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BERESHIT BARA ELOHIM Bereshit Rabba, Parashah I, Reconsidered

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BERESHIT BARA ELOHIM Bereshit Rabba, Parashah I, Reconsidered BERESHIT BARA ELOHIM Bereshit Rabba, Parashah I, Reconsidered Peter Schafer The Jewish creation theology as it is reflected in the Midrash Bereshit Rabba (BerR), is by no means a new subject. Since BerR is the first rabbinic text that unequivocally refers to the question of the creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo), 1 it has attracted considerable attention among scholars. 2 But the no doubt exciting yet highly charged prob­ lem of whether the world was created out of nothing or out of some pre-existent material was clearly not BerR's main concern; rather the Midrash presents itself as a carefully crafted document, composed by a sophisticated editor, who uses a wide variety of available exegetical material dealing with creation. Most scholars agree that BerR was edited in the first half of the fifth century in Palestine, at approximately the same time when the Talmud Yerushalmi was edited. 3 The first parashah of BerR, entirely devoted to Gen I: I, is a par­ ticularly rich kaleidoscope of creation material. Instead of treating certain topics in isolation, however theologically relevant they might be, I will focus on the structure of the parashah. That is, I will ana­ lyze the parashah as a literary unit, deliberately put together by an editor, who, in the peculiar way in which it has been fashioned, wants to convey a message. In other words, I am interested in the meaning of the parashah's individual components (sub-units) and how they are combined to form an integrated whole with, presumably, a distinct 1 BerR 1:5 and 1:9 according to the critical edition by J. Theodor & Ch. Albeck, Midrash Bereshit Rabba: Critical Edition with Notes and Commentary,jerusalem 1965 2• 2 One of my own earliest articles dealt, in quite a preliminary way, with this question ('Bereshit bara' 'elohim: Zur Interpretation von Genesis 1,1 in der rabbinischen Literatur', JSJ 2 (1971), 161-66). See most recendy M.R. Niehoff, 'Creatio ex Nihilo Theology in Genesis Rabbah in Light of Christian Exegesis', HTR 99 (2005), 37-M; M. Kister, 'Tohu wa-Bohu: Primordial Elements and Creatio ex Nihilo', JSQ) 4 (2007), 229-256. 3 G. Sternberger, Einleitung in Talmud und Midrasch, Miinchen 19928, 275. The attempt to locate Bereshit Rabbah more precisely in Caesarea (Maritima) stems from the desire to connect it with Christian exegesis, in particular with Origen; see Niehoff, 'Creatio ex Nihilo', 41f. 268 PETER SCHAFER message. In doing so, I follow the lead of Jacob Neusner4 and, in particular, Philip Alexander.5 Whereas Neusner has contributed some rather impressionistic insights into the literary make-up of the parashah, Alexander has paved the way to a deeper understanding of its theo­ logical message. I will use the Theodor-Albeck critical edition of BerR and the translations provided by Harry Freedman6 and Jacob Neusner.7 Furthermore, I follow the numbering and sequence of the parashah's sub-units employed by Theodor-Albeck who used the manuscript British Museum Add. 27169 as their basic text.8 Constraints with regard to the size of this article prevent me from quoting the respective sub-units of the parashah verbatim; the reader is advised to refer to the translations in Freedman and Neusner. BerR 1:1 This first sub-unit that opens the Midrash BerR is a petihah, linking the Seder verse Gen 1:1 with the petihah verse Prov 8:30, a verse from the Ketuvim. Its alleged author is R. Oshaya, a Palestinian Amora of the first generation and student of Bar Qappara (who figures prominently in the parashah: see 1:5 and 1: 10) as well as the teacher of R. Yohanan b. Nappaha (see 1:3), who flourished in Sepphoris and ~ater) Caesarea. The unit is divided into two sections, (1) a series of interpretations of the difficult word amon in Provo 8:30, followed by (2) a midrash that is built upon the reading of amon as uman ('workman, craftsman'). The Torah reveals itself as the 'working tool' (keli umanuto) of God: just as a 4 J. Neusner, Genesis Rabbah: The Judaic Commentary to the Book if Genesis. A New Ameri­ can Translation, Vol. 1, Parashi,yyot One through Thirry- Three on Genesis 1:1 to 8:14, Adanta 1985, 1--20. See also his 'Genesis Rabbah as Polemic: An Introductory Account', HAR 9 (1985), 252-65. 5 P.S. Alexander, 'Pre-Emptive Exegesis: Genesis Rabbah's Reading of the Story of Creation',]]S43 (1992), 230--45. 6 H. Freedman, Midrash Rabba, Vols. 1-2 (Genesis), London 1939. 7 Neusner, Genesis Rabba, 1-20. 8 On tillS choice and the other manuscripts of BerR, see Sternberger, Einleitung, 276- 78. In MS Vatican Ebr. 60, the earliest BerR manuscript but not known to Theodor­ Albeck (10th century?), the very beginning of the work is missing, and the manuscript begins in the middle of what is in the Theodor-Albeck edition unit 6 of the first para­ shah; then it goes on to unit 7, units 2, 3, 4, and unit 8. So in all likelihood it corresponds to the order in the London manuscript used by Theodor and Albeck. MS Vatican Ebr. 30, slighdy younger than Ebr. 60, is of no use for our purpose because the beginning is missing (the first page of the surviving manuscript belongs to the third parashah). .
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