(1) When God began to create [Others “In the beginning God created”] heaven and earth— (2) the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from a wind from [Others “the spirit of”] God sweeping over the water— (3) God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (4) God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. (5) God called the light Day and called the darkness Night. And there was evening and there was morning, a first day [Others “one day.”].
- God has no backstory.
- God's name here is generic: Elohim, which just means "god."
- God's name here is also not generic. Elohim is in the plural, but the verb here is in the singular, as if to say: If you think that God is a plurality, you are incorrect. The singular for Elohim, Eloah, is rare and almost never occurs except for a few mentions, such as in Psalms and Job.
- God creates with divine speech, which is the most ephemeral way that one could create.
- God in Genesis 1 is also transcendent, majestic and remote.
- God also names things here.
- Note also that God creates with either raw material, OR God creates the raw material from nothing. (Old debate).
- Note also that the essential nature of the created world is Good.
(26) And God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.” (27) And God created humankind in the divine image, creating it in the image of God— creating them male and female. (28) God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth.”
(29) God said, “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food. (30) And to all the animals on land, to all the birds of the sky, and to everything that creeps on earth, in which there is the breath of life, [I give] all the green plants for food.” And it was so. (31) And God saw all that had been made, and found it very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
- God creates Humans (and not much else).
- God creates Humans in God's image. What does that mean?
- God creates male and female simultaneously.
- Humans are to rule over the earth, but only to eat plants.
- Very Good. For the Rabbis, this is the Evil Inclination, the Yetzer Hara.
(4) Such is the story of heaven and earth when they were created. When God ה' made earth and heaven— (5) when no shrub of the field was yet on earth and no grasses of the field had yet sprouted, because God ה' had not sent rain upon the earth and there were no human beings to till the soil, (6) but a flow would well up from the ground and water the whole surface of the earth— (7) God ה' formed the Human, blowing into its nostrils the breath of life: the Human became a living being. (8) God ה' planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the Human who had been fashioned. (9) And from the ground God ה' caused to grow every tree that was pleasing to the sight and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and bad.
*the Human I.e., the progenitor of the species and the point of origin for human society. Heb. ha-’adam; trad. “man.” In the eyes of ancient Israel, the typical initiator of a lineage was male, and so the first human being would also have been imagined as male. See further the Dictionary under ’adam. from the soil’s humus,*soil’s humus Heb. ‘afar min ha-’adamah, rendered to emulate the wordplay with Heb. ha-’adam “the Human”; more precisely, “loose dirt from the soil.” NJPS “dust of the earth
(15) God ה' took and settled the Human in the garden of Eden, to till it and tend it. (16) And God ה' commanded the Human, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; (17) but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.” (18) God ה' said, “It is not good for the Human to be alone; I will make a fitting counterpart for him.” (19) And God ה' formed out of the earth all the wild beasts and all the birds of the sky, and brought them to the Human to see what he would call them; and whatever the Human called each living creature, that would be its name. (20) And the Human gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and to all the wild beasts; but no fitting counterpart for a human being was found. (21) So God ה' cast a deep sleep upon the Human; and, while he slept, [God] took one of his sides [Heb. ṣela‘ot, trad. “ribs.”] and closed up the flesh at that site. (22) And God ה' fashioned the side that had been taken from the Human into a woman, bringing her to the Human. (23) Then the Human said,
“This one at last
Is bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh.
This one shall be called Woman,
For from a Human was she taken.”
(24) Hence a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife so that they become one flesh. (25) The two of them were naked, the Human and his wife, yet they felt no shame.
- God still has no backstory.
- God's name here is a personal name (YHVH) and title (Elohim = God).
- YHVH (or so) is a strange name. It looks like the verbs IS-WAS-WILL BE all mashed up into one name. It is also all vowels, no consonants. This is called the Tetragrammaton, the Ineffable Name (Shem Meforash), and is not pronounced.
- God creates with anthropomorphic verbs.
- God is more immanent, relationship focused, concerned about the Human's existential well-being.
- The Human names things here.
- God here clearly is working with raw materials.
- God create the Human first, and then into Man and Woman. (Does the order matter?)
- Humans have Nishmat Chayim, the Divine Breath of Life in them.
- The Human's job in the Garden is to "till and tend," which also could be "to serve and to preserve."
- God is looking for an equal partner for the Human.
- In rabbinic tradition, the Human is a male-female form that God splits into two, male and female.
(1) ה' called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying: (2) Speak to the Israelite people, and say to them: When any of you presents an offering of cattle to ה': You shall choose your offering from the herd or from the flock. (3) If your [Lit. “his,"] offering is a burnt offering from the herd, you shall make your offering a male without blemish. You shall bring it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, for acceptance in your behalf before ה'. You shall lay a hand upon the head of the burnt offering, that it may be acceptable in your behalf, in expiation for you.
- In Leviticus, God is also immanent, but more of a presence than an anthropomorphic deity.
- Guess who wrote Genesis 1? Yup, same people who wrote Leviticus.
- Offerings are not magic.
- Very few animals.
- Seem to be more about catharsis and relationship than actually efficacious.
- God only smells things, very abstract.
(10) The day you stood before your God ה' at Horeb, when ה' said to me, “Gather the people to Me that I may let them hear My words, in order that they may learn to revere Me as long as they live on earth, and may so teach their children.” (11) You came forward and stood at the foot of the mountain. The mountain was ablaze with flames to the very skies, dark with densest clouds. (12) ה' spoke to you out of the fire; you heard the sound of words but perceived no shape—nothing but a voice. (13) [God] declared to you the covenant that you were commanded to observe, the Ten Commandments, inscribing them on two tablets of stone. (14) At the same time ה' commanded me to impart to you laws and rules for you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy. (15) For your own sake, therefore, be most careful—since you saw no shape when ה' spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire— (16) not to act wickedly and make for yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness whatever: the form of a man or a woman, the form of any beast on earth, the form of any winged bird that flies in the sky, (18) the form of anything that creeps on the ground, the form of any fish that is in the waters below the earth.— (19) And when you look up to the sky and behold the sun and the moon and the stars, the whole heavenly host, you must not be lured into bowing down to them or serving them. These your God ה' allotted to other peoples everywhere under heaven; (20) but you ה' took and brought out of Egypt, that iron blast furnace, to be God’s very own people, as is now the case.
- Deuteronomy has some specific ideas well.
- The Torah is now passed on from God's word to the people via prophet, and this will become via sage/scribe/scholar.
- God spoke out of the fire - again a new term for God's transcendence.
- In Devarim, only God's name is in the Temple, the most abstract form of presence.
- God has no form, which is why making any sculptured or graven image is a problem.
- Devarim ins many ways is a re-articulation of Israel's life in God's presence without God being present. Just God's name.
- This is the only book of the Torah that is all in a human voice, namely Moses, which is a link to the time when we have God's voice from fixed text and no longer from prophetic attunement.