Egyptian Mythology

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.  Genesis 1:2 ESV

Waters– How incredibly difficult it is for us to read these ancient texts from the perspective of the original audience.  We constantly import theories and constructions that were developed thousands of years later, in a different culture and a different epistemology. When we encounter a commentator who does push us back to the original setting, we find his words strange, even repulsive, because they do not agree with what we have come to believe. Unfortunately, very few of us actually know why we believe what we believe about the text.  We have inherited our beliefs without examining their roots.

The opening lines of Genesis are a perfect place to begin re-thinking. Of course, we know that the original audience was the children of Israel removed from Egyptian slavery.  But perhaps we forget that 400 years of Egyptian thinking was a part of the worldview of these ex-slaves.  If you think that isn’t the case, just review the event of the golden calf (bull).  It comes straight out of Egypt.  But when we read these first few lines, we immediately divert to nineteenth-century arguments about creation versus evolution.  We begin by imagining that Genesis 1 is a semi-scientific account, a chronology of God’s creative acts.  We assume that these words fall under our definitions of event-history.

Now listen to the Jewish commentator Rashi:

“The text does not intend to teach the order of creation . .  And if you say that this verse teaches that heaven and earth were created first . .  be ashamed of yourself! [lit., be surprised at yourself].  For the waters were already in existence, as it is written, ‘And the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.’  Since there has not yet been any reference to the creation of the waters, they must already have been in existence before the earth and heaven were created.  Clearly, then, the text does not propose to give a chronological account of creation.”[1]

Are you going to ignore his analysis because you want to assume that “heaven and earth” includes “waters”?  Ah, but he examines only the text, not our assumptions about the text.  Furthermore, Egyptian mythology considered the waters to be the primal, chaotic constituents of everything.  That’s why this verse takes pains to insure that the primal chaos of the waters is under God’s benevolent control.  In other words, this verse makes perfect sense within the framework of Egyptian cosmology. But it hardly makes sense at all without a great deal of mental gymnastics as a semi-scientific account of God’s first act.  And what about the first audience?  Were they twentieth-century astrophysicists?  Or were they ex-Egyptian slaves whose worldview was shaped by ancient cosmologies?

Now read Genesis 1 again, and this time ask yourself, “Why do the ex-slaves of Egypt need to have such a story told to them?”  Maybe you find that there is something here not subject to Big Bang theory criticism.  “Bereshit, ‘in the beginning,’ describes not the clarities of origin and cause, but the potentialities of purpose.”[2]

And what is that purpose?

“What is given at the beginning challenges man to the self-transformations that will allow him, in spite of everything, to stand in the presence of God.”[3]

Topical Index: waters, Egyptian cosmology, Rashi, Genesis 1:2

[1]Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, p. 35.

[2]Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, p. 36.

[3]Ibid., p. 36.