Genesis 1

A close reading of the creation story

In this first series, we are going to be reading Version 1 of the story of creation, the version that begins the Bible. It is Gen 1:1-2:3. Saying so brings up some issues that I need to mention briefly here.

• First, the point that there are two different versions of the story of creation. Those who are interested in the human history of the biblical text will probably know that secular scholarship on the Bible assigns these two different stories to different biblical writers: “P” (the Priestly writer) and “J” (who uses the Tetragrammaton, which is transliterated into German, where this scholarship originally appeared, as JHWH). I more or less accept this scholarship, but it will not be the focus of this discussion.

• Second, the fact that the text we’ll be looking at, Gen 1:1-2:3, overlaps two chapters in the Bible. The verse divisions in the Bible are Jewish, but the chapter divisions are Christian, and with this story, as often happens, the two ways of looking at the text disagree. (Sometimes the actual numbering is different, but not in this case.) The Jewish arrangement that will shape our discussion is based on there being a paragraph mark – represented by the Hebrew letter פ – after each of the seven days of creation. Then the story continues without a break until God makes clothes for the humans toward the end of Genesis 3. I’ll have more to say about this when we get to the end of Genesis 1.

• Third, there is lots to discuss in terms of the “big picture,” but the framework of this blog will be a running commentary of whatever text we’re looking at. This format will permit us to discuss larger questions but will keep the main focus on the words of the Bible and what they actually say. That’s the traditional way Jews read the Bible – not as a running text, but as a text with commentary all around it. For an English-language example of what a Jewish Bible might look like, see this sample of my Commentators’ Bible for the book of Deuteronomy (scroll down past the introductory material to the actual Bible pages).

• Fourth, a focus on the actual words of the Bible means the actual words, the original Hebrew. I will translate and transliterate everything, but … if you are used to reading a particular English translation of the Bible, as so many people are, this may take some getting used to. Despite what the old-timer said about the King James Version (“It was good enough for Jesus, and it’s good enough for me”), when you read in English what you’re reading is not the Bible – it’s a translation. A major purpose of this Substack is to help people get through that language barrier to a deeper understanding of the Bible.

Learning Hebrew yourself is not as difficult as you might think! And I will teach you: see my Teaching Company course on Biblical Hebrew here on the Wondrium platform.

Finally … I intend to start paid subscriptions after the first week of posts, but the Sunday posts will remain free. The Tuesday and Thursday posts will have paywalls after a paragraph or two. It is my way of offering online classes. I am looking forward to learning with you!