Summary
In this chapter, we have the end of the first creation story, wherein God rests on the seventh day, hallows it, and oddly enough does not seem to see that everything was good (but I'm pretty sure it was).
Then there is a second account of creation, which much more emphasis placed on the creation of man (yes, I said "man" for a reason). After creating man from the dust, God creates the multitudes of animals and birds, so that the man won't be alone, and the man names them all. Unfortunately no partner appears, so God puts the man to sleep (the first ever anaesthesia), yanks out a rib, and creates a woman, so called because she came out of the man.
Commentary/Personal Thoughts
Ask most people with a very casual relationship to the Bible (or none at all), and they'll tell you that there is precisely one creation story at the beginning of Genesis. I have a secret for you: They're wrong.
The second chapter of Genesis, oddly enough, begins with the end of the story from the first chapter. I'm not sure why this is. I don't think the early writers of scripture were particularly interested in cliff-hanger endings, but there it is. If there are any old-testament scholars in the audience who might know why this got arranged this way, please, let me know.
After the end of the first creation story, we have the second. It's different story, and you can tell because the order in which things get created gets messed with.
"These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.According to this account, "man" is created before even the plants and trees, and this is all on the same day he created the earth and the heavens. Clearly a different version.Another Account of the Creation
In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up...then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground" (Gen 2:4-7)
One of the most fascinating things about this whole chapter, for me, is the intentional placement of the garden in Eden — not the Garden of Eden, the chapter just says that "God planted a garden in Eden, in the east" (Gen 2:8).
The chapter situates the garden at a place where one river splits into four, or possibly, according to some scholars' translations, where four rivers meet. The four rivers are the Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. If there are any Old Testament scholars in the house who have read the original Hebrew, feel free to jump in on this.
One of the issues with this placement is that the Tigris and Euphrates do not become a single river if you follow them back to the source. In fact, these two rivers join together just before flowing into the Persian Gulf. See the map I've linked to here. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
One of the other issues is that no scholars are quite certain which rivers are the Pishon or the Gihon. It should also be noted that only one other major river joins with the Tigris and Euphrates, making it difficult for the garden to be a confluence of four.
The last subject of interest in this chapter is one I'm sure we'll be touching on quite a bit: The treatment of women in the Bible. Sadly, this chapter has a sequence in which woman is created from man by God to be the helper of man. I say sadly because this amongst other scriptural references is often used to suggest the inferiority of women, which I personally find quite offensive.
There are a couple things I find interesting here. In the translation I'm using, it is the man, not God, who declares to be called "woman" because she was created from the man's rib. It's true, God doesn't correct them, but the writers do not ascribe this naming to God.
Another interesting implication is that it appears, at first glance, that God failed in his first attempt to create a partner/helper for man. God creates all the living things, all beasts of the field and birds of the air, and prefaces this by saying "I will make him a helper as his partner" (Gen 2:18), and yet no partner appears. It is only after God removes a rib from the man and uses this to create a woman that the partner is found.
Right at the end of the chapter, there's a cute little "birds and the bees" moment, when it is explained that after a man leaves his parents, he finds a woman that he loves very much, and if she loves him very much they become husband and wife and "cling" together and become "one flesh".
Just in case you were wondering about that whole sex thing. Now you know.
The Tigris and Euphrates rivers
3 comments:
I'm not a scholar, but I know the texts had not chapter breaks. The headings, titles and any breaks or verse numbers were all added at a later date. Remember, this didn't used to be a "book"--it was just a collection of parchments that someone put into a book form way later. These writers didn't know each other, and the people who edited this through history were mainly unknowns--with some known people at much later dates. Hope that helps.
Just a thought.
Seeing as creation happened a long long time ago (how long is a subject of debate between evolutionists and creationists that I won't get into here), isn't it highly possible that the geography has changed in all that time. That there were four rivers that combined that included the still existing Tigris and Euphrates?
It's a good thought, Gilvan, and it's certainly possible. To my understanding of landforms, rivers that run into each other typically don't change so drastically as to stop running into each other without some sort of intentional force, but I'm definitely not a geographer.
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