The Significance of the Biblical Creation Recital

Israel’s creation traditions are to me old wives' tale; beautiful, but tainted over time. The significance of Israel’s creation stories is to create faith in humanity, and create moral lessons stories to be passed down. Simultaneously when stories, fables, or religious text is passed down throughout generations there will always be miscommunications and misperceptions. Therefore, I believe that they should not always be taken as literal history. As there are many creation stories that have been passed down throughout history, I will be focusing on the story of Genesis as well as Enuma Elish.  

Both Genesis and Enuma Elish illustrate chaos to order creation stories, but in vastly diverse ways. While on a simple scale, their most simple difference is that Enuma Elish is a polytheistic story while Genesis portrays a monotheistic story. More importantly, Enuma Elish is a much more brutal story of creation than Genesis. Enuma Elish is simply the story of Gods who create humanity in order to serve themselves. These Gods are power hungry, Enuma Elish is a tale of betrayal, slavery, and death. The story begins with parents killing their children and escalates to brothers murdering brothers all in a fight for power. Humanity itself is even formed from Kingu’s blood after he was murdered by Marduk the God of Storm. Humanity then was forced to work for these said Gods in Babylonia. Whereas in the Bible, humanity is composed in a light of love, faith, and trust. God constructed the earth in seven days, leaving the seventh day for rest. God creates through his own word rather than violence and betrayal. “Then God said: let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness. Let them minion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth.” (Gen 1:26). This verse signifies that God did not create humans for his own benefits, but for human's benefits. God wished for them to be blessed, not to work for him, unlike Enuma Elish where in order to remain Gods they need humanity to work for them. Enuma Elish did not represent freewill in the faith of humanity, on the other hand Genesis 1 and 2 had. While both stories represent a lesson chaos to order, they are told in two different lights, one in hatred while one is in love. 

Both Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 portray God as light and love, a positive force, and the overseer of all. They both allow for a metaphorical interpretation of God, yet Genesis 2 is more anthropomorphic, while Genesis 1 takes a more immanent route. In Genesis 2 God almost takes on a human form, which was not seen in Genesis 1. Throughout all of Genesis 1 God does not speak directly to anyone, or anything, God simply just states what he would like for humanity. In Genesis 1 verses 3,6,9,14,20, and 24 all begin with “God said...” while not explicitly stating who God is talking to. God is transcendent, God is above our knowledge of communication and creation. Without specifically stating conversation between God and the earth Genesis 1 symbolizes God is not accessible to us, he is free within the universe watching over the earth. However, this ideology does not continue into Genesis 2, in Genesis 2 God is accessible and speaks to us. “Then Lord God gave the man this order: You are free to eat from any trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” (Gen 2:16-17). This verse show that in Genesis 2 God, or Lord God, is having direct conversation with those he created, representing that God himself is accessible to mortals. This exemplifies a much more intimate relationship between humanity and God. Nevertheless Genesis 1 and 2 may be contradictory on a small scale, simultaneously they represent a transcendent God who became immanent out his own love for humanity. After seeing the life, he created, he did only want them to know of him, but know humanity as well.  

Genesis 1 and 2 describe us as divine being since we are made in the image of God. Genesis 1 and 2 represent love, light, and intimacy of humanity. In Genesis 1 it is depicted that God is very content with his creations. “God blessed them all and God said to them: Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that crawl on the earth.” (Gen 1:28). God places humanity over all his other creations that he had put onto earth. God had placed a lot of trust as well as freedom into what he believed to be his most divine creation. The last line of Genesis 1 reads “God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good.” (Gen 1:31). God had believed that there was little to go wrong in creation, he had only understood what he believed could occur. This follows in Genesis 2, which is even more intimate than Genesis 1. The ending of Genesis 2 represents the shameless love between a man and a woman, “The man and the wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame.” (Gen 2:25). Without sin and without shame there laid the start of humanity, Gods most wholesome creation. On the other hand, Genesis 3 details our sins specifically, that we are how we sin, and we abuse our free will. In Genesis 3 both the man and the woman betray Gods request of not eating the fruit of the trees in the garden. They are faced with temptation, “But the snake said to the woman: “You certainly will not die!” God knows well that you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like the gods, who know good and evil.” The woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and the tree was desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” (Gen 3:4-6). God then punishes both the man and woman in Genesis 3:16-17 for their actions by cursing them to pain and lack of freedom. The punishments that they face represent punishments when sins are taken part in. When we are given freedom, and that freedom is used to indulge in an act against God, you will be given negative repercussions. That is the key difference between Genesis 1-2 and Genesis 3, that the first two highlight the positives of humanity while the third highlights the negatives. Genesis 1-2 shows the proper use of freedom given by God, while Genesis 3 symbolizes what happens when you give into temptations. 

A flood is a metaphorical, and physical purification of the land, and in Genesis, this is exactly what it was for. After Genesis 3 After witnessing all the wicked that humanity had become, God's heart grieved for the humanity he intended for (Gen 6:5). He flooded earth not in vengeful manner, but in thoughts of grief and depression. “I will wipe out from the earth the human beings I have created and not only the human beings, but also the animals and the crawling things and the birds of the air, for I regret that I made them” (Genesis 6:7). In this verse, the writer details that God was unhappy with his creation, and wanted to start over. Water is a purification tool, and God used this to clean all the human beings and animals, but also all the sin that plagued the land. Rather than destroying humanity, God wished to wash away the evils and sin of the earth. This is known because rather than washing away Noah and those in his arc he allowed them a haven (Gen 6:18-22). After the death of every living thing on earth God sent winds to now purified earth to dry (Gen 7:23 and Gen 8:1). God then ordered Noah to release his family and all the living animals he had sheltered in his arc. Noah followed these instructions as well as built an alter for God and burnt offerings (Gen 8:15-19). As God had smelled these, he said to himself “Never again will I curse the ground because of human beings, since the desires of the human are evil from youth; nor will I ever again strike down every living being, as I have down.” (Gen 8:21). In this verse God stresses the fact that although there may be flaws in humanity, there is still nothing more beautiful than humanity itself. God preaches that humanity is sacred, as well as that nothing is more important than maintaining it.  

People of all levels of religion can learn about and appreciate the significance of the Israel creation story. There is a lot to be said about the relationship between God, and God’s creation. It is a beautiful thing to hear that we are all, as mortal human beings, connected to God, himself. With any religion, fable, or tale that is passed down there is a connection created between the human themselves and higher power. This connection brings positivity and love between humanity. Creating this faith in addition to passing down moral lessons is why teaching Israel’s creation traditions is crucial.