Doctrinal Direction

In the beginning, God created . . .  Genesis 1:1  NASB

In the beginning – It is little wonder that some rabbis spent their entire lives contemplating the opening three words of Scripture.  We have spent quite a bit of time on the same subject.  At last count, there are half a dozen or more Today’s Words about Genesis 1:1 and quite a few longer articles.  One reason for this continual re-examination of the passage is its absolute uniqueness in ancient Near-eastern thought.  The opening words, and the entire Genesis story, represent a radical departure from every other cultural explanation of that era.

Of course, that wouldn’t explain our continued fascination with the implications of this opening.  That it eventually became the foundation of a doctrine like creation ex nihilo shows its enormous explanatory power, even if that doctrine is not explicitly stated in the verse itself.

But there are some implications from the way Genesis 1:1 is interpreted in Christian theology that lead in other directions.  Jacques Ellul notices one of these when he says,  “Now at the same time and in a corresponding manner, reflection upon God, being led by Greek and Roman thought, radically transformed what the Bible said about God.  On the one side it analyzed the attributes of God – a God, of course, very different from the gods of polytheism, but still a God constructed by philosophy.  Thus the idea of creation underwent a radical change the moment omnipotence came to the fore.  The relation between God and the world now had nothing whatever to do with what the first Christian generations believed.  God was tied to his creation, and ultimately the world contained God.  On this basis one could find the sacred everywhere.  This path led to the reappearance of persons typically connected with the sacred, such as mediators or priests.”[1]

Ellul’s remark recognizes concepts buried in some Christian interpretations of Genesis 1:1 that are not part of the Hebraic world.  The differences are important.  The Hebraic paradigm does not see God contained within the idea of the world, nor does it view God in terms of “attributes,” as most Christian theology does.  Furthermore, since the Hebraic world does not have the Greek philosophical constructs of omnipresence, YHWH is not found everywhere.  He is not the universally distributed God.  He is the God of Israel and He is found among His people.  Yes, I know that you could object.  “God is everywhere.  That’s what omnipresence means.”  But you are missing the point.  God is the God of Israel and the nations are invited to join Israel, not to merge Israel into the rest of the world.  That God could manifest Himself anywhere in His creation does not mean that God is everywhere; i.e., that He is distributed equally in every place as the pantheists claim.

Ellul’s points continue.  Those who serve Him are called to very specific tasks associated with the cultus.  There are no universal priests mediating the relationship between all human beings and the universal God.  There are priests who facilitate the worship of God as He requires it within the culture of His people.  The people as a whole are called to be intercessors between God and the nations, but in the end the role of all these priests and priestesses is to call the nations to join Israel in worshipping Israel’s God.

I know, I know.  If you thought I was stretching the idea of omnipresence, then you will certainly come unglued with this one.  “But Jesus is the high priest of the world.  He died for the sins of everyone!”  The statement is so familiar that we don’t even think about what it implies.  If Yeshua is the priest for everyone, then why does He say He came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel?  And why does He use a metaphor about the new covenant that only has application to the houses of Israel and Judah?  And why does Paul say that we as Gentile believers are “grafted” into Israel?

The answers might shock us.  First, we absolutely know that He is not of the order of the Levitical priests, so in this sense, He is not called (nor is He fit) to serve God.  He is of the order of Melchizedek, something quite unique in itself, and in that order He acts differently than all Levitical priests.  Secondly, since we affirm that He is divine (as God manifest in the flesh), He doesn’t serve God at all.  He is God – God Himself sacrificed in order to offer required compensation for the removal of guilt.  But these are only two small considerations.  Much more investigation is required.  The difficulty is setting aside all our Western, Christian pre-suppositions about the meanings of the text in order to listen to what the text actually says to its first audience.  That doesn’t mean we will come up with any different conclusions.  I believe that Yeshua is the divine Messiah whose death is intimately connected to the forgiveness of sins.  Just how that happens isn’t as clear to me now as I thought it was.  Now I am trying to understand what these passages would mean to a Jew in the first century.  If I don’t know this, then it is doubtful that I really understand what the authors are saying.  And since the overwhelming majority of the followers of Yeshua HaMashiach in the first century were Jews, whatever this text implies, it would have made sense to them.  So, I guess I better get to work.

Maybe Ellul is on to something.  Maybe.  But look what it will require us to do.  We will have to start over in our conceptions about the real relationship between YHWH, Yeshua, Israel and the Gentiles.

Or we could just dismiss all this and stay in our present theological comfort zone.  We could let our traditions remain more powerful than the text.

Topical Index: Genesis 1:1, Israel, priest, Melchizedek, sacrifice



[1] Jacques Ellul, The Subversion of Christianity, p. 66.

Subscribe
Notify of
35 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
A.W. Bowman

Skip – This is one of the simplest notes you have posted, and one of the most profound.
Thank you!

Michael

“This is one of the simplest notes you have posted”

Hi A.W.,

Hmmm I beg to differ

I read some of Ellul’s work some time ago and found it very moving and interesting

But I’m a bit confused by some of his points today; for example:

“On the one side it analyzed the attributes of God – a God, of course, very different from the gods of polytheism, but still a God constructed by philosophy.”

IMO the statement above taken out of context could be very misleading

The God constructed by “philosophers” is in the “first account of creation” as I understand it

The problem, of course, is that there are two accounts of creation in Genesis and that the second account, which is much older (ie the original account) was not created by “philosophers”

Rather the original account was created by relatively “primitive people” who conceived of God in anthropomorphic terms (as a more powerful “man” or being)

If we start at the “beginning” of Genesis, “omnipotence came to the fore” on Day 1:

Genesis 1.1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth.”

If God created the universe almost “out of whole cloth” how could God be

“tied to his creation”

Or his creation “ultimately …. contain God” ?

I guess my ultimate point is that if there are two somewhat contradictory accounts of creation

1. One in which God seems to be contained in the creation (Gen 2)

2. One in which God is transcends creation (Gen 1)

We can argue two very different contradictory views of God

But can we ever know which one is correct?

Michael

SKIP: But your reply depends on accepting the 19th Century German higher criticism that there really are TWO accounts

MIKE: Actually, I don’t know much about the 19th Century German higher criticism, but there really are TWO accounts in every Bible I can find 🙂

For example:

Genesis 1 The Jewish Bible

1:26 Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, in the likeness of ourselves; and let them rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the animals, and over all the earth, and over every crawling creature that crawls on the earth.”

1:27 So God created humankind in his own image;
in the image of God he created him:
male and female he created them.

MIKE: The Androgynous (male-female) image in Genesis 1:27 is a symbol of wholeness that can be found in the Talmud as I recall (from the priests/mystics who like concepts such as omniscience/omnipotence/omnipresence)

Genesis 2 The Jewish Bible

2:7 Then Adonai, God, formed a person from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so that he became a living being.

2:8 Adonai, God, planted a garden toward the east, in ‘Eden, and there he put the person whom he had formed.

2:9 Out of the ground Adonai, God, caused to grow every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

MIKE: This version would seem to be a much older literary
genre, reconstituted in the 1950’s Popeye and Olive Oil cartoons

Michael

“With the exception of a few fragments in the prophets, virtually no biblical text is contemporaneous with the events it describes, and every part was subject to revision by later authors.” WIKI

Hi Skip,

As you know, creating Eve from Adam’s rib is a very primitive concept, probably implying a part-whole relationship, and then we have the problem of Eve, the evil one of the two. And Adam a somewhat moronic type. (Gen 2)

In the executive overview, written by executive types, Adam is created in the image of God, and Eve does not prod him into sin. (Gen 1)

The executives want a level playing field in the beginning of their world 🙂

Talmud

The Talmud has two components: the Mishnah (Hebrew: משנה, c. 200 CE), the first written compendium of Judaism’s Oral Law, and the Gemara (c. 500 CE), an elucidation of the Mishnah and related Tannaitic writings that often ventures onto other subjects and expounds broadly on the Hebrew Bible.

Torah

The first five books of the bible in Judaism are called the Torah, meaning “law” or “instruction”, and are regarded as the most important section of the Scriptures, traditionally thought to have been written around 1440 BCE by Moses himself.

Most recent scholarly proposals place its origins in 5th century Judah under the Persian empire.

Michael

Hi Skip,

Please see comments inline

SKIP: Did you really think that WIKI is the definitive resource on biblical textual criticism?

MIKE: I think that WIKI is a great source for factual information, not textual criticism

SKIP: And who told you that et hats-tsela meant “rib.” In this case, it is the King James that is primitive. The root is ts-l which means “side” like the side of a hill. Metaphorically, not literally, this places the formation of the woman as an equal. And it this any less “primitive” than the man being formed from dust?

MIKE: All of it is primitive IMO and somewhat silly, but at the same time held sacred by the Jews as I understand it

MIKE: A “side of man” is still ribs as well and still a part-whole relationship and the man still came first, and the woman istill initiates the evil with the snake

MIKE: I think your “woman as an equal” interpretation is an imteresting one, but somewhat motivated by feminist and utopian views (all good to me). In any case, this is all ideology, not science IMO

SKIP: Once again we are expected to read the text within the context of the 16th Century BC where these ideas are already circulating in the culture. The only exception, and it is a BIG one, is that the Hebrew text is the only ancient cosmology that even includes the formation of woman.

MIKE: I understand and share your “feminist” view
MIKE: I guess my question would be why does every Bible I’ve ever seen translate it as rib? And this is probably the most famous story in the Bible

Michael

“If you don’t know that the author meant, then you don’t know what the text means.”

Hi Skip,

In Genesis 2 we certainly don’t know what the author meant

We don’t even know who the author was

In my view, a text can have a different objective meaning than the author intended

Unless of course the author is God, which complicates the Biblical text

For me, when one argues that women should not be priests, that is an anti-feminist agenda

In my view, a feminist wants equal rights and justice in relation to men

When I say the Bible is not science, it is not a criticism, it is just a fact

It is fiction, fact, history etc; was there a real snake talking to Eve, I don’t think so

Michael

“And I suggest that it does NOT tell you anything about a feminist agenda, or anything about androgynous beings, or anything about evil in women.”

Hi Skip,

Forty years ago, the concept of Androgyny in The Scarlet Letter (A) was much more interesting to me than it is today

At the time, I could not understand why nobody had ever noticed it or written about, because it seemed so obvious to me

Google’s Androids are more interesting to me today, but regarding Androgyny in Genesis, I found the following in Judaism Online:

“The fact that the first human was created as an androgynous being gives us much insight into male-female relationships.

To get a clear picture of the Jewish view of womanhood, we must go back to the beginning—the Torah.

In the first chapter of Genesis, the Torah chooses to refer to Adam in the plural:

God created the man in His image; in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. And God blessed them. (Genesis 1:27-28)

Why “them”? This was before the creation of Eve!

The Jewish Oral Tradition provides us with a fascinating insight into this grammatical oddity. The first human, it tells us, was really an androgynous being, both male and female in one body, sophisticated and self-sufficient.

But if God had created such a complete human being, why the later separation into two parts, into Adam and Eve?

The answer given is that God did not want this first human creation to be alone, for it would then possess an illusion of self-sufficiency. Note that there is no word for “independence” in classical Hebrew. (What we use now, atzma’ut, is of modern vintage.)

The concept of independence doesn’t exist in Jewish tradition. Aside from God, nothing and no one is really independent. Since we are supposed to ingrain into ourselves that God is the source of everything, self-sufficiency would have been a spiritual defeat.

God wanted to fashion the human being into two separate people in order to create a healthy situation of dependence, yearning, and mutual giving. Human beings are not meant to be alone because then they would have no one to give to, no one to grow with, and nothing to strive for. To actualize oneself spiritually, a human being cannot be alone.”

Michael

SKIP: “Interesting but without support except by reading it back into the text.”

JESUS: “and when you make the male and the female into a single one, …. you enter the Kingdom”

Hi Skip,

Yes but apparently Jesus did the same thing 🙂

Jesus said to them:

When you make the two one,
and when you make the inside as the outside,
and the outside as the inside,
and the upper as the lower,
and when you make the male and the female into a single one,
so that the male is not male and the female not female,
and when you make eyes in place of an eye,
and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then shall you enter [the kingdom].

Gospel of Thomas Saying 22

Michael

SKIP: The Gospel of Thomas? Filled with greek dualisms and other suspicious ideas, I am not inclined to consider it very accurate.

Hi Skip,

The Torah and Talmud are the primary sources for all codes of rabbinic law

But you seem to be rejecting a lot of the Talmud at this point, and the mystical tradition, known as Kabbalah?

Michael

SKIP: The Gospel of Thomas? Filled with greek dualisms and other suspicious ideas, I am not inclined to consider it very accurate

Hi Skip,

But “when you make the male and the female into a single one” of Thomas

Is a direct reference to the Hebrew dualism of male and female as one image of God

In Gen 1:27

Michael

The Ancient Egyptians defined the qualifications of a king in the following terms:

– He is a God
– Father and Mother of all people (two things)
– Alone by himself without equal (one thing)

Queen Hatshepsut

Maat-Ka-Re Hatshepsut (circa 1479-1457 BC) was the the third woman in Egyptian history to take up the Pharaoh’s throne

The Androgynous King

Michael

– He is God
– Father and Mother of all people (two things)
– Alone by himself without equal (one thing)

Regarding prayer, I would like to make the following point

It seems to me that the point of prayer is to make the “two things one”

That is to say, I am to make God’s desire my desire

If God is in control of things, then I always have what He desires

So the trick is to learn to adapt to His will (which has never been very easy for me)

As Vincent, the Hitman in the movie Collateral, comically teaches us

“Now we gotta make the best of it, improvise, adapt to the environment, Darwin, stuff happens, I Ching, whatever man, we gotta roll with it”

And do the right thing (Spike Lee)

A.W. Bowman

Michael –

God is neither contained within His creation, nor is he ‘outside’ of it, He transcends both. That is, God is, and in that manner He operates outside of time (sees everything from its beginning to its end) as well as operating within the time of His creation (in the affairs of men and nations).

Also, from a Hebraic point of view, the initial creation narrative was not meant to be a list of chronological events, rather a list of things accomplished by God in His creation activities. For example the sun was not created until the fourth day. Rather, the message is God is and He did. Trying to figure it out is purely a Greek paradigm, not Hebraic.

The entire Old Covenant writings are designed to reveal God to mankind in His creation and in His messiah, as “who He is”, not to demonstrate “what He is”. We Westerners want to figure Him out (the how and why), while He wants us to love Him for who He is (worship and obey).

Michael

Hi A.W.

Yes I tend to agree with you from a slightly different angle

A.W. “God is neither contained within His creation, nor is he ‘outside’ of it, He transcends both.”

M.O: The Rabbis and Catholics refer to this characteristic as “Omnipresence”

A.W. “Trying to figure it out is purely a Greek paradigm, not Hebraic.”

M.O: I understand, but the Jews knew that looking at familiar things from a different angle, such as the Greek paradigm, can often shed new light on an old subject

A.W. “The entire Old Covenant writings are designed to reveal God to mankind in His creation and in His messiah, as “who He is”, not to demonstrate “what He is”.

M.O: I think the entire Old Covenant writings are designed to reveal three things:

– What Yahweh wants us to do
– Who his models are
– The consequences of our actions

Sometimes his “models” are prostitutes and sometimes they are donkeys

A.W. Bowman

Now that, Skip, is something I can fully agree with. Both the spiral and the wheel traveling down a road allegories of (biblical) Hebrew time approaches work for me – neither of which fit well into a linear Greek world view of time. Of course, this makes some books of the Bible very difficult to dig through, most notability the book of Revelation.

I will have to read your book! Your collecting all my shekels! LOLOL As a note: I was basing my precept on “modern” Hebraic thought as expressed by one of the contributing Rabis on Chabad.org several months ago, along with some earlier Messianic teachers. If your study sheds additional insight into the subject, I will gladly embrace it. Yet, the one thing I have had to learn is to set aside is the idea of applying Aristotelian logic to Hebrew scriptures. Yet, we shall see what my studies produce.

Thanks again for your great messages.

A.W. Bowman

Most welcome!

Ida Blom

“I believe that Yeshua is the divine Messiah whose death is intimately connected to the forgiveness of sins. Just how that happens isn’t as clear to me now as I thought it was. Now I am trying to understand what these passages would mean to a Jew in the first century. ”

How amazing it this that our Father is drawing so many of us in this direction? I have had the EXACT same question on my heart for the last two months.. – ‘Just HOW that happens isn’t clear to me as I thought it was.”

But if you have the witness in your heart that without Him you are dead in your sins, it is a revelationary truth that no-one can take from you. But we have to be patient – put it in a bottle on the spiritual shelf and attach the label – “In Abba’s Time..”

Thanks for sharing, Skip!

Mary

God Himself sacrificed in order to offer required compensation for the removal of guilt.

Yes, how do we explain this “act of Love from the One” who also “said, thou shalt not kill” and make the argument that believing in this “self sacrificial offering was for our justification”? If one does not know how the Law set up “measure for measure” and the penalty for willful sin according to The Creator’s standards, then of course, this would not make any sense at all. I find it difficult to go too deeply in this and yet, I am drawn back to think/meditate on it constantly. Especially when I consider being a disciple… DOER and not just a hearer only.

Does it sound too crazy to ask if we should consider this in the same manner of a crime scene investigation, and work backwards into it? It seems so, since christianity has committed the crime of distorting the gospel and judaism, the same crime almost in reverse, was committed by seemingly hiding The Light under a bushel to keep it to themselves. On one hand, rather than spreading the true gospel, one selfishly buried it and the other scattered some bad seed to a world looking for a reason to believe in something other than themselves.

The spreading of the LIGHT to the nations was apparently a charge given to the early people of YHWH. Some success was evident as Moses led the congregation into the wildnerness and in that bunch were Egyptians/”foreigners” who were obedient to The Way. Along the way, many perished due to disobedience and yet Abba is powerful enough to keep the flame flickering, at times just a smoldering of embers of hot coals. Nevertheless, He is now fanning the flames! Eventually the cleansing fire will burn off the chaff! Now, that, to me is great news!

Pam

This is exactly what drew me to the Hebraic roots. I want to know Him and worship Him in spirit and in TRUTH. If the truth sets us free then isn’t it the most important thing we can pursue in our lives?

I commend you Skip. You have the hurdles of your extensive education and indoctrination to overcome that most of us don’t have to the same degree as you. The one thing we do have in common is that we all want to know (in the biblical sense) Him more and more for who He really is and not for what we presume Him to be.

As one of my favorite authors anonymous says, “Time canonizes tradition” It’s a tough call. We/you are touching tearing down the high places and it’s not appreciated. It wasn’t appreciated when three of the kings of Israel did it. Why should we expect anything different?

It’s good to be on this journey with you all.

A.W. Bowman

Love your comment!

Pam

I appreciate yours as well A.W. Always thought provoking.

Pam

Shabbat Shalom

Robin York

Good Word again, Skip!
I’ve had Reggie White on my mind for the past couple of days, the anniversery of his death is December, 26th, 2004. I’ve often wondered what it would have been like if he had connected with you and TW. I’m sure he would have been one of your most loyal readers. I’m not sure how many of you know about Reggie’s life..watch the video….and think about what Skip is doing….then do it!

Reggie White… from Preacher of traditional Christianity to Torah Truth Seeker http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UINyN4HInSI

Michael

Reggie White… from Preacher of traditional Christianity to Torah Truth Seeker http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UINyN4HInSI

Hi Robin,

That is an amazing story, thanks for sharing!

Emily Durr

Thanks for the post, Skip, and thanks, Robin, for the link about Reggie White.