CYOA – Genesis 1 – Smorgasbord

I am not sure what to write about Genesis 1. It is not because I have no ideas, but rather there are too many. I am grateful for Duncan’s palace/temple post, which I just read as I was finishing this because it says a lot and I therefore do not need to repeat that excellent reading of this text. Nevertheless, I find my thoughts scattered as this section of scripture forms and shapes much of my theology, but it seems like too big a conversation to fit into a blog. This is the passage I have spent the most time with of all of the Bible. From the realization in grade three, when we were doing the days of creation, that this is an illogical story (how could there be light without the sun!), all the way to my final college class where I learned to read this text in Hebrew, and everywhere in between this story has been pondered. There is too much to say so this will not be a nice blog to read but a smattering of ideas.
• This text is myth (in the good sense) meant to be read as theological story, telling us about God, not as science, something the text was never meant to convey. (there is much ambiguity around whether day means 24 hour day or “a period of time”…both of which miss the point that it is a story about God and what God is creating “palace/temple” not how or when the world was created.
• The story begins with a title, the first verse is most likely a title, so the plot actually begins with chaos
• Most likely compiled and put into its final form during the Babylonian exile, this texts context depicts a God of order in perceived chaos (exile as essential chaos…can’t have redemption and reconciliation without the lack there of, thus defined by what it is not)
• It tells of a God who is not at war to create (contrary to other ancient creation stories), but creates through ordering, (and intentionally with disorder in sequence, e.g. light before sun)
• Forming and Filling – First three days form, second set of three fill
• Contains ancient cosmology of a firmament between two seas, one above and one below. (I am pretty sure no one believes this is the case anymore, so I find it funny when literalist attempt to state this as science, then claiming the flood was the break or something. This argument totally misses the point of the first 11 Chapters of Genesis, which are all mythical truth (There my cards are out, these 11 chapters are story). It is a story of creation, choice, consequence, care, and God’s guidance as we attempt to move forward into recreation, then poor choice again and the cycle continues) – side note: this reminded me of a C.S. Lewis quote, that God is proud of us even in our stumbles. Like a proud parent watching a toddler take a few steps then fall, not angry at the fall, but ready to help the toddler attempt a few steps again.
• Birds are to bird, creepers are to creep, living beings/souls (animals) are supposed to live. Intentional Hebrew word play for communicating “being” of creation, not necessary purpose or productivity
• God does not like Mondays, the second day of the week was not proclaimed good.
• The stars and moon get little attention compared to their importance of the cultures surrounding Israel
• Intention was that the sea and sky were to swarm swarms, so now that we have effectively killed off the swarms of fish we have really messed that up
• Ambiguity of gender, how do you read it…Male and female he created them, or Male AND female he created them. I would go with this gender in the first chapter is non-important. There are both genders but there is no role in this first chapter. One Jewish reading is that people at this point contained both sexes which were later split.
• Rule and subdue – tend and care for, serve and protect, have dominion and dominate, be a servant of… your choice I guess
• Man in our image…to follow up on Duncan’s post…the last thing done in a temple is the placing of an idol, and idol that reflects the God it images. Reflects in more than appearance but function as well. Thus, humans are the idol of God, we are to reflect God on earth. This also explains why idolatry was such a bad sin in the Bible, it does not only undermine God but undermines humanity’s role in the world, we then are abdicating our position. Things go wrong when we relinquish our position of care giver/authority…ex idolatry of the economic system, things get out of control when they are detached for the humans who are in them.
• Chapter 3 - I had to put this in because it is so intriguing…The words for naked and cunning/crafty are incredibly close to the same word in the Hebrew. A trade occurs naked for the serpent’s craftiness. I think it is a word play. Maybe showing of the intention always was for the people to realize that they were naked?

So there you have it a number of my thoughts. Lots of run-on ideas, I hope it made some sense. Maybe there was even a new nugget of information you picked up. I would love it if you (readers) would post which idea was your favourite/new idea or if you have an idea of your own I did not state, post it in the comments section.

CYOA - Look to the Snake

4 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”

6 Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

8 The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.

I was so excited to write on this passage because it is so bizarre! I mean the snakes are obviously no fun but then the bronze snake blows my mind!!!??? I mean why not have Moses' staff turn into a snake again and eat all the other snakes or maybe stick the ten commandments on a pole... or a bronze replica of the ten commandments... or a statue of Moses... But no, a bronze snake. Literally, looking to the snake was to receive God's salvation... Reflect on that statement for a moment. Does it creep anyone else out? That one looked to God by looking at the snake... Ok but maybe it makes sense because they are being attacked by snakes. So by having the symbol of salvation be a snake, no one will get confused and think God is a snake... they will remember Yahweh and the his deliverance from the snakes... Maybe? Nope: by 2 Kings 18:4, Israel is offering incense to the thing.

I did a word search on snake and serpent and it is a surprising common way of talking about something bad, being used mostly in a negative sense. However, the bronze snake is a weird kind of exception/non exception. There is also Gen 49:17 which is a prophecy about Dan in which snake imagery is kind of used as a positive negative and the staff into a snake trick in Exodus. In Matthew 10:16 we have Jesus command to be as shrewd as snakes. And you have Jesus' statement in John 3:14-15 directly referencing Numbers 21:

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.

And that is it.

Ok, now I want to give you the part that really freaks me out. Perhaps you have heard of Asclepius. The Greek God of medicine and healing.... Symbolized as a snake entwined on a staff... Still the common symbol for medicine/medical stuff...

So the Israelites are dying from snake bites and they need healing and they look to a bronze snake on a pole, i.e. Asclepius and they are healed. Except that Yahweh instructs this action and timeline-wise the connection must be from Israel to Greece and not the other way around if a real connection exists at all. To push this just a bit further, Asclepius is killed by Zeus for... raising people from the dead!!! Early church father Justin Martyr presented Asclepius as explicitly foreshadowing Jesus' ability to heal for the Greeks and is used as an example to show how Jesus' resurrection and ascension was not in any way unbelievable because this is already what Greeks believed about Asclepius!

OK. So we have the bronze serpent, to Asclepius, to Jesus. Furthermore, there is some scholarship and strong archaeological evidence to suggest that the Bathesda healing (John 5:1-15) was a confrontation with the pagan cult of Asclepius. So the question then... is this all part of God's glorious plan to save people in confusing ways that wind up getting people side tracked but eventually somehow lead to Jesus? Is the story of the snake which gives/offers life but ultimately leads people astray merely an extension of Eden? How do we reconcile the snake as both a symbol of judgement/punishment and salvation? Are we doomed to a story of redemptive violence? Are we supposed to not notice the phallic undertone in the descriptions of snakes and poles being lifted into the air?