The Genesis of Humanity

By Janne T. Sivula

The early chapters of Genesis tell the story of how humanity became reasonable and self-conscious; how humans moved into agriculture; how humans faced hardship during the early stages of sedentary living, and how they started to build civilization by working together. It is simultaneously a reflection on human history and what it means to be human.
Roughly, Genesis 2-11 represents three phases in human history: 1) The distant past, 2) The early era of agriculture, 3) Complex civilizations. In the beginning, Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge, which symbolizes the development of the rational agency. After eating from the tree of knowledge, Adam and Eve start to wear clothes, depicting self-consciousness. They become aware of their mortality and experience self-conscious emotions like shame and guilt. But they also gain rationality, culture, and civilization. I explain the myths of Genesis by discussing human ancestry and modern anthropological discoveries. It is not my intent to argue that the ancient Israelites knew about the southern apes or Homo erectus. However, it does seem that the ancient Israelites understood that there had once been humans who did not have language, reason, temporal awareness, morality, or culture. They had a rudimentary understanding of humanity having emerged from an original, instinctual state of being. This is depicted in Genesis as paradise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thinking Man
• Release date: Feb 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215245422

Janne T. Sivula

I am a Finnish theologian in my 40s. I am interested in the science-religion boundary.  My lens on the world is scientific. My website is thinkingman.fi

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The Genesis of Humanity

Janne T. Sivula

2023

Thinkingman.fi

Table of Contents

1 Introduction 3

2 Ancient Near Eastern Background 10

3 Language 20

4 Rational Agency 26

5 Self-Consciousness 40

6 Theory of Mind 49

7 Self-Conscious Emotions 57

8 Religion 68

9 Culture 76

10 Agriculture 85

11 The Great Flood 94

12 The Tower of Babel 109

13 Conclusion 124

1 Introduction

What are myths? In common parlance, myths are often thought of as untruths or misapprehensions of reality. This is only partly true. The word myth comes from the Greek word mythos which means story. Myths are sacred stories. Myths are fictional in the sense that they did not happen exactly as described. They reflect foundational understandings of the world. Often, myths discuss the existence and activities of gods and spirits, the creation of order in the universe, and the nature of human life and death. Myths include stories about cultural heroes who can bring about marvelous results through their knowledge and mastery of skills.

Myths related to the origins and justification of human traditions and customs. They also provide the basis for religious beliefs and practices. They articulate a society’s values and norms. They provide models for ways of living that are acceptable: filial piety, honesty, and patriotism. At the same time, they prohibit unacceptable behaviors like murder, incest, and cheating. They explain how to tell the difference between good and evil. 

Myths were fundamental to ancient peoples, and continue to be so in the modern world. For ancient peoples, myths contained truths about their identity, virtue, existence, and meaning. You could say they were as crucial to them as laws, ethics, and science are to modern people. 

Very often, myths tell of the origins and history of the world and the creation of the first human beings. Many myths are thought to recount real historical events that took place in the distant past. Cultural comprehension of the past is woven into narratives. There is a natural correspondence between fiction and history, manifesting itself in story form. The first chapters of Genesis are such stories. These stories contain an understanding of human history from the viewpoint of a person living in the Middle East almost three thousand years ago. 

We know nowadays that there was no historical couple by the name of Adam and Eve. We can’t trace our origins to two people. The scientific reality is that there have been many evolving human populations living on this planet over the last several million years. We know that a common ancestor existed in Africa around 200 000 years ago by studying mitochondrial DNA. Our male line goes back to a single male around 100 000 years ago. This Mitochondrial Eve and the Y-chromosomal Adam were not a historical couple and not the only people alive at the time.

Even the names of Adam and Eve are symbolic. The word Adam in Hebrew means just man while the word Eve means living. Adam comes from the Hebrew term Adamah, which means ground, the substance from which he was made according to Genesis 2. Genesis 3:20 relates Eve’s name to the Hebrew verb chayah, to live. Thus, she is the mother of all living. It is clear from these names that the first couple symbolized early humanity in general, not merely two human individuals. 

The first chapters of Genesis give a figurative narrative of human history. Genesis 2-11 roughly represents three periods in human history: 1) The distant past, 2) The early era of agriculture, 3) Complex civilizations. In the beginning, Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, which symbolizes the development of rational agency. After eating from the tree of knowledge, Adam and Eve start to wear clothes, depicting self-consciousness. They become aware of their mortality and experience self-conscious emotions like shame and guilt. But they also gain rationality, culture, and civilization. 

[1] The flood myth is often thought to have originated with one or more great floods of the Tigris and Euphrates. The flooding of the two great rivers may play a role in the flood myth. However, it is likely a reflection of the larger world of early agriculture, around 12 000 to 5000 BCE. It contains many traditions woven into a singular narrative. It speaks of building human structures to guard against nature’s forces, bringing animals to heel, rapid climate change, and rising sea levels. These were all prevalent phenomena in prehistoric Mesopotamia.

After the period of the great flood and over millennia, ancient towns developed into civilizations. Large numbers of people lived in cities governed by centrally organized political systems. These complex societies had dense urban centers, food surpluses, a specialized division of labor, governments, and written languages. These civilizations are symbolized in Genesis by the Tower of Babel.

Thus, the early chapters of Genesis tell the story of how humanity became reasonable and self-conscious; how humans moved into agriculture; how humans faced hardship during the early stages of sedentary living, and how they started to build civilization by working together. It is simultaneously a reflection on human history and what it means to be human.

In Genesis 1, the world is first created. Chapter twelve depicts the call of Abraham, the patriarch of the Israelites. He traveled from Ur of the Chaldeans toward the land of Canaan. The chapters in between are the ancient Israelites’ answers to the questions: What happened after humanity was created? What happened before their earliest cultural ancestor or patriarch came onto the scene? 

The ancient Israelites’ views of the world and its history were limited, of course. They could not have known about the millions of years of human evolution. Much less could they understand the billions of years of natural processes that preceded humanity following the Big Bang. On a general level, they seemed to have some understanding of the broad outline of human history. People passed down oral histories, spoken and remembered information about the past from generation to generation. About 6000 years ago, it became possible to write ideas down. The Israelite sages who wrote Genesis reworked earlier ideas borrowed from other cultures. They had their mythical stories about the birth of humanity and civilization. In some parts, developing a picture of world history was a matter of reason and inference as well. 

I explain these myths by discussing human ancestry and modern anthropological discoveries. It is not my intent to argue that the ancient Israelites knew about the southern apes or Homo erectus. However, it does seem that the ancient Israelites understood that there had once been humans who did not have language, reason, temporal awareness, morality, or culture. They had a rudimentary understanding of humanity having emerged from an original, instinctual state of being. This is depicted in Genesis as paradise. 

Modern anthropology describes the original human as instinct-based. Instincts are inborn behaviors that enable animals to perform actions without conscious thought or learned experience, ensuring survival and reproduction. The importance of instincts diminished over millions of years with the evolution of language, the theory of mind, rationality, culture, and morality.

Past Interpretations

A well-known topic like Genesis has had innumerable interpretations made in the past. In Christian circles, the so-called fall of humanity is still understood as a unique historical event that changed the face of the Earth. Christians believe the serpent was Satan himself, a rebellious fallen angel. The serpent entices Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge and go against God's will. Their deed caused them to be cast from an earthly paradise, the Garden of Eden. It damns all humankind and corrupts their nature. It is a condition that alienates them from God. Through the Fall, illness, suffering, and death have befallen not only all human beings but also the animals and the whole of creation. This original sin removes humanity from full communion with God.  It necessitates the incarnation and death of the Son of God on the cross to redeem them. The church father Augustine is credited with this traditional interpretation. It has been the official dogma of Christianity for over 15 centuries. For modern Jews and Muslims, the fall of Adam and Eve is less catastrophic than in Christianity. In fact, in Islam, Adam repents, and goes on a pilgrimage to Mecca with Eve. 

Many conservative Christians still believe that a great flood killed all life on Earth except those that were saved on Noah’s ark. In the same circles, the story about the Tower of Babel is believed to explain the diversity of languages in the world.

Some other interpretations coincide better with mine. Often, scholars have thought of Genesis 2-11 as mytho-history, with emphasis on the word myth. Kaminsky describes the creation story as an explanation for what it means to be human, why life and work are difficult, and why humans die.[1] For Thompson, the garden story begins with humanity personified as an individual. The garden story is an etiology that evokes a perspective of reality that helps us to understand the truth about being human.[2] These interpretations are frequently incomplete, accounting for only a few verses. For example, Raoul Robinson described the Garden of Eden story as a dim folk memory of a pre-agricultural past.[3]

Michael Lewis discusses Adam and Eve, self-conscious emotions, and their manifestation in a Renaissance painting.

Adam and Eve, having been expelled from the Garden of Eden, form the archetypal image of shame, depicted here in the 15th-century Masaccio painting The Expulsion from Paradise. After eating fruit from the tree of knowledge Adam and Eve gain self-awareness, realize they are naked, and feel ashamed. But eating the fruit is a violation of the standards and rules of life in the garden. They are therefore evicted and, once again, feel shame. Failing or succeeding to live up to an internalized set of standards, rules, and goals can produce potent emotions, such as sham. Psychologists now recognize that shame and the other self-conscious emotions, such as guilt, hubris, and pride are powerful motivators of human behavior.[4]

The German psychologist Erich Fromm wrote about Genesis in You Shall be as Gods. Fromm’s reading of the Eden story views the outcome not as a fall but as a necessary and creative leap forward. This is not the story of the fall of man but of his awakening, and thus, of the beginning of his rise. For Fromm, as Adam and Eve acquire knowledge of good and evil, the original harmony with nature is broken. Man begins his individuation, gaining reason, self-awareness, choice, and responsibility.[5]

For Don Benjamin as well, the serpent is not an evil creature. He is a helper who leads Adam and Eve from sterility in the primeval epoch to fertility on the human plane. In his interpretation, eating and knowing are euphemisms for having sexual intercourse.[6]

Theodosius Dobzhansky had similar ideas in his book, Mankind Evolving. The meaning of the acquisition of self-awareness in human evolution is expressed beautifully in the biblical symbol of the Fall of Man. Self-awareness is a blessing and a curse. Through self-awareness, man attained the status of a person in the existential sense: he became conscious of himself and of his environment. He is able to form mental images of things and situations which do not yet exist, but which may be found, brought about, or constructed by his efforts. Man can create in his imagination worlds different from the actual one and can visualize himself in these imaginary worlds.[7]

The interpretation of myths is not an exact science. However, I do my best to interpret these stories realistically. I use the latest scientific knowledge, which most earlier interpreters, much less the mythmakers themselves, did not have the benefit of. I hope to bring insights from the discipline of anthropology, which studies the way humans lived for millions of years based on fossils and artifacts that ancient people have left behind. Modern psychological research entails the study of human cognition, including religious thinking, self-conscious emotions, and self-consciousness in general. Furthermore, archaeology is bringing to light many aspects of the life of the early civilization in Mesopotamia. Before proceeding to interpretations, I will provide some context for the Genesis stories from the ancient Near Eastern cultural environment. 

2 Ancient Near Eastern Background

The mythologies of the ancient Near East addressed the themes of Genesis 2-11. Many stories depicted the origins of humanity, self-consciousness, and mortality, the beginning of culture, as well as a great flood and the building of civilization. The authors of Genesis were familiar with these myths and elaborated on them.

First Humans

In the biblical story, God creates humans in his image. He gives them the task of caring for the earth. Genesis 1–2 picture a very good creation. Man was at peace with God, the animal world, and himself. No sin, death, disease, predation, or suffering existed. This myth has similarities to ancient Mesopotamian origin myths.

In the Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma Elish, humans are created to serve the gods. In the Epic of Atra-Hasis man's role is to relieve the lesser deities of their toil. In the

Sumerian myth of creation, the Eridu Genesis, deities fashioned humankind from clay to cultivate the ground, care for flocks, and perpetuate the worship of the gods. As in Genesis, the humans were naked, living like animals, and eating grass. There were no snakes or other natural enemies for humans, nor was there any reason for fear. There were no irrigation canals either. There was no agriculture or flocks to provide wool for clothes, and no cities or temples. The gods took pity on humankind and revealed to them the arts of civilization. They sent them a king with a divine scepter to establish cities, the first being Eridu. As a result, humankind multiplied and prospered. The main difference from Genesis is that in the Eridu Genesis, this primitive natural state was portrayed as miserable, while the gifts of civilization were occasions for joy. In Genesis, nature was paradisiacal while culture was evil and corrupting.

There are elements reminiscent of the Genesis story about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in the Sumerian paradise myth, Enki and Ninhursang.  The name Eden is derived from the Sumerian word edin, meaning alluvial land. Dilmun is the setting of the