Creative Chaos

by André Rabe

  Contrary to what is often assumed, the garden paradise was not created as the perfect, deathless abode for humanity. An actual historic state of deathless perfection was never imagined to be the meaning of this mystic garden in these narratives. Rather, it was a divine resting place prior to creation itself. The absence of death, of lions slaying their prey and wolfs carrying off lambs, was due to the fact that there were no lions nor lambs to begin with. The very creation of distinction and consequently of death-awareness would take place as the story ran its course. The mythic garden of Dilmun, for instance, was originally purposed for the enjoyment of the gods, not for the enjoyment of humans. Similarly, Eden is planted by Yahweh and humans are only placed in it afterward.

  Rest is another important theme. Both the garden and the temple symbolized this space for rest and enjoyment. The temple was not so much a place of worship as it was a space for the deity to rest in. However, the deities’ rest was often disturbed for two reasons. One, a garden needs labor and two, the laborers complained about all the work. The clear purpose for human creation in these early myths is to provide labor. Again, the garden was not created for humans, but rather humans were created for the sake of the garden! This was probably well understood by an ancient audience as it was made explicit in many of the myths. The Yahwist account contains traces of the same idea, stating in verse 5 that there was no man to till the land. Yet it soon becomes obvious that humanity plays a more significant role in the Yahwist account than in many of its contemporary myths. With that in mind, let’s consider the unique trees that were present here.

  The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

  - Genesis 2:8-9 RSV

  Yahweh planted a garden. What we learned from the preceding myths is that the garden was not primarily intended for the humans but for the enjoyment of the god/s, in this case, Yahweh. Could it be that the two trees - the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - should be understood as first and foremost existing for the enjoyment of Yahweh? Be that as it may, the author does imagine Yahweh to be extravagant in generosity, for in verse 16 humans are invited to eat freely from any tree, except one.

  The same kind of landscapes are described in the myths and in Genesis 2:10-14 - a fertile land between rivers. But the land needs to be worked. It is therefore significant that Yahweh has to take Adam and place him within the garden. It could indicate a movement from hunter-gatherer communities into agricultural communities.

  The place of humans within this garden takes on a whole new form and meaning. We were invited into this space, and our creation continues here. The creative process comes to fulfillment when the earthlings enter a world that we recognize as our own. That is a world of complexity in which labor, pain, and death are part of the beauty and richness of our reality.

  Differences Between Myth and Yahwist Account

  No Theogony or Divine Violence.

  Most of the myths contain elaborate stories of where the gods come from, of how they are related, and of various conflicts between them. In contrast, YHWH simply is for the Yawist author. This Creator needs no explanation for he is as evident as creation itself.

  It would seem to me that the Yahwist’s understanding of God developed and consequently changed what could and could not be said about God. There is an implicit move toward monotheism, which is not simply a matter of arithmetic - one instead of many - but a whole new category of understanding. I do not presume that the move to monotheism was complete in Genesis 2 and 3, but rather that it was in process. The many varied speculations and divine dramas, so prevalent in the older myths, no longer had a place within this new understanding of what God is.

  The kind of violent conflicts always present within these early divine dramas, are completely absent from the Yahwist account. In fact, the first act of violence would be ascribed to human jealousy. This is a most significant development, for violence is not glorified and justified by appealing to its divine nature. Rather it is condemned. Does this show an awareness of the way we have projected our own violence onto the divine? Whether it was a conscious realization or not, a radically new vision of God is presented, one in which God is not in competition or rivalry with anyone.

  Focus on Humanity - the known.

  Moving away from the pure speculation of the earlier divine dramas, also gave new impetus to focus on the subjects that humans can say something about - themselves. And so the nuances of human development, the exploration of human desire, temptation, and pursuit of wisdom receive greater attention than in most of the previous myths. Volumes of books have been written, inspired by the Yahwist’s insights into the human condition. In this too, there is a definite development in consciousness between the pre-biblical myths and Genesis.

  With these stories and suggested meanings hovering in the background, like the vague memory of a dream or the tonal background painting on a canvas, let us now re-read the Genesis origin stories and see what new meaning we may create.

  Endnotes

  1 Friedman, Richard Elliott. 1987. Who Wrote the Bible? New York: Summit Books.

  2 Batto, Bernard F. 2014. In the Beginning: Essays on Creation Motifs in the Bible and the Ancient Near East . Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, pg 46

  3 See, for instance, Neumann, Erich. 2015. The Origins and History of Consciousness .

  4 For an informative resource of ancient myths see: https://www.ancient.eu

  5 Jacobsen. n.d. The Harps that Once...: Sumerian Poetry in Translation. Yale University Press. pg 185

  6 Robert W. Rogers from his 1912 work, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament

  Chapter Four

  Divine Seduction

  On a recent walk on the beach, we came upon a delightful scene - the innocent joy of toddlers running around naked. There were screams of ecstasy and uncontrolled laughter as they bumped into one another. At this stage of human development, the individual ego has not fully formed yet and without a self to be conscious of, there are no filters to experience, no hindrance between desire and its fulfillment. Unashamed and without personal borders, they continued in this naked bliss as several adults paused to witness this scene with a sense of déjà vu.

  On one level, there was a distant memory of my own childhood paradise. I recognized this naive innocence, this shameless nakedness, this borderless, self-less joy. But the more immediate memory was of our children at this age. I wished I could experience my two-year-old kids again. Parents often express such nostalgic longing, saying that they wished their children could have stayed that age forever. How short our memories are! Few parents who currently have toddlers are likely to make the same wish.

  Pre-conscious Memory

  There seems to be a universal memory of an original perfection, a peaceful paradise, a whole that includes all, a timeless union. In many different cultures this intuition is symbolized with some form of circle. It is the original whole from which all things are born.

  When we try to describe these memories, it is the conscious mind attempting to communicate these pre-conscious impressions. But these experiences are not easily communicated with the constructs of the logical mind. Images and symbols are more suited to envelop the meanings and impressions of this stage of consciousness. Symbols encompass huge areas of meaning precisely because they do not have a definitive meaning. The infinite space of the unconscious needs a language not constrained by words. Symbols are inherently more open to interpretation. And so, the circle and the enclosed garden came to be universal symbols for this timeless, infinite wholeness from which we originate. It is relevant to both the emergence of consciousness in individuals and the emergence of consciousness in human evolution.

  The persistence of these intuitions of an original wholeness is due to two things. First
ly, the memory of union is based on the real experience of the pre-conscious state of every human. Secondly, this individual experience, in many ways, follows the same pattern of the development of consciousness in the human race as a whole. The pre-conscious state of humanity’s infancy is experienced again in the development of every child. So both the collective unconscious, and the personal experience of the pre-conscious child both affirm this memory of an undivided paradise.

  What I hope to demonstrate later is that this awareness of union is not the naive misunderstanding of an undeveloped mind but an authentic participation in reality. Although the conscious mind will bring a recognition of the separation between entities, there remains an underlying unity. Christ is nothing less than the one in whom all things consist, according to the author of Colossians (1:17). And in union with him, we may once again partake of this wholeness, experiencing our completeness in him (2:10).

  Introduction to the Yahwist Creation Story

  The stories in Genesis 2 and 3 are very much an exploration of human development, of the emergence of consciousness, and the complexities that make us human. As such these stories are the stories of every human being. It is your story. But there is also another level of meaning - the development of human consciousness as an archetypal memory. An archetype is a way of representing all in one, and so Adam and Eve become the personified representatives of every man and woman.

  We’ll explore these Genesis narratives with this perspective - witnessing the unfolding of human consciousness. Compared to the myths we looked at before, we’ll witness a definite progression in the narrative. The text is much more aware of the movements and processes that make us human. It has also removed some of the more fantastic heavenly adventures and elaborated the more grounded, earthly processes.

  If today we begin reading a story where the main characters are a man called Human and woman called Life , we would immediately recognize what type of literature we are busy with. Adam is not a proper name, but simply means the earthling. Most of the instances referring to Adam also include the definitive article - the - which is not used with proper names. The text speaks of the earthling (ha-adam). This again shows that we are dealing with an archetypal memory which is part of the collective unconscious.

  We will follow the story of the earthling as he becomes more recognizable as one of us. For of what relevance is ha-adam, created in the likeness and image of God, if we cannot identify with this earthling? The earthling begins with no parents and no history. The complexity of relationship has not yet become part of ha-adam’s reality in this initial state. There is no passion, no desire, no psychological movement … only a naive innocence. But as the story develops, new complexities are introduced and we begin to recognize ourselves in the story.

  These stories illuminate the processes and qualities that make us human. They weren’t meant to become legends of a once perfect world which we lost because the first humans ate from the wrong tree. In fact, some Midrashic commentators provocatively suggest that it is precisely the human that emerges after the event of partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that is like God (3:22). One of the first Christian theologians, Irenaeus, also believed that this is primarily a story of human development and that God always intended for us to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so that we would be able to make mature value judgments. But in our haste we grasped for this gift pre-maturely.

  Breath of Life

  [T]hen the LORD God fashioned the human, humus from the soil, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the human became a living creature.

  - Genesis 2:7 RA

  Some commentators want to draw attention to the intimate process of creation by comparing the formation of man to a potter molding clay. There is indeed an image of intimacy present in this account, but it has more to do with breath than with the image of a potter and clay. The problem is that dust is not clay. It does not have the same properties and cannot be formed the way clay can be. So what is the significance of the earthling being formed from dust?

  It has been argued convincingly that dust refers to human mortality as can be seen in Genesis 3:19. 1

  It’s also significant to know that puns are a regular feature in the Torah, and the word dust (adamah) is a pun for the word human (adam).

  From the very outset of the story it deals with the themes of mortality and the nature of human relationship with God. The earthling is created mortal, finite, earthy, yet God breathes into his nostrils the breath of life which transcends the purely mortal aspect of human existence. The finite creature is given the capacity to participate in the infinite being of God. Yes, there is part of us that is earthy and temporal, but there is also a part of us that comes from beyond ourselves and opens us up to the transcendent - the breath of God. This capacity to transcend our limits, to be part of creation yet capable of transforming it, and reaching beyond its appearance to its underlying source and meaning, is unique to our humanity.

  Paul Ricoeur describes this complexity as follows:

  Dwelling in my finite capacity is something infinite, which I would call foundational. Schelling speaks of a Grund, a ground or foundation, which is at the same time an Abgrund, an abyss, therefore a groundless ground. Here the idea of a disproportion arises which is suffered and not simply acted upon, a disproportion between what I would call the excess of the foundation, the Grund/Abgrund, the groundless ground, and my finite capacity of reception, appropriation, and adaptation…. Now rightly or wrongly, I take the problematic of capacity and excess, and therefore disproportion to be constitutive of human being. 2

  A week after writing the section on the Breath of Life above, I was present as my dad breathed his last breath. The frailty and temporality of human life were deeply impressed on me at this time. However, it was not the futility of time that impacted me but the opposite. It is exactly the temporality of life that makes it so precious. If anything is available in limitless abundance, it somehow loses its value. There is a way in which limitation increases value. We only have so much time to say what we want to say, to do what we want to do, to love as we desire to love, to be and become … it is exactly the finite space we have in which to live that gives every moment value.

  In many early philosophies, these human complexities developed into a dualism that split the human into distinct and opposite parts. In Gnosticism, the earthly part is seen as evil and despised and the spiritual part is seen as good and can be liberated through knowledge. No such hard dualistic border is drawn in the biblical text. God is the Author of both the earthy aspect of the human and the divine breath. The earthling is a union, albeit with paradoxical qualities.

  And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed (2:8 RSV).

  God plants a garden - an ordered space in the midst of the untamed wilderness. This terrestrial world consists of both an unordered wilderness and an ordered garden. A parallel can be drawn to human consciousness which consists of both an unordered unconscious and the ordered conscious.

  Wherever the earthling was formed, it was not in Eden, for God has to put the earthling in Eden after he forms ha-adam. God prepares a space and seduces man into functioning within this space.

  How does God put the earthling in Eden? In verse 15 the same thought is repeated: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden.” Rashi (a medieval rabbi and Talmud commentator) argues that God moves man with words, not force. It is through the persuasive seduction of words that the earthling leaves the chaotic wilderness and comes into the ordered garden. And so Rashi translates this thought as, “God captivated/seduced man to enter the garden. ”

  Here, however, the word pitahu, ‘He seduced him,’ is disturbing. This midrashic translation makes seduction the first human experience— seduction by God. 3

  Anthropologically, this movement into the garden can be seen as the shift from hunter-gatherer communities to agricultural communities. G
od’s involvement in human development is not one of control or force, but rather one of persuasion. God creates by letting be. God extends absolute freedom to his creation to evolve in whatever direction it pleases, yet he does draw us, influence us, even seduce us into the direction of greater community, greater consciousness, greater love. The themes of seduction and desire are central to these narratives. Desire is both a uniquely human characteristic and central to the way in which God deals with the human.

  And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (2:9 RSV).

  Again, the theme of desire is implied as the trees are described as pleasant to the sight and good for food. And two central symbols are introduced: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The themes of wisdom and immortality, so prevalent in most of the creation myths of this time, are introduced. Given the importance of these trees, much is lacking in their description initially. Were both trees in the midst of the garden? Maybe, but only the tree of life is so specified. Ambiguity and misunderstanding will also become important themes as the story develops.

  Knowledge and Death Consciousness

  The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” (2:15-17 RSV.)

  Richard Friedman, in his very helpful, Commentary on the Torah , says the following :

  Not good and “evil,” as this is usually understood and translated. “Evil” suggests that this is strictly moral knowledge. But the Hebrew word has a much wider range of meaning than that. This may mean knowledge of what is morally good and bad, or it may mean qualities of good and bad in all realms: morality, aesthetics, utility, pleasure and pain, and so on. 4