Genesis 2 tells us who we are and invites us to turn our lives toward “A New Hope.”

Genesis 2

May the Fourth Be With You…

Well, Sunday was  May 4, a date that has now become an unofficial holiday for Star Wars fans because we can utter the greeting, “May the Fourth Be With You!” (and Methodists everywhere respond, “And also with you!”) I’ve loved these movies (well the first three anyway) since I was a kid. I’ll never forget sitting in the theater as a 13 year-old and seeing that opening scene for the first time. Here it is:

When the Star Destroyer appears and we get that whole idea of its hugeness, you could hear the audience gasp in unison.The effects were unlike anything ever seen in the movies at the time. You felt like you were part of it. I liked it so much that I saw it seven times in the theater!

Well, now 37 years later, members of the original cast will be reprising their roles. A 72 year-old Harrison Ford will be Han Solo again, Mark Hamill will be Luke Skywalker, and Carrie Fisher will be Princess Leia. They may all need light-saber canes, but they’ll be on the screen once again in the roles that made that famous. Personally, I can’t wait for December 2015!

But, as with any movie, there’s a danger in doing a sequel (especially a bunch of sequels). Will they capture the spirit of the original? Will we learn something new? When a sequel is done well, the story advances in an interesting way. Star Wars fans, for example, generally believe that the second movie, The Empire Strikes Back, is actually the best of the films because it took us deeper into the characters. A good sequel will do that and leave us wanting more.

As we move deeper into the story of Genesis this week, we might see Genesis 2 as a sequel to Genesis 1. Last week we looked at Genesis 1 as the story of God building a temple, establishing the functions and functionaries for his dwelling place (if you missed that sermon I encourage you to go to our website and give it a listen). Now, here in chapter 2, the story actually shifts in a new direction, developing the characters in an interesting and revealing way.

Genesis 2 as a Sequel

Most Old Testament scholars believe that Genesis 1 and 2 are actually two very different creation stories told by two different authors. There are a couple of reasons for this: first, the name of God is different in these two stories. The generic term “Elohim” is used in Genesis 1, while the more definitive term “YHWH Elohim” is used in Genesis 2. And then there’s the nature of the story itself. If Genesis 1 is an orderly account of seven “days” of creation, where God creates a temple and then moves into it on the seventh day, then Genesis 2 is quite different. It begins with the creation of humanity, whereas Genesis 1 puts that on the sixth day. It’s a more whimsical narrative, told more as a story than as a sequence. And, in Genesis 2, God is acting anthropomorphically (like a human)—planting gardens, crafting things out of dust, “breathing” while Genesis 1 is more grand and transcendent as God creates with just a word.

Most Christians tend to take these two accounts and syncretize them into one, assuming that what Genesis 2 is describing is a more detailed account of what God did in day 6 in Genesis 1. We do this a lot with Scripture. At Christmas, for example, we tend to syncretize the accounts of Luke and Matthew and have the shepherds and the wise men in our manger scenes, which is not actually the way the authors intended it. If, in fact, we have two different creation accounts written by two different authors, then we have to take each on its own merit, just like we watch films one at a time. What if, for example, Genesis 2 is a sequel? What if the humans God creates in Genesis 1 are not Adam and Eve specifically, but humanity in general of which Adam and Eve are a part?

Actually, if we see it that way it solves a lot of problems. Did you ever wonder, for example, where Cain’s wife came from, or why Cain is able to build a city in 4:17? Who is populating this city? Either there were already people around or Cain and his apparent sister were very, very busy making babies. When we read Genesis 2 as a sequel, however, we begin to see that Adam and Eve aren’t necessarily the first and only humans, but rather the first humans with whom God had an intimate relationship. Instead of Adam and Eve being prototypes (the first of many to come), they are archetypes–the pattern or model of many to come. When Genesis refers to Adam and Eve, it isn’t just referring to a couple of historical individuals—indeed, it’s a reference to all of us. Indeed, this is how Paul refers to Adam in Romans 5—as “a type of the one who is to come” (5:14). Yes, there was likely a historical Adam and Eve—the Scriptures seem to assume that—but they are used almost exclusively as archetypes of humanity in general: two people who are representatives of all of us.

This view is reinforced by looking at verse 7: “then the Lord formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” If we read this is a prototypical way, we would assume that Adam was the first human and that only he was actually created from dust or the topsoil of the earth. But the first readers of Genesis would have looked at this quite differently. If it was an account of the material origins of humanity, the word should have been “clay.” That’s the understanding later in Scripture in Jeremiah 18 where God says, “I am the potter and you are the clay.” You don’t make things from topsoil but from the stuff that lies underneath.

It reminds me of this Far Side cartoon where God is making snakes out of clay. “Boy, these are a cinch!”

But the word here is “dust” and the point is not human chemistry but human identity. In the context of the Scriptures, “dust,” when used in the context of humanity, refers to their mortality.

Look at Psalm 103:14, “For he [God] knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.” Or Ecclesiastes 12:7, referring to human death—“the dust returns to the earth as it was and the breath returns to God who gave it.” It’s not just Adam that was made of dust; all of us are made from dust! We are reminded of this fact every time we come to Ash Wednesday service and we receive the ashes on our forheads and hear the words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Actually, that’s from Genesis 3:19 (which we’ll dig into next week)—the curse upon humanity after they are expelled from the garden: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Adam was made from dust and so are we. Dust is our identity.

So, just like Genesis 1, Genesis 2 (the sequel) is not concerned with the material origins of humanity. Indeed, if Adam is made of dust and we are made of dust, it holds true that Adam was made just like we are! We know that we are born from a mother’s womb and yet we are still made of dust at the same time. Both identities are true. And if they are true for us, they are true for Adam and Eve as well. The old question, “Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?” has an answer—of course they did. They are just like us and we are just like them. Now, that’s a controversial statement if you think the text is about material origins. It is a powerful statement, however, if it’s a sequel to Genesis 1.

Just like Genesis 1 isn’t telling us about every detail of the origins of the material universe, Genesis 2 isn’t trying to tell us about the material origins of humanity—it’s telling us who we are! We are dust—mortal, just like Adam was mortal. Adam wasn’t made deathless and neither are we. What guaranteed Adam’s eternal life was the presence of the Tree of Life in the Garden, not a superhuman immortality. When Adam was banned from the garden, the real tragedy was that he lost the antidote to death. Now the only way to get that antidote again is from another tree—the one on which God himself came to die. But we’ll talk about that more next week.

Genesis 2 and Human Identity

In the meantime, Genesis 2 continues to talk about human identity—the character for which we were made. Look at how the text describes the formation of Eve. Verse 18—“Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper and partner.” Now, notice here that in Genesis two, the first partners God makes for Adam are the animals. But that’s not enough for Adam himself, so God caused Adam to fall into a “deep sleep.” Throughout Scripture, a “deep sleep” is almost always a precursor to a vision. Adam is dreaming, in other words—a dream from God. In that dream, God takes a “rib” from Adam—the Hebrew word for “rib” here is an architectural term—it means “side” or “one of a pair.” It’s a statement on the identity of this woman—she is created to function as the side-by-side helpmate, the partner, the equal.

Notice what Adam sings when he sees her. Now, there’s that old joke that says the reason Eve is named “woman” is that when Adam sees her naked and walking toward him he says, “Whoa, man!”—but that’s not it. Instead, Adam sings out, “This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman for out of Man she was taken.” But then look at the next line: “For this reason”—for this purpose, this function—“a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh” (2:24). Again, this is not a story that’s just about two individuals romping naked through a garden. This is a story about us and the identity for which God created us. “One flesh” is a state of oneness. We find our identity in relationship to God and one another. It’s not just about sexuality, but about the human need for partnership, mutuality, and reflection of the image of God to one another. Males dominating and exploiting females was not God’s original plan. Look at Genesis 3, male-dominated hierarchy is the family of the fall! Instead, it’s about the vocation that God has given to all of us together—helpers and partners in tending the creation.

The “tselem” of God

Here in Genesis 2, the sequel, we find God particularizing and explaining what the creation of humans “in the image of God” means in Genesis 1. Indeed, a person in the Ancient Near East would have seen what this story was immediately. I was listening this week to a short Seedbed video by Dr. Sandra Richter who teaches Old Testament at Wheaton College (and who used to teach at Asbury Seminary, my alma mater) and she pointed to some recent research on Ancient Near Eastern practice that sheds some amazing light on this text. Here’s the video:

In ancient Mesopotamia, in Assyria and Babylon, for example, we know that people most often worshipped idols made of wood or stone. You don’t have to read far into the Scriptures to see that this is one of the major problems God has with Israel and her neighbors—they worship imitation gods. But it’s the way that these gods were crafted that’s very interesting. In fact, it’s not totally accurate to say that these pagan peoples were worshipping the wood or stone idol, but rather the god or goddess who was incarnated in the object, and that incarnation took place according to a particular animating ritual.

A craftsman would take and make the idol of the god or goddess, carefully crafting it out of wood or stone, overlaying it with gold or embedding jewels in it. And then the idol was taken to a sacred garden and left overnight. The next morning, a ritual was performed on the image (the word for which in Hebrew is tselem) where its eyes and mouth were ritually washed out, just like one would do at the birth of a baby. It symbolized the birth of the god into the idol. The idol was then placed in a temple. The craftsman’s tools were then placed in the carcass of a sacrificial sheep and tossed in the river, while the craftsman ritually (not physically) cut off his hands as a sign that humans should not be making gods (even the pagans knew this!).

And so, Richter asks, is Genesis 2 a parody and critique of this practice? Look at how it goes: God crafts an icon, made in his image (tselem) and places him in a garden—in the temple that God has created in Genesis 1. It’s the reverse ritual. Humans don’t make gods, only God makes humans! No idol of wood or stone carries the tselem of God—only humans can. Why does God command Israel not to make idols? Because the only thing in creation that incarnates his image is humanity! Humans are not to give their allegiance to idols, but to incarnate God’s will and way within his creation. This is a story about identity, about vocation! Dust is not just about Adam. Side is not just about Eve. It’s a story about all of us!

Look at Genesis 2:15 – “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden to till and keep it” (actually the Hebrew words translated “till and keep” here in the NRSV are actually better rendered “serve and protect” it). These aren’t farming terms, they are priestly terms, suggesting that the humans are commissioned to serve a priestly role, serving in the sacred space of God’s creation, God’s temple. Their task is a sacred task. As Genesis 1 puts it, they are to “subdue” and have “dominion” over it—the task of stewardship. They are, in other words, to continue bringing and maintaining the order that God had brought to creation in the beginning, insuring that things are running well and serving their purpose as God intended. We’ll see what happens when they don’t take on that vocation when we look at Genesis 3 next week.

Genesis 2 is about who we really are.

For now, however, I want us to see what this brilliant and beautiful story tells us: It’s not a story about “what really happened” but rather a story about “who we really are.” If Genesis 1 is telling us about the functional origins of the cosmos, then Genesis 2, the sequel, is telling us about the origins of its primary functionaries and what God made us to do and to be. Are Adam and Eve historical figures? It’s quite possible; indeed, the Bible assumes so, but they are not necessarily the biological prototype of all humanity. They are, however, the archetype of humanity and are constant reminders to us of our original character. Their story remind us that:

• Humans were created with mortal bodies in need of God’s provision for life eternal.
• Humans are completely dependent and provisioned by God for their needs.
• Humans are given the role of serving in the sacred space of his creation. We are priests in God’s temple.
• Humans are divided into male and female so that we will work side by side, seek out new family relationships, fill the earth, and do God’s work together.
• Humans are made in the image of God, to incarnate God’s wise rule and reign over his creation.

The first Star Wars film that was made was title, interestingly, “Episode IV: A New Hope.” The story began in a dusty wasteland and it’s a story of how people are used to help others break free from oppression and evil. The new sequel will be a continuation of that story and I’m looking forward to seeing how it spins out. The actors may be old and grizzled, but I’m guessing they’ll pick up their characters right where they left off.

The sequel to Genesis 1 begins with humans made of dust and invites us again and again to reprise the roles we were originally given—to act them out again as part of a continuing saga. For we know that God is moving the story toward the climax. In the interim, as in every good story, there is conflict. Sometimes evil seems to triumph over good. Inevitably, some of the good guys suffer and die. But we know that in the end the good guys will win—not because of their own efforts, but because the God who made them will not let them go.

May we humans work at taking on the role that defines us; the one we were meant for from the beginning. Let us life toward that new hope. Amen.

Sources:

Richter, Sandra. “The Ancient Near East and Genesis 2.” Seven Minute Seminary video. Seedbed.com. April 30, 2014.

Walton, John. “Genesis Through Ancient Eyes.” Lecture at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church. Vimeo.com.