In the Beginning: Creation and the Priestly History

185 Pages·1991·11.472 MB·English

by  Robert B. Coote, David Robert Ord

In the Beginning
/
Creation and the Priestly History
Robert B. Coote
and
David Robert Ord
FORTRESS PRESS MINNEAPOLIS
In the Beginning
IN THE BEGINNING
Creation and the Priestly History
Copyright © 1991 Augsburg Fortress. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in
critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without
prior written permission from the publisher. Write to: Permissions, Augsburg Fortress,
426 S. Fifth St., Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440.
Scripture quotations marked RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible,
copyright @ 1946, 1952, and 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National
Council of Churches. Used with permission.
Scripture texts marked NAB are taken from the New American Bible, copyright @ 1970,
1986 by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, DC, are used by permission
of the copyright owner. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from Kommissar, screenplay by Alexander Askoldov, copyright @ 1967. Reprinted
by permission.
Excerpts from Ancient Near Eastern Texts, third edition, edited by James B. Pritchard,
copyright © 1969. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.
Excerpts from The Babylonian Genesis by Alexander Heidel, copyright © 1951. Reprinted
by permission of the University of Chicago Press.
Cover and internal design by Jim Gerhard
Cover illustration: detail of The Creation of Light by Paul Gustave Dore
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Coote, Robert B., 1944-
In the beginning: creation and the priestly history I Robert B.
Coote and David Robert Ord.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8006-2527-7 (alk. paper)
1. Creation-Biblical teaching. 2. Bible. O. T. Genesis 1-
"
Criticism, interpretation, etc. 3. P document (Biblical criticism)
I. Ord, David Robert. II. Title.
BS1199.C73C66 1991
222'. 1106-dc20 91-36859
CIP
'\
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National
Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
@In.
ANSI Z329.48-1984.
Manufactured in the U.S.A. AF 1-2527
95 94 93 92 91 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
On the first day God created potatoes.
On the second day God created potatoes.
On the third day also God created potatoes.
And on the fourth and fifth day God created potatoes.
So on the sixth day why did he have to create us?-I ask you.
Yefim Magazanik,
Ukrainian Jewish village tinker, in Kommissar,
screenplay by Alexander Askoldov, 1987 (1967).
/
Contents
"
Preface IX
Introduction 1
1 What Creation Stories Are Really About 5
2 More Than One Creation Story 19
3 Who Wrote Genesis One? 29
4 Revising the Official History 39
5 Everything Falls into Place 49
6 Living in the Lap of Luxury 57
7 Women: Keep Out 67
8 How We Got Our Work Week 77
9 A World Centered in a Tent 95
10 The Opulent and the Messy 105
11 The Creation of Order 117
12 The Priestly Account in the New Testament 135
Epilogue: Creation in Our Time 159
For Further Reading 165
179
Author Index
Subject Index 181
vii
Preface
"
This book is the third by the authors to deal with the major strands
J
of the first four books of the Bible. The first was on (Coote and
Ord, The Bible's First History, Fortress, 1989), the second on E (Coote,
In Defense of Revolution, Fortress, 1991), and now this one attempts
to explain the basic features of the priestly stratum in the Tetrateuch,
known to biblical scholars as P.
This book differs from its companions in the series in two significant
respects. First, rather than developing a new view of P, it presents
mostly rather well established propositions. However, since these
pertain to various disparate topics in scriptural studies, they have not
appeared together and in relationship to one another in one place. We
believe that to understand any of the discrete topics related to the
priestly strand oft he Tetrateuch, such as creation, Sabbath, or sacrifice,
it is necessary to have a basic grasp of all of the strand's significant
aspects.
Second, we intend this book as a contribution to the discussion
regarding a concern that does not spring directly from a historical
study of the priestly strand, but is a part of the American culture
within which we write. This is the popular notion that the world was
created in seven days as the Bible says. For those who wish to inform
themselves regarding this issue, there is much scientific literature re
futing creationism, showing that the world was not created the way
Genesis 1 says it was (see the suggested readings under the heading
of Introduction). What is needed in addition is a book on Genesis 1
itself: if it is not a description of the creation of the world, then what
is it? This book attempts to provide a full and critical answer to that
IX
x Preface
question, so that whatever we are discussing in the priestly history
at a particular point will be related back to Genesis 1, as indeed the
priestly writers probably wished anyway.
Our debt to other scholars will be evident from the notes and
bibliography. A particularly important critical reading of the manu
script in preparation was provided by Marvin L. Chaney. Students
and parishioners likewise communicated their criticisms, for which
we always tried to express our gratitude. Polly Coote graciously
prepared the indices.
"
,
Introduction
Is the first chapter of Genesis an accurate description of the way the
world came into being? This question has confused, bewildered, and
divided millions of people who want to believe in the Bible but who
have been told that its account of creation is in conflict with the
findings of modem science.
For many, the validity of the Bible is at stake in the question of
whether creation happened the way the opening chapter of Genesis
describes. Genesis 1 says God created the world in six days, and for
them this is authoritative. They argue that either the Bible is histor
ically and scientifically accurate in every detail, or it cannot be relied
upon at all. For the person who takes such a position on the issue of
biblical authority, there is only one response: to agree or disagree.
Either you believe or you do not.
There is another question we might put to the text. Instead of
asking whether we believe the account of creation in the first chapter
of Genesis is accurate, we might ask what it means.
The question of meaning places the discussion about Genesis 1
within a quite different framework from that of whether it is au
thoritative in a historical and scientific sense. It is a question that calls
for a more complex answer than a simple yes or no. The Bible was
written long before our time, in a place quite different from our own,
in a culture alien to the one most of us are familiar with, and in a
language foreign to speakers of English. How can we be sure that
Genesis 1 meant the same thing to the person who first wrote it as
it does to many of us?
1
2 Introduction
In the modern world, the creation issue is one of how and when
our world and universe came into being. We humans have a sense of
time-an awareness that this minute is different from the last, today
different from yesterday, this year different from last year, and that
the future will differ from the present in a similar way. Our sense of
time leads us to ask: If we keep going back and back in time, what
do we come to? Where is the beginning, and what happened back
then? Without much effort, anyone, even the most learned scientist,
will find themselves wondering about a time they can know nothing
about. In fact, scientists ask any number of questions about origins
that they simply have no way at present ofa nswering. This is especially
true of the question "Why?" which is beyond the scope of telescopes
and test tubes. Scientists leave these questions aside in favor of ques
tions about realities that they are in a position to investigate.
In writing about creation, was the author of Genesis 1 concerned
with the same things as the scientist in the modern era? Was the how
and when of creation his principal interest, or was he concerned with
issues that stem from the question of why the created order is as it
is-issues that we today might never think ofd iscussing in the context
of creation?
In modern science, to talk about the beginning we have to assume
that the world oft he beginning, ofw hich we have no direct experience,
was in significant ways the same as, or comparable to, the world of
the present, of which we do have direct experience. People have little
difficulty making this assumption. It is after all reasonable to assume
a certain continuity in time, which itself is part of our experience.
The description of the beginning, then, tends to be limited to those
aspects of our experience of the present, mysterious though they may
be, that someone can actually understand.
Historians face the same limitation. Their view of the past is in
evitably influenced by their view of the present, which affects how
they weigh the evidence and even what they regard as significant in
history in the first place.
Most today are aware that people in different countries a~d cultures
have widely divergent views on any number of issues. We who live
in the United States see things quite differently from the peoples of
Latin America, China, the Middle East, or Africa .. If within the same
generation we must go to great lengths to understand the other's point
of view, it is clearly no easy task to discover how peoples removed