(Here I give only the study section of this lesson.)
The OT begins with two accounts of creation. The first account is in Gen 1:1-2:4a and the second account fills the remainder of Gen 2. Gen 3 is the story of the Fall. Sin continues to spread with the Flood occupying much of Gen 6-9. The first of five OT covenants is God’s promise to Noah never again to destroy the world with water. The story of Babel is in Gen 11.
The beginning of salvation history occurs with the call of Abraham in Gen 12. He was asked to leave his country and settle in Canaan. God promised him the land in perpetuity and many descendants. This is the second of five covenants in the OT. For their part the Hebrews were to circumcise all males. Abraham was a patriarch, i.e. a father of a clan or family. The succeeding patriarchs were his son Isaac (whom he had been asked to sacrifice in Gen 22), and his son Jacob. Jacob stole his birthright from his brother Esau. Jacob was always in trouble. During a night time struggle with God he was renamed Israel (Gen 32:23-33) His son Joseph was thrown down a well and then sold to passing traders who in turn sold him to one of Pharaoh’s officials in Egypt. He was thrown in prison on false charges and released after he interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams and therefore made vice-regent in Egypt. During this time there was a famine in Canaan and his brothers came for food. He revealed himself to them and asked that his entire family come down and settle in Egypt. They would remain in Egypt for 430 years (Ex 12:40).
Now we come to the Book of Exodus. God called Moses to lead them out of Egypt. He grew up in Pharaoh’s palace as Pharaoh’s grandson. He had to flee after killing an Egyptian and while he was away God spoke to him from the burning bush. He went back to Egypt and with the help of his brother Aaron led the Hebrews out of Egypt. There was a series of 10 plagues before their departure. The worst was the last plague on the night of their departure, the death of the firstborn of the Egyptian. Before the Hebrews departed they celebrated a Passover meal which Jesus took over and turned into the Last Supper.
After their departure the greatest miracle of the OT occurred, the passage through the sea. Scholars are divided on whether it means the Sea of Reeds or the Red Sea because it is not clear in the Hebrew. Scholars are divided over the date of the exodus but a plausible date is between 1350-1250 BC. The exodus is the first of two great divisions of time in the OT, time before the exodus and time after the exodus. While wandering in the desert God fed them with manna and quails, and gave them water from a rock. A month after their departure they arrived at Mt Sinai. While there God formed a covenant with them and gave them the Ten Commandments. This is the third covenant of the OT. This covenant bound them to God and God to them. So they have a new relationship with God. Therefore they had a new relationship with each other because they were all bound to God, so a new horizontal and vertical relationship resulted from this covenant. That new relationship was expressed in Law and therefore most of the rest of the Pentateuch (first five books of the OT) is Law. They spent a year at Sinai before moving on but due to lack of faith in God they spent forty years wandering in the desert before entering Canaan. Num 25:13 gives us the fourth covenant in the OT, God’s promise that the priesthood would remain forever. Only two of those who left Egypt were allowed by God to live long enough to enter the Promised Land, Joshua and Caleb. Even Moses died before entering but he was privileged to see it from Mt Nebo.
A glorious account of the conquest of Canaan is given us in Joshua. As they crossed the river Jordan stopped flowing, mimicking the earlier miracle of the sea as they left Egypt. The land was divided among the tribes. Judah in the south absorbed the tribe of Simeon but the tribe of Levi, the priests’ assistants received no portion, since their income was to be provided from the tithes of the remainder of the people. Joshua was the first ruler in Canaan and the Israelite leaders who ruled after him were called judges but their main function was to act as military rulers. You already know the story of one of them, Samson. Their account is in the book of Judges. The last of the judges was Samuel (1 Sam).
The people decided to copy the surrounding nations and form a monarchy. God asked Samuel to anoint the first king. His name was Saul (1020-1000 BC). His story is recounted in 1 Sam. Samuel also anointed the second king, David (1000-961 BC). His story begins in 1 Sam, continues in 2 Sam and concludes at the beginning of 1 Kings. He is famous for his sin of adultery with Bathsheba the wife of Uriah and then engineering the death of Uriah by having him sent to the front line of battle. The fifth covenant in the OT was between God and David. God sent Nathan to him to promise that there would be a son on his throne forever. We understand this promise to refer to Jesus. What is the throne Jesus is sitting on? It is his seat on the right-hand side of his Father in heaven since his ascension. David conquered Jerusalem which had not been under Israelite control up to now and he made it the political and religious centre of the country. The third king was Solomon (961-922 BC). Under his reign the kingdom was at its height and it would be all downhill from now on. During his reign there was tension between the 10 northern tribes and Judah in the south. This came to a head during the reign of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam (922-915 BC). The ten northern tribes split from Judah in the south in 922 BC, and so from now on there are two kings and two centres of worship. The northern kingdom is called Israel and the southern Judah. The northern kingdom did not survive for very long, only 200 years. In 722 BC Assyria invaded Israel (2 Kings 17). The Samaritans intermarried with the foreign invaders and it is from that time that the tension between the Samaritans and Jews stems that we read about in the Gospels. Most of the remaining kings of Judah were not good. There are two exceptions; one was King Hezekiah (715-686 BC) but the two kings that followed undid most of his good work. The next king, King Josiah (640-609 BC) was another very good king and began a big reform but the monarchy steadily declined after him.
The southern kingdom finally came to an end in 587 BC when it too was invaded and came to and end. Judah was invaded by Babylon whose king was Nebuchadnezzar. Many of the Jews were taken as slaves to Babylon and Ps 137 describes their sorry plight there. We call this time the exile. This is the second great time division in the OT, time before the exile and time after the exile. Many Jews also went to Egypt during the exile, especially to Alexandria. Since the language in Egypt at this time was Greek they would eventually need a Greek translation of the OT since they gradually lost their Hebrew. Hence the Greek Septuagint translation (LXX). Babylon itself was conquered by Persia in 539 BC and the following year Cyrus king of Persia allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild Jerusalem. God raised up prophets to call the Israelites back to live according to the covenant. They arose during the monarchy so the prophets are simultaneous with the kings. There are pre-exilic prophets, exilic prophets promising a return, and post-exilic prophets. Palestine was now under Persian control.
In 332 Alexander the Great conquered Palestine and after his death in 323 his empire was split in two between the Seleucids in Syria and the Ptolemies in Egypt. Israel was stuck in the middle and was ruled by them alternately. It was a tough time for Israel because Hellenistic customs began to be introduced gradually. The worst of this came when one of the Seleucid kings, Antiochus IV Epiphanes desecrated the Temple and set up worship of Zeus in the temple. For three and a half years sacrifice to Yahweh ceased in the Temple (167-164 BC). There was a resistance movement begun by the Maccabees and they succeeded in rededicating the temple. In 63 BC Palestine was conquered by Rome and was still ruled by Rome at the time of Jesus, hence the Roman soldiers in the Gospels. So as you can see, from the exile onwards Israel was under foreign domination. No wonder they wanted a political Messiah to restore the kingdom to Israel!
Division of the Old Testament
We often divide the Old Testament into four sections as follows
· The Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. Pentateuch comes from two Greek words, pente = 5 and teuchos = implement, i.e. manuscript.
· The following books are the Historical Books. Six of them are called the Deuteronomic History: Josh, Judg, 1-2 Sam and 1-2 Kings. They are called Deuteronomistic History because they are heavily influenced by the theology of the covenant and land in the last book of the Pentateuch, Deut.
· The Wisdom Literature now follows which includes the Psalms, the prayerbook of Israel which was also the prayerbook of Jesus.
· Finally the prophets.
Creation in Gen 1:2 is pictured not as creation out of nothing but controlling chaos that already existed. The earth was a formless void (tohu wabohu in Hebrew) in 1:2. God puts order on the tohu wabohu. Elsewhere in the Bible this chaos is described in different ways. For example, it is said to be darkness, the deep (ocean) or the sea monster Leviathan.
The account of creation in Gen 1:1-2:4a is a very orderly account. In Gen 1:1-2-4a creation can be put in a diagram like this:
Day 1 light Day 4 lights in the vault
Day 2 vault Day 5 fish, birds
Day 3 dry land + vegetation Day 6 animals + humans
Day 7 God rests
Everything in the right column above is related to its corresponding object in the left column. However, the relation of humans to vegetation is not immediately clear but becomes clear in v29 where vegetation is given to humans as their food. During the first three days, God put shape to the formless mass in various ways, and during the second three days God created objects to fill each of the objects created during the corresponding first three days. Notice that God created by his word. All God has to do is command and it is done. As you can see, humans were the last to be created, showing that we are the highpoint of God’s creation. On the third and sixth day God performed two works. The account ends with God resting on the seventh day in 2:1-4a.
There are many refrains in Gen 1 following this order:
God said, ‘Let (there be)….’ And so it was….God saw that it was good…Evening and morning came: the 1st2nd3rd4th5th6th day. The many refrains in the Gen 1 account of creation show that originally it was used in liturgy. Could it have been a hymn?
Seven times in Gen 1 we are told that God’s creation was good. We too should be able to discern in creation the hand of God who created it. In Acts 14:17 Paul says to pagans in Lystra that God ‘did not leave you without evidence of himself in the good things he does for you: he sends you rain from heaven and seasons of fruitfulness; he fills you with food and your hearts with merriment’. Paul believed the pagans had no excuse for not believing, ‘For what can be known about God is perfectly plain to them, since God has made it plain to them: ever since the creation of the world, the invisible existence of God and his everlasting power have been clearly seen by the mind’s understanding of created things’ (Rom 1:19-20). Also Wis 13:1-9 is similar and Isa 40:26. Ratzinger In the Beginning…page 23 says, ‘The more we know of the universe the more profoundly we are struck by a Reason whose ways we can only contemplate with astonishment.’ The words of St Bonaventure deserve to be repeated here, ‘Whoever does not see here is blind. Whoever does not hear here is deaf. And whoever does not begin to adore here and to praise the creating Intelligence is dumb.’ (quoted in Ratzinger page 24)
We have a special role to play in creation. We are part of the creation of the world but we are the climax of God’s creative activity. 1:27 shows our high dignity:
God created man in the image of himself,
in the image of God he created him,
male and female he created them
The description of creation in Gen is not just a statement about the beginning of creation but is a statement about our lives today, our relationship with God. Gen sets the scene for the whole Bible by saying that God and humans are in relationship, God and creation are in relationship. Gen also tells us that humans and the world are in a relationship with God.
We are the image of God. Many times throughout the OT we see that it was forbidden to make images of God. It is only we humans who can image God and God wants us to be his image. Being an image means reflecting another who comes first. It means we are number two, not number one. It means humbly realizing our creatureliness, our limitation, recognizing that all existence is a gift. We are called into existence by God and are completely dependent on God. As Ratzinger (‘In the Beginning…’ page 48) says, humans ‘are most profoundly themselves when they discover their relation to their Creator.’ Ps 8:4-7 also celebrates the dignity of humankind in God’s creation. CCC 356-373 is a commentary on Gen 1:27.See also the Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes 12.
God gave us a command; “Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28). Beginning with a formless void, God starts a shaping process which the human race is asked to continue. On mastery over the world read CCC 377. If there is still something to be subdued or brought into greater order, the work of creation has not been completed. The world is still in process. God is asking us to be his co-creators. Sharing dominion over the world with God, we are to build a universe governed by right relations and peace. From the Fall in Gen 3 onwards we will see that we image God poorly.
The division of humankind into sexes by God and the command to be fruitful and multiply show that marriage is divinely instituted. Note the equality of men and women in God’s creation in 1:27. There is a distorted relationship between the sexes in 3:16 because of the Fall. Sin harmed our relationships. It is only from the Fall onwards that man dominated woman, according to Gen.
Also note in 1:29-30 that both humans and animals are vegetarian. It is only after the flood in Gen 9:3 that humans become carnivores, flesh eaters. Here Gen is making a theological statement, namely that sin also upset the relationship between humans and animals. Everything that God created was good, it is we who injure creation by sinning. A question asked in relation to 1:29 is “What about 1:29 and Jesus? Jesus was not vegetarian.” My response is this: 1:29 is not to be taken as historically or scientifically accurate in the sense that humans were vegetarian before the flood. Reading 1:29 in the context of the remainder of the Primeval History (Gen 1-11) the message is that God created everything good but we upset it by sinning. We are now carnivores due to sin, is the message of Gen.
The account ends with the institution of the Sabbath in 2:1-4a. The Sabbath was vitally important for the Jews in exile in Babylon. If Gen 1 was written around the time of the exile when Israel was enslaved in Babylon when the Sabbath would have been crucial to their identity as slaves, we can understand the importance of the Sabbath in this account of creation. God’s blessing is also important in this account of creation. Three times God blesses. God blesses animals (v22), humans (v28) and the Sabbath (2:3). God resting on the seventh day reflects the concern of the editors of this creation account for the sanctity of the Sabbath.
Note the following depiction of the cosmos in 1:6-9 already referred to in Lesson 1:
God in heaven
waters above the sky (which produce rain)
sky
earth floating on the waters below and held up by pillars (like an oil -rig)
waters under the earth
the underworld
This leads us on to ask questions about the scientific value of Gen. Questions such as how could there be light and darkness in day 1, or even days, if the sun was not created until day 4, are not meant to be asked of this text. The point is that everything exists because of God. Creation is God’s work. Before we lose ourselves in science we need to remind ourselves again that the Bible is a document of faith which is not meant to be read as a scientific or historical document. Cardinal Ratzinger (‘In the Beginning...’ page 4); says the Bible ‘is a religious book, and consequently one cannot obtain information about the natural sciences from it. One cannot get from it a scientific explanation of how the world arose; one can only glean religious experience from it.’ It is up to the scientists to investigate the origin of the universe, it was the task of the biblical writers to tell the meaning of the creation of the world as CCC 284 suggests. Putting this another way we can say, the week of creation is a literary device, not to be understood as scientific.
The early chapters of Gen are religious myths. A myth is an imaginative story that reflects insights about human life. Please do not think of a myth as a false story; a myth contains an insight about life. A myth is an insight more profound than scientific analysis can offer. Myths deal with our deepest questions, such as the origins of the world and origins of humanity, the search for happiness. Since the truths myths teach are often outside of experience, mythological language is often a good way to teach these truths and this explains why myths are common in every culture. Every culture has explanations about its realities and some of these explanations are in the form of myths. Values and beliefs about the divine are reflected in a society’s myths. Another reason why we have to be content with myths in the early chapters of Gen is that there are no sources for what is related.
Describing the early chapters of Genesis as mythological is not derogatory, their scientific value is in the realm of myth but their faith value and religious truth is sound and valid. It is a story that relates the deepest convictions about the relationship of humans to God. It is not meant to tell us how the universe began. That is up to scientists. The deeper meaning is “what is” and not “what was”. It is a confession of faith, not a journalistic account of facts. The Hebrews themselves would have read the first eleven chapters of Gen as mythological for several reasons such as the man and his wife being naked (2:25); the snake being described as the most subtle of all the wild animals and able to talk (3:1); and Nephilim (giants) being on the earth on those days (6:4). That the early chapters of Gen are a confession of faith is confirmed by comparing the account of creation in Gen 1 with the Babylonian account of creation, the Enuma Elish, which L. Boadt Reading the Old Testament has conveniently summarized on pages 116-7. The Enuma Elish comes from at least 1700 BC. Its main similarity with Gen 1 is that the order of creation is the same as in Gen. Although Gen 1 shares the same creation outline as the Enuma Elish, it certainly does not share the same theology. According to the Enuma Elish there are many gods but according to Gen 1 there is one God. In the Enuma Elish humans were to be slaves to the gods but in Gen 1 humans have a lofty role, to be images of God. Therefore Gen 1 is updating the myths of surrounding cultures and claiming it has the truth about creation. Jensen in God’s Word to Israel concludes his treatment of the Gen 1 account of creation (page 51) by stating ‘Wherever the biblical writers obtained their lofty conception of creation, it wasn’t from the cultures around them’. Inspiration is the missing gap.
What is the meaning of the account of creation in Gen 1? The account tells us that the world is not the result of chance. To someone without faith, the Big Bang theory might leave one thinking that it is all a result of chance. However someone with faith reading Gen 1 would say that no matter what science tells us about the origin of the world, that origin was willed and planned by God, even if it looks like chance and came about through a Big Bang. CCC 295 writes beautifully on the purpose of God creating, ‘We believe that it proceeds from God’s free will; he wanted to make his creatures share in his being, wisdom, and goodness’. CCC 293 tells us the world was also created for the glory of God.
It is legitimate to ask ‘How can we reconcile the biblical account of creation with modern scientific theories of creation such as the Big Bang theory?’ If you interpret Scripture correctly, as a document of faith, there is no conflict. Concerning creation from the Big Bang, what the Church has to say is that the universe was created out of nothing. The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 declared that God created out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo); this is repeated in CCC 296, also 338. The closest we get to that in Gen 1 is God putting order on the formless void in 1:2. 2 Macc 7:28 is the first explicit reference to creatio ex nihilo in the Bible. If you want to hold that the stars, nebulae, and planets developed over time following the Big Bang theory that would not be contradicting Church teaching, if you also hold that their development must ultimately be attributed to God. There is no official Church position on the development of life forms over time. All that could be said is that such development should be ascribed to God’s impetus and guidance.
The catechism states very well that there is no conflict between faith
and science, “Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real
discrepancy between faith and reason. Since
the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of
reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict
truth. Consequently, methodical
research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly
scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the
faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the
same God. The humble and
persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by
the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things,
who made them what they are. ”(CCC 159) Indeed
Pope Leo XIII said “No real disagreement can exist between the theologian and
the scientist provided each keeps within his own limits....” (Providentissimus
Deus). Scientific discoveries
should encourage us all the more to praise God, “The question about the
origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies
which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the
cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even
greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him
thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to
scholars and researchers.” (CCC 283).