Читать книгу The Beginning and the End - Michael W. Pahl - Страница 9

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created humans in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

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It often comes as a surprise to Christians to discover that there are in fact two distinct creation stories in Genesis: the first story just narrated runs from Genesis 1:1 to 2:3, and the second is found in Genesis 2:4–25 (though the story really continues at least into Genesis 3). That these are two different stories is evident from their many distinctive features. For example, in the first story God is consistently called Elohim in Hebrew, meaning simply “God,” while in the second he is called YHWH Elohim, or the “LORD God”; in the first story animals and humans are merely commanded into existence by God (1:20, 24, 26), while in the second story they are shaped by God from the earth (2:7, 19); and in the first all this happens over six “days” (1:3–31), while in the second all this is summarized in a single “day” (2:4, literally, “In the day that the LORD God made earth and heavens”).

We cannot be certain when these stories were first told, but many scholars suggest the second story is actually the older of the two. In any case, it is possible that some version of both stories were told in the homes and villages of the early Israelites or their forebears well before they were brought together in the book of Genesis as we know it. These stories are distinct, but clearly at some point the ancient Israelites believed them to be compatible, or both stories would not have been included side by side in the first chapters of Genesis.

In the previous chapter we saw that ancient cosmogonies such as these were intended to answer the deep worldview questions humans have, the who and what and why of human existence in the world. So what does the first biblical creation story have to say to these sorts of questions?

First, who is God? “God” in this story is Elohim. This is the plural form of the generic Hebrew word for a deity or, occasionally, a human ruler. El is a “mighty one.” The use of the plural does not mean that this refers to many gods, nor is this some kind of pre-Christian intimation of the Trinity (God as a plurality of persons). Rather, the plural conveys either an abstract concept—that God as Elohim is the epitome of “deity”—or it indicates an intensive or superlative idea—that God as Elohim is the “very strong one” or “mightiest one.”

God is already there “in the beginning” (1:1). God stands before time and space as we know it; God creates within the time and space we experience. Unlike other ancient creation stories, in which the natural world comes into existence incidentally out of the conflicts of the gods or erotically out of the couplings of the gods, in this biblical creation story “heaven and earth”—everything in the cosmos—is created simply by God’s divine will. God merely speaks and the pieces of creation come into being and fall into place. Furthermore, God names the most foundational created elements—the “day” and the “night” (1:5), the “sky” (1:8), the “land” and the “seas” (1:10)—indicating his sovereign control or ownership over these features of nature. This is especially significant because in other ancient cosmogonies these features are presented as gods or goddesses. In one version of the Egyptian stories, for example, the god Ra is the sun, Shu and Tefnut are air and water, Geb and Nut are earth and sky. In contrast, this first biblical creation story emphasizes that there is only one true God, and that all these features and forces of nature are not gods at all but merely creations of the one Creator God, under God’s power and control.

All this underscores God’s transcendence and omnipotence, or—to put this in “more Hebrew” terms—God’s holiness and his might. God is “holy”—completely other than all else that exists—and no one should confuse God with the natural world he has created. God is “transcendent”—beyond the constraints of this time and space, which he has created. And God is “almighty” or “omnipotent”—able to do anything he wills to do. In short, God is Elohim, the “mightiest one,” who creates and rules over all things by his sovereign will and power.

So then, what is the world? To answer this question we need to explore the way the story is structured.

The story is introduced with the well-known statement, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This is either a summary statement for the whole story (“God created all things, and let me describe that to you in more detail”) or it is a statement that God created the cosmos and that it was first in the chaotic state described in the next verse: “formless and empty.” In any case, this pair of words is crucial for the story, echoing ideas of other ancient creation stories in which order is brought about from a primeval chaos. This means that what follows in the story is all about God conquering chaos and bringing order to the cosmos, forming and filling his initially “formless and empty” creation (1:1–2).

And this is indeed what we see in the story: God moves from forming creation to filling it, focusing in repeated, parallel fashion on the elemental spheres of Light and Darkness, Water and Sky, and Land and Sea (1:3–31):

Day	Forming/Filling	General Focus	Specific Focus
One	Forming	Light and Darkness	Creation of light, separation of light and darkness
Two	Forming	Water and Sky	Separation of waters by a firmament
Three	Forming/Filling	Land (and Sea)	Creation of land, separation of land and sea; creation of vegetation from the land
Four	Forming/Filling	Light and Darkness	Creation of heavenly lights, separation of light and darkness
Five	Filling	Water and Sky	Creation of water and sky creatures
Six	Filling	Land	Creation of land creatures; creation of human beings

This structure and progression emphasizes the order and abundance—the perfect “fittingness”—of creation. These ideas are also highlighted by the six-fold pattern of the particular days themselves, the story again underscoring by its very structure the concepts of order and abundance:

 “And God said, ‘Let [X happen],’ and it was so”: creation by command, indicating obedience to God as sovereign Creator, usually along with some further description as well.

 “God called [X Y] . . . ”: naming the created elements, indicating ownership and control over them.

 “God saw that it was good”: a divine aesthetic assessment, or an assessment about the “fittingness” of creation.

 “And there was evening, and there was morning—the Xth day”: reflecting back on the human work day from dawn to dusk.

Thus, in this first creation story God conquers the primeval chaos and crafts a highly ordered and abundant creation, forming it and filling it so that it is a suitable . . . something. What exactly is it that God builds?

A temple. In creating the heavens and the earth God builds a perfect sacred space for himself, the holy and almighty Elohim. In other ancient cosmogonies various aspects of religious worship are prominent. In the Enuma Elish, for example, the culmination of the order brought out of chaos is the proper worship in Babylon of Marduk, the god who brought about that order in the world. A variation of this creation story was used for the dedication of sacred buildings in ancient Babylonia. In stark contrast to these other ancient stories, however, in Genesis 1 there is no particular geographical location or humanly constructed building that functions as God’s temple. All creation is God’s sacred space; the entire cosmos is God’s dwelling place. Nothing else could be “very good” or perfectly fitting for the holy and almighty Creator God.

All this helps to make sense of why it is that this creation account is structured around six days (1:3–31), with a seventh day of rest set apart as sacred (2:1–3). Within the story, these are actual days, not “epochs” or long periods of time. They are undoubtedly intended to parallel the weekly pattern of the ancient Israelites: six days of work primarily in the natural world of fields and vineyards, followed by a seventh day of rest or “Sabbath” as a sacred act of worship, including temple worship. But the point of this weekly pattern was to emphasize the Sabbath: the six days of work move forward to the seventh day of rest, culminating in this holy day set apart for rest and worship. In a similar fashion the creation account of Genesis 1 emphasizes that all God’s acts of creation move forward to the sacred seventh day in which God the Creator is worshiped in his holy temple, the cosmos which God himself has created. Thus, the ancient Israelite life of work in the world and rest in worship reflects the cosmic order of creation; these rhythms of life for ancient Israel were patterned after God’s own creative rhythms of earthly work and holy rest in the sacred temple of his created order (e.g., Exodus 20:8–11).

So then, who are human beings? Why do human beings exist? What is our purpose related to God and the world and one another? The answer that this first biblical creation story gives to these questions is found in the culmination of the story of earth’s forming and filling: the creation of human beings “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:26–27).

There are some close parallels to this language of “image” or “likeness” in ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian texts. In this ancient context, to say that someone (a vassal king, perhaps) or something (say a statue of the king) was in the king’s “image” was to say that this person or thing represented the king—reflecting his presence in that place, ensuring his will, protecting his interests. They were the king’s “royal representatives” within a particular territory under their control. Even more significantly, this idea was extended back to the king himself: he was in the “image” of the gods, a very child of the gods even, representing them in the world as their priest-king. (Think of the famous child-pharaoh known popularly as “King Tut”: “Tutankhamun” means “living image of Amun,” a prominent Egyptian god.)

This context suggests that to say human beings are created in God’s “image” or “likeness” is to say that they are God’s “priest-kings” representing God as King, that they are children resembling God as Father. And indeed, this is what we find: the ideas of royal representation and paternal resemblance are clearly reflected in the Genesis language of “image” or “likeness.” So in Genesis 1 the statement that human beings—both male and female equally—are created “in God’s image” is immediately followed up with the statement that they are to “rule” over the creatures of the earth, to “fill the earth and subdue it”—to extend God’s sovereign rule throughout the earth (1:26–28). And later in Genesis 5 we have a family genealogy in which Adam produces a son, Seth, “in his own likeness, in his own image,” a family “image” or “likeness” that has just been noted as reaching back through Adam to God himself (5:1–3).

Thus, human beings—all human beings, not just kings and pharaohs—have been created “in God’s image”: created to be God’s royal representatives within the sacred space of God’s creation, extending God’s transcendent rule throughout the earthly temple; and created to be God’s children, resembling God—and relating to God—as human children do their parents, reflecting God’s character, his glory, to the world. All human beings bear this “image of God,” and thus each human person bears both the dignity and the responsibility of being God’s “image-bearer” in the world: living in relationship with God as children with their father, living out God’s character in relationship with one another and all creation, bringing God’s sovereign, loving rule to bear on all things throughout the earth.

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This first biblical creation story tells us nothing about exactly when God created all things or how he did so, beyond his transcendent will as ultimate cause of creation. But, as we have seen, it tells us much about who God is, what creation is, who human beings are, and what our divine purpose in the world is. What is the significance of these ideas for Christian thought and life today? Though many implications of these thoughts could be noted, let me provide three areas for further consideration.

First, this first creation story should deeply influence the way we view God. God is the one holy and transcendent God, completely distinct from all else that exists; God is the almighty and omnipotent God, all-powerful, able to do anything he wills to do. These truths call us away from any form of idolatry: not just bowing down to idols of wood or stone, but—much more deeply—thinking or acting in any way that displaces God from his rightful place. God is the ultimate source of our life and all that we have. God alone provides purpose to our existence, and all of humanity’s deepest desires are only fulfilled in God. God is the only one outside of our most dire situations, the only one powerful enough to meet our most difficult challenges, and thus the only one who can deliver us from our most desperate predicaments. No humanly crafted ideology or entity or resource can fill these roles—neither capitalism nor communism, neither democracy nor dictatorship, neither nation-state nor natural strength, neither wealth nor wisdom—only God the Creator.

To bring this close to home, we should ask ourselves some hard questions. What do we look to as the source of our life and the good things we enjoy? Where do we turn when we lack those good things? What is it that defines our purpose for being, for us as individuals or for our faith communities? What is it that gives meaning to our life, to our work, to our rest and recreation? When we face our most difficult problems and most dire situations, where do we go for help? Is it some human resource such as money, or knowledge, or physical strength? Is it some human system or institution like capitalism or democracy, or any government? Or is it a human being, perhaps a close friend or parent or spouse? Certainly the holy and almighty God can work through things and people to meet us in each of these ways, but as Christians our first and final answer to these questions should be God our Creator.

Second, this first creation story should profoundly shape the way we think about the natural world. Nature is not merely “nature,” a rather neutral term; it is in fact “creation.” It is not a phenomenon brought about by random, impersonal forces and therefore without any ultimate significance. It is not a resource to be used up or exploited to fulfill humanity’s never-ending desires. It is not a hostile force that must be aggressively tamed in order to build a comfortable dwelling place for humanity. It is not a temporary shelter for humanity to be discarded for something better down the road. All of these perspectives on the natural world can be found in Christian thinking, but all badly miss the reality of “nature” as God’s creation, which he has affirmed as “very good.” The created order is God’s sacred temple, beautifully and fittingly made by God to be the place where God meets with humanity, where God dwells with his human family. It is therefore a reflection of God’s glory, God’s eternal power and divine nature (see Psalm 19:1–4; Isaiah 66:1–2; Romans 1:20), and so to be treasured by humanity, God’s royal representatives on the earth.

This thought does, then, speak to the modern question of evolution and Christian faith, though perhaps not as directly or extensively as some might like. If we are going to allow Scripture to shape our understanding of God as Creator and the natural world as God’s creation, we cannot have a purely naturalistic approach to the origins of the universe, the earth, and life on earth. That God—the holy and almighty and loving and faithful God—“created the heavens and the earth” means that we must not think of all things coming about through merely arbitrary forces or purely natural processes. Creation proceeds from God—from the will of God, from the heart of God—and thus is radiant with divine significance. While some may wish to say more than this about God’s role in the process and timing of creation, as Christians we certainly cannot say less.

All this points to another, very practical application of this perspective on the natural world as God’s creation: the importance of what has been called “creation care.” Many Christians are skeptical of environmentalism, some seeing in this a flawed theology that attributes too much significance to nature or even “divinizes” nature. But this criticism is entirely unfounded: no biblical text so clearly differentiates between the transcendent God and the created world as Genesis 1 does, yet no text so clearly emphasizes the “very good”-ness of creation and human responsibility within God’s creation as Genesis 1 does. Caring for creation in “environmentally friendly” or ecologically sensitive ways is not somehow sub-Christian; it is in fact a profoundly Christian thing to do, taking seriously the very purpose for which God created humanity in his image. Christians should be at the forefront of such efforts, not because we share in some flawed theology but because our own Christian theology—our own inspired Scripture—calls us to this task of creation care.