Genesis 1-11: From Eden to Babel

By Donald E. Gowan

Genesis 1- 11 preserves a unique view of Bible history, tracing the move from Eden, an idyllic world fully in accord with the will of God, to Babel, a fallen world desperately in need of salvation. In this commentary, Donald E. Gowan demonstrates acute sensitivity and insight in focusing on the theological import of these familiar but often puzzling accounts, showing them to be even more crucial for what they say to us about ourselves than for the information they record about individuals and events so very long ago. Addressing such themes as the existence of evil and the threat of chaos, human power and violence, tension between the sexes and the breakdown of the family, he remains ever conscious of the gospel as set forth in Genesis.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Sep 13, 1988
• ISBN: 9781467419291

Donald E. Gowan

Donald E. Gowan is Robert Cleveland Holland Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is a minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and has authored several books on the Old Testament, including Theology in Exodus and Theology of the Prophetic Books.

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THE CREATION OF THE WORLD

Genesis 1:1–2:4a

The first words of the Bible are so widely familiar that it is tempting to assume that the only appropriate way to begin the history of salvation is with the story of the creation of the world. Our awareness that virtually every culture in the world possesses its own creation stories tends to support that assumption, but sound interpretation of the Scriptures should not leave any assumption unexamined. One ought to begin the study of Genesis by asking why we need a creation story. What do people need to know about how the world came into existence and, more specifically, what did the author of Gen. 1 clearly want us to know about it? That he was interested in purely theoretical knowledge—to satisfy his and our curiosity—is very doubtful, for stories about creation have practical meaning for daily life in other cultures. The Babylonian creation story, Enuma Elish, has a clearly political intention in its final form, for it validates the superiority of Marduk, the god of Babylon, over the older gods who had previously been primary in the city cults of Mesopotamia. It is not a solely political composition, however, for we know that in its use in the Babylonian New Year festival it helped to answer a basic human need by the assurance that time and the world could be renewed. Other creation stories that are now known to us from the cuneiform texts of ancient Mesopotamia conclude with the building of temples and provision for the maintenance of their cults, so they served to validate holy places and the status of the priests attached to those temples. But they might have significance for incidental occurrences in the lives of ordinary people as well. The procedure for curing toothaches, for example, is introduced by reciting in brief the creation of the world up to the appearance of the worm, which was considered to be the cause of dental trouble. In other cultures taking possession of an area or even building a house required recitations and rituals reenacting the creation of the world. The inauguration of a new chieftain might be called the creation of the world. A creation story might be told for protection when a harvest was endangered, and individual characteristics or the differences between cultures would be explained by telling a story about how they began.

We ought to expect, then, that the author of Gen. 1, whom for convenience we shall call P, had a point to make in his very careful construction of these impressive verses, and that he would not intend to leave his readers guessing as to what it was. In order that we read the chapter as intelligently as possible, asking the right kinds of questions about it, the major concern of the author ought to be identified. Certain common uses of creation stories can quickly be ruled out. There is no hint of a political concern here. Creation is used that way in Second Isaiah, who contrasts the creative work of Yahweh with the powerlessness of other gods (Isa. 43:1–21; 45:5–21), and in Jer. 33:17–26, which reaffirms God’s promises to the descendants of David and Levi. Moreover, it is common in other cultures to connect one’s possession of a given land with creation itself; but no hint of any of these concerns appears in Gen.