David, stimulating as always. I have generally been inclined to not see theomachy in Gen 1, but your insights here have me rethinking elements of a text that I have put a good deal of time and thought into studying, so for that I am grateful - always fun to see things in a new light. The points you raise here have me thinking now on how the author/redactor of this text is making use of other theomachic elements in the Hebrew bible, as well as how ANE materials are being interacted with and critiqued. I would still maintain that the Gen. 1 text is more placid in its outlook, and that the difference principle in creation (light/dark, waters above/below, dry land/sea) are not combatants even as the linguistic and mythological forms of theomachy are still present. In some senses I can see an analogy from the Eucharist itself, that incorporates all of the elements of sacrifice within it, yet according to a new pattern. You're a busy guy so feel no compulsion to answer, but I do wonder how/if you see Gen. 1 making use of and renovating these more ancient motifs.
I'd agree: way less theomachy than in other texts. But still a bit of theomachy: theomachy resubjected to a bigger narrative.
And of course, as you and Ambrose have pointed out, elohim means "gods"--so at this point, the story is very different already from the way it originally looked.
I'll have to read it! I am definitely of the opinion that Genesis 1 is often short-changed for its genuinely theomachic elements; I simply think that the theomachy has been sublimated in that text to a bigger creation story.
If she's right that "bara" means something more like "to divide" or "to distinguish between", then the tannanim on day 5 are already there (as innate spiritual dimensions of the formless abyss), and birds and fishes are divided out from them. In which case, dividing the waters on day 2 is a slaying of Leviathan and dividing out the birds and fishes from within the tannanim on day 5 is a slaying of Leviathan—the same slaying reverberating across different levels of the unseen.
Yeah, I think the real way to read Genesis 1 theologically as some kind of classically theistic, ex nihilo text--it is absolutely NOT that in its historical context--is to understand the drama as going on in the Mind of God. In that sense God "ordering" a formless chaos is not theologically problematic, but that's an allegorical deep-cut that not all are equally prepped to do.
I will try--try--to forgive you for the spelling "Skulla." Ypsilon, damn it, ypsilon.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. The spirit of Peter Green must have suddenly possessed me.
I thought about it, debated keeping it to be pernicious, and decided you were right. There: tikkun has been made.
David, stimulating as always. I have generally been inclined to not see theomachy in Gen 1, but your insights here have me rethinking elements of a text that I have put a good deal of time and thought into studying, so for that I am grateful - always fun to see things in a new light. The points you raise here have me thinking now on how the author/redactor of this text is making use of other theomachic elements in the Hebrew bible, as well as how ANE materials are being interacted with and critiqued. I would still maintain that the Gen. 1 text is more placid in its outlook, and that the difference principle in creation (light/dark, waters above/below, dry land/sea) are not combatants even as the linguistic and mythological forms of theomachy are still present. In some senses I can see an analogy from the Eucharist itself, that incorporates all of the elements of sacrifice within it, yet according to a new pattern. You're a busy guy so feel no compulsion to answer, but I do wonder how/if you see Gen. 1 making use of and renovating these more ancient motifs.
I'd agree: way less theomachy than in other texts. But still a bit of theomachy: theomachy resubjected to a bigger narrative.
And of course, as you and Ambrose have pointed out, elohim means "gods"--so at this point, the story is very different already from the way it originally looked.
Wonderful, thank you.
Re: the tanninim, are you familiar with Ellen Van Wolde's article "Why the verb bara does not mean "to create" in Genesis 1"?
Available at Academia.edu. (https://www.academia.edu/3311841/Why_the_Verb_bara_Does_Not_Mean_to_Create_in_Genesis_1.1-2.4a)
I'm not qualified to judge on the accuracy of her presentation, but the argument is certainly thought-provoking.
I'll have to read it! I am definitely of the opinion that Genesis 1 is often short-changed for its genuinely theomachic elements; I simply think that the theomachy has been sublimated in that text to a bigger creation story.
If she's right that "bara" means something more like "to divide" or "to distinguish between", then the tannanim on day 5 are already there (as innate spiritual dimensions of the formless abyss), and birds and fishes are divided out from them. In which case, dividing the waters on day 2 is a slaying of Leviathan and dividing out the birds and fishes from within the tannanim on day 5 is a slaying of Leviathan—the same slaying reverberating across different levels of the unseen.
Yeah, I think the real way to read Genesis 1 theologically as some kind of classically theistic, ex nihilo text--it is absolutely NOT that in its historical context--is to understand the drama as going on in the Mind of God. In that sense God "ordering" a formless chaos is not theologically problematic, but that's an allegorical deep-cut that not all are equally prepped to do.
Oh yes, it's all taking place within the Arche, for sure.