In the life of humanity before God as described in the Old Testament there is reflected the reality of the God of Israel. In what has been said up to this point, however, we have not yet caught sight of the ultimate depth that reveals fully the nature of Yahweh, the God of Israel and creator of his creation. We have not yet examined the terrible crisis in which an early narrator records that “Yahweh was sorry he had made man” (Gen. 6:6) and a prophet calls his child “Not-my-people” to shatter the ears of everyone with the statement of how Yahweh feels about his people Israel (Hos. 1:9). We must now discuss explicitly this crisis and the way the faith of the Old Testament sees the judgment and salvation of God as they apply to this crisis in the life of humanity ( 5 19) and of the people of God ( 5 $20-2 1) and how it thinks about the future of the world (922).
$19 Humanity between Judgment and Salvation (Primal History) The fundamental reflections of the Old Testament faith on humanity apart from and before the unique history of Israel with its God are found in the primal history. Gese has shown how not just individual elements of this primal history, but the whole sequence of creation, primal age, deluge, and new beginning after the great crisis can be found in Sumerian historiography.
The question now is what is being said about the transaction between God and humanity when this historical narrative speaks of Yahweh as the lord of its history.
1. We have already discussed in $4 how J attempts in his outline sketch of the beginnings of history (Gen. 2:4b-25) to illustrate Yahweh’s merciful care for man, whose good he wishes. There follows immediately in Genesis 3 the account of the fall in the garden of God.
The traditional elements of this narrative are also found, in far more mythological form, in the oracle against the King of Tyre in Ezekiel 28:l l-19. Greek mythology also speaks of a divine garden whose fruits are jealously protected by its owner (Hera), which is broken into by a powerful man (Hercules); this story of the garden of the Hesperides (“those who dwell in the evening, ” i. e. at the western edge of the world) probably contains echoes of Near Eastern material.
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Genesis 3 has been repeatedly interpreted as reflecting the “doctrine of the fall of man.” Thanks to Augustine’s misinterpretation of what Romans 5 : 12 says about Adam (“in quo omnes peccaverunt “), this chapter has been thought to speak of “original sin,” as though the human race springing from Adam share almost physically “in Adam,” in his sin as a hereditary property conceived almost biologically.
In view of this interpretation, it must appear surprising that the Old Testament (apart from distant echoes in Ecclesiastes) never speaks of such a
“doctrine.” Genesis 3 is therefore making a different point. It is not pro- claiming a timeless universal truth, but speaking in concrete metaphor. The metaphor, however, does express a universal truth that transcends the imme- diate narrative complex.
Furthermore, Genesis 3 must not be read in isolation. The primal history of J is characterized by a whole sequence of stories about sin: Genesis 4 recounts Cain’s murder of his brother and Lamech’s unbridled vengeance;
Genesis 6:1-4 tells about the marriages with angels, leading immediately to the Deluge (65-9, 17). It is also reasonable to include in this deliberate concatenation of disaster stories the cursing of Canaan (9: 18-27), even though Yahweh, the God of Shem, is “blessed” in 926, as well as the story of the Tower of Babel. Each of these stories casts light in its own way on one particular aspect of what this enigmatic break between God and humanity means and on God’s response to it. The following points are being made:
a) Genesis 3 does not tell the story of just one individual in the course of human history but of the first man, whose designation “Adam” (“man”) is subsequently taken as a proper name. The point is undoubtedly to provide an exemplar of human conduct before God. Paul is not off the mark in Romans 5 when he compares Christ, the new man, with the “man” of Genesis 3.
The same can be said of Genesis 4: 1 ff., where the first “brother” (the catchword is empha- sized) appears, and of 11: 1 ff., where the first large group of people working together appears.
b) The sudden appearance of sin does not derive causally from God’s good creation according to Genesis 3.
Part of man’s sinful flight from the presence of God is his desire to blame God: “The woman you gave me for a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree and I ate it.” (3: 12) The so-called Babylonian Ecclesiastes, for example, speaks in very different terms: “The king of the gods, Narru, the creator of men, the renowned Zulummar, who pinched off their clay, the queen who formed them, Princess Mama, bestowed crafty speech upon mankind, lies and untruthfulness they gave to mankind for all time” (quoted from 0. Loretz, Qohelet und der Ab Orimt [ 19641, pp. 104-105). The Old Testament Ecclesiastes speaks quite differently in 7:29. It would also be a misinterpretation of the radical statement in Isaiah 45:7 to see it as transferring blame or
“guilt” to Yahweh. Cf. the further discussion under (g).
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c) According to Genesis 3, the nucleus of sin does not consist merely in the transgression of an objective norm, but in man’s disregard for his divine Lord, who has showered him with blessings.
Initially, of course, Genesis 3 speaks of the “taboo” tree and its fruit in the midst of the garden. But the real interpreter of what is going on is the serpent, who explains: “God knows that as soon as you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” Under this interpretation the sinful act that follows means rejection of the giver and man’s change from the role of recipient to that of giver. The strangely blurred episode of the marriages with angels (6: 1-4; see the discussion on p. 61 above) was probably also under- stood as demolishing the God-given relationship between heaven and earth. And we can see clearly in 11: lff. how human strength, brought together for a single purpose, seeks in hybris to pave the way to heaven itself.
d) The primal history of J illustrates uncannily the rapid growth of evil, which spreads like a drop of oil on water.
The break with God is followed (not “self-evidently,” but once more frighteningly and incomprehensibly) by the break between brothers, by the wild self-assertion of the vengeful Lamech, by the blurring of the boundary between heaven and earth, by disrespect for father and abuse of collective national might. It has been suggested that the story of David exhibits a similar internal progression: the murder and adultery committed by David (2 Sam. 1 l-12) are followed in the next breath by sexual promiscuity and murder among David’s children (2 Sam. 13). Nowhere, however, is a causal relationship posited between the new sin and what preceded, which would lift the burden of guilt.
e) The tendency of sin to conceal and disguise itself appears in bold relief, especially in Genesis 3-4.
The man hides among the trees when God approaches (3:8). With an air of hypocritical respect he tries to make excuses when God asks where he was: “I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.” (3:lO) In the case of Cain, a lie is coupled with a frivolous play on words when Yahweh asks him where his brother the shepherd is: “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper [ =shepherd]?” (4:9) In 3: 12, the retreat has been cynically transformed into an accusa- tion against God: “The woman you gave me. . . .‘I
f) At the same time, sin shows in horrible distortion how man was created for life with others, and how even here it is not good for him to be alone (2:18).
“She gave me fruit from the tree and I ate it,” says the man (3:12) when God asks him whether he has eaten from the tree, pointing to the companion God gave him out of careful consideration. “The serpent tricked me, and I ate,” says the woman (3: 13), pointing to the beast which, according to 2: 18-19, God had likewise created for the benefit of man. Thus man misuses the creation God has given him, employing it as a shield behind which to seek protection.
g) To the basic question of how evil comes into the world the primal history gives no answer. In common with all the rest of the Old Testament, it does not make the slightest attempt to take refuge in a dualistic or pluralistic universe. Guilt is left to stand unexplained as guilt, in all its harshness.
We very early find attempts to see Satan, God’s hostile counterpart, behind the serpent of Genesis 3 (cf. Rev. 129; 20:2). Whatever the preliminary history of the mythological material
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in Genesis 3 may be, this interpretation clearly does not accord with the intentions of J, who at the very outset explicitly includes the serpent among “the beasts of the field that Yahweh Elohim had made.” The serpent is thought of here simply as a snake, not as a hostile divine power in disguise. The subsequent curse condemning the serpent to eat dust and go upon his belly makes this clear. The eschatological description of the coming paradisal peace (Isa. 116-8) also provides evidence from the opposite perspective; one feature is the elimination of the hostility between people and the serpent. Examination of the story in Genesis 4, which is closely associated with Genesis 3, is also significant. No serpent appears in Genesis 4. But Cain’s transgression is preceded by a warning from the mouth of Yahweh himself, the interpretation of which is linguistically uncertain. Strikingly echoing Genesis 3:16,4:6-7 says: “Why are you so angry and cast down? Is it not true, if you do right, then you may raise it up [ ?], but if you do not do right, sin crouches at the door. It is eager for you, but you must master it.”
It is reasonable to ask why the serpent is introduced at all in Genesis 3. Couldn’t the story have been told like the story of Cain? One reason, of course, is the availability of specific narrative material. But closer examination also shows that in both instances, first by the introduc- tion of the serpent, second by the interpolation of Yahweh’s warning, the man is given scope to make a free decision. Sin does not simply overwhelm the man like a fate to which he has fallen victim; it confronts him initially as a temptation: in Genesis 3, it is embodied in the serpent; in Genesis 4, it is brought to light by the words of Yahweh. Given this scope for free choice, each man seizes the opportunity to disobey. Only this free choice makes it possible to take each man’s guilt seriously. It was not necessary for them to sin. Humans are not simply guilty by nature;
sin and guilt are alien to them, they come to them as temptation. But neither is sin part of a dualism, a fundamental principle hostile to God from the beginning of time.
We can see how the Old Testament wrestles with this problem, which is probably not amenable to logical solution. 2 Samuel 24: 1 ventures to draw the mystery of temptation directly into the realm of Yahweh’s will, making reference to the wrath of Yahweh, when it states: “Once again the Israelites felt Yahweh’s wrath, when he incited David against them and gave him orders that Israel and Judah should be counted.” The rest of the narrative shows how David fully confesses his guilt and how his conscience afflicts him on account of it. The later account in Chronicles is concerned like Genesis 3 to preserve scope for human freedom and make it clear that the temptation comes to David from without. The figure of Satan is introduced, possibly as an “interpretation” based on Zechariah 3: lff. (cf. Willi in the bibliography to $20): “Now Satan, setting himself against Israel, incited David to count the people.” (1 Chron. 21:l)
When the term “Satan” appears in the Old Testament, it should not be associated with a dualistic world view or a doctrine of two eons. At first it refers to a human accuser; later it comes to mean an accuser from the divine realm, who brings guilt to light, in some cases by instigating it.
“Satan” is basically not a proper name but a functional term. The verb j&$n means “show enmity.” Thus jUV_+in can mean a political opponent. In 1 Samuel 29:4, the Philistines send David back before attacking Saul so that he will not become an “adversary” in the battle. 1 Kings
11: 14, 23, 25 lists the “adversaries” who rise up against Solomon during his reign. At the same time, the word can take on the overtones of “tempter.” In 2 Samuel 19:23, David berates the sons of Zeruiah, who sought to induce him to take vengeance, calling them his “adversaries,”
“satans.”
Zechariah 3: lff. and Job l-2 show how Yahweh also has a “Satan” or
“Adversary” in the realm of the angelic powers that wait upon him; this figure acts as a kind of “public prosecutor,” raking note of everything that does not appear to be in order and investigating it with critical questions. In Zechariah 3: lff. it is the uncleanness of the high priest, brought about by the exile, that the Satan brings to the attention of God. In Job l-2, it is the critical inquiry whether the only reason Job is so devout is that he is prosper-
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ous. In 1 Chronicles 21:1, the only passage where the term “Satan” appears without an article as a proper name, the provocation of Satan actually incites David to sin when he is tempted (unlike Job l-2).
In all of these passages, nothing is done to dissociate evil from disobedi- ence. Again and again the Old Testament shows that, although severe temp- tation makes sin appear almost inescapable, its commission is always a matter of human responsibility. The mystery of sin remains unclarified; in the last analysis, it can be spoken of only in the form of a religious confession. In the judgment doxology (see above, p. 153), we have heard how people glorify God even when confessing sin. Psalm 5 1:7, where the worshiper confesses that his mother conceived him in sin, must not be understood as an attempt to transfer guilt to one’s ancestors. Just as Isaiah’s horrified exclamation, in which he confesses not only that he is a man of unclean lips, but also that he dwells in the midst of a people with unclean lips (6:5), is not meant to transfer his guilt to a collective “people,” so, here, too, all that is being said is that everyone is inextricably bound up in sin. The same point is made in the story of the first man’s disobedience to God.
Yahweh cannot overlook this action on the part of the man. The most sinister formulation of Yahweh’s reaction is found in Genesis 6:6, where J states: “Yahweh was sorry that he had made man on earth.” Does this not mean the end of the human race? The primal history speaks of a chain of blows Yahweh delivers in judgment, responding to the rebellion of his creation. His judgment takes the form of a direct sentencing; it must not be reduced to the neutral process of an action involving its own consequences.
According to Genesis 3, God imposes in his judgment specific plights that are still inextricably bound up in the life of creation as we know it. Here, too, however, the Old Testament merely gives illustrations, not a compre- hensive account.
In the animal world, Genesis 3:14-15 speaks of the enigmatic crawling of the serpent on its belly, its eating dust, and the profound hostility that will exist between it and humanity.
Anyone who sees a serpent will try at once to stamp on its head, and whenever a serpent sees a person, it will attempt to strike and set its poisonous fangs in the person’s heel. The church later claimed to find a “protevangelium” here, according to which one born of woman would one day put to death the serpent, taken as Satan in the New Testament sense; such an interpreta- tion imports notions into Genesis 3 that are not found in the text.
In the case of the woman, the punishment includes the pain of childbirth and bondage to her husband (a given of patriarchal society), to whom she nevertheless feels drawn.
In the case of the man, we see at once that he must labor as a farmer, producing the fruits of the soil by the sweat of his brow, all the while realizing that in the end he will return to dust.
At the conclusion of the paradise story this latter punishment, banishment from the place of life, takes concrete form in the man’s banishment from the garden of God and thus from access to the tree of life. The guard at the entrance to the garden denies for all time humanity’s return there. Genesis 6:1-4 describes the restriction placed on human life in the context of a totally different tradition, citing an explicit decree of Yahweh that human life may not exceed 120 years.
The details of the Cain tradition suggest an original locus in the semi-nomadic life of the Kenites. In its present context, the emphasis is on the homeless wanderings of the fratricide, who
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can never settle down in peace. The narrative manifestly has a profound psychological transpar- ency.
J tells his story most expansively in the account of the Deluge, where God’s regret that he created people takes the form of a universal catastrophic flood.
The Canaan episode points more specifically to the particular circumstances of the Canaanite world, where during the time of David Israel became the rulers, the Canaanites their subject servants.
The story of the Tower of Babel once again has a universal problem in view, which even today still afflicts the nations: the different languages spoken by different nations are a source of divisiveness preventing people from working together in peace.
These are the severe consequences of the curse as touched on by J.
Alongside them, however, J’s portion of the narrative in Genesis 3-l 1 reveals an enigmatic divine restraint. The man and woman are threatened with death on the day they eat from the forbidden tree (2: 17), but their lives are not taken on the day they sin. In fact, the description of the woman’s punishment speaks of childbirth and the future, so that in 3:20 the man ventures to give her the name Nell hawwa, Vulgate Heva, English “Eve,”
“because she became the mother of all who live.” When the fratricide Cain pleads with Yahweh in desperation, Yahweh protects him by means of a (tatooed?) sign, “in order that anyone meeting him should not kill him.”
(4: 15) At the beginning of the great Deluge we hear the sinister statement that God regretted ever having made people; but Yahweh himself (not, as the Babylonian epic has it, the cunning of another god working against the god who caused the flood) carefully preserves not only an entire human family but enough living creatures from all animal families to insure the whole world a future. And Yahweh’s final decision, in the context of which he explicitly acknowledges that “the inclinations of man’s heart have been evil from his youth up,” leads up in 8:21-22 to a total preservation of life on earth.
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been pointed out in another context that P’s introduction in Genesis l:l-2:4a with its detailed account of the creation of the world betrays a noticeably different interest and purpose from that of J. The question of humanity and the riddle of human existence recede in favor of the problem of God’s great design for the world and the people of Yahweh. P does not include the stories of the fall and the first fratricide, which cast such a sharp spotlight on the nature of people; neither does it mention the episode of the angelic marriages, the Canaan incident, or the Tower of Babel. Only the detailed account of the Deluge, linked by means of the genealogical lists in Genesis 5 and 11: 1Off. with the story of the world’s beginning and the incipient history of Israel, intervenes between the account of creation and the story of Abraham.
In all of this we have a foretaste of what is explicitly stated in Genesis 12: l-3 in the call of Abraham. Yahweh plans a new future of blessings for the world, which is in many ways under a curse and has no righteousness of its own that could move God to make such a decision. In Abraham the bearer of this new blessing is made visible. How the nation of Israel is anticipated in his figure and Yahweh’s promise has been discussed in 53.
Thus J understands and attests the meaning of Israel’s existence accord- ing to God’s will: to bring a blessing into a world marked by the afflictions of God’s judgment because of its alienation from him. J does not go into detail about how this blessing is to take effect in a world afflicted with death, pain, enmity between various groups of creatures, and lack of understanding among nations. That the problem remained acute is demonstrated by Isaiah
1 l:l-8; 25:&z and other passages that must be discussed later.
2. J was composed in the early period of the monarchy; the outline of P brings us into the period following the great catastrophe of Israel. It has
The six days of God’s creation conclude in 1:3 1 with the summary statement: “And God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” When God alone acts, everything is “very good.” In 6: 11, however, at the begin- ning of the Deluge account, after ten generations of human history have elapsed, we encounter a terrible new observation: “Now God saw that the whole world was corrupt and full of violence (bt3i~hdmd.r).” In addition, we find the statement, clearly phrased in contrast to 1:3 1: “And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had lived corrupt lives upon earth.” (6: 12) This reference to “violence” on earth intrudes quite unexpect- edly alongside the opening observation in 1:3 1. Only the statement that Enoch “walked with God” and was therefore taken away by God, in a list that is otherwise dominated by nothing more than names and numbers (Gen.
5), gives the slightest hint that other things on earth might not be taking place
“with God.”
It has been stated (K8hler) that P says nothing about the fall of man. This statement is correct to the extent that P does not contain any lengthy story of the fall after the manner of Genesis 3. But the fact of a universal fall into sin in all its unmotivated irrationality is if anything stated even more trenchantly by P than by J. The fall also appears more inclusive in P than in J, because “all flesh” is involved. This phrase is probably meant to include the animal world as
well, in which the “violence” of the strong against the weak is as widespread as in the human world.
This universality of the fall is also expressed in the account of the Deluge that is God’s response to the alienation of the world. J had pictured the great Deluge as a downpour lasting forty days, something like a catastrophic flood. In P, it affects the very foundations of the world created and ordered in Genesis 1. “All the springs of the great abyss were broken through and the windows of the sky were opened.” According to Genesis 16-7, the ordering of chaos to form the created world began with God’s placing a “firmament” or vault between the earth and the “water above it,” and his assigning a fixed place to the “water below it”-fixing for the deep a boundary that it might not pass, Psalm 104:9 adds. Now these waters, and with them chaos, threaten once more to invade the ordered world. P puts the theological question in much more fundamental terms than J: does the corruption of the world, primarily represented by the corruption of humanity, which was given lordship over the lower orders of creation, have the power to annul God’s initial decision to create the world, so that the world described in Genesis
1 will be swallowed up once more by chaos?