Dru Johnson (00:00)
For today’s show, have something a little different. We are actually releasing an episode of a new podcast by our friends over at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.
This is hosted by Dr. Joshua Berman. You will recognize his name. You’ve heard his voice many times on this podcast. He’s an expert in Hebrew Bible and he is interviewing scholars going straight through the Torah. Genesis 1, Genesis 2, Genesis 3. This is the very first episode of their podcast and so we’re releasing this episode and encouraging you to go subscribe to their
Bible Bar, wherever you find podcasts.
Don’t forget, you can like and subscribe to this show, ⁓ if you like and subscribe to it. Or you can also give to us at hebraicthought.org slash give. That’s thebiblicalmind.org slash give.
K. Lawson Younger (00:52)
Genesis 1, the account of creation. But this account of creation that we find at the beginning of the Torah seems to have some things in common with other creation myths and stories from across the ancient Near East. What are we to make of that? Well, to us sort all this out, I have with me today in the inaugural episode of the Bible Bar, the eminent Assyriologist and ⁓ Old Testament scholar,
Kay Lawson Younger, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages. Welcome, Lawson, to the Bible Bar.
Joshua Berman (01:28)
Thank you so much, Joshua. Appreciate it.
K. Lawson Younger (01:31)
Okay, before we get started Lawson, I want to share with our listeners an anecdote from that I recall with great fondness from our first meeting ⁓ some years ago. ⁓ We were together at a conference at the Lanier Theological Library and Learning Center in Houston. And it was a weekend conference about the Exodus. And being a weekend conference, that meant for me that it was over Shabbat with all the Shabbat observance
entails. the Lanier Center was very good about organizing to get me kosher food, all wrapped up the way kosher food usually comes into such events. And I recall that Friday night there was a big banquet, maybe 150 people. And ⁓ as I took my place at the table, I took out my little bottle of kosher wine, which I brought with me from Israel. And as I began to pour it to recite the Kiddush, the sanctification of the Shabbat,
that we say on Friday night just at the beginning of the meal. ⁓ I guess that caught your eye. ⁓ You came on over to me and you said to me, Josh, would you be willing to make Qidush for all of us here and chant it out loud? And that’s what I did. ⁓ I wound up making Qidush in front of 150 people. And then thereafter, ⁓ they recited the rest of the assembled ⁓ crowd there said grace.
And it seemed to me that this whole little event was ⁓ kiddish, kidush with grace in every sense of the word. So I recall that fondly. Okay, good. All right. So let’s dive into it. So before we get to comparisons between the ⁓ Old Testament and what we find elsewhere in the ancient Near East, just give us a little bit of an orientation about
types of materials that we’re finding that go under the general rubric of creation stories. I understand we have accounts of creation of the world and accounts of creation of the gods. So, just tell us a little bit briefly about those materials and then we’ll get to the comparisons.
Joshua Berman (03:45)
Yeah, I’m happy to do so. Really, what we have are what are typically called cosmogonies. These are creation accounts of how the world came into being and theogonies, which are creation accounts of the deities, how they came into being. The fact of the matter is, is that in the ancient Near East, whether we’re in Mesopotamia or Egypt,
And those are the locations where we have the bulk of such materials. These really combine. the cosmogonies of Mesopotamia are in fact theogonies. They not only tell about the creation of the universe, the cosmos, but they also tell the story of the creation of the gods.
And the same thing in Egypt. The reason for this is that ancient and Eastern peoples were what the famous Egyptologist Jan Osman called, they were cosmic theistic people. That is, they saw the stuff of creation, the material of creation and the deities all intertwined. They were one.
So when you looked at the sun, you were looking at a deity. If you looked at the moon, you’re looking at a deity, a mountain, a river, all these things. And in certain ways, a way of envisioning this would be to think in very simple animistic terms in which each of these things that we encounter in the universe are agents within themselves, they’re deities within themselves.
Genesis 1 ⁓ is very different than that. ⁓ The stuff of creation is created by God ⁓ and is not part of God. So Genesis 1 is
K. Lawson Younger (05:59)
Would you say that that that that that if I were to put it this way what? Since I I don’t believe that Genesis one is giving us a full ⁓ Scientific account of the creation of the universe and of the world. It’s not answering a scientific question What question is it answering?
Joshua Berman (06:17)
Yeah, I think it’s your I agree with you. I don’t think it’s meant to be a scientific account. The very imposition of structure as is there that culminates in the Shabbat, though the word Shabbat doesn’t actually occur as the noun in that passage. But the the but the structure is clearly designed to reinforce that notion. ⁓
It’s telling the who of creation, not the how of creation.
K. Lawson Younger (06:51)
Hmm. That’s really interesting, the who, because that leads me to the next question that I was going to ask. ⁓ You know, I’m a Deval Jew, you’re a Deval Christian, we both come from traditions that have catechisms that open with both, ⁓ you know, just basic things that one needs to know about the essence of God. ⁓ And Genesis 1 opens up and doesn’t tell us anything about God, you know, whether he is a corporeal or not, is he one or not? he
Was he always here? Nothing. just blasts right in. that really strikes me as remarkable when we think about the catechisms that we have. So why doesn’t Genesis tell us anything about God? Or is it telling us something about God?
Joshua Berman (07:37)
Well, I think it is telling us something about God, a very important thing, and that is that he is creator. ⁓ And that is no small matter. creator, he has authority ⁓ over us. And I think ⁓ Jews and Christians have always recognized that as creator, he is king of the universe. He is the sovereign. ⁓ And therefore ⁓ we are ⁓
called to serve him ⁓ with our lives. So I think it does. think Genesis 1.3 ⁓ gives us information about ⁓ God insofar as it tells us that the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. ⁓ Notice he’s not down in the waters. He’s not part of the waters.
⁓ He’s separate from the borders, but he’s ⁓ very much ⁓ in detail doing what is necessary to create the universe.
K. Lawson Younger (08:45)
You
know, as you mentioned, I’ve never really thought about that phrase. What it says, obviously, in the Hebrew, which you’re obviously familiar with, is that it was the Ruach Elohim. ⁓ And that word Elohim is God. Ruach, well, it can be spirit. ⁓ But I think that ⁓ mostly in the Old Testament, means wind. Yes, because when you say spirit, you know,
I mean, that has certain connotations in our modern spiritual parlance. Yes. ⁓ So what does it mean that the Ruach, the wind, the spiritual parlance,
Joshua Berman (09:22)
mean,
that’s one of the ⁓ things about not only the Bible, but other ancient texts sometimes were confronted with challenges in terms of what exactly were they thinking and meaning. But I think the notion as I see it is it’s speaking to the fact that God ⁓
is ⁓ invisible and is not a ⁓ physical ⁓ being like we encounter ⁓ throughout the rest of the text. think that Genesis 1 goes out of its way to stress
K. Lawson Younger (10:14)
Wow, that’s the hand of God even. Wow, that’s so…
Joshua Berman (10:17)
It’s
not an anthropomorphism. It is a I think a very important statement ⁓ and ⁓ and one that I think ⁓ needs to be ⁓ stressed as we look at at Genesis one. But I think Genesis one goes out of its way to stress the difference between God, the creator and the stuff of creation.
the material of creation. So much so that I would say ⁓ years and years ago, my family, like I’m sure your family and others have read the Bible together and we’re reading Genesis one. In fact, the children at that time were learning to read and they asked, can we read Genesis one? And we would take turns reading a verse. And we read ⁓
in Genesis that God created the greater and lesser lights. And my daughter said, what does that mean? And I said, well, it means the sun and the moon. And she said, yes, but why does he say the greater and lesser lights? Why didn’t you say the sun and the moon? And it hit me like a ton of bricks for the first time that if he had used the word, the Hebrew word, chemish,
K. Lawson Younger (11:37)
have children. Yeah.
Joshua Berman (11:43)
⁓ That could be confused for God creating a deity in Canaanite called Shemesh. And if he had said Yareach, that would be the equivalent of Yarik in the Canaanite. And there could be confusion. There’s no confusion. We know exactly the entities that he’s talking about, but he doesn’t use those words. Therefore,
I cannot conclude that God created lesser gods from Genesis 1.
K. Lawson Younger (12:16)
Wow. So this attempt to really ⁓ separate out the very physical corporal world from an incorporeal God, that’s really fascinating to me when I think of Genesis 2, where it describes the creation of man, vajitser, which means to kind of fashion as a potter does. So even though doesn’t speak about God’s hands and the clay on his hands or anything like that, but that’s already a move towards using a metaphor
that’s a little more corporeal. So I guess this might explain then also why the act of creation is, it isn’t just that God created or God made, those are verbs that we have, but that it’s done explicitly by the least physical act possible, which is speech.
Joshua Berman (13:05)
Yes. Yes. Wow. The spoken word is a clear indication that God, the true and living God, can accomplish things by simply speaking. His power is that great.
K. Lawson Younger (13:07)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Okay, so we’ve spoken here quite a bit about the Almighty. ⁓ Let’s talk about ⁓ humanity, humanity in the creation, cosmogony, cosmogonies and theogonies that you mentioned before, and man here in Genesis 1. So take it away.
Joshua Berman (13:46)
well, mean, ⁓ of course, ⁓ God tells us something very ⁓ or the narrative tells us something very special that God said, let us make ⁓ human beings ⁓ in our image ⁓ and likeness and then goes on to describe the creation of male and female. ⁓
And ⁓ human beings then are very special because they are made in God’s image. Now, that has been a point of debate by theologians of all sorts for centuries. I can’t unpack all of that, but at the very minimum, I think it it must indicate that there are capacities within human beings that are likened to God.
so that we can have a relationship ⁓ with him and that there’s an intention on his part for us to be able over against other creatures to have a spiritual capacity to interact with the true and living God.
K. Lawson Younger (15:02)
Okay. And what happens in the ancient Near Eastern materials? What place does man play in those? I mean, obviously, the ones that are talking about creating the gods, not a whole lot, but some of them, you know, I’m thinking of Atra-Hasis and some other. Yeah. So where does man come out there?
Joshua Berman (15:23)
Yeah, I mean, ultimately, both in Mesopotamian cosmogones and in ⁓ Egyptian cosmogones, humans are created to replace the lesser gods. They are to be servant slaves, providing food and substance for the great gods. so we see this, whether it’s in Enuma Elish,
or Atrahasis, we also see it in the abundance of various different Egyptian cosmogones as well. But there’s another thing that is interesting about the ancient recent accounts, if I may bring it up, and that is they see some aspect of divinity in the creation of humans.
Whether this is in Egypt through the tears of the God or through other mechanisms. ⁓ There is in some way, just like all the other stuff of creation, human beings have some part of divinity within them. Again, it’s this animistic fault world that is, I believe, not represented in the Bible.
K. Lawson Younger (16:49)
So what you said that in the Mesopotamian materials we find that humanity replaces the lower gods as servants to the higher gods. So that really is a 180 degree turn when we get to Genesis 1 where God says, well, I’m giving you the world and to dominate, rule over it, etc. ⁓
Joshua Berman (17:10)
Right. Yes. In fact, I think the picture there ⁓ is really ⁓ has a very clear rulership aspect to it. ⁓ If you like, instead of slaves, we are lesser kings ⁓ and queens who are to administer the complex universe. God has to have.
K. Lawson Younger (17:36)
Yes, Psalm 8 has a lot of that. Right, right, right. Okay. All right. So we have all these stark differences, but there are also some similarities between the accounts, particularly in just what seems to be the incorporation, borrowing, don’t know, polemicizing through slight details I have in mind. And you can tell me little bit more about them.
Joshua Berman (17:40)
Absolutely. Yes.
K. Lawson Younger (18:06)
The deep, have Tiamat in Mesopotamian literature and the Hebrew word te-home. We can talk about that. Yeah, let’s talk about that. Yeah. So tell me about what’s Tiamat in Mesopotamian creation materials and the Hebrew word te-home. Those at home can hear already even without knowing these languages. They are somehow related. So go ahead.
Joshua Berman (18:28)
That’s right. And and so, yes, the the the.
The Mesopotamian account where Tiamat occurs is in Enumay-Lish in particular. ⁓ And ⁓ the name Tiamat goes back to a protosemitic root that is the same as Tahome and Iber. So there’s no doubt that there is a clear ⁓ etymological link between the two. ⁓
though the ⁓ semantic meaning of to home with the notion of deep is really more semantically similar to Apsu ⁓ in ⁓ Akkadian that has the notion of the deep. So while they are ⁓ etymologically related ⁓ in a very far back period of the Semitic languages, ⁓
They really don’t have the exact same notion. ⁓
K. Lawson Younger (19:44)
So you don’t see in this particular instance of Tiamat in Mesopotamia and Tahome in the Old Testament, ⁓ direct borrowing, direct polemicizing, no, just they have cement, have philological ancestors. ⁓
Joshua Berman (19:59)
They do have a definite etymological ancestor. If I might quote the Japanese scholar, David Tsumura did a wonderful job of investigating this years ago. And I’m just going to read one sentence, his conclusion. He says this, well, it’s two sentences, sorry.
K. Lawson Younger (20:04)
So interesting. Wow.
Joshua Berman (20:27)
This etymological investigation shows that the formal similarities are no proof of direct or indirect borrowers. In other words, the fact that the Hebrew term to home shares a common proto-Semitic origin with the Akkadian divine name Tiamat and the Ugaritic Taha-mu ⁓ does not support the theory that the Hebrew term is a depersonification.
K. Lawson Younger (20:36)
Interesting.
Joshua Berman (20:56)
of an original divine name. And I would concur with that. think his study shows that to be clearly the case. So while there is a similarity, there’s no no ifs, ands, ands, buts, but ⁓ etymological ⁓ ties does not ⁓ mean that they are necessarily denoting the same thing in the two different languages.
Hmm.
K. Lawson Younger (21:26)
Okay, what about the notion that ⁓ humans are created in the image of God? I think that has echoes or we see similar things in these ancient ⁓ Near Eastern materials. How would you characterize the relationship there?
Joshua Berman (21:45)
Yeah, I mean, think, again, as I was saying, I think the Bible really stresses the uniqueness in that human beings are in the Mesopotamian and Egyptian view.
are the basis upon which deities are envisioned. In other words, deities are anthropomorphic, the envisioned ⁓ and statues are made of them ⁓ in the ancient Near East because it’s in a sense the reverse of what we’re seeing in Genesis 126 and following. ⁓ So. ⁓
And I would also stress the fact that it’s Selim and Dumut that are stressed in all of
K. Lawson Younger (22:40)
Let’s just translate those. there’s actually two terms that we find in Genesis 1 for image of God.
Joshua Berman (22:48)
And they both have similar connotations, though different. ⁓ But there is, I think, a very interesting statue that was discovered and ⁓ Aramaic, ⁓ Akkadian, Cuneiform, bilingual that was found at Tel Fakerea. And in that, in Syria. ⁓ And this dates about ⁓
K. Lawson Younger (23:10)
Yeah.
Joshua Berman (23:17)
⁓ roughly about 840 BCE and is one of the Aramaic is one of the earliest old Aramaic inscriptions that we have but in that inscription it uses the term Psalm and the Mut as ⁓ descriptors for the king who is envisioned on the statue and it shows
K. Lawson Younger (23:43)
There was a little break there in the… So you said we have this ⁓ Aramaic ⁓ inscription that has ⁓ the basic roots of Tzalem and Dmout, which we routinely translate together both as ⁓ image. Yeah, right, right. Okay, and then what were you saying there about it?
Joshua Berman (24:01)
I’m just
These both occur in that inscription and are used to describe the statue of the king who is represented, which I think shows us in a very real sense. This goes back to what I was trying to say with reference to the fact that human beings are, in a sense, little kings or vassal kings of the great king ⁓ and the very
combination of these terms would, in my opinion, lead one ⁓ additionally to this conclusion. So this is, I think, ⁓ part and parcel of how, again, there is ⁓ both similarity in the vocabulary ⁓ and in some particular notions, but at the same time, there is a subtle difference between them.
K. Lawson Younger (25:04)
⁓ Some will say that the closest parallel that we have to Genesis 1 in the ancient creation materials is from Egypt and is what is known as the Mimphite theology. And it would date from, if I’m not mistaken, the 14th century BCE, which many would say, or at least the first, we don’t know when it began.
Joshua Berman (25:29)
Most would say it’s 19th dynasty now.
K. Lawson Younger (25:31)
Uh-huh. Okay. Okay. Which also many people would say is would fit a timeframe in which there might have been an Israelite presence in Egypt at that time. And from what I know about that, that particular version of ⁓ creation, it speaks about how the Egyptian god Ptah, god of wisdom, ⁓ brings into existence many things through utterances, through speaking.
Kind of in a serial way. It doesn’t speak of days, but it certainly is Stages one thing after another and and and it’s at its conclusion ⁓ It says that that Ptah was very satisfied with his work and just as It says on the sixth day of creation. I mean every day it says in it, you know, and it was good and it did on the sixth day was very good ⁓
I those similarities, the utterances, and especially the reflection at the end of the process that it was satisfying, that it was very good, are unmistakable. So my question here is, and there is also, from what I understand, the enormous difference that what Ptah is creating is idols and temples to house the spirits of the gods, of the gods, what you were speaking before, their manifestation here in this world.
So that it’s really in that regard completely different than Genesis 1 which is all about creating a nice cradle and playpen for man ⁓ And there it’s it’s for the gods But but when you see these these these elements that are so similar the utterances and the reflection that that the creation was all very good ⁓ It’s hard to maintain that these you know, it this kind of ⁓ Arrows in a sui generous way spontaneously in Egypt and for Israelites there must be so what do you make of that that?
that connection.
Joshua Berman (27:24)
No, think ⁓ there’s ⁓ every likelihood that the writer of Genesis 1 ⁓ has some familiarity with the Menphite theology as well as with other Egyptian cosmogonies. I think he ⁓ probably also has a knowledge of the Mesopotamian.
⁓ accounts. Though, mean, Anuma Elish ⁓ may may actually be a little bit problematic depending on when exactly you were to think the rite of Genesis is working. But in any event, ⁓ don’t I think that would definitely explain ⁓ because Ptah is ⁓ in a sense here
⁓ usurping the role of autumn ⁓ in the earlier cosmogonies in Egypt. ⁓ There is something political happening here.
K. Lawson Younger (28:36)
Just to unpack that for us a little bit, what was the role of Atom earlier and what is Katana?
Joshua Berman (28:42)
Autumn was the first deity in which all things, both gods and material universe were contained. He is the one from which the many come, to use a Horning’s phraseology. So in a very real sense, the
the most ancient cosmogonies that we have, and it’s difficult to sort all of these out. James Allen, an Egyptologist, has done a marvelous job with attempting to do this. But as you try and look at this, find that ⁓ the first notion is, autumn is going to create the Aeneid, the nine. So there’s going to be him and then.
four pairs, male-female pairs that he creates. And what Patah is doing in the Mimphite theology is the same kind of thing, only he is replacing Atum as the first cause ⁓ and moving forward. And so he creates his own Aeneid, ⁓ which I think is rather intriguing and interesting. And I believe with the
the 19th dynasty and its emphasis on Memphis as its capital and this kind of thing, that this may have been an attempt to undermine the Southern Theban ⁓ power base ⁓ from a religious standpoint and accounts for what is maybe happening in the account. But that doesn’t deny at all. ⁓
the similarities that you pointed out earlier. I think it does point to a familiarity on the part of.
K. Lawson Younger (30:46)
Yeah, let me, okay, I want to pick up on that point. You’ve said it now a couple times, the familiarity of the author. Yes. And I’m curious about the familiarity of his audience. Let me put it this way. Let me give an example. I love telling my students about this all the time. So I’m here in Israel, and I teach Israelis. And if I were to be giving a lecture,
and I were to throw out the term, the bombs bursting in air. They would look at me with a blank stare. I’ve done this also with mixed groups, groups of English speakers, Americans and British. And the British stare at me and have no idea what I’m talking about. And the Americans are all smiling. And that’s obviously because every American knows exactly what I’m talking about because that’s from our national anthem.
I would, you just like, don’t know the words of the British national anthem. They don’t know the words of the American national anthem, which is to say whenever a speaker or a writer invokes a term, they only do so or an image, they only do so if they have confidence that their audience is going to get it. And so, when we see these similarities, the utterances and the satisfaction at the end of the creation,
And so the question really becomes, is this just the author and, you know, he was grinning because he knows where this is from and, know, maybe one day Berman and the younger will be able to talk about it or, or as I suspect he is speaking this way because his audience is going to get it also.
Joshua Berman (32:22)
Yes, yes, I would I would concur. think ⁓ we we need to consider not only ⁓ what the author ⁓ is doing, but also the readership. ⁓ Who is the readership? OK.
K. Lawson Younger (32:37)
Which then maybe suggests that the audience for this type of writing also has this familiarity, which perhaps is most easily garnered by being there in Egypt.
Joshua Berman (32:50)
Yeah, yes, ⁓ I think so. We really don’t have any evidence, so far as I know, of knowledge of the Mimphite theology outside of Egypt. So that would argue that both the writer and his intended audience is enough with it to get the illusion.
K. Lawson Younger (33:20)
Terrific. Well, to conclude, Lawson, you’ve had a long career. You’ve been doing this all for a very long time. ⁓ The areas that you’ve done, I think, the most work are about Phoenicians and Arameans. I got to ask you, what excites you about Phoenicians and Arameans?
Joshua Berman (33:42)
Well, the Arameans are the one that ⁓ excite me the most. And the part of the reason for that is ⁓ they they keep me in all the areas I’d really like to stay in. So to really study the Arameans.
K. Lawson Younger (34:04)
What period are we talking about when we speak about…
Joshua Berman (34:06)
about
the beginning of the first millennium, let’s just say the Iron Age. So iron one, iron two, and that’s really my concentration. So about 1200 to let’s just say 500 for quick computation here. But to really study them, you have to work in a serological things, both middle Assyrian, Neo-Assyrian, you have to work in Hebrew Bible.
You have to, of course, work in Aramaic inscriptions because a number of the Aramaic polities, especially in North Syria, ⁓ mixed populations. The Luthians are another group, that’s another language and ⁓ people that fascinate me. ⁓ I think ⁓ as we continue on.
in the future, that’s going to become more and more an interesting point of study for the divided monarchy period of Israel. so ⁓ all of those things tie me in. The Phoenicians interest me because I’m interested in bilinguals and the Phoenicians, there are a number of very intriguing and interesting
bilinguals. so, and so that’s, that’s what ties me in. So yeah, it’s, it’s a fascinating world. And ⁓ I wish I had more time. But if I had more time, I might stretch myself into other areas. So fortunately, I have a wife that helps keep me steady.
K. Lawson Younger (35:40)
That counts.
Joshua Berman (36:00)
and strength.
K. Lawson Younger (36:03)
Okay, well, Lawson, on behalf of all my listeners, we wish you many more years of health and productivity to pursue all of these wonderful pursuits. Lawson Younger, thank you so much for being my inaugural guest on the Bible Bar.
Joshua Berman (36:18)
Thank you so much.
