DOCSLIB.ORG

Lent 1 Deep in the Sea: Called to Deep Relationship

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Lent 1 Deep in the Sea: Called to Deep Relationship Lent 1 Deep in the Sea: Called to Deep Relationship Wildwood Mennonite Church // February 21, 2021 Worship Leader: Tom W // Music Leader: Josephine K // Sermon: Joe Heikman Welcome to Wildwood! Wherever you happen to be, whatever time of the day or night, we're so glad that you've taken the time to worship together with our Wildwood community of faith! We are all well aware of the limitations of this now-familiar-but-still-strange way of worship and we continue to lament the loss of physical presence and closeness in these pandemic days. And yet, we are also grateful for the unexpected blessings of this time. Some of us have more time to spend in worship, others have fewer distractions or increased flexibility; some are able to connect across distances that normally divide, others are able to build new and renewed connections. And all of us are offered an invitation to embrace new perspectives, greater inner depths, and a fresh awareness of and desire for the relationships that hold all of us together. Through the highs and lows, ins and outs, God is present. Welcome. First Movement: Seeking the Depths Land Acknowledgment and Call to Worship Land Acknowledgement As we explore the theme of “Deep Calls to Deep,” we recognize that we are living in places with deep stories already; that we are part of the stream of history that goes back deeper than writings and memories can tell. Our physical church building exists on the traditional lands of the Cree, Dene (DEN-Ē), Nakota, Saulteaux (SO-TO), and Ojibwe (OJIB-WĒ) peoples and the homeland of the Métis. We recognize that we carry forward the responsibilities of “treaty people,” living in Treaty 6 territory. We give thanks to Creator, and to those people who have stewarded this land for generations, for the opportunity to share our lives in this deep and sacred land. Call to Worship One: God, we are here at the water’s edge, casting off from shore Many: into unknown waters. One: With fear and trembling, we drop our oars, Many: letting them go, trusting the sea. One: God, we trust the signs of your covenant: the ark through the water, the waters of baptism, Many: the rainbow in the clouds and the dove from the heavens. All: We call to you as you called us deeper into steadfast love. Music for Settling // Deep Calls to Deep // Steve Bell ​ ​ Peace Candle Prayer God we are in need of peace, which comes from you. Depending on the day, depending on the person, this peace takes on different forms. It could be peace in our family, in our workplace, in our city/province/country, or peace in the broadness of this planet. God, give us your peace. It could be that our minds or hearts are troubled and we need you to settle us. God, give us your peace. And God, please make us ‘instruments’ of your peace. Help us to recognize the opportunities that we have to bring a little more peace to this world. Amen Sharing Time // “What depths are you facing?” Congregational Prayer Jesus, who is the Christ, you are the great healer. You are the one who came to earth to show us the way; you came to show us the path to wholeness. On this first Sunday of Lent, we remember that in the process, you knew you would endure suffering while knowing that hope lay ahead. You were willing to endure suffering for our sake, in full awareness, and in complete trust in Abba God that your suffering would lead to our healing and wholeness. Jesus, some of us don’t really care much for this season. We don’t like to think about suffering – yours, or ours. We don’t like to think about death – again, yours, or ours. It feels gloomy; it feels dismal and dark – And this year, especially, it feels like we’ve had enough of that. We look back over the past year of loneliness, of sadness, And we’ve had enough. Jesus, help us to turn away from the past and turn toward you. Help us to draw near, to go to the depths, to hear your voice speaking to deep places within us, pointing out the wounded places in our hearts, the weaknesses in our ways of thinking. Sometimes – oftentimes – the pointing out; the awareness is painful. But Jesus, help us to trust that you are leading us to a better place, a better life with you as our sole guide. Grant us hope, that healing will come, that a meaning-filled abundant life is on the horizon if we but wait. Today we pray for … Jesus, we long for the morning, but grant us patience to wait with you and walk with you in the darkness. Grant us faith to trust that because of the darkness, the sunrise and our future life will be all the more beautiful. Son of Humanity, and Son of God, in your holy name we pray. Amen. Children’s Story // Click here for video storytime with Kara W! ​ This week's story is The Heart and the Bottle by Oliver Jeffers. ​ ​ Scripture // Inclusive Bible translation ​ ​ Genesis 9:8-17 God then said to Noah and his family, “I hereby establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you—birds, cattle, and the earth’s wildlife—everything that came out of the ark, everything that lives on the earth. I hereby establish my covenant with you: All flesh will never again be swept away by the waters of the flood; never again will a flood destroy all the earth.” God said, “Here is the sign of the covenant between me and you and every living creature for ageless generations: I set my bow in the clouds, and it will be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, my bow will appear in the clouds. Then I will remember the covenant that is between me and you and every kind of living creature, and never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all flesh. Whenever my bow appears in the clouds I will see it, and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature on the earth” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all living things on the earth. Sermon (part A) // “YHWH Transformed” // Joe Heikman If you’d rather watch than read, click here for the video: https://youtu.be/4EVHLFwkOfE ​ Oh, I’m sorry, were you looking for some good news this morning? Welcome to Lent, I guess! :) We enter the story this morning, of a world gone wrong, a humanity hopelessly corrupt, and a god lacking the power or creativity, perhaps, to do anything about it other than scrap the whole project and start over from the beginning. You folks who have been around for a while may recognize these as the opening lines of the story of Noah and the Great Flood. ​ ​ That’s so cute. And actually fairly accurate to the biblical account, with a bit of artistic license. But, in spite of the happy ending, this is not a children’s story. Not really. It’s actually a very different kind of story than we’re used to reading in the Bible entirely. Most Bible stories go something like this: And sometimes it’s the negative version of that, where God creates the trouble, or tries to help by allowing them to suffer the consequences of their actions. And sometimes the humans are not changed, and that becomes a lesson. Sometimes we the readers are the object of the story, we’re the ones who are supposed to learn the lesson and be changed. The pattern holds, though, that God is the active character, and humans are the ones who are changed. But with this story of the Great Flood, that gets flipped around. In this story, God is the one with the problem, and through an encounter with a human, by the end of the story, it is God who has changed. A controversial idea, for some of us. I’ll explain. But first let’s talk about Enlil, Lord of the Storm. Chief among gods of the ancient Sumerians … ​ ​ and later worshipped by the Akkadians and Babylonians, known to modern scholars through the Epic of Gilgamesh. (Don’t feel badly if you are unfamiliar with that one). ​ ​ Enlil was the Lord of the Storm, with a temper to match. His most famous story is of the time he got frustrated with the overpopulation of the earth. Those blasted humans were so many, and they made so much noise, that Enlil was not able to sleep. And in his sleep-deprived rage, he unleashed a storm with so much rain that it flooded the whole earth and destroyed all of humanity. Except for one man, Utnapishtim. Utnapishtim received a warning from another god in advance of the storm, and was able to build a boat and save his family. Enlil was outraged that some humans had escaped his wrath! But Utnapishtim and his family bowed down and pledged their allegiance to Enlil, and Enlil granted Utnapishtim immortality in recognition of his cleverness and loyalty. Now, I could have all kinds of fun drawing parallels between these two flood stories but for … today I’ll just point out that, at the start of the Biblical version, YHWH seems an awful lot like Enlil.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Landscapes of Korean and Korean American Biblical Interpretation
    BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AMERICAN AND KOREAN LANDSCAPES OF KOREAN International Voices in Biblical Studies In this first of its kind collection of Korean and Korean American Landscapes of Korean biblical interpretation, essays by established and emerging scholars reflect a range of historical, textual, feminist, sociological, theological, and postcolonial readings. Contributors draw upon ancient contexts and Korean American and even recent events in South Korea to shed light on familiar passages such as King Manasseh read through the Sewol Ferry Tragedy, David and Bathsheba’s narrative as the backdrop to the prohibition against Biblical Interpretation adultery, rereading the virtuous women in Proverbs 31:10–31 through a Korean woman’s experience, visualizing the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and demarcations in Galatians, and introducing the extrabiblical story of Eve and Norea, her daughter, through story (re)telling. This volume of essays introduces Korean and Korean American biblical interpretation to scholars and students interested in both traditional and contemporary contextual interpretations. Exile as Forced Migration JOHN AHN is AssociateThe Prophets Professor Speak of Hebrew on Forced Bible Migration at Howard University ThusSchool Says of Divinity.the LORD: He Essays is the on author the Former of and Latter Prophets in (2010) Honor ofand Robert coeditor R. Wilson of (2015) and (2009). Ahn Electronic open access edition (ISBN 978-0-88414-379-6) available at http://ivbs.sbl-site.org/home.aspx Edited by John Ahn LANDSCAPES OF KOREAN AND KOREAN AMERICAN BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION INTERNATIONAL VOICES IN BIBLICAL STUDIES Jione Havea Jin Young Choi Musa W. Dube David Joy Nasili Vaka’uta Gerald O. West Number 10 LANDSCAPES OF KOREAN AND KOREAN AMERICAN BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION Edited by John Ahn Atlanta Copyright © 2019 by SBL Press All rights reserved.
    [Show full text]
  • Noah's Wife and Heterosexual Incestuous
    Judaica Ukrainica I (2012), 29–46 No Name WomaN: Noah’s Wife aNd heterosexual iNcestuous relatioNs iN GeNesis 9:18–29 corinne e. Blackmer Southern Connecticut State University [email protected] [Noah’s wife] was a nameless woman, and so at home among all those who were never found and never missed, who were uncommemorated, whose deaths were not remarked, nor their begettings1. I. The terse language and riddling innuendo of Gen 9:18–29, which narrates how Noah comes to curse Canaan, the son of Ham, has engaged the inter­ pretive energies of readers since the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud spe­ culated that Ham had castrated his father2. The language of this narrative, bristling with obscure phrases, loud hints of dreadful sexual transgression, and pious cover ups, has often left subsequent interpreters sensing that the story has meanings that the narrator declines to delineate. Indeed, the only thing that remains clear is that Gen 9:18–29 functions as an etiological myth to justify the permanent subordination of the tribes of Canaan. Canaan commits an un­ speakable sexual crime against Noah’s family that results in the subsequent physical displacement and sweeping rejection of the customs of the Canaanite peoples. Indeed, Israel’s secure possession of the Promised Land is predicated on repudiating the cultural institutions of the preceding Canaanites. Whatever the larger and associated issues, however, interpretive positions have gener­ 30 Corinne E. BLACKMER ally revolved around two broad questions. What was the nature of Ham’s of­ fense, such that when he “saw his father’s nakedness” and told his brothers, Shem and Japheth, it merited the terrible curse of permanent servitude Noah pronounced over him3? Second, what was the rationale for the punishment of Canaan and why, if Ham committed the crime, would his son Canaan suffer the penalty instead? Exegetical traditions have identified the deed for which Noah curses Ca­ naan either as voyeurism, castration, or homosexual paternal incest.
    [Show full text]
  • A Whisper of Thunder a Bible Study Guide to Index the BOOK OF
    A Whisper Of Thunder A Bible Study! Guide To Index! ! THE BOOK OF! JASHER! THIS IS THE BOOK OF THE GENERATIONS OF MAN! WHOM GOD CREATED UPON THE EARTH! ON THE DAY WHEN THE LORD GOD! MADE HEAVEN AND EARTH.! Referred to in Joshua! and Second Samuel.! ! Chapter 5! 11. !And it was in the eighty-fourth year of the life of Noah, that Enoch the son ! of Seth died, he was nine hundred and five years old at his death.! 2. !And in the one hundred and seventy ninth year of the life of Noah, Cainan the son of Enosh died, and all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ! ten years, and he died. ! 3. !And in the two hundred and thirty fourth year of the life of Noah, Mahlallel the son of Cainan died, and the days of Mahlallel were eight hundred and ! ninety-five years, and he died. ! 4. !And Jared the son of Mahlallel died in those days, in the three hundred and thirty-sixth year of the life of Noah; and all the days of Jared were nine ! hundred and sixty-two years, and he died. ! 5. !And all who followed the Lord died in those days, before they saw the evil ! which God declared to do upon earth. ! 6. !And after the lapse of many years, in the four hundred and eightieth year of the life of Noah, when all those men, who followed the Lord had died away from amongst the sons of men, and only Methuselah was then left, ! God said unto Noah and Methuselah, saying, ! 7.
    [Show full text]
  • Second Baptist Church of Doylestown Bible Study Notes 6-19-19
    Second Baptist Church of Doylestown Bible Study Notes 6-19-19 Genesis 4 Cain and Abel – Verses 1-7 1Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.” 2 Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.4 And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. 6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” 4:1 The phrase “made love to” is literally “he knew.” Sexual union means oneness and total knowledge of the other person. Sexual intercourse is the most intimate of acts, sealing a social, physical, and spiritual relationship. That is why God has reserved it for marriage alone. 4:2 No longer was everything provided for Adam and Eve as it was in the Garden of Eden, where their daily tasks were refreshing and delightful.
    [Show full text]
  • Genealogies and Spiritualities in Genesis 4:17-22, 4:25-26, 5:1-32
    Acta Theologica Supplementum 8 2006 GENEALOGIES AND SPIRITUALITIES IN GENESIS 4:17-22, 4:25-26, 5:1-32 C. Lombaard1 ABSTRACT The three genealogies in Genesis 4:17-22, 4:25-26 en 5:1-32 show different intentions: the first wants (amongst other purposes) to give an aetiology of the trades; the second wants to stress the importance of a new beginning; the third wants to relate Adam to Noah. Each of these approaches to genealogy has a different intent; each wants to in- dicate a different aspect of God’s care. Each thus evidences an own (though not unre- lated) configuration of faith experienced, that is, a different spirituality. 1. OF FAITH IN OLD TESTAMENT TIMES, THE STUDY OF SPIRITUALITY, AND GENEALOGY SCHOLARSHIP Recent Old Testament scholarship has increasingly become aware of the variety of configurations of faith within ancient Israel. This diversity does not involve only a rather straightforward growth in the faith of Israel from one form of belief in God to, presumably, a more advanced form of belief in God. Such a heilsgeschichtliche approach — in the earlier sense of the term (cf. Mildenberger 2000:1585) — would be akin to the concept of progressive revelation, a view which regarded Old Testament history as a process of divine education of the Israelite nation (Rogerson 1988:537; cf. also Lombaard 2003:441). Rather, Old Testament scholarship has made us increasingly aware of different forms of faith within ancient Israel at different times, also with such different expressions competing with one another at the same time. Particularly useful in this regard have been formulations such as those by Rainer Albertz and Philip Davies, the former referring to “Religionsinterner Pluralismus” (Albertz 1978), the latter to “Judaisms” 1 Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Genesis in Biblical Perspective the Gospel of Christ from Genesis Then They Received the Offering – Genesis 4 This Is the Word
    Genesis in Biblical Perspective The Gospel of Christ from Genesis Then They Received the Offering – Genesis 4 This is the word of God. Genesis 4. 1 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD .” 2 And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. 3 In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. 6 The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” 8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. 9 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?” 10 And the LORD said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. 11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.
    [Show full text]
  • Theology of Judgment in Genesis 6-9
    Andrews University Digital Commons @ Andrews University Dissertations Graduate Research 2005 Theology of Judgment in Genesis 6-9 Chun Sik Park Andrews University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/dissertations Part of the Biblical Studies Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Park, Chun Sik, "Theology of Judgment in Genesis 6-9" (2005). Dissertations. 121. https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/dissertations/121 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Research at Digital Commons @ Andrews University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Andrews University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your interest in the Andrews University Digital Library of Dissertations and Theses. Please honor the copyright of this document by not duplicating or distributing additional copies in any form without the author’s express written permission. Thanks for your cooperation. Andrews University Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary THEOLOGY OF JUDGMENT IN GENESIS 6-9 A Disseration Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by Chun Sik Park July 2005 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3182013 Copyright 2005 by Park, Chun Sik All rights reserved. INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted.
    [Show full text]
  • Jubal, Pythagoras and the Myth of the Origin of Music with Some Remarks Concerning the Illumination of Pit (It
    Philomusica on-line 16 (2017) Jubal, Pythagoras and the Myth of the Origin of Music With some remarks concerning the illumination of Pit (It. 568) Davide Daolmi Università degli Studi di Milano [email protected] § Alla fine del Trecento l’iconografia § At the end of the fourteenth century della Musica mostra una forma the iconography of Music shows a complessa basata sul mito del primo complex morphology based on the padre fondatore dell’arte musicale. La myth of the first founding father of the sua raffigurazione più sofisticata appa- musical art. Its most sophisticated re nella miniatura d’apertura di Pit image appears in the opening (Parigi, Bibl. Nazionale, It. 568), uno illumination of Pit (Paris, Bibl. dei più importanti manoscritti di Ars Nationale, It. 568), one of the most Nova italiana. important manuscripts of the Italian Nel riconsiderare la bibliografia Ars Nova. esistente, la prima parte dell’articolo After reviewing the existing biblio- indaga il contesto culturale che ha graphy, the first part of the article prodotto la miniatura, per poi, nella traces the cultural context that seconda, ripercorrere l’intera storia del produced this illumination. The mito, la sua tradizione biblica (Iubal), il second part reconstructs the whole suo corrispondente pagano (Pitagora), history of the myth of the origin of il rapporto con il mito della translatio music, its biblical tradition (Jubal), its studii (le colonne della conoscenza), e pagan equivalent (Pythagoras), their la sua forma complessa adottata a association with the myth of translatio partire dal XII secolo. Il modello studii (the pillars of knowledge), and iconografico fu concepito in Italia nel its syncretic form adopted from the Trecento e la forma ormai matura twelfth century onward.
    [Show full text]
  • The Other Eve: How Reading Lilith Reveals the Maternal Gothic
    Skidmore College Creative Matter English Honors Theses English 5-13-2020 The Other Eve: How Reading Lilith Reveals the Maternal Gothic Emma Berkowitz Skidmore College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/eng_stu_schol Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Berkowitz, Emma, "The Other Eve: How Reading Lilith Reveals the Maternal Gothic" (2020). English Honors Theses. 45. https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/eng_stu_schol/45 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Creative Matter. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Creative Matter. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Other Eve: How Reading Lilith Reveals the Maternal Gothic Emma Berkowitz EN 375 001 04/28/20 Contents Forword ......................................................................................................................................................... 1 Part One: The Lineage of Lilith .................................................................................................................... 2 Part Two: Reading Lilith ............................................................................................................................ 10 Unearthly Love and Dual Spirits in Wuthering Heights .................................................................... 10 The Anti-Mother and Demonic Fertility in Dracula .........................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • “NOAH” Matthew 24:37-39 I. Understanding the Physical World Of
    “NOAH” B. 1656 years of population growth Matthew 24:37-39 1. Adam’s descendants through Cain’s - 7 Generations - Genesis 4:17-24 I. Understanding the physical world of Noah’s time - God Provided a. Cain - Enoch - Irad - Mehujael - Methushael - Lamech A. God Created the world - Genesis 1:1-2 - Day 1 b. Lamech -Jabal, Jubal, Tubal-cain, Naamah 1. Earth was formless 2. Adam’s descendants through Seth -10 generations - Genesis 5 2. Earth was empty a. Adam - Seth - Enosh - Kenan - Mahalalel - Jered - Enoch - 3. Darkness was over the service of the deep Methuseleh - Lamech - Noah 4. Spirit of God was hovering over the waters b. Noah - Shem, Ham and Japeth 5. Light is established 3. Noah was the first of Seth’s line to be born after the death of Adam 6. Time is established (morning and evening) 4. Average family size 5 - 7 children - Genesis 5 -the earth is rotating on it’s axis -“and had other sons and daughters..” B. God Created a perfect environment for life - Genesis 1:6-8 - Day 2 -A conservative range of population at the time of the flood 2 - 11.5 1. An expanse is created (our atmosphere) billion . (7 billion - the population today) Henry Morris The Genesis -God called it sky Record -78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and 1% other gasses C. Advancements in Inovation 2. The expanse separated the waters 1. Cain built cities -the lower waters He called seas - Genesis 1:10 2. Jabal professional cattle-breeders and herders who lived near the cities 3. The water canopy 3.
    [Show full text]
  • Noah and the Flood
    THE BOOK OF JUBILEES AND THE MIDRASH PART 2: NOAH AND THE FLOOD ZVI RON INTRODUCTION The Book of Jubilees is a retelling of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus in the form of an angel speaking to Moses. It was written by a Jew in Hebrew some time around the early second century BCE, perhaps even earlier. The original Hebrew is lost to us today; our translations are based primarily on Ethiopic texts. Like the Midrash, Jubilees often supplements the Biblical nar- ratives with additional information; at other times, Jubilees provides a resolu- tion to a difficulty in the biblical text, another concern of Midrash. As such, the Book of Jubilees may be categorized as an early form of midrashic litera- 1 ture. Some of the interpretations in Jubilees are in fact preserved in the later midrashic literature. The title, "Book of Jubilees," reflects the author's partic- ular way of viewing the chronology of the world as a series of 49-nine year cycles, but it was also sometimes referred to as "The Little Genesis" ( Bereshit 2 3 Zuta in Aramaic), since it is an abbreviated retelling of Genesis. Jubilees was not incorporated into rabbinic literature, as it differs in some very fun- damental legal points – most famously the insistence on a purely solar calen- 4 dar, as opposed to the rabbinic lunar/solar model, and stringencies regarding 5 Shabbat observance. In a previous article ("The Book of Jubilees and the Midrash on the Early Chapters of Genesis", The Jewish Bible Quarterly , 41:3, July 2013) we saw how the Book of Jubilees dealt with various difficul- ties in the text of the early chapters of Genesis in ways occasionally similar and sometimes very different from the later rabbinic midrashic literature.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to Genesis Chapter 1:1-2:3 in the Beginning of Everything
    Introduction to Genesis Chapter 1:1-2:3 In the beginning of everything [NS] The story of Creation, or cosmology, that opens the Book of Genesis differs from all other such accounts that were current among the peoples of the ancient world. Its lack of interest in the realm of heaven and its economy of words in depicting primeval chaos are highly uncharacteristic of this genre of literature. The descriptions in Genesis deal solely with what lies beneath the celestial realm, and still the narration is marked by compactness, solemnity, and dignity. There is abundant evidence that other cosmologies once existed in Israel. Scattered allusions to be found in the prophetic, poetic, and wisdom literature of the Bible testify to a popular belief that prior to the onset of the creative process the powers of watery chaos had to be subdued by God. These mythical beings are variously designated Yam (Sea), Nahar (River), Leviathan (Coiled One), Rahab (Arrogant One), and Tannin (Dragon). There is no consensus in these fragments regarding the ultimate fate of these creatures. One version has them utterly destroyed by God; in another, the chaotic forces, personalized as monsters, are put under restraint by His power. These myths about a cosmic battle at the beginning of time appear in the Bible in fragmentary form, and the several allusions have to be pieced together to produce some kind of coherent unity. Still, the fact that these myths appear in literary compositions in ancient Israel indicates clearly that they had achieved wide currency over a long period of time.
    [Show full text]