Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

Dear Ben,

This is an interesting speculation. I was also fascinated by Rohl's 
"Legend", but again had to take much of it as speculation. But I'm not 
quite sure how your theory ties in with 2:7. Are you suggesting that 
this second Adam (I suppose that makes Jesus the third Adam? ;-) was a 
new creation from dust, not related to the earlier hunter-gatherers 
(actually just gatherers, nothing is said about hunting)? Or was he 
simply a former hunter-gatherer who developed a more complex culture? 
Or a former hunter-gatherer to whom God gave some extra capabilities? 
And then exactly which new aspects of neolithic culture do you find in 
Genesis 2?

Then we have to be a bit careful. For hunter-gatherers did not die 
out, they are still with us today (though mostly forced to abandon 
their traditional lifestyles), especially in Australia, southern 
Africa and Papua New Guinea. I hope you would not want to suggest that 
these peoples are in any way sub-human. Of course we run into problems 
with worldwide floods if you try to follow the text too closely, for 
the author of Genesis does not allow for any pre-second Adam man to 
survive the flood.

Thank you also for putting forward views similar to mine on the 
documentary hypothesis. Perhaps that is the middle wall of division 
between us who don't have Ph.D's and the rest of the list?

Peter Kirk

PS to Jonathan: Thank you also for what you wrote. I don't remember 
seeing your "post about the possibility of supposedly older OT books 
written in Late Biblical Hebrew being late translations of older 
works". Did this actually appear on the list? Maybe I missed it 
because of some problems with my E-mail a week or two ago. I would be 
grateful to receive a copy, and will try to make a comment.


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re: Genesis 1 & 2
Author:  <ben.crick AT argonet.co.uk> at Internet
Date:    01/12/1999 07:10


On Wed  1 Dec 1999 (10:19:46 +0100), jonathan.bailey AT gmx.de wrote:
 [snip]
> Anyway, back to my opening sentence, I really fail to see that the 2nd 
> chapter can be considered an account of the creation of the world, and 
> am wondering what makes this illustious fraternity of PhD laden Hebrew 
> scholars think that Gen 2 is an account of the creation of the world
> that has any place being compared to Gen 1 at all? If my presumptions
> are correct, the culprit is the religionsgeschichtliche worldview, which 
> causes scholars to believe that Gen 2 is a much older account of creation 
> of the world than Gen 1, as it cannot be as highly evolved, because it
> completely fails as an account of the creation of the world. But isn't
> the fact that Gen 2 seems to be a primitive failure of an account of the 
> creation of the world also evidence that it is not an account of the
> creation of the world?
 [snip]

 Dear Jonathan:

 If this non-PhD-laden, non-scholarly functioning preacher may be permitted 
 a brief word:

 You express very cogently my own unease with the analysis-paralysis of 
 Documentary Analysis. I would far rather treat Genesis *as we have it* as 
 a *unified compilation*, without trying to identify and label each 
 individual source block.

 There is an older Creation Account than that of the First Book of Moses, 
 and it is in the 38th to 41st chapters of the Book of Job (albeit couched 
 in highly rhetorical language). This certainly fills out the bare account 
 of Genesis 1-2 with much 'scientific' detail. Take ReYM as Rhinoceros, and 
 B:HeMoWT as Elephant. Look at the astronomical and meteorological data.

 But to Genesis 1-2. There seems to be a middle wall of partition between 
 Theology and Anthropology. "Know then thyself; presume not God to scan. The 
 proper study of mankind is man" (Alexander Pope). The 'aDaM of Genesis 1 is 
 palaeolithic, in that he is a hunter-gatherer, not a farmer (1:29-30). By 
 stark contrast, the 'aDaM of Genesis 2:7 is Neolithic, the first farmer of 
 the Neolithic Revolution. This neolithic culture originated in Anatolia in 
 the plateau around Lake Van in about the ninth millennium BCE: which is 
 where Genesis 2:8-15 locates it and dates it (forgetting Ussher). I don't 
 know if there is a "Gap" in Genesis 1:2a; but there seems to be a yawning 
 "chasm" between Genesis 2:3 and 2:4.

 It seems that the Biblical Revelation is to the "first farmers" and their 
 descendants through the line of Seth and Eber and Abraham. All nations are 
 to be blessed through Abraham's Seed. The older Palaeolithic Man was 
 *religious*, as his cave paintings and burials show; but if there was any 
 "Word of God" to Palaeolithic Man, we know nothing of it, unless Genesis 
 1:28-30 preserves a bare fragment. Palaeolithic Man did have a worldwide 
 spread, before he died out completely.

 David Rohl is not the favourite scholar of this List; but he has a lot of 
 interesting things to say in his latest book /Legend, the Genesis of 
 Civilisation/ which IMHO should not be dismissed out of hand just because 
 they fail to chime in with Documentary-Analytical orthodoxy.

 I am not advocating fundamentalist biblical literalism; but I am asking 
 that the Bible be allowed to speak for itself, and not be chopped or 
 racked on the Procrustean bed of JEDP.

 Shalom
 Ben
--
 Revd Ben Crick, BA CF
 <ben.crick AT argonet.co.uk>
 232 Canterbury Road, Birchington, Kent, CT7 9TD (UK) 
 http://www.cnetwork.co.uk/crick.htm




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