a just and admirable man of his era. And he had communed with Jehovah. He had fathered three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
The world was becoming degenerate and filled with violence. Jehovah witnessed how all men were becoming depraved. He told Noah "the end of mankind is imminent, for the earth has been corrupted because of them. Therefore, I will destroy them with the earth. --- Construct a boat of planked cypress wood. Make small cabins in the boat and caulk the seams within and without with pitch. You should construct it to these specifications: it should be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. A porthole should be made and, a foot and a half above it, a roof covering the length of the boat. A hatch should be set in the side, and the craft should consist of three decks. --- I declare that I will bring a deluge to destroy every living thing under the heavens; all life on earth will be exterminated. But with you I will make an agreement. You shall find refuge in the boat along with your sons, your wife, and your son's wives. Of every living thing take two specimens, one male and one female, and bring them into the boat and keep them alive with you. A pair of every species of creature, birds, cattle, reptiles, and so forth shall be taken into the boat with you so that they will be spared. You must acquire a store of feed and victuals and stow them in the boat as provisions for the animals and for yourself."
Noah accomplished all the tasks that Jehovah commanded of him.
Jehovah announced to Noah. "Board the boat, you and your family, for in this decadent age, I have found you worthy. Of every pure creature, take seven pairs of males and females; of those that are not pure take only two pairs, male and female. Of birds take seven pairs. Thus their progeny will repopulate the world. Seven days from now and for forty days and forty nights I will make it rain upon the land so that everything that I have created will be wiped off the face of the earth."
Noah did all that he was commanded to do by Jehovah. (Noah was 600 years old when the flood waters deluged the earth.) Because of the flood, Noah entered the boat with his wife, his sons, and his son's wives. The animals, pure and impure, birds, reptiles, and all the living creatures came to Noah in pairs, male and female, and boarded the boat, just as Jehovah had commanded. And thus it occurred that after the passage of seven days flood waters inundated the earth. In the 600th year of Noah's life, in the 17th day of the 2nd month the seas swelled and the sky poured down rain. And it rained upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.
On the same day Noah, his wife, his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth and their wives boarded the boat and with them, in pairs, all the animals, livestock, birds, reptiles, and creatures of every sort that exist on the earth. Those that entered the boat, males and females of every species, did so as commanded by Jehovah, who, from the outside, shut them in. The deluge lasted forty days. The water level rose and lifted the boat high above the earth. The waters, in an immeasurable inundation, deluged the earth and Noah's boat was carried away by the flood currents. The water rose so high that it covered the mountains, its level being more than twenty feet above that of the highest point of land. All living things that inhabited the earth were destroyed -- the birds and livestock and animals and reptiles and men -- every thing that drew breath and existed upon the land perished. Only Noah and those in his boat survived. The flood waters remained upon the earth for 150 days.
Jehovah remembered Noah and all the living creatures and livestock that were with him in the boat. And so he stirred up a wind that blew across the earth, and the flood was abated. The springs beneath the oceans and the apertures in the sky dome were closed and the downpour of rain ceased. The flood water, rushing in every direction, spilled off the edges of the earth, and its level began to go down after 150 days. On the 27th day of the 7th month the boat of Noah ran aground on the mountains of Armenia. The water contained to drain off and its height decreased until, on the 1st day of the 10th month, the tops of the mountains appeared above the flood waters. After 40 days had passed Noah opened the porthole of his boat and out of it dispatched a raven. The raven made flights back and forth to the boat until the earth had dried up. Also, to see how much the waters had subsided, Noah sent out a pigeon. It, however, could not find a dry spot to land and returned to the boat, for the waters still covered the earth. Noah thus reached out his hand, caught the bird, and pulled it back into the boat. After 7 days he sent the pigeon back out of the boat, and when it returned in the evening, it had the twig of an olive tree, with green leaves, in its beak. Noah thus realized that that the earth was no longer covered with flood waters. He waited another 7 days and sent the pigeon out again, but it never came back to him.
Thus on the 1st day of the 1st month of Noah's 601st year the waters of the flood had receded; Noah removed the roof of his boat, reconnoitered, and observed that the surface of the earth was drying. By the 27th day of the 2nd month, the land had thoroughly dried out. Jehovah then communicated with Noah and bid him to disembark from the boat with his wife, his sons, and his daughter's sons and to bring out all the living things that were with him, the animals and birds and livestock and reptiles so that they could repopulate the earth, propagate, and multiply fruitfully. Noah did so. Noah constructed an altar to worship Jehovah and upon the altar he made as a sacrifice, burned carcasses of all the livestock and birds that were deemed pure.
Smelling the savory aroma of the roasting meat, Jehovah thought to himself "I won't curse the earth again because of man, for man's thoughts and inclinations are evil even from childhood. Nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have just done. The seasons and cycles of the earth, planting and harvest time, heat and cold, summer and winter, day and night, will not be interrupted again."
Jehovah blessed Noah and his sons and bid them to propagate and be prolific.
"Let all the animals, the birds in the sky, and all that moves upon the earth have fear of you. The fish of the sea, too, I deliver into your hands. As I had already set aside vegetation as food for you, so I now allow you to regard as food any living, moving thing. The exception is that you should not eat anything that is still alive. Because man is of my image, I will punish anyone who takes a life. I demand that if any animal kills a human being that animal must be killed. And I demand that if any man kills a human being he must as well be put to death. --- Propagate and be prolific and populate the earth!"
Jehovah addressed Noah and his sons "I will established a contract with you and with your descendants, with the living creatures that are with you, and with future generations, with the fish, the livestock, the animals, all the creatures that exited the boat, with every creature on earth, I make this promise: never again will I bring a flood to wipe out mankind and destroy the earth. As a sign of this contract with you, with the living creatures of earth, with future generations in perpetuity, I will project a rainbow in the sky. When the sky is filled with clouds, it will appear and when I see it I will remember my contract with you and with all living things, that I will no more destroy the earth with a deluge. And this will be the sign of the contract that I have made with the creatures of the earth."
The sons of Noah that emerged from the boat were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham is the father of Canaan.) These are the three sons of Noah whose progeny repopulated the earth.
Noah became a farmer and planted a vineyard. He imbibed of its wine, became drunk, and lay naked in his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside about it. Shem and Japheth took a cloak, put it on both of their shoulders and walked backward into the tent and covered their father's nakedness, which, with their eyes averted, they did not glimpse. Noah awoke from his drunken stupor and became aware of the offense his younger son had committed against him in seeing him naked. He pronounced "Cursed be Canaan; he will be a servant to the servants of his brothers. Blessed be Jehovah, the god of Shem. Let Canaan be a servant to Shem. Jehovah will make Japheth prosper; Japheth will dwell amid the tents of Shem, and Canaan will also be his servant."
Noah lived 350 years after the flood. He lived to be 950 years old and died.
Notes
1. Jehovah, disgusted with the behavior of the men he has created, decides to destroy mankind with the earth. Yet, when he does exterminate mankind (save for the eight souls in Noah's boat) it is with water, a flood produced by torrential rainfall and not by earthquakes or volcanoes.
2. Noah is judged a righteous man, the only man worth saving of the antediluvian race. (Apparently long life did not succeed in endowing man with wisdom or goodness.) Noah is shown to be obedient to Jehovah; he does exactly as he is told. Does this constitute righteousness in the eyes of the Biblical authors? Noah showed no concern for his fellow men who were about to be drowned and no sorrow for the destruction of the earth on which he had lived for 600 years. After the waters receded, he dutifully kills and burns a great number of the animals he saved from the flood. Later on, the old man gets drunk and carelessly allows his son to see him buck naked. After this happens, he curses his grandson, Canaan, who was blameless. A righteous man?
3. The size of the boat would have seemed sufficiently large to house all the animals that an ancient inhabitant of the Middle East would have been acquainted with. The story of Noah would thus would have seemed plausible to them, however ludicrous it is to us moderns. The world was then thought to be a much smaller place and its fauna far less plentiful and diverse. However, the difficulty of feeding and caring for the number of animals that could squeeze onto a three decked, 450-foot boat would have been insurmountable for just eight people -- ask a zookeeper. The authors, of course, gave no thought to the myriad animal species now on earth, but not indigenous to ancient Mesopotamia and Palestine -- elephants, tigers, hippos, bisons, kangaroos, polar bears, penguins, pandas, pythons, giraffes, grizzlies, gorillas, not to mention skunks. Nor was there consideration given to insect life. There are something like 30,000 species of beetles. Would Noah's family have welcomed them as shipmates?
4. In describing Noah's boat (usually referred to as ark, which simply means vessel and is not used today outside of Biblical references, which is the reason I have not employed it ), I have used standard nautical terminology - hatch, porthole, deck, etc. And, for clarity's sake, I have substituted feet for cubits in the measurements of the boat.
5. Jehovah first tells Noah to take two of every creature, a male and a female, and then, later on, he commands him to take seven pairs of "pure" creatures and seven pairs of birds, but only two pairs of the "impure" creatures. What a pure and an impure animal was would be established later in the laws set down by Moses. Jehovah seems a bit previous.
6. That rain, however torrential, could cause a deluge of such proportions is, of course, absurd. However, the belief that rainwater might be sufficient to raise water levels on earth to the mountain tops seems possible if you believe that the rain comes not from water on earth that has evaporated, but from an ocean in the sky above the celestial dome, which can open to release water in any quantity. There are references in the account that point clearly to rain water issuing forth from an opening in the celestial dome and bubbling up from springs or fountains beneath the sea. That such vast amounts of water could evaporate or soak into the earth in a matter of months, however, seems a stretch. However, since the ancients believed in a flat earth, they naturally assumed the flood waters would drain off the edges of the earth, as is indicated in my translation of what is usually rendered "the waters returned from off the earth coming and going" which, as it is, is not very understandable.
7. Jehovah's part in the story is interesting. He informs Noah of the flood, provides him with instructions on how to build a boat and what to put in it, he tells him when to board the boat, he personally encloses the boat, then later bids Noah when to come out of the boat. Jehovah did not furnish Noah with a boat, but commanded him build one. At the end of the flood, he makes the waters recede and remembers Noah as if it were something insignificant that he had forgotten about.
8. When Noah is on dry land and his family and the animals have all disembarked, the first thing he can think of is to thank Jehovah for sparing him. This is natural, but it seems incongruous that he would then kill, as a blood sacrifice to Jehovah, the very animals he had spent so much effort to save. While the practice of animal and even human sacrifice was a part of almost ancient and primitive religions, one wonders why the "gods" demand of humans an act that was wasteful, distasteful, and, to modern sensibilities, depraved. The probable purpose was to enforce obedience. From the gods' point of view, if you can force a man to destroy his most precious possessions at your behest, then you have him securely under your control. One wonders if Noah was really a righteous man and superior to the other inhabitants of earth, or he found favor merely because he kowtowed to Jehovah, while the rest of humanity shunned him.
9. While there is no convincing evidence of a universal flood, the Biblical flood account is not unique. Flood stories seem to be universal. Similar stories of a catastrophic flood appear in Greek mythology and there are Babylonian accounts almost identical to the one of Noah in Genesis. This strongly suggests the Flood, or at least a flood of epic proportions must have occurred in the Middle East at sometime in not-so-remote antiquity. Flooding due to the melting of glaciers and continental ice shelves during the end of the most recent Ice Age is unlikely to have given rise to Flood narratives, since that would have occurred over a period of many years. Nor can an unusual number of rainy days or really huge spring thaw account for a flood of such magnitude. Other explanations have been presented, a meteor crashing into the Persian Gulf, Mediterranean waters spilling through a formerly closed Bosphorus and creating the Black Sea, various kinds of cataclysmic earth changes, but no theory is entirely convincing. The final resting place of Noah's boat, on the mountains of Armenia (the ancient Urartu -- the mountain currently known as Mount Ararat is not specified), suggests a location for the flood. Noah's boat was unlikely to have drifted there all the way from southern Mesopotamia, the location of Eden and the ancestral home of the Hebrews. However, if Noah lived just north of eastern Anatolia, then it is plausible that currents could have caused his boat to float through the flooded valleys of that region to run aground on the mountainside. Of course, the report of the flood covering the peaks of mountains as high as 17,000 feet above sea level must be taken with a grain of salt.
10. Jehovah decides not to destroy the earth again, having resigned himself to the deficiencies and evil tendencies of human nature. But what brings him to this decision is not any regret for the loss of life, but rather his food preferences. Apparently a chap who likes a well-done steak, Jehovah is moved to this momentous determination by the delectable aroma of roasted carcasses. This is, at best, appallingly ungodlike!
11. After the flood, Jehovah, who formerly enforced a vegetarian diet, now allows man to eat anything, any kind of creature, even any kind of pig, provided it is not still alive. There is no mention yet of the dietary restrictions that would be so meticulously itemized in Leviticus. Also, Jehovah inaugurates the death penalty for murder, which he did not enforce in the earlier case of Cain.
12. For the second time, the first being in the shame that Adam and Eve feel in their nakedness, we are reminded of the prohibition against nudity. Exposure was considered a serious offense not only by the Hebrew, but the Babylonians as well. The moral outrage it here engenders seems extreme: not only revealing one's self unclothed, but having the indiscretion or misfortune to see another unclothed seems almost tantamount to murder and sufficient to doom one's self and one's progeny forever. The premise, apparently held by the Hebrews, that humans naturally feel shame in nudity is, however, demonstrably untrue, for such shame must be taught. While medieval and modern Judeo-Christian culture perpetuated the belief that nudity is concomitant with dissolution and conducive to moral depravity and decadence, (as well as being sensibly undesirable from an aesthetic and hygienic point of view) other ancient peoples evinced no such neurotic revulsion to nakedness. The Egyptians wore transparent clothes. The Greeks regularly paraded about nude without much embarrassment.
13. The incident of Ham and the naked Noah has been interpreted by some to be symbolic or allegorical. This is highly unlikely. The story is presented in a straight-forward manner and should be accepted at face value. And the contention of some that Ham had improper relations with his drunken father is in no way supported by the text and seems simply a latter-day fabrication to excuse Jehovah's severe treatment Canaan. (This isn't the first or last time that Jehovah brings down punishment upon the guiltless.) The incident, though, does seem a convenient invention to justify the curse. The Israelites would invade the country of the Canaanites and make war against them. If Canaan had been cursed by God, this would give the Israelites the moral high ground in their conflicts with them, as well as divine sanction for their expulsion from Palestine. Nationalistic propaganda already is seeping into the chronicle!
14. Methuselah, Noah's grandfather, was the only antediluvian man whom we are told of that alive at the time of the Flood, excepting, of course, Noah and his sons. Did he die before the Flood or did the Flood cut short his life (at 969 years?) Did Jehovah deem him insufficiently righteous to merit saving, did he know he was going to die before the flood came, or did he simply think that Methuselah was too old to bother with?
15. All estimations based on Genesis date the Flood to 2500-2300 B.C. (Sumerian and Egyptian civilization was well underway at this time.) Archbishop James Ussher, a profound Biblical scholar and the Primate of the Church of Ireland in the 17th Century, calculated that the Flood occurred in 2350 B.C. Using the historical sources available to him at the time, in addition to the Bible, he was able to place the date of Creation at 4004 B.C., four thousand round years before the birth of Jesus. It should be mentioned that the originator of the Anno Domino system was a 6th Century Scythian monk named Dionysius Exiguuus, or Dennis the Short. He pegged Jesus's birth as occurring exactly two thousand years before the end of astrological Age of Pisces, in what would be 2000 AD., the time at which he believed the world would end. He was wrong about the end of the world. And he botched figuring the date of Jesus's birth, since Herod the Great, the King of Judea, was still alive at the time of the Nativity and is known to have died in what would be 4 B.C. Ussher and nearly all those who came after decided that 4 B.C. was the probable date of the Christ's birth. Thus the 4004 B.C. in Ussher's calculations, which, despite the impressive scholarship that went into them, seem a bit too pat. Ussher's calculations, however, do not differ by more than a few years from those of others, including Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton, both scientists, but religious men with keen interest in the Bible.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Antediluvian Genealogy
(From Genesis 5:1 - 6:8)
This is a genealogical history of the descendants of Adam. When Jehovah created man, he made him in his own image. He created both male and female humans and blessed them. On the day in which they were created, he called them man.
At the age of 130 years Adam fathered a son called Seth, like his father in appearance and character. The years Adam lived after the birth of Seth were 800, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. At the age of 930 years, Adam died.
Seth lived to the age of 105 at which time he fathered Enos. He lived 807 more years, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. Seth lived to be 912 and died.
Enos lived to the age of 90 at which time he fathered Cainan. He lived 815 more years, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. Enos lived to be 905 and died.
Cainan lived to the age of 70 at which time he fathered Mahalaleel. He lived 840 more years, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. Cainan lived to be 910 and died.
Mahalaleel lived to the age of 65 at which time he fathered Jared. He lived 815 more years, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. Mahalalee lived to be 895 and died.
Jared lived to the age of 162, at which time he fathered Enoch. He lived 800 more years, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. Jared lived to be 962 and died.
Enoch lived to the age of 65 at which time he fathered Methuselah. Enoch communed with Jehovah. After he fathered Methusaleh, he lived for 300 years, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. Enoch spent 365 years on earth, after which he departed the planet with Jehovah and was seen no more.
Methuselah lived to the age of 187 at which time he fathered Lamech. He lived 782 more years, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. Methuselah lived to be 969 and died.
Lamech lived to the age of 182 at which time he fathered a son. He named him Noah and declared "here is the man who will bring us satisfaction for the work and the achievements that Jehovah has cursed." He lived 615 more years, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. Lamech lived to be 777 and died.
When Noah was 500 years old he fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
When humans had multiplied and spread across the face of the planet, daughters were born to them. Seeing these women, the males of Jehovah's race found them quite attractive and took as wives whatever women they chose.
Jehovah declared "My life force will not remain in humans forever, because they are merely mortal flesh. Henceforth their life span shall be only 120 years."
At that time (and also during later periods) there were supermen on earth, produced when the males of Jehovah's race mated with human women and offspring from the unions were born. These hybrid humans became illustrious men and legendary heroes.
Jehovah observed that the wickedness of the earth men was egregious and that their desires and ambitions were continually evil. It made him heart sore, and Jehovah came to regret that he had populated the world with humans.
Jehovah resolved "I will exterminate the race of men from the earth -- not only the men, but I will destroy all the living creatures on it, the animals, birds, reptiles, and insects, for I'm sorry I ever brought them into existence."
Nevertheless, Noah found favor with Jehovah.
Notes
1. Genealogical lists with precise ages is characteristic of mythic histories. Details, even superfluous ones, have always been used to enhance the credibility of a story. Tracing ancestry back to the first man, is hardly unique to the Hebrews. One is reminded of the 100 mythic kings of Ireland and also of fanciful ahnenafels of personages like Constantine the Great (his descent from Old King Cole back to the heroes of Troy, King David, and then to Adam). Histories of the early Middle Ages were rife with mythical genealogies presented as fact. Every people seems to trace its origin to legendary ancestors who may or may not have ever existed. This is true not only of ancient and primitive peoples, but of the tribes who invaded Europe during Roman times and laid the foundations of the nations of Europe during the Dark Ages. Even Pharamond, the first King of France, is conceded to be fictitious, and there is the genealogy of the fabulous Fisher Kings descended from Jesus.
2. The extreme longevity of pre-Flood man is part of the Golden Age mythology that exists in many cultures. It is amazing that no one seemed to die prematurely of disease or had their life cut short by an accident. While the pre-Flood world was rife with violence, it did not seem to affect the life spans of Seth's descendants, that is, none mentioned were murdered as Abel had been. An exception are the two belligerent fellows Lamech, Cain's great, great grandson, confessed killing, and these seem to an anomaly.
3. Enoch is singled out in the account as having direct contact with Jehovah. An impression is given that Jehovah is merely an occasional visitor, an extraterrestrial who voyages to planet earth once in a while to check up on his creations (and is none too pleased with his handiwork.) Enoch, a favorite of Jehovah, departed with him when Jehovah left the earth, perhaps in an interstellar conveyance, vehicular or otherwise. It is not farfetched to assume that Enoch, who never returned to earth, accompanied Jehovah to the place or planet of his origin.
4. There is a repeated exhortation by Jehovah for man to "be fruitful and multiply" and yet these antediluvian patriarchs seemed to take their time siring children, fathering their first sons at very advanced ages; one wonders what the age of puberty might have been in those days. Noah was five hundred years old before he became a father and then to only three sons. Noah did a poor job living up to his god’s command to be prolific.
5. A very interesting reference, often mistranslated and misunderstood, is the reference to men of the race of Jehovah, extraterrestrials, one would assume, who came down to earth and mated with the human women. (Jehovah, it clearly states, made the earth men genetically compatible with his own species.) Human beings have always acted this way: Western explorers and colonists were always willing and eager to have sex with native women, regardless of how primitive and inferior they deemed the native culture. In this case, the hybrid offspring, superior to humans, become heroic figures. There is a cryptic and intriguing allusion to this cross-mating occurring again at a later time, perhaps post-Flood. One is reminded of Greek mythology in which the mating of Olympian gods and mortal women produced heroes like Heracles (Hercules). Also relevant to understanding these passages is the traditional belief in many ancient societies that the kings are descended from the gods, even that this mixed race ancestry was necessary for royal legitimacy. Many versions interpret this as the mating of Seth’s progeny with that of the evil Cain. “Supermen” is commonly rendered “giants and construed to refer to debased monsters who are responsible for the iniquity of pre-Flood times. Yet in the text these so-called monsters are clearly called great and heroic men. In the fascinating, fanciful, but apocryphal Book of Enoch a more detailed story is told of group of 200 angels(?), extraterrestrials(?) who come down to earth and mate with beautiful human women. The offspring are horrendous, cannibalistic gargantuas hundreds of feet high. They wreak havoc and decimate the earth’s population of animals and men so that a flood is necessary to destroy them. An analogy with the Titans of Greek mythology is perhaps apt.
6. Jehovah suggests that the protracted life span of antediluvian man was due to some energy (I have translated it life force) derived from or produced by him and his race. This would not go on indefinitely, apparently because of some natural force that would deplete it. As a result human life span would henceforth be 120 years, which, even today, is about the limit for us even if very, very few reach it. (This is inserted, for no apparent reason, in the middle of the story about the human hybrids.)
7. Apparently a moment after Jehovah has reduced man's life span, he is now contemplating doing away with men altogether. He is then resolved to destroy all life on earth and by following through with his threat Jehovah becomes a mass murderer on the most epic scale imaginable. Not only does he kill the humans who have failed to live up to his expectations, but all the animals as well, even though none of them seem to have been guilty of any crime meriting their extinction. One wonders why Jehovah, if he merely wished to rid of human beings, wouldn't propagate some fatal disease to wipe them out, or else, if he were really God, to simply uncreate them. This is also one of several instances where Jehovah changes his mind and acknowledges he has made a mistake -- not the infallible God, it seems. (The Archie Bunker comment that "God doesn't make mistakes: that's how he got to be God," is perhaps not always operative.)
8. Here is a chronology of the births and deaths of the antediluvian patriarchs with year zero, being that in which Adam was created. These do not include the frankly more interesting descendants of Cain, for whom no ages are given. (Another interesting point: several of Seth's descendants, Lamech and Enoch have the same names as Cain's descendants. --- This early in human history and we've already run out of boy's names!) Ages or particulars about women are not given and only a few wives are mentioned; even Noah's wife, poor soul, is not mentioned by name. Woman were apparently not very important at this time, though in later Biblical chronicles they figure prominently in the history of the Hebrews and Israelites.
0 Adam is created
? Eve is created
? Cain and Abel are born
130 Seth is born, Abel murdered by Cain probably shortly before
235 Enos is born
325 Cainan is born
395 Mahalaleel is born
460 Jared is born
622 Enoch is born
687 Methuselah is born
874 Lamech is born
950 Adam dies
987 Enoch departs the earth with Jehovah
1056 Noah is born
1062 Seth dies
1160 Enos dies
1235 Cainan dies
1290 Mahalaleel dies
1422 Jared dies
1651 Lamech dies
1556 Shem, Ham, and Japheth are born
1656 Methuselah dies
1656 The Flood
1657 Post-Flood civilization begins
2006 Noah dies
These are based on ages given in the King James Version. It should be mentioned that the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament from the 2nd Century B.C., provides many different dates for the ages at which the first sons are born, with discrepancies of up to a hundred years. The age of Lamech at his death is also differently recorded. Perhaps using the Septuagint, Flavius Josephus, a 1st Century A.D. historian, dates the Flood at 1556 years after creation.
This is a genealogical history of the descendants of Adam. When Jehovah created man, he made him in his own image. He created both male and female humans and blessed them. On the day in which they were created, he called them man.
At the age of 130 years Adam fathered a son called Seth, like his father in appearance and character. The years Adam lived after the birth of Seth were 800, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. At the age of 930 years, Adam died.
Seth lived to the age of 105 at which time he fathered Enos. He lived 807 more years, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. Seth lived to be 912 and died.
Enos lived to the age of 90 at which time he fathered Cainan. He lived 815 more years, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. Enos lived to be 905 and died.
Cainan lived to the age of 70 at which time he fathered Mahalaleel. He lived 840 more years, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. Cainan lived to be 910 and died.
Mahalaleel lived to the age of 65 at which time he fathered Jared. He lived 815 more years, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. Mahalalee lived to be 895 and died.
Jared lived to the age of 162, at which time he fathered Enoch. He lived 800 more years, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. Jared lived to be 962 and died.
Enoch lived to the age of 65 at which time he fathered Methuselah. Enoch communed with Jehovah. After he fathered Methusaleh, he lived for 300 years, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. Enoch spent 365 years on earth, after which he departed the planet with Jehovah and was seen no more.
Methuselah lived to the age of 187 at which time he fathered Lamech. He lived 782 more years, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. Methuselah lived to be 969 and died.
Lamech lived to the age of 182 at which time he fathered a son. He named him Noah and declared "here is the man who will bring us satisfaction for the work and the achievements that Jehovah has cursed." He lived 615 more years, during which time he fathered other sons and daughters. Lamech lived to be 777 and died.
When Noah was 500 years old he fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
When humans had multiplied and spread across the face of the planet, daughters were born to them. Seeing these women, the males of Jehovah's race found them quite attractive and took as wives whatever women they chose.
Jehovah declared "My life force will not remain in humans forever, because they are merely mortal flesh. Henceforth their life span shall be only 120 years."
At that time (and also during later periods) there were supermen on earth, produced when the males of Jehovah's race mated with human women and offspring from the unions were born. These hybrid humans became illustrious men and legendary heroes.
Jehovah observed that the wickedness of the earth men was egregious and that their desires and ambitions were continually evil. It made him heart sore, and Jehovah came to regret that he had populated the world with humans.
Jehovah resolved "I will exterminate the race of men from the earth -- not only the men, but I will destroy all the living creatures on it, the animals, birds, reptiles, and insects, for I'm sorry I ever brought them into existence."
Nevertheless, Noah found favor with Jehovah.
Notes
1. Genealogical lists with precise ages is characteristic of mythic histories. Details, even superfluous ones, have always been used to enhance the credibility of a story. Tracing ancestry back to the first man, is hardly unique to the Hebrews. One is reminded of the 100 mythic kings of Ireland and also of fanciful ahnenafels of personages like Constantine the Great (his descent from Old King Cole back to the heroes of Troy, King David, and then to Adam). Histories of the early Middle Ages were rife with mythical genealogies presented as fact. Every people seems to trace its origin to legendary ancestors who may or may not have ever existed. This is true not only of ancient and primitive peoples, but of the tribes who invaded Europe during Roman times and laid the foundations of the nations of Europe during the Dark Ages. Even Pharamond, the first King of France, is conceded to be fictitious, and there is the genealogy of the fabulous Fisher Kings descended from Jesus.
2. The extreme longevity of pre-Flood man is part of the Golden Age mythology that exists in many cultures. It is amazing that no one seemed to die prematurely of disease or had their life cut short by an accident. While the pre-Flood world was rife with violence, it did not seem to affect the life spans of Seth's descendants, that is, none mentioned were murdered as Abel had been. An exception are the two belligerent fellows Lamech, Cain's great, great grandson, confessed killing, and these seem to an anomaly.
3. Enoch is singled out in the account as having direct contact with Jehovah. An impression is given that Jehovah is merely an occasional visitor, an extraterrestrial who voyages to planet earth once in a while to check up on his creations (and is none too pleased with his handiwork.) Enoch, a favorite of Jehovah, departed with him when Jehovah left the earth, perhaps in an interstellar conveyance, vehicular or otherwise. It is not farfetched to assume that Enoch, who never returned to earth, accompanied Jehovah to the place or planet of his origin.
4. There is a repeated exhortation by Jehovah for man to "be fruitful and multiply" and yet these antediluvian patriarchs seemed to take their time siring children, fathering their first sons at very advanced ages; one wonders what the age of puberty might have been in those days. Noah was five hundred years old before he became a father and then to only three sons. Noah did a poor job living up to his god’s command to be prolific.
5. A very interesting reference, often mistranslated and misunderstood, is the reference to men of the race of Jehovah, extraterrestrials, one would assume, who came down to earth and mated with the human women. (Jehovah, it clearly states, made the earth men genetically compatible with his own species.) Human beings have always acted this way: Western explorers and colonists were always willing and eager to have sex with native women, regardless of how primitive and inferior they deemed the native culture. In this case, the hybrid offspring, superior to humans, become heroic figures. There is a cryptic and intriguing allusion to this cross-mating occurring again at a later time, perhaps post-Flood. One is reminded of Greek mythology in which the mating of Olympian gods and mortal women produced heroes like Heracles (Hercules). Also relevant to understanding these passages is the traditional belief in many ancient societies that the kings are descended from the gods, even that this mixed race ancestry was necessary for royal legitimacy. Many versions interpret this as the mating of Seth’s progeny with that of the evil Cain. “Supermen” is commonly rendered “giants and construed to refer to debased monsters who are responsible for the iniquity of pre-Flood times. Yet in the text these so-called monsters are clearly called great and heroic men. In the fascinating, fanciful, but apocryphal Book of Enoch a more detailed story is told of group of 200 angels(?), extraterrestrials(?) who come down to earth and mate with beautiful human women. The offspring are horrendous, cannibalistic gargantuas hundreds of feet high. They wreak havoc and decimate the earth’s population of animals and men so that a flood is necessary to destroy them. An analogy with the Titans of Greek mythology is perhaps apt.
6. Jehovah suggests that the protracted life span of antediluvian man was due to some energy (I have translated it life force) derived from or produced by him and his race. This would not go on indefinitely, apparently because of some natural force that would deplete it. As a result human life span would henceforth be 120 years, which, even today, is about the limit for us even if very, very few reach it. (This is inserted, for no apparent reason, in the middle of the story about the human hybrids.)
7. Apparently a moment after Jehovah has reduced man's life span, he is now contemplating doing away with men altogether. He is then resolved to destroy all life on earth and by following through with his threat Jehovah becomes a mass murderer on the most epic scale imaginable. Not only does he kill the humans who have failed to live up to his expectations, but all the animals as well, even though none of them seem to have been guilty of any crime meriting their extinction. One wonders why Jehovah, if he merely wished to rid of human beings, wouldn't propagate some fatal disease to wipe them out, or else, if he were really God, to simply uncreate them. This is also one of several instances where Jehovah changes his mind and acknowledges he has made a mistake -- not the infallible God, it seems. (The Archie Bunker comment that "God doesn't make mistakes: that's how he got to be God," is perhaps not always operative.)
8. Here is a chronology of the births and deaths of the antediluvian patriarchs with year zero, being that in which Adam was created. These do not include the frankly more interesting descendants of Cain, for whom no ages are given. (Another interesting point: several of Seth's descendants, Lamech and Enoch have the same names as Cain's descendants. --- This early in human history and we've already run out of boy's names!) Ages or particulars about women are not given and only a few wives are mentioned; even Noah's wife, poor soul, is not mentioned by name. Woman were apparently not very important at this time, though in later Biblical chronicles they figure prominently in the history of the Hebrews and Israelites.
0 Adam is created
? Eve is created
? Cain and Abel are born
130 Seth is born, Abel murdered by Cain probably shortly before
235 Enos is born
325 Cainan is born
395 Mahalaleel is born
460 Jared is born
622 Enoch is born
687 Methuselah is born
874 Lamech is born
950 Adam dies
987 Enoch departs the earth with Jehovah
1056 Noah is born
1062 Seth dies
1160 Enos dies
1235 Cainan dies
1290 Mahalaleel dies
1422 Jared dies
1651 Lamech dies
1556 Shem, Ham, and Japheth are born
1656 Methuselah dies
1656 The Flood
1657 Post-Flood civilization begins
2006 Noah dies
These are based on ages given in the King James Version. It should be mentioned that the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament from the 2nd Century B.C., provides many different dates for the ages at which the first sons are born, with discrepancies of up to a hundred years. The age of Lamech at his death is also differently recorded. Perhaps using the Septuagint, Flavius Josephus, a 1st Century A.D. historian, dates the Flood at 1556 years after creation.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
The Eden Creation Narrative
(Genesis 2:4 - 4:16)
This is the history of the creation of the earth and sky from the time that Jehovah the god devised them. As yet, the plants and vegetation had not emerged from the ground, for it had not rained and there was no one to cultivate the soil. And so Jehovah produced a welling up of water from the earth to irrigate the entire surface of the land. Jehovah fashioned a human being from the elements of the earth, breathed into his nostrils the essence of life, and brought life to the man, Adam. In the east Jehovah established a nature preserve, Eden, and in it placed the man he had created. There, Jehovah planted the finest trees, ones that were fruit-bearing or ornamental, and among them were the Tree of Eternal Life and the Tree of Moral Consciousness. The river that irrigated Eden and flowed out of the preserve was formed by the convergence of four tributaries: the first was the Pison, which came from the Arabian country of Havilah, a source of much fine gold, trees yielding bdellum resin, and onyx stone; the second, the Gihon, had its source in Elam in southeastern Iran; the third was the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria; and the fourth was the Euphrates.
Jehovah put the man in the nature preserve so that he would tend and watch over it. But Jehovah warned Adam, “You may partake of the fruits from any of the trees in the preserve, but you must never eat from the Tree of Moral Consciousness, for if you do, you will surely die.”
Jehovah then declared, “It isn’t good for a man to be alone. I will make an suitable companion for him.” Out of the earth Jehovah fashioned every animal of the field and every bird of the sky. He presented them to Adam to see how he would name them. The names that Adam chose for each living creature would remain in use. Adam named the livestock, the birds of the sky, and the animals of the field. However there was not one of them that qualified as a suitable companion for him.
Thus Jehovah administered to Adam an anesthetic, and when he was fully comatose, he surgically removed some flesh from his side, afterwards suturing the wound. From the tissue sample he had taken from Adam, Jehovah was able to produce a female human. He presented her to Adam, who said, “She is my flesh and blood, and because she is derived from me, a man, she shall be called woman." (Thus should a man leave his parents and marry a woman so that the two will become as one person.)
They, Adam and his wife, were unclothed, but found no shame in their nudity.
Now the reptilian being was more cunning and devious than any of the creatures Jehovah had made. It taunted Adam's wife, "Why doesn't Jehovah let you eat the fruit of all the trees in Eden?"
She answered, "We do eat of all the trees, except for the Tree of Moral Consciousness in the center of the park. Jehovah told us we mustn't, for if we eat from it, or even touch it, we will die."
The reptilian scoffed, "Nonsense, you won't die! But Jehovah knows that if you eat from it your consciousness will be expanded and you will become like him, recognizing the difference between good and evil."
The woman saw that the tree was quite pretty and that it's fruit seemed good to eat. She plucked a fruit from the tree, ate it, and then offered some of it to her husband, who also partook of it.
As a result of eating the fruit, their minds were awakened. They suddenly became aware that they were both naked and were rightfully embarrassed. Consequently, to cover themselves, they made aprons by fastening together leaves from a fig tree.
They heard the voice of Jehovah as he was walking through the park in the cool shade of the afternoon. Adam and his wife concealed themselves from him amid the shrubbery. Jehovah called out to Adam, "Where are you?"
Adam replied, "I heard your voice in the park. I was afraid to see you because I was naked, so I hid from you."
Jehovah asked him, "Who told you that you were naked? -- unless you partook of the fruit of the tree that I forbade you to eat."
"The woman that you gave to me as a companion, she was the one who offered me the fruit from the tree and made me eat it," answered Adam.
Jehovah demanded of the woman, "What have you done?"
"The reptilian being trick me. That’s why I ate it,” was her excuse.
Jehovah berated the reptilian, "Because of what you have done your kind will be cursed more than any of the domestic livestock or wild animals. You will be condemned to crawl on your belly all your life and eat the dust of the earth. There shall be an animosity between you and the woman that will remain between your offspring and her descendants. She will step on your head and you will strive to bite her heel."
To the woman Jehovah said, "I will increase your sorrows: you will experience the pains of pregnancy and the agony of childbirth; you will be subordinated to your husband, and he will lord over you."
And to Adam he said, "Because you heeded your wife and ate from the fruit of the forbidden tree that I commanded you not to eat, your labor will henceforth be cursed and the ground you work will bring forth only thorns and thistles. Those are the plants of the earth that will be your food. All your life you will know nothing but hard work. In the sweat of your brow will you eat your food until you return to the earth from whence you came. For you are only dirt and you will go back to being dirt!"
Because she would be the mother of all living men, Adam called his wife Eve [meaning “spring of life”].
Jehovah fashioned garments of animal skins for Adam and his wife, and in them they were clothed.
Jehovah, speaking to the companions of his own race, observed, “Adam has become our equal, knowing the difference between good and evil. Now, unless we deter him, he may eat from the Tree of Eternal Life and live forever -- and then ...” Therefore, Jehovah banished him from Eden and sent him out to till the earth from whence he came.
Expelling Adam, Jehovah posted as sentinels to the eastern entrance of Eden, Cherubim with “swords” that flashed and rotated, guarding the path to the Tree of Eternal Life.
Adam had sexual relations with his wife Eve, who became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. "I have received a man from Jehovah!" she proclaimed. She then bore his brother Abel. Abel became a shepherd, while Cain was a farmer.
After a time, Cain brought as gifts to Jehovah the fruits of his husbandry, while Abel presented choice animals of his flock and their meat. Jehovah favored Abel and accepted his offerings, but rejected those of Cain. Cain, consequently, became resentful and depressed.
Jehovah questioned Cain, "Why are you so disgruntled and down at the mouth? If you had conducted yourself properly, you’d be wearing a happy face now. But you haven’t. Jealousy is like a wild animal crouching outside your door. If you don’t tame it, it will attack and devour you.”
Cain had a talk with his brother Abel and enjoined him to go outside for a walk, but once they were in the fields, Cain attacked and murdered him.
Afterwards, Jehovah enquired of Cain, "Where’s your brother Abel?”
“How do I know?” he responded. “Am I supposed to be my brother's keeper?”
"What have you done?" Jehovah demanded. "I sense the blood of your brother crying out to me from beneath the earth. --- You shall be cursed by the soil that has soaked up your brother's blood. You will cultivate the land, but nothing will grow for you. You will become a homeless fugitive."
Cain replied, "Your punishment is too great to bear! You stop me from working my land and banish me from your presence? I will be nothing more than a wanderer upon the earth . Anyone that comes across me will probably kill me.”
Jehovah assured him, "No, no, that won't be the case. Anyone who kills you will be punished seven fold." Jehovah then put a mark on Cain so that anyone who came across him would be deterred from killing him.
Cain took his leave of Jehovah and wandered about the land to the east of Eden.
Cain had sexual relations with his wife, who became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain, who was building a city, named it after his son.
To Enoch was born a son Irad, and Irad fathered Mehujael. Mehujael fathered Methusael and he, in turn, fathered Lamech. Lamech had two wives, the first being Adah, the other Zillah. Adah was the mother of Jabal, the first of those who dwell in tents and raise cattle. His brother's name was Jubal, a musician who invented the harp and the pipes. Zillah was the mother of Tubalcain, the first smith, forged tools in brass and iron. His sister was Naamah.
Lamech confided to his wives Adah and Zillah, "My wives, listen to what I have to say: I have killed a man who wounded me and also a youth who beat me up. If Cain should be punished seven times, then I should be punished seventy and seven times."
Adam had relations with his wife again and she bore him a son whom he called Seth.
"Jehovah has granted me another child to replace Abel, whom Cain killed," proclaimed his wife.
When Seth grew up he had a son called Enosh. It was during his time that the people began to worship Jehovah as a god.
Notes
1. Jehovah (which I have arbitrarily used instead of the Hebrew Yahweh) is not necessarily the same entity as Elohim of the first narrative, since the two narratives come from different sources, as has been well established by Biblical scholars. Jehovah is introduced as a creator god, but the cursory story of earth's creation has many dissimilarities to that presented in the first narrative -- no mention of six days or of an itemizing of creative acts. In the first, the earth is covered with water and land is made to appear, while in the second the earth is all dry land and water is introduced so that things could grow. Jehovah, though assumed to be the earth’s creator, is, foremost, the creator of man, the first man, although it is not stated specifically that his creation at Eden was unique. As the Eden and the Flood narratives unfold, Jehovah displays few attributes one would expect of God. It is clearly stated that he created man in his physical image and Jehovah is portrayed as walking through Eden as any man would. He possesses human senses and while his senses seem enhanced, he is not omniscient. He must call out to Adam, because he doesn't know where he is. He doesn't know that Adam has partaken from the Tree of Moral Consciousness, he only suspects it. He must ask Eve her motivation in eating the fruit, he doesn't already know it. Later, he must ask Cain where his brother is. Yet, Jehovah senses that Abel has been murdered, suggesting possession of paranormal senses and psychic abilities that may be superhuman, but not divine. He lies to Adam and Eve about the lethal affect of eating the forbidden fruit. He is capable of changing his mind. Jehovah also exhibits human emotions, joy and satisfaction, displeasure, sorrow and regret, anger and vengefulness. He exercises what seems like unfair favoritism. He is quick to deny, to scold, to curse, and is slow to offer praise or encouragement. He is less an understanding and sympathetic father than a stern and unforgiving slave master.
2. I have avoided referring to Eden as the "Garden of Eden" as it is called in the King James Version (the Douay-Rheims Version calls it a "paradise of pleasure"!) since a garden, in modern terminology, is a plot of flowers or vegetables. It was obviously more like a park or, better, a nature preserve. Even if the terms are somewhat awkward, I have called the two "spiritual" trees in Eden, the Tree of Eternal Life and the Tree of Moral Consciousness, in accord with their actual properties.
3. The rivers referenced in the Eden have always been problematic, but have been used to locate Eden geographically. Eden, being on a plain, could not possibly furnish the headwater of any river and only a huge expanse of mountainous terrain could provide the origin of four rivers. Four rivers could not have flowed out of Eden as most translations have it. The four rivers must have flowed into Eden and were tributaries of the unnamed river that flowed out of it. Rather than placing Eden somewhere north of Mesopotamia, this interpretation would place Eden near the Persian Gulf where the Tigris and Euphrates join to form the Shatt al-Arab or its antediluvian ancestor. The other two rivers, though no longer existent, very likely flowed from southwestern Iran and northeastern Arabia to join the ancient Shatt al-Arab. Satellite imagery has confirmed that ancient river beds still exist in those areas. Another reason for locating Eden near the Persian Gulf is that the region was the ancestral home of the Hebrews, presumably descendants of the Sumerians, who inhabited southern Mesopotamia and created what is thought to be the Middle East's earliest civilization. Although there is disagreement on this matter, the preponderance of evidence places Eden in southern and not northern Mesopotamia.
4. One wonders why Jehovah placed the two forbidden trees in the park of Eden in the first place, if their fruit was not intended for man. It is more pertinent to question why the story teller did so, since the existence of forbidden fruit is necessary to illustrate the moral of the tale. The disobedience in tasting the forbidden fruit is a necessary plot device to justify the expulsion from Eden, the fall of Man, and the doctrine of Original Sin. The theme of mankind living in some kind of Golden Age, which was then brought to a close owing to human misconduct, is a quite common theme in mythology. Almost all ancient peoples believed that man in the distant past lived in some near-idyllic state.
5. In this second narrative the creation of woman is something of an afterthought. Perhaps Jehovah's creation, Adam, was originally meant to be a singular achievement, merely an experiment. Also interesting is the fact that a woman was created to be a companion for Adam, so he wouldn't be alone or lonely, and not for the more obvious purpose of reproduction and propagation of the human race, which would be stressed by Jehovah many times subsequently. Also, it must be taken that a considerable period of time passes between the creation of Adam and the creation of Eve; in the Elohim Creation Narrative both man and woman are created on the sixth day.
6. The introduction of the snake-tempter into the narrative is curious. Why a talking snake all of a sudden when none of the other animals of Eden are noted to possess speech or human-like intelligence, but were, presumably, normal animals? There is no hint in the narrative that the snake was inhabited by some satanic spirit, as might be supposed. It must be regarded as merely a fanciful touch to the story: a tempter was needed and their were no other human or divine characters on hand to fulfill that function. Perhaps the snake relates to the mythology, in both the East and West, of the dragon. For the story to make any sense, the snake must be a not a snake per se, but a reptilian being, a humanoid who would have high intelligence and the power of speech. The text claims that this is another creation of Jehovah, suggesting that perhaps not all the inhabitants of Eden were “animals.” The reptilian might have been the result of an earlier experiment.
7. The eating of the forbidden fruit endowed man with a moral conscience, something that must be regarded as an essential element separating man from animal. That Jehovah did not bestow this upon man, or wish man to acquire it seems to point to the desire not to create a complete man, in a spiritual sense. Woman and then man, with the connivance of the reptilian tempter, acquired this attribute on their own and were severely punished for it. There is the implication that Jehovah did not wish to create a being that would be an equal or rival, yet this would be absurd if Jehovah were really an omniscient, all-powerful Creator. Jehovah decides to curse his creations and exile the First Couple from Eden so that they may not succeed in tasting the fruit of the Tree of Eternal Life and becoming immortal like him. One keeps asking why the two magical trees were placed in Eden in the first place. Perhaps to test the humans' obedience and forbearance? (It seems that Jehovah was as much a tempter as the “snake.”)
8. A very significant verse is that of Jehovah commenting "Adam has become our equal ..." Again there is "we." Jehovah is probably speaking to someone, perhaps companions or underlings who are of his own race. Deserving of serious consideration is the theory that the Eden creation narrative is not a myth, a fanciful story made up out of whole cloth, but is based on an actual event, or at least the imperfect, incomplete, and misunderstood memories of that event. That Jehovah was one of a group of humanoid extraterrestrials who came to earth and genetically manipulated the life here is certainly not farfetched. Jehovah may have created the first homo sapiens from the hominid inhabitants of a primitive earth. This may be a race memory of that event and the narratives of Genesis chronicle his, or his race’s often difficult relationship with his creations.
9. The clothes that Adam and Eve made for themselves were probably apron-like garments of fig leaves that were probably tied together by the stems. It is unlikely they had needle and thread. Before booting Adam and Eve (not yet so named) out of the paradise of Eden, Jehovah outfits them in a wardrobe. Obviously the fig leaf apparel would only take them so far, especially in the less hospitable environment outside of Eden, but all Adam and Eve are given are clothes of animal skins that Jehovah apparently made himself. Were there no used garments or hand-me-downs available? Did Jehovah really slaughter and skin some of his animals himself, tan the hides and sew them, or perhaps leave them furry (in accordance with accepted caveman chic)? Didn't Jehovah have access to technology sufficient to produce textiles? Jehovah himself could not have been naked since a newly aware Adam would have noticed it. Therefore, he must have been wearing clothes, but of what kind? (It's a fair bet they were not animal skins.) Perhaps Jehovah did not wish to have the humans dress as he did, but to clothe them only in garments that they could readily make themselves.
10. The sentinels placed to guard the entrance to Eden, the Cherubim, are assumed to be angelic beings. Were they members of Jehovah’s race or of an inferior race or class? It is more likely, though, that they were not beings at all but mechanical or electronic security devices that would serve to guard the entrance to Eden and inflict death if necessary. (The Cherubim described later by the prophet Ezekiel also sound like mechanical or electronic devices and not living beings.) The swords which they held that rotated and flashed do not sound like swords at all, but may have been part of the security device. Ancient vocabulary would be wanting in describing a high-tech weapon -- remember that the Native Americans referred to rifles as "fire sticks." It seems obvious that if Jehovah were a spirit being he would not have to resort to physical means to achieve his ends. He would not need physical weapons. Why wouldn't Jehovah, if he were an all-powerful deity, simply create a force field around Eden, or something of that nature. Wouldn't his godly will be sufficient to make happen anything he desired? Apparently not, for he must avail himself of physical means to prevent the First Couple from getting at that Tree of Eternal Life, whatever it may be. It is curious that he who apparently created the universe in no more than six days, has difficulty keeping a pair of skin-clad primitives from trespassing on his sacred park. The obvious conclusion from these observations is that Jehovah is most certainly not God, as we conceive of Him, but a physical, man-like being, a person who is above the human only in knowledge and experience, in intelligence and intuitiveness, and in the technological resources at his disposal.
11. That these sentinels or security devices guard the entrance to Eden suggest that Eden was an enclosed environment, a nature preserve set apart from the rest of the world, perhaps a laboratory where Jehovah and his associates could experiment with earthly life forms and create new forms through genetic manipulation and advanced techniques we may only dream of. Indeed, it seems very likely, from an accurate and literal reading of the Eden Creation Narrative, that Adam, the first Man, or, more correctly, the first homo sapiens, was created by an extraterrestrial being through scientific and not supernatural means. Indeed, in the creation of Eve the tissue sample taken from Adam's side suggests that it was to be used in genetic engineering, a means a supernatural, spiritual creator would certainly not need to reply upon.
12. While the Eden Creation Narrative may seem merely mythological, especially as regards the talking snake and the magical fruit, its assertion about the origin of man has only in recent centuries been challenged from a scientific perspective. When one compares it to the creation myths of other early cultures it contains far fewer elements of obvious fantasy and, indeed holds up very well -- a plausible tale with just a few fanciful embellishments, perhaps added to make a more meaningful and dramatic story. After all, it was taken to be literal truth for more than three thousands years!
13. When Eve gives birth to her first child, Cain, she hails it as a gift from Jehovah. She didn't thank her husband: perhaps, even after eating that forbidden fruit, she was still ignorant of the facts of life.
14. There is no reason given for Jehovah's snubbing of Cain and his gifts or for Jehovah's signal preference for Abel, except that Jehovah seems less a vegetarian than a beefsteak guy -- the fruits and veggies from Cain are less to his taste than the red meat Abel offers. In a manner that seems dismissive, he rejects Cain's grousing over his being in Jehovah's dog house. Unsatisfyingly, the spareness of the narrative does not reveal any back story. Whether Jehovah's treatment of Cain was just or whether Cain was a victim of unfair favoritism is unrevealed, but obviously the rejection Cain suffered was sufficient to push him over the edge and make him a murderer.
15. Being cursed and exiled was Cain's punishment for the murder of his brother. This was apparently before the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" period of justice, and Jehovah expressly wanted no one to avenge the crime by killing Cain.
16. In order to prevent anyone who encounters him from killing Cain, Jehovah makes a mark upon him. It is to known what this mark could have been, a tattoo on his forehead, or perhaps it might have been some sort of badge he would wear. At any rate the mark of Cain is not a mark of shame, per se, but a symbol of protection.
17. An extremely interesting part of the Cain story is Cain's fear that people should kill him. Why was he worried about this? Who were the people? So far there is only Adam and Eve, his parents, and his brother Abel, who is now dead. At this point, the entire population of the world should consist of only three people, if you accept that the creation of man in Eden as the single instance of creation. (Even Seth, Adam and Eve's third son, had not been born yet, for he was specifically referred to as a "replacement" for the deceased Abel.) There can be no other man on earth, if all men are descended from Adam and Eve. Did Adam have a slew of other wives whose sons have now populated the earth? Even if this were true, one may imply that Cain was worried about encountering "strangers" who might, in ignorance of Jehovah's provision, slay him. It seems unlikely he could be so seriously concerned about encountering mayhem from half-brothers or nephews who would certainly know him and be aware of Jehovah's wishes in the matter. When Cain went into exile, he took his wife with him. His wife!? Where on earth did Madame Cain come from? Was she a sister whose birth the story neglected to tell us about? One can't escape the impression that the entire narrative assumes that there is a large population of people existent on the earth at this early point, not just Adam and his small family. Perhaps Jehovah, in addition to Adam, created a whole race of men. Perhaps there was already a population of people (Neanderthals?) on the planet when Adam was created. Perhaps some of Jehovah's compatriots created their own Adams. Many explanations are possible.
18. The children of Cain and those of Seth would have been only half Adamite, unless Jehovah created their wives as he had done Eve. Otherwise, they would have to have been women from the existing population. That population would have to have been of the same genus as Adam, though, to have mated with his sons. But Adam seems to have been a unique creature, favoring the view that Jehovah and his companions created a whole race of men and not just one couple to populate the earth -- which makes sense. Having Adam’s children mix and mate with the aboriginal “men” would seem counterproductive to Jehovah’s ends.
19. When Cain goes into exile he wanders to the east of Eden. Many translations have him settling in the land of Nod. Nod pretty much means wandering, so two interpretations of the text are possible. A great deal is made of Cain being a homeless wanderer and Jehovah says that’s what he will be. If Cain simply picked up stakes and moved to a neighboring land to settle, Nod, he would not have been a homeless wanderer. Therefore, the translation suggesting that he wandered in the land to the east of Eden rather than settling in the land of Nod to the east of Eden is the more likely one and the one more consistent with the narrative.
20. Cain manages to found a city -- another indication that there is a considerable population of people then living. A city’s population would not consist of merely Cain, his wife, and whatever sons he would father besides the mentioned Enoch, after whom the city was named. Also, the founding of the city points out that Cain, despite Jehovah's curse, did quite well for himself in his exile. Unfortunately, nothing is known of the city of Enoch save that is was likely located somewhere east of Eden. It must be remembered that Enoch, the son of Cain, is a different person from Enoch, the descendant of Seth, mentioned later.
21. The confession of Lamech, Cain's great, great grandson, seems something of a non-sequitur, although other sources have concocted stories to justify its inclusion, to wit, that he was the killer of Cain -- but that is clearly not what the biblical text says. Also, worthy of mention is the fact that Lamech had two wives, both alive at the same time, since he addresses them collectively in his murder confession. Is he to be honored as mankind's first bigamist?
22. Something that could be taken as an anachronism is the reference that Tubalcain was an ironsmith. Unless the secret was known in antediluvian times and then lost for a few thousand years, civilized man hadn't acquired the knock of working in iron until about 2000 BC, although the Iron Age didn't begin in the Middle East until 1200 BC. (Of course, Genesis was written during the Iron Age.)
23. It was’t until the time of Enosh that the descendants of Adam began to worship Jehovah as a god. Why did they wait so long? Didn’t Adam think Jehovah was God? Did the earliest men not feel the need to worship the divine? One would expect that Seth’s people would be worshipers of Jehovah, while the descendants of Cain, on bad terms with Jehovah, would not. It is also implied that before that time Jehovah, an exalted, superhuman, but physical being, was viewed only as man's creator and master, not as God or a god. He was probably thenceforth identified with Elohim and the functions of a universal deity and creator were attributed to him. As mentioned in an earlier note, there is a current body of opinion, controversial, speculative, but well-reasoned, that Jehovah was one of many extraterrestrial beings who visited earth in ancient, perhaps prehistoric times and conducted genetic experiments here, specifically, creating from primitive hominids human beings whose genetic makeup would be compatible with that of Jehovah's race. The scenario is not only worthy of serious examination, but is fairly credible, if, with an open mind, one discards the biases of theology and the dubious certainties of the pseudo-science that passes for established doctrine. Moreover, it makes the narratives of Genesis something more than faith-inspired fables, but simplified if somewhat muddled accounts of true events, memories from the remotest antiquity that, if demystified, furnish intriguing clues to the true origin of man.
This is the history of the creation of the earth and sky from the time that Jehovah the god devised them. As yet, the plants and vegetation had not emerged from the ground, for it had not rained and there was no one to cultivate the soil. And so Jehovah produced a welling up of water from the earth to irrigate the entire surface of the land. Jehovah fashioned a human being from the elements of the earth, breathed into his nostrils the essence of life, and brought life to the man, Adam. In the east Jehovah established a nature preserve, Eden, and in it placed the man he had created. There, Jehovah planted the finest trees, ones that were fruit-bearing or ornamental, and among them were the Tree of Eternal Life and the Tree of Moral Consciousness. The river that irrigated Eden and flowed out of the preserve was formed by the convergence of four tributaries: the first was the Pison, which came from the Arabian country of Havilah, a source of much fine gold, trees yielding bdellum resin, and onyx stone; the second, the Gihon, had its source in Elam in southeastern Iran; the third was the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria; and the fourth was the Euphrates.
Jehovah put the man in the nature preserve so that he would tend and watch over it. But Jehovah warned Adam, “You may partake of the fruits from any of the trees in the preserve, but you must never eat from the Tree of Moral Consciousness, for if you do, you will surely die.”
Jehovah then declared, “It isn’t good for a man to be alone. I will make an suitable companion for him.” Out of the earth Jehovah fashioned every animal of the field and every bird of the sky. He presented them to Adam to see how he would name them. The names that Adam chose for each living creature would remain in use. Adam named the livestock, the birds of the sky, and the animals of the field. However there was not one of them that qualified as a suitable companion for him.
Thus Jehovah administered to Adam an anesthetic, and when he was fully comatose, he surgically removed some flesh from his side, afterwards suturing the wound. From the tissue sample he had taken from Adam, Jehovah was able to produce a female human. He presented her to Adam, who said, “She is my flesh and blood, and because she is derived from me, a man, she shall be called woman." (Thus should a man leave his parents and marry a woman so that the two will become as one person.)
They, Adam and his wife, were unclothed, but found no shame in their nudity.
Now the reptilian being was more cunning and devious than any of the creatures Jehovah had made. It taunted Adam's wife, "Why doesn't Jehovah let you eat the fruit of all the trees in Eden?"
She answered, "We do eat of all the trees, except for the Tree of Moral Consciousness in the center of the park. Jehovah told us we mustn't, for if we eat from it, or even touch it, we will die."
The reptilian scoffed, "Nonsense, you won't die! But Jehovah knows that if you eat from it your consciousness will be expanded and you will become like him, recognizing the difference between good and evil."
The woman saw that the tree was quite pretty and that it's fruit seemed good to eat. She plucked a fruit from the tree, ate it, and then offered some of it to her husband, who also partook of it.
As a result of eating the fruit, their minds were awakened. They suddenly became aware that they were both naked and were rightfully embarrassed. Consequently, to cover themselves, they made aprons by fastening together leaves from a fig tree.
They heard the voice of Jehovah as he was walking through the park in the cool shade of the afternoon. Adam and his wife concealed themselves from him amid the shrubbery. Jehovah called out to Adam, "Where are you?"
Adam replied, "I heard your voice in the park. I was afraid to see you because I was naked, so I hid from you."
Jehovah asked him, "Who told you that you were naked? -- unless you partook of the fruit of the tree that I forbade you to eat."
"The woman that you gave to me as a companion, she was the one who offered me the fruit from the tree and made me eat it," answered Adam.
Jehovah demanded of the woman, "What have you done?"
"The reptilian being trick me. That’s why I ate it,” was her excuse.
Jehovah berated the reptilian, "Because of what you have done your kind will be cursed more than any of the domestic livestock or wild animals. You will be condemned to crawl on your belly all your life and eat the dust of the earth. There shall be an animosity between you and the woman that will remain between your offspring and her descendants. She will step on your head and you will strive to bite her heel."
To the woman Jehovah said, "I will increase your sorrows: you will experience the pains of pregnancy and the agony of childbirth; you will be subordinated to your husband, and he will lord over you."
And to Adam he said, "Because you heeded your wife and ate from the fruit of the forbidden tree that I commanded you not to eat, your labor will henceforth be cursed and the ground you work will bring forth only thorns and thistles. Those are the plants of the earth that will be your food. All your life you will know nothing but hard work. In the sweat of your brow will you eat your food until you return to the earth from whence you came. For you are only dirt and you will go back to being dirt!"
Because she would be the mother of all living men, Adam called his wife Eve [meaning “spring of life”].
Jehovah fashioned garments of animal skins for Adam and his wife, and in them they were clothed.
Jehovah, speaking to the companions of his own race, observed, “Adam has become our equal, knowing the difference between good and evil. Now, unless we deter him, he may eat from the Tree of Eternal Life and live forever -- and then ...” Therefore, Jehovah banished him from Eden and sent him out to till the earth from whence he came.
Expelling Adam, Jehovah posted as sentinels to the eastern entrance of Eden, Cherubim with “swords” that flashed and rotated, guarding the path to the Tree of Eternal Life.
Adam had sexual relations with his wife Eve, who became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. "I have received a man from Jehovah!" she proclaimed. She then bore his brother Abel. Abel became a shepherd, while Cain was a farmer.
After a time, Cain brought as gifts to Jehovah the fruits of his husbandry, while Abel presented choice animals of his flock and their meat. Jehovah favored Abel and accepted his offerings, but rejected those of Cain. Cain, consequently, became resentful and depressed.
Jehovah questioned Cain, "Why are you so disgruntled and down at the mouth? If you had conducted yourself properly, you’d be wearing a happy face now. But you haven’t. Jealousy is like a wild animal crouching outside your door. If you don’t tame it, it will attack and devour you.”
Cain had a talk with his brother Abel and enjoined him to go outside for a walk, but once they were in the fields, Cain attacked and murdered him.
Afterwards, Jehovah enquired of Cain, "Where’s your brother Abel?”
“How do I know?” he responded. “Am I supposed to be my brother's keeper?”
"What have you done?" Jehovah demanded. "I sense the blood of your brother crying out to me from beneath the earth. --- You shall be cursed by the soil that has soaked up your brother's blood. You will cultivate the land, but nothing will grow for you. You will become a homeless fugitive."
Cain replied, "Your punishment is too great to bear! You stop me from working my land and banish me from your presence? I will be nothing more than a wanderer upon the earth . Anyone that comes across me will probably kill me.”
Jehovah assured him, "No, no, that won't be the case. Anyone who kills you will be punished seven fold." Jehovah then put a mark on Cain so that anyone who came across him would be deterred from killing him.
Cain took his leave of Jehovah and wandered about the land to the east of Eden.
Cain had sexual relations with his wife, who became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain, who was building a city, named it after his son.
To Enoch was born a son Irad, and Irad fathered Mehujael. Mehujael fathered Methusael and he, in turn, fathered Lamech. Lamech had two wives, the first being Adah, the other Zillah. Adah was the mother of Jabal, the first of those who dwell in tents and raise cattle. His brother's name was Jubal, a musician who invented the harp and the pipes. Zillah was the mother of Tubalcain, the first smith, forged tools in brass and iron. His sister was Naamah.
Lamech confided to his wives Adah and Zillah, "My wives, listen to what I have to say: I have killed a man who wounded me and also a youth who beat me up. If Cain should be punished seven times, then I should be punished seventy and seven times."
Adam had relations with his wife again and she bore him a son whom he called Seth.
"Jehovah has granted me another child to replace Abel, whom Cain killed," proclaimed his wife.
When Seth grew up he had a son called Enosh. It was during his time that the people began to worship Jehovah as a god.
Notes
1. Jehovah (which I have arbitrarily used instead of the Hebrew Yahweh) is not necessarily the same entity as Elohim of the first narrative, since the two narratives come from different sources, as has been well established by Biblical scholars. Jehovah is introduced as a creator god, but the cursory story of earth's creation has many dissimilarities to that presented in the first narrative -- no mention of six days or of an itemizing of creative acts. In the first, the earth is covered with water and land is made to appear, while in the second the earth is all dry land and water is introduced so that things could grow. Jehovah, though assumed to be the earth’s creator, is, foremost, the creator of man, the first man, although it is not stated specifically that his creation at Eden was unique. As the Eden and the Flood narratives unfold, Jehovah displays few attributes one would expect of God. It is clearly stated that he created man in his physical image and Jehovah is portrayed as walking through Eden as any man would. He possesses human senses and while his senses seem enhanced, he is not omniscient. He must call out to Adam, because he doesn't know where he is. He doesn't know that Adam has partaken from the Tree of Moral Consciousness, he only suspects it. He must ask Eve her motivation in eating the fruit, he doesn't already know it. Later, he must ask Cain where his brother is. Yet, Jehovah senses that Abel has been murdered, suggesting possession of paranormal senses and psychic abilities that may be superhuman, but not divine. He lies to Adam and Eve about the lethal affect of eating the forbidden fruit. He is capable of changing his mind. Jehovah also exhibits human emotions, joy and satisfaction, displeasure, sorrow and regret, anger and vengefulness. He exercises what seems like unfair favoritism. He is quick to deny, to scold, to curse, and is slow to offer praise or encouragement. He is less an understanding and sympathetic father than a stern and unforgiving slave master.
2. I have avoided referring to Eden as the "Garden of Eden" as it is called in the King James Version (the Douay-Rheims Version calls it a "paradise of pleasure"!) since a garden, in modern terminology, is a plot of flowers or vegetables. It was obviously more like a park or, better, a nature preserve. Even if the terms are somewhat awkward, I have called the two "spiritual" trees in Eden, the Tree of Eternal Life and the Tree of Moral Consciousness, in accord with their actual properties.
3. The rivers referenced in the Eden have always been problematic, but have been used to locate Eden geographically. Eden, being on a plain, could not possibly furnish the headwater of any river and only a huge expanse of mountainous terrain could provide the origin of four rivers. Four rivers could not have flowed out of Eden as most translations have it. The four rivers must have flowed into Eden and were tributaries of the unnamed river that flowed out of it. Rather than placing Eden somewhere north of Mesopotamia, this interpretation would place Eden near the Persian Gulf where the Tigris and Euphrates join to form the Shatt al-Arab or its antediluvian ancestor. The other two rivers, though no longer existent, very likely flowed from southwestern Iran and northeastern Arabia to join the ancient Shatt al-Arab. Satellite imagery has confirmed that ancient river beds still exist in those areas. Another reason for locating Eden near the Persian Gulf is that the region was the ancestral home of the Hebrews, presumably descendants of the Sumerians, who inhabited southern Mesopotamia and created what is thought to be the Middle East's earliest civilization. Although there is disagreement on this matter, the preponderance of evidence places Eden in southern and not northern Mesopotamia.
4. One wonders why Jehovah placed the two forbidden trees in the park of Eden in the first place, if their fruit was not intended for man. It is more pertinent to question why the story teller did so, since the existence of forbidden fruit is necessary to illustrate the moral of the tale. The disobedience in tasting the forbidden fruit is a necessary plot device to justify the expulsion from Eden, the fall of Man, and the doctrine of Original Sin. The theme of mankind living in some kind of Golden Age, which was then brought to a close owing to human misconduct, is a quite common theme in mythology. Almost all ancient peoples believed that man in the distant past lived in some near-idyllic state.
5. In this second narrative the creation of woman is something of an afterthought. Perhaps Jehovah's creation, Adam, was originally meant to be a singular achievement, merely an experiment. Also interesting is the fact that a woman was created to be a companion for Adam, so he wouldn't be alone or lonely, and not for the more obvious purpose of reproduction and propagation of the human race, which would be stressed by Jehovah many times subsequently. Also, it must be taken that a considerable period of time passes between the creation of Adam and the creation of Eve; in the Elohim Creation Narrative both man and woman are created on the sixth day.
6. The introduction of the snake-tempter into the narrative is curious. Why a talking snake all of a sudden when none of the other animals of Eden are noted to possess speech or human-like intelligence, but were, presumably, normal animals? There is no hint in the narrative that the snake was inhabited by some satanic spirit, as might be supposed. It must be regarded as merely a fanciful touch to the story: a tempter was needed and their were no other human or divine characters on hand to fulfill that function. Perhaps the snake relates to the mythology, in both the East and West, of the dragon. For the story to make any sense, the snake must be a not a snake per se, but a reptilian being, a humanoid who would have high intelligence and the power of speech. The text claims that this is another creation of Jehovah, suggesting that perhaps not all the inhabitants of Eden were “animals.” The reptilian might have been the result of an earlier experiment.
7. The eating of the forbidden fruit endowed man with a moral conscience, something that must be regarded as an essential element separating man from animal. That Jehovah did not bestow this upon man, or wish man to acquire it seems to point to the desire not to create a complete man, in a spiritual sense. Woman and then man, with the connivance of the reptilian tempter, acquired this attribute on their own and were severely punished for it. There is the implication that Jehovah did not wish to create a being that would be an equal or rival, yet this would be absurd if Jehovah were really an omniscient, all-powerful Creator. Jehovah decides to curse his creations and exile the First Couple from Eden so that they may not succeed in tasting the fruit of the Tree of Eternal Life and becoming immortal like him. One keeps asking why the two magical trees were placed in Eden in the first place. Perhaps to test the humans' obedience and forbearance? (It seems that Jehovah was as much a tempter as the “snake.”)
8. A very significant verse is that of Jehovah commenting "Adam has become our equal ..." Again there is "we." Jehovah is probably speaking to someone, perhaps companions or underlings who are of his own race. Deserving of serious consideration is the theory that the Eden creation narrative is not a myth, a fanciful story made up out of whole cloth, but is based on an actual event, or at least the imperfect, incomplete, and misunderstood memories of that event. That Jehovah was one of a group of humanoid extraterrestrials who came to earth and genetically manipulated the life here is certainly not farfetched. Jehovah may have created the first homo sapiens from the hominid inhabitants of a primitive earth. This may be a race memory of that event and the narratives of Genesis chronicle his, or his race’s often difficult relationship with his creations.
9. The clothes that Adam and Eve made for themselves were probably apron-like garments of fig leaves that were probably tied together by the stems. It is unlikely they had needle and thread. Before booting Adam and Eve (not yet so named) out of the paradise of Eden, Jehovah outfits them in a wardrobe. Obviously the fig leaf apparel would only take them so far, especially in the less hospitable environment outside of Eden, but all Adam and Eve are given are clothes of animal skins that Jehovah apparently made himself. Were there no used garments or hand-me-downs available? Did Jehovah really slaughter and skin some of his animals himself, tan the hides and sew them, or perhaps leave them furry (in accordance with accepted caveman chic)? Didn't Jehovah have access to technology sufficient to produce textiles? Jehovah himself could not have been naked since a newly aware Adam would have noticed it. Therefore, he must have been wearing clothes, but of what kind? (It's a fair bet they were not animal skins.) Perhaps Jehovah did not wish to have the humans dress as he did, but to clothe them only in garments that they could readily make themselves.
10. The sentinels placed to guard the entrance to Eden, the Cherubim, are assumed to be angelic beings. Were they members of Jehovah’s race or of an inferior race or class? It is more likely, though, that they were not beings at all but mechanical or electronic security devices that would serve to guard the entrance to Eden and inflict death if necessary. (The Cherubim described later by the prophet Ezekiel also sound like mechanical or electronic devices and not living beings.) The swords which they held that rotated and flashed do not sound like swords at all, but may have been part of the security device. Ancient vocabulary would be wanting in describing a high-tech weapon -- remember that the Native Americans referred to rifles as "fire sticks." It seems obvious that if Jehovah were a spirit being he would not have to resort to physical means to achieve his ends. He would not need physical weapons. Why wouldn't Jehovah, if he were an all-powerful deity, simply create a force field around Eden, or something of that nature. Wouldn't his godly will be sufficient to make happen anything he desired? Apparently not, for he must avail himself of physical means to prevent the First Couple from getting at that Tree of Eternal Life, whatever it may be. It is curious that he who apparently created the universe in no more than six days, has difficulty keeping a pair of skin-clad primitives from trespassing on his sacred park. The obvious conclusion from these observations is that Jehovah is most certainly not God, as we conceive of Him, but a physical, man-like being, a person who is above the human only in knowledge and experience, in intelligence and intuitiveness, and in the technological resources at his disposal.
11. That these sentinels or security devices guard the entrance to Eden suggest that Eden was an enclosed environment, a nature preserve set apart from the rest of the world, perhaps a laboratory where Jehovah and his associates could experiment with earthly life forms and create new forms through genetic manipulation and advanced techniques we may only dream of. Indeed, it seems very likely, from an accurate and literal reading of the Eden Creation Narrative, that Adam, the first Man, or, more correctly, the first homo sapiens, was created by an extraterrestrial being through scientific and not supernatural means. Indeed, in the creation of Eve the tissue sample taken from Adam's side suggests that it was to be used in genetic engineering, a means a supernatural, spiritual creator would certainly not need to reply upon.
12. While the Eden Creation Narrative may seem merely mythological, especially as regards the talking snake and the magical fruit, its assertion about the origin of man has only in recent centuries been challenged from a scientific perspective. When one compares it to the creation myths of other early cultures it contains far fewer elements of obvious fantasy and, indeed holds up very well -- a plausible tale with just a few fanciful embellishments, perhaps added to make a more meaningful and dramatic story. After all, it was taken to be literal truth for more than three thousands years!
13. When Eve gives birth to her first child, Cain, she hails it as a gift from Jehovah. She didn't thank her husband: perhaps, even after eating that forbidden fruit, she was still ignorant of the facts of life.
14. There is no reason given for Jehovah's snubbing of Cain and his gifts or for Jehovah's signal preference for Abel, except that Jehovah seems less a vegetarian than a beefsteak guy -- the fruits and veggies from Cain are less to his taste than the red meat Abel offers. In a manner that seems dismissive, he rejects Cain's grousing over his being in Jehovah's dog house. Unsatisfyingly, the spareness of the narrative does not reveal any back story. Whether Jehovah's treatment of Cain was just or whether Cain was a victim of unfair favoritism is unrevealed, but obviously the rejection Cain suffered was sufficient to push him over the edge and make him a murderer.
15. Being cursed and exiled was Cain's punishment for the murder of his brother. This was apparently before the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" period of justice, and Jehovah expressly wanted no one to avenge the crime by killing Cain.
16. In order to prevent anyone who encounters him from killing Cain, Jehovah makes a mark upon him. It is to known what this mark could have been, a tattoo on his forehead, or perhaps it might have been some sort of badge he would wear. At any rate the mark of Cain is not a mark of shame, per se, but a symbol of protection.
17. An extremely interesting part of the Cain story is Cain's fear that people should kill him. Why was he worried about this? Who were the people? So far there is only Adam and Eve, his parents, and his brother Abel, who is now dead. At this point, the entire population of the world should consist of only three people, if you accept that the creation of man in Eden as the single instance of creation. (Even Seth, Adam and Eve's third son, had not been born yet, for he was specifically referred to as a "replacement" for the deceased Abel.) There can be no other man on earth, if all men are descended from Adam and Eve. Did Adam have a slew of other wives whose sons have now populated the earth? Even if this were true, one may imply that Cain was worried about encountering "strangers" who might, in ignorance of Jehovah's provision, slay him. It seems unlikely he could be so seriously concerned about encountering mayhem from half-brothers or nephews who would certainly know him and be aware of Jehovah's wishes in the matter. When Cain went into exile, he took his wife with him. His wife!? Where on earth did Madame Cain come from? Was she a sister whose birth the story neglected to tell us about? One can't escape the impression that the entire narrative assumes that there is a large population of people existent on the earth at this early point, not just Adam and his small family. Perhaps Jehovah, in addition to Adam, created a whole race of men. Perhaps there was already a population of people (Neanderthals?) on the planet when Adam was created. Perhaps some of Jehovah's compatriots created their own Adams. Many explanations are possible.
18. The children of Cain and those of Seth would have been only half Adamite, unless Jehovah created their wives as he had done Eve. Otherwise, they would have to have been women from the existing population. That population would have to have been of the same genus as Adam, though, to have mated with his sons. But Adam seems to have been a unique creature, favoring the view that Jehovah and his companions created a whole race of men and not just one couple to populate the earth -- which makes sense. Having Adam’s children mix and mate with the aboriginal “men” would seem counterproductive to Jehovah’s ends.
19. When Cain goes into exile he wanders to the east of Eden. Many translations have him settling in the land of Nod. Nod pretty much means wandering, so two interpretations of the text are possible. A great deal is made of Cain being a homeless wanderer and Jehovah says that’s what he will be. If Cain simply picked up stakes and moved to a neighboring land to settle, Nod, he would not have been a homeless wanderer. Therefore, the translation suggesting that he wandered in the land to the east of Eden rather than settling in the land of Nod to the east of Eden is the more likely one and the one more consistent with the narrative.
20. Cain manages to found a city -- another indication that there is a considerable population of people then living. A city’s population would not consist of merely Cain, his wife, and whatever sons he would father besides the mentioned Enoch, after whom the city was named. Also, the founding of the city points out that Cain, despite Jehovah's curse, did quite well for himself in his exile. Unfortunately, nothing is known of the city of Enoch save that is was likely located somewhere east of Eden. It must be remembered that Enoch, the son of Cain, is a different person from Enoch, the descendant of Seth, mentioned later.
21. The confession of Lamech, Cain's great, great grandson, seems something of a non-sequitur, although other sources have concocted stories to justify its inclusion, to wit, that he was the killer of Cain -- but that is clearly not what the biblical text says. Also, worthy of mention is the fact that Lamech had two wives, both alive at the same time, since he addresses them collectively in his murder confession. Is he to be honored as mankind's first bigamist?
22. Something that could be taken as an anachronism is the reference that Tubalcain was an ironsmith. Unless the secret was known in antediluvian times and then lost for a few thousand years, civilized man hadn't acquired the knock of working in iron until about 2000 BC, although the Iron Age didn't begin in the Middle East until 1200 BC. (Of course, Genesis was written during the Iron Age.)
23. It was’t until the time of Enosh that the descendants of Adam began to worship Jehovah as a god. Why did they wait so long? Didn’t Adam think Jehovah was God? Did the earliest men not feel the need to worship the divine? One would expect that Seth’s people would be worshipers of Jehovah, while the descendants of Cain, on bad terms with Jehovah, would not. It is also implied that before that time Jehovah, an exalted, superhuman, but physical being, was viewed only as man's creator and master, not as God or a god. He was probably thenceforth identified with Elohim and the functions of a universal deity and creator were attributed to him. As mentioned in an earlier note, there is a current body of opinion, controversial, speculative, but well-reasoned, that Jehovah was one of many extraterrestrial beings who visited earth in ancient, perhaps prehistoric times and conducted genetic experiments here, specifically, creating from primitive hominids human beings whose genetic makeup would be compatible with that of Jehovah's race. The scenario is not only worthy of serious examination, but is fairly credible, if, with an open mind, one discards the biases of theology and the dubious certainties of the pseudo-science that passes for established doctrine. Moreover, it makes the narratives of Genesis something more than faith-inspired fables, but simplified if somewhat muddled accounts of true events, memories from the remotest antiquity that, if demystified, furnish intriguing clues to the true origin of man.
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