[b-hebrew] P's Kerygma
LM Barre
l_barre at yahoo.com
Fri Jan 30 16:23:22 EST 2009
The great categories behind P's composition is that of Creation and Chaos. P himself drew on the Memphite Theology with the concept of creation by divine fiat. In P's creation story, Chaos pre-exists eternally (Gen 1:2). P is also polytheistic in the sense that all gods act together as one.. This is why the plural noun with a singular verb; "In the beginning, gods created the heavens and the earth."
Chaos takes the form of tohu wa bohu, that is without form and emptiness. In days 1-3, gods conquer formlessness and then in days 4-6 overcome emptiness. Day 1 corresponds to day 4, 2 to 5 and 3 to 6. Thus gods conquer chaos with 6 days of activity and rest upon the 7th.
However, chaos reasserts itself in the flood story in the form of the flood.. I wrote an article for JSOT some time ago that shows the chronology of the flood story and demarcates J from P. According to it, gods recreate the universe out of chaos' flood.
13 By the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth.
This is followed by P's covenant with Noah not to let chaos overcome the earth again.
In my view, P was written soon after Cyrus' edict to release the Jews. This would account for it extreme optimism (contra Cross). As such, it is very much like 2 Isaiah.
Lloyd Barré
the unknown god
http://freewebs.com/lmbarre
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