Transcription
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So what about Genesis chapter 2? This second creation account, which is distinctive from the creation account in chapter 1. It has a different structure. It has a different chronology. Uh, does it report the same event in a different way, or does it, uh, somehow report two different events? I would argue that it does indeed report the same event through a different lens. Whereas Genesis 1 is answering the question, "Who's in charge here? Who is God? How does he relate to humanity? And how does humanity relate to the created order?" I think Genesis 2 is focused on a different issue. And much of that issue is, "What is the nature of humanity?" And although the account could be described as folkloric by some, or anthropomorphic for sure, the idea that God is exhibiting human characteristics, and that he plants a garden, he builds a human, uh, and in some ways it's a, a much more tangible account, uh, I do indeed think it is simply a separate lens on the same event.
So what is that lens? Well, in some ways, I'll have to take you back into the literary realities of the ancient Near East. There is a scholar who has recently published something that has come to be known as the mispi ritual, the Mesopotamian animation ritual. Uh, Michael Dick is associated with this material, a woman named Katherine McDow as well. And this material teaches thus, that in the ancient Mesopotamian world, so in Babylonia, in Assyria, the ancients believed that they could animate their idols. Dialing this back another step, we know that the citizens of Mesopotamia worshiped statues, or at least it looks to us that they worship statues. In reality, what they did is they incarnated their deities. And I'm using that language on purpose. They created beautiful, perfect works of art to represent their deities in real space and time. And they had very elaborate rituals that surrounded the creation and animation of these statues. And the rituals involved highly expert craftsmen who would form the statues and cover them in silver and gold and embed them with jewels.
But when the statue was complete, the ritual involved taking that statue, that incarnation of their deity, to a sacred garden. And the priests and the artisans would place the statue in that sacred garden. And then they would go home. And when they came back the next morning at dawn, they would celebrate in ritual fashion, "Behold, the gods have given us a deity. They have given us a sellum, an image of themselves." And the ritual fiction was that this statue had been birthed in the sacred garden. And then they would, through ritual fashion, they would animate the statue. And they would do so by washing out its eyes and washing out its mouth. That's where the phrase mispi comes from, the washing of the mouth. As you would cleanse a baby birthed by sucking the mucus out of their mouth and eyes, so too they would wash the fictional mucus out of the mouth and eyes of the deity.
Once this deity was therefore animate, they would take the deity and install him or her in the temple precinct. And then the craftsmen would ritually cut off their hands, declaring they had never touched the statue. And all of the tools that were necessary for the creation of that particular image would be placed inside a sacrificed sheep. And the sheep would be thrown in the sacred river. And all memory that this piece had ever been crafted by human hands would be washed away. Why? Because even the ancients knew that humans should not be making gods. Gods should be making humans.
Well, take that ancient literature and apply it to Genesis 2. So the Almighty plants a garden in the East, may I even say a sacred garden. And then he crafts with his hands, the verb yatsar, the same verb that would be used for a professional artisan, he crafts with his hands an image, a human. And in Genesis 1, we learned that human is spoken of as a sellum, an image. God crafts an image of himself. And then he breathes the breath of life into this creature. In other words, he animates him. And once he animates him, he installs him. That's the verb. He installs him in the sacred garden, which also happens to be the dwelling place of God and humanity, i.e., the great cosmic temple. And then the garden is populated with cosmic rivers and cosmic trees. And then a partner is crafted for the human. And the partner becomes his soulmate, his helper, the one who will walk through life with him.
Is Genesis 2 a children's tale? Or is it a highly sophisticated critique? A highly sophisticated critique targeted at Israel's neighbors. You see, it is not humans who should be making gods. It is Gods who should be making humans. Our God has indeed created His Image, His Idol, His sellum, His reflection. And that image is you and me, animated and installed in His cosmic garden. We've been appointed as the stewards of the universe. A different theological lens on the same historic fact. God has created, and he's created us, and he's installed us in his perfect cosmos to lead and to direct in submission to his sovereignty.
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