4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven..
5 Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.
6 But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.
7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
8 The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed.
9 Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers.
11 The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.
12 The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there.
13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush.
14 The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria and the fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.
16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."
18 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him."
19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.
20The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper corresponding to him.
21So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.
22The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.
23The man said,
This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man."
24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed
We start the study with a ‘dorothy dixer’: “Is work part of God’s good intention for us?”
Mr Adam, the member for Eden “Mr speaker, I’m glad my honourable colleague asked that question…” and so on.
Q: What are we to make of this ‘new’ account of creation? How does it follow from Genesis 1.
A: It is a mistake of enduring popularity that there are two creation accounts in the Bible, that the silly redactor just lumped together, not noticing what he’d done! Sometimes I wonder about the thinking that Wellhausen brought to his hypothesis…well, all the time, actually!
It’s clear to me that Gen 1 tells us about the grand setting of creation, placing earth and its denizens in their place, both genetically and astro-spatially and the making of earth to be a place of habitation. Then Gen 2 takes us into day six to instruct us in the detail of the system of dependent relationships that are formed for our sustenance and delight on that day.
Consider Gen 1:1 and Gen 2:4
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...."
and
"These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created."
The former heads the grand setting of creation, the latter talks about the people as individuals.
The point has also been made that providing two ‘forks’ to an account is not an uncommon literary approach in ANE literature. I refer to two interesting articles on this by Shea: The Unity of the Creation Account and Literary Structural Parallels Between Genesis 1 and 2.
And there are ‘secular’ examples of this, for instance, in the beginning of the Gebel Barkla Stela, there are general terms describing royal supremacy, and immediately following is a restatement that specifically elaborates on the triumphs in Syria-Palestine. In another example, the royal inscriptions from Urartu have the initial paragraph attributing the defeat of certain lands to the god Haldi and then the same victories are repeated in detail as achieved by the king.
Q: Why were there no shrubs or plants originally? How did God fix this?
A: I immediately think of Kline’s article ‘Because it had not rained’ and Futato’s similar work and smell a literary hermeneutic rat. So let’s scotch that straight away.
Grudem does a good job of it:
Genesis 2:5 does not really say that plants were not on the earth because the earth was too dry to support them... If we adopt that reasoning we would also have to say there were no plants because 'there was no man to till the ground' (Gen.2:5), for that is the second half of the comment about no rain coming on the earth. Moreover, the remainder of the sentence says that the earth was the opposite of being too dry to support plants: 'streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground' (Gen.2:6 NIV). The statement in Genesis 2:5 is simply to be understood as an explanation of the general time frame in which God created man. Genesis 2:4-6 sets the stage,... The statements about lack of rain and no man to till the ground do not give the physical reason why there were no plants, but only explain that God's work of creation was not complete. This introduction puts us back into the first six days of creation as a general setting -- into 'the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens' (Gen.2:4). Then in that setting it abruptly introduces the main point of chapter 2 -- the creation of man.
The other considerations that I’d bring are that Ge. 2 is about man in his sphere: the plants mentioned are some of the plants, the animals mentioned are some of the animals; in both cases they are the plants and animals that man lives most closely with; particularly for food (I’m thinking milk and eggs here, not steak and chicken legs); if there is a discussion about the operation of normal providence or not, it must be had against the background of the special events of creation, and the orderly building of the successive relational dependencies that characterises the creative sequence. Kline wants to say that normal providence is operating (throughout all creation, mind you, which is simply crazy on textual as well as logical grounds); but to maintain this he has to disregard the connection of chapter 2 with chapter 1 and deny that chapter two is taking us into day 6 in detail. Thanks Meredith, but no thanks!
Finally, I quote Noel Weeks:
There is nothing which clearly indicates that normal providence was functioning during the creation period. Whereas rain is mentioned as the normal way in which vegetation is watered, in 2:6 the earth is watered by the going up of a mist. We cannot infer from 2:5 that there had been a long period prior to the situation reported in that verse during which the earth had become dry. Rather it fits into the framework of God first providing the environmental necessity (water) and then making the plants. Certainly springs do continue as one of the ways in which the earth has been watered since creation but the concern of the verse is the way it first began. The actual beginning does not assume the operation of normal providence.
I like Noel’s insights because, unusual amongst theologians, he has a degree in biology. Also I enjoyed his talks at a house party about 25 years ago (my, aren’t we all growing old).
Q: In what ways is the creation of man unique? How does this add to the account of Genesis 1?
A: One of the stark differences between Judeo-Christian tradition and others is the very earthiness, the physicality of creation being brought into ‘religious’ focus. Man-made religions have a tendency to deny the material world as somehow not worthy of our elevated spiritual capacities. Bollocks to that! We’re made of dust, and it’s very good. But we are also blessed with God-breathed life: our life is of a different order to mere dust arrangements; even the animals bear a difference and are ‘living’. The life we are given however renders us in Gods image; I don’t think any man-made religion has anything like this in combination with the sheer dusty-groundedness that we have in the Bible!
The whole passage is an amplification of the events of day 6, and expands upon the summary of man’s creation and activity given in Gen 1: 26f.
Q: What does v.9a tell us about God’s design for creation and perhaps his very character?
A: A little acknowledged fact of God’s work is that it does good: it is for Stoics and other types of pagan that pleasure ranks low. For Christians (Jews too) pleasure is a major good and enjoying the creation is part of that. I look around me in the wilds, or I consider the sheer deliciousness of a nashi or blood orange: how wonderfully excessively sumptuous they are: they don’t need to be *that* good; half as good would do the trick, but no, God has made them, even though fallen, to be stunningly good. I could go on about other aspects of our life in the same vein but I won’t: how come it’s *so* very good? Well, God’s like that: he overflows with delights for his creatures.
Q: Vs 10-14 almost form an interruption in the text (it would read fine if they were removed). Why are they here? What is the significance of the rivers?
A: Detail goes to verisimilitude. And so it is here. These rivers no longer exist (the flood fixed that) but that they are recorded makes the creation to have been something that has the earth as its setting. The rivers and the other facts of this passage speak of real place and objects. They have no other function, as far as I can see.
Further, one of the characteristics of mythic or legendary language is the lack of specificity as to verifiable details: whether regarding time (date) or place. This detail may therefore be a pre-emptive counter-mythic move by the author, or simply a natural relation of detail that inter alia goes to the historicity of the account.
Q: Would you say the theme in vs. 4-17 is one of provision or prohibition [leading question counsel]?
A: I guess they want a discussion, not the choice of one of the words, but the word I choose is ‘provision’.
Q: What is the tree of knowledge of good and evil? What does it ‘give’ humans if they eat of it?
A: At first blush it seems a surprising, if not almost cynical move on God’s part to sow the seeds of destruction in his very good creation…just when it was all getting along so well, to, and all to do with a tree.
So, on the assumption that neither the author nor God is an idiot, let’s consider the text.
Taking that it was an actual tree with a time and space location (I think it was a durian, not an apple; eat a durian, and you really do get to know of evil…its smell, anyway) how would eating fruit consign creation to the road to perdition?
I don’t think the problem was the fruit itself, unless it was a durian, of course, but the act that was in question.
The point of man being in God’s image is that his moral judgements have actual significance and real outcomes will flow from them; thus he is fully capable in his relationships: capable that is to undo, which means that his doing truly ‘does’: that relationships can be undone means that good relationships have true value and are not mere hollow images of relationships.
The tree is God’s great risk. He shows to man that man has moral capability and really is ‘ruler’ of this creation; it is not just a game but a great ‘honouring’ of man. The risk is obvious; man might choose to ‘know’ evil. Eating the tree doesn’t just impart a theoretical knowledge, but the act gives the experience of turning from God. Turning from God gives directly the experience of rejection of God, because awayness from God is towardness to ‘not-God’ or the denial of God, which can only be evil: the negation of life and love.
Did God know what man would do? I’ll leave the question hanging, but suffice to say, that man’s choice was man’s responsibility; that was why creation was as it was, with man being in God’s image to make decisions with a real effect.
Q: Gen 2: 18-25. What does this passage tell us about the importance of human community?
A: Alone=bad; companionship=good. And that about sums it up.
Q: What is the significance of the active role that man takes here?
A: Adam does a couple of things in naming the animals: the difference between the ruled creation and his requirement for companion are clearly made; companionship does not involve ruling, but brings a ‘joint-ruler’ by implication. It shows that his aloneness is for one of his own kind, not other kinds. It shows that he cannot by himself meet his need for aloneness: we are creatures that need companionship above all else, and no amount of cattle will substitute. Just ask the Masai.
Q: How does this passage help us [to] understand how we were created to be in relation to God, nature and other people?
A: It shows us the system of relationships: we stand on one part of the creation (the earth) we study and husband another part (beasts and birds) and we are in companionship with each other as the ‘steward’ part. Each part is separated from each other part in ontological ordering and our movement to each is different: we will not treat our companion like we would treat our cattle or our land, as Adam’s hymn (Gen 2:23) makes clear.
