Was there a proto-Genesis-Creation writing?

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
ABuddhist
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Re: Was there a proto-Genesis-Creation writing?

Post by ABuddhist »

John T wrote: Tue Sep 13, 2022 9:05 am
rgprice wrote: Sat Sep 10, 2022 9:16 pm
I understand the impulse, and its a good one, but I've come to the conclusion that we are actually missing quite a bit. Also, look at how many works we've found in the DSS that were previously never alluded to. I also no longer think that we posses the earliest versions of the Gospels. I don't think that either Mark or Marcion were the first Gospel. There are actually quite a few documents we have that are never discussed in other known sources.

So, while I think that its good not to rely on concepts like Q, we also have to acknowledge that less has been preserved that we would like to imagine.
On that we can agree.

Perhaps, you can now entertain the sticky point that some here on this thread are deliberately trying to ignore. That is how literature migrated from Mesopotamia 2,500 BCE in the form of cuneiform. That proto-Sinatic script goes back to 1,700 BCE in the land of Cannan. That when Abram left Ur it is only logical that he took with him stories of the first humans and the great flood as told in Gilgamesh? That by the time the Greeks conquered Canaan/Egypt and translated the stories of Genesis into Greek, the Enoch stories were already written down over a thousand years before Plato was born? That it is logical to think that the story of Enoch is older than the story of the Exodus?

Even so, would it make a difference with the mythicists?

John T is done with this thread.
1. Why do you assume that Abraham's story is true?

2. The relative antiquity of the story of Enoch and of the Exodus, although fascinating, has no real bearing upon mythcism as far as I am aware.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Was there a proto-Genesis-Creation writing?

Post by neilgodfrey »

rgprice wrote: Sat Sep 10, 2022 6:51 am

I'm proposing that some longer work was derived from Timaeus first, and that the biblical narrative is a redacted version of the longer narrative, with Genesis 5 inserted into a narrative that spanned from Genesis 2:4-6:4. I would think that the longer narrative would more thoroughly cover the sons of God and account for the creation of the nations of the earth, with Yahweh being the son of God who creates the people of Israel, while other sons of God create the people of other nations.

From Enoch:
(I) Asael taught men to make swords of iron and breast-plates of bronze
and every weapon for war; and he showed them the metals of the earth. how
to work gold, to fashion [adornments] and about silver. to make bracelets
for women; and he instructed them about antimony, and eye-shadow, and
all manner of precious stones and about dyes and varieties ofadornmenrs; and
the children of men fashioned them for themselves and for their
daughters and transgressed; (2) and there arose much impiety on the
earth and they committed fornication and went astray and corrupted their
ways_ (3) Semhazah taught spell-binding and the cutting of roots; Hermoni
taught the loosing of spells, magic, sorcery and sophistry. Baraqel taught the
auguries of the lightning; Kokabiel taught the auguries of the stars; Zikiel
taught the auguries of fire-balls; Arteqif taught the auguries of earth; Simsel
taught the auguries of the sun; Sahrel taught the auguries of the moon. And
they all began to reveal secrets to their wives. (4) Then the giants began to
devour the flesh of men, and mankind began to become few upon the earth;
and as men perished from the earth, their voice went up to heaven: 'Bring our
cause before the Most High, and our destruction before the glory of the Great
One'.

This certainly reads more like Greek mythology. Here the sons of God have been reinterpreted as angels, but I can easily see this being part of the original story, in which these are terrestrial gods like Yahweh-Elohim of Genesis 2-3.
Hesiod's Catalogue of Women in his Theogony has a pertinent parallel to Genesis 6:1-4''s section about "sons of elohim" mating with women:
Now all the gods were divided through strife; for at that time Zeus who thunders on high was meditating marvellous deeds, even to mingle storm and tempest over the boundless earth, and already he was hastening to make an utter end of the race of mortal men, declaring that he would destroy the lives of the demigods that the children of the gods (tékna theôn) should not mate with wretched mortals, seeing their fate with their own eyes: but that the blessed gods henceforth even as aforetime should have their living and their habitation apart from men. But on those who were born of immortals and of mankind verily Zeus laid toil and sorrow upon sorrow.25

25 = Translation from Evelyn-White, Hesiod, pp. 199f. See also the treatment by Hendel, Of Demigods and Deluge,” JBL 106:18-20.
I took that from John Van Seter's Prologue to History, p. 156. He comments:
There are some obvious similarities between the Catalogue and Gen. 6:1-4. First, the principal actors are the same, that is, mortal women and the gods. Here tekna them in the Catalogue is the direct equivalent of benë hâ'elôhîm in the Hebrew text26 It is specifically noted in the Bible that the women were beautiful, that the gods had sexual union with them, and that the offspring of the unions were the heroes of the heroic age. This interpretation is certainly borne out by the content of the Catalogue.


But of more interest here, I think, is Van Seter's thoughts on Genesis 6:1-4 what might lie behind that passage and how the author has used or bypassed it.
A further comparison between the Catalogue and Gen. 6:1-4 on the question of form is in order here. In neither case can there be any question of reconstructing a specific mythical tale. In both the Catalogue and Genesis, the tradition about the union of gods and mortal women is construed as an introduction and interpretive prologue to other materials.29 This common antiquarian use of tradition makes it quite misleading to speak in either case of mythical “fragments.” This would confirm our earlier analysis of Gen. 6:1-2,4aß,b as an introductory prologue to the larger flood story.

29= It is altogether possible that the Yahwist knew of traditions in which there were specific stories about the actual union of deity with mortals.

(pp. 157f)
My understanding of what he is saying is that it is possible but not necessary to explain Gen 6:1-4 as evidence of a now lost Hebrew narrative. The author's plan was to provide a critical turning point in the plot to introduce the Flood story. (Hesiod's story appears to have had Zeus depopulate a sizeable portion of the earth by means of the Trojan War.) That turning point, the content of Gen 6:1-4, could have been inspired by a pre-existing narrative or it could have been taken from the general knowledge of the mythical tales that had their counterparts in Hesiod et al. -- the plot function of Genesis 6:1-4 means its origins can be explained either way.
Russell Gmirkin
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Re: Was there a proto-Genesis-Creation writing?

Post by Russell Gmirkin »

neilgodfrey wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 6:38 pm
andrewcriddle wrote: Sat Sep 10, 2022 6:25 am FWIW review of Gmirkin on Genesis by Johann Cook.
https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/articl ... 7432/22081

Andrew Criddle
A joy to read! --- at least after the searing hostility and scorn heaped upon anyone who should entertain the possibility of Hellenistic influence on the Hebrew Bible... Take note how one can disagree in a civil and respectful tone...
Professor Johann Cook of Stellenbosch University in South Africa is the model of what an academic scholar should be. I consider him a great friend. His brief reviews of both "Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible" and "Plato's Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts" in HTS have been accurate and respectful, despite his reservations regarding my conclusions. He takes the admirable position that interesting new ideas deserve a wide hearing and serious consideration by the academic community. In line with this, he solicited a paper from me for the virtual conference on the LXX that Stellenbosch University hosted in September 2020, with contributions by luminaries on the Septuagint from around the world. The book with all the conference papers, which is due out right now, is titled "The Septuagint South of Alexandria: Essays on the Greek Translations and Other Ancient Versions by the Association for the Study of the Septuagint in South Africa (LXXSA)" (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2022), edited by Johann Cook and Gideon R. Kotze. I am eagerly awaiting my copy. My article is "The Historical Context of the LXX and Its Hebrew Vorlage", pages 28-49. His article, which follows and includes a review of my thesis, is "Platonism and Judaism: Have They Ever Met? Reflections on Biblical Creation Stories."
StephenGoranson
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Re: Was there a proto-Genesis-Creation writing?

Post by StephenGoranson »

neil godfrey, quoted above:
"...the searing hostility and scorn heaped upon anyone who should entertain the possibility of Hellenistic influence on the Hebrew Bible..."
There may indeed have been Greek influence, among other influences, upon some TaNaK books.
And Greek influence by definition on Greek TaNaK translations.
But Torah books as post-Greek influence is a different question.
Secret Alias
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Re: Was there a proto-Genesis-Creation writing?

Post by Secret Alias »

You'd think Yavan would get a bigger role.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Was there a proto-Genesis-Creation writing?

Post by neilgodfrey »

rgprice wrote: Sat Sep 10, 2022 4:21 am Do not the "sons of God" in Genesis 6 speak to the likelihood that behind the account we have in the scriptures there was a longer story, in which the multiple "sons of God" are more prominent. Many scholars agree that Genesis 6:1-4 looks like the abbreviation of a longer story.
Thanks to Russell Gmirkin's bibliographical references in Plato's Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts I have checked out some of the works by some of scholars you refer to and discussed them in some detail at Sons of God, Daughters of Men … and “Giants” — Why are they in the Bible?.

In short, these scholars see echoes in Genesis 6 of Greek works, especially the Catalogue of Women attributed to Hesiod -- which is an account of gods taking women and giving birth to heroic figures of renown --- all as a prelude to a wider destruction engineered by Zeus to depopulate the earth (not by flood but by war).
rgprice wrote: Sat Sep 10, 2022 4:21 amDoes it not make sense that there was a longer story that encompassed material from Genesis 2:4 to Genesis 6? Some elements, such Genesis 5, may be insertions into the original story.
One of the fascinating details I came across was observation that Catalogue of Women, like Genesis, likewise includes very summary outlines of some events (clearly the author understood his audience knew the details behind the references), with snippets here of brief asides and other intrusions of longer narratives ..... all for the purpose of presenting "the origins" of tribes, places, various peoples.

Works like Enoch's Watchers may be explained as later efforts to interpret the original Genesis narrative in a way that denied its original too-close-to-polytheism accounts.
Russell Gmirkin
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Re: Was there a proto-Genesis-Creation writing?

Post by Russell Gmirkin »

There are some hints as to a longer or at least different story of the antediluvian world in Genesis 4-5.

Gen. 4:17-18, "And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived, and bare Enoch... And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehusael [LXX Methuselah]: and Methusael begat Lamech." (KJV--sorry!)


Gen. 5:21, "And Enoch... begat Methuselah."
Gen. 5:25, "And Methuselah... begat Lamech."

It is apparent that Enoch, Methuselah and Lamech recur within more than pre-biblical tradition. An important hint is the fact that Methuselah dies the year of the flood. He appears to be connected to the flood story (but not as flood hero who survives on an ark) in an important way.

1 Enoch 81 says that Methuselah was instructed to predict the destruction of sinners (arguably in the flood, as some scholars suggest), possibly based on Mesopotamian divinatory materials derived from the Book of the Heavenly Luminaries (i.e. 1 Enock 72-79). That is, the astronomical/astrological lore found in the earliest literary strata of the Astronomical Book of Enoch allowed the primeval Babylonian figure Methuselah to predict the flood, a tradition Genesis 4-9 more-or-less suppresses.

Enoch has often been linked to Enmerduranki, the seventh of the antediluvian kings (VanderKam, Kvanvig...) in Babylonian traditions. So I suspect some Babylonian traditions may have been obscured or suppressed.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Was there a proto-Genesis-Creation writing?

Post by neilgodfrey »

Russell Gmirkin wrote: Sat Feb 04, 2023 4:10 pm There are some hints as to a longer or at least different story of the antediluvian world in Genesis 4-5.

Gen. 4:17-18, "And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived, and bare Enoch... And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehusael [LXX Methuselah]: and Methusael begat Lamech." (KJV--sorry!)


Gen. 5:21, "And Enoch... begat Methuselah."
Gen. 5:25, "And Methuselah... begat Lamech."

It is apparent that Enoch, Methuselah and Lamech recur within more than pre-biblical tradition. An important hint is the fact that Methuselah dies the year of the flood. He appears to be connected to the flood story (but not as flood hero who survives on an ark) in an important way.

1 Enoch 81 says that Methuselah was instructed to predict the destruction of sinners (arguably in the flood, as some scholars suggest), possibly based on Mesopotamian divinatory materials derived from the Book of the Heavenly Luminaries (i.e. 1 Enock 72-79). That is, the astronomical/astrological lore found in the earliest literary strata of the Astronomical Book of Enoch allowed the primeval Babylonian figure Methuselah to predict the flood, a tradition Genesis 4-9 more-or-less suppresses.

Enoch has often been linked to Enmerduranki, the seventh of the antediluvian kings (VanderKam, Kvanvig...) in Babylonian traditions. So I suspect some Babylonian traditions may have been obscured or suppressed.
And as you no doubt know, as Darshan observes, the line of Cain ends with Lamech and his immediate progeny and in the midst of a series of inventors of all sorts of arts, crafts, ways of living, while Noah, also a son of another Lamech, fits remarkably well as the same type of inventor figure associated with the first Lamech -- the inventor of viticulture and wine.

Something odd in relation to an original story appears to have happened there, too.
rgprice
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Re: Was there a proto-Genesis-Creation writing?

Post by rgprice »

What's interesting, however, is the idea that:
The first readers or audiences were expected to know the details of what could be abridged so they could maintain their focus on the larger plot.
But here is the issue. Would the first readers of Genesis 1-11 have known these details? It seems to me that Genesis 1-11 is introducing new material that is actually foreign to its audience.

I see no evidence that the stories and figures of Genesis 1-11 were a part of Jewish culture prior to the Hellenistic era. There isn't a trace of these figures in the record prior to the 4th century BCE, nor are they mentioned in the rest of the Pentateuch.

Furthermore, the Enoch literature seems in most ways arise out of a misinterpretation of the story, as if it comes from writers who did not in fact, "know the details of what could be abridged." So instead they read into the story something that was not intended. Or perhaps this was, as you say, a conscious and intentional re-direction of interpretation.

It seems quite clear that the gods are supposed to be terrestrial, and to have lived on earth among humans. And that the reason for the story of Babel is that humans are trying once again, after the flood, to live amongst the gods, but the gods know that they cannot allow it so as not to bring about the creation of a new line of demi-gods, leading again to the problems that precipitated the flood.

But the writers of Enoch don't follow this logic. So at first I thought that maybe Enoch tells us the "real story" behind Genesis, but that doesn't seem to be so. It seems rather that Enoch is filling a void. But if so, why was there a void to begin with?
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Was there a proto-Genesis-Creation writing?

Post by neilgodfrey »

rgprice wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 4:50 am What's interesting, however, is the idea that:
The first readers or audiences were expected to know the details of what could be abridged so they could maintain their focus on the larger plot.
But here is the issue. Would the first readers of Genesis 1-11 have known these details? It seems to me that Genesis 1-11 is introducing new material that is actually foreign to its audience.

I see no evidence that the stories and figures of Genesis 1-11 were a part of Jewish culture prior to the Hellenistic era. There isn't a trace of these figures in the record prior to the 4th century BCE, nor are they mentioned in the rest of the Pentateuch.
Is there a problem here if that first audience was a Hellenistic-era audience?

As for "not a trace" --- we do have Deut 32:8-9 speaking of the various peoples of the world being divided up among the gods; we also have "giants" appearing after the pre-flood world in both the Pentateuch and later with David. Other parts of the Pentateuch and other biblical literature also arguably echo Hellenistic literature where there are no competing "Near Eastern" parallels. The very structure of the Pentateuch is itself argued by some to be based on Herodotus's Histories. Mount Sinai and covenant ceremony, the wilderness wandering with the ark of the covenant and various plagues, .... all of these are arguably adapted from Hellenistic literature.
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