GENESIS: THE STORY OF CREATION

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GENESIS THE STORY OF CREATION

• World Literature I

Presentation by
Ralph Monday
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Creation Of Adam 1512Michelangelo 1475-1564
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Creation of Eve Michelangelo 1512 1475-1564
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Adam and EveMarc Chagall 1912
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Adam and EveLucas Cranach the Elder 1531
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Pre-Israelite History

• The first eleven chapters of Genesis hint at the
  earliest ages of human life and civilization (see
  Chapter 1). While these chapters do not convey
  history in a scientific sense, they do show
  awareness of the momentous moves to civilization
  attested in anthropology and archaeology

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Genesis Authorship

• The book of Genesis was written by a number of
  authors who assembled material from three
  traditions
• "J, named for the Yahwist tradition who referred
  to God as Yahweh (translated "the Lord" in
  English).

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• "E, named for the Elohist tradition who referred
  to God as Elohim, which was derived from the name
  of the Canaanite God El (translated as "God" in
  English).

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• "P, named for the Priestly class who were
  primarily concerned with history, genealogies,
  etc.

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• the first construction of cities, the
  domestication of animals for human use, the
  conflict between agriculture and shepherding, the
  development of bronze and iron tools, and the
  invention of musical instruments and the fine
  arts.

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Ancestral Period (2000-1550 B.C.E.)

• No exact date for the period of Israel's
  ancestors, the patriarchs and matriarchs, can be
  determined.
• A widely-held guess is that Abraham and Sarah,
  Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob's family were of the
  Middle Bronze age, thus living sometime between
  2000 and 1550 B.C.E.

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• Historians have also placed them both earlier and
  later than this. Unfortunately, there is no
  external evidence that can confirm the existence
  of any of the ancestors.
• They exist for us only in the story in the Bible.
• Almost everything we know of Israel's ancestors
  comes from Genesis 12-50 (see Chapter 2), nothing
  from Mesopotamia or Egypt.

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Old Testament Covenant

• The God who was later identified as the God of
  Israel encountered Abraham and made a covenant
  with him that included
• promises of future well-being, including the
  inheritance of Canaan as a family homeland and
  the growth of the family into an international
  empire.

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William BlakeElohim Creating Adam1795/c.1805
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GENESIS

• The book of Genesis is the book of origins. It
  begins by describing the creation of the world,
  and along the way it conveys basic features of
  the Hebrew view of
• God, the universe, and humanity. Genesis also
  accounts for the origin of the nation of Israel
  by telling tales of its ancestors.

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• Genesis is such an important book that it gets
  two chapters
• Chapter 1. Genesis 1-11 the Primeval Story and
  Chapter 2. Genesis 12-50 the Ancestral Story.

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Genesis The Primeval Story

• The origin stories of Genesis 1-11 the Primeval
  Story, referring to the earliest ages of cultural
  development.
• The Primeval Story is a sweeping account of the
  earliest events, from the creation of the world
  to the spread of humanity over the face of the
  earth. But the writer only mentions those seminal
  events that fit his purpose.

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• The primeval story is not history.
• The earliest events of creation had no human
  eyewitnesses.
• Stories such as we find in the early chapters of
  Genesis are mostly myths and sagas.

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• A literalistic approach to Genesis 1-11 would
  confuse history with myth and reality with
  symbol.
• Applying such terms as "myth" to Genesis in no
  way devalues or demeans the stories.
• Indeed, a mythos communicates powerful human
  truths.

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A Creation Mythos
Spiral galaxy NGC 1232
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• Deep human questions give rise to creation myths
• Who are we?
• How did we get here?
• What is the purpose of life?

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Definition of Myth

• Myth is a cultures means of understanding
  fundamental realities.
• A myth is a traditional story of supposedly real
  events that is told in order to explain a
  culture's beliefs, practices, institutions, or a
  phenomenon of nature.

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• Often myths are associated with religious rituals
  or doctrines.
• Both ancient cultures and modern ones have their
  particular myths.

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• The cosmology of the "Big Bang" is a contemporary
  myth that strives to account for the universe.
• It remains a construct under frequent revision,
  even though it is backed by scientific evidence
  and reasoning.

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Visual Metaphor for the Big Bang
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Genesis Two Accounts of Creation

• The book of Genesis contains two accounts of the
  creation. The first account comes out of the
  Priestly document of the exilic period.

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• The second account is earlier and comes from the
  Yahwist narrative. While the Yahwist creation and
  flood stories deal primarily with the problem of
  sin,
• the Priestly writer was intensely concerned with
  the gift of divine blessing expressed as the
  structure and ground of all life.

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Priestly Creation Story(11-24a)

• The Priestly creation story opens with an earth
  that was "shapeless and void." This world was
  dominated by vast depths of ominous and unruly
  water.

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• Into the watery wilderness God injected his voice
  and created life, along with the means to sustain
  it. First came light, then the firmament to
  control the waters, then land and vegetation to
  sustain life. In succession God created birds,
  fish, terrestrial animals, and human beings.

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Separation of Land and WaterMichelangelo
(1475-1564)
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• The individual creative acts are spread out over
  six days and culminate with the creation of human
  beings as the image of God.
• There is an order and a rhythm to the creation,
  as the following table demonstrates

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Table 1.1 Bilateral Symmetry of Genesis 1
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Let There Be Light
Orion Nebula Mosaic
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Yahwist Creation Story(24b-324)

• In the Yahwist creation story, the LORD God, YHWH
  Elohim in Hebrew, created the shape of a man out
  of clay and breathed life into him.
• The Yahwist story of creation is the first
  episode of the Yahwist narrative. Its stories of
  Genesis 1-11 establish the basic plot of the
  Primeval Story.

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• Important human questions are asked in this
  section
• Where did we come from?
• To whom are we accountable?
• Where did sin come from?
• Why do we have to die?

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The Fall Adam and Eve Tempted by the Snake, by
Hugo van der Goes (1440-1482)
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Adam and Eve, Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)
(1507)
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MichelangeloOriginal Sin
(1512)
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The Triumph of DeathPieter Bruegel the Elder
(1525-1569)
(1562)
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Michelangelo Expulsion From Eden
(1509-10)
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WAYNE SCHOENFELD Expulsion From Eden
Contemporary artist
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Works Cited

• Bandstra, Barry L. Reading the Old Testament An
  Introduction to the Hebrew Bible. Wadsworth
  Publishing Company, 1999. http//images.google.com
  /imgres?imgurlhttp//www.hope.edu/academic/religi
  on/bandstra/. 22 Sep. 2004.
• Conflicting Christian Views of the Bibles
  Creation Stories. Religious Tolerance.Org.
  http//www. religioustolerance.org/ev_crest.htm
  . 22 Sep. 2004.