Exploring Genesis - March 2013

Part 5 of a 9-part series

EXPLORING GENESIS: Primeval History: Genesis 1-11

Carmel McCarthy RSM

The book of Genesis covers an enormous expanse of time, stretching from the so-called beginning of the world to about 1400 BC or more.

Geologists estimate that the earth is at least four billion years old, while anthropologists believe that humans have been around for about two million of these. The authors of Genesis did not and could not know anything of this scientific data. Their aim was to highlight the religious significance of their origins and to record traditions about their ancestors that would illustrate how they came to be a chosen people.

Their records are collected into two blocks: Genesis 1-11, called the primeval history, and Genesis 12-

50, with its focus on the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.

The primeval history is not history in the modern sense of the term. Its contents contain stories made up of ancient legends placed in a remote past that cannot be documented. But they are put together in such a way that they portray imaginatively how people might have behaved in ancient times, and prepare the way for the call of Abraham in Genesis 12.

We have already explored the first three chapters of this primeval history, with their two creation accounts, followed by the disobedience in the garden of Eden.

We also noted that these accounts were not the first units of the Bible www.messenger.ie

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to be written. The fruit of prolonged reflection over several centuries, they were placed at the beginning of Genesis about 500 BC for logical reasons. Both creation accounts reflect their authors' view that, from the dawn of time, humans are dependent on God for their life and for the order of the world in which they live.

The rebellion initiated by the couple in Genesis 3 grows increasingly worse in the stories that follow, and at every juncture judgment on this rebellion becomes more severe. Cain's killing of Abel in Genesis 4 leads to greater disruption in family relationships. In the general corruption which follows, Noah and his family are saved.

Just as scholars identified two different creation accounts, so too they note the presence of two flood stories, now closely interwoven into one dramatic narrative. That there were originally two distinct accounts can be seen in the fact that God announces the flood twice (6:13; 7:4), and twice promises never again to send a flood (8:21; 9:15). Noah is told to take a pair of each kind of animal in some passages, but seven pairs of clean animals with one pair of unclean in others.

In spite of the duplications both accounts share a single message.

When God decides he must punish the world for its sin, he spares the one person who has been faithful to him and allows Noah and family to withstand the flood in a purpose-built 8

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ark. When the disaster is over, God restores his covenant with the world through Noah. The climax comes when God's forgiveness extends to lifting the curse upon the earth for what humans have done in their hearts. The goodness of God will be seen in the reliability of nature's seasons: 'As long as the earth lasts, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease' (8:22).

The discovery in 1872 of a flood narrative in the Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic has shed new light on the flood story in Genesis. Further discoveries of other flood narratives show that this was a common theme from about 2000 BC in Mesopotamia. These flood stories have various points of contact with the biblical account, but a significant difference lies in their portrayal of relationships between the gods and humans. In the pagan accounts there was great uncertainty as to what the gods wanted and what would please them. By contrast, the God of Israel is always faithful, always just, and always loving towards the creatures he has made. He punishes only for clear wrongdoing and is quick to forgive. The Genesis narrative rejects any sense of a moody, temperamental god, but describes instead a God whose will can be known and whose way followed.

Despite the blessing given to Noah, sealed in the symbol of the rainbow, the people again rebel in pride.

With the tower of Babel in Genesis

11, humanity reaches its ultimate rebellion. All the nations unite together in a cooperative venture.

By this stage human beings are no longer lumps of clay dependent on their maker. They are rebels storming the heights of heaven in order to create their own glory. From Eden to Babel humanity is portrayed as having learned nothing. The possibility of authentic human relationships has been replaced by confusion. Revolt against God inevitably leads to the disruption of human society.

The underlying thread in Genesis

expression in God's great compassion towards Noah, his one faithful servant in the midst of worldwide corruption.

The primeval history of Genesis 1-11 ends with a genealogy that narrows down the focus of the story from the whole of humanity to Abraham, the father of the Israelites. Genesis 11:32 ends with the migration of Terah, Abraham's father, and his extended family from Ur to

When the disaster is over, God restores his covenant with the world through Noah.

1-11 demonstrates how God remains faithful to humanity despite their repeated rejection of him. The authors have taken ancient stories of various types and adapted them to show how God gave humans dominion and responsibility for the world, the freedom to make choices concerning their lives, and the possibility of achieving happiness. But through pride and a rebellious spirit, humanity rejected this invitation.

Sinfulness in the human heart has unleashed ever widening circles of murder, war and hatred on the world, and brought frustration and pain into everyday life. But the theme of God's compassion on a sinful world remains the solid rock upon which these chapters are built. It finds its strongest

Haran. Thus our attention switches from universal history to family history, from the world in general to one figure in particular, Abraham. The future for the whole of humanity may seem bleak, but we are now about to enter a new era, an era that focuses on God's choice of one who would respond to him in trusting faith, and eventually become the instrument of divine blessing to all other people.

With this new beginning we leave the stage of prehistory and prologue, and enter the historical world of the second millennium before Christ.

Available now: E9.99 The Psalms: Human Voices of Prayer and Suffering, by Carmel McCarthy RSM

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