A Civilized World
When God began to create heaven and earth—the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—God said . . . Genesis 1:1-2 JPS
A wind from God – One might reasonably argue that this text forms the backbone of the Western world. Oh, it’s not Western, that’s for sure. It arises from Semitic cultures, Egyptian influences, and ancient cosmologies, but it has been co-opted by the West to support the entire rational paradigm of Greek metaphysics. When the translators ignored the ambiguity of the first word, be’rēʾšît, converting it into an Aristotelean declaration of a “First Principle,” they moved the entire context out of its ancient worldview and placed it in the hands of Plato, Bacon, and Newton. But there were consequences.
“Science is a method of logical analysis of nature’s operations. It has lessened human anxiety about the cosmos by demonstrating the materiality of nature’s forces, and their frequent predictability. But science is always playing catch-up ball. Nature breaks its own rules whenever it wants. Science cannot avert a single thunderbolt. Western science is a product of the Apollonian mind: its hope is that by naming and classification, by the cold light of intellect, archaic might can be pushed back and defeated. Name and person are part of the west’s quest for form. The west insists on the discrete identity of objects. To name is to know; to know is to control. . . . the west’s greatness arises from this delusional certitude. Far Eastern culture has never striven against nature in this way. Compliance, not confrontation is its rule.”[1]
Paglia’s insight recognizes the ancient world’s trepidation over fickle gods, the powers behind undependable Nature. Her quip is telling: “Civilized life requires a state of illusion.”[2]
But Genesis 1:1-2 stands in opposition to this accepted illusion. Some comments by Nahum Sarna are important:
The story of Creation, or cosmology, that opens the Book of Genesis differs from all other such accounts that were current among the peoples of the ancient world. Its lack of interest in the realm of heaven and its economy of words in depicting primeval chaos are highly uncharacteristic of this genre of literature. The descriptions in Genesis deal solely with what lies beneath the celestial realm, and still the narration is marked by compactness, solemnity, and dignity. There is abundant evidence that other cosmologies once existed in Israel. Scattered allusions to be found in the prophetic, poetic, and wisdom literature of the Bible testify to a popular belief that prior to the onset of the creative process the powers of watery chaos had to be subdued by God . . . They have survived in the Bible solely as obscure, picturesque metaphors and exclusively in the language of poetry. Never are these creatures accorded divine attributes, nor is there anywhere a suggestion that this struggle against God could in any way have posed a challenge to His sovereign rule. This is of particular significance in light of the fact that one of the inherent characteristics of all other ancient Near Eastern cosmologies is the internecine strife of the gods. Polytheistic accounts of creation always begin with the predominance of the divinized powers of nature and then describe in detail a titanic struggle between opposing forces.[3]
Sarna’s analysis removes the Genesis account from the utopian illusion recognized by Paglia. The Hebrew worldview is not a psychological prop used to provide the world of men with illusory confidence in their control, even if that control comes through a God they worship. The Hebrew worldview “ . . . does not seek to make intelligible what is beyond human ken.”[4] Rather, it is a hymn to God’s sovereignty; to the creation of a world where cosmic chaos plays no part. Peace with nature is not a dream. It’s a reality guaranteed by the author of Nature Himself. Attempts to convert the Genesis account into a pre-scientific Aristotelian ontology are wrong-headed from the beginning. The Genesis account isn’t about science. It’s about faithfulness.
Topical Index: be’rēʾšît, beginning, when, Nahum Sarna, Genesis 1:1-2
[1] Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickenson, p. 5.
[2] Ibid., p. 1.
[3] Nahum Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis, p. 3.
[4] Ibid.
