Genesis: 1a 1b 1c 1d 2a 2b 2c 2d 3 4a 4b 4c/5 6a 6b 7 8 9 10 11a 11b 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25a 25b 26a 26b 27 28a 28b 29 30a 30b 31a 31b/32a 32b 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44a 44b 45 46 47a 47b 48 49 50
The second story of Creation - The Creation by YHVH ELOHIM
The original tale from which the second Biblical version was created, was almost certainly of Edomite origin, and predated the Elohim version considerably. Most probably, also, the god named was YHVH, with the Elohim hyphenated by the priestly editors in order to tie up the two stories. But uniformity is not in fact achieved, and the two versions contradict each other, particularly in the order of events: most notably one has the Earth formed before the heavens, the other the other way around; one has man and woman created separately, the other creates both as one, female and male equally; one takes seven days, the other seems to happen all at once, or at most within a single day; the one tells us a great deal of what was before Creation, the other tells absolutely nothing.
The original tale from which the second Biblical version was created, was almost certainly of Edomite origin, and predated the Elohim version considerably. Most probably, also, the god named was YHVH, with the Elohim hyphenated by the priestly editors in order to tie up the two stories. But uniformity is not in fact achieved, and the two versions contradict each other, particularly in the order of events: most notably one has the Earth formed before the heavens, the other the other way around; one has man and woman created separately, the other creates both as one, female and male equally; one takes seven days, the other seems to happen all at once, or at most within a single day; the one tells us a great deal of what was before Creation, the other tells absolutely nothing.
In the YHVH version, Creation is recounted in terms of what is not yet: the rain has not yet fallen; there are not yet any seeds to grow; Man has not yet come to till the land etc. Everything is tied up to a single word, but the word is not that of a god, as in the Elohim version, rather the word is Aleph-Dalet-Mem (אדם), in its various root forms, from blood (DAM - דם) to earth (ADAMAH - אדםה), from Man (ADAM - אדם) to Edom (EDOM - אדם), from the colour red (ADOM - אדם) to the mythical ancestor Adam (ADAM - אדם) - most of them indistinguishable without the addition of Nikud, the "pointing" system created to represent vowels. What confuses the issue further, though, is that Eden is described as being in Mesopotamia, yet appears in the Edomite myth.
The YHVH version depicts the Earth as autumnal, sun-scorched, parched and barren, waiting for rain which rises in a mist from the valleys. The Elohim version depicts the Earth at springtime, emerging from the deathliness and darkness of winter.
The final version is most probably an emendation by the Redactor of a much earlier Edomite play-script for the annual fertility cult ritual celebrating the creation of the world at the opening of Spring.
The original play (perhaps known as "The Mysteries Of Chevron") would have depicted the marriage of the Earth-god (Adam) to the Earth-goddess (probably Chavah/Eve, though she is never specifically referred to in this text).
The original play would probably have been staged at the sacred shrine at Chevron in what was then Edom (later it became restricted to the east side of the river Yarden) and would have had much in common with the Apollo-Dionysus festival at Athens, though there is no evidence of a play-writing competition as in the Greek model.
The text, with the possible exception of the priest-king's marriage vow at the end, would likely have been narrated by the priest of YHVH Elohim, from a dais in the village square in front of the sacred shrine or temple, which may well have been the Cave of Machpelah itself, in which Av-Ram, Sarah and others of the patriarchy were said to have been buried. The dramatis personae would have been something like the following:
The High Priestess of the temple, representing the triple-goddess;
The village elder, or the tribal chief, or one of his sons, or an honoured dignitary, or an otherwise selected person from among the townspeople, playing Adam the earth-god;
The High Priestess of the temple, representing the triple-goddess;
The village elder, or the tribal chief, or one of his sons, or an honoured dignitary, or an otherwise selected person from among the townspeople, playing Adam the earth-god;
The High Priest of the temple of YHVH Elohim, masked, representing the sun-god, with a face of the sun from which four streams of light, like four rivers, illuminated the four corners of the globe; he would have stood on a raised platform above or to the side of the stone idol representing Adam, the earth-god.
A haetera or ritual priestess, who was not a prostitute in the sense that we use the term today, but a hierodule, probably a slave-girl or captive virgin, perhaps in later times an honoured female dignitary who would do no more than mime or simulate her role, also representing the triple goddess, hers being the part of wife in the ceremony of consummation.
The hierophant, a male member of the community, selected theoretically as a kind of "producer of the year's best crop" award, but more likely for the biggest bribe to the shrine in order to be the first to enjoy the newly acquired "hierodule", who may well have been a slave girl captured in battle or bought from market; certainly not a Bat Yisra-El except in special circumstances.
A variety of lesser temple-workers or selected townspeople or other dignitaries would have played the minor roles: Sky and Earth, the flowers of the field, the Tree of Life, the Tree of Good and Evil and so forth, again all of them symbolically masked (those readers familiar with the play-within-a-play in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer's Night's Dream" will recognise the form and method, which was itself based on the Miracle and Mystery plays performed throughout the Middle Ages). At the back centre of the stage would have stood the enormous idol made of red clay, the idol of Adam the earth-god and the centrepiece of the mime and recitation. As each of the trees and plants etc are named, they come onto the dais bearing their respective sacrifices, and as part of their mime lay the sacrifice at the feet of the idol. Where the sacrifice is an animal, the High Priest would perform the ritual slaughter then and there. Most likely a huge brazier in the form of an altar would have been burning in such a way that the smoke from the fire issued through the nostrils of the idol.
YHVH Elohim, represented by an actor, in the way that Athena would have been in the Greek theatre, high up above the stage, in what are still in modern theatres called "the gods"; but more likely unseen.
The play would have been public up to the time of the ritual consummation, which would have taken place privately in a special room of the temple; though in earlier times, as described repeatedly in tales of the Asherim and Ashterot throughout the Tanach, this too would have been public. The vestal virgins of Rome are comparable in this regard. The Redactor makes of it a moral tale; we can excuse him this: by his time Yehudit was scarcely spoken, Aramaic having replaced it; any attempt to understand these rediscovered texts would have been by guesswork and scholarship, aided by whatever condition the language had evolved to by then. We can allow him the claim that his "translation" of the earlier text was sincere and not propaganda, though he was doubtless influenced by his own religious views. Some will say this is being kind to him.
THE PLAY
PRIEST: This is the history of the Sky (Sky enters) and the Earth (Earth enters) and of their creation (possibly some kind of mime would take place here); in celebration of the day on which YHVH Elohim created Sky and Earth; the day on which all the flowers of the fields were first planted in the earth (they enter); the day on which every herb and grass was first sewn upon the earth (they enter). Before that day no rain had been sent by YHVH Elohim to water the earth, nor had Mankind been fashioned yet to till the soil. But on that day a cloud-forming mist rose up from the Earth (figure representing mist stands), and it watered the whole face of the ground (mime).
Then YHVH Elohim fashioned the Earth-god Adam out of the very dust of the Earth, (the priest mimes the making of a clay idol) male god out of female earth, and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; thus was the Earth-god Adam born (enter Adam to where the clay idol has been placed on the ground). And on that same day YHVH Elohim planted his sacred grove away in the east, in that place from which the mist had risen up (priest mimes); and there he placed the Earth-god whom he had fashioned. Then YHVH Elohim made trees grow out of the earth, (enter various trees) all manner of trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food; and the Tree of Life that stands in the centre of the sacred grove; and the almond tree, the tree of wisdom which is also called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
(Actors mime the rivers when the PRIEST introduces them) Now a river flows out of the place from where the mist rose up, and it waters the sacred grove, and from there it separates into four streams, exactly as the four streams of light flow from the head of the sun-god. The name of one of these streams is Piyshon the giant serpent, he who curls around the land of the Chaviylim, on the eastern borders of the Beney Yishma-El and the Beney Amalek; Chaviylah who was a son of Yaktan of the tribe of Shem; Chaviylah which is the source of gold of highest quality, and of silver-ore, and of cornelian. The name of the second of these streams is Giychon the snake, he who curls around the lands of Mitsrayim and of Kush. The name of the third of these streams is Chidekel which men call the Tigris; he it is who flows into the east of Ashur. And the name of the fourth of these streams is Perat, which men call the Euphrates.
(Actors mime the rivers when the PRIEST introduces them) Now a river flows out of the place from where the mist rose up, and it waters the sacred grove, and from there it separates into four streams, exactly as the four streams of light flow from the head of the sun-god. The name of one of these streams is Piyshon the giant serpent, he who curls around the land of the Chaviylim, on the eastern borders of the Beney Yishma-El and the Beney Amalek; Chaviylah who was a son of Yaktan of the tribe of Shem; Chaviylah which is the source of gold of highest quality, and of silver-ore, and of cornelian. The name of the second of these streams is Giychon the snake, he who curls around the lands of Mitsrayim and of Kush. The name of the third of these streams is Chidekel which men call the Tigris; he it is who flows into the east of Ashur. And the name of the fourth of these streams is Perat, which men call the Euphrates.
Then YHVH Elohim took the Earth-god Adam and set him down in the sacred grove, at the place where the mist rose (mime), to serve as keeper and as guardian and as high priest of the sacred grove. Then YHVH Elohim issued this commandment to the Earth-god, saying:
YHVH ELOHIM (unseen, his voice booming from some invisible high place): From every tree that grows within the sacred grove you may eat the fruit. But the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil you must not eat, for to eat from the fruit of that tree is to invite Mot the god of death and of the Underworld to lay hold of you.
(Mot appears and exits: audience-celebrants here have the chance to boo, hiss and jeer!)
PRIEST: Then YHVH Elohim said:
PRIEST: Then YHVH Elohim said:
YHVH ELOHIM: It is not good that the Earth-god Adam alone should guard the shrine; I shall provide for him a helper.
PRIEST: So YHVH Elohim fashioned out of the ground all the creatures of the field (actors playing creatures appear with real-creature sacrifices) and all the fowl of the air (actors playing fowl appear with real-fowl sacrifices) and brought them to the earth-god Adam to see what names he would give them, and whatever name he gave them, so it would be called (at this point a ceremony of naming the genuine newborn animals, brought to the service by local farmers, may well have been interjected, with the player representing the earth-god having been told in advance what names to give!). And the Earth-god Adam gave names to all the beasts of burden, and to the birds, and to the creatures of the field; but the Earth-god Adam did not find any one that was suitable as a helper.
[At this point in the text we have a slight problem. In the very earliest cult, this would have been the climax of the sacrifices, with the Earth-god himself now sacrificed, as a kind of ritual regicide; later the Earth-god's firstborn son, as in the story of Yitschak (Isaac), stood in; later still a slave or prisoner would have been the victim; by the Ezraic period the cult has been so diluted that the player representing the Earth-god merely feigned sleep. At the same time, for Ezraic political reasons, the bone taken from the victim as the sacrificial meal was no longer the thigh-bone, as had been the norm, but a rib. Anyone seeking to stage this properly should reintroduce the thigh-bone, as I do below.]
"This is bone beaten from my bones and flesh moulded from my flesh. Let her be called 'Woman', for she was created out of 'Man'."
(The words should be pronounced much as a modern wedding-vow is pronounced, possibly even under a chupah, and with the stamping on a pomegranate as a fertility symbol - the stamping on a glass at a modern Jewish wedding is the residue of this. As the lines are finished, the couple go hand in hand towards the idol, prostrate themselves before it, then rise and, still hand in hand, undress completely, leaving their garments on the feet of the idol, and enter either the temple or the public nuptial-bed together to consummate the marriage. In the earliest enactment of the cult the consummation would have been in public. While the final scene is being enacted, as above, the audience watch with varying degrees of solemnity, drunkenness and wild cheering, and at the end, with the climax and the showing of the blood-stained sheet, the priest offers the very last line...)
PRIEST: Thus does a man leave his father's and his mother's house and cleave to his wife as one flesh.
The last line of the Masoretic text was probably an addition by the Ezraic scribes. It reads: "And the two of them were naked, yet they were not ashamed."
The last line of the Masoretic text was probably an addition by the Ezraic scribes. It reads: "And the two of them were naked, yet they were not ashamed."
Genesis: 1a 1b 1c 1d 2a 2b 2c 2d 3 4a 4b 4c/5 6a 6b 7 8 9 10 11a 11b 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25a 25b 26a 26b 27 28a 28b 29 30a 30b 31a 31b/32a 32b 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44a 44b 45 46 47a 47b 48 49 50
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