Adam and Eve
Dürer, 1507
Please type your responses, with your NAME
and time of class, and with the answers numbered.
Read through this page all the way to the bottom before doing the
RG.
You will find the text,
Genesis 1-3, in any bible, or at:http://portfolio.udayton.edu/learning/hbaseresourcereligiousstudies
Scripture scholars claim that chs. 2 and 3 were written between
900 and 700 BCE, in an "archaic" cultural context, whereas ch.1 was written by someone else by around
400 BCE. Yes, that sounds backwards. But whoever finished up editing
the Book of Genesis got to decide how the whole book should
begin, and inserted his (probably not her, in those days) later material
at the beginning of the book.
To make things even more confusing, the first chapter actually should end halfway
through verse 4 of the second chapter (the current chapters and verse divisions
we use were added long after the bible was written). So consider
the second creation story to begin at ch. 2, the second half of verse 4.
1. Biblical scholars point out that the image of God in the second creation story (ch. 2.4b to the end of ch. 3) is rather anthropomorphic, in that it portrays God as doing several things a human person might do. Write out at least 4 things that God does in chs 2-3 that make this God seem more limited than the more awesome God of chapter 1, who does everything simply by declaring "Let there be . . . ."
2. The book of Genesis, especially from creation to the story of the great flood and the tower of Babel, is like a grand mythic narrative. But big narratives sometimes have smaller stories like folktales embedded in them. Ch. 3 has explanations of why aspects of life are as they are today. E.g., the reason why people are embarrassed to be naked now is because the first parents' "eyes were opened" by eating from the tree of knowledge. Write down here briefly 4 other such explanations that appear in ch. 3. [These are called "etiological" stories, from a Greek word for "origins."]
3. Go back to ch. 1. Read from 1:1 to 2:4 (material written by about 400 B.C.E.). Fill in precisely what God made on each of the six days in Gen. 1. Use verse 3 as the beginning of day one. [Day two is hard to interpret; think of the sky-dome as a hard shell making breathing room under it, like an upside-down bowl that has air trapped under it as it floats under water.] Lay out the six days as they are laid out here, in two columns. Try to identify the pattern between days 1 and 4, 2 and 5, 3 and 6.
Day 1
Day 4
Day 2
Day 5
Day 3
Day 6
4. Many peoples have stories of how humankind came to be the way it is today. One interesting interpretation of Genesis 2 & 3 is that this is a "coming-of-age" story, in which the original innocent and ignorant human first learn what it means to grow up and make their own decisions, including mistaken ones. We are all somewhat innocent as children. Our parents make our decisions for us. But as we get older life gets more confusing and difficult. Select materials in these two chapters that would justify this "cmoing-of-age" interpretation. Then explain whether you agree with it or not and why.
Please note that in question 4 you are asked to refer back to specific lines in the text of Genesis that are related to the topic. This is asking that you do not just use the text's general topic and give your thoughts; instead keep up a dialogue with the text, arguing with this or that line, to show that the text indeed says what you say it does, and so on. This is the procedure I ask you to follow in all the Responses to the 103 "common readings." Engage yourself with the specifics of the texts.
Remember the rule: any page that has more than 5 typographical, spelling, or serious grammatical errors will be sent back to you to be done over.