Back Genesis-skeppingsverhaal Afrikaans ሥነ-ፍጥረት Amharic قصة الخلق في سفر التكوين Arabic Creació segons el Gènesi Catalan Y creu yn ôl Genesis Welsh Skabelsesberetningen i Bibelen Danish Schöpfungsgeschichte (Priesterschrift) German Κοσμογονία της Γένεσης Greek Narración de la creación del Génesis Spanish روایت آفرینش Persian
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The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth[a] of both Judaism and Christianity.[1] The narrative is made up of two stories, roughly equivalent to the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis. In the first, Elohim (the Hebrew generic word for god) creates the heavens and the Earth in six days, then rests on, blesses, and sanctifies the seventh (i.e. the Biblical Sabbath). In the second story God (now referred to by the personal name Yahweh) creates Adam, the first man, from dust and places him in the Garden of Eden. There he is given dominion over the animals. Eve, the first woman, is created from Adam's rib as his companion.
The authors of the Hebrew creation narrative borrowed themes from Mesopotamian mythology and ancient near eastern cosmology, but adapted them to their unique belief in one God.[2] The first major comprehensive draft of the Pentateuch (the series of five books which begins with Genesis and ends with Deuteronomy) is thought to have been composed in the late 7th or the 6th century BCE (the Jahwist source) and was later expanded by other authors (the Priestly source) into a work very like Genesis as known today.[3] The two sources can be identified in the creation narrative: Priestly and Jahwistic.[4] The combined narrative is a critique of the Mesopotamian theology of creation: Genesis affirms monotheism and denies polytheism.[5] Robert Alter described the combined narrative as "compelling in its archetypal character, its adaptation of myth to monotheistic ends".[6]
Scholarly writings frequently refer to Genesis as myth, for while the author of Genesis 1–11 "demythologised" his narrative by removing the Babylonian myths and those elements which did not fit with his own faith, it remains a myth in the sense of being a story of origins.[7]
The Genesis creation narrative inspired a genre of Jewish and Christian literature known as the Hexameral literature. This literature was dedicated to the composition of commentaries, homilies, and treatises concerned with the exegesis of the biblical creation narrative through ancient and medieval times. The first Christian example of this genre was the Hexaemeron of Basil of Caesarea, and many other works went on to be written from authors including Augustine of Hippo, Jacob of Serugh, Jacob of Edessa, Bonaventure, and so on.[8]
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- ^ Leeming & Leeming 2004, p. 113.
- ^ Sarna 1997, p. 50.
- ^ Davies 2001, p. 37.
- ^ Bandstra 2008, p. 37.
- ^ Wenham 2003b, p. 37.
- ^ Alter 2004, p. xii.
- ^ Hamilton 1990, pp. 57–58.
- ^ Katsos 2023, p. 15–16.