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Genesis 1 - 11: The Divine Origins of Human Existence
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Readings for Daily Masses in Weeks 5 - 6 of Ordinary Time, Year I
Creation of Man - Manasseh Johnson
If you've ever wanted to read the Bible from cover to cover, this may be the best time in our two-year daily lectionary cycle to start! In these two weeks, our first readings at Mass are highlights from the first 11 chapters of the Book of Genesis. After Mass each day, we suggest reading from that point in Genesis through the conclusion of the next day’s reading.
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What Genesis 1 - 11 Is, and What It Is Not
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Not History, but "Pre-History"
Genesis 1-11 tells of the origins of the world and humanity before the advent of written history. These chapters are not intended as factual reporting of distinct, actual events. One term used by scholars for this genre of writing is “mythopoeic”—literature that, like both myth and poetry, speaks to great truths, whether or not each detail is literally factual. Whether or not these events—the Creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, the Tower of Babel – happened as related in the Bible, they still speak to great truths in our understanding of who God is, and how we are called to relate to God.
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The Fall of Man and the Lamentation - Hugo van der Goes
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The Dead Abel - Thomas Cole
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A Familiar Set of Stories...
Most other ancient Near Eastern societies had their own set of creation and flood stories. We can better understand the religious beliefs of the ancient Israelites (before 1000 BC) and the later Judahites (up through 500 BC) by comparing and contrasting these creation and flood stories with those of neighbor societies. Notably, the God of Genesis 1 - 11 primarily acts out of love, while the gods of other societies are presented as selfish and capricious.
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...With the Capability to Surprise
Many of us have heard the captivating stories of Genesis 1 - 11 since childhood, and they have inspired artists in written and visual media for millennia. Later biblical authors frequently allude to these stories, such as Luke 3 referencing Genesis 2, Romans 5 referring to Genesis 3, and Acts 2 contrasting with Genesis 11. Adults re-examining the familiar stories of Genesis 1 - 11 may find new insights, nuances, and contradictions. The Holy Spirit inspired our ancestors who first told these stories, those who passed the oral traditions down through the generations, those who wrote down the stories, and those who edited and redacted them. What is the Holy Spirit saying to us through these stories here and now?
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Genesis 7:17-23
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Applying Biblical Literary Criticism
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It is not easy to reconcile the stories in Genesis 1 - 11 into one coherent narrative. Two examples:
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There are two separate creation stories. Genesis 1:1 – 2:4a tells of God’s orderly creation of the world in six days, with the man and woman created together after the animals. Genesis 2:4b - 25 tells of God creating a single man first and then creating the animals in search of a suitable partner for the man.
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The story of Noah and the Ark seems to switch between two narrators. One has Noah taking 1 pair of every animal on the ark (7:8). The other has God instructing Noah to take 7 pairs of the clean animals, so that he and his family may continue to offer ritual sacrifices during their time on the ark (7:2).
Noah's Ark - Thmas Kinkade
As we will explain elsewhere in more detail, the consensus of biblical scholars in the past 140 years have adopted Julius Wellhausen's 1878 Documentary Hypothesis. We believe that there were multiple authors and editors working over several centuries to the form of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) as we have them now. We believe at least two of those authors contributed to Genesis 1 - 11:
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The Yahwist (symbolized by Wellhausen with the letter J) may have first written down ancient Israelite oral traditions while serving in the court of Solomon, c. 950 BC. J presents God with human qualities, having conversations with individual people, consistent with the creation story of Genesis 2:4b-25. Because J presents a “spontaneous” style of ancient Israelite worship, we conclude that J wrote Genesis 7:8.
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The Priestly author (P) probably wrote during or after the Babylonian exile, 586-538 BC, sharing much with the perspectives of Ezekiel and Ezra. P promotes the necessity of the priestly rituals in ancient Judaism. P is highly attentive to names, details, and lists, consistent with the concerns of Genesis 7:2. Genesis 1:1 - 2:4a was likely written by P as a response to the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation myth. The Enuma Elish presents gods at war with one another, choosing to create humans to serve them as slaves. Nevertheless, the order of what is created by the gods in the Enuma Elish is the same order that God chooses in Genesis 1:1 - 2:4a.
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A Staggering Number of Intentions
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The Tower of Babel - Pieter Bruegel the Elder
The multiple perspectives in Genesis 1 - 11, rather than being a liability, is a tremendous gift. They paint a much richer theological framework for us. For example, J and P together present a God who is both in command of the entire universe and intimately concerned with each one of us.
Zooming out wider, we realize that Genesis 1 - 11 is not just a telling of the ancient past. The authors and redactors of the Pentateuch clearly intended for these chapters to foreshadow events later in Israel’s history, to speak to our daily experience of God, and to imagine when God’s kingdom is fully realized on the earth in the future. Does Genesis 1:1 - 2:4a foreshadow Solomon’s building of the temple? Does it speak to our role today as stewards of God’s creation? Does it predict the paradise of heaven? The authors and redactors probably intended all of these things… and more!
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The response to the first reading during these weeks is always from the Book of Psalms. The gospel reading is taken from the Gospel of Mark, chapters 6 - 9.
Shortly after Pentecost, we will pick up the narrative in Chapter 12 of Genesis and work through highlights from the first 8 books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, and Ruth) over the summer. For anyone wishing to study the Jewish Scriptures in more detail, we highly recommend the engaging and easy-to-read Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction by Paulist Fr. Larry Boadt, CSP.
This concludes page 4 of 40 in our Lectionary Guide. For a comprehensive reading of the entire guide, we suggest going next to Genesis 12 through Ruth.
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