bone of bones, flesh of flesh

^{Genesis 2}

²¹ So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. ²² Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

 ²³ The man said,

   “This is now bone of my bones
   and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
   for she was taken out of man.”

 ²⁴ That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

 ²⁵ Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

***

I confess I do not feel particularly adequate for tackling this passage today - it's been a long day; I'm tired and I feel the need to do more reading on it myself.  Nonetheless, I'll have a go at reflecting on it, and hope I am not too vague.

Adam's aloneness has only been emphasised by the parade of animals and birds brought before him, presumably both male and female in their kinds.  He, however, does not have his 'other', his matching counterpart.

Personally I take these verses as analogy and symbol rather than a literal removing of Adam's rib. So what analogy, what symbol do I see?

Firstly, woman is made of the same stuff as man.  They are not opposing in substance; they are complementary.  Natural opposites but only within this same substance, what Adam calls bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh.  Today we might say: my flesh and blood.  There is a familial tie here, the establishment of a new relationship which completes the incomplete, while still being formed, ultimately, from the dust of the ground.

Adam reacts in joy - recognising his match, the one he has been lacking.  It's a poetic response, one that also involves naming, but this time a name that derives from his own (the Hebrew ishah from the ish).

Here the narrator uses this as a reason for an application - that of marriage.  This, he says, is why a man leaves his family - his flesh and blood - for his wife, so together they become flesh and blood.  A re-union, if you like.

The two of them - the man and the woman - are relaxed with themselves, unabashed at their nakedness, not even particularly aware of it.

Further reflection:

Is this then, a suggestion that marriage is the ideal state for a person?  That if a man or a woman remain unmarried, they are somehow incomplete?

I do not believe this (and find this frustrating when both culture and church imply this).  This story may have been told as an analogy and reason for marriage in a certain culture, but even within the words of the text I see Adam, portrayed as without any human company whatsoever, very different from an unmarried man or woman today.  

From a Christian perspective, we are all one in Christ Jesus, regardless of gender or social background (Galatians 3:28), and our oneness comes from unity with Christ, not marital union.  Marriage certainly carries blessing, but it is not the only blessing in life: Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7 :32-35, writes of the benefits of remaining unmarried, that we are not always trying to please our husband or wife but are able to focus on the Lord himself.  Granted he was writing at a time when there were difficulties to be faced, but I think it's a reasonable principle.  Jesus has become the focal point of our unity and our community (the body of Christ). This is the case regardless of whether we are married or not.

I am not trying to devalue marriage here, but I do feel that we have undervalued the single people in our churches and often we buy into this idea that we are 'waiting for the right person' to come along, as if this is the only norm and that for those who never marry or never have children, somehow they simply never 'found the right person' and are somehow lacking.  This focus feels a bit mixed up, in my opinion. We have been brought into an amazing community made up of men and women, celebrating their new re-unity in Christ.  'Family' within a church context should be all encompassing - young or old, male or female, married or single.  

At least, that's my opinion.

not good...

Genesis 2

¹⁸ The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

 ¹⁹ Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.

***

And here we have the opposite of that line we heard so often in Genesis 1.  Here, God sees and says 'It is not good'. After an array of positive statements, here is a real negative. The creation is made of good stuff, we've been shown this.  But it lacks something.  Something is missing.  The man, the adam that has been made, is alone.  And this is a bad thing.  

The animals and birds had been made previously and now they are brought to Adam to see what he would name them.  God did the naming in Genesis 1, now this new human being is delegated the task of naming the animals.  It's a thorough process, including all the livestock, the wild animals and the birds.

But in spite of all the variety, all the creative ingenuity shown in the making of the other creatures, still there is lack.  Still, there is no one suitable.

Adam is alone; creation is incomplete.

the one exception

<sup>Genesis 2


15</sup> The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. ¹⁶ And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; ¹⁷ but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

***

We know that all the trees of the garden were pleasing to look at, and their fruit good to taste.  And here God speaks to the man, and issues his command.  He begins by saying : you are free...  

God lays before the man an array of good and beautiful choices. He may pick whichever he chooses. But there is one choice that will have a deeply unhappy consequence.  All the trees (including the aforementioned Tree of Life, we assume) are there to provide fruit for the occupant of the garden.  But one of them is different, and eating its fruit will change everything. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is off limits.

Interestingly, God doesn't just command, but he explains his command.  You must not eat from it...because.

It is the one exception because.

It is what he must not do because.

Because if he does, this living being will lose what he has been given.  He will lose life itself.

The author of this story certainly knows how build up tension.  Planted here is a possibility, a frightening possibility.  It hangs there teasingly in the reader's mind.

two trees

^{Genesis 2}

⁸ Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. ⁹ The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁰ A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. ¹¹ The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. ¹² (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) ¹³ The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. ¹⁴ The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

***

Eden. Within it, a garden planted by God himself - still that image of tenderness.  God as a gardener...a picture painted elsewhere, much later.  A garden that he had already created, and where he now places the man - the adam - of his creating.

A garden of many trees - all beautiful, all wonderful food sources.  And among the many, the two trees.

Sometimes people forget there are two trees.  Sometimes when recounting an old memory of the Eden story people only talk of one tree, as if the tree of life  is the same as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  

But no.  There are two trees, each with different attributes.  They were both  significant - at the very centre of the garden.

The description of the river and its tributaries builds on this idea of watering the ground, which we saw earlier.  A picture of a lush, fertile landscape.

Eden - the stuff of legends.  A garden of provision and of beauty. A place where the man could dwell.  A place where anything could happen.

dust and breath

<sup>Genesis 2


7</sup> Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

***

Man from the ground.  In Hebrew, the adam from the adamah.  'Man' is composed of dust...and what makes him live is breath.  A gentle opposite here, making us think of the dust our bodies eventually become in death, and the loss of breath that death entails.  We stop breathing, we turn to dust.
Here in the beginning, we are made from dust, we start breathing.  Breath means life.  The man became a living being.

It's an intimate verse, speaking of Yahweh as the one who forms the man - more picture language here - a creator moulding something extraordinary from dust and then breathing into it. I love the imagery used here.  I feel called to watch as he does something incredible with the substance of the ground itself, forming a new creature, and himself giving this creature life.

Here is a picture of a creator who is intimately involved in creation, deliberate and purposeful in creating the adam - the human being who becomes a living being.  For me this verse evokes a tender and focused act.  No randomness or off-handedness.  

...the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Wonderful.

Introducing Yahweh

4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.

⁵ Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, ⁶ but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. 

***

Okay, so my NRSV (what I use normally) translates this a little differently from the NIV ( above, 2011 version).   

The NRSV says: 

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.  

In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens...

There's some sort of disagreement over where to put the break, but either way, something happens here.  There's a definite switch.   Suddenly we're no longer looking at things from quite the same perspective.  

We looked at this with our youth bible study group recently, looking at the two different creation accounts in the first chapters of Genesis.  It was, as it often is, a challenging session!  They pronounced: 'It's totally different!' and one said: 'It's as if they were written by two different people.'  (They then proceeded to tell us which they liked and which they didn't, in no uncertain terms - as I said, challenging...)

It's as if they were written by two different people.  The style changes, the order changes, and the name changes.   Or should I say...the name is more specific.

Which name?  The name of God.  Check out those capital letters!  Now we're talking YAHWEH - the I am who I am, who announced himself as such to Moses, from the burning bush (we're not told about that until Exodus - sorry).  

The young people in our study reacted in the same way as a lot of biblical scholars: there is more than one writer here.

The perspective of the following verses is rather different from Genesis 1. Unlike some of our youth group (!) I think the two accounts are complementary, not opposed to one another.  The editor, or collector of the stories, if you like, has included them both for a reason.  The second account is still concerned with the creator, but rather than looking at every aspect, it looks at what concerns it most: humanity.  It goes from a wide-angle lens to a close up.

There was no one to work the ground, and there was not yet rain to fuel any plant life.  No worker, no water.

The ground lies waiting, and then the water rises.

So...who will fulfil the second requirement?  Who will work the ground, and where will they come from?

In the beginning - the perfect seven

Genesis 2

 ¹ Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

 ² By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. ³ Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

***

The perfect seven.  Seven being a number that signified completion.  The seventh day is not a day for creating but for resting.  You could say that rest is God's invention.

The principle of Sabbath is written right into this story, into its very structure.  This emphasises its importance in the story and identity of Israel.  Repeatedly Israel is told to observe the Sabbath day; it even makes it into the Top Ten of Exodus 20.  It's so important that in this story of creation, even God does it.  

Sabbath has one primary function: rest.  Rest for everyone: 'Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.  On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.' - Exodus 20:9-11.  The fourth commandment even harks back to this Genesis account in order to show how important it is: God rested on the seventh day, and so he blessed it and made it holy.

The rest of Sabbath was for everyone -  animals included.  No one was to work while the favoured few put their feet up.  That missed the point.  The Sabbath affected everyone, because it was ordained by YHWH himself, and it was holy. Jesus had things to say about the Sabbath too, and it's clear that in the New Testament it does not have the same dominance.  I'm not going to go into this  here as I want to reflect on it more widely at a later point in my main blog.

The Sabbath is holy because it takes its pattern from how God works and creates.  It's one of those areas we can struggle with if we don't take a literal view of seven 24 hour days and yet still hold a high view of scripture and its truth and meaning.  I've decided, in my life of faith and exploring theology, not to be afraid or alarmed of struggles and challenges.  I live within them, experiencing the excitement of a God whose mind is so vast I will never grasp it.  There's no doubt that the Sabbath references later in the OT refer back explicitly to this Genesis story as a reason for the Sabbath.  But this doesn't need to overly-perplex us.

Genesis one tells us something magnificent about God, a God who created the earth and seas, the skies and stars, the birds and the animals, human beings. A God who programmed a rhythm to life, where we would wake in the morning and go to sleep in the evening.  Rest is his invention, and he carved out a special place for it.  The perfect seven was a stopping of all work.  It was the completion of it.

We may not practise Sabbath in the same way today, but we can certainly appreciate the need for it in a life that is often harried and frazzled.  And the Sabbath principle is holy - a sign of dedication to God, something different among days, and it is also compassionate - allowing all, tall or small, masters and servants, strangers, friends, even mules and donkeys, to rest.

We are creatures designed to need rest.  And rest can be far more than simply not doing something.  An elongated pause gives us space to grow in ways that we are simply too busy for at other times.

In the beginning - the image bearers

<sup>Genesis 1

26</sup>Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

²⁷So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

²⁸And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." ²⁹And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. ³⁰And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so.
³¹And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

***

The image bearers. Here we have something different - something that can no longer be called 'something' but 'someone'. Let us make man.

Both male and female constitute this image, together reflecting the likeness of God himself. This is a high view of humanity; made with the same raw materials as the other created beings, but given the pattern of God within them. A God of relationship.

And God blessed them. The power of blessing, so strong in the Genesis narratives is here,right at the beginning, performed by God himself. God is the one who blesses, the source of all blessing, where blessing begins.

The image bearers are special and they are blessed.

The image bearers have responsibility.They too are told to be fruitful and multiply, their life begetting life, potential 'someones' still to come. They are also told to have 'dominion' over every other living thing (with the breath of life - breath so powerfully associated with what it means to be alive).

We can think of dominion very negatively, and misuse the idea, making it about heavy handed unpleasantness, an abuse of authority, an imposition. But these are the image bearers, and it is God whose image they carry, the God who formed the earth and saw that it was good. If the humans are to truly reflect his image, they will care for the earth with the same care and concern as its creator. They are the appointed stewards, caretakers of the earth. They are not just part of the cycle of the living, they carry a special responsibility for it. They are given this responsibility. Their position in creation is a gift.

They are filled with potential.

In the beginning - bursting with life

^{Genesis 1
20}And God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens." ²¹So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ²²And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." ²³And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

 ²⁴And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so. ²⁵And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

***

And suddenly, the earth is teeming with life.  What was formless has now become something that carries and holds glorious abundance.  Life.  In all varieties.  Startling in its diversity and its uniqueness, in the factors required for it to even happen.

Be fruitful and multiply.  Life begets life.  It's not a one-off, but a beginning of a life-ridden story; next generations will follow.  God is shown setting in motion cycles of growth and reproduction.

I'm struck by how the idea of cycles and seasons transplant that dark structurelessness of the first verses.  Even the structure of the way the story is told - morning then evening, introduces a rhythm to it all, a feeling of the cyclical.  The circle of life, if I may use such a familiar phrase.

The earth is filled with the living - the seas, the skies, the ground.  

Our living planet takes my breath away.  

In the beginning - God speaks

Genesis 1

¹In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. ²The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

³And God said "Let there be light," and there was light. ⁴And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

⁶And God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." ⁷And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. ⁸And God called the expanse Heaven*. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

⁹And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. ¹⁰God called the dry land Earth,and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

¹¹And God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth." And it was so. ¹²The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind.
And God saw that it was good.¹³And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

¹⁴And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons,and for days and years, ¹⁵and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth." And it was so. ¹⁶And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. ¹⁷And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth,¹⁸to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

***

So often we lose the point of the Bible's first story. Its meaning and its elegance are cluttered up with controversy; we are too busy debating and defending (whatever our viewpoint) to actually stop and listen to what is being said here.

I'll clear this out of the way first:In my view, Genesis 1 was not designed to be a scientific textbook. If it had been, no one could have understood it for years. (I find science it exciting - that amazing 'how', where Genesis focuses on the 'who' and the 'why'.) Instead it tells the truth in the language it knows how - painting a picture for us, explaining something deeply profound.

I think this first chapter is more concerned with the theological order of things, not the chronological. Its purpose is far beyond mere nuts and bolts, it addresses those questions which are impossible to disassemble in a test tube.

Genesis 1 is poetry, in its broadest sense. It is trying to convey the impossible - trying to get our heads round eternity and beginnings - always things that make our minds boggle.

But whether you see Genesis as literal or literary, it offers a glimpse of beauty and purpose. So this is not a post concerned with science/religion debates. It's looking at what's there in the text, whatever your take on the rest.

In the beginning, God created. In the beginning, God. One God. The only God. A great shout of monotheism in a generally polytheistic culture. It is he who creates the world - when he says something, it happens. His words carry extraordinary power. He names things - gives birth to their very identity.

There are no gods before him - the sun and moon are not even mentioned here by their proper names, to disassociate them from godhood (I have mentioned this before). They are not to be worshipped, they are part of the creation. They are good, yes. But they are not God. (Nor are the great sea creatures, mentioned in verses still to come.)

God creates life - and that which is living carries not only the present but the future - the trees and plants are seed bearing, full of potential beyond themselves.

And it is all good. (Sometimes I think we hammer on about perfection too much, instead of using the biblical word of goodness in relation to creation.) Goodness - genuine, dynamic, goodness is a vibrant reality. It is not random or disconnected, it is not purposeless. It is good, and its potential lies within it.

The repetition affirms these things - God speaks, and it is so, God sees that it is good.

And there was morning, and there was evening - a series of beginnings, a series of new cycles in what was previously chaos - that 'deep', those 'waters' - all cultural symbols of the chaotic. The whole amazing liturgy weaves into its very structure a new ebb and flow of life and light where previously there was only darkness.

God speaks. And chaos becomes intricacy, purpose, design.

* Heaven here is understood as sky

maker of heaven and earth

Psalm 121
A song of ascents.

I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.


A sojourn into the Psalms.

The Songs of Ascents were apparently used by pilgrims on their journey to Jerusalem for the Feasts. This Psalm is marked as one of them. Possibly this was a kind of question and answer, a two part song where the leader asks:

'Where does my help come from?'

I've come across a few interpretations of verse 1. There is the idea that by looking to the hills, marvellous creations of God, the writer is reminded of the creator himself - the Maker of heaven and earth. I certainly have had that experience when gazing at the beauty of mountains. There is also the idea that the writer looks longingly towards the mountains of Zion.
On the negative side of things, the writer may be gazing fearfully at the hills, where robbers may be lying in wait, and therefore seeking help and protection.

One idea I find particularly interesting is that which suggests that the hills were where the gods of the surrounding polytheistic cultures were worshipped. The 'high places', so often mentioned in the history of Israel and Judah's Kings. Other cultures sought help at these 'high places', but for the psalmist, it is entirely different. He looks to the hills and is reminded that his help is from Someone Different. He does not find his God in the hills, for his God - YHWH - is the maker of heaven and earth. We can see this in Jeremiah 3:23 - 'Surely the idolatrous commotion on the hills and the mountains is a deception; surely the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel.'

In verses 3 and 4 we are told that the LORD - YHWH - neither slumbers nor sleeps. The gods of the other cultures were very 'human' in their portrayal, in that they were seen to argue amongst themselves, could be vindictive, and also go to sleep. And argument among these gods could have an effect on humans - for example in the weather and the seasons. But we are told here that YHWH does not go to sleep. In his famous contest with the prophets of Baal, Elijah taunted them by saying: "Shout louder! ... Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or travelling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened." (1 Kings 18:27)

It is also interesting to note that the sun and moon also have a history of being worshipped - but here it is made clear that YHWH has created everything. (In the glorious liturgy of Genesis 1, the sun and moon aren't even named in the Hebrew - merely the greater and lesser 'lights' - again emphasising their createdness - that they are not gods in themselves. I hope to look at Genesis 1 in more detail at a later date).

This Psalm is very much concerned with the who. Who is the one who helps us? Who shelters? Who protects? Who is the one who watches over you? No one but YHWH - Maker of heaven and earth.

So often we turn our eyes towards things we desire, things we wish could help us. We like to spread the odds. We reach out for help and protection in places which fall short. We stumble about, our hands grabbing onto things, knowing but not really knowing - the One who can really help us. He is the One who can shade us from the scorching sun. He is the one who can hold us up when we are too weak to stand. He is the place of hope and help.

I ask myself again: where does my help come from?

Do I look elsewhere when all I need is to look to my God?