they flow between the hills,
(11) they give drink to every beast of the field;
the wild asses quench their thirst.
(12) By them the birds of the air have their habitation;
they sing among the branches.
(13) From thy lofty abode thou waterest the mountains;
the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy work.
(14) Thou dost cause the grass to grow for the cattle,
and plants for man to cultivate,
that he may bring forth food from the earth,
(15) and wine to gladden the heart of man,
oil to make his face shine,
and bread to strengthen man’s heart.
(16) The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly,
the cedars of Lebanon which he planted.
(17) In them the birds build their nests;
the stork has her home in the fir trees.
(18) The high mountains are the the wild goats;
the rocks are a refuge for the badgers.
(19) Thou hast made the moon to mark the seasons;
the sun knows its time for setting
(20) Thou makest darkness, and it is night,
when all the beasts of the forest creep forth.
(21) The young lions roar for their prey,
seeking their food from God.
(22) When the sun rises, they get them away
and lie down in their dens.
(23) Man goes forth to his work
and to his labor until the evening.
(24) O LORD, how manifold are thy works!
In wisdom hast thou made them all;
the earth is full of thy creatures.
(25) Yonder is the sea, great and wide,
which teems with things innumerable,
living things both small and great.
(26) There go the ships,
and Leviathan which thou didst form to sport in it.
(27) These all look to thee,
to give them their food in due season.
(28) When thou givest to them, they gather it up;
when thou openest thy hand, they are filled with good things.
(29) When thou hidest thy face, they are dismayed;
when thou takest away their breath, they die
and return to their dust.
(30) When thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created;
and thou renewest the face of the ground.
(31) May the glory of the LORD endure for ever,
may the LORD rejoice in his works,
(32) who looks on the earth and it trembles,
who touches the mountains and they smoke!
(33) I will sing to the LORD as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
(34) May my meditation be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the Lord.
(35) Let sinners be consumed from the earth,
and let the wicked be no more!
Bless the LORD, O my soul!
Praise the LORD!
—Holy Bible. Revised Standard Version. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., 1952.
From the Book of Job Both authorship and dating of the Book of Job are in doubt. Partly this is the result of the chaotic structure of the book in which there are not only two basic sections (the prose beginning and end, which seem to derive from older Near Eastern sources; and the poetic middle section, indigenous to Israel) but also evidence of a great many reworkings. Many speeches are confused, with characters taking contrary positions at different points in the text; others seem incomplete or distinctly added.
It is generally agreed that the author was a widely traveled and highly knowledgeable Jew, familiar with Mesopotamian and Egyptian myths, who adapted one of these as a setting for his poetic story. And, although the date of his composition is far from certain, 600–200 B.C. seems a likely period given the prominent role played by Satan (demonstrating perhaps a sixth- or fifth-century B.C. Persian influence) and a questioning of God’s presence and concern (common after the Babylonian Exile).
Whoever he was, the author of Job was a person of great artistic talent and religious feeling. The speeches delivered by God to Job, of which Job 38 is a part, are among the most powerful in Old Testament literature. After Job has appealed for a hearing with the Lord to question him about his treatment of a worthy servant, God appears. Rather than answering charges of maltreatment, God questions Job’s right to judge him. In this great speech, God proclaims himself the ground of being, the originator of the universe of which Job is only a dependent part. As one mystery of nature is revealed to Job, another unfolds behind it, and God pauses again and again to taunt Job with his ignorance and impotence.
While this speech of God’s is in no way a direct answer to the plight of a good man needlessly tormented, the revelation of creation is at least an indirect response. Not only does it represent a communication from God to man and thereby demonstrate his presence and concern, but it also expresses (by its very disregard of Job’s charges) the secondary nature of issues of good and evil in comparison with the primary nature of the issue of being. The “how” of the world bows here most clearly to the fact of its being. God’s “goodness” is derivative of his creative power, of his being. And although modern readers, holding to the primacy of justice over being, are often dissatisfied with this answer, Job is not. Having understood the error of his presumption, he “melts away” and repents in dust and ashes.
(38:1) THEN the LORD answered Job
out of the whirlwind:
(2) “Who is this that darkens counsel
by words without knowledge?
(3) Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
(4) “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
(5) Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
(6) On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
(7) when the morning stars sang together,
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
(8) “Or who shut in the sea with doors,
when it burst forth from the womb;
(9) when I made clouds its garment,
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
(10) and prescribed bounds for it,
and set bars and doors,
(11) and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?
(12) “Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
and caused the dawn to know its place,
(13) that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth,
and the wicked be shaken out of it?
(14) It is changed like clay under the seal,
and it is dyed like a garment.
(15) From the wicked their light is withheld,
and their uplifted arm is broken.
(16) “Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
(17) Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
(18) Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?
Declare, if you know all this.
(19) “Where is the way to the dwelling of light,
and where is the place of darkness,
(20) that you may take it to its territory
and that you may discern the paths to its home?
(21) You know, for you were born then,
and the number of your days is great!
(22) “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,
or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,
(23) which I have reserved for the time of trouble,
for the day of battle and war?
(
24) What is the way to the place where the light is distributed,
or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?
(25) “Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a way for the thunderbolt,
(26) to bring rain on a land where no man is,
on the desert in which there is no man;
(27) to satisfy the waste and desolate land,
and to make the ground put forth grass?
(28) “Has the rain a father,
or who has begotten the drops of dew?
(29) From whose womb did the ice come forth,
and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven?
(30) The waters become hard like stone,
and the face of the deep is frozen.
(31) “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades,
or loose the cords of Orion?
(32) Can you lead forth the Maźzaroth in their season,
or can you guide the Bear with its children?
(33) Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
can you establish their rule on the earth?
(34) “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
that a flood of waters may cover you?
(35) Can you send forth lightnings,
that they may go and say to you,
‘Here we are’?
(36) Who has put wisdom in the clouds,
or given understanding to the mists?
(37) Who can number the clouds by wisdom?
Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens,
(38) when the dust runs into a mass
and the clods cleave fast together?
(39) “Can you hunt the prey for the lion,
or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
(40) when they crouch in their dens,
or lie in wait in their covert?
(41) Who provides for the raven its prey,
when its young ones cry to God,
and wander about for lack of food?
(42:1) THEN JOB answered the LORD:
(2) “I know that thou canst do all things,
and that no purpose of thine can be thwarted.
(3) ‘Who is this that hides counsel
without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
(4) ‘Hear,
and I will speak; I will question you,
and you declare to me.’
(5) I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees thee;
(6) therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
—Holy Bible. Revised Standard Version. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., 1952
From Proverbs The book of Proverbs in the Old Testament is a collection of educational material written in easily memorizable verse for the instruction of children of the court and upper classes. The “wisdom literature” it contains focuses not on metaphysical speculation, but on pragmatic, utilitarian advice. Like the “wisdom” of Egypt and Mesopotamia by which it was greatly influenced, Proverbs is noticeably universalist in tone and is further marked by a rather simplistic view of divine action and human character and a conservative view of political affairs. So directly was it borrowed from other ancient Near Eastern sources that Proverbs makes no attempt, aside from calling God Yahweh, to integrate its advice into a specifically Hebrew sociopolitical and religious context. That is not the case by the time of the later noncanonical Apocrypha, when “wisdom” had become an essential facet of Hebrew tradition.
Although authorship of Proverbs is conventionally ascribed to Solomon because his court introduced this form of literature into Israel, the actual books were written over the centuries by teachers or “wise men” of the court. In its present form, Proverbs was not collected until after the Babylonian Exile (586 B.C.) and maybe not until the fourth century B.C. While specific sections of the book may be much older, the first nine chapters, forming a kind of general introduction to the whole, probably came from the fourth century.
Given the pragmatic character of most “wisdom literature,” it is not surprising that very little speculation of a theological nature is included. Chapter 8:22–31 is a notable exception. Here Wisdom, personified as a goddess, proclaims that she was present with God when the world was created: “The Lord created me the beginning of his works, before all else that he made, long ago” and throughout his creative efforts—as he prepared the heavens, tamed the seas, and created the earth—she was there.
Although seemingly more poetic than metaphysical in import, this depiction of Wisdom as a goddess of great stature and the companion to the creating God was most significant in the later development of a doctrine of Logos found in the New Testament.
(8:22) THE LORD created me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of old.
(23) Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
(24) When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.
(25) Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth:
(26) before he had made the earth with its fields,
or the first of the dust of the world.
(27) When he established the heavens, I was there,
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
(28) when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep
(29) when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
(30) when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside him, like a master workman;
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
(31) rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the sons of men.
—Holy Bible. Revised Standard Version. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., 1952.
From the Gospel According to John The last of the gospels was written in Asia, most probably at Ephesus, after the expulsion of Jewish Christian believers from the synagogues around 90 A.D. The identity of the author is in considerable doubt: some claim he is John, son of Zebedee and one of Jesus’ apostles; others cite both the appendix and obvious editorial work in the text in arguing for another, unknown writer. In any case, the author’s Jewish origin and Greek training are presumed, and his purpose in writing the gospel is clear: “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.”
The gospel begins with the assertion that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God,” echoing not only Genesis 1:1, where God creates the universe by command, by a word, but also later wisdom literature, which personified wisdom and envisioned her as a distinct but related entity present with God at the creation. The Word of John is associated also with Logos, the Greek term signifying God’s creative mind. In this instance, the Word is both separate from and identical with God—an aspect of divinity. Personified as “he,” the Word is the agent of creation through whom all things were made. And he is identified with both the physical life and light that originated at the beginning and the spiritual life and light that were revealed when the Word transformed itself into flesh as Jesus Christ.
(1:1) IN THE BEGINNING was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (2) He was in the beginning with God; (3) all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. (4) In him was life, and the life was the light of men. (5) The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
(6) There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. (7) He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe
through him. (8) He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.
(9) The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. (10) He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. (11) He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. (12) But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; (13) who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
(14) And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. (15) (John bore witness to him, and cried, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.’”) (16) And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace. (17) For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (18) No one has even seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.
—Holy Bible. Revised Standard Version. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., 1952.
ZOROASTRIAN MYTHS
From the Exegesis of the Good Religion Although the Avesta or sacred book of Zoroastrianism was organized in its present form during the reign of Shahpur II (309–380 A.D.), much of its material is far older. Zarathustra himself (born c. 590 B.C.) is thought to have written one section of it, a collection of seventeen hymns called the Gathas. Unfortunately, given their composition in an ancient form of the Avestan language, translation of them is not certain.
This exegesis (analysis and commentary, c. 350 A.D.) of the Avesta depicts creation in abstract physical terms as a kind of birth of matter out of pure “form.” In the beginning, only endless light existed. Without external boundaries, it is the One, pure and without other. But within it is twofold: an ideal creation containing the Spirit of the Power of the Word and a material creation with its nucleus of the Spirit of the Power of Nature. After the two spirits were united by the will of the creator (the Light conceived as a whole and personalized?), the material world evolved.
In its first stage, matter was a chaotic mass. Then conception (or hollowing) and formation (or expansion) produced the first body, the first thing with both matter and form. This body then united with the Spirit of the Power of the Word to form the firmament (or, in more philosophical terms, the Wheel of Change). The firmament contained the sun, moon, and stars like embryos within it, and these great natural bodies were the ruling forces in the physical world. All this activity produced “becoming” (expressed in the hot, moist air), which set the elements in motion, revealed the primary physical qualities, and ultimately resulted in the “settling of becoming” or the formation of living things.
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