Reading Genesis Politically : An Introduction to Mosaic Political Philosophy 9780313010866, 9780275974930

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Reading Genesis Politically

Reading Genesis Politically

An Introduction to Mosaic Political Philosophy

MARTIN SICKER

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sicker, Martin. Reading Genesis politically : an introduction to Mosaic political philosophy / Martin Sicker. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–275–97493–6 (alk. paper) 1. Judaism and politics. 2. Man (Jewish theology) 3. Ethics, Jewish. 4. Politics in the Bible. 5. Bible. O.T. Genesis I–XI—Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title. BM645.P64S548 2002 222′.1106—dc21 2001036705 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2002 by Martin Sicker All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2001036705 ISBN: 0–275–97493–6 First published in 2002 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Copyright Acknowledgments The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint the following material: An earlier condensed version of the Introduction appeared in the Jewish Bible Quarterly, vol. XXVII: 4 (October–December 1999), under the title “Reading the Pentateuch Politically.” The author acknowledges the interest and cooperation of the Quarterly in the publication of this expanded version.

This work is dedicated to the many fellow students who have labored with me over the years in the unceasing attempt to comprehend the teachings of the Book of Books.

Contents

Introduction

ix

1 The Emergence of Man

1

2 Man against God: The Myth of the Primal Sin

25

3 Man against Man: Cain and Abel

43

4 Man against Society: The Generation of the Flood

63

5 Cleaning the Slate: The Deluge

81

6 Beginning Anew

101

7 Society Astray: The Tower of Babel

119

8 Another Beginning

139

Bibliography

145

Index

151

Introduction

A

dispassionate reading of the Mosaic Bible, known variously as the Five Books of Moses, the Pentateuch, or the Torah, will in this writer’s opinion lead to the conclusion that it is first and foremost a library of essentially political teachings and documents.1 The primary concern of this cohesive collection is with establishing an ideological framework within which a unique society and civilization might emerge and flourish. It may be useful to recall at this point that the notion of civilization is itself a political idea. A civilization is the morally authoritative institutional infrastructure that facilitates the flowering of society and culture by establishing and enforcing patterns of civil relationships, in effect, by civilizing human behavior. Because of its essentially political orientation, it should come as no surprise that there is very little doctrinal theology to be found in the Pentateuch. The primary subject of the work is man rather than God. It presupposes the existence of God, who is described as the creator of the universe, but tells us virtually nothing about the divine. Although theologians have been reading their beliefs and predilections into the biblical texts for some two millennia, sometimes rather ingeniously, the simple fact is that there is little in the Mosaic canon that reasonably lends itself to such theological interpretations. This is not to suggest that the biblical text cannot be read from a variety of perspectives, as has traditionally been the case in the long history of biblical interpretation. Ambiguities in the text certainly do encourage speculative

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Introduction

readings of its intent, ranging from the rational to the mystical and esoteric. Nonetheless, the primary focus of the Mosaic canon remains on the desiderata for the ideal society and civilization it envisages. The work deals principally with man in his relation to God, his fellow man, and society in a closely interrelated manner, drawing no clear distinction between the religious and the secular, a differentiation that would have been alien to the biblical worldview. Biblical prescriptions for the ordering of human society and man’s place in it are therefore set forth as authoritative political theology that, upon dispassionate consideration, will be seen as reflecting the political philosophy of its author(s). Hence the concern of this study is with the underlying political philosophy or normative political theory of the Mosaic teachings. Unquestionably, to know the identity of the author or authors of the early biblical writings would be of inestimable value. This would enable us to better understand why the narrative is presented in its current form and might provide the answers to many questions about the apparent anomalies to be found in the texts. But access to this knowledge has thus far proven to be beyond the competence of modern biblical scholarship and will most likely continue to remain so for the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, given the approach taken in this work, I suggest that it will make little if any significant difference what theory one maintains regarding the question of biblical authorship. If one accepts the traditional idea that Moses authored the Torah in accordance with the direct divine revelation received by him, as seems to be the explicit assertion of the biblical text, the work may be understood as truly representing a political philosophy in the purest possible sense. After all, if we conceive of God as omnicompetent, then the divinely ordained prescriptions revealed to us through Moses must represent ultimate and perfect reason. Presumably, the deity could have chosen another scheme of political teaching. The fact that none other is revealed suggests that this is the one that God in His infinite wisdom deemed most appropriate for humankind, at least in its general fundamental principles, and as particularly applicable to the exemplary civilization and society intended to be created by the children of Israel. Alternatively, one may prefer to believe that the prescriptions of the Pentateuch are the personal work of Moses, conceived by him in accordance with his own insights, or perhaps formulated under divine inspiration. In this case, the Torah may be understood as setting forth a Mosaic political philosophy, thinly veiled as political theology. Similarly, if one prefers to accept a theory of non-Mosaic authorship, or authorship by a variety of hands over an extended period of time, in accordance with the documentary hypotheses of modern higher biblical criticism, the basic premise that we have suggested underlies the work remains unaffected. The Pentateuch as we have it, and as it has been known for some two and a half millennia, represents

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the political philosophy of its authors or editors couched in terms of a plausible political theology. Since the actual authorship of the Mosaic Torah is not and probably never will be known for certain, at least not in a sense that would satisfy reasonable scientific criteria, we will not concern ourselves with the question any further in this work. In any case, the identity of the author is really quite tangential to the central purpose and thesis of this book, which is to consider and elaborate the underlying political philosophy of the Mosaic biblical library. Therefore, I will continue to refer to the views of the biblical author(s), whoever he or they may actually be, as Mosaic political philosophy. This is because authorship of the first five books of the Bible is traditionally attributed to Moses; also, because the coherence and consistency of its political teachings suggest a single mind-set at work. It seems self-evident from even a cursory reading of the biblical books that at least one of their principal purposes is to set forth the guiding principles under which Israelite civilization was to take shape. Noteworthy in this regard is that the story of Israel, beginning with the saga of the patriarch Abraham, only starts to unfold in the twelfth chapter of the Book of Genesis. The preceding eleven chapters of the biblical work, I will argue, set forth in essence a political philosophy intended to serve all mankind. It is with the universal political philosophy reflected in these early chapters of Genesis that this book is concerned. Consistent with the approach taken in the remaining chapters of Genesis, the biblical author presents this political philosophy with great subtlety in the form of mythopoeic narrative, a style evidently well suited to the immediate audience to which it was directed. As a result, the political content and significance of these biblical passages may not be immediately self-evident to the casual modern reader. However, the reader who intensively probes and ponders in depth what the biblical author is attempting to convey in each and every sentence of this remarkably complex narrative will ultimately be rewarded with a new appreciation of the sophisticated ideas it contains. By such careful parsing of the text, one may aspire to uncover the author’s true intent, which is often difficult to discern because of the time and cultural distance between writer and reader. The biblical author, I suggest, is concerned with the same fundamental questions that have been asked by political thinkers from remotest antiquity to the present, even though he does not present them in the form of a reasoned propositional argument. As a practical matter, the biblical writer appears to be primarily concerned with establishing the “rules of the road” for the properly ordered society he envisages, as well as with the problem of assuring voluntary compliance with those rules. Let me illustrate what I mean by the following anecdote, which reflects a discussion I have engaged in with myself innumerable times.

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I am driving my car along a deserted road in the middle of the night. There isn’t another automobile or pedestrian in sight, not even a hint of a distant headlight. I come to an intersection where I find a stop sign. Instinctively, I step on the brakes and bring the car to a halt. Why? What causes me to respond to the sign in this manner? Is it that I have a latent fear there may be a traffic policeman lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting scofflaw? Perhaps, but it seems quite unlikely a policeman would be staked out on an essentially deserted road waiting for a chance motorist who might go through a stop sign. If it is not fear that makes me stop, what is it that causes me do something that does not appear to make much sense under the circumstances? The probable response of a political theorist would be that I have been socialized to accept the legitimacy of the rules of the road that have been established by competent authority. Thus, even though there is no selfevident reason for me to stop under the particular set of circumstances in which I find myself, I am conditioned to accept the instruction of the sign as an expression of the legitimate authority of the governmental unit that placed it at that intersection. In other words, I do not stop in response to the sign simply because it is in my interest to do so at the particular moment. It is, rather, because I implicitly accept the right of those who placed the sign in the road to demand that I stop at that point irrespective of my personal judgment that sees no really good practical reason for me to do so at that particular moment. In effect, as a corollary to my acknowledging the government’s legitimate right to impose regulations for the control of traffic, I implicitly also accept the obligation of compliance with those rules. This anecdote captures the essence of one of the central issues in political philosophy, namely, the problem of political obligation. That is, why should I be obligated to adjust my behavior to conform with the wishes of another, whether an individual or a collectivity? What must be the character of that authority and its relation to me if I am to be so obligated? As in political philosophy generally, these questions are central to the political thought of the biblical author. It is in an attempt to provide an appropriate response to these questions that the biblical author appears to have taken his unique mythopoeic approach to the construction of a normative political theory. This theory is intended to undergird the idea, so fundamental to the biblical author’s purpose, of a mutual covenant between God and the people of Israel that is to be realized in history. I suggest that even a cursory review of the Pentateuch will reveal that the premise of the existence of such a covenant is pervasive throughout the work and is critical to the biblical author’s project. If there is to be such a covenant, however, by what theory of political obligation is the human party to the pact presumed to be a potentially faithful adherent to the agreement? For if there are no grounds for assuming there will be general compliance

Introduction

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with the terms of the covenant, its enactment and promulgation would be quite pointless. Moreover, even assuming there is an adequate basis for assuring compliance by the parties to the agreement, on what basis would this apply to one who was not a direct party to the covenant. How does an individual become obligated to adhere to such a covenant without his ever having explicitly assented to the legitimacy of the demands it imposes? The significance of this issue for the political theory being put forward by the biblical author becomes clear when one considers the words of Moses, acting in his capacity as interlocutor between God and the people of Israel. As he concludes the covenant between the two parties, Moses is careful to assert, Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath; but . . . also with him that is not here with us this day (Deut. 29:13–14). That is, all of Israel, whether present at the moment or not, is encompassed by the pact. But how can Moses unilaterally enter into a covenant with and impose obligations on persons who are not explicit parties to the agreement? How can the covenant encompass and obligate all future generations of the children of Israel? What is the theory of politics, presumably accepted and advocated by Moses, that would permit him to conclude what amounts to an eternal covenant? On what basis would he accord ongoing legitimacy to the imposition of such open-ended obligations on the unborn? In relatively modern times, at least until the theory was effectively demolished in the eighteenth century, the answer might have been that it was the conclusion of a “social contract” between Moses and the elders of Israel, to which subsequent generations are held to be bound. According to social contract theory, which is predicated on the idea that one can only be bound to a contract into which one has freely entered, tacit acceptance by subsequent generations is assumed unless one chooses to disengage completely from the covenanted society. Such disengagement was hardly a viable option for most people in biblical antiquity, however, and it is not a practicable one for most people in the contemporary world. In any case, although a superficially plausible case could be made for a biblical social contract theory, it would be highly tenuous at best, given that the biblical attribution of absolute sovereignty to God the Creator is quite independent of man’s assent. I suggest instead that the underlying Mosaic political theory is patriarchalism, although not in the special sense in which the term is used to describe seventeenth-century attempts to justify the divine right of kings. In the Mosaic worldview, it is the family rather than the individual that constitutes the basic building block of society and civilization. Accordingly, the biblical notion of patriarchalism is predicated on the presumption of a natural reciprocity that exists between parents and children, leading to the principle that one is generally expected to fulfill the obligations undertaken by one’s parents or their surrogates. That is, just as one receives life and nurture from

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one’s parents, one thereby also incurs certain debts, one of which is to carry out the agreements to which one’s parents and their ancestors subscribed. It is in this sense that the covenant between Moses and the elders becomes inherently binding on future generations. It is effectively renewed in each generation through the immediate patriarchal relationship between parent and child, which represents a continuous link throughout the generations back to the original covenant between Moses and the tribal patriarchs of Israel. The biblical concern about assuring the integrity of the political principle of patriarchalism helps explain another apparent anomaly, namely, Moses’ apparent insistence upon the retention of a tribal structure within Israel’s politically organized society. It would seem reasonable to assume that once the tribes of Israel abandoned their nomadic life, the nation would be reconstituted along lines more compatible with a settled existence. Moreover, Moses’ own political experience as a scion of the royal house of Egypt assuredly gave him a good sense of how to organize a powerful state. Moses implicitly acknowledged that at some time in the future the Israelites would probably need to establish a centralized state in the land they planned to conquer and occupy. He nonetheless prescribed that political authority and territory were, at least initially, to be allocated along essentially decentralized tribal lines. That doing so would ultimately prove impracticable and communally divisive seems to have been a secondary consideration at best. Presumably, it was considered essential to retain the patriarchal structure intact for as long as possible to assure that the covenant became the undisputed basis of Israelite civilization and society even after its patriarchal underpinnings were no longer fully operative. The biblical author makes this concern clear when he tells us that Jethro, Moses’ non-Israelite father in-law and counselor, became concerned about the apparent overconcentration of magisterial authority in Moses’ hands, as well as in the hands of the tribal elders. He therefore advised Moses, in effect, to dismantle the tribal system and to treat the entire populace as a single homogeneous constituency. That constituency would evidently have included the large numbers of non-Israelites, the “mixed multitude” (Ex. 12:38), that accompanied the Israelites when they left Egypt. He urged Moses to institute a hierarchical organization based on a numerical subdivision of the entire population, delegate appropriate magisterial authority to subordinates, and thereby reduce the leadership burden under which he was staggering. Moreover, thou shalt provide out of all the people able men . . . and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens (Ex. 18:21). This surely was sound advice. Although the biblical writer assures us that Moses agreed and did all that he [Jethro] had said (Ex. 18:24), clearly he did so only within a much narrower context than proposed by Jethro. For one thing, Moses did not choose able men out of all the people, including the “mixed multitude,” but only out

Introduction

xv

of all Israel (Ex. 18:25). Moreover, from what is made clear later in the biblical narrative, we know the tribal structure was retained intact and not dismantled as recommended by Jethro. Thus, in his later recapitulation of the events just described, Moses states, So I took the heads of your tribes, wise men, and full of knowledge, and made them heads over you, captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds, and captains of fifties, and captains of tens, and officers, tribe by tribe (Deut. 1:15). Moses evidently adopted and applied the proposed hierarchical structure to the tribes of Israel, but not to all the people as a collective non-tribal constituency. In effect, whereas he accepted Jethro’s advice regarding delegation of leadership and authority, he rejected his father in-law’s broader political advice about reconstituting the people as a single constituency under a centralized government. He rejected the latter idea presumably because it would have undermined the communal cohesiveness of the Israelites provided by the tribal structure, and with it the patriarchal principle. His mission was to preserve the children of Israel so they could serve God’s purpose, and not to create an artificial nation out of a mixed population united only by a common disaffection for Egyptian rule. Moses’ principal political concern was to retain the family as the basic social unit for as long as possible, and this could be done most effectively through a tribal structure. The obvious reason for this is that the tribe essentially constitutes an extension of family and clan, in which the sense of personal obligation to the collectivity is much stronger than in societies organized along other lines. The ties of blood that bind the individual to the larger familial unit and ultimately to the tribe represent personal linkages that facilitate the cross-generation transfer of commitments and responsibilities. This patriarchal approach also helps explain the seemingly peculiar rationale provided by the biblical author for the fifth commandment, which reads: Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee (Ex. 20:12). Although the idea of honoring one’s parents can hardly be gainsaid as a commonsense expectation, the biblical rationale for the commandment is not filial but political. Honoring one’s parents is considered a prerequisite to perseverance on the land, to sustaining a viable society in the face of external pressures. Based on this rationale, the commandment should be understood as though it stated, “Honor the obligations undertaken by your father and mother.” In this way the covenant between God and the children of Israel will be perpetuated. Similarly, the law that whatsoever man there be that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death (Lev. 20:9) seems to address the same issue. How else explain the severity of the punishment? Surely the biblical author is not suggesting such a curse is so harmful as to be considered equivalent to a capital crime. However, if it is understood to mean that by cursing one’s parents one effectively repudiates the covenantal obligations being transferred to the succeeding generation, the severity of the penalty becomes comprehensible in light of the political consequences of the act, which equates to sedition.

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From the perspective of patriarchalism, one can legitimately obligate future generations to a covenant to which the unborn have not assented, and it is this theory of political obligation that provides the substructure for the entire political edifice of Mosaic civilization. Moreover, in the early chapters of Genesis, the biblical author goes even farther and implicitly insists the fundamental principle of patriarchalism is not simply applicable to the children of Israel; it also has universal validity as the basis of all organized human society. How strange all this must appear to us, nurtured in a social and political culture that attributes a higher value to individualism than to family and community. Indeed, the biblical paradigm is in direct conflict with the basic assumptions of the prevailing modern worldview. Nonetheless, it may well be that the biblical author is wiser than we are. It may well be that people need tradition, an anchor in the past that can only be provided as a legacy from one generation to another. It may well be that only through the idea of a covenant reaching back through the centuries, with all the obligations it imposes on us, can man locate himself in the universe in an ultimately meaningful manner. This is not the place to debate this issue. I wish to point out only that to dismiss the patriarchal approach as archaic and anachronistic is counterproductive if one truly wishes to understand what the biblical author is trying to convey to us by his concern with the idea of the covenant between God and man. There are, however, some fundamental issues the biblical author had to deal with before he could broach the idea of a divine-human covenant. Perhaps most important, he had to establish that human beings are competent to be parties to a covenant predicated on their willing compliance with its terms. It surely wouldn’t make any sense to establish rules of the road for someone who is inherently incapable of controlling or adjusting his behavior to conform to those rules. Presumably, this would require, at a minimum, that one be capable of understanding the rule if not the reason for it, and also that one be capable of making a conscious decision to obey the rule even though one might instinctively be inclined to act otherwise. In other words, a critical underlying assumption of any rule making is that the person to be regulated has both deliberative intelligence and willpower, the same attributes possessed by the rule maker. That person must be sufficiently mature to be capable of autonomous decision making, of acting by reason rather than instinct, if he is to be held accountable for compliance with the rules. Only such a person can be deemed sufficiently competent to enter into a meaningful and therefore valid covenant with another. Neither a creature whose behavior is essentially determined by natural instinct nor a human being who perceives his self to be so governed can properly be a party to a covenant. Accordingly, the biblical author’s first task is to establish the uniqueness of man among the creatures of the universe and to insist he has the attributes of autonomous will and intellect that are prerequisite to be-

Introduction

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ing a responsible and accountable member of society. This, in essence, is the political meaning of the myth of the creation of man set forth by the biblical author at the beginning of the Book of Genesis. I hasten to note that referring to the biblical creation narrative as a myth does not mean to cast aspersions on its essential veracity. A myth is merely a means of explaining that which would otherwise be inexplicable, and clearly the emergence of man and the universe continues to successfully defy rational explanation, notwithstanding the claims of the various schools of evolutionary theorists. However, to serve the purposes of the biblical author an explanation of some sort is crucial. He provides this through the medium of a series of myths constructed to convey what he believes to have been the divine intent in the creation of man and the role he was to play in the divine scheme. The second principal task undertaken by the biblical author is to explain the special role of Israel in history, why it was brought into being and what it was intended to accomplish. He does this by recounting several myths that purport to depict the universal history of mankind prior to the appearance of Abraham. That universal history is presented in the context of man’s moral relation to God, to his fellow man, and to his society, and finally that of society to man. As will be seen, in each of these myths man is portrayed as having failed to discipline his behavior appropriately, individually as well as collectively, a necessary condition for achieving the divine purpose. The biblical author conceives this purpose as the creation of a truly just and ethical society and the civilization, that is, the civil structure and moral regime, necessary to sustain it. As will be readily observed by even the most casual reader of the biblical myths presented in the first eleven chapters of Genesis, the biblical author’s narrative style is characterized by both extreme brevity and seemingly unnecessary repetitiveness. Moreover, the myths are often recounted with few explanatory details, making comprehension rather difficult in some cases. The primary reasons for this are twofold. First, the myths themselves are not central to the biblical author’s interests—they serve only to set the stage for what is to follow, namely, the emergence of Israel and the revelation of the Torah. Second, the basically poetic structure of the narrative suggests the biblical text was written, in general, to be read to the people rather than by them. The vocabulary and phraseology are calculated to engage and provoke the imagination of the listener and to evoke significant meaning from even the slightest nuances in the text. The listener or reader is to be drawn into the process of narration and is invited to fill in apparent gaps in the narrative as well as to account for anomalies in the text. In this way, the biblical author makes the reader or listener an active participant in the elaboration of the myth and thereby provides the occasion and opportunity for attaining a profounder insight into its meaning and intent. The listener or reader becomes the living link between seemingly unconnected passages and gives

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unity and coherence to the whole. Approached from this perspective, the reading of the biblical texts is transformed from a passive literary exercise into a vicarious experience, an intellectual voyage of discovery. The biblical text has been subjected to critical scrutiny for more than two millennia, producing a prodigious amount of commentary, both analytic and homiletic. Every verse has been parsed innumerable times, yet few have been the attempts to read the chapters of Genesis that constitute the subject of this book as a coherent and purposive narrative. In attempting to do just that, I have drawn on interesting isolated ideas garnered from the interpretive literature and have imbedded them in the construct that follows, and in the few instances where this is the case, the sources are reflected in the endnotes. For the most part, however, the interpretations offered are my own, and I must take the credit or blame for them as appropriate. In the work that follows, I take the liberty of amplifying the basic political myths provided by the biblical author as I understand his meaning and intent, filling in the lacuna in the text in a manner consistent with what precedes and follows. Moreover, because the biblical author fails to distinguish between the moral and the political, it will also be necessary to deal with a substantial amount of material that might be excluded when treating of the political in the more modern but also more limited sense. The result is an imaginative exposition, a modern midrash, of the first eleven chapters of Genesis designed to elucidate what I contend is the Mosaic political philosophy underlying the biblical texts. NOTE 1. This is not to suggest that the Torah does not contain a great deal of guidance concerning human behavior outside the political sphere. As the sages of the Talmud put it, there are seventy faces to the Torah, covering every aspect of man’s relationship to God, to man, as well as to himself. Nonetheless, it is my contention that the Torah’s overriding concern is with the shaping of a unique civilization, within which its guidance will serve to bring that civilization to its highest potential for achieving the divine mission assigned to it by the biblical author.

Chapter 1

The Emergence of Man

P

erhaps the most fundamental of all the issues the biblical author must deal with is the radical concept of an interactive relationship between God who transcends the universe and man who is confined within it. This concept, which is the foundation of all biblical thought, was quite alien to the pagan mind, which conceived of its gods as beings that existed within the universe. Accordingly, the first task of the biblical author is to disabuse the reader of the pagan notion of deity. He therefore proclaims the transcendence of God by describing Him as Elohim, the plenipotentiary creator of the universe, the physical environment that will constitute the stage upon which human history will be enacted.1 But, of course, since Elohim is the Creator, He cannot be part of that which He creates. He therefore necessarily transcends the material universe at the same time that He is immanently connected to it as its creator. Moreover, He must also necessarily be the ultimate master of the universe. By definition, Elohim is sovereign of the universe and is therefore free to do with it as He chooses, subject only to His own self-imposed constraints. This concept of divine sovereignty has implications of the greatest importance for the biblical idea of the covenant between God and man and more specifically between God and Israel. The first twenty-five verses of the Book of Genesis are devoted to making these fundamental points unmistakably clear.

2

Reading Genesis Politically

Although the manner in which the biblical cosmogony is presented raises a number of intriguing theological as well as literary issues, these are of only peripheral relevance to our present theme and will not be addressed in these pages. Let it suffice for our current purpose to note that the events depicted in the first passages of Genesis are clearly predicated on an a priori belief in the existence of God, who is portrayed as the ultimate power, above as well as within the universe. As a result, these cosmogonic texts are not so much concerned with depicting God per se as with describing His engagement with the environment into which man is to be introduced. For our immediate purpose of considering the meaning and implications of the essentially political myths of the early chapters of Genesis, we now turn to an examination of the very last event in the biblical myth of the Creation, the introduction of man. The biblical author’s approach to his subject unquestionably reflects a clearly anthropocentric view of the universe. Man is its central feature; everything else is only of contributory importance. To emphasize this, the entrance of man on the stage of the universe is described as the final event, the culmination of the entire creative process. The significance of the sequence of creation is evident. Man enters into a world that is readied for him in advance of his arrival. Humanity is brought into being only after the universe is prepared as the environment within which mankind is to thrive. This serves to emphasize the central role of man in the divine scheme of things. As will become quite clear, from the standpoint of the biblical author, without man to exploit it, the physical universe is devoid of intrinsic significance. It should therefore come as no surprise that the narrative concerning the creation of man is very different in character from everything described prior to that event. This depiction of the centrality of man in the universe is of great moral consequence for mankind. It asserts that although man is physiologically and chemically a part of nature, by virtue of the unique manner of his creation he is at the same time radically different from all other created beings. To emphasize this point, the biblical writer takes great pains to highlight the distinctiveness of man among the creatures of the earth. All previous acts of creation are described as the direct consequence of straightforward and impersonal divine imperatives, such as Let there be light (Gen. 1:3), Let there be a firmament (Gen. 1:6), and Let the earth bring forth the living creature (Gen. 1:24). In all these instances, the utterance of the divine word itself constitutes the act of creation, although as is evident from the last citation, the act may be merely the initiation of an evolutionary process. The divine involvement is detached and remote, as might be expected of a transcendent God. In the case of man, however, and perhaps unfortunately from the standpoint of those who subscribe to the evolutionary theory of the emergence

The Emergence of Man

3

of man, the biblical author does not record a comparable divine imperative, such as “Let the earth bring forth man!” In dramatic contrast to the pattern followed with regard to the rest of creation, the emergence of man is heralded in a uniquely personal manner in advance of his actually being brought into existence. 1:26. And Elohim [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 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

With this obvious change in narrative style, the biblical author draws our attention to Elohim’s direct and more complex engagement with the substance of what is to be created. Only the human being is conceived as having been created directly by and ostensibly in the image and likeness of Elohim, something that radically distinguishes man from the rest of nature’s creatures. Moreover, it is clear that the biblical writer’s primary emphasis in this passage is not so much on the creation of man as on the purpose for which he is brought into being. Thus, the divine proclamation is not, “Let us create man in our image, after our likeness.” Man is not intended to be a clone of Elohim. Instead, the statement says: Let us make, that is, let us transform the creature whom we will bring into being into a personality that will mirror certain divine attributes not to be found in the rest of creation. In other words, the biblical author is asserting not that man is actually created in the image of Elohim but, rather, that man is to be molded in the unique image that Elohim has chosen for him, bearing a likeness to his maker in certain unspecified characteristics.2 Although man is to constitute but one element in the panoply of created nature, there is to be something singularly distinctive about him that sets him apart from the rest of the natural order. He is destined, by the expressed wish of Elohim his maker, to play a unique role in the divine scheme of creation; he is to have dominion . . . over all the earth. Man is designated to be a surrogate of the divine, Elohim’s lieutenant, on earth. His quintessential obligation to his maker, an obligation already imposed on him prior to and in anticipation of his creation, is to establish man’s dominion over the universe in which he is to be placed. Man is to enter into existence as a truly political creature. Because Elohim delegates authority to him, and because there is no legitimate authority without responsibility, man is necessarily answerable before his maker with regard to how he exercises that authority.3 Having thus set forth the raison d’être of man’s existence, the biblical author continues to describe the process of man’s creation in general terms. He also makes it abundantly clear that he is speaking of the creation of man in a generic sense, employing the term “man” without reference to gender.

4

Reading Genesis Politically 1:27. And Elohim created man in His own image, in the image of Elohim created He him; male and female created He them. 1:28. And Elohim blessed them; and Elohim said unto them: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

Man, and here it is evident the biblical author is speaking of mankind and not of man as an individual, is to be awarded the entire realm of nature as his domain, but he must first subdue it. It will not be given to him already tamed and disciplined. He will have to conquer and master it by his own efforts. Upon reflection, one must wonder why the biblical author chose to connect the myth of man’s creation with the divine command that man dominate the earth and all it contains. At least two likely reasons account for this. The first is a reflection of the biblical author’s abiding concern to explain the present in terms of the past. Since time immemorial man is said to embody a primal urge for conquest, an innate need to assert his mastery. This urge can be applied constructively or destructively. The biblical author appears to be both constraining and sublimating that primal urge by tying it to Elohim’s purpose. Man is told, in effect, to channel his aggressive instincts to accomplishing what Elohim has charged him to do. He is instructed to divert his inherent drive for self-assertion from mastery of other men to the conquest and domination of the earth and all its creatures. The conquest and domination of other men, all of whom are reflections of the divine image, would be a perversion of the divine intent.4 Moreover, also implicit in this is the important biblical idea that man’s use and application of political power should conform to parameters and norms set by an authority higher than himself. The biblical author apparently subscribes to the maxim that power corrupts and that if undirected and unrestrained, absolute power will corrupt absolutely. The second reason is that by stipulating at the very outset of the human enterprise the special role man is to play in the divine scheme, the biblical author helps us understand why some aspects of man’s intrinsic constitution must be radically different from those of all other created beings. This too touches on a theme that the biblical author is concerned to stress, namely, that man is a unique morally autonomous being whose will and rational ability to make moral choices are independent of the laws of nature. Unless this is the case, man would not have the competence to be a party to a covenant with God, and demonstrating such competence is essential to the biblical author’s purpose. The recounting of the creation myth thus provides a means of clarifying why man should not simply aspire to be at one with nature. Man has been awarded the entire world as his domain, but he must first subdue it, and accomplishing this will present a daunting challenge for him.

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To successfully play the part assigned to him in this cosmic drama, man must first be prepared and appropriately equipped for the role. In essence, this means that man must be assigned certain extraordinary attributes that will give him a decisive advantage over other creatures in his struggle for supremacy. Non-human beings may fulfill their appointed roles by responding to the natural instincts intrinsic to them. Indeed, as a rule, they are naturally bound to follow instinctually conditioned behavior patterns. Man, however, must be able to act purposively and not just instinctively if he is to prevail over them. Accordingly, man must be endowed with the power of an autonomous and indomitable will, the internal fortitude to overcome the challenges and adversities of nature, if he is to be capable of imposing his dominion over the natural world. He will also have need of a mental faculty that can inform his will and thereby enable him to act with the deliberation that will be critical to his success. Man must therefore also be endowed with the faculty of reason, with an intellect that will enable him to choose to act in the manner that best serves him in carrying out his assigned mission in life. Only through the intelligent application of his will would primal man be able to impose his dominance over brute nature, to confront and vanquish the beasts of the field that are so much stronger and better adapted to the environment than he. It is because man is to be equipped with the unique attributes of will and intellect that the biblical author characterizes him as reflecting, in this limited way, the image and likeness of his maker.5 As a consequence of man’s special constitution, the natural regime governing him will of necessity be different, at least in some crucial respects, from that directing the behavior of other living beings. Man is to be subject to the laws of nature only insofar as his physical being, which derives from the material world, is concerned. Spiritually, he is to be a personality endowed with the divinelike attributes of will and intellect that create a naturally unbridgeable chasm between man and other created beings. Man, as a human being, will be considered to transcend the bounds of nature and to constitute a morally autonomous personality capable of deliberation and reasoned action. In effect, he is conceived of as a being capable of entering into a covenantal relationship with Elohim. The biblical author thus informs us that Elohim created man in His own image. That is, Elohim created man in the image of the personality that He would endow with the required faculties of will and intellect. Moreover, although not stated explicitly, we are given to understand from what follows in the biblical narrative that man appears on the universal stage as an adult. This serves to emphasize that not only is he mature enough to be a competent covenantal partner of Elohim in the enterprise of human history, but that because he is morally autonomous he is also to be held responsible and accountable for his actions. It is in this sense that man is to be considered

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the reflection of Elohim that the biblical author speaks of when he assures us that in the image of Elohim created He him. Man thus enters upon his career as a human being endowed with divinelike attributes that set him above and apart from the rest of creation. At the same time he remains very much a part of the natural order and fully subject to its inexorable demands on his physical existence. Because of his uniquely dual nature, man will be unable to escape the inevitable tensions and inner conflicts between body and spirit that will afflict him as he proceeds down life’s course. In sum, the biblical author neither tells us why the universe was created nor explains the reason for man having been assigned such an extraordinary mission in the divine scheme. We are informed only with regard to the fact of creation and the challenges that confront man from the very outset of his existence. Neither god nor beast, though possessing qualities of both, man cannot avoid the issue before him. He must either conquer nature or be subdued by it, succeed in his appointed mission or become the author of his own failure. He has been granted the faculties and capacities necessary for the task; the rest will be up to him. However, for man to successfully carry out his charge single-handedly would be virtually inconceivable, even within the context of myth. Accordingly, the biblical author concisely describes the creation of the first human couple by noting simply that when he speaks of God’s creation of man, the latter term is employed in its collective sense. We should therefore bear in mind that male and female created He them. Because the term “man” is ambiguous and may be taken to refer to an individual according to gender, this statement makes clear that “man” is used in these passages generically. This interjection is necessary if the reader is to make any sense of the subsequent demand that man be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, that is, that man should procreate sufficient progeny to carry out the charge given to mankind to subdue and master the earth. In these few brief passages the biblical author establishes the direct linkage between Elohim and man. He also sets forth the ostensible purpose for which mankind was brought into being, thereby offering reassurance to those who need it that there is a divine purpose to human existence, even though the reason behind it may be beyond human comprehension. Elohim is depicted as the divine father, giving life to humankind. He thereby establishes a patriarchal basis for humanity’s obligation to conform with the ground rules He has set forth for the game of life, ground rules we must assume are intended to serve the divine purpose and presumably man’s best interests. The most basic of all these requirements is that although man has been endowed with intellect and will, he must learn to subordinate his moral autonomy to the demands imposed upon him by his creator. After briefly recapitulating the story of creation, the biblical author proceeds to describe in far greater detail the process through which the emer-

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gence of primeval society took place. He evidently deemed such an elaboration crucial to a correct understanding of the relationship between Elohim and man in history, where man experiences the presence of Elohim in His providential aspect as YHVH, the divine name known as the Tetragrammaton.6 2:7. Then YHVH Elohim [the Lord God] formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.7

In the biblical author’s description of the process of the formation of man, and here the evident reference is to man as an individual, he reminds us once more of the special complexity of the human being in comparison with the rest of created beings. He does this with great subtlety and economy of expression. The other creatures can be made to evolve from the earth in direct response to the divine command, Let the earth bring forth the living creature (Gen. 1:24). The animal world is thus brought into being as an extension of the inanimate. But as we were already informed, this is not the case with humankind. Nature cannot produce that which transcends its domain. The earth cannot bring forth man. Man, the complex being that is to embody certain divinelike attributes that will make him appear at least in some respects a reflection of YHVH Elohim his creator, cannot merely be another creature spawned by the earth. His genesis must be unique. Man is to be a creature whose physical being is compounded out of that which is lifeless on earth, its inert dust, and shaped into the form of that which is yet to become a human. As a product of the earth he remains a form without vitality. That which gives life to man comes from beyond the confines of created nature. It is YHVH Elohim who, through His intervention in the natural order of creation, directly supplies man with the life force, transforming the molded frame of dust into a living person. Moreover, this person is endowed with the faculties of will and intellect, attributes that define the essential humanity of this creature compounded out of inert matter and the breath of God. In man, divine transcendence and immanence converge. To further emphasize the uniqueness of man, the biblical author asserts that the other creatures of the earth, whose lives are patterned in accordance with the rhythms of the natural order, are created in pairs suitable for mating, each after its kind (Gen. 1:21, 24, 25). Man, in contrast, is brought into being alone as a unique specimen. Even more significant, although he will go through a natural cycle of physical growth and decay, as will all nature’s offspring, he alone will be the subject of a history that will unfold parallel to the repetitious course of nature. However, because man remains subject to the laws of nature with regard to his physical being, he will find himself at a relative disadvantage in terms

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of his potential viability when compared to other living beings. An unerring instinct will guide the animal to do what is necessary to ensure its survival. Man, though armed with the attributes of will and intellect, remains essentially uninformed by his instincts. He surely manifests a primary urge to survive, but the mere presence of such a drive in his constitution is not sufficient to inform him about what he should or must do to ensure his survival. Man needs time and experience to acquire and digest the necessary information that must still be transformed into the knowledge that can inform his understanding. Only then will man be able to make the consciously rational choices that will be critical to his survival in a natural environment wherein his partially developed instincts are insufficient to ensure long-term viability. But how will man, alone in the universe, survive until such time as he might acquire sufficient knowledge to be able to hold his own in the struggle with nature, a struggle to which he is committed by the very circumstances of his being? How will he know what foods he may safely eat, and which are harmful? How will he learn to protect his body from the rigors of climate and environment? How will he learn to ward off the beasts of the field that roam freely? Primeval man must be sheltered from the vicissitudes and contingencies of nature until such time as he is ready to confront them armed with his willpower and his cultivated and trained intellect. To provide the required temporary shelter, YHVH Elohim establishes a safe haven for man, a protected garden within which his essential needs may be easily satisfied while he learns to cope with the challenges he will have to face in the outside world. 2:8. And YHVH Elohim planted a garden eastward, in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed.

The biblical author is deliberate in advising us that man was not created in the garden, but was put there afterward. He was formed in the throes of raw nature and entered the stage of history quite unprepared to carry out the divine charge to conquer and impose his rule over the earth. Only after man is given a taste of the shattering sense of helplessness, born of his native inability to cope with the realities of life in the domain of raw nature, is he providentially rescued and given sanctuary in the sheltered garden. Without man’s experiencing the awesome power of brute nature, his tenure in the garden would not have the desired effects. Had he been created in the garden, man might have come to believe the idyllic conditions of existence there were representative of the world outside. His subsequent training for survival and achievement of his mission might then prove inefficacious. He would thus have remained ill prepared for his assigned role in the divine scheme.

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In addition to learning to master brute nature, man must also become capable of confronting it without becoming brutalized by it. He therefore also requires a faculty that will enable him to transform the lessons and experiences drawn from nature in a manner that will further distinguish him from the rest of creation. Thus, in addition to will and intellect, man is further endowed with a sense of the aesthetic. He is given the ability to integrate the data derived from his senses in a manner that conveys meaning that is peculiarly human. The primary sense through which the aesthetic is to be experienced is the visual. To see beauty in nature places man outside and above it. Because he is incapable of fending for himself, at least initially, man must also have a ready supply of food available to fulfill his natural need for nourishment. Accordingly, the biblical author continues: 2:9. And out of the ground made YHVH Elohim to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

To satisfy man’s most basic needs, YHVH Elohim provides him with an abundant supply of fruit-bearing trees from which he may simply pluck his sustenance. However, even in this regard, we are advised that a critical distinction should be drawn between man and other living creatures. It is essential that man should, from the very outset of his existence, view nature from a human perspective, as a being capable of transcending nature, and not merely as a particular species of creature living in harmony with it. To emphasize this point, the biblical author tells us the trees and their fruit must be both pleasant to the sight, and good for food. He gives precedence to the aesthetic, to that which is uniquely human, in preference to that which is merely animal and natural in man. Even in the satisfaction of his most mundane needs, man will respond with greater alacrity to that which has aesthetic appeal for him. But as will be seen shortly, the aesthetic can also be beguiling and contribute to man’s moral lassitude. In this regard the idyllic conditions that prevail in the Garden of Eden may be perceived as posing great moral dangers for man. With all his apparent physical needs satisfied without laboring hard for them, in effect having the world at his feet, man runs the grave risk of misconceiving the role assigned to him in the divine scheme. He may begin to take his idyllic situation in the garden for granted. It therefore becomes necessary to institute a means of imposing constraints on man’s unfettered ego. He must be kept aware of his true status and purpose in life. The ultimate dependency of human existence on YHVH Elohim needs to be constantly brought to his attention. That awareness is an essential element of his intrinsic humanity, a significant aspect of what distinguishes man from the other creatures in the universe.

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As indicated, the key to man’s physical survival in the garden, the primary means by which he receives his life-sustaining nutriments, are the fruitbearing trees. These same trees, from which man derives both physical and aesthetic satisfaction, are to serve as the instruments of his moral education as well. The fruit of one of the trees, distinctively located in the middle of the garden, symbolically at the center of man’s universe, will be forbidden to him. This arbitrary constraint will serve to remind man that he is subject to a higher authority, one that must be obeyed unequivocally. The restricted tree is undoubtedly similar to the other trees in the garden. Indeed, were it to be substantively different, that fact alone would obscure the lesson it was intended to convey. Man is to heed the divine injunction concerning the tree simply because YHVH Elohim had decreed its produce as off-limits to him, without regard to whether he is given a satisfactory explanation of the reason for the restriction or whether the reason is self-evident. He must consciously exercise self-restraint to withstand the tree’s aesthetic appeal, as well as to resist his own inherent curiosity about its fruit. Through such purposive self-discipline, man will be brought to recognize and acknowledge his subordinate place in the divine plan, a critical step in establishing the patriarchal principle. This particular tree, as a consequence of man’s reaction to the prohibition promulgated with respect to it, will later be known as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Man, as the biblical author is most assuredly aware, is an extraordinarily complex creature. Within him, the intellectual faculty, his capacity for reason, will struggle with that which is “animal” in him, his passions, for control of his will. His natural tendency to submit to the urgings of passion, augmented and stirred by his sense of the aesthetic, may overcome reason and cause him to violate the divine injunction against enjoying the fruit of the specially designated tree. Presumably, if this were to occur, severe sanctions would have to be imposed. However, would a momentary lapse of selfcontrol, leading to a transgression of the divine stricture, similarly be considered an overt act of defiance? Would it really be construed to mean that man had come to view himself as the equal of his Creator? Should a possible transitory loss of self-control castigate man as a total failure, as undeserving of the divine preference conferred upon him? Were the outcome of the struggle between reason and desire for control of his will inevitably to favor one or the other, it would be a clear indication that man did not really have a free, undetermined, will. Indeed, were the outcome of this struggle to be predetermined, man could not possibly be a reflection of the image of Elohim. An obvious need arose for an additional means by which to determine if such a lapse of discipline, the violation of the divine ordinance, was the consequence of a temporary victory of desire over reason or the result of a concurrence of desire and reason. Only in the latter case would man be considered a failure. The device introduced for testing and evaluating man’s

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conduct in the garden is the tree of life, conveniently placed adjacent to the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The ostensible purpose of the tree of life appears to be that of providing the antidote to the bitter consequences that will ensue from a willful disobedience of the divine prohibition. However, it will also serve as the true test of whether man has deliberately defied divine authority and defaulted on his obligation of compliance, whether he is morally competent to be a party to a divine covenant. This will be determined by how the man reacts to the presence of the life-assuring tree in the garden. Should man succumb to temptation and partake of the fruit of the forbidden tree, it would clearly constitute an open and conscious defiance of YHVH Elohim. However, should man, unable to resist the temptation to gratify his appetite with the forbidden fruit, eat from the tree of life before eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the implication would also be clear. It would mean that man fully understood his position in the universe and acknowledged the supreme authority of YHVH Elohim. Man’s momentary yielding to his passions would be counterbalanced by his recognizing that what he was doing was wrong and that the promised punishment for such a lapse would be forthcoming. Thus, although eating from the tree of life would offer immunity from the anticipated sentence of death, it would also reflect an earnest belief in and acceptance of the lordship and authority of YHVH Elohim. A momentary lapse of moral restraint is one thing, but a deliberate transgression without even an attempt to forestall the promised penalty by taking advantage of a readily available countervailing remedy would clearly indicate a direct challenge to divine authority, a challenge that would be completely unacceptable.8 At this point in the narrative the biblical author interjects a parenthetical note that occupies the next five verses, the significance of which is a subject of much inconclusive scholarly discussion. He identifies four rivers whose source is in the garden, two of which, the Hidekel (Tigris) and Prat (Euphrates), are well known, and two, the Pishon and Gihon, are unknown to this day. Some scholars have suggested that the Pishon, which is described in the text as traversing the land of Havilah, a source of gold and precious stones, may refer to the Nile as it passes through Nubia, where the ancient Egyptians found gold and precious stones. The identity of the Gihon, which is described as circumscribing the entire land of Cush, remains a mystery. It is a curious fact, however, that a spring in a valley on the eastern side of the City of David, which served as a principal source of water for Jerusalem, is named Gihon.9 The biblical writer may be asserting that the great civilizations of the Middle East, the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Hebrew, were all originally nourished from the same moral source in Eden, even though the first two were held to have subsequently deviated permanently from their proper course.10

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Having thus set the stage for the ensuing drama, the biblical author proceeds to describe in greater detail the events about to take place in the Garden of Eden. 2:15. And YHVH Elohim took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 2:16. And YHVH Elohim commanded the man, saying: “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; [2:17.] but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

The Garden of Eden, the sheltered haven, is not established for the sole purpose of satisfying man’s essential physical needs. It is not meant to serve as an earthly paradise within which man simply basks in the warm radiance of providence with no end in view other than self-indulgence and selfgratification. Intended to be functional, the garden is designed to serve as an experimental laboratory in which man can, without great physical risk, learn about himself and the world he has been charged with dominating. Man is placed in the garden to afford him the opportunity to develop his capacities for coping with the world of nature. Man must learn to use his unique faculties in ways that compensate for the natural disadvantages he suffers in comparison with the rest of the animal world. He must empirically train his intellect to serve as a sure guide to survival in place of the instinct provided by Elohim to the other creatures. Accordingly, man is not to view the garden as a resort, a place free of cares to which one turns to forget the awesome responsibilities of life. The biblical author makes this point quite explicitly. Man is put into the garden for a purpose that transcends his intrinsic desires or interests. He is placed there for YHVH Elohim’s purposes, to dress it and to keep it. That is, man is to learn to carry out those activities necessary to maintain the garden in its current state of repair even after the hand of providence is removed from it. The garden may be understood as representing the prototype of what man should strive to transform the world into. He is to learn how to achieve this goal by attending to the garden. By “dressing” it, preventing it from deteriorating into a wilderness, and by “keeping” it, protecting it from the incursions of nature, man will have taken the first steps toward learning how to transform brute nature into a paradiselike garden and to maintain it as such. When man has completed his tuition in Eden, he will be ready to go out into the world with the necessary knowledge, and sufficient confidence in that knowledge, to carry out the charge given him when he was first brought into being. However, though essential for the training of man’s intellect, the garden is not by itself sufficient for all man’s instructional needs. Something more is required if man is to maintain proper control of his other fundamental and unique faculty, his will. Without a disciplined will, man will prove incapable

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of fulfilling his divinely assigned purpose in life. He will succumb to his natural passions and urges and apply his intellect to making that surrender more efficacious. To the extent that this occurs, that which is in the image of Elohim in man will begin to blur and fade away. Man was endowed with his special faculties to enable him to overcome the constraints of the natural order so he might carry out his assigned role. Man cannot escape nature. He is inextricably bound to it by the very fact of his physical existence. However, he has the innate ability to place limits on nature’s grip. He can choose not to do that which he feels urged to do. But, he must be kept consciously aware that he is endowed with such ability. He must be dissuaded from thinking that whatever he does is subject to the same regime of instinct as the rest of nature. He must not perceive himself as essentially the same as the animals around him. He must not simply consider himself as an aberration from the characteristics common to the rest of creation. It must be impressed indelibly on his consciousness that he is fundamentally different from the rest of the animate world in that he alone possesses attributes that transcend the natural, attributes that singularly reflect the image and imprint of Elohim the Creator. He must learn that he is a human and what his humanity entails. It is in the garden that the moral education of man begins. Man is informed that the garden and its contents are at his disposal for his benefit. The fruit-bearing trees are there to provide for his sustenance while he learns to cope with the exigencies of nature. However, he must first be taught that the fruit is good for him. He does not know this by instinct. YHVH Elohim thus informs him that the produce of the trees is to serve as his source of nourishment. This knowledge, in conjunction with his sense of the aesthetic, will enable man to select the choicest fruit for his consumption. In addition to this general advice, he is also given the specific instruction that all the trees are suitable for his needs, with a single exception. One particular tree is forbidden to him. It is not that this particular tree produces fruit that is indigestible or otherwise harmful to his physical well-being. There is nothing inherently bad in the fruit of the proscribed tree. Moreover, there is nothing distinctive about this particular tree. The specific tree denied to man is one of every tree of the garden. No explanation is offered, and none is requested. The man, Adam, understands that by virtue of his having been brought into existence, he has incurred an obligation to obey the demands imposed on him by his divine parent, whether or not a reason is provided. Man’s moral education thus begins with the principle of patriarchal obligation. Nonetheless, Adam may rightly wonder why this particular tree, not visibly different from similar ones to be found in the garden, should be expressly singled out for such a restriction. If there is nothing intrinsically different about this tree to distinguish it from the rest, then the injunction to refrain from eating of its fruit must be arbitrary. In such case, should he observe

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the injunction? But does man have any choice in the matter? It is here, in this terse recounting of the basic moral education of man, that the biblical author conveys a profound and momentous message. Man who is created in the image of Elohim does indeed have a choice. He may choose obedience to the divine imperative, even though it may appear to him as completely arbitrary and therefore inimical to the faculty of reason with which Elohim endowed him. Or he may choose to violate the injunction because it is inconsistent with the dictates of his reason. It is man’s reaction to the divine command that will determine whether the tree will become the source of the knowledge of good or of evil. It will symbolize the knowledge of good if man refrains from it in obedience to the divine imperative, if man stands prepared to subordinate his own perception of what constitutes the proper course of action to that of a higher authority, one that transcends the bounds of his understanding. It will come to symbolize the knowledge of evil if man rejects his subordinate position, chooses not to obey the divine imperative because he cannot comprehend the reason for it, and consequently refuses to accept the divine decision in preference to his own. Man might continue to wonder if he really had a choice in the matter. He might obey the injunction simply because he did not believe he could disobey. Were this to happen, the purpose of the moral test would have been defeated. He is therefore informed further not only that may he not eat of the tree, but that if he should do so he will be punished for his act. This caveat serves to make the implicit message to man quite clear. Man has the autonomous capacity to choose freely his course of action. Were this not the case, the threat of punishment for choosing wrongly would be more than just arbitrary. It would be irrational as well as capricious. With these few carefully chosen words, the biblical author proclaims the establishment of the moral as distinct from the natural order of the universe. In contradistinction to the animals, man is held responsible for his actions and must be prepared to answer for them. We are also informed that the ultimate source of moral authority is with YHVH Elohim and not with man. Man has indeed been endowed with intellect, but it would be an abuse of reason to place man’s capacity for understanding on a par with that of his creator, of whose image he is merely an imprecise reflection. Finally, the biblical author implicitly informs us that man derives his moral perceptions in a particular manner that is fundamentally different from the way other matters are usually perceived. The trees of the garden are pleasant to the sight. The aesthetic perception of the pleasant is derived principally through the faculty of sight; man’s aesthetic sense is primarily visual. By contrast, the vehicle for the imposition of moral discipline, through the prohibition against eating from one of the trees made pleasant to the sight, is aural. In the biblical view, moral perceptions are derived through the ear rather than the eye.11

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It is noteworthy that the biblical author repeatedly draws our attention to the conflict between what man sees and what he hears. Moral revelation always comes through the ears, even metaphorically, and immorality results when one follows after his eyes. The message of the biblical writer therefore appears to be diametrically opposed to the popular adage that suggests one should believe none of what one hears and only half of what one sees. As part of the human condition, man is continually challenged by the dichotomy between the moral and the aesthetic. One need but reflect upon the many ways in which man’s aesthetic sense is enlisted in the service of immorality to grasp what the biblical author is attempting to convey to us in these passages. Evidently he has made it his task to provide a guide to enable man to strike an appropriate synthesis between the moral and the aesthetic. Thus, it is through the myth of the Garden of Eden that man becomes aware of the alluring power of the aesthetic against which he must reconcile the moral. The aesthetic and the moral are intrinsically good because YHVH Elohim created both for man’s benefit. It is how man responds to each that determines whether his actions will be deemed good or bad. The man who clearly understands the true nature of the human condition is likely to be perfectly moral, subordinating that which may appear to him as best serving his interest to the commanding voice of divine authority. However, the achievement of such understanding requires the deepest introspection and a readiness to view all things in terms of their ultimate significance and value. Individuals capable of such reflective thinking may ultimately be inspired to strive toward those moral heights where virtue is its own reward. The biblical author is well aware, however, that such a philosophical disposition is the exception among men and not the rule. Accordingly, the moral order for humanity must be designed in a manner that takes into consideration that man must first be brought to practice virtue for his own sake before he can pursue virtue for virtue’s sake. The disciplinary instruments to be employed for man’s moral education are reward and punishment. Obedience to moral precept will bring reward in its train. Disobedience will engender punishment. With regard to man in the Garden of Eden, the words of the biblical text must be read in the context of our previous discussion of the role of the tree of life. Observance of the divine injunction will permit man to continue to enjoy a benign existence under divine providence, a life that transcends the natural. Absolutely willful transgression will bring in its wake the withdrawal of the providential hand of YHVH Elohim. Without this divine assistance man will become fully subject to the laws of nature, as are all other members of the natural order—for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. That is, the life-giving breath of Elohim will be withdrawn and man will revert to the inert mass of dust from which he was formed. The divine experiment of creating a human surrogate will be brought to an abrupt end.

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Reading Genesis Politically

It should be noted, however, that the biblical author is not claiming that if man refrained from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would live forever. Nor is he asserting that any violation of the divine injunction would have brought about the instantaneous cessation of human life, something that obviously did not occur because man did transgress and survive. His principal concern is with explaining not human mortality, but the consequences of immorality; not deliberate defiance of YHVH Elohim but allowing one’s urges and appetites to dominate one’s rational faculty, causing him to violate the divine command. Understood from this perspective, man’s compliance with the divine restriction would assure his continuity of tenure in the garden until he was fully prepared to go out into the world to undertake the mission for which he was being readied. Violation of the injunction would result in his premature eviction from the garden. His punishment would be banishment—throughout history, involuntary exile from one’s homeland and society has been considered as equivalent to being condemned to death. Man would be cast out of his haven and compelled to fend for himself. Ill prepared and alone, he would have to confront the dangers to be encountered in the world of brute nature. Having thus set the stage for the moral drama that is to ensue, the biblical author turns to the next phase of the myth of the Garden of Eden, which is to delineate the moral needs of society: 2:18. And YHVH Elohim said: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him.” 2:19. And out of the ground YHVH Elohim formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto the man to see what he would call them; and whatsoever the man would call every living creature, that was to be the name thereof. 2:20. And the man gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him.

Man is created alone to emphasize further his intrinsic difference from the rest of the creatures of the earth. As the exception to the order of nature, the unique specimen that is man comes under a special regime, the moral. And with particular regard for his moral life, it is not good that the man should be alone. Encumbered simultaneously by moral precepts and his intrinsic sensuality, man finds himself in a continual state of tension between competing demands. Given free will and the knowledge that he has the capacity to choose, he is confronted by the awesome responsibility of deliberate choice, the need to decide. In man’s reacting to this need, man’s solitude may lead him to adopt a posture of either extreme arrogance or humility, neither of which is consonant with the role set aside for him in the divine scheme.

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As a unique being on earth, the lieutenant of the Creator, it would not be surprising if man were to begin to imagine that his authority there is absolute, analogous to Elohim’s sovereignty over the heavens above. As Elohim is singular and unique, so too is man. Such hubris could lead man to conclude that he need not choose to do that which is morally good, but rather that whatever he chooses to do is necessarily morally good. Man would then inevitably become a slave to his appetites. The aesthetic would completely dominate the moral, and man would ultimately forget that he had the capacity to choose otherwise. He would become incapable of carrying out the role assigned to him, for which he was created in the image of Elohim in the first place. Divine precept alone may not be sufficient to prevent man from yielding to the temptation of doing that which is both easiest and most appealing to his senses. Man has need for external reinforcement of his resolve to lead a moral life. This support can come only through human association. Were man no longer to be alone, no longer to be a unique being in an absolute sense, his inherent proclivity to arrogance might better be held in check. If there were to be another human being to help remind man that only Elohim is truly unique, he might not so easily lapse into immorality or amorality. Yet, left alone in the universe, man might also adopt the rather different posture of one characterized by an excessive and debilitating humility. Physically weak and left essentially unprotected by his instincts from the brutish nature of the external environment, he might begin to feel inherently incapable of carrying out his mission of subduing and exercising dominion over the earth. He might also begin to believe that he is inherently unable to withstand the temptations and demands urged upon him through his senses, that he is incapable of making a moral choice. In this case too, association with another human would prove morally beneficial. He had need of a help meet, a person who would share with him the tasks he must perform, one who would complement his personality, providing strength where he was weak, who would serve as a counterpart for man and help him carry out his assigned responsibilities. Such a person would assist man in maintaining the critical balance between his competing faculties and imperatives. A human counterpart would help him flourish as a being endowed with moral personality. However, man must first be brought to understand why he has such need of human association. Living under the idyllic conditions of the garden, man could not readily comprehend the full magnitude of the task ahead. True, he had some glimpses of raw nature and the animal life that populated the outside world before he was installed in the garden. But the animals he became most familiar with were such whose natures fitted them for domestication. The biblical author therefore informs us that YHVH Elohim, to give the man more realistic insight into what would confront him in the world beyond the

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confines of the garden, gathered the wild animals and the birds and brought them unto the man. They were herded together in unnatural groupings for the particular purpose of man’s edification. As man observed and scrutinized the animal species, he became aware of certain distinguishing characteristics that went beyond their differing physical makeup. With penetrating insight he was able to analyze their patterns of behavior and then classify them in accordance with their dominant characteristics. He did this with regard to those creatures brought before him as well as those with which he was already familiar. As man went through his survey of the animal world, constructing the taxonomy of that world in the process, he could not but reflect on what he had witnessed. The animals brought before him were in pairs, male and female, yet they seemed to be alone. They complemented each other physically for purposes of procreation, but they mated only seasonally. In general, each carried out its appointed role in the order of nature individually. When two acted in concert, it was only because their natural instincts so dictated. However, in one sense they were not very different from man. He too was alone. Were he to have a female counterpart, would their relationship be the same as that of the animals he had studied? Was he not different from the rest of animal nature? Should not a relationship between two humans, therefore, also be qualitatively different? Adam must have been stunned by the great variety of beasts that he, singlehanded, was to subjugate and dominate. How would he be able to accomplish all that alone? Would it not be most helpful if another creature were to assist him in his momentous task? The entire panorama of animate nature had already passed before his eyes. Were any of the creatures he had observed suitable to assist him in his efforts? Could an animal that had only the most perfunctory and casual relationship with its mate prove to be a more constant partner to man? Having been brought to a heightened awareness of what lay before him, his new understanding of the challenge must have had a devastating effect on his sense of well-being and self-sufficiency. It was now clear to him that he could not succeed alone. He desperately needed assistance, a counterpart who would bolster his confidence in his ability to confront the world outside the garden. He was now acquainted with the full panoply of the animate world. Could help and succor be sought there? With great subtlety the biblical author tells us that man searched nature and attempted to identify and classify all the domestic and wild animals and birds toward this end, but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him. Nothing in created nature would serve his needs adequately. If YHVH Elohim were to respond to man’s desperate need to overcome his profound sense of loneliness, man would now be intellectually and emotionally prepared to welcome the desired counterpart in a manner appropriate to his special nature as a human being. His

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distinctively human approach to the ensuing relationship would now be consistent with its moral purpose. 2:21. And YHVH Elohim caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the place with flesh instead thereof. 2:22. And the rib, which YHVH Elohim had taken from the man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. 2:23. And the man said: “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

YHVH Elohim now proceeded to provide the man with the companion he so sorely needed. However, if the higher purpose for eliminating man’s loneliness were to be served, man would need to be kept constantly aware of the divine beneficence in this regard. Simply to create a female counterpart to man, in the same manner as man himself was brought into existence, would negate the purpose and significance of man’s having been created alone in the first instance. To create another distinct person from the dust of the earth would not provide the help meet or counterpart for man but a competitor. Their mutual relationship might become modeled after that of the animals, serving each other’s needs only at particular times and only for very clearly delimited purposes. Instead, man’s counterpart is to be brought into being in a radically different and unprecedented manner, indeed, one that dramatically reverses the natural order of procreation. Man’s counterpart is to be formed from man himself. Just this once, the male of the species will give birth to another human. Moreover, this birth will not follow the normal natural process whereby the one giving birth remains essentially unchanged while giving life to a completely separate entity. Man will not be the same after this birth. His counterpart will come not from within the man but from the man. Adam will be split in two, both physically and psychically, and will regain his essential unity only in union with his female counterpart. Humans will henceforth function as truly complete personalities only in complementary pairs, and in that relationship they will be equals. In his description of how YHVH Elohim went about bringing man’s companion into being, the biblical author also intimates how humans should behave in comparable circumstances. Like a master surgeon about to sever Siamese twins, YHVH Elohim first applies anesthesia to the man so he should not suffer pain. Then, after removing that which is to be fashioned as a woman, He seals the wound cosmetically so one would not know an operation had taken place. Man appears whole physically, but he feels fragmented internally when alone. The essential ingredients for human society had now been set in place. Man’s companion and counterpart had been fashioned. It now only remained for him to recognize the woman as his coequal. Without such

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acknowledgment, he would still be alone and in even greater moral jeopardy. However, such recognition cannot be compelled if it is to be sincere. Man has been given free will and can choose to view the world about him as he wishes. Woman will not be man’s counterpart unless he freely acknowledges her as such. When the man awoke, YHVH Elohim presented the woman before him, just as He had done with all the other creatures, to see what man would call her. In naming the woman, the man would indicate his comprehension of her nature and function in life. When he looked at her, he exclaimed, in effect, “At last this is it!” At long last he saw before him that which he craved, a counterpart, one who could and would share with him the burden of his awesome responsibilities in carrying out his assigned role in the order of creation. The man somehow felt different than he had been before and soon came to understand that the woman was not a mere adjunct, an appendix to him. On the contrary, she represented an integral part of him. He himself was now less than he had been before, and without her companionship he would remain incomplete. If man, in order to carry out his proper role in life, must seek to perfect his being to the limits of human capability, he must overcome that deficiency which is now inherent in his nature and personality. To emphasize this truth, the biblical author interjects into the narrative of the first humans the moral adjuration: 2:24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.

Man must be prepared to fulfill his need for the intimate companionship of a wife, even at the expense of separating from the embrace of his parents. Association with other humans, even parents, is not enough and cannot satisfy the social and moral need for a counterpart. It is only with a wife who complements him in every significant respect that man will be able to assume the appropriate moral stance with regard to the external environment and the urgings and temptations that it brings to him through his senses. He must be whole in order to maintain the critical balance between the inner forces struggling for control of his will. For purposes of a life of morality, man should no longer be alone, and this will remain an essential condition for his descendants throughout the future. From this primeval moment on, to paraphrase Aristotle, the man who delights in solitude will be either a wild beast or one who aspires to godhood. The biblical author’s interjection also suggests a critical political implication, namely, that the patriarchal principle must be understood as transcending existing filial relationships. Even though the patriarchal principle may operate most effectively within the context of the extended family, it is not constrained or delimited by the state of one’s connections to immediate relatives. The broader obligations one incurs at birth are not contingent upon

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one’s continuing physical proximity to the family hearth, but remain with a person throughout one’s life and will be transmitted in the same way to the generations that follow. Returning to the myth of the Garden of Eden, the biblical author offers an observation of great significance to the moral history of man. 2:25. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

The man and his wife together constituted the archetypal primeval society, a simple association to which each contributed in a manner that accorded with his or her capability and personality, and from which each derived complementary benefits. The arrangement was idyllic, completely in harmony with the purpose and environment of the garden. Indeed, for a brief moment in man’s turbulent career, human existence seemed perfect, perhaps almost too perfect. The single outstanding flaw, man’s solitude, was now rectified. With a counterpart at his side, man’s essential humanity could flourish and grow to its highest potential. The man and his wife, at one with nature both with regard to their similarities and differences from the rest of creation, felt secure. The lushness of the garden and the warmth of its atmosphere were comforting and reassuring. For that brief idyllic moment, though fully susceptible to disharmonious and disruptive influences, they remained blissfully unaware of their intrinsic vulnerability. Exposed to each other as well as to the rest of the universe, they acted as though they were thoroughly protected from and oblivious to any possible danger. Their euphoric feeling of being in harmony with all creation made YHVH Elohim’s presence seem natural and noninvasive. They were naked and unashamed. The man and his wife could confront each other, view each other exposed, without embarrassment. The sense of impropriety that derives from suspicion and fear of what others might be thinking regarding one’s exposure remained as yet unknown to them. Like small children frolicking in their nakedness, they felt no shame. The sight of each other’s nudity aroused no passionate reactions. Their eyes accepted their exposures without provoking the imagination and inciting the appetite. They were at peace with themselves, with each other, and with the universe. The biblical author thus continues to set the stage for the momentous events about to transpire, leaving it to the attentive reader or listener to recreate the transitional events, each in accordance with his understanding. Although the narrative makes no mention of it, the initial encounter between the man and the woman must have been awkward, to say the least. When two people meet for the first time, there is almost a compulsion to speak to each other. Silence under such circumstances can be most discomfiting. Indeed, silence in the presence of another person can be unnerving, making one long to be alone where the silence is less oppressive. Yet, what

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could the man and woman talk about? Like two victims of total amnesia, they were mature adults without a past, without common experiences to share with each other, points of reference around which to weave a conversation. The man could perhaps have briefly described the world outside the garden, drawing contrasts with the world within. More importantly, we are justified in assuming that he conveyed to her the absolute prohibition against eating of the fruit of the specially designated tree in the midst of the garden. This injunction, in view of subsequent events, clearly applied to the woman as well as the man, even though the biblical author does not indicate how she came to be aware of it. Judging from what transpires subsequently, the man may even have attempted to go beyond the intent of the injunction by indicating to her that not only was the fruit of the tree forbidden, but the tree itself could not be touched without incurring the threatened penalty. Perhaps because she had heard the injunction not directly from the Creator, as had the man, but only from the lips of the man who was her equal, there was a greater danger that she might be tempted to disobey. The added, but unauthorized, injunction against touching the tree might help to ensure that she keep sufficient distance from the forbidden fruit to forestall temptation that might arise through proximity. Were this assumption valid, man’s extension of the divine injunction would represent the first instance, albeit implicit, of human legislative action, the promulgation of a rule consciously designed to constrain potentially undesirable behavior. The man did not stay with her very long at first. Perhaps the strain of contrived conversation was too great to bear for very long. The initial conversation was undoubtedly quite brief; they really had very little to say to each other as yet. In any event, the man soon left her alone, perhaps having gone off to tend other parts of the garden. The woman, left alone, probably began to wander about and explore the garden, familiarizing herself with it and its contents. She may also have begun to wonder about why contact with one particular tree out of the many in the garden should be absolutely forbidden to them. At this point, the scene was fully set for the first critical test of man’s moral autonomy, the relationship between God and man, and the efficacy of the patriarchal principle. NOTES 1. The Hebrew word employed in this text to denote God, Elohim, is rendered in the plural form of the generic term for deity, El or Eloha. As pointed out by M. H. Segal, the linguistic relation of these names to each other is uncertain. The usual plural of El is Elim, and the singular form Eloha, which is used only in poetry, first appears in the Pentateuch in Deut. 32:15. See his The Pentateuch: Its Composition and Its Authorship, and Other Biblical Studies, p. 104.

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2. Samson Raphael Hirsch renders the clause as “Let us make Adam (a representative) in a form worthy of Us as is commensurate with being in Our likeness” (The Pentateuch on Gen. 1:26). 3. Elie Munk argued that “the order given to the human race to subdue the earth implies the right to be master of and transform the earth’s riches and resources and to appropriate them freely. . . . Hence, man-made laws must protect the rights of ownership and condemn any damage done to another’s property as a violation of a Divine right and as an affront to God. Founded on an inalienable God-given right, the norms of ownership offer absolute guarantees which no other reason advanced by men, be it occupation, accession, natural law, prescription, or social utility, can ever supplant” (The Call of the Torah on Gen. 1:28). 4. St. Augustine wrote: “He did not intend that His rational creature, who was made in His image, should have dominion over anything but the irrational creation— not man over man, but man over the beasts” (The City of God, 19:15, p. 693). 5. Maimonides suggested that it was “on account of the Divine intellect with which man has been endowed, he is said to have been made in the form and likeness of the Almighty” (Guide of the Perplexed 1:1). Judah Loew ben Bezalel (Maharal of Prague), in contrast, considered the principal attribute that exemplified the divine in man to be volition. “Man, who was created in the image of God,” he wrote, “has this distinguishing characteristic, that by virtue of his own volition he is as the Blessed Name who does as He pleases; and thus man has the power to do as he desires. He is one who wills” (Derekh Hayyim, p. 112). 6. Much has been made by scholars of the Bible over the evident repetition of the creation story, but with significant differences, most especially the different names of God employed in the two versions. Although this appears to lend credence to the documentary hypothesis of the Higher Criticism, this writer remains unconvinced by it because there is an equally plausible and simpler explanation predicated on the idea that the different names of God do indeed have different connotations. The first version is an “objective” telling of the creation story from an impersonal perspective. The second version, and the name of God used in it, tells the same story from a providential perspective, and it is the latter that is of special import to the moral history of mankind. This insight is derived from Naftali Z. Berlin, HaAmek Davar on Gen. 2:4. 7. Because the original Hebrew text of the Torah scroll is written without diacritical marks indicating vowels, the correct pronunciation of these four consonants is unknown. Also, because according to Judaic tradition the Tetragrammaton was to remain ineffable, there is no transmitted oral tradition regarding its pronunciation. The common use by many writers of such forms as “Jehovah” and “Yahweh” represents mere conjecture and is without a solid basis. The convention adopted in Judaism is therefore to render YHVH orally as Adonai, meaning Lord. Thus, except where the biblical Hebrew text actually uses the word Adonai, the English term “Lord” may be assumed to be the equivalent of YHVH. 8. This interpretation is based on that given by Ben-Zion Firer in his Hegyonah shel Torah, vol. 1, p. 16, which in turn is based on the distinction drawn by the sages of the Talmud (Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Hullin 4a–b) between two forms of apostasy. 9. See Jon D. Levenson, Sinai and Zion, p. 130, and Nahum Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis, p. 20, n. 13.

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10. This interpretation disregards the numerous geographical anomalies that would result from the textual linkage of the Gihon with the land of Cush, were one to assume that the biblical author is concerned with geographical accuracy, something that is not at all evident in his relating of these myths. It is also conceivable that the biblical author is implicitly suggesting that such common origins account for some of the similarities between the Mesopotamian myths and the legends of Genesis. 11. The paradigmatic implications of this distinction is explored at length in chapter 2 of the author’s Between Man and God: Issues in Judaic Thought (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2001).

Chapter 2

Man against God: The Myth of the Primal Sin

I

n elaborating the myth of the Garden of Eden, the biblical author focuses on a single fundamental issue, the authority relationship between God and man. What demands does God make on His creation, archetypal man? Only one, namely, man’s conscious subordination of his will to that of his divine parent and mentor. In Mosaic political thought, this is the primary rule of the road through human history to which the principle of patriarchalism demands compliance. It is this rule that is to be put to an initial test, and the instrument of that test is to be a creature produced by the earth at divine command, a serpent. In considering the biblical narrative that follows, the reader should bear in mind that myths, by their very nature and purpose, are to be taken not literally but figuratively, as in the case of allegory and metaphor. Thus, when the biblical author speaks of a serpent communicating with a person and cites the conversation that took place, one should automatically insert the qualifier “as if” into the text. That is, the statement should be read “as if ” the serpent said such and such. We must constantly remind ourselves that the purpose of myth is to explain the unknowable and inaccessible. Nowhere is this more evident than in the biblical description of the commission of the primal transgression of man against the wishes of the Creator.

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3:1. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which YHVH Elohim had made. And he said unto the woman: “Yea, hath Elohim said: Ye shall not eat of any tree of the garden?” 3:2. And the woman said unto the serpent: “Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; [3:3.] but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, Elohim hath said: Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.” 3:4. And the serpent said unto the woman: “Ye shall not surely die; [3:5.] for Elohim doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as Elohim, knowing good and evil.” 3:6. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.

The imagery of this passage will leave the careful reader bewildered. Is the biblical author really trying to tell us how clever the serpent was, after having gone to substantial lengths to emphasize the uniqueness of man as a rational being as opposed to the instinct-driven creatures of the natural world? This story begs for interpretation, and what follows is how it might be understood to be consistent with both what has taken place previously and with what will occur later. Nothing more than idle curiosity may have brought the woman to the center of the garden to view the forbidden tree. Perhaps to her surprise, it was not noticeably different from the other trees of the garden. There was nothing perceptible about it to suggest why this particular tree had been singled out for such special treatment. As she approached closer to the tree, the woman presumably began to reflect on what her husband had told her concerning it. God had warned that eating of the fruit of the tree would result in death. Indeed, Adam had warned her that even touching it was prohibited. But for what reason had he done so? Why was she instructed to avoid any contact with the tree, particularly when its fruit appeared so tempting? Was it simply because she really could eat of it if she so chose? Could she truly choose to do that which the Creator had forbidden? Moreover, if she ate of the fruit of the tree, would the threatened death come as a result of the ingestion of the fruit or from some other unspecified cause? That is, was there something inherent in the fruit that would cause her demise? It didn’t seem reasonable that such would be the case. The fruit of the forbidden tree looked identical to that of the other trees in the garden. How could the fruit be poisonous only when taken from this particular tree? Wouldn’t that violate the laws of nature? Common sense told her that it just couldn’t be the fruit itself that was harmful! As she pondered these questions, likely she noticed a serpent coiled around the trunk and branches of the tree.1 The sight surely startled her and set her on a new course of thought. How is it possible that man, who is supposed to be superior in some respects to the rest of the creatures of the earth, is

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forbidden to even touch the tree but a mere serpent is permitted to indulge itself with impunity! This was incomprehensible. Suppose, she reasoned, the Creator had forbidden man to eat from any of the trees in the garden, effectively leaving him without a source of sustenance. Would that be sufficient reason for starving and thereby incurring the same penalty of death as she would for disobeying the divine injunction? Moreover, if the fruit of the trees were bad for man, why would God have planted them in the garden? But, of course, the fruit of the trees in the garden is not forbidden to man, with the single exception of the fruit from this particular tree. This tree may not even be touched, lest ye die. Yet, the serpent is in contact with the tree without suffering any apparent ill effects. It is still alive! Contemplating the serpent, the woman may have concluded that she was nothing less than the butt of some cosmic joke. In her physical being, she was subject to the same laws of nature as the rest of the animal world. The fruit of this tree was no different than the fruit of the other trees, from which she ate without restriction. Moreover, the serpent was clearly touching this tree, and had perhaps eaten of its fruit as well, without suffering any ill as a result. The tree was not poisoned, she concluded, and nothing would happen to her if either she touched it or ate of its fruit. Indeed, once she drew the analogy between man and animal, there was no longer anything to deter her from violating the command given, not to the animals, but only to man. She was evidently now certain that were she to partake of the forbidden fruit, she would be acting in a manner consistent with her intrinsic nature. Her very desire to eat of the tree was itself natural and therefore in consonance with the order of nature. In that case, what were the purpose and significance of the injunction to refrain from eating of the tree? It evidently could not be because the fruit itself was deadly. That would be unnatural, since the fruit was identical to the fruit of other similar trees. Moreover, that the threatened penalty for violation of the injunction was as unequivocal as her husband had made it sound seemed unlikely. It was probably only a rhetorical threat designed to dissuade them from eating the fruit for a reason she could not imagine. Following this line of rationalization, she must have concluded that the Creator did not really mean thou shalt surely die, as her mate had reported, but intended a more cautionary lest ye die, as one might have inferred from the behavior of the serpent. But why this charade? Perhaps, she may have reasoned, because eating of the tree will not bring death in its wake, but will yield something of inherent value the Creator did not wish to share with man. There must be something about the fruit of this particular tree that transcends nature and therefore has no effect on what is natural to man and animal alike. It must contain an intangible quality that when ingested by man will truly elevate him above the rest of nature, making him godlike. But what would it mean to be godlike? Presumably it would mean that man would be able to exercise

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complete independence of will, making him truly capable of autonomous choice. It did not occur to the woman that she already possessed that which she imagined to inhere in the forbidden fruit. Through such or similar rationalization she overcame her fear of the penalty supposedly to be incurred by violation of the divine injunction. Having reached that point, she proceeded to commit the primal transgression of man against God. The woman now looked at the forbidden fruit more closely. It became more appealing by the moment. Her appetite for it was soon fully aroused as it became an object of intense desire. The more she gazed at it, the more she became enamored with the idea of obtaining the secret power the Creator wished to deny to man. The thought of having the power of choice entranced her. Yes, she would take the chance; since nothing seemed to happen to the serpent, she too would escape any undesirable consequences. She thus plucked a fruit and ate. Then, she waited—and wondered. How would the secret locked within the forbidden fruit manifest itself? What sensible change might it produce in her? As she waited in vain for a perceptible change to take place, she must have begun to worry. If she sensed no change in herself as a result of eating the fruit, what was the meaning of the whole business? Why the command forbidding the eating of the fruit, accompanied by such a dire threat of punishment? Her earlier self-assurance began to dissipate. What had she done? She had violated the explicit command of the Creator for nothing. She was no different now than before. The woman had deceived herself into believing the forbidden fruit would bring about a transformation that would enhance her position relative to the rest of creation. She had challenged the Creator and yet failed to achieve anything. Now what would happen to her? She felt the same, but was she really the same? What if the threat were not of an immediate death but, rather, of a death to come at another time of the Creator’s choosing, a death without forewarning? Her anxiety soon turned into fear. Were she to die, her husband would remain alive and once again without a mate, without a counterpart and helper. Was she simply expendable? Would the Creator simply fashion another woman to replace her? How could she save herself from the Creator’s retribution? The biblical author suggests she concluded that her salvation lay in enticing her husband to eat of the forbidden fruit as well. Should he too violate the divine injunction, whatever fate awaited her would await him as well. Perhaps the Creator would not wish to destroy mankind entirely. If such were to be man’s fate, however, at least she would not have to face the unknown alone. She knew well the despair of loneliness from her husband. He too would not wish to contemplate the possibility of an indeterminate future of solitude once again. She felt convinced he would be willing to share her fate.

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Perhaps by coincidence, perhaps by design, the man now reappeared on the scene. Seeing his wife beside the forbidden tree caused him no little anxiety. When he approached her and saw the troubled expression on her face, he knew what she had done. He said nothing. What could he possibly say of significance in light of her flagrant violation of the divine command? His wife too had nothing to say to him. She simply and silently held out a fruit to him and beckoned him to eat of it. What thoughts must have raced through his mind at that moment: “The woman will die and I will be alone once again. Perhaps the Creator will provide another companion for me. Perhaps He will not.” A quick reflection on the past would have evoked memories of the unspeakable loneliness he had suffered before the woman was created as his help meet. Content with his companion, he did not wish to be separated from her, to face the unknown future alone. Were he to eat the forbidden fruit, he too would incur the threatened punishment. He would join his wife in facing death. But what was death? Never having witnessed the death of a human, how could he know what it signified? Surely it was different from the cessation of vitality that affected the rest of the creatures, just as his creation had been different. He could not know whether death was a state of being or simply nothingness. When he had received the divine imperative, he had not thought about the nature of the penalty for disobedience. That he had been commanded to avoid eating from the forbidden tree was sufficient. To weigh the alternatives of life or death never occurred to him. His wife, however, for reasons he neither knew nor attempted to discover, had elected to risk the unknown for the expectation of immediate gratification. What should he do? Eat and risk death, or abstain and witness the death of his most intimate companion? Yet, another alternative was open to him. He could eat from the tree of life first, effectively inuring himself to the threat of death and thereby enabling him to eat from the forbidden tree without fear of adverse consequences. His electing to do this would clearly have indicated his acknowledgment of divine authority and his obligation to comply with God’s instructions. However, it would not have resolved his dilemma. For him to eat of the tree of life now would be quite meaningless. Not for a moment had he contemplated violating the divine injunction; the forbidden fruit held out no temptation for him. For him, the critical issue was whether he could stand the loss of his wife, who had unfortunately not understood the significance of the tree of life and had therefore failed to take advantage of its mitigating power. His eating from the tree of life would now have the same effect as his not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In either case he would live, but his wife would not. The choice he had to make was to risk facing the future alone or to join her in facing the great unknown, death, together.

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What was he actually venturing should he risk death along with his wife? Nothing visible had happened to her yet. Would he prefer not to run the risk but merely stand by and watch as something awful happened to her? Would that be worse than the feared loneliness that would await him in the end? No! It would be better, more bearable, to face whatever lay ahead if they were to do so together. Without a word, the man accepted the fruit from his wife and ate it. In these few cryptic sentences, the biblical author tells us of the so-called fall of man. In the first test of its humanity, mankind failed. Both the man and the woman had violated the moral order designed to emphasize and characterize mankind’s difference from the rest of creation, which is subject only to the natural order of things. The woman had yielded to external temptation, and the man to inner desire; she, to what appealed to her appetite, and he, to what appealed to his heart. They both surrendered control of their wills to emotion rather than to reason. Both had transgressed against their Creator! Having committed the forbidden act, the man and his wife braced themselves for what was to come. Not knowing what to expect, they surely eyed each other in anxious anticipation of perceptible changes. Nothing visible had taken place. But as they continued to look at each other, they began to perceive that something significant had already happened to them. 3:7. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves girdles.

They had become aware of each other in a way vastly different than before. They had always been naked, but now they knew that they were naked! 2 Whereas previously they had been able to confront each other in their nakedness without embarrassment, now they began to feel uncomfortable in each other’s presence. A sense of vulnerability came over them. They felt exposed, without protection. They looked at the animals around them and then at themselves, and their discomfort increased. They now experienced a feeling unknown to them before. Fully conscious of their nakedness, they experienced a sense of shame. The animals were also naked, but they did not exhibit any inclination or attempt to shield their exposure. Why, and in what way, were they different in this regard? Their eyes were opened and they saw things now that they had never noticed before. Was this what it was like to be as Elohim, as the serpent had taunted? Of course, the humans’ bodily configurations were quite different from those of the animals. The latter, going for the most part on all fours, did not directly expose their genitalia to one another, nor did they visually affect or incite one another’s passions. With the man and the woman, however, such was not the case. They now found the sight of each other’s nakedness arousing and embarrassing. It seemed appropriate to artificially

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restrict their view of each other. Thus they took large fig leaves and sewed them together with grass and vines and made coverings for their bodies, thereby effectively concealing the exposure that made them experience a consciousness of shame. Presumably all this occurred late in the afternoon, when the evening breeze began to waft through the garden, causing the leaves of the trees to rustle. As the sounds caused by the breeze attracted their attention, they imagined that they heard a voice. 3:8. And they heard the voice of YHVH Elohim walking in the garden toward the cool of the day; and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of YHVH Elohim amongst the trees of the garden.

They suddenly became acutely aware of the moral distinction between the perceptions conveyed to them by their visual and aural senses. Their current distress was the consequence of having permitted what seemed attractive to the eyes to determine their behavior, instead of giving greater priority to the moral imperative that they had heard. Now, their lives were in the hands of what they could not see. The man had previously heard the Creator in his mind, and now it seemed that they both could actually hear His voice in the garden, growing fainter as it seemed to move away from them. The commanding presence that had been there as long as they could remember seemed to be withdrawing, moving through the garden. It was as though a protective blanket were being removed from them. In an intuitive reaction born of fear the couple hid themselves among the trees as if they would find protection there against that which now frightened them. Where they once found comfort and a sense of security and well-being in the divine presence, they now felt estrangement; their sense of security had been transformed into a sense of impending disaster. Unexpectedly, the Creator does not wreak the anticipated retribution upon the perpetrators, the transgressors of the divine imperative. Although the penalty for disobedience was fixed beforehand, it is not automatically invoked. Instead, we are treated to the description of a calm and dispassionate divine inquiry into the matter, much as one would hope to find in a human court of justice. We presume that the Creator is fully aware of what took place as well as the innermost reasons for the delinquent behavior of the primeval couple. Yet, nothing is assumed in the inquiry. Each of the accused is given the fullest opportunity to make a case in his self-defense. The man is the first in the docket; it was to him that the divine command was directly communicated. 3:9. And YHVH Elohim called unto the man, and said unto him: “Where art thou?” 3:10. And he said: “I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” 3:11. And He said: “Who told thee

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that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” 3:12. And the man said: “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.”

The inquiry begins with the disarming question, “Where art thou? ” Obviously, this is not a question about physical location. The Creator surely knows where the man is to be found. What evidently is being asked is, where do you stand? What posture have you adopted with regard to your moral obligations to your Maker?3 The man, however, does not seem to recognize the essentially rhetorical nature of the question and naively takes it literally as referring to his physical whereabouts. He answers accordingly. He heard the movement of the presence of the Creator in the garden, felt exposed, naked and vulnerable, and hid in an act of self-protection. His response is disappointing and appears a bit disingenuous. If genuine, his response clearly reflects a surprisingly naive understanding of everything that transpired earlier. He had failed to grasp the reality of the Creator’s omnipresence and omniscience. Perhaps this failure was a reflection of his still inadequate preparation for the role assigned to him in the divine scheme. With the man’s response serving as the basis for further inquiry, the questioning became sharper and more direct. How did he conclude he was naked? Since he had always been in the same physical state, what had led him to sense that something was wrong, that his condition required amelioration? Was it that he had violated the express command to abstain from the forbidden fruit, and that it was this act that led him to his new mode of selfawareness? The man now began to recognize the rhetorical character of the questions posed to him. Obviously, the Creator knew he had eaten of the forbidden fruit and was merely affording him an opportunity to explain his action. It was crucial that the man make the most of the opportunity given to him to explain his conduct, but what could he say to excuse his transgression? How could he respond to the Creator’s challenge? Indeed, what had made him suddenly conscious of his nakedness when, in fact, he had been in that condition all along? Was something inherent in the fruit, some potion that affected how he now saw things? Or was his strange new sense of awareness a consequence of the very act of disobedience? Was this awareness to be understood as a punishment for violating the divine injunction? Was there any correlation between this sense of awareness and something imperceptibly present in the fruit of this special tree? Could it be that being oblivious to their nakedness, as they were before, was preferred to the way they perceived themselves now? Was this what the prohibition of eating from the tree was intended to teach, that the good and the right consists in obeying the wishes of the Creator, and evil and wrong, in acts of defiance? According to the biblical author, when Elohim established the natural order of the universe, He characterized everything created as good. Could the

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good for man consist of his being in harmony with the natural order and in carrying out the unique role assigned to him in the divine scheme, whereas its opposite, evil, referred to his deliberate disruption of that fundamental harmony? The man could not answer. Each question suggested only more questions. The Creator’s first challenge to the man could be answered only with profound silence. The second question posed to the man was different in character. It related to a matter of fact. Yes, of course he had eaten of the forbidden fruit. But why had he done so? The reasons that seemed so compelling before the act no longer struck the man as very significant. He could not bring himself to offer them to the Creator in explanation of his transgression. It seemed more appropriate for him to adopt a rather different, albeit somewhat disingenuous, approach in his response. Instead of appearing contrite, he would assume a posture of presumptive innocence. He would imply that he had not made a deliberate and arrogant choice for disobedience. On the contrary, he would suggest that a combination of circumstances, over which he had no control, had brought about his transgression. Indeed, if fault lay anywhere, it was with the Creator and not His creature. Was it conceivable, after all, that a mere human could contravene the divine will if the Creator did not so desire? The man explained that he never had any intention of violating the prohibition. In fact, he had gone so far as to increase the scope of the injunction to forbid even contact with the tree itself, whereas the Creator had pronounced a ban only on the fruit of the tree. The man’s amplification of the divine commandment reflected his desire to insure against inadvertent violation of the injunction by forcing himself and his wife to maintain their distance from the tree and thereby most certainly from its fruit. However, when the Creator fashioned the woman to be man’s counterpart, the man accepted her as a complete equal, fully sharing with him the burdens of the great responsibilities assigned to man. Surely, the man reasoned, since she was brought to him to assist in carrying out mankind’s appointed mission, she would not do anything deliberately to impede its achievement. She would not deliberately cause him to violate the command he received directly from the Creator. Indeed, he was not even sure it was possible for her to do so. Accordingly, he declared, he acted on the presumption the Creator had granted a special dispensation to eat of the forbidden tree. The man’s defense was simple: The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. When she handed him the fruit and beckoned him to eat, he simply surmised that it was with the Creator’s blessing, in accordance with His wish. He assumed God had revoked His ban against the tree and had communicated this fact to his wife, his equal in all respects. Therefore he ate the fruit; not in any act of deliberate disobedience of the Creator but, rather, in fulfillment of His earlier positive instruction to eat of all the trees of the garden. Since he assumed the specific

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exception to that rule had been lifted, he ate the fruit. Indeed, were there not now this cloud over his having eaten from the tree, he would have continued to do so with the certainty that it was now permissible. And because his was an innocent mistake, he had no reason to inure himself to the promised penalty by eating first of the tree of life. The Creator then turned to the woman to afford her an equal opportunity to vindicate her role in the affair. Having heard her mate’s testimony, what had she to say in her defense? Since she clearly knew she had received no special authorization from the Creator to disregard His prohibition, how did she account for her behavior? What had she done to cause her husband to draw such a fallacious inference regarding the permissibility of what had been forbidden? The woman could have responded by arguing that all she had done was to offer the fruit to her husband. She had made no overt attempt to convince him through word or deed that it was permissible to eat the fruit. Moreover, the man was under no external compulsion to eat it simply because she offered it to him. That she herself had transgressed the prohibition was not at issue. She made no attempt to absolve herself of blame for her violation of the injunction. Of course her husband had told her about the restriction, but she had received it secondhand. It was he who had heard it directly from the Creator. Was it not a shoddy business for her mate to try to absolve himself of any blame by attributing fault to the Creator and castigating his spouse as the instrument of his corruption? Was this the same person she had become so attached to upon first seeing the light of day? Was his peculiar stance in the affair also a consequence of his having eaten of the tree? Was it not strange, if not also amusing, that her husband, the Creator’s lieutenant on earth, should cast himself as the innocent victim of a deception by a domineering wife? However, the damage had already been done. Nothing could be gained by contradicting and openly challenging her spouse. Perhaps her affection for him made her willing to bear the brunt of the consequences of his misdeed as well as her own. Her silence with regard to her husband’s charge against her surely reflected her compassion for his obvious torment over what had happened. In the final analysis, what had actually precipitated this whole sequence of events? How came she to be in this uncomfortable and untenable position, confronted by the direct challenge of the Creator? How could she respond? How did she come to violate the prohibition in the first place? Of course, it was the serpent that led her to transgress the divine injunction! 3:13. And YHVH Elohim said unto the woman: “What is this thou hast done?” And the woman said: “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.”

Her excuse was that she was misled by the serpent’s flagrant violation of the command not to touch the tree, let alone eat from its fruit. It was the

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serpent’s actions that caused her to do that which had been forbidden. After all, did not the divine ban apply to the other creatures as well as to man? It had never been clear to her that there was an essential difference between man and the animals, a difference that would have led her to conclude that the prohibition against contact with the tree was not universal, that it applied exclusively to man. In effect, her defense was that she had been deceived by nature. The behavior of the serpent beguiled her and led her astray. After all, the serpent, as one of the creatures of the earth, was governed by the order of nature, an order established by the Creator. She was therefore justified in assuming that it really was the divine wish that man partake of the secrets locked up in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If the serpent was able to mislead her, it must have been because the Creator so desired it. And if this was the case, she could not have done otherwise. The argument she offered in her defense was deceptively simple. As a creature completely subject to the laws of nature, the serpent could clearly not have acted of its own volition. Only man, who was created in the image of the Creator, had the innate capacity to commit an act of will. In effect, she had adopted the very argument used by her husband, casting the real blame on the Creator, with the serpent merely serving as the unwitting instrument of her corruption. After hearing the testimony of the accused, the Creator rendered His judgment. No inquiry was directed to the serpent. It had no possible excuse or explanation. The woman, of course, was right. The serpent, without a will of its own, could not have deliberately subverted her. As was the case with the rest of creation, the serpent served a specific function within the natural order. It was a creature governed by instinct, not volition. Man alone among all creation was imbued with that spark of divinity that gave him the capacity to make moral choices, to act deliberately. However, if the serpent, acting in accordance with its natural instinctive behavior, could serve unwittingly as a contributing factor to man’s violation of the divine imperative to man’s own detriment, it must be kept away from mankind in the future. Indeed, such would be the fate of any created being that even inadvertently served to distort man’s true perception of himself and his place and role in the universe4. Obviously, a being that acts in accordance with its fundamental nature cannot be guilty of a moral transgression. But for man’s sake, it may become necessary on occasion to deal with such creatures as though they were guilty of a deliberate contravention of the divine intent and plan. The Creator therefore condemned the serpent to perpetual enmity with man. 3:14. And YHVH Elohim said unto the serpent: “Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou from among all cattle, and from among all beasts of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.

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[3:15.] And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; they shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise their heel.”

The natural behavior of the serpent would now be perceived by man in such a manner as to evoke abhorrence, revulsion, and fear rather than emulation. The serpent’s writhing and slinking in the dust and lying under foot, its very unobtrusiveness, will be viewed by man as a threat to him. Man will be alienated from the serpent to a greater degree than other animals, even wild beasts. Moreover, its low state of esteem will forever serve as a reminder of its role in the moral downfall of primal man. Despite everything, the arguments offered by the accused in their defense were evidently deemed sufficient to mitigate imposition of the ultimate penalty of death. Clearly, man had not fully grasped the implications of the moral order, and perhaps the divine expectations of him exceeded his current abilities to fulfill them. Instead of wiping the slate of the universe clean of mankind and beginning anew, the Creator decided to take another approach to inculcating the desired values that might prospectively have more positive results. First, the prototypal couple would have to suffer exile from the paradise of the Garden of Eden. Second, the man and the woman would each also have to undergo an additional punishment for their transgressions. In describing the penalties to be incurred, the biblical author deftly accounts for the social realities of his time and the subsequent history of mankind by linking them with the events in the garden. Thus in meting out the appropriate punishments, the Creator first addresses the woman. 3:16. Unto the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”

Because she not only violated the divine prohibition herself but also contributed to her husband’s transgression, the woman would be condemned in perpetuity to conceive, bear, and nurture her offspring with greater travail, pain, and anguish than other creatures. The pain and trouble the woman will experience will be such that she will be compelled to renounce many of those things that make life enjoyable and burden free, both physically and mentally. In addition, she will henceforth experience an even greater need for companionship than will her spouse. Never having been without her mate, the woman could have had but little real comprehension and no experience of the loneliness that had so afflicted him before she entered his life. Now, an inherent fear and desire to avoid that oppressive loneliness will drive her to her husband, more so than ever before. However, as a result of these events, his attitude toward her will have undergone a change. Instead of showing the profound gratitude he exhibited earlier, he will now exact a price from

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her for his companionship. In clear contradiction of the natural equality of the man and the woman, as husband and wife, the man will now attempt to take advantage of the woman’s fundamental insecurity and protracted needs by imposing his will on her. The Creator did not make clear whether this abnormal and disharmonious relationship was to be the perpetual destiny of the woman’s descendants, as He did in the case of the serpent. Was this condition to last for a generation or for eternity? Not knowing the answer to this question would in itself constitute an additional source of frustration and anxiety. At the same time, the biblical author effectively justifies the appropriateness of the patriarchal order. Henceforth, throughout the entire Mosaic literary corpus, the exercise and transmission of moral and political authority is as a rule a masculine prerogative, with women playing sometimes critical but nonetheless subordinate roles.5 The woman’s severe punishment, as already noted, resulted from her own violation of the commandment against eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree in addition to her role in the subversion of her husband. By having arrogated the right to influence another to violate the Creator’s command, she assumed a posture of superiority to another human being by contriving to have him submit to her wish in preference to that of the Creator. Now she would of necessity have to struggle long and hard to regain in practice the equality with which she was originally endowed by divine design. Man’s natural inclination, henceforth, would be to dominate the woman in perpetual retribution for her earlier aspirations to superiority. Finally, the Creator directed his attention to the man, His appointed lieutenant on earth. The punishment to be inflicted on man is not only for the actual violation of the divine injunction against eating the fruit of the forbidden tree. It is also because he had the temerity to pay heed to the urging of the woman in preference to the explicit command of the Creator, thereby making his transgression so much more serious. He, who was fashioned from the dust of the earth, in the image of the Creator, and had been placed in the haven of Eden for his protection and education, would henceforth be denied the idyllic life he had enjoyed under the patronage of his now spurned master. Because he violated the prohibition against eating the forbidden fruit, he would no longer be able to nourish himself from the abundance of nature for which he had not toiled. He would now have to earn each morsel of food with dehumanizing labor. 3:17. And unto Adam He said: “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying: Thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. 3:18. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. 3:19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

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The earth, the source of his sustenance, would no longer readily yield its produce for human consumption. As though cursed, the earth would become seemingly barren for human purposes. Only through man’s renunciation of a life of leisure for one of labor would the earth once again begin to serve his needs. Man will need to glean his grain and make his bread from the grasses and plants of the earth. He will have to wage an unrelenting struggle with nature for possession of the earth, only to return in the end to the dust of that same earth from which he was formed. Henceforth, he would spend a great part of his life yoked to his labors like a beast of burden to obtain the food and shelter that were once his by divine beneficence. He will need to apply his gift of intelligence to finding means of reducing the overwhelming toil confronting him in the struggle for survival, aiming always at restoring the conditions that prevailed prior to his primal transgression. For the first time the man began to comprehend the full gravity of the transgression he had committed. He had consciously risked death, a danger the true meaning of which he could not grasp, for reasons that were not condoned by the Creator. Now, he would wonder if the necessity to labor hard to satisfy his essential needs were in itself a form of the death that he so casually risked. Could it be that because he would become more and more like the dumb beasts that spend most of their lives in the search for food, he was now being denied the lifestyle appropriate to the earthly representative of the Creator. Was this the death he should have feared more greatly? Was he to forfeit his divinely appointed role in the world and become but another species of brute nature, indistinguishable from the other creatures by his specifically human qualities? If this was not the death that had been threatened, then what was death and when and how would it strike him? Now the man understood his loss: He had renounced the certainty and serenity of the garden for the uncertainty and turbulence of a life to be lived in anticipation of death. How much more fortunate than he was his wife! True, she too would be subject to the same ultimate fate, but how much more inherently meaningful her life would be while awaiting the inevitable end. She, in herself, would be the bearer of new life, as would their female descendants after them. Thus, although their individual lives would eventually come to an end, in some manner life itself would continue to be replenished. Man would be mortal, but humankind would be immortal. Until this time the man did not know what to call his companion. He was “man,” and his wife, who formed from an integral part of him, was simply, “woman.” Now, he was able to conceive of an appropriate name for her. .

3:20. And the man called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

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As he came to understand her significance in the Creator’s design, he could now give her a name representative of her most unique characteristic, as he had earlier done with regard to the other created beings of the earth and the sky. He would henceforth refer to her in a manner that would reflect her special role in life. He called her Hava (Eve), the “life-giver.” He, in contrast, would remain Adam, the “man of the earth.” The man and his wife, Adam and Eve, had been endowed by the Creator with the uniquely human capacities to commit an act of will and to discipline that will by use of reason. From the very beginning, they were capable of choosing good or evil, right or wrong, the permitted or the forbidden, and now they had made a decisive choice. They had earlier known the bounty of unremitting good. Now they began to understand the nature of evil. They had freely chosen to defy the will of God, and now they had to pay the penalty for that choice. The idyllic life in the garden would now come to a premature end. Indeed, the garden itself would become superfluous. Planted for the benefit of archetypal man, it would be devoid of meaning and value without him. Yet, it would be without him. Man would have to be evicted from the garden into the outside world governed by the ordained laws of nature. That world would serve as a crucible in which man would ultimately be chastened until he once again merited the humane leisure and serenity of an Eden. The struggle would be hard and long until the tendency to yield to evil would be brought under man’s control once again, until his will to do good would be capable of overcoming the drive for self-gratification. It would not have sufficed simply to allow the man remain where he was, in the garden, and then merely transform the garden itself into a replica of the world outside. The garden now represented an even greater danger to man than the contingencies of brute nature. The tree of life was still in the garden. 3:22. And YHVH Elohim said: “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.” 3:23. Therefore YHVH Elohim sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

Adam, who previously displayed such disdain for the authority and power of the Creator, might be tempted once again to thwart His design. He had not troubled to eat of the tree of life before eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Had he done so, he would have demonstrated clearly that his violation of the Creator’s edict was the consequence not of rebellion but of irrepressible desire. Now, for the first time, he was truly confronted by the reality of his own mortality. What if he should now attempt to eat of the tree of life as a way of negating the divine decree? He would

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then deceive himself into thinking he was equal to the Creator and he had become immortal. He would come to understand too late that the part of man that derived from dust, from matter, was inherently mortal, but this mortality would be operative only if man transgressed the divine imperative. Having done that, man now knew he would die. Even as a blameless human, Adam would also, of necessity, have ultimately reached a mortal end, but he would have remained blissfully untroubled by a conscious awareness of death until it actually engulfed him. Such a person would have no need or desire for the tree of life because he would essentially be oblivious to the meaning of his own demise. Before his transgression, the tree had held no particular attraction for Adam. Now, however, he might attempt to eat of its fruit as a means of annulling the divine edict of punishment and so further aggravate his situation as to become incapable of self-redemption. He would not understand that the tree of life had real significance only before his transgression, not afterward. There was no magic potion in the tree or its fruit, just as there had been none in the forbidden fruit. It could not, as a part of creation, of itself act against the design of the Creator. It could not grant life when the Creator ordained death. But Adam, in his desperation, might imagine otherwise. This tree, therefore, now represented an even greater threat to man than the tree of knowledge. Man must be expelled from the garden for his own ultimate good, before the Creator deemed it necessary to destroy him altogether. Notwithstanding the need to expel man from the garden, the Creator does not simply abandon his creation. Man’s expulsion is, in the long run, principally for his own good. His mission in the universe has not been rescinded. Although the circumstances under which he is destined to struggle with nature will be radically different than originally anticipated, more arduous and often dehumanizing, he nonetheless remains a human, a creature fashioned in the image of Elohim. Divine providence continues to be extended to man, just as a loving but disappointed parent might be expected to continue to exhibit concern for a wayward child. Adam and Eve were expected to spend the first phase of their lives in the benign environment of the garden, which was to have served as their sheltered home and place of nurture. They were quite unprepared for the harshness of the world they were about to enter. 3:21. And YHVH Elohim made for Adam and his wife garments of skins, and clothed them.

The girdles they had earlier prepared for the purpose of covering their nakedness might, in principle, serve a moral purpose, but they were woefully inadequate for their physical needs outside the garden. The animals of the field and forest had thick skins, abundant hair, and furs to protect them

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from the ravages of the natural environment. Outside the garden, however, man and woman would be truly naked, exposed, and vulnerable. To help them survive their impending ordeal, the Creator intervened to prepare appropriate clothing for them, coverings to protect them in the world of nature. This was evidently something they were unable to do for themselves, a clear indication that they were expelled from the garden before they were adequately prepared to cope with the world outside. Accordingly, the Creator clothed them with artificial skins to enable them to compete effectively with the animals for the land, shelter, and food they would need for their survival. Presumably, He would continue to be concerned with their welfare until such time as they learned from their own experimentation and experience how best to overcome the challenges that lay before them. With this minimal preparation, Adam and Eve were directed to leave the garden. But, as the biblical author tells us implicitly, initially they did not do as they were instructed. They hesitated. Perhaps they glanced longingly toward the tree of life, wondering if it might yet save them from their impending ordeal. Before they could reach the deceptive conclusion that it could, however, and before they could act on it, the Creator expelled them from the garden. 3:24. So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way to the tree of life.

Once outside the garden, Adam and Eve evidently did not wander far from their former home, perhaps because they hoped they might now be forgiven and allowed to return. Perhaps they awaited an opportunity to reenter the garden if only to get at the fruit of the tree of life, which they may have believed could redeem them. The Creator, however, to preserve the tree of life as a symbolic reminder of the true nature of morality and good, barred their way. Their unearned return to the idyllic life of the garden would prove a greater curse to man than a blessing. Man had truly become a trustee of the knowledge of good and evil, and as such he became a participant in the creative process. He had to learn to use his knowledge and his other special faculties to begin to transform the world about him, to create his own Eden, one he would appreciate and nurture all the more because he had struggled mightily to bring it into being. The contents of myth of the Garden of Eden and the primal transgression of man against the Creator suggest layers of meaning that lend to a wide range of interpretations. Although these various meanings are intrinsically significant for a full comprehension of the biblical author’s project and purpose, they should nonetheless be understood to complement and supplement the myth’s political import. From this perspective, the purpose of the story is to explain that man was intended by his design to be a competent party

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to the divine covenant. This is demonstrated by man’s ability to violate the divine injunction. Indeed, only a person capable of autonomous decision is fit to enter into a contractual arrangement for which he can be held responsible and accountable. The failure of archetypal man, as it is depicted in the myth, is that when he was confronted by the necessity of making a moral choice, he chose poorly; the subsequently troubled history of man continues repeatedly to reflect that failure. Because the biblical author is presenting myth and not history, we must resist the temptation to ask what might have happened had Adam and Eve refused to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To answer such a question would be to create a work of fiction with no relation to reality. No alternative scenario exists for the myth because the story is intended to explain what is, not what may have been. Within the myth’s context, that Adam and Eve must have eaten from the forbidden tree accounts for man’s capacity for moral judgment, for his ability to discern between good and evil, and for the possibility man will be held accountable for his actions. In other words, the biblical author explains all ethics and politics as predicated on archetypal man’s moral autonomy, reflected in his ability to disobey the divine demand. NOTES 1. The interpretation of the episode presented here is derived from the commentary of Isaac Abravanel (Perush haTorah, p. 19b), where he argues that the Torah does not intend us to believe literally that the serpent spoke. Accordingly, he suggests we understand the passage as stating that the purported conversation between the woman and the serpent is merely a way of describing how the former interpreted the actions of the latter. 2. Maimonides commented on this passage: “It is not said: And the eyes of them both were opened, and they saw. For what was seen previously was exactly that which was seen afterwards. There had been no membrane over the eye that was now removed, but rather he entered upon another state in which he considered as bad things that he had not seen in that light before” (The Guide of the Perplexed, 1:2, p. 25). 3. See comment of Samson R. Hirsch, The Pentateuch on Gen. 3:9. 4. Hirsch suggests that “the strong antipathy implanted in mankind towards snakes may be meant to bring home to his mind that it was ‘animal wisdom’ that led him astray, and to remind him of the gulf that separates Man from animal,” The Pentateuch on Gen. 3:15. 5. There are some notable exceptions to this rule in the later biblical writings, where women assume or usurp the mantle of leadership, e.g., Deborah (Judg. 4–5) and Athaliah (2 Kgs. 11), respectively.

Chapter 3

Man against Man: Cain and Abel

A

fter the biblical author concludes his presentation of the myth of the emergence of archetypal man and his moral autonomy, he continues to elaborate on his central theme. He presents another myth that purports to explain the origins of social conflict, the disruption of the natural harmony between man and his fellow. He does this by continuing the general story line of the Garden of Eden myth, describing what took place after the expulsion from the garden. At that point, Adam and Eve began their struggle for dominance with nature and the building of human civilization, without the benefit of providential intervention. 4:1. And the man knew Eve his wife; and she conceived and bore Cain, and said: “I have gotten a man with the help of YHVH.” 4:2. And again she bore his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

Once man internalized the prospect of his personal demise, he came to understand that the potential for human immortality would be realized only through the continued regeneration of the species, rather than through the immortality of the individual. Since the Creator clearly did not intend to create any additional human beings by divine fiat, it was up to Adam and Eve to initiate the process of human procreation.

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In the biblical author’s simple but seemingly redundant statement, And the man knew Eve his wife, the biblical author incorporates a number of fundamental ideas he considered critical to a full understanding of the distinctions between man and the rest of the animal world. The first of these is that man would now have to compete with the creatures of the animal world for the effective possession of the land on which he would build his civilization. Endowed with the faculty of reason and the capacity to act through his own volition, man must repeatedly relearn that which the animal knows primarily by instinct. Man’s knowledge of the world is derived almost exclusively from experience. Thus, when Adam engages in the most intimate of relationships with Eve, he acquires a knowledge that transcends the merely physical act of cohabitation. He now knew Eve in a way he did not know her earlier. She had previously been his companion, his helper, but he did not really know her. Now their relationship has taken on a very different dimension. For to know a person is not the same as knowing about someone. Now Adam and Eve have shared a common experience characterized by a new sense of mutual need and fulfillment, and for the first time he truly knows her. He does not simply “come in unto her” [as sexual intimacy is usually expressed in the Bible] to satisfy a desire. Through their intimacy he now learns to empathize with and share her needs and concerns, and this leads him to know her. Knowing her is a prerequisite to loving her.1 Moreover, the biblical author further informs us that Adam’s intimacy with Eve transcends a casual relationship between a man and a woman. It is with Eve in the role of his wife that Adam consorts. Their physical union is undertaken not out of natural sexual need or desire alone but consciously for a higher purpose as well. Adam must take the necessary steps to begin the regenerative process to assure the future of humanity. His immediate concern is with producing the progeny that will carry out the mission assigned to man by the Creator once he is no longer able do so himself. However, these offspring must not merely be additional members of the same biological species. The children he wants and needs are those who will conduct their lives in a distinctively human fashion, keeping the animal in man under strict control. For this, man needs the nurture and discipline of the family. Thus, the relationship between Adam and Eve is that between a husband and wife; their physical togetherness had become filial in character. Eve had undoubtedly witnessed pregnancy and birth among the animals, yet she saw in her experience of childbirth something extraordinary. The child came into being through a natural process, unlike that which produced its parents. Neither Adam nor Eve had been born in the usual meaning of the word. Also, neither had ever been a child, nor had they ever seen a human life come into being. The mother, however, could produce the human infant only through the natural birth process; she could not endow it with those distinctive faculties that would make it a human being. Just as was the case with Adam, the infant would have to receive his humanity from the

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breath of the Creator. Thus, her simultaneous exclamation of joy and acknowledgment of the divine participation in the process reflected her confidence that her son would indeed assure the continuity of mankind, that the infant was acceptable to the Creator as heir to the divine mission assigned to man. With a son to aid him, Adam could turn with greater confidence to the awesome tasks that lay ahead. Through his labor and sweat, he would begin to transform the barren and unyielding earth into a veritable new Garden of Eden. He would recreate that which was once his, but which he had forfeited through his act of rebellion against the Creator. With his son at his side he would work the ground and, through great toil, force it to yield its bounty. There was little question about what Cain’s vocation would be as he grew. Obviously, he would become a “tiller of the ground” like his father. Presumably, he could have refused to comply with his father’s wish, just as his father had refused to comply with the demand of his divine parent. He could have argued to his parents that it was senseless to spend their lives grubbing in the ground for their sustenance. Surely there was sufficient natural produce growing in the wild to meet the immediate needs of the small primeval family. Yet, Cain did not make such an argument. He had learned from Adam the importance of the patriarchal principle. Cain accepted as his own the civilization-building obligation imposed on his father by the Creator. He understood that merely living off the land would not provide the basis for dominating it over the long run. Doing so would reduce man to a scavenger, competing for his food on the same terms as the other animals. This would not do. Man needed to recreate the haven from which he was cast out. This was essential if he were going to create an environment in which he would ultimately have the physical security and peace of mind necessary to pursue his higher calling as a human. Man must civilize the earth before he can begin to truly redeem himself. The struggle to force the earth to submit to man’s will was great and soon seemed unachievable without additional human assistance. More hands were needed to augment those of Adam and Cain. And so, Eve gave birth to another son, his brother Abel. That Abel was Cain’s brother seems too selfevident to merit explicit mention. This suggests that the biblical author had something far less obvious in mind. It seems likely that he is subtly introducing the concept of brotherhood. Abel was to share Cain’s burden out of a sense of mutual responsibility and interdependence. Together they would be better able to face the challenges and contingencies of nature. Together they might make strides toward overcoming the obstacles confronting mankind and begin to recreate the lost paradise. However, Abel evidently was not content to accept such a preordained role in the primeval world of Adam. He was not prepared to permit his family to decide for him how he would expend his energies and make use of his

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time. While yet young, Cain presumably had no hesitance about working to help supply Abel’s needs. Cain was, after all, Abel’s older brother, and brotherhood implied willingness to give of oneself on behalf of another. As Abel grew and demonstrated an increasing reluctance to share the burden of the labor engaged in by his father and brother, he decided to adopt an alternative vocation, one more palatable to his tastes, yet sufficiently productive to be acceptable in terms of the family’s needs. He chose to become a shepherd, presumably offering to his family, as his contribution to the general welfare, natural animal products such as milk and the cheese that could be made from it, as well as fleece from which they could fashion garments. In choosing such a non-traditional occupation, Abel consciously set himself apart from both his father and his brother. He simply would not voluntarily select an occupation so demanding on the body that the mind could not function properly from sheer exhaustion. Shepherding a flock of sheep was far less rigorous than physical labor on the land, and it allowed ample opportunity for reflection and contemplation. Moreover, although man’s assigned mission was to conquer the earth and subdue it, Abel may have concluded that the divine charge did not necessarily refer exclusively to the physical conquest of the earth. After all, the Creator had given man that mission before his parents had sinned in the Garden of Eden—the need to work the ground was man’s punishment, not his privilege. But if conquering the earth actually meant dominating that which existed on it, then wasn’t he, Abel, closer to accomplishing that than his father and brother? The shepherd, he could argue, clearly represents a domineering figure to the sheep. No! Abel would not become a slave to the earth, bound to it as were Adam and Cain. He would be free, and freedom demanded mastery, not servitude. He thus arrogated to himself the role of leader, for that is what a shepherd is to the sheep. Abel thereby set himself in opposition to his brother, whom he probably held in low esteem. An ominous line of cleavage was drawn between the two siblings.2 Cain understandably felt resentment at Abel’s attitude, and perhaps more especially at his brother’s ability to get his own way. Cain never saw himself as having an option with regard to his occupation, and now he was required to help support a brother who spent his time in comparative leisure, not slaving away to help produce the basic necessities for their subsistence as he was obligated to do. Nonetheless, Cain continued to perform his appointed tasks, following in the footsteps of his father, self-assured that he was carrying out the will and design of the Creator. Surely his parents must have frowned upon Abel’s aberrant behavior. They must have been deeply disappointed with their younger son. As time went on, Cain’s resentment toward his younger brother festered and grew. Cain continued to labor like a beast of burden, working and nurturing the earth until it surrendered its produce. At the same time Abel enjoyed a life of relative ease. To make things worse, Cain painfully recognized

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he was abetting Abel’s profligate lifestyle by providing him with the necessities of life and thus, in effect, subsidizing him. The biblical author does not indicate how Adam and Eve reacted to this state of affairs. Perhaps they had not fully realized their role and responsibility to teach their children the values that would contribute to family harmony. Apparently, they simply stood by and passively watched unfold before them the momentous events that would profoundly affect their lives. They would soon learn from experience the meaning of parenthood and its responsibilities. Cain must have felt frustrated and in great need of reassurance that his life was meaningful. The drudgery of grubbing in the earth took its toll on Cain, making Abel’s life and vocation seem ever more desirable despite its lesser importance to the family’s primitive economy. Was not Cain fulfilling the charge the Creator gave to his father? Was not his own labor more in accord with the divine plan than that of his brother? He desperately needed to believe that it was. But what indication did he have that such was indeed the case? The Creator had not seen fit to make His presence directly known to either of the sons. Cain therefore decided to take the initiative and seek Him out. How does one go about initiating a conversation with the Creator? How does one communicate with a being that transcends not only human comprehension but even man’s imagination? When the Creator initiates the divine-human dialogue, man has but to respond. But how is man to inaugurate such a dialogue and elicit a response from the Creator? In his primitive simplicity, Cain reasoned by analogy from human relations. How would he go about generating a dialogue with his estranged brother? He would offer him an inducement, something of value, an offering for which he had labored. Perhaps the Creator could also be induced to respond in the same manner. Cain decided to bring such an offering to the Creator to indicate his fervent desire to communicate with Him. Of course, the Creator had no need of anything Cain could possibly offer Him. He who created the universe and all that was in it could hardly have need of anything contained within that same universe. However, by sacrificing something man does need, something of intrinsic value to man, Cain would be elevating himself above the world of nature and begin to approach the realm of the divine. By voluntarily destroying something of significant value to him, man would at least momentarily repudiate the values of the material world and give tangible recognition to the higher meaning and purpose of human existence. And what would be more significant to Cain than the very fruit of the earth for which he labored so hard, and which was the very source of his great frustration? Nothing he could sacrifice would represent greater value to him. Surely this act of self-sacrifice, of forgoing the benefits of that for which he worked so hard, would induce the Creator to communicate to him, to indicate in some

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way that his labors were not without meaning. He desperately needed to know he was not consciously and senselessly wasting his life. He needed assurance that it was he and not his wastrel brother who was carrying out the wishes of the Creator. 4:3. And in the process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto YHVH.

The biblical writer remains silent about what took place. He tells us nothing of how and where Cain made his offering. Considering what emerged as the practice of later generations, we may assume Cain brought the offering to a high place, one overlooking the surrounding terrain, and left it there, perhaps expecting it to be consumed in some manner. Upon becoming aware of Cain’s intent to take a sacrifice to the Creator, Abel decided to do likewise. He had no motive for doing so. He was quite content with his life as compared to that of his brother, although he may have been disconcerted by Cain’s growing hostility toward him. In general, he appeared satisfied and grateful for the leisure his vocation afforded him. It was unfortunate that Cain had to labor so hard, thereby contributing to Abel’s sustenance, but Cain was not compelled to do so. He could have chosen to be a shepherd like Abel and not concern himself with following in his father’s footsteps. If the latter responsibility devolved upon the firstborn, then there was nothing that he, Abel, could do about it. Indeed, Abel probably felt grateful that it was Cain and not he who was the eldest and thus had to bear the burden of patriarchal responsibility, ensuring the support of the family. Yes, Cain’s idea of offering a sacrifice to the Creator was a good one. Abel had a great deal to be thankful for. He would select the best animal in his flocks and offer it as an expression of gratitude for the beneficence bestowed upon him. 4:4. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And YHVH had respect unto Abel and his offering; 4:5. but unto Cain and his offering He had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

Although the biblical author does not say so, we may assume that Abel brought his offering to the same site that Cain had chosen, slaughtered the lamb, and left it to be consumed in some manner. After making their offerings, Cain and Abel parted company once again. Abel, having made a wholly voluntary act of sacrifice, without any underlying motive other than simply to signify thankfulness and expecting nothing in return, went about his business. Cain, in contrast, waited eagerly for a sign of his vindication, a divine acknowledgment that his life was purposeful and that he would ultimately be rewarded for his efforts.

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Then a sign came. In some unexplained manner, it became evident to Cain that his offering was found unacceptable. Abel’s offering, however, was received favorably. Cain stood dumbfounded. His initial reaction was one of anger. He was furious at Abel, who had somehow intervened between him and the Creator and had improperly received the positive sign Cain so desired. Just how Abel managed to accomplish this remained unclear. Could something in the nature of the offering itself have made it more acceptable to the Creator? Cain had brought of the fruit of the ground, whereas Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. A fatted lamb was in itself perhaps a greater gift than some produce, but certainly not from the standpoint of the labor involved. Cain had to labor intensely for each kernel taken from the earth, whereas Abel merely selected the best of the flocks to which he gave so little of his energies. Indeed, the biblical author informs us quite clearly, albeit implicitly, that nothing intrinsic in the character of the offerings accounted for their different receptions. We are told that YHVH had respect unto Abel . . . but unto Cain . . . He had not respect. The difference lay with the one making the offering and not with the offering itself. Abel’s offering was more acceptable not because he was a better person than Cain or because his occupation was more honorable. More likely, the motivation for the offering is what made it distinctive. Abel’s offering was selfless, whereas Cain’s was self-serving. Cain’s sacrifice was calculated to evoke a favorable response. However, the response he ultimately received was not the response he had longed for. Instead of affirmation and reassurance, he encountered rejection and further doubt. Accordingly, Cain’s countenance fell. He became utterly dejected, hopelessly despondent. His soul-wearying labors were for naught. He had assumed that they were of great significance only to discover that he had nurtured an illusion. His brother was more fortunate than he. Having accused Abel of lacking a sense of family responsibility, Cain now saw his own self-professed responsibilities toward the family as nothing but self-delusions. He had made himself an unwitting slave of his brother, senselessly subordinating his own good for another’s. Earlier he had believed his labors would be rewarded, for surely the Creator understood and would appreciate his efforts. Now this too appeared to have been an illusion. In his emotional pain Cain failed to realize the Creator’s denial of the acknowledgment he so desired was unrelated to the quality of his offering. Nor was it related to his choice of vocation or his readiness for self-sacrifice. These were both highly commendable. The problem lay with Cain’s erroneous and vain assumption that he could place demands on, or perhaps even bribe, the Creator. Cain’s offering had indeed been rejected in favor of his brother’s—at least as far as Cain was concerned. That he was not involved in a contest with Abel for the Creator’s favor did not occur to him. He failed to understand that the acceptance of Abel’s offering was independent of the rejection of his own.

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His anger at Abel and his dejection over his failure were both misdirected. As Cain wallowed in self-pity, he failed to recognize that the Creator had indeed given him the sign he had wanted so much, though not in the manner he had expected to receive it. The Creator spoke to him—not to his brother Abel, whose offering had been accepted—to the one who had imagined he had been utterly rejected! 4:6. And YHVH said unto Cain: “Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? 4:7. If thou doest well, shall it not be lifted up? and if thou doest not well, sin coucheth at the door; and unto thee is its desire, but thou mayest rule over it.”

Cain had not been rejected. The non-acceptance of his offering represented nothing more than a reprimand. He had no reason to be angry, and certainly not with Abel. The acceptability of the latter’s offering served only to accentuate that which was wrong with Cain’s. The divine rebuke was not a condemnation. Cain, who had willingly accepted the burden of patriarchal responsibility for the future of humanity, was carrying out the divine charge. Mankind would begin to realize the possibility of recreating an Eden through his labors. He would carry out the mission assigned to his parents by the Creator through conquering and mastering the earth. In stark contrast, Abel’s view of life and man’s role in the universe would lead to no lasting developments. Asserting leadership over flocks of domesticated animals would not establish a stable civilization. His relatively idyllic pastoral life had little potential for providing the economic base needed for such a civilization to thrive. Cain had followed the more difficult but also the more immediately necessary path. And for this reason his understanding of the universe and the relationship between man and the Creator was a matter of grave concern. Cain failed to realize that he was being tested. More was being demanded of him than of his brother because his actions would have greater significance for the generations to come. Today he might have to labor as though he were himself a beast of burden, but there lay within him the creative capacity to discover ways of securing his existence that would afford him greater opportunities for leisure. But how would he make use of that leisure? His tenacity and creativity could lead him to a false sense of pride that could prove self-destructive. He therefore had to be chastened. He had to learn that he could not expect the Creator to act as he might expect another human to act. He had to learn to accept and carry out the wishes of the Creator, without the assurance of any compensation for so doing and without rendering and accepting his own judgment with regard to the ultimate value and importance of his contributions. He had to learn discipline, the discipline of morality and the discipline of self-control.

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The Creator therefore advised Cain that he had it within him to redeem himself. Cain had viewed Abel’s situation as the more blessed and felt envious of his brother. He would, if left alone, seek to emulate Abel at every opportunity, oblivious to the consideration that Abel’s path led nowhere by itself, that it had value only as an adjunct to the basic civilization-building endeavors of Cain. Accordingly, he is warned: If thou doest well, that is, if you restrain yourself from slavish emulation of the vanities pursued by your brother, you will soon realize that you have no reason for self-deprecation. But if thou doest not well, if you persist with your current inclinations, sin coucheth at the door, the opportunities for self-degradation, through surrender of that self-control that makes man uniquely different from the rest of the animal world, abound and are always readily available. However, Cain is also assured that he can achieve mastery of himself if he would but make the effort: unto thee is its desire, but thou mayest rule over it. He has the capacity to resist the morally corrupting influence of his brother and to emerge stronger and more determined from the experience. The divine rebuke succeeded in bringing Cain to the realization that he must take steps to regain mastery of his own being. But what did that entail? It was apparent that his current predicament was largely the consequence of the character of his relationship with his brother. Was it possible to change that relationship or even, if necessary, to sever it? Was it possible to alter the natural bond between two brothers? Cain became determined to redeem his self-respect. He concluded that it was indeed the Creator’s wish that he should become free from the negative influence of Abel’s example. If they were to continue to coexist in the future, certain fundamental changes in their relationship would have to take place. He would have to confront his brother over the matter. 4:8. And Cain spoke unto Abel his brother. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

The biblical author does not tell us what Cain said to his brother. But given what ensued following the conversation, I suggest it went something like this. Cain surely confronted Abel and told him what had happened subsequent to his offering of the sacrifice. Moreover, he probably charged Abel with being a corrupter of morals and the cause of his sense of despair. (Cain failed to recognize that his own inner weakness had led him to wish to mimic Abel, much as Eve had similarly attributed her inner failings to the external stimulus provided by the serpent.) Unless Abel were to fundamentally change his lifestyle and really share Cain’s burdens, the festering estrangement between them would have to be dealt with practically and decisively. Cain would no longer subsidize Abel’s profligacy by providing him with his basic sustenance.

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Unless Abel gave up his childish game of playing master to flocks of dumb beasts and joined him in the arduous task of transforming the earth, Cain would disavow any responsibility for him. The tenor of Abel’s response to Cain was evidently not what the latter wanted to hear. Abel was probably incredulous that the Creator would elect to speak with Cain, whose offering He rejected, in preference to him, whose offering had been accepted. He would therefore have assumed that Cain’s sense of self-importance had evidently clouded his judgment. After all, what was so special about being a farmer? True, he had enjoyed the benefits of Cain’s labors, but that did not mean that one could not live by means other than the cultivation of produce from the land. One could, if he so desired, live quite well on the wild fruits of the earth supplemented by the milk of his flocks. Adam and Cain’s obsession with transforming the earth into a Garden of Eden was nothing more than a utopian dream. Man had been cast out of Eden. He now needed to learn to use his wits to master the universe, not by imitating the plodding beasts, but by asserting leadership over them. If some men chose to live like beasts of burden, then it was only proper for those with the capacity to lead, such as he, to exploit them as well as the rest of the animals. If Cain wished to follow in his father’s footsteps to be a tiller of the ground, his choice had no compelling force for his brother. Abel would continue to live as he pleased. That his lifestyle disturbed Cain was unfortunate, but not a matter of great concern to him. He was obviously superior to Cain, since he had no desire whatever to emulate his older brother, whereas Cain seemed perturbed by Abel’s very presence. That Cain should subordinate himself to Abel’s leadership was thus quite proper. Were Cain truly concerned about the use of his leisure time if and when he actually had some, Abel would be more than happy to coach him. Firmly resolved to remove himself from the yoke of his younger brother’s influence, Cain felt an increasing need to dissociate from him. If Abel could live on wild fruit and milk, then let him do so. He, Cain, would continue to follow the proper path, the patriarchal path of Adam, and would under no circumstances yield to Abel’s arrogant assertions of authority. Moreover, he would no longer subsidize Abel. Indeed, as the elder of the two, he should more naturally be the one in authority, the leader. However, just as he had refused to accept Abel’s authority, so the latter refused to subordinate himself to the wishes of Cain. The only alternative was separation. Cain would cultivate his fields and Abel would pasture his flocks, and there would be no further interaction between them. This new arrangement, an antagonistic relationship, could not but create serious practical problems. As long as a spirit of brotherhood prevailed between Cain and Abel, mutually agreeable solutions to the knotty problems of territorial encroachment were possible. In the absence of such good will, the problems tended to become magnified. The brothers may have agreed

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to separate and may even have demarcated boundaries between the fields and pastures currently in use. However, conflict seemed inevitable as expansion took place. Grazing flocks will destroy crops unless they are restrained. Extensions of farming lands reduce the pasturage available for herding sheep and goats. In a world at the pre-civilization stage, without law to regulate the actions of men, such conflicts can be resolved peacefully only through good will. Absent the latter, violence seems unavoidable. Indeed, in the case at hand, violence was not long in coming. Once again the biblical author neglects to inform us about the particular event that precipitated Cain’s assault on his brother. He only advises us of the enormity of the act by his repetition that it was his brother who Cain killed. (Here we have the archetype of civil war, a violent conflict between brothers.) Was Cain’s act deliberate, premeditated? Or was it the result of a momentary loss of control, an act of passion? Regardless of the true answer, from the standpoint of the victim it made little difference. A momentous and devastating transgression had been committed. Cain had truly followed in the footsteps of his parents. Just as they had committed the first, the original, transgression by man against his Creator, Cain had now committed the first cardinal transgression by man against man. 4:9. And YHVH said unto Cain: “Where is Abel thy brother?” And he said: “I know not; am I my brother’s keeper?” 4:10. And He said: “What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground. [4:11.] And now cursed art thou from the ground, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand. [4:12.] When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be in the earth.”

The deed was done and was irrevocable. The intolerable yoke had been forcibly removed from Cain’s shoulders. No longer would he have to suffer the disconcerting presence of his brother. Abel would no longer serve as a thorn in his side. But what about the divine admonitions given to him? Were his actions consistent with the desires of the Creator? Did not the Creator advise him that he had the capacity to redeem himself in His eyes if he would but assert his natural mastery over his brother as well as himself? Had he not carried to its logical conclusion the thought that he could master the corrupting influence of his brother? What better way to insure against an influence than by eliminating it in its entirety? Cain felt satisfied with his actions. He experienced no remorse. It was necessary that Abel be killed, his presence eradicated. There was, however, one major difference between the transgression of Adam and Eve and that of their son. After Cain’s parents committed their transgressions against divine authority, they knew that what they had done was wrong. They felt shame and attempted to hide from the divine presence.

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This was not the case with Cain. He was complacent about his deed, convinced he had properly asserted the natural superiority over his brother that he had been granted by the Creator. By virtue of his vocation Cain was undoubtedly a keen observer of the workings of nature. In nature he observed a continual struggle for survival in which the naturally superior prevailed. As a farmer, he saw this struggle take place in the earth itself. However, the struggle of the plants and grasses for life seemed quite simple and innocent when compared with the ferocious struggle for life in the animal world. There, the struggle manifested itself in bloodshed and slaughter. The beasts and birds of prey survived only by their ability to kill. By comparison, the struggles of plant life seemed almost trite. (Indeed, this difference may have been one of the reasons why Cain had so little regard for the vocation chosen by Abel, a vocation that brought him into more intimate contact with the animal world.) Cain had always assumed that man, though physically part of nature, remained distinct from nature in that he was human. As such, man was not intended to adopt the mores of the animal world. He was not intended to kill, as did the animals. However, this simplistic view of man was shattered by Abel’s actions. When Abel brought his offering to the Creator, he did not restrict himself to sheep products such as milk or wool. Abel slaughtered his sheep and offered its flesh as the sacrifice. This act astounded Cain. How did Abel dare to behave like a beast of prey and destroy a living, animate being? But when Cain realized Abel’s offering had been acceptable to the Creator, the effect must have been traumatic. He then had reason to believe his understanding of the nature of man and his relationship to the natural world and its animal inhabitants had been entirely wrong. For if man’s essential humanity did not elevate him so far above brute nature that to take the life of an animal would be wrong—and if, indeed, the very act would instead meet with divine approbation—then why would it be wrong for man to take the life of another human? If man’s humanity does not preclude him from killing, then what difference does it make what he kills? Insofar as he is a part of nature, and to the extent that man’s behavior is unrestrained by that within him that transcends his animal nature, he must live in accordance with the divinely ordained laws of nature. Presumably when men are engaged in a struggle for survival among themselves, the superior man, following the dictates of nature, may destroy the inferior. He, Cain, had been engaged in such a struggle with his brother Abel. That he should destroy Abel was therefore consonant, by this reasoning, with the divinely ordained laws of nature. Cain had no reason to regret his action, which seemed eminently reasonable to him, given his new understanding of man’s relationship to the natural world. However, Cain was gravely mistaken. He had misunderstood the meaning of humanity and man’s place in the world of nature, and he would be held accountable for what he had done. Man had been specifically instructed

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to conquer the earth and subdue its creatures, but that was not intended to include other men, all of whom bear the stamp of the divine image. Once again, the Creator held an inquest concerning an act that man had freely chosen to carry out in contravention of divine guidance. As was the case with Cain’s forebears, here too the Creator proceeded in a manner designed to allow the maximum flexibility and opportunity for man to acknowledge his wrongdoing and attempt to make amends for it. The inquiry began with a simple yet subtle question about Abel’s whereabouts. Where is Abel thy brother? The question, of course, was rhetorical. God surely knew where Abel was to be found. The purpose of the query was, therefore, to put Cain on notice that it was more than a simple inquiry as to Abel’s physical location. The question also asked Cain about where his “brother” was, suggesting added significance in Abel’s being not just another human being but also one who stood in special relation to Cain by virtue of their having the same parents. If this was true for Cain and Abel, it must also be true for all other humans throughout the generations who similarly share a common ancestry. Exhibiting a trait typical of the self-righteous, Cain effectively made light of the query. With great but unwarranted self-assurance he provided two different responses to the composite question directed to him. First, with regard to Abel’s whereabouts, he pleaded ignorance. Of course, he knew where Abel’s body was, but then so did the Creator. Alternatively, perhaps the question should be understood as having asked, “Where is the human being Abel?” That is, what has happened to Abel, not as an animate creature but as a human? If this was the intent of the question, then Cain’s response was quite proper. Indeed, he did not know. With the death of Abel, all that remained of him was his lifeless body. Stripped of its humanity, it was but another dead natural organism. In response to the emphasis placed on the fact that Abel was his brother, implying thereby that Cain bore a special relationship to him on account of their kinship, Cain answered with a challenge that has resounded through the ages: Am I my brother’s keeper? In Cain’s view, he certainly bore no responsibility for his brother. The accident of birth from common parents created no special relationship between them. They were competitors in a struggle for supremacy. In that struggle, the naturally superior would win, whereas the inferior would meet whatever fate the divinely ordained natural order of things had in store for the vanquished. Had the Creator not indicated that this was the way things were supposed to be when He showed preferment to Abel’s offering? At the outset of his struggle with Abel, Cain was at a competitive disadvantage. It was Abel who had significant experience in striving with animals and was therefore more familiar with the nature of violence. Cain’s experience was limited to trying to keep the animals from encroaching on and trampling his crops, whereas Abel had to learn to fight the jackals and other predators that attacked his flocks. If it was Cain who prevailed in their

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struggle, it must have been because nature had so decreed. Why, then, was the Creator implying something was amiss? Did not the Creator himself establish the order of nature and ordain its laws? Why ask Cain about Abel, though they were brothers, though they were fellow human beings? For Cain to be responsible for Abel would mean that he and not the Creator was master of the universe. Obviously, if Abel was killed, it was because nature had decreed that it be so. If the Creator did not want him killed, why did He not intervene to protect him? Surely Cain could not have killed Abel without the Creator’s passive complicity. Accordingly, Cain was able to kill Abel only because the Creator wished it. Cain was merely the instrument through which the Creator’s wish was carried out.3 Cain truly reflected the moral deficiencies of his parents. Just as they had attempted to transfer blame to the Creator to absolve themselves of guilt for violating the divine prohibition against eating of the forbidden fruit, so too did Cain. The Creator had clearly informed man that he was created with the capacity to freely exercise his will and was therefore fully responsible for actions where a choice was to be made. Adam and Eve had found the burden of such human responsibility too difficult to accept and had tried, unsuccessfully, to absolve themselves of it. Now, their son Cain attempted to do the same. He had chosen to kill his brother and then sought to shift responsibility for his action, blaming the Creator, as though it were He who drove Cain to commit the act. Cain may have conceived the permissibility of killing another human by drawing an analogy toAbel’s offering a sacrificial animal to the Creator, but his analogy was false. Man is an animal only in a limited physical sense. Spiritually, he was created in the image of his Maker, meaning that insofar as he was human, insofar as he was endowed with the divinelike attributes that characterized his humanity, he was not subject to the regime of nature. He was endowed with reason so he might apply it in his life. He could not properly employ his rational faculty to deny reason. He could not use it to conclude that he had no choice, that his reason could not inform his will because, indeed, he had no will, that he was compelled in his behavior. He could not reasonably maintain that he was similar in this latter respect to the other creatures whose behavior is determined by natural instinct. The biblical author tells us unequivocally that Cain was wrong. He was not constrained by his divinely given human nature to act as he did. He did have a moral choice to make, and he chose improperly. The responsibility for his act was his alone. The Creator had no part in it. The Creator’s response to Cain’s almost flippant reply was thunderous: What hast thou done? The perversity of Cain’s reasoning was self-generated. He had been given the choice of good or evil behavior and had elected the latter. However, Cain’s act, his transgression, was qualitatively different from that of Adam and Eve. Their sin was one of man against YHVH Elohim. Cain’s transgres-

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sion was twofold by its very character. He had perverted man’s place and mission in the universe; he had also transgressed against the essential humanity of a fellow human being. For the former, the Creator could forgive him if He chose to. However, there could be no divine forgiveness for Cain’s transgression against his brother. The Creator thus advised Cain: The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground. The crime Cain had committed is a mundane matter. Its source is in the earth, among men, and retribution must also be exacted in the earth, among men. The relationships among men are to be governed by human reason and must reflect the needs of humanity. Men must live in accordance with reasonable principles that may be considered to constitute a system of law, a natural law without which man will be incapable of transcending the animals he was chosen to rule. For his crime man must answer to man in addition to answering to the Creator. In the primeval world of Cain, the means for exacting justice at the hands of man were not yet formulated and established. Consequently, the Creator had to become involved in the process as surrogate for mankind. The penalty for this act of manslaughter was to be exile. Cain, who saw himself as the progenitor of a new civilization, and indeed may well have been such, had devoted all his efforts toward that end. Now, he would be denied precisely that for which he strove so mightily and for which he committed his heinous transgression against his fellow man. He would be denied the civilizing benefits that derive from a settled existence. He would be condemned to a life of homelessness, of wandering. However, since no human tribunal could pass and enforce such a sentence, the Creator undertook to see that it was carried out. Cain stood cursed from the ground. He might attempt to continue his life as a man of the earth, a farmer and planter, but the earth would no longer respond to his labors. The Creator’s intervention in the order of nature would prevent the earth that Cain would work from being productive; it would not henceforth yield unto thee her strength. Cain would be reduced to laboring hard for such little yield that he would be compelled to move from place to place to scratch out a living. After a while he might be forced to give up working the land altogether and opt for another means of earning his livelihood. Perhaps that would be the ultimate retribution for his transgression against his brother. He might eventually be compelled to become a nomad, subsisting off the flocks he would drive before him. Indeed, he might have to become the shepherd he despised so much. He would then have become another Abel. Moving away from the presence of his aggrieved parents, he would face at the hands of others the same intolerance that his brother met at his hands.4 He would be driven away by other farmers and cultivators, who would see him as a threat to their existence. He would become a fugitive, wandering endlessly in search of sanctuary.

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As Cain contemplated the implications of the sentence to be meted out to him, he grew increasingly troubled. Why was he to be punished so much more severely than his parents? They too were condemned to exile by virtue of their expulsion from the garden. Yet they remained in the vicinity of the garden and were thus able to benefit from the providence of the Creator, whose presence hovered over the immediate region. In his case, however, exile from the immediate area of the garden would deny him that element of protection, which allowed his parents to survive until they found suitable shelter from the ravages of nature. By contrast, Cain would become a prey for the beasts of the field and an unwelcome intruder in the fields wrested from nature by others. Without the protection of the providential regime of the Creator, he would become an outlaw. As such, his life would be in continual jeopardy. Was this, then, to be the final outcome of his efforts to improve his material well-being, his prevailing condition in life? He had struck down his brother hoping to remove a highly troublesome thorn from his side, but had instead become ever more entangled with thorns. How ironic! His solution had turned out to be much worse than the original problem. He had killed his brother, yet he was not being punished in kind. He did not directly forfeit his own life for the death of his brother Abel. His punishment was not “an eye for an eye.” Instead, his sentence came in reaction to the motive for his deed. If he were, in fact, to be killed by wild beasts or men protecting their property from trespassers, that would not be retribution for the slaying of his brother. It would constitute an independent event, though the chain of precipitating events would make it appear otherwise. His immediate punishment, however, was to deny to him the benefits of his act. He had been oblivious to the possible unintended consequences of what he chose to do. His attempt to improve his lot through immoral means resulted instead in worsening it. Nevertheless, in Cain’s view, his punishment exceeded the requirements of justice. He could accept the justice of being denied the intended benefits of his violence and, in effect, being transformed into the very sort of person he had despised in his brother. However, he could not contemplate with equanimity the prospect of becoming an outlaw, without protection from the depredations of both man and beast. Just as he continued to believe Abel had been killed because God removed His divine protection, so he too would now lack that protection. In effect, it would be his life in exchange for his brother’s, in addition to the punishment of exile. This was surely more than he could bear; indeed, more than he should be required to bear. Where was the justice in such a double punishment? Advocating in his own behalf, Cain appealed to the Creator to mitigate the severity of the divine sentence:

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4:13. And Cain said unto YHVH: “My punishment is greater than I can bear. [4:14.] Behold, Thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the land; and from Thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth; and it will come to pass, that whosoever findeth me will slay me.”

However, the Creator did not intend that Cain should be killed as punishment for slaying Abel. Cain still had a mission to perform in life and needed to be allowed to carry it out. But Cain could not know this. From Cain’s perspective, the Creator was exceeding the bounds of reason in meting out such a double punishment for his transgression. To assuage his fears, the Creator seemed to acknowledge the validity of Cain’s complaint and assured him that his imminent death was not part of the divine scheme. Yet the Creator did not assure him that he would not be killed at a later time. Instead, He offered a forceful reminder to Cain that man had the independent capacity to commit a willful act. 4:15. And YHVH said unto him: “Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And YHVH set a sign for Cain, lest any finding him should smite him.

Cain is told, in effect, that should someone choose to kill him, the Creator would not intervene to prevent such a crime. However, Cain should not interpret that to meant the Creator had abandoned him and therefore desired his death. Cain was assured the Creator would wreak terrible vengeance—sevenfold—upon anyone who had the audacity to slay him. Such a person would be not only one who refused to learn from Cain’s experience, but also one unconcerned with the Creator’s express threat of punishment, as though such a threat was of no significance and could not be carried out. However, Cain failed to appear satisfied with the Creator’s blanket assurances. Unable to deal with such intellectual abstractions and hypothetical situations, he required something more readily accessible to his senses, upon which he relied so heavily. Cain needed a sign, perhaps an omen, something he could fix his gaze upon, something he could sense. Accordingly, the biblical author suggests that the Creator, exhibiting extraordinary patience and tolerance, gave Cain the omen he felt he needed so desperately. We are not told the precise character of that omen. Presumably, it was a sign that accompanied Cain to guide him along paths that were safe. In any case, it apparently had the desired effect in calming his immediate fears. Cain now felt reassured he would not fall prey to man or beast, and he set out to confront the contingencies of his exile. 4:16. And Cain went out from the presence of YHVH, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

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Leaving the immediate vicinity of the garden where his parents had settled, he went off to the land of Nod, where he assumed his new role in life. At this point in the narrative the biblical author suggests that the terms of Cain’s punishment were subsequently moderated. True, he had gone into exile in the land of Nod, but he dwelt there. He appears to have remained not a fugitive and a wanderer but, rather, a migrant settler eking out a meager existence. Once in exile, Cain seems to have undergone a major change, a conversion of sorts. Never having properly understood the relationship of man to the Creator, or of the Creator to the universe, he went out from the presence of YHVH. Cain believed the divine presence was confined to the environs of Eden, and so by departing from those environs, Cainpresumed to leave the Creator behind. In his view, the Creator did not follow him into exile. Here, man was no longer at His mercy. In this godless place, man was supreme, both lawgiver and judge. Divine injunctions had no force here. Man would follow the laws of nature, as he understood them, and enact laws of his own, as he required them. Here man would be truly free, without external constraints, without moral imperatives commanded from on high. Here man’s will was given free reign. He had no further need to answer for his actions to anyone other than himself. Here he could throw off the yoke of the Creator. He would carry out the civilizing mission assigned to him by the Creator, but he would do so not as the Creator’s lieutenant but as the master himself. The only constraints on him would be those inherent in nature. There was neither responsibility nor accountability, nor were there any imposed standards of morality. In Cain’s new philosophy, there was no evident purpose to life other than self-gratification. His early fears of death faded as he learned to survive. He was now at one with nature. Cain, like his father before him, demurred at the thought of a completely solitary life. And so, as he set out on his journey into exile, he took with him one of his sisters to share his fate with him as his wife.5 Cain too recognized the need for and value of a counterpart in making life’s vicissitudes more tolerable, especially under the unstable circumstances of a life of exile and of unrequited labor for an unyielding earth. Moreover, he had need of a family to assist him. 4:17. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bore Enoch; and he builded a city, and called the city after the name of his son Enoch.

We do not know how many children Cain had, just as we do not know how many children Adam and Eve had other than that there presumably were many. Cain probably wished to have as many children as possible to aid him in his arduous struggle for subsistence with a seemingly cursed ground. The biblical author tells us only of the birth of one son, the one he named Enoch,

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whose birth appears to have had a profound effect on Cain and his mode of living. He was now no longer satisfied to merely eke out an existence with the aid of his family. He now felt the need for greater security and stability than the life of a wandering dirt farmer afforded. Cain reflected on the world about him. Over time the number of people in the region had significantly increased. The progeny of his father and brothers were spread throughout the land, so much so that open spaces suitable for farming were becoming increasingly scarce. As men labored to transform the earth, they became estranged from one another. Loss of familiarity bred fear and distrust. Exchange of crops for the sake of variety became increasingly problematic, and disaffection between brothers increased. Conflicts broke out without apparent means of resolving them peacefully and satisfactorily. Consequently, life became much more dangerous, with the danger coming more from man than from nature. Cain also reflected well on his own past and resolved to impose order on the prevailing anarchy, which he perceived as a potential danger to himself and his family. He proceeded to build a city. This city, undoubtedly not much more than a primitive compound at first, would afford a place of security and refuge for him and his family. Built to be defensible, the city would also offer security to those willing to abide by the conditions laid down by Cain for life within its walls. It would provide a place for the safe storage of crops and goods and a convenient center for barter. Through his city Cain would bring order and peace to the land. He would provide a hub around which men could prosper, in safety, and through which such disputes as might arise could be resolved peacefully. Indeed, by this singular application of his intellect and will, Cain would take a giant stride toward creating that civilization which, if properly motivated and led, might eventuate in the recreation of Eden and its idyllic conditions. Through the city, man would begin to superimpose a human order on the natural order. It was a bold concept and experiment. Cain was attempting to build an ordered society based on man’s self-proclaimed law, without reference to the moral order emanating from the supreme authority of the Creator. Cain had accepted his exile as the beginning of a new freedom that he would now exercise without restraint. However, it did not take long for him to recognize that a life of absolute liberty for more than one person meant nothing less than a life of insecurity for all. Without generally accepted restraints, there would be nothing to prevent someone from doing to Cain or his family what he had done to Abel. Man had to impose restraints on his absolute liberty if he were to be assured the enjoyment of the fruits of his labors. Cain had learned and understood this from his own bitter experience. But could man devise such government without reference to the Creator as the ultimate authority? Cain was clearly convinced that this could be done without recourse to an authority that transcended man himself. Subsequent events would reveal whether this was a viable possibility or just a vain illusion.

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Cain had named his son Enoch, signifying that this son was the one who would absorb the knowledge and experience of Cain and serve as the medium of transmission of that wisdom to future generations.6 He similarly named the city after this same son. This first city, Enoch, would serve as the prototype of an organized political society, constructed by and for man under his own ultimate guidance. As such, it was a challenge to the lordship of the Creator. It was by definition and by design a godless society. NOTES 1. This interpretation was suggested by the discussion of the relationship of love and knowledge in the Bible presented by Stuart E. Rosenberg, More Loves than One, pp. 36–37. 2. It is noteworthy that the biblical author hints at his own appraisal of Abel by virtue of the name given to Cain’s brother. Abel in Hebrew is Hevel, which means “vanity,” suggesting that Abel’s efforts were without meaning or significance and he would vanish without leaving a trace. 3. This fundamental theological argument has been raised over the millennia, most notably in contemporary times with regard to God’s “silence” during the Holocaust. For a thorough discussion of the issue, see the author’s Between Man and God: Issues in Judaic Thought (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2001). 4. Literalists raise the problem of where the other people came from, given that Cain is the only living child of Adam and Eve. The midrashic literature provides solutions to this problem, but these are of little concern here. What the biblical author is recounting is a myth designed to elucidate matters other than the actual genealogy of mankind. 5. For the purpose of filling in a gap in the narrative, I have adopted the midrashic interpretation that suggests that when Cain and Abel were born, they each were conceived along with twin sisters. “R. Joshua b. Karhah said: Only two entered the bed, and seven left it: Cain and his twin sister, Abel and his two twin sisters” (Midrash Rabbah: Genesis 12:2, p. 180). This interpretation is based on the use in the Hebrew text of the word et, which is normally employed as a grammatical device to indicate an accusative and is also used in biblical Hebrew to mean “with.” Accordingly, when the biblical author writes, And the man knew Eve his wife; and she conceived and bore [et] Cain, the word et is understood as meaning that “along with” Cain another child was born, presumably a daughter to account for there being someone for Cain to later take as his wife. See also the midrashic anthology Yalkut Shimoni no. 35. 6. The Hebrew name Hanokh is understood as a cognate of the term hinukh, meaning education, training, or upbringing.

Chapter 4

Man against Society: The Generation of the Flood

C

ain had set out on a bold experiment—the founding and progressive development of a humanistic civilization based on reason alone and without reference to the divine role in human history. By simply reciting the genealogy of the succeeding four generations, the biblical author implicitly suggests there was continuity among the Cainites, the patriarch of each generation faithfully assuming the responsibilities transmitted by his predecessor. 4:18. And to Enoch was born Irad; and Irad begot Mehujael; and Mehujael begot Methushael; and Methushael begot Lamech.

By the fifth generation, however, a radical change took place that brought the descendants of Cain to a new moral threshold. The biblical writer does not explain why this development occurred, leaving us to speculate whether it might be the result of man’s unfettered reason having gone astray in the absence of a constraining higher moral authority. Lamech, the patriarch of the fifth generation, rejected the basic social philosophy of his predecessors. Instead, he adopted a new approach to human relations and the organization of society that revolutionized Cainite civilization and set it on its course of moral decay and social decline. He introduced the concept of social inequality.

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4:19. And Lamech took unto him two wives; the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.

At the beginning of the human enterprise the Creator determined it was not good for man to be alone. Adam, the archetypal man, had need of a female counterpart to complement him and to share with him the moral burden of humanity. Their relationship was to be one of complete equality. Cain subsequently also recognized the need for a female counterpart to collaborate with him in the task of civilization building he was compelled to undertake. He could not do it alone. Moreover, merely to have a female companion with whom to cohabit for the purpose of rearing children would not be sufficient. Even the building of a godless society required the establishment of moral standards and guidelines if that society were to evolve in a humanistically desirable manner. It was therefore necessary for him to take a wife as a coequal, someone to share in the task and to place constraints on the otherwise unfettered ego of man. By the time of Lamech, however, the essential reason for taking a wife appears to have been forgotten. Rational purpose had been transformed into mere rationalization, and dramatic consequences ensued. Lamech deviated from the norm and took two wives. In this singular act, he critically undermined the very foundation of Cainite civilization. The result was that since the Cainites refused to acknowledge the Creator as the ultimate and countervailing supreme authority, man’s ego became unbounded. A wife could be man’s counterpart and therefore his equal, but two wives cannot each individually be an equal counterpart to their common husband. Each, of necessity, becomes something less than an equivalent person unless the husband comes to be considered as more than a person. Lamech is thus clearly identified by the biblical author as the first to violate the fundamental moral principle of human equality, namely, always to treat persons as ends in themselves and not as means to one’s own ends. The higher purpose for which the primeval helper was fashioned had been subverted. Adah and Zillah were forced, by the very circumstance of having a common husband, to compete in an effort to displace each other in Lamech’s eyes and attentions in order to achieve that sense of complementarity that can be realized only by a man and his wife. The resulting degradation of mankind contributed further to the alienation of man from his moral moorings, distorting the divine image in which he was created in accordance with the Creator’s plan. The biblical author then informs us, in his own very special way, that just now, at the time when man’s moral purpose has been forgotten and transformed into a drive for mere self-gratification, man’s intellectual and aesthetic faculties reached the pinnacle of their early development. Man demonstrated an exemplary capacity to harness his intellect to his will and to fashion a powerful instrument of creativity. In an extraordinary burst of creative ac-

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tivity, Lamech’s children initiated a golden age for man, an age that exhibited the capacity to make giant strides toward fulfilling man’s civilizing mission at the same time it was losing its sense of moral purpose and direction. The legacy of Lamech was the ultimate destruction of the rational humanist society initiated so hopefully by his ancestor Cain. For Cain, the city was the key to civilization as he conceived it. It was there that men would experience the most meaningful social intercourse and through the melding and accommodation of diverse views and experiences begin the development of the ideal society, one based on human reason alone. For five generations Cain’s descendants followed faithfully in his footsteps. Then Lamech, perhaps unwittingly, completely undermined that humanist heritage. His aggressive pursuit of self-gratification destroyed the very harmony his forefathers had sought to foster within the community of the city. The results were clearly reflected in his children. 4:20. And Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of such as dwell in tents and have cattle. 4:21. And his brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of such as handle the harp and pipe. 4:22. And Zillah, she also bore Tubal-cain, the forger of every cutting instrument of brass and iron; and the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.

Born into a home suffused with tension and competitiveness, one characterized by essential disharmony, Lamech’s firstborn son rebelled against his father and the patriarchal tradition. What disillusionment and frustration he must have experienced in his youth to cause him to cast aside the bond of five generations. The biblical author, with extraordinary understatement, simply notes that Jabal became the father of such as dwell in tents and have cattle. This terse statement conceals a wealth of information. Jabal chose to express his disdain for his father and the patriarchal tradition in a manner that foreclosed the possibility of accommodation and reconciliation. In an act of total defiance, an absolute rebuke to his ancient and venerated ancestor Cain, Jabal adopted the vocation of Abel. Spurning the life of the city that Cain built, and with it the promise of Cainite civilization, Jabal turned to its very antithesis, the pastoral life. His choice of vocation effectively constituted a direct challenge to Lamech, as if to taunt him with a remark such as “If you do not like what I do, perhaps you will murder me as Cain did Abel!” Of course, undoubtedly some men in the city maintained cattle or other domestic animals as a source of income; nonetheless, their occupation did not represent a rejection of the civilization and culture of Cain’s city. But Jabal spurned the city as well. He became the father of such as dwell in tents, a nomad. The tent, being a portable home, is needed only by those who would live outside the framework of a sedentary organized society. He chose to live in closer proximity to nature than to civilization. Jabal, a man of exceptional will, the archetype of the self-directed

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personality, but at the same time a man whose inner strength was dissipated in negativity and rejection, left the civilization of Cain to go nowhere. The life of the nomad is one of enduring struggle with nature on its own terms instead of on terms established by man. His creative human potential goes to waste in the all-absorbing contest with brute nature for survival. Jubal, his younger brother, was radically different from Jabal. As the latter was an active dynamic personality, so was Jubal passive and introspective. Distressed by the disharmony that characterized his home, he also sought his peace outside the reach of the city. However, in contrast to Jabal, who left the city, Jubal searched within himself and discovered there the soughtafter harmony in the variations of sound, in music. Jubal becomes the father of all such as handle the harp and pipe. The biblical author draws our attention to his achievements in founding the art of using stringed instruments and woodwinds. The spacing of the holes in the wind instrument and the adjustment of tensions on the strings require relatively sophisticated insights into the nature of sound and its properties.1 Through his music Jubal attempted to restore a sense of harmony to Cainite civilization. Music’s appeal is to the emotions through the sense of hearing. Using the same channel of communications as the moral imperative, it can lend aesthetic warmth and harmony to the teachings of morality or, as in the case of Lamech, it can lead to greater immorality. Jubal’s achievement was morally neutral, extrinsic to the principal concerns of civilization, and therefore deceptive. It could provide the illusion of harmony, to the thrilling marches of tyrants as well as to the plaintive laments of saints. Jubal’s chosen vocation set him apart from the civilization within which he continued to thrive. Like his brother Jabal, he would not don the mantle of patriarchy worn by his forefathers since Cain. Lest one assume that the revulsion of these two sons of Lamech for Cainite civilization was related to the particular situation of their mother Adah, the biblical writer quickly advises that the same attitudes characterized the children of Zillah as well. Tubal-cain, brilliant and inventive, like his halfbrothers, also refused to accept a position of moral leadership so critical to the survival of the humanist civilization begun with such high hopes by Cain. Instead, he founded the vocation of being the forger of every cutting instrument of brass and iron.2 His skills and talents were dedicated to improving the material well-being of the society, not its moral values. If the Cainites eked out a living from an unyielding soil with instruments of stone and wood, he would improve their lot by providing metal instruments with which they might work the earth more easily and with greater efficiency and effectiveness. Should they desire metal instruments of destruction to enable them better to impose their wills on their neighbors, Tubal-cain stood ready to assist in that as well. He himself would remain detached from the uses to which his instruments would be put. His blade was morally neutral and could serve for good or evil depending on the values of those who wielded it.

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Among all the sons of Lamech there was not one who would give of his self to restore his society to its ancient values. Perhaps a daughter might have seen her role differently in this regard. Indeed, Zillah did have a daughter, but she too showed no disposition to act differently than her brothers. The biblical author tells us cryptically only that the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah. Why is she identified as the sister of Tubal-cain and not as the daughter of Lamech or Zillah? Is it that she was very much like her brother? The only clue we are given is her name. She was Naamah, the personification of beauty. But physical beauty is something that is only beheld by the eyes, and what man sees affects his passions and appetites. Unless brought under the discipline of the intellect, in consonance with the moral order, beauty can capture man’s will. Man will go astray after his eyes unless restrained by what he has heard. Yet beauty, like the instruments of Tubal-cain, is morally neutral and can be used for moral or immoral purposes. The biblical writer neither indicates nor implies a defined role for her. She is simply Naamah, a thing of beauty, morally indeterminate. Lamech had undermined the humanist legacy bequeathed to him by degrading other persons. He had reduced his wives to a state of inequality, a status in which each was valued as less than an integral person. In a society based on reason alone, such a condition could be corrected only through an act of informed will. But where there is no source of moral authority external to man, morality depends entirely on how man rationalizes his situation. Lamech undoubtedly found good justification for taking two wives, just as his sons and daughter found good reasons for standing aside and allowing the heritage of Cain to dissipate. Although the children of Lamech may also have had children of their own, they are no longer identified by name. As far as the biblical author is concerned, they are no longer of consequence for the moral history of man. The reason-based society Cain had begun to build was now in a state of unrelenting dissolution. The dynasty of Cain as progenitors of a humanist secular civilization comes to an end with Lamech. There was no one to steer the society out of its downward slide, and under his corrupt leadership it soon declined into moral anarchy. 4:23. And Lamech said unto his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech; For I have slain a man for wounding me, and a young man for bruising me; [4:24.] If Cain shall be avenged seven-fold, truly Lamech seventy and seven-fold.”

In this enigmatic passage known as the “Song of Lamech,” the biblical author depicts Lamech confronting his wives in evident response to a situation that has arisen, about which the narrative remains silent. However, the reader can reasonably surmise the probable cause of Lamech’s outburst.

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Through his bigamy, Lamech introduced a form of social unrest theretofore unknown. Presumably, such social conflict as had existed until that time had its roots primarily in the problem of scarcity, which characterized the natural economic condition of man outside the Garden of Eden. Faced by the need to wrest a livelihood from a generally uncooperative natural world, men would almost inevitably find themselves in conflict with one another over access to that which nature only reluctantly yielded. However, the contest was conducted on the basis of the inherent equality of men as persons, as humans, and such conflicts could be resolved rationally and peacefully. Indeed, it was to facilitate this process that Cain built his city in the first place. It provided the auspice and the mechanism for those in conflict to reach accommodation on the basis of some generally accepted notion of equity. How different from this was the kind of social conflict generated by Lamech’s innovation in the general social order. Adah and Zillah, reduced to essential inequality relative to Lamech, could no longer relate to their common husband on the basis of equality. As a result, they were impelled to an unyielding competition between them in an effort to regain the status each had individually enjoyed before being joined to Lamech. This unremitting conflict undoubtedly destroyed the tranquility of Lamech’s household, not only contributing to the rebellion and disaffection of their children but also making Lamech’s home life disagreeable if not intolerable to him. Reason would dictate that Lamech, as a rational human being, should recognize the underlying cause of the troublesome situation and take the necessary remedial steps to resolve the problem he had perhaps unwittingly created. However, the act in itself, involving as it did the moral degradation of other humans for his simple self-gratification, took a moral toll on Lamech’s sensibilities that precluded him from restoring familial harmony. He could no longer think in terms of acknowledging and rectifying his error. For Lamech began to conceive of himself as more than just a man, since he had proved himself capable of reducing others to something less than equal standing as persons. If he could do this, was he not more than just a person? But if this were true, then it was quite proper that he should treat others as less than his equal. In Lamech’s view, neither Adah nor Zillah had any right to be considered equal. Accordingly, the resolution of their conflict did not require any concessions by Lamech. Social harmony would be achieved by having his wives accept their lowered status as natural and proper, and by their acting appropriately in this new social context. However, should they prove unwilling to behave in this manner voluntarily, Lamech would compel them to do so against their will. It is to make this clear that Lamech voices his song, one that contains a thinly veiled threat of violence against his wives should they continue to disturb the peace of his household. Lamech called to Adah and Zillah and reminded them that they both were his wives and that as such their positions were those of relative inequality

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and would not change. He advised them to pay close attention to what he was about to tell them. Moreover, he made clear, they should not delude themselves into imagining that there existed some higher authority to which they might appeal their complaints. For them, Lamech declared, there was no higher authority. He was in effect a law unto himself. Did they want evidence to support this contention? He would gladly provide it to them. Does not the essential equality of men dictate that retribution for injury should be limited to life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, bruise for bruise (Ex. 21:23–25)?3 Yet, Lamech declared: I have slain a man for wounding me, and a young man for bruising me! I have exceeded the bounds of propriety in retribution because I am more than a mere mortal. I am greater than other men are and am therefore above the laws that govern other men. Indeed, if the threat of severe divine retribution protected my ancestor Cain against anyone who dared cause him harm, how much more so does that protection apply to me, who am far greater than he! Lamech’s arrogance reflected the extent of his moral decline, which set the tone for his reign and for succeeding generations. Coming directly after a recitation of the intellectual, technological, and aesthetic developments initiated by his offspring, Lamech’s song serves to inform us that progress in these areas does not necessarily bring with it moral advancement. Indeed, the reverse may take place, as exemplified here in the biblical myth of Cainite civilization. The biblical writer concludes his description of the decline of Cainite civilization by drawing a contrast with a competing line of descent from the common ancestor, the primal father Adam. 4:25. And Adam knew his wife again; and she bore a son, and called his name Seth: “For Elohim hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel; for Cain slew him.” 4:26. And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enosh; then began men to call upon the name of YHVH.

We were previously told that Lamech took unto him two wives, who bore him children. By contrast, Adam knew his wife again. Adam had but one wife with whom he shared a life of true intimacy, a wife he knows. Lamech, however, did not, indeed cannot, know his wives; there is no shared intimacy of coequal personalities as evident with Adam and Eve or even between Cain and his spouse. For in sharp contrast to his descendant Lamech, Cain also knew his wife. After Cain killed Abel, who evidently died childless, none of Adam’s other offspring could replace the latter as a balancing force to the former. Adam and Eve had originally hoped Abel would share the burden of civilization building alongside his brother Cain. His refusal to do so ultimately led to his unnatural and untimely demise. Abel was a rebel who refused to follow

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his father and brother in a career of working the earth. Indeed, until Jabal, in the sixth generation, no one else dared pursue Abel’s calling. As a result, the Cainite approach to civilization building became dominant. But Cain’s universe was a godless one, and though founded on reason at the outset, it was destined to decline dramatically as the new legacy of Lamech took hold. A countervailing influence was needed to offset the tendencies implicit in the Cainite worldview. A new Abel was required, but an Abel with a sense of social responsibility that was missing in the original. Now with the birth of Seth it seemed as though this need would be fulfilled. Seth would be the counterbalance to Cain, and Seth’s descendants would be inured to the seemingly irreversible corruption of Cainite civilization. Seth would be another seed instead of Abel. He would be the progenitor of a parallel line to that of Cain. And to Seth, to him also there was born a son. This time there was to be continuity. Cain had prevented the emergence of an alternative line of descent from Abel by slaying him before he could start one, but with Seth it was to be different. His descendants would outlast those of Cain. The biblical author’s silence with respect to Adam’s subsequent activity suggests the patriarch played an essentially passive role in the moral education and development of his descendants. If he was actively engaged, he evidently proved quite ineffective in counteracting Cain’s influence. That moral focus which Adam, as well as Cain in his youth, took for granted was vanishing from the minds of men. By the time of Seth’s son Enosh, the influence of Cainite civilization had become pervasive. The relationship of man to the Creator and His moral imperatives, which so dominated the early lives of the progenitors of mankind, had been distorted and ultimately forgotten by later generations. Thus that which had once been self-evident and clearly understood now required fresh articulation. When its godlessness caused Cainite civilization to be perceived as a fundamental threat to humanity, then began men to call upon the name of YHVH. To counteract society’s growing immorality, men began to invoke the threat of divine sanctions against such conduct. The art of preaching was born out of social necessity. The very need to call upon the divine name reflected the low state of humanity that resulted from the fundamental sin of man against man perpetrated by Cain. Henceforth, the ongoing task of the descendants of Seth and Enosh would be to struggle to restore man to the pinnacle of creation from which he was rapidly sliding. Adam’s failure set the stage for Cain’s moral failure, and Cain, in turn, provided the rationale for the moral decline that took on a new dimension with Lamech and his children. The story of Cainite civilization ends with an implicit question. Can the line of Seth hold its own against the destructive influences of the Cainites? The biblical author then sums up the history of man in a rather strange fashion, both in terms of what he writes as well as what he omits.

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5:1. This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that Elohim created man, in the likeness of Elohim made He him; 5:2. male and female created He them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. 5:3. And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth.

The book of the generations of Adam, which may have been an early document incorporated into the biblical text, presumably contained a chronology of significant events as well as a list of key personalities who served as the leaders of the ten generations from Adam to Noah. Here we find no mention of Cain or his descendants, although they still have a major influence on subsequent events. At this point, the biblical author reasserts most clearly the critical role of the Creator in human history. Generic man is created by the direct involvement of the Creator. Generic man, male and female, is created in the likeness of Elohim, presumably rendering them completely equal from His perspective. Moreover, we are informed that man was made in His likeness on the very day of his creation. This detail subtly conveys a message of great importance. That which essentially distinguishes man from the rest of animate nature is his capacity both to inform his will with reason and to act in accordance with its dictates, and in his exercise of this capacity man is free to choose his course of moral action. The biblical writer now reaffirms that man had this capacity from the very outset. Man was created free and responsible for his moral behavior. His subsequent acceptance of the notion of moral determinism, which was but an attempt to escape from the moral burden of his inherent freedom to choose, was itself a freely chosen act. The biblical author emphasizes this idea again when he informs us that the Creator called them by their generic name Adam, in the day when they were created. We saw earlier that when Adam gave names to all the creatures of nature, he did so on the basis of their dominant characteristics. Here too, the Creator names the male and female He created in accordance with their dominant characteristics, traits that define humanity itself. He names them Adam, mankind, and does so on the very day of their creation. Man’s essential humanity is his inherent possession from the very beginning. It is not a product of long acculturation, of an evolutionary process. Man begins his career at the summit and is fully responsible for precipitating his own decline. Both Adam and Eve, the embodiment of man, triggered the events that caused them to be cast out of the Garden of Eden. They also proved themselves incapable of transmitting the lesson of their failure to their son Cain, who in turn brought about a further rapid decline in the moral state of mankind. Note that when recounting the births of Cain and Abel, the biblical author omits any suggestion that they reflected the image of their parents in the way the latter reflected the image of the Creator. With the birth

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of Seth, we are told, Adam begot a son in his own likeness, after his image. We may wonder about this assertion, one not made in connection with the births of Cain and Abel. Perhaps the biblical author intends to suggest that Seth is a spiritual clone of Adam and therefore also reflects the image of the Creator. Is Seth the idealized son Adam so wanted, a son who would lead mankind back to the forsaken haven of Eden? Is he to be conceived as a new Adam? Adam was created in the likeness of Elohim, but Seth was begotten in Adam’s likeness. The Adam who fathered Seth is no longer the Adam of the Garden of Eden. Although Seth may have been a reflection of Adam, it was the Adam who had violated the moral order and had witnessed the further deviations of Cain. Seth was thus at best a distorted reflection of the image of the Creator. To reflect a closer approximation to the divine likeness he would have to surpass his father Adam. And, to do that, he would first have to arrest the moral decline precipitated by the Cainites—an extraordinary challenge. As the biblical author made clear earlier, after Seth fathered his son Enosh, then men began to call upon the name of YHVH. However, this book of the generations of Adam, from which the next passage is probably drawn, is introduced to tell us he was unable to succeed, for being born in the likeness and image of Adam was not of itself sufficient to accomplish the task of moral redemption. 5:4. And the days of Adam after he begot Seth were eight hundred years; and he begot sons and daughters. 5:5. . . . and he died. 5:6–8. And Seth . . . begot Enosh . . . and begot sons and daughters . . . and he died. 5:9–11. And Enosh begot Kenan . . . and begot sons and daughters . . . and he died. 5:12–14. And Kenan . . . begot Mahalalel . . . and begot sons and daughters . . . and he died. 5:15–17. And Mahalalel . . . begot Jared . . . and begot sons and daughters . . . and he died. 5:18–20. And Jared . . . begot Enoch . . . and begot sons and daughters . . . and he died. 5:21. And Enoch . . . begot Methuselah. 5:22. And Enoch walked with Elohim . . . and begot sons and daughters. 5:23. And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years. 5:24. And Enoch walked with Elohim, and he was not; for Elohim took him. 5:25–27. And Methuselah . . . begot Lamech . . . and begot sons and daughters . . . and he died. 5:28. And Lamech . . . begot a son. 5:29. And he called his name Noah, saying: “This same shall comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, which cometh from the ground which YHVH hath cursed.” 5:30–31. And Lamech . . . begot sons and daughters . . . and he died. 5:32. And Noah was five hundred years old; and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

In briefly recounting the ten generations that passed between Adam and Noah, the biblical author has little to tell us beyond the chronological data he records in such detail. Upon reflection, however, we see substantially greater significance in the data presented than revealed by a cursory reading of the biblical text. In examining this information, we should note that

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for the biblical myth the importance of the extraordinarily long life spans lies in their relative lengths rather than in their claimed duration. Specifying the age at which each descendant of Adam sired the next generation, coupled with our knowing that Adam himself was 130 years old when he fathered Seth, allows the biblical author to establish a definite chronology beginning with the creation of man. It also provides a time reference for all the events related in subsequent texts. In addition, the text specifies not only the number of years each of Noah’s ancestors lived but also that each of them begot sons and daughters. This suggests not only that these ancients had the time and opportunity to sire many children, but also that these children had ample time, within each successive generation, to do likewise. In this way the biblical author rationally accounts for the relatively large populations assumed by the biblical texts. In addition, a comparison of the age at which these ancestors died and their ages at the birth of their first or principal offspring suggests a general correlation that makes us pause. Broadly speaking, their age at death varies directly with their age at the birth of their named sons. Thus Adam, who sired Seth at age 130, lives to 930, whereas Methuselah, who sired a son at 187, lives to 969. By contrast, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, and Mahalalel, all of whom sired their heirs at significantly younger ages, 105, 90, 70, and 65, also die at younger ages, 912, 905, 910, and 895. The notable exception to this general tendency is the Sethite Lamech, who fathers Noah at the age of 182 but dies at 777. In his case, however, an early demise neatly avoids the destruction to follow. Presumably, Lamech would not have chosen to join Noah to be saved while watching the rest of his progeny succumb. Perhaps to save Lamech from being destroyed by the impending disaster, the writer of this narrative has him die naturally some five years before the disaster strikes. Similarly, Methuselah, who should perhaps have lived somewhat longer than he did, on the basis of age, dies in the very year of the flood, but clearly before its onset. The data seem to cry out for further probing and extrapolation. This is particularly so with regard to the brief recounting of the life of Enoch. Remember, as the biblical author makes clear, Adam was created in the image of the Creator, whereas Seth was born in the image of Adam. That is, Seth was a reflection of a reflection, which was itself already a distortion of the original. And so it was with each successive generation, each attempting in its own way to purify the image cast by the distorting prism of its period. Paralleling the Cainite line, the Sethites struggled vainly to overcome the corrupting influences of the latter. In the seventh generation Enoch was born. In him the Sethites soared to heights unknown since Adam and Seth. Enoch alone, of all the descendants of Adam thus far, walked with Elohim. Like his grandfather Mahalalel, Enoch fathered a son at the age of 65. Were he to have lived as long as his grandfather, some 895 years, he might well have turned the tide against the seemingly irreversible moral decline taking

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place under the influence of the Cainites. The biblical author tells us that Enoch was not merely an exceptional person because of his closeness to the Creator; he was at the same time very much a man of the world. He was not an ascetic who fled society and its responsibilities to pursue self-perfection in isolation from the world’s cares. Enoch walked with Elohim . . . and begot sons and daughters. He was capable of achieving the highest moral perfection while remaining intimately concerned with the world about him. Even the act of procreation brought him closer to the Creator. Within a normal lifetime this exceptional man might have been able to reverse the tide of history. But this was not to be. For reasons not revealed to us by the biblical author, Enoch’s promise for mankind was prematurely brought to an end. He walked with Elohim, and he was not; for Elohim took him. Passing from the scene at the comparatively young age of 365, Enoch evidently had insufficient opportunity to generate a lasting influence on the Sethites. The chronological data reveal that Enoch died just after Adam and before Seth. Thus Adam, who was created in His image, and Enoch, who walked with the Creator, as well as Seth, who was born in Adam’s image, all died shortly after the birth of Lamech and before the birth of Noah. Without these moral leaders to keep society in check, the moral trajectory of Sethite civilization followed the path of the Cainites. The biblical author also draws our attention to the contrast between the Cainite Lamech and the Sethite Lamech. With the former, Cainite civilization became morally dysfunctional. The earlier Lamech introduced a new order of immorality into the world. His sons abdicated any responsibility for moral leadership and instead adopted an amoral posture. How different was the Sethite Lamech! This Lamech, who was 56 years old when Adam died, could still remember his ancestor Seth (Lamech was 168 when Seth died), as well as his remarkable grandfather Enoch (Lamech was 113 when Enoch died). Although he himself was not capable of assuming the mantle of moral leadership effectively, he saw this potential in his son Noah and bequeathed to him the patriarchal traditions of his ancestors. In Noah, the first of the Sethite line to be born after the death of Adam, he saw the potential for moral redemption. Lamech may have reflected on the state of the civilization of which he was a part. Since Adam’s eviction from the Garden of Eden, man was compelled to struggle incessantly with the unyielding earth in order to earn his livelihood. However, this necessity became transformed into an obsession for more and more material goods. As a result, man effectively denied himself even the minimum amount of leisure so essential if he is to pursue his human goals and needs. His moral sensibilities were suppressed. Man lost sight of his ultimate purpose in life as well as of his assigned mission in the universe. Self-gratification became the end in itself and contributed to his moral decline. But Lamech’s son Noah would change all this. He would prove

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capable of restoring to mankind its lost vision. He would make mankind understand the utter vanity and futility of the materialist goals men pursued with continually increasing fervor. He would comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, which cometh from the ground which YHVH hath cursed. Noah would wear the patriarchal mantle of Adam, Seth, and Enoch, and he would succeed in the struggle against the corrupting influences of the Cainites. But how was Lamech to prepare Noah for this momentous task? How had he and his forefathers failed to develop an adequate moral posture? Perhaps by becoming too deeply involved in the affairs of mankind too soon, before they were properly prepared for the task. Lamech had deferred fathering a son until he was 182 years old, but perhaps in relative terms even this was too short a time to prepare oneself adequately for the challenges of moral leadership in a corrupt society. Perhaps an Enoch does not require such extensive preparation. Noah is not an Enoch, however, and the risk of another failure is too great. Noah must delay his entry into the mundane affairs of men. He must have sufficient time to learn to resist the temptations of the material life, to learn to cope with the attractions and seductions of Cainite civilization. He must serve an extensive moral apprenticeship before entering into the world with his redeeming vocation. And Noah was five hundred years old; and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth. More significant than the actual number of years is the assertion that Noah spent more than half of his life presumably in ascetic preparation for his mission. The chronological details also serve to point out certain significant consequences longevity had for antediluvian society. The long life spans of these ancients—evidently typical rather than exceptional in terms of mythological time—obviously signify a very low mortality rate for the society as a whole. Previous statements of the book of the generations of Adam indicated that each of the ancients had numerous sons and daughters, who presumably also had numerous sons and daughters, suggesting a relatively high fertility rate for the society. As a consequence of these classic conditions, that is, low mortality accompanied by high fertility, a population explosion emerged. The biblical author focuses our attention on the social and moral implications of this development. 6:1. And it came to pass, when man began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 6:2. that the sons of Elohim saw the daughters of man that they were fair; and they took them wives, whomsoever they chose. 6:3. And YHVH said: “My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for that he also is flesh; therefore shall his days be a hundred and twenty years.” 6:4. The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of Elohim came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.

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Because the fertility rate depends on the number of available females capable of reproduction, and a significant population increase took place, the number of females probably exceeded the number of males in the population. Moreover, the biblical writer clearly implies that one consequence of the population explosion was a surplus of women. Thus we are informed: and daughters were born unto them—not “sons and daughters,” as in the earlier texts. Presumably, as the sons and daughters paired, the biblical writer focused only on the remaining unattached women in the society. As suggested earlier, subjected to the corrupting influences of Cainite civilization, the Sethites as well as the Cainites failed to hold their moral ground, with few exceptions. Denying the moral authority of the Creator, the leaders of the society began to look upon themselves as the autonomous surrogates of the Creator on earth, fully independent and unrestrained in their conduct. Indeed, their unbounded egos led them to conceive of themselves as demigods, as sons of Elohim. Such was the Cainite Lamech who first exploited his patriarchal position to deny the essential equality of all humans by taking two wives. The precedent set by Lamech, involving the self-deification of the powerful, became the norm for the elite of the society. Their denial of intrinsic human equality led these leaders of the generations to perceive all other humans merely as means for serving their own self-gratification. They emerged, in effect, into a ruling class, considering ordinary people as objects to be exploited rather than as equally autonomous beings. Having lost their moral equilibrium, the ruling class became captives of their own appetites. They closed their ears to the exhortations of those few who attempted to remind them of the moral imperatives set forth by the Creator, yielding, instead, to temptations. Thus the sons of Elohim saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives, whomsoever they chose. Following the example of the Cainite Lamech, when they saw a surplus of women in the world, they decided to take more than one wife, thereby proclaiming their superiority and mastery over other human beings. In this way the objective circumstances of rapid population growth set the stage for man, in the absence of an acknowledgment of a countervailing moral authority, to exhibit a latent lust for power. In the first instance this was manifested through the subjugation of the surplus women. Once the powerful determined to cast moral considerations aside and to indulge their appetites for power, other cravings soon cried for satisfaction as well. If one were powerful enough to gratify himself by taking more than one wife, why not select those women as wives who would best satisfy one’s erotic appetite as well? Women, and later men too, were thus reduced to chattel, the healthiest, the most attractive and appealing, the most fair, being taken by the most powerful over the objections of the women and their families. They took them wives, whomsoever they chose. The unrestrained lust after power and sexual gratification further accelerated the moral decline already

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in process. Indeed, the biblical author’s assertion that the powerful took whomsoever they chose may be understood as suggesting that they might also have arrogated to themselves women who were already the spouses of others. The consequences of the process are not difficult to imagine. The highly selective breeding of the powerful and the most fair constituted a eugenic formula for a “master race.” The offspring of these unions were handsome, strong, and intelligent, but they were devoid of moral foundations. They were brought up in the belief that “might makes right.” From generation to generation the increasingly unchallenged power of this ruling class produced unbounded moral depravity. The offspring of those who fancied themselves the sons of Elohim, enclosed in their own universe of debauchery, seemed beyond moral redemption. They were indeed the Nephilim, the fallen ones. For perhaps a millennium or more, from the Cainite Lamech to the Sethite Noah, these Nephilim held mankind in thrall. The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of Elohim came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. (The biblical author then notes, parenthetically, that the prevailing legends and myths of ancient demigods and heroes who defied the Creator referred to these same Nephilim, who were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.) A detached but interested observer might suggest the situation was not necessarily beyond amelioration. True, man had entered into a stage of steep moral decline. The delicate balance between the animal and the human in man had been upset in favor of the former. Nonetheless, there were such men as Enoch and Noah in whom the balance was fully maintained and who might manage to bring about the redemptive changes in society needed to restore its moral equilibrium. As a practical matter, however, their redemptive endeavors had little chance of success, given the objective conditions of the society in which they lived. For man himself to abate and then reverse the downward spiral of human morality, the morally informed rational faculty with which the Creator endowed man would have to succeed in a struggle for control over his animal drives and appetites. The biblical author suggests the Creator did not consider this likely and contemplated bringing the entire increasingly dysfunctional human enterprise to an end: My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for that he is also flesh. The situation had reached the point where divine intervention was required if mankind were to be permitted to continue. What intervention was likely? The population explosion had exacerbated the moral decline of the society by creating exaggerated surpluses of people, particularly women, and this fundamental problem would have to be dealt with by a radical solution—population control. The most effective remedy under the circumstances lay in manipulating the mortality rate. As we saw, the long life spans of these ancients reflected a very low mortality rate which, when coupled with a high fertility rate, precipitated a population explosion.

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By significantly reducing the average age at death, the population growth would be brought into check, since it would substantially increase mortality relative to fertility. The Creator concluded that to give man a greater opportunity to raise himself up out of the depths of moral depravity, his mortality rate would have to be increased substantially. Therefore shall his days be a hundred and twenty years. Maintaining an average mortality age of 120 years would provide the needed population control. All who were alive at that moment, when Noah was 480 years old, would be allowed to live out their normal life spans, even beyond an additional 120 years if, during the interim period, a marked improvement of society as a whole were to be demonstrated. It soon became evident, however, that there was little prospect of significant change in the moral state of the society. The legacy of the Cainite Lamech brought as its corollary a new set of societal relations. Accumulation of harems by the powerful not only undermined the structure of the family; it also had deleterious effects on the economic structure of society. At an earlier time, when all individuals were considered intrinsically equal, each member of society was deemed to have contributed equally to its wellbeing. Now, radical changes had taken place. If a man took two wives, each wife represented less than an equivalent person relative to the husband. At the same time, the husband considered himself greater than another man with only a single wife. Thus if the husband with two wives were indeed greater, why should the prevailing presumption of equality among persons pertain to him? Clearly, social benefits should be allocated other than through mere numerical equality. Surely he who is greater deserved more consideration than the masses. Should weaker members of society object to such a distribution of society’s benefits, the mighty would use their self-legitimated power to achieve their own desires. Thus the Nephilim, the ruling class, emerged as an oppressive oligarchy. “Might makes right” replaced the ethical imperatives of the Creator as the ethos of society. Wickedness, the evil one perpetrates against his fellow man, became rampant. Random evil, or the occasional victory over man’s rational faculties by the animal drives within him, can be further constrained by the disciplining of the will. However, when wickedness itself is rationalized and justified as appropriate behavior, little hope remains for human redemption. This condition characterized the society in which Noah alone stood apart from other men. Within the framework of the Creator’s grand design, man was given free will, the capacity to choose, and he had chosen badly. Through their perverted use of power and their moral lassitude, the leaders of the generations enabled corruption to spread throughout their domain until the contamination pervaded all of society. Such a society could no longer serve the divine purpose. It could not effectively support man in carrying out his assigned

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mission. The Creator had already intervened, through population control measures, to affect the objective conditions contributing to man’s moral decline. However, clearly such controls would have their principal effect only in the long term. Meanwhile man’s wickedness had reached an unacceptable level. 6:5. And YHVH saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6:6. And it repented YHVH that He made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart.

Evidently additional and stronger steps would have to be taken than those originally contemplated. There was no realistic prospect of a moral redemption of existing society. A civilization so irredeemably corrupt could no longer serve the divine purpose. A radical and extreme solution was called for. The slate of creation would, in effect, have to be wiped clean and a new beginning made. 6:7. And YHVH said: “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and creeping thing, and fowl of the air; for it repenteth Me that I have made them.” 6:8. But Noah found grace in the eyes of YHVH.

The destruction to take place would not involve annihilation. The earth itself would survive as the basis for man’s renaissance. Moreover, mankind itself would not be obliterated. A small remnant that included only Noah and his immediate family would be permitted to survive because Noah alone had succeeded in withstanding the corrupting influences of his environment and remained firm in his determination to be faithful to the ideals of humanity. As a result, Noah found grace in the eyes of YHVH and would be spared. Moreover, by default he would become the progenitor of a new moral civilization. The 120-year additional lease on life the Creator had granted society was running out and was not to be extended any further. Mankind, as it existed, would be blotted out. Moreover, the environmental conditions under which the new breed of human beings would live and exercise their moral freedom were to be made more compatible with man’s moral needs than was the case at present. Accordingly, along with mankind, most of the animal world would be wiped out. The new man must enter upon an earth characterized by a new ecological balance, by environmental conditions unfavorable to the extended life spans so typical of the antediluvian world. Under the new conditions, man will be much more conscious of his personal mortality and consequently more concerned with divine providence and the Creator’s demands.

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The divine experiment, in which man was to create a just and humane civilization on the basis of his autonomous will and intellect, had proved a failure. The ten-generation history of the world from Adam to Noah was to be brought to an abrupt end, and a purged humanity was to begin history anew on the basis of its understanding of the failures of the past and their consequences. NOTES 1. He omits mention of percussion instruments, which do not have comparable qualities and presumably were discovered much earlier as simply noisemakers. 2. Samson R. Hirsch comments, “He creates nothing that one can directly enjoy or use, he creates the means for all progress and art, he creates creating” (The Pentateuch on Gen. 4:18–22). 3. The lex talionis was introduced by Hammurabi centuries before the Bible as a means of assuring equitable and proportionate retribution for injuries. However, consistent with ancient pre-Hammurabic traditions as the sages of the Talmud understood it, the notion of “an eye for an eye” could only mean monetary compensation. See discussion of the issue in Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Baba Kamma 83b–84a.

Chapter 5

Cleaning the Slate: The Deluge

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new phase of human history was to begin, and Noah was to be its progenitor. The world into which he was born would soon be made to vanish, and he would become the founding patriarch of a new civilization. Under his leadership, mankind would be given a second chance. Once again man would have the opportunity to serve as the Creator’s lieutenant on earth and to create a truly moral society. 6:9. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was in his generations a man righteous and whole-hearted; Noah walked with Elohim. 6:10. And Noah begot three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Previously we were told simply that Noah found grace in the eyes of YHVH. No further explanation was offered for Noah’s election. Now the biblical author, in his own cryptic fashion, sets forth the reason for the divine choice. Noah was righteous and wholehearted. Noah’s outstanding quality, that which distinguished him from the rest of his society, was his righteousness. What constitutes righteousness, and how is it manifested? The biblical author does not provide us with definitions of abstract concepts such as good and evil, righteousness and wickedness. What he does do is offer descriptions or characterizations of behavior from which the concepts and their contents may be inferred. Thus, the wickedness of

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the generations in which Noah grew to maturity was reflected in the pervasive immorality that characterized the society, typified by the lust for power and self-gratification, and was manifested in the corruption and debasement of its members. By inference, righteousness must then consist in diametrically opposite conduct, moral rectitude, and personal ennoblement. Moreover, in an age when polygamy had become widespread, promoting human inequality, Noah evidently remained monogamous, preserving the dignity of mankind that is a concomitant of its intrinsic equality. Whereas his peers practiced self-indulgence with abandon, Noah imposed on himself a regime of self-restraint. He apparently lived as an ascetic for more than half his life. Whereas the ruling classes subjugated and exploited the common folk under the precept of “might makes right,” Noah dealt with his fellow man on the basis of the essential equality of all, the very antithesis of the view of the Nephilim. Whereas the latter pursued their relationships in accordance with the advantage to be realized, Noah was whole-hearted. Noah did not seek to reap benefit from the just treatment of his fellow man. At a time when depravity suffused society, Noah stood apart as an exemplar of morality. When men had long since neglected the admonitions of their mentors, Adam, Seth, and Enosh, and had forgotten their relationship to the Creator, Noah walked with Elohim. In contrast to the myriad ways in which injustice may be manifested in an immoral society, Noah’s conduct reflected an uncompromising concern for justice. In his generations, an era characterized by man’s inhumanity to his fellow, Noah was a man righteous and wholehearted and for that he found favor in the eyes of the Creator. It is with these few but highly suggestive sentences that the biblical author introduces the saga of Noah, who was selected to become the patriarch of a totally reconstituted civilization, and the Noahides, his three sons, who would provide the human foundations upon which that civilization would be built. Perhaps because of the enormity of what was to take place, the biblical author elaborates further on the moral depravity of the society the Creator had decided to obliterate, a society now totally dysfunctional in terms of the reason for its having been brought into being in the first place. 6:11. And the earth was corrupt before Elohim, and the earth was filled with violence. 6:12. And Elohim saw the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.

Nonetheless, Noah himself provided living evidence that man was not beyond redemption. Man’s moral decline was not inevitable but, rather, a matter of his own choice. Just as Noah walked with Elohim, so too could other men if they wanted to do so. This possibility remained unexplored and unrealized, however. Men enthroned their own reason, denying that there existed any external authority that might set standards of morality for them.

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Indeed, the earth was corrupt before Elohim. Man had severed the thread that bound him to the Creator and thereby, unwittingly, ensured the ultimate destruction of his Cainite-inspired civilization. His seemingly unlimited ability to rationalize his desires and behavior outstripped his wisdom. Lack of external constraints on private conduct soon reflected in public morality. Might was conceived as right, and the earth was filled with violence. The heroic morality of the Nephilim set the pattern mankind strove to follow. Tyranny of the more powerful became the norm. Violence and oppression became rampant, and society found itself bound to a course leading to ultimate selfdestruction. This irreversible current would have engulfed Noah and his sons as well, ultimately leading to their physical destruction even if their moral personalities remained unsullied. Presumably, it was to avert the latter that the Creator intervened in the course of human history. Man cannot for long live outside of society or in isolation within it. The society that has become corrupted may still be redeemable if a critical number of people within it will reject its perverted values and strive for its reform. But to accomplish this single-handedly lay beyond the abilities of even a Noah. And Elohim saw the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt beyond the possibility of self-redemption. The corruption proved universal and all encompassing, for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. The prevailing depravity succeeded in dehumanizing man, blurring the distinction between humanity and the rest of animal nature. Reform became impossible once man concluded things were as they were meant to be. Man assumed he lacked the moral autonomy to alter the course of events. When man came to believe his moral personality lay subject to the inexorable laws of nature, he reduced himself to the level of the beast, completely distorting the Creator’s image instilled in him at the outset of the human enterprise. Noah, who had managed to retain his perspective on man’s proper role and place in the universe, and who was to initiate the renaissance of human society, was nonetheless a product of his civilization. He had, of course, withstood the corrupting influences of his society, refusing to yield to its temptations. Yet, he might misconstrue the purpose and intent of the Creator’s providential intervention into the course of events. He might erroneously conclude mankind had been destroyed because man’s neglect of the Creator incited His anger. Were he to draw this inference, he might further conclude that man’s basic transgression consisted not in the failure to recognize his freedom to choose the good but, rather, in his unrestricted exercise of that freedom in accordance with his own reason. Such misconceptions would provide a poor basis for the reconstitution of society. A society that exalted reason to the exclusion of other considerations would soon become corrupted in the same way as one that deprecated reason. Noah needed to be instructed about the true nature of man’s failure and the reason for the coming destruction.

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6:13. And Elohim said unto Noah: “The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.”

The Creator informed Noah He was about to destroy the world as Noah knew it. The reason for the destruction was not what Noah may have imagined, however. It was not the perversion of the proper relationship between man and the Creator but the distorted relationship between man and man that was bringing it about. There is no mention here that the earth was to be swept clean of man because of his corruption with respect to the Creator. The Creator may have continued to tolerate the corruption of private morality had it not undermined the public morality as well. Failures of personal morality were a matter between each individual and the Creator and would be adjudged accordingly, but corruption of public morality undermined society’s very foundations, making society irredeemable. A patient and compassionate deity concerned for man’s well-being might tolerate lapses in personal morality, but the corruption of society was another matter. In the biblical view, a society that fails to enhance humanity serves no useful purpose and cannot justify its continued existence. Thus, the biblical author makes clear, it is not society’s contempt for the Creator that brings about its undoing. It is, rather, its contempt for man that is unacceptable. The fact that the earth is filled with violence is what has provoked the divine wrath. Created in the image of Elohim, Man is intended by his nature to be different than all other created beings. He is endowed with will and reason, and his individual humanity consists in his recognizing this and acting as a responsible moral person within the constraints of the fundamental moral discipline provided by God for his guidance. But society is a creation of man, created for man by man. The moral guidance for society is to be derived by man from the imperatives given to him for his own self-governance. Accordingly, he must apply his reason in the building of society. However, as is evident from the experiences of the Cainites, reason alone is insufficient to bring about the ethical society. The heritage of the Cainite Lamech had now come to full fruition. Society not only had failed to assist man in leading a life of enhanced humanity; it had accomplished the opposite. It had created a cultural environment that further promoted the corruption of private morals through the institutionalization of public immorality. Society had thus become the very antithesis of its intended purpose and needed to be destroyed so man could begin anew in a social environment untrammeled by a history of corruption, tyranny, and moral depravity. Noah was given to understand that in the future those natural conditions that had served to exacerbate the problem would be radically altered. The Creator’s previously announced intent to increase the human mortality rate was now to be carried out. The earth, intended to provide for man’s welfare, but unintentionally serving to degrade man’s moral condition, would

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also be subjected to an ecological reconstitution. Henceforth, the natural environment would be less congenial to human health and longevity. The Creator advised Noah He would destroy them with the earth, mankind along with its habitat, so Noah and his descendants would be able to rebuild humanity within the context of a physical environment more conducive to the moral development of man and his society. Having determined that Noah alone, along with his immediate family, was to survive the forthcoming destruction, the Creator proceeded to instruct Noah about the method and means of his salvation. The means were to be natural, not supernatural, implicitly suggesting that others might also avail themselves of such means if they would but emulate Noah. 6:14. “Make thee an ark of gopher wood; with rooms shalt thou make the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. [6:15.] And this is how thou shalt make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. [6:16.] A light shalt thou make to the ark, and to a cubit shalt thou finish it upward; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second and third stories shalt thou make it.”

In these few sentences, the biblical author, with exceptional economy of words, presents sufficient information for the attentive reader to imaginatively reconstruct the pertinent events and their significance. Clearly, the Bible is not intended to be a textbook on marine architecture; the instructions given to Noah for the building of the ark are certainly not in themselves sufficient for the task. However, the information provided adequately serves as a key to unlock the moral relevance of the enterprise. We do not know with any degree of certainty the purported geographic location of the mythical antediluvian society. Presumably, it thrived in a region known to the audience to whom the biblical narrative was originally directed, and we have no reason to assume Noah’s people lived close to the sea. Moreover, even if we assume a location somewhere in Mesopotamia, nothing in the narrative suggests a society so economically advanced as to make extensive commercial use of the region’s inland waterways. It was surely a primarily agrarian society, perhaps pastoral to some extent, a society that at best had only limited knowledge of water craft. Shipbuilding could have been the occupation of no more than a very few individuals who may have built small vessels for negotiating the region’s rivers and lakes. It is within such a non-maritime cultural context that Noah is told to undertake construction of a vessel that would be considered huge by pre–twentieth-century standards. Noah’s ark, according to the biblical account, is to be some 450 feet in length and 75 feet in width, a vessel of a size that could hardly go unnoticed in a primitive agricultural society.

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The task assigned to Noah was an extraordinarily difficult one. On the basis of what occurs later, we must assume Noah probably had little if any help beyond that provided by his sons; work would most likely not have been undertaken as a full-time occupation. In the primitive society of Noah’s era, able-bodied men and women spent most of their time earning their livelihoods through traditional agricultural pursuits. Even those who engaged in rudimentary commerce could not have had a great deal of leisure. Consequently, the construction of a vessel with the dimensions described by the biblical writer would probably have taken substantial number of years. The ark was to be constructed of wood, a scarce resource in the region. A rough calculation indicates that for the outer frame alone more than 100,000 square feet of lumber would, at a minimum, have been required. Given the lack of sawmills and other relatively advanced equipment, the enormity of the task is mind-boggling. Thousands upon thousands of trees would have to be felled, trimmed, split, and then transported to the construction site, where each piece of lumber would have to be individually hand shaped and then mounted and secured to the frame. Moreover, the vessel not only had to be watertight; it also had to be strong enough to withstand the force of the swirling currents to be encountered. The Creator could surely have found a means of providing for the salvation of Noah and his family other than through the monumental task of construction that must have taken many decades to complete. Yet, upon reflection, one can readily see a dual moral purpose to the enterprise. First, it provided a supreme test of Noah’s faith and trust in the commanding voice he heard. As the biblical author tells us later, Noah completed the task precisely in accordance with the instructions given to him. Through all the years of hard labor toward a seemingly impossible goal, he did not waver. Although Noah was already in middle age when he undertook the project, the weariness of his seemingly unending labors failed to impede his resolve to carry out the wishes of the Creator. Given the sheer physical effort required, among other considerations, Noah must have become an object of public ridicule because of his project. One can readily imagine relatives, friends, and neighbors joking about the eccentric building a contraption apparently as senseless as it was large. To compound Noah’s problem with his detractors and taunters, the vessel he was building had a completely outlandish design. In contrast with normal watergoing vessels, this one seemed as though it were being built upside down and without potential for locomotion.1 Instead of tapering to an edge at its bottom, it was flat. Instead of tapering to an edge at its bow, it was likewise flat. To everyone’s astonishment, however, the boat tapered at the roof. Of course, observers and builders alike had no way to realize the design was indeed the most appropriate for the vessel’s special mission. For a ship not intended to be propelled through the water did not require a tapered front

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and bottom to enable it to cleave a path. To the contrary, the ark was to be borne aloft by the waters; its course was to be set by providence, not man. The sight of Noah laboring on the ark, year after year, provided a visible demonstration of his religious faith. It also afforded innumerable opportunities for him to remonstrate with the public regarding the corrupt state of society. Everytime someone inquired of Noah about what he was building and its purpose, he would be able to warn them of the Creator’s resolve to destroy the world if their repentance did not nullify the decree before the 120-year period of grace came to an end. Thus as it was being built and began to take shape, Noah’s ark became a visible reminder of society’s ongoing moral decline. The vessel became a symbol of divine providence. By explaining why the entire vessel, including its roof, was being made watertight, Noah could exhort his questioners to take steps to avoid the inundation soon to follow. In the course of explaining the large number of internal compartments, he could also advise onlookers of the consequences of their perversion of the proper relationship between man and nature. He could tell them the perversion had resulted in the divine determination to fundamentally alter the natural environment to make it more conducive to human morality. Noah’s labors were calculated to provide visible testimony to the Creator’s desire for society’s reform before it became too late. Noah had been advised only of the impending destruction, but not how it was to take place. Having been instructed to build the ark, he may have surmised the destruction would be caused by water. However, because of the peculiar shape of his vessel, he could not be sure it was intended for seafaring purposes. In addition, nothing in his experience could help him conjure up a vision of an all-devastating deluge. Such a disaster was unimaginable, transcending the bounds of nature and human comprehension. Now, for the first time, the Creator informed Noah the inconceivable was about to take place as a result of direct divine intervention in the course of nature. 6:17. “And I, behold, I do bring the flood of waters [mabul mayim] upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; every thing that is in the earth shall perish.”

The term employed by the biblical author for the flood signals the extraordinary nature of the event about to take place. It was to be not a natural inundation but, rather, a mabul, a catastrophe, a term used exclusively to describe this destruction and that appears in the biblical writings only in this connection. The mabul mayim, the “flood of waters,” presents the sympathetic reader with an enigma to be unraveled. Why the use of a unique term to describe the destruction? Why a destruction through water? The choice of terminology as well as that of methodology suggests special significance. The roots

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of the impending disaster reached back into the past to the age of the Cainite Lamech, who precipitated the rapid decline of Cainite civilization. His failure most clearly manifested itself in the attitudes of his sons, Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-cain. The mabul, whose linguistic root has an etymological affinity with the common root of the names of Lamech’s sons, suggests most subtly the direct linkage between the actions of that early age and that of the generation of the flood. The seeds of dissolution sown by Lamech were about to be fully harvested, and what would be a more appropriate method of destroying a corrupt agricultural society than through supplying an overabundance of the very thing that enabled such a society to thrive in the first instance! Water, which gives life to the parched earth of the region, can also blot it out. Indeed, even an act of total destruction, the biblical author suggests, carries moral implications crucial to the future of mankind. The narrative bears eloquent witness to the potential destructiveness of man’s self-identification with nature and its laws. The biblical author advises us unequivocally that the Creator is not part of nature; its laws do not constrain Him but, rather, serve His purpose. To forget this is to repeat the sin of the generation of the flood, to lose one’s humanity. Man’s charge is to conquer nature and subdue it, not to surrender to it. The flood of waters was intended to destroy all animate life on the earth, essentially wiping clean the ecological slate. However, curiously, the method of destruction would have no dramatic effects on aquatic life. In his own unique manner, the biblical writer once again invites us to ponder the meaning of this obvious exclusion and the relationship of man to the world of the sea. How different man is intended to be from the fish! The inundation that will destroy man is the very condition that permits the fish to live. Of course, the Bible is not a science textbook directing our attention to the differences in breathing apparatus between man and aquatic life. Perhaps what is being suggested, however, is that when man mirrors the social behavior of fish, he deserves to live in the same environmental circumstances as fish, an environment in which he clearly cannot survive. Whereas it is in the nature of fish to devour other fish, it is not in the human nature of man, who is made in the image of the Creator, to do likewise to his fellow man. In so doing he denies the essential equality of men before the Creator, which is equivalent to a repudiation of man’s humanity.2 Men who become as the fish merit the fate to be brought on them by the deluge. Thus, the flood of waters will not affect the fish, whose world is radically different from that of man, but will make man’s physical world mirror that of the fish just as he himself had made his social world reflect it. How would all this affect Noah? Was he expected to face with equanimity the vision of thousands of human beings and other creatures struggling vainly to stay above the waters, futilely gasping for air, and ultimately succumbing in great anguish and suffering? Given that Noah is a righteous and

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saintly man, would not such a sight destroy him, drive him out of his mind? Sensitive to this dilemma, the biblical author deals with it through the subtle choice of language. In the divine statement, every thing that is in the earth shall perish, the biblical author employs the Hebrew term yigvah, here translated as shall perish, but better rendered as “shall become torpid.” This same formulation, which is used elsewhere in the Bible to describe the painless death of the righteous, is usually translated in the sense of “expiration.” It is also used here to connote a painless death. The Creator would withdraw the breath of life He first blew into the nostrils of man to transform him from a mound of dust into a human being. Mankind, as well as the rest of animate nature, will become torpid, comatose, unaware, and insensitive to the death about to engulf them. The destruction will be accompanied by little actual suffering, another indication of the direct divine intervention into the natural order. Noah, a man righteous and whole-hearted, was to be the only survivor of the forthcoming destruction. However, it was not as an individual that he was to remain viable. It was as patriarch of an extended family and progenitor of a new moral civilization built in conformity with the divine plan that he was given a new lease on life. 6:18. “But I will establish My covenant with thee; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy son’s wives with thee.”

Noah was not intended to become a new Adam. His ancestor Adam had been created alone to emphasize the essential individuality and equality of men. Each person, using Adam as a reference point, was to see every other human being as a reflection of the image of the Creator. The individual was endowed with will and reason in order to permit him to master nature, both external and his own animal nature, and to carry out the mandate given to him by the Creator at the outset of his entry onto the stage of history. Man had failed to realize his innate potential, and through the perverted application of his will and reason he had undermined the very basis of his viability as the bearer of the Creator’s image. The divine experiment had gone awry, but it was to be attempted once again with certain modifications. Not only were the environmental conditions to be altered to favor a much–reduced life span; the basic unit of humanity itself was to be changed. The new elemental social unit was no longer to be the individual but the family. Each individual was still to retain personal responsibility for his actions. No change would be made with regard to the nature of man as man. However, the context of human development and progress would no longer be that of the individual confronting the world about him in essential isolation from other men, even though living in voluntary association with them. The new humanity would be built around the natural association of the family.

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Noah was selected because he alone of his generation was deemed fit to serve as patriarch of the new civilization. It was therefore with him alone that the Creator would conclude His unilateral covenant. Only in anticipation of the fulfillment of that covenant could Noah confront the prospect of the total annihilation of the only civilization he had ever known or imagine existing. Noah’s world, the world of Cainite and Sethite civilization, was circumscribed by the practical limits of man’s understanding and technological capacity to communicate and travel. For all practical purposes, the universe was limited to the region about which man could venture and traverse. The nature and terms of the covenant, not explicitly disclosed by the biblical author at this point, must surely have been such as to give Noah hope for the future, a hope that would help him face the trials to come. Noah and his family, his wife, sons, and the wives of his sons were, at the appointed time, to enter the ark as a family unit, as the collective Adam that would bring a new human world into being. The ark itself, the vehicle of their salvation, represented the first tangible evidence of the potential value and viability of the family as the basic unit of the new society. Their collective labor under Noah’s leadership produced something that could presumably not be replicated elsewhere in their society. This first major family enterprise, carried out over a period of many years in the face of numerous obstacles, demonstrated to Noah, and no doubt to the members of his family as well, the promise the covenant projected for the future. The biblical author then goes on to suggest that Noah and his family were not only to be the instruments of a true rebirth of human civilization. In carrying out the original charge to man to conquer and subdue the earth and all its creatures, they were also to serve as the guardians of the animal world and the guarantors of its survival. 6:19. And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. 6:20. Of the fowl after their kind, and of the cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. 6:21. And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.

It is at points such as this in the biblical narrative that one must pause to consider the biblical author’s purpose in order not to misconstrue his meaning. Surely we are not being told the ark was intended to house at least one pair of each of the thousands of species of the animal world for an extended period! That the biblical writer is suggesting all the creatures of the extremities of the earth, the kangaroo and the polar bear, the llama and the ostrich, were to be gathered at one spot and brought into the ark seems highly unlikely. Indeed, nowhere does the biblical text suggest the carnivorous beasts of the field were to be housed with the animals that constituted their prin-

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cipal prey. Indeed, the biblical author does not speak of wild beasts at all, only of behemah, that is, cattle or other domestic animals. His primary concern is with the moral history of man, and his words must be interpreted and understood in that context. The Creator was about to undertake a colossal act of destruction. However, this destruction was by no means to be wanton. It was purposive and intended to be remembered as such by mankind. Man, who is to model himself after the Creator, must be made aware that the destruction of any of His creations must always be purposive, and never an act of caprice. As the lieutenant of the Creator on earth, man bears a basic responsibility for the preservation of the natural world. His task is to conquer and subdue it, not to wantonly destroy it. Noah and his family were to understand that the destruction of the animal world along with the human necessarily prefaced the establishment of a new ecological balance, and that man has a clear responsibility in the process. Noah himself could not be the sole instrument of that process, yet he needed to participate in it in a symbolically meaningful way so the lesson to be learned took hold. Noah was to be instrumental in preserving those components of the animal world that would most immediately affect the ecological balance in the environment in which he was to survive. He was to bring into the ark pairs suitable for mating not only of the birds and animals that are the most visible elements of man’s domestic environment. He was also to include members of the lower orders of animal life, of every creeping thing of the ground. Just as Noah was obligated to provide for his family in their time of need, so he was to provide for the needs of the creatures he was to help preserve. Noah had to stock the ark with adequate provisions to allow his animal companions to survive without undue hardship. His unequivocal charge was to keep them alive. He was obligated to do all that was necessary for this purpose. Furthermore, he was not to deliberately ease this burden by limiting the variety of species allowed in the ark. He was to preserve two of every sort that shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. Noah would therefore also be responsible for those creatures not indigenous to his locale but which somehow appeared before him as though seeking salvation through his good offices. However, he was not obligated to search for creatures not driven to him by their instinct for survival as the destruction was about to ensue. The survival of those species did not depend on Noah, for the menagerie in the ark was not a zoological collection of all the world’s species but a breeding stock of those creatures man knew most intimately and for which he would bear a direct and immediate responsibility in the future. Reassured about the continued survival of his immediate family and the prospect of a future better than the present, Noah passively accepted his assigned role. He made no protest, no outcry, against the actions of the Creator, as would righteous men of later generations.3 He calmly accepted the fate about to befall mankind, including his own extended family, friends,

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and acquaintances, and kept his silence, occupying himself with fastidiously carrying out his assigned tasks. 6:22. Thus did Noah; according to all that Elohim commanded him, so did he.

All preparations having been completed, the momentous event was about to take place. Nonetheless, the Creator once more considered it necessary to ensure Noah understood the full import of his salvation. It was as patriarch of a family that Noah was being preserved. Because he had managed to keep himself above the corruption of his age, he was deemed fit to carry out the divine purpose. Without him, his family would perish with the rest, for they had not displayed redeeming merit. However, the responsibility for their failures did not rest entirely on Noah’s shoulders. There is a limit to the ability of even the greatest mentor to insulate his immediate family from the influences of the dominant civilization. Now, with that civilization about to end, Noah would be put to the test. That he fully comprehend the extent of his responsibility for the future of mankind was essential. He would have the opportunity to forge a new social and moral environment, and through proper leadership and direction of his own family to build a new civilization in conformity with the divine scheme for man. 7:1. And YHVH said unto Noah: “Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation.”

Thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation, the Creator advised Noah. The point is explicit. The Noahides are to be preserved, not because of their past or present merit, but because of their potential for a moral existence under Noah’s unimpeded influence. Previously, Noah had been instructed about his responsibilities concerning the preservation of the animal species that might come to him. Now, he was further instructed about what to do with respect to the needs of his household. 7:2. Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee seven and seven, each with his mate; and of the beasts that are not clean two [and two], each with his mate; 7:3. of the fowl also of the air, seven and seven, male and female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

In addition to the animals he was told about before, Noah was also to bring into the ark those domestic creatures most essential to the viability of the domestic economy. However, he was not to take all the animals he possessed. He was to strictly limit what he took for his own use. Thus, of those animals considered clean, that is, those customarily thought of as appropriate for man’s consumption such as cattle and sheep, he was to limit himself

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to seven pairs suitable for mating. Of those domestic animals traditionally considered not clean, such as those used as beasts of burden, horses, asses, and camels, he was to take only two pairs to serve his immediate needs.4 Of his domesticated birds, he was to take along seven pairs both to satisfy his domestic needs and to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. Because these fowl are easy prey for a variety of creatures, this initial supply would ensure that despite depredations, sufficient eggs would be produced to assure the viability of the species. Having provided instructions necessary to assure the survival of Noah and his family, as well as the animals essential to reestablishing a viable agricultural existence, the Creator gives Noah additional information about the impending cataclysm. 7:4. For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I blot out from off the face of the earth.

The biblical author fails to provide clues regarding the significance of the number seven, which he uses repeatedly. Nonetheless, perhaps this number called to Noah’s attention the ultimate significance of his salvation. The reader must wonder, did repetition of the number intend Noah to recall the period of original creation? Thus, Noah is told that just as the initial creation of his world took seven days, its destruction would begin in seven days. The recurrence of the number seven cued Noah to remember that he was about to undergo not a random act of nature but a deliberate act of the Creator. To further amplify this idea, Noah is informed once again that every living substance that I have made will I blot out from off the face of the earth. He is reminded that everything in the universe exists only to serve the Creator’s purpose, and when that purpose is subverted, the reason for a thing’s continued existence is nullified and the thing itself will cease to be. The destruction by water was to take forty days, and only Noah and his immediate family would emerge alive and intact, as though reborn, into a pristine and morally uncontaminated environment. During those forty days Noah would witness how nature serves the Creator’s purpose, and he would have ample time to reflect, together with his family, on the extraordinary event taking place. Presumably the Noahides would emerge from this experience thoroughly chastened and ready to undertake the reconstruction of the world, for which purpose they had been spared. Perhaps what strikes one most about the period prior to the actual onset of the destruction is the conspicuous silence of Noah. He does not protest the destruction of humanity, nor does he plead for clemency. As the biblical author notes for a second time, Noah simply exemplifies passive acquiescence. 7:5. And Noah did according unto all that YHVH commanded him.

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By thus calling attention to his remarkable silence, the biblical author may be hinting that notwithstanding Noah’s selection as the most righteous person of his generation, Noah is not necessarily the outspoken advocate for social justice that may be essential to the success of the divine enterprise.5 Likely, he was simply the best his society could produce. Indeed, that Noah alone had the distinction of being singled out as the most righteous person of his generation may in itself be the most significant commentary on the failure of antediluvian society. 7:6. And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. 7:7. And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. 7:8. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the ground, 7:9. there went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, male and female, as God commanded Noah.

Even in a generation characterized by exceptionally long life spans, Noah was well past his prime when the cataclysm struck. He had spent the greater part of his life in unknowing preparation for the mission he was now to undertake. For a century he had contemplated daily the end of the world as he knew it, as he labored to construct the vessel of his salvation. Noah had heard the divine ultimatum and observed the universal refusal to comply with its terms. He had witnessed society sliding ever more rapidly into an irredeemable state of moral perversity, rejecting all attempts to stem the decline, engulfing all and sweeping away all lingering inhibitions. Now this world was itself to be engulfed and purged of its corruption and depravity. Only Noah, and because of him his family as well, was to survive to rebuild the world along moral lines. He was the most righteous man of his entire generation, and the burden of reconstruction fell upon him. But was he really capable of carrying out the awesome responsibility assigned to him? Did he have the strength of character and fortitude to preside over his family, benignly but effectively, to ensure the newly emerging society would be imbued with the values and beliefs necessary for the moral development of mankind? The biblical author provides the reader with a clue that helps us to answer these questions and to gain some insight into later events. Notwithstanding his election by the Creator, Noah remained a remarkably ordinary human being. What must have been going through his mind during those long years of laboring on the ark? Was it conceivable that everything around him, everything he had any contact or familiarity with beyond his immediate household, was really to be obliterated? Could nature’s forces actually be marshaled to carry out the express wishes of the Creator, whom he could not even visualize in his mind’s eye and whose voice he alone seemed to hear within himself? Yet, Noah must have shrugged off such doubts in order to expend the extraordinary effort required to complete construction of the ark

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in the face of the community’s continuous taunts. With the fateful day rapidly approaching, he was instructed to enter the ark with his family knowing the destruction would commence in another week. Now the biblical writer informs us that Noah and his house did indeed enter the ark, not because the Creator had so commanded him, but because of the waters of the flood. Until the destruction actually began, Noah’s recurring doubts surely plagued him. He felt ambivalent about the Creator’s ability and intent to carry out the sentence He had passed on mankind. Only when his physical senses corroborated what he had such difficulty in believing did Noah understand the truth that had been revealed to him. Only when he could see the rise of the flood waters, continually fed by the seemingly incessant rainstorm pouring down from the heavens, did he enclose himself in the ark. Until the very last moment, Noah continued to hope the destruction would not take place, notwithstanding divine assurances to the contrary. Noah’s tendency to rely on his senses in preference to the word of the Creator reflected a weakness that would bear bitter fruit in the future. Having decided to enter the ark, Noah then carried out the Creator’s instructions to the letter. The animals were to be brought into the ark in male and female pairs, but the human passengers were to be segregated by sex. As God had commanded, Noah and his sons went in, to be followed by Noah’s wife and the wives of his sons. In his own subtle way the biblical author draws our attention to this distinction between man and the animals. The latter, creatures ruled by nature, are sexually paired for the long voyage. When their mating seasons arrive, they will be able to follow the ordained course of nature. Man, however, has moral personality and must behave accordingly. Because man can mate at will, he should not enjoy sensual gratification while his fellow men are being annihilated.6 Noah was not given explicit instructions regarding the appropriateness of abstinence from sexual relations for the duration of the destruction. He was only told to enter the ark in a sexually segregated manner; nothing was said about remaining that way afterward. Noah understood by himself, however, that the situation demanded compassionate conduct. Although he could not prevent the disaster befalling his fellow man, he must not view it with equanimity. He must not model his behavior after that of the animals. Noah and his family’s self-imposed restraint while in the ark would further serve to prepare them for the great task ahead, the rearing of a new moral generation. With the final preparations completed and the Noahides safely aboard the ark, the flood of waters commenced. 7:10. And it came to pass after the seven day that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. 7:11. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day were all the

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fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. 7:12. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 7:13. In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; 7:14. they, and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after its kind, every bird of every sort. 7:15. And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life. 7:16. And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as Elohim commanded him; and YHVH shut him in.

The biblical writer now undertakes to reassure the reader about the nature and purpose of the destruction that had begun to engulf the antediluvian world. Through the use of both detail and nuance, he reminds us that the great deluge was not a natural catastrophe. It was, rather, a providential intervention in the normal course of nature for a specifically moral purpose. Noah had been advised earlier by the Creator that the destruction would begin in seven days, and now the biblical author informs us that it came to pass after the seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. The prediction was fulfilled. The entire course of events is described in great detail and is located at a specific and identifiable point in time. The destruction was not to be considered a prehistoric legend as in the mythologies of other ancient peoples. Instead, it is placed by the biblical author in history, commencing with a known and identifiable date in the biblical chronology: the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month. The flood itself did not result from a gradually built-up storm system that slowly swelled rivers and streams to overflowing. Instead, we are told, on the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. All at once the subterranean aquifers, streams, and lakes burst through the surface of the earth causing the immediate flooding, as would the bursting of a dam. At the same time great accumulations of precipitation at once poured upon the earth as though a sluicegate restraining these waters suddenly opened, adding to the massive amounts of water emerging from within the earth. We are presented with the image of man’s world being engulfed by the confluence of waters coming simultaneously from above and below. Once again we are reminded of the centrality of man’s role in the universe. The creatures of Noah’s world, who exist as part of the scheme of creation in which man constitutes the central feature, came to Noah in all their variety for him to see to their preservation and future viability. The universe in miniature was now to be found in the ark, with man dominating that universe. In the ark man fulfilled the mission given to him by God at the very beginning of history, that of subduing nature and ruling over it. Man was thus given a glimpse of the harmony that should prevail between

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man and the animal world. The latter is to be subordinate to man, but man is not to exploit it wantonly. He bears the responsibility to protect and nurture it in trust for the Creator. Noah and his family were therefore to expend much of their energy to support and nurture the diverse creatures assigned to their care, creatures whose functions in the ecological design were beyond their comprehension. A great lesson in humility was to be learned by the designated progenitors of the world about to be born out of the chaos and destruction of the old. In marked contrast to the prevailing mores of the old civilization, one characterized by the legacy of the Cainite Lamech, the new was to be built on the basis of fundamental human equality. Thus, we are explicitly informed that Noah, as well as each of his three sons, had but a single wife. The heritage and lineage of their progeny was to be straightforward and clear. All future generations would originate from a common father and mother, and all would come from a single set of parents within each branch of the family. Humanity would constitute a single extended family in which the patriarchal principle would provide the basis for the development of a moral society. Noah completed all he was commanded to do. All who were to be saved, both human and animal, harbored in the ark awaiting the onslaught of the waters of destruction. Yet, their salvation was not to be realized simply as a result of the skill with which the ark had been constructed. Indeed, man must do what he can to look after his own interests, even though man’s efforts alone will not assure success. Noah may have built the sturdiest vessel imaginable, but the ability of that vessel to withstand the forces soon to destroy everything on earth required the providential intervention of the Creator. The biblical writer pointedly tells us that YHVH shut him in. It was the Creator who placed a seal upon the ark that would prevent it from succumbing to the ravages of the waters. 7:17. And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth. 7:18. And the waters prevailed, and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. 7:19. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered. 7:20. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. 7:21. And all flesh perished that moved upon the earth, both fowl, and cattle, and beast, and every swarming thing that swarmeth upon the earth, and every man; 7:22. all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, whatsoever was in the dry land, died. 7:23. And He blotted out every living substance which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and creeping thing, and fowl of the heaven; and they were blotted out from the earth; and Noah only was left, and they that were with him in the ark. 7:24. And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.

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Even though the biblical author clearly indicates the providential character of the flood and the rescue of Noah, the events themselves are described as occurring within the regular bounds of nature. Thus, although the ark withstood the force of the waters because the Creator so willed it, it had to be constructed so as to be seaworthy and watertight. Similarly, the flooding was caused through natural mechanisms that were merely exaggerated and accelerated to serve the divine purpose. Here too, the biblical writer details how the ark itself managed to avoid being smashed to bits against the sides of the mountains. Initially, the waters accumulated at the site of the ark without forming a current. As the water level rose, as though in a reservoir, the ark floated upward above the nearby obstructions—it was lifted up above the earth. Then, as the waters prevailed, as the currents formed from the confluence of waters, the ark went upon the face of the waters. Once clear of obstructions, the ark was swept away by the waters of the flood. All other things that floated smashed as the waters lashed against the mountains. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail. That is, waves of at least twenty-two feet in height swept over the peaks, destroying everything in their path, and the mountains were covered. The divine purpose was served. All flesh that moved upon the earth perished. All animate nature in the flood zone became torpid and perished in the waters, as did man in whose nostrils was the breath of life. The biblical author presents here a pointed reminder that man, because of the breath of life blown into his nostrils by the Creator, is something more than just a lump of clay and that he returns to the dust when that breath is withdrawn. Not only was all animate nature destroyed; every visible remembrance of it was obliterated as well. Every trace of existence was blotted out from the earth. The world of man was to begin anew with the slate of the old world wiped completely clean. Noah alone was left, and they that were with him in the ark. He was to return to a purified earth free of the corrupting influences of the past. He bore with him in the ark the elements needed to reconstruct the world, not as he knew it but as it should be. The destruction wreaked by the waters continued for 150 days. Then, its task of purgation completed, the deluge ceased as suddenly as it began. The world faced a new dawn. 8:1. And Elohim remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and Elohim made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged; 8:2. the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained. 8:3. And the waters returned from off the earth continually; and after the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters decreased. 8:4. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. 8:5. And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.

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The Creator’s providential intervention with the forces of nature caused the latter to lay waste the earth, and it would require a similar intervention to harness nature once again and restore its balance. Thus, the biblical writer notes once again that it is because of man that the Creator intervenes in the natural order. It is because Elohim remembered Noah, and because of him all that were with him in the ark, that He constrained the elements so as to end the flooding. The subterranean water sources had to be stopped from gushing and the windows of heaven closed after the forty days of rising waters. For the waters to recede would take much longer than it took for them to rise. The extensive area of flooding left little place for the waters to run off. However, the supplies taken aboard the ark would surely run out before the waters disappeared from the ground and new food crops could be planted and harvested. But Elohim remembered Noah and greatly accelerated the process for the benefit of man. In addition to the natural absorption of the earth, extensive evaporation of the water would have to occur; however, such evaporation would in turn bring more rain, thereby retarding the process of reducing the waters of the flood. Therefore, Elohim made a wind to pass over the earth . . . and the rain from heaven was restrained. The winds prevented the clouds from emptying the great accumulations of moisture caused by the evaporation of the flood waters. In this way, the waters returned from off the earth continually. After 150 days Noah could detect changes in the water level for the first time. The ark came to rest on one of the peaks of the mountains of Ararat. There, observing the increased stability of the ark, Noah assured himself the waters were going down, alleviating his concern about being caught in currents formed by the receding waters. Nonetheless, even with divine intervention in the natural order, the waters took a long time to retreat. There was no change in the fundamental order of nature, only an acceleration of the natural processes. Another two months would pass before the waters had receded sufficiently for the peaks of the mountain ranges to be seen from the ark. For Noah, a great lesson was to be learned from all this. Although man may be the centerpiece of creation, he is nonetheless only one element in the divine cosmic plan, and not necessarily sufficiently important to merit the abrogation of the Creator’s own laws governing the natural order. The experience of the deluge and its aftermath should have taught Noah and his family an object lesson in humility critical to the underpinnings of a new moral society. NOTES 1. Benno Jacob noted, “The ark is not a ship; it has neither a keel, nor a steering apparatus, neither mast nor sail. It shall be a house afloat which can protect its

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inhabitants during a flood and for this reason be made of wood” (The First Book of the Bible: Genesis, p. 49). 2. In a later age the prophet Habakkuk would complain to God about the atrocities perpetrated by the Chaldeans: Wherefore lookest Thou, when they deal treacherously, and holdest Thy peace, when the wicked swalloweth up the man that is more righteous than he; and makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them (Hab. 1:13–14). This passage serves as the prooftext for the rabbinic teaching that uses the phrase “fishes of the sea” as a metaphor for a state of social chaos—anarchy. “As it is with the fishes of the sea, the one that is bigger swallows the other up, so with man; were it not for fear of the government, everyone that is greater than his fellow would swallow him up” (Babylonian Talmud: Avodah Zarah 4a). 3. See note 5 below. 4. The distinctions made with here regard to the “cleanliness” of the animals relate to the later classification of animals permitted to be consumed under Scriptures sumptuary laws and those forbidden. 5. The biblical author appears to be drawing an implicit contrast between Noah and Abraham, who would appear ten generations later and who was prepared to challenge the Creator over the justice of the impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:23–25). 6. This interpretation is derived from the commentary of Solomon ben Isaac (RASHI) on Gen. 7:7.

Chapter 6

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oah, the obedient and unquestioning servant of the Creator, had carried out His instructions with great diligence and survived the catastrophe that befell the world as he knew it. Now that the ark had come to settle on a stable mooring, he eagerly awaited further divine guidance. However, the voice that he had heeded for so long and that had brought about his extraordinary salvation was now strangely silent. As he sensed the increasing stability of the ark, he realized the waters were receding, but he did not know what to do. How much longer would he have to wait before it was safe to leave the ark? And if he left, where would he go? Where was he relative to his point of origin? But what difference would it make if he knew? Surely there was nothing left of his homeland. Having demonstrated exceptional patience and fortitude in preparing the ark, a task that endured for many years, Noah now became restless. Harboring in the ark after the destruction was completed felt anticlimactic and frustrating. No longer a vessel of salvation, the ark began to seem more like a place of confinement. The Noahides were also unquestionably anxious to leave the ark and thereby rid themselves of the need to care for the horde of creatures on board. Each day that passed must have seemed an eternity. We may assume that a growing impatience overtook Noah and his household, his family incessantly probing whether he had once more heard the voice that spoke to him alone and registering their disappointment when told that he had not. Noah

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probably attempted to rationalize the Creator’s failure to communicate with him. He recalled that on entering the ark he had been told the onslaught of the waters would be sustained for forty days. Perhaps a similar amount of time had to pass before he might leave the ark. Perhaps at the end of forty days from the time the ark settled, the voice might speak to him once again and tell him what to do. Thus Noah waited. When the fortieth day arrived, Noah was at the peak of eager anticipation. And when, on that impatiently awaited day, the voice continued its silence, Noah’s disappointment was overwhelming. Had the Creator abandoned him? Had he lived these many years of anguish in anticipation of the destruction only to be cast aside once having survived it? Was his salvation a farce? Was he the butt of some cosmic joke? From the depths of his unrelieved depression he sought to grasp at anything that offered additional hope. He reverted to that which he had managed to keep under control for most of his long life. For one brief moment he lapsed into a fundamental error, an error that characterized the civilization that had just been destroyed. He recalled strange animist beliefs prevalent among the superstitious folk of the past and took a step consistent with such a primitive understanding of the universe. 8:6. And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. 8:7. And he sent forth a raven, and it went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.

Noah may have thought the raven, which some ancient mariners believed to be a servant of the gods who would guide them to safety, would somehow convey to him what he should do next. Once free, however, the raven simply went forth to and fro; that is, it hovered near the ark. Neither guidance nor instruction was forthcoming from the bird. The raven was not a divine emissary but simply a bird that behaved in accordance with its particular nature. As though to emphasize this, the biblical writer tells us parenthetically that it went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. The bird continued to hover over the ark until the time Noah actually left it, serving as a constant and visible reminder of Noah’s folly, of his lapse into the primitive animist beliefs of the generation of the flood. Noah’s vain attempt to evoke a divine communication by means of the raven having come to naught, Noah was quickly chastened by the experience. In the continued absence of the commanding voice of the Creator, he would try to rely on the element within him that reflected the image of his maker, his reason. It occurred to him that perhaps he had not waited long enough. Before the destruction he had been told the waters would come for forty days once another seven days had passed. Perhaps symmetry was an ingredient of the divine scheme. Perhaps he had to wait another seven days before the cycle would be complete and he would once again hear the voice.

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Noah waited for the forty-seventh day with renewed anxiety. When the day came and passed uneventfully, Noah resolved once more to take matters into his own hands.1 However, this time he would act with greater caution and deliberation. He recognized the awesome responsibility he had for his household as well as the menagerie on board the ark. His first step would be to attempt to find out how far the waters had receded. For this mission he required a bird that was not aquatic, could fly long distances, would not roost on mountain tops or scavenge for its food, and would be capable of finding its way back to the ark if it could not find sustenance elsewhere. He selected a dove as the bird with the necessary attributes. 8:8. And he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground.

If the dove, whose natural habitat is the lowlands where most humans live, did not return, Noah would then know the dove had been unable to find the food necessary for its sustenance. This would have been interpreted as a clear indication that the waters were or soon would be completely abated, and that in a short while Noah and his family would also be able to leave the ark. Once again, however, Noah was to meet disappointment. 8:9. But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him to the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth; and he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her in unto him into the ark.

The return of the dove not only informed Noah of the status of the water. It also caused him to think about what he had done. He had in effect set a schedule for the Creator’s communications with him. Obviously, from the implicit report of the dove the time for him to leave the ark was by no means ripe. Why, then, should he have expected the Creator to instruct him to do something that was not imminent and for which he did not need long preparation? He had heard no voice during the entire deluge, so why should he assume the time for such a communication had arrived just because the ark had come to rest? How foolish he had been, and how little faith he had shown in the Creator, who had preserved him alone of all humanity. Furthermore, he had taken it upon himself to release a raven. This was doubly troubling. Not only was his purpose in setting the raven free abominable; he had also risked violating an explicit divine command. Pairs of not clean birds were brought into the ark to ensure the preservation of the species. Suppose something had happened to the raven. Had he not endangered the survival of the species by his premature release of the bird? But he had also been instructed to bring in seven pairs of the clean birds, yet he released a dove as well. Lest anything happen to it, he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her in unto him into the ark.

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Noah had now resolved not to leave the ark until the voice told him to do so, regardless of how long it took. However, Noah’s resolve and conviction were not readily transferable to his sons and their wives. The initial release of the birds could only have sharpened their desire to leave what had become an oppressive confinement. To maintain his position of authority and to constrain the rising anxiety within his household, Noah undertook dilatory tactics. He created the illusion that he would abandon the ark as soon as the ground proved once again suitable for human habitation. The dove would once more help him determine the status of the waters. He recognized that doing this presented a risk to one of the pairs of creatures he had been commanded to bring into the ark. Nonetheless, he presumably reasoned that since the numerous clean birds were ultimately for his use, what better purpose could a dove serve than to help preserve the harmony of the family? Meanwhile, Noah continued to hope the voice would soon speak to him once more. To forestall further confrontations with his sons for as long as possible, he set forth a plausible rationale for not sending the messenger dove before another seven days had lapsed. He may have suggested that seven was a particularly auspicious number and, further, that it would be best not to send the bird out daily for fear of mishap. 8:10. And he stayed yet another seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 8:11. And the dove came into him at eventide; and lo in her mouth an olive-leaf freshly plucked; so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.

The biblical author intimates that this time the dove flew even further away and returned to him only toward evening, with a freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak. For Noah, this was clear evidence the waters had receded almost entirely. Quite familiar with the nature of the olive tree, he knew that even if the lowlands were not yet completely habitable, there could be little doubt that the foothills and valley slopes were already suitable for man. However, he could not have been very anxious for his household to realize this fact. He still had no intention of leaving the ark before he had specific instructions from the Creator to do so, and he had not yet received any communication. The biblical author seems to be suggesting that Noah may not have let anyone know the dove had returned with an olive leaf. By suppressing that information he was able to continue the charade for another week before sending the bird out once again. 8:12. And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; and she returned not again unto him any more.

This time the message from the dove was unequivocal and obvious to all. The bird simply did not return. This meant the dove had found the natural

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environment suitable, thereby implying its probable appropriateness for humans as well. When the bird failed to return, Noah had little choice but to acknowledge that the waters had completely receded and that the time had come to leave the ark. 8:13. And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dried.

He removed the cover of the ark, permitting all to see that the earth was in fact dry. The specific date on which this occurred is noted by the biblical author, a day to be remembered. It came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month. It was indeed the new birthday of the world, reborn out of the waters of chaos. We would expect that once Noah’s household could see the ground was suitably dry, they would have prevailed upon Noah to leave the ark and release the animals. Nonetheless, the biblical author informs us this was not the case. Noah would not, and, indeed, did not, leave the ark before the Creator commanded him to do so. We are not told by what means Noah restrained his children, but clearly this is just what he did. 8:14. And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dry.

He would not leave the ark for another fifty-seven days, that is, until instructed to do so by the Creator. The biblical writer makes clear that Noah’s delay had nothing to do with the soaking state of the earth. By the time Noah was ready to leave the ark, the earth was not only no longer soaked but had become overly dry. In the statement that the earth was dry, the Hebrew term yaveshah is employed. Although translated as “dry,” it might better be rendered by the word “arid.” In other words, on the first day of the first month the waters had receded from the earth’s surface, leaving the ground quite moist and ready for the sowing of early crops. However, Noah did not leave the ark at that time. Fifty-seven days later, a period during which there had been no rainfall, the ground itself became parched and unsuitable for planting without irrigation. It is at this point that Noah is finally to be given the word to leave the ark. 8:15. And Elohim spoke unto Noah, saying: 8:16. “Go forth from the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee.”

As we ponder the nuances and subtleties of the biblical narrative, we must wonder about the relation between Noah’s refusal to leave the ark before

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he is told to do so and the voice that ultimately issues that instruction. Was it divine intention that Noah should remain in the ark until he received explicit permission to leave? Or did the Creator ultimately instruct Noah to leave the ark because he would not do so on his own? Man is equipped with reason, so he should be able to go out and conquer and subdue the universe. Why should Noah require or expect further providential guidance? Such guidance had obviously been needed to ensure man survived the destruction, something that transcended the limits of man’s imagination. But now, that which Noah and his sons had to do to sustain life on the earth and to begin the rebuilding of human society was reasonably self-evident. Indeed, when the Creator did finally speak to Noah again, He simply told him to leave the ark and in effect to do that which common sense itself should have demanded in the absence of divine intervention. The events of the previous several months had undoubtedly been traumatic for Noah. First, the destruction itself was an event too awful to contemplate without being thrown into the throes of despondency. Then, the slow and tortuous comprehension that he and his immediate family were to be the only survivors of the world of man known to him throughout his long life surely generated within him a deep sense of guilt. His subsequent brief episode of apostasy and recantation also served to further aggravate the sense of his own inadequacy for the momentous task ahead. He faced a complete loss of self-confidence. He, who had spent by far the greater portion of his life in unwitting ascetic preparation for this very moment, now felt unworthy of the Creator’s confidence. He became immobilized, adamantly refusing to listen to the voice of reason. His sons could not sway him from his potentially self-destructive passivity. Only the divine voice he had resolutely awaited could move him to self-preserving action. Only the voice that could reassure him that he could and must go on would enable him to overcome his morbid regret at having survived the catastrophe that had struck the rest of mankind. Contemplation of what had happened, and the part he played in the tragedy, brought Noah to the breaking point. Only divine intervention would prevent the destruction from becoming absolute, would preserve Noah and his family for their appointed role in the Creator’s scheme. Noah had undergone a confidence-shattering experience during the period since the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. He had lapsed in his faith and then recovered himself. Yet, his experience must have left varied impressions on his sons, impressions that would subsequently be reflected in their attitudes toward their father. He had shown a certain instability of character at a time of crisis and had thereby sown seeds of discord that would later bear bitter fruit. With considerable subtlety, the biblical author also points out that when Noah was instructed to enter the ark, he was to segregate himself and his sons from their wives. Only the creatures of the animal world were to be

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paired in the ark. Man, because of his special nature, was not to enjoy a normal sexual life while the world around him was being destroyed. Now he was being instructed to resume a productive and procreative life. He and his sons were to leave the ark paired once again with their wives; they were to start out anew in the world, to be the progenitors of a new civilization. Finally, Noah is reminded of his responsibility not only for his human family but also for the other creatures placed in his charge. 8:17. Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee of all flesh, both fowl, and cattle, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may swarm in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.

He was not simply to open the door of the ark and let the animals out. He is instructed to bring them out, to actively engage in the process of their reintroduction to the natural world. Man is the centerpiece of creation. The animal world had been preserved to create and sustain the ecological balance necessary for man’s well-being. The existence of man and animal is therefore intertwined; and as the creature capable of bearing responsibility, man is to be responsible for the animals. Noah was to make sure that they left the ark in a manner that would allow them to swarm in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth. The harmony of the species that prevailed in the ark was unnatural and would not be continued outside. The creatures therefore had to be brought out in such a manner and sequence as to ensure their initial survival against their natural foes. Conditions in the ark during the long voyage inhibited the natural increase of the creatures even though they were paired for that purpose. Hence, they were now to be enabled to increase at their natural rates and proliferate on the earth, much as their primeval ancestors were commanded to do at the very beginning. In this manner Noah received the message that it was time to put his despair behind him and to begin anew with his family as though reborn. However, Noah could no longer muster the unequivocal faith and trust in the Creator that had enabled him to devote long years of arduous toil to the construction of the ark. The voice was sufficient for him to take the first faltering steps toward the new beginning, but he left the ark in a state of uncertainty and unease, essentially demoralized. 8:18. And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him; 8:19. every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, whatsoever moveth upon the earth, after their families, went forth out of the ark.

Notwithstanding the divine instruction to leave the ark in pairs, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee, the biblical author tells us, Noah left the ark with his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him. Noah thus continued to maintain the segregation of the sexes that had prevailed throughout the ordeal.

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Although Noah had finally left the ark, he was not yet prepared to undertake the procreation of a new humanity. We may therefore assume he did not tell his sons and the women that it was time to resume their normal marital relations. Before he would be ready to launch the new enterprise of civilization building, he required further reassurance, perhaps that his own progeny would not be destroyed in another similar catastrophe in the future, perhaps a clear assurance that his survival had ultimate meaning. His observation of the creatures as they left the ark enhanced his sense of the possible futility of rebuilding society. From the idyllic tranquility and unnatural harmony of the species in the ark, every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, whatsoever moveth upon the earth, after their families, went forth out of the ark. Immediately upon exiting the ark the creatures arrayed themselves into their natural groupings to pursue the struggle for survival according to nature’s laws. Noah could not help wondering if such were to be the destiny of mankind as well, eventually to recreate the conditions that would invite its own destruction once again. Noah, however, was unable to shake off his mood of dejection and felt an increasing need to come closer to the Creator. Only in that way could he obtain the reassurance he sought. He could think of no better way to express his desire than to offer a sacrifice to the Creator. 8:20. And Noah builded an altar unto YHVH; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

The biblical author suggests that in offering sacrifices, Noah introduced ritualistic innovations that extended far beyond the practice of earlier generations, which had imitated the sacrifices brought by Cain and Abel. Their sacrifices were in essence simple offerings to the Creator so that through nature He might somehow share in the bounty of their labors and possessions. With Noah it was different. Noah arranged the sacrifice in a manner that clearly symbolized his purpose, that is, to approach more closely to the Creator. Noah builded an altar unto YHVH. It was not sufficient for his purpose simply to offer his sacrifice at a high place, closer to the heavens. The high places were part of nature, and to sacrifice upon them served only to reinforce the notion of man’s essential unity with nature. Noah, however, wished to emphasize man’s human, rather than his natural, aspects. Accordingly, he built an altar, a man-made high place. By this means his sacrifice of an animal became not just another event in the all-pervasive struggle for survival in the animal world but a symbol of something greater. His ritualized sacrifice was an entirely calculated act that was to be consummated on a man-made extension of the earth. Moreover, he did not simply leave his offering at the high place for nature to consume in its own ways. He deliberately and completely destroyed

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the animal with fire so both the flame and the smoke would rise toward heaven as surrogates for him. The burned offerings placed the entire rite outside the framework of nature. The sacrifice now became a vicarious representation of man’s subjugation of nature in his capacity as the Creator’s viceroy on earth; the procedure was designed principally to elevate man’s spirit. Noah decided that he must demonstrate his fervent desire to blot out his recent transgression through a major act of renunciation. He understood that all the clean animals and fowl he was commanded to bring with him into the ark were intended to provide the basic domestic economy upon which he was to build the new society and civilization. He therefore decided to sacrifice one of each of the species of clean birds and animals, one-fourteenth of his total stock. This massive burnt-offering would serve to dramatically express his sorrow for what he had done, his gratitude for having been saved, and his deep need for reassurance that it had not all been in vain. The biblical author informs us, albeit in a curious manner, that the Creator perceived Noah’s sincerity, symbolized by the ascending aroma of the burning fat of the animals, as Noah had intended. 8:21. And YHVH smelled the sweet savour; and YHVH said in His heart: “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.”

Noah’s entreaty was well received. The biblical author tells us the Creator, who neither asked for nor needed the burnt-offerings to know of the sincerity of those who appealed to Him, metaphorically smelled the sweet savour of the sacrifice Noah had burned, thereby indicating its acceptance. He decided to give to Noah the reassurance he sought so desperately. A certain irony colors these most recent events. For the third time since man entered the universe, the earth had been cursed for the sake of man as a means of educating him through the extensive labor he would have to expend for his sustenance. First, when Adam transgressed against the Creator, he was told: Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Again, when Cain committed the cardinal sin of man against man, he was told: Cursed art thou from the ground . . . When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength. And now, the whole earth had been subjected to a scourging bath of purification for the benefit of future man, the new generation to be spawned by Noah and his sons. After all this we find Noah, with deep conviction, imposing demands on the Creator as a price for his having survived the destruction. The biblical author thus expresses, in very human terms, the notion of the Creator’s frustration at Noah’s failure to meet the high standards expected of him as the moral leader of the new humanity. He presents this as the Creator musing

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to Himself: I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Man is imperfect by design, and by his very human nature he is not readily perfectible. Notwithstanding the trials imposed on him through the natural world, his capacity to rationalize prevents him from understanding the moral implications of those extraordinary experiences and from mending his ways. Cain thus pursued his own self-directed and disastrous course despite the lesson he should have learned from the cursing of the earth because of the sin of Adam. Similarly, the generation of the flood failed to absorb the lessons that should have been learned from the additional hardships to which Cain had been subjected. Now that the known world had been destroyed, Noah, as the surviving patriarch of humanity, displayed tendencies destined to obscure the lessons that were to have been learned from the destruction. The problem seems to derive from the fact that man first develops his animal nature as an infant and toddler.2 Once nurtured under the dominant influence of their appetites, even the best of men, such as Noah, have great difficulty imposing the rule of reason on the demands of the senses and the imagination. Even Adam, who was as perfect as anyone could aspire to be, succumbed. Consequently, no further modifications to the physical universe would be carried out for the purpose of improving the moral character of man. The flood had changed the balance of nature so as to shorten life and eliminate those environmental conditions fundamentally conducive to moral lassitude. From now on man’s moral career would be simply what he chose to make of it, without further divine intervention in the order of nature. 8:22. “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”

The environment that would now confront mankind would be of such a character as to pose the greatest challenges to it. Short seasons for agriculture, the alternations of heat and cold, and all the rest of the changes would force man to work harder than his antediluvian ancestors for his sustenance. His natural increase would also be limited by the constraints of his primitive economy. The world of the ten generations from Adam to Noah had been a moral failure, and now the new Noahide world seemed to be off to an inauspicious beginning. Noah’s disappointing failure to assert the leadership expected of a patriarch placed the success of the new civilization-building project in jeopardy. As a result, it became necessary to involve the Noahides directly in the leadership role Noah appeared to be forfeiting by his procrastination and lack of self-confidence. Thus, for the first time the Creator spoke, not to Noah alone, but to the entire Noahide family and instructed them to wait no longer to undertake the re-propagation of humanity. They were to put aside their feelings of guilt and despair and to begin the great task of civilization building

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originally assigned to their primeval ancestor Adam, who was told to be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth. The Noahides were now instructed, in identical language, to carry out that same charge: 9:1. And Elohim blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.”

Upon leaving the ark Noah and his sons confronted substantial practical problems. First was the matter of food. The year in the ark had exhausted nearly all the supplies they had taken with them. Now, when they finally left the ark, they entered a barren world. Virtually all vegetation had been obliterated, and the earth itself was arid. Noah’s refusal to leave the ark before receiving specific instructions to do so had caused them to miss the opportunity of planting new crops while the ground was still moist from the flood waters. By the time they did leave the ark, the ground was parched from the absence of rain and the abundance of sunshine. To transform this desert into a garden once more would take time. In the meantime, however, the problem of finding adequate food to sustain life was a matter of great urgency. The second major concern had to do with the animals now released from the ark. Noah knew the harmony displayed by the diverse creatures while they were in the ark was unnatural. Now that all the animals were returned to nature, they too would face hunger and would enter into a major struggle for survival. He also feared for the safety of his family. He was a farmer used to the sedentary life. How would he and his family cope with the need to coax food out of the arid earth while simultaneously fending off hordes of wild animals and birds also searching for food? Man himself might become prey for the wild beasts while competing for the fruits of the earth with the rest of animal nature. To deal with these concerns the Creator further instructed the Noahides: 9:2. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, and upon all wherewith the ground teemeth, and upon all the fishes of the sea: into your hand are they delivered. 9:3. Every moving thing that liveth shall be for food for you; as the green herb have I given you all. 9:4. Only flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

To persevere in the struggle for survival, man would have to modify his relationship with the creatures of the earth. The prevailing harmony that had existed between man and the animal world would have to be altered. Heretofore an herbivore, man would have to become a carnivore in order to survive. Unlike Adam, who was nurtured in the Garden of Eden, which abounded with fruits, Noah and his sons found themselves in a desert. There was little doubt that as the Noahides began to heed the Creator’s command to procreate, human demands for food would rapidly outstrip the supply

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available from the earth, for which they would be competing with so many other creatures. Only by becoming meat-eaters, only by consuming their competitors, could humans survive. Accordingly, they are informed that every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you. By so instructing the Noahides, the Creator precluded the other option open to them: That is, man was not to kill the creatures of the earth and sky to reduce the competition for the food of the earth. Non-human creatures of the world were to be killed only when necessary to ensure the availability of an adequate food supply for man. After all, the Creator’s original charge to man was to conquer the natural world and subdue it, not to destroy it. Now, however, man is given permission to destroy as much of the natural world as necessary to provide sufficient food to assure his physical survival. But he was not to become a scavenger feeding on carrion. He was placed under the constraint that only the moving thing that liveth shall be food for you. All the beasts of the earth, every fowl of the air, and the fish in the sea, into your hand are they delivered. In this way the problem of an enduring food supply would be resolved. However, the creatures of the earth and sky would instinctively sense the new estrangement of man and the danger of his presence, and the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon them. They would instinctively avoid contact with man, thereby reducing the dangers to themselves. The wild beasts will avoid man whenever possible, as will the herbivores that would ravage his crops. Man’s estrangement from nature would thus serve to enhance his physical security. Killing animals for food becomes a practical necessity, but it can also be done in a way that will serve to emphasize a higher purpose. In each such act of slaughter man is to be reminded of his own place in the universe. A part of nature, yet transcending it, he must always remain cognizant of his purpose and mission in life. He is intended by the Creator to be above the rest of created nature, to care for it always, even when out of necessity he is compelled to destroy certain elements of it. He is to be sure that his shedding of animal blood does not become an end in itself, a thirst after bloodshed. Although he may kill for food as does the animal, he must not be animal-like in his demeanor. He must not, like the wild beast, tear his prey apart and eat its flesh while its heart is still pumping blood through its vessels. Only flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. Man, who is capable of killing for the sake of killing, must learn to abhor blood, particularly the taste of fresh blood. He must differentiate himself from the animal as much as possible. The errors of Cainite civilization must not be perpetuated, must not be allowed to obscure the true place and purpose of man in the Creator’s scheme of existence. Nonetheless, although all this necessarily ensured man’s viability in the newly constituted world, reducing his physical danger brought into being a new moral threat. It was the killing of an animal by Abel as a sacrifice to the Creator that led Cain to believe that if it were permissible for man to

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kill an animal, it was also permissible to kill another human. Might the Noahides infer a similar conclusion? Might brutality to animals breed brutality to humans as well? Once having permitted the killing of animals, it became necessary to place clear and appropriate restraints on man’s behavior. He might kill only for food. However, man is not food for man. Man is not to be considered in the same category as the creatures of the world, which are delivered into man’s hand for his purposes. Man must learn to make a clear distinction between his fellow humans and the rest of animate nature. 9:5. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it; and at the hand of man, even at the hand of every man’s brother, will I require the life of man.

Whosoever might dare to shed the blood of another human will have to answer for it to the Creator. Indeed, even the person who would take his own life will have to answer for it. So sacred is human life that even the perpetrator of an unintentional killing of a human, let alone an intentional killing, will be called to account before the Creator; at the hand of man, even at the hand of every man’s brother, will I require the life of man. Even the beast that kills a human will be called to account. Not because the animal has volition and is capable of a deliberate act, but because man is the central concern of the universe and all of nature is for his benefit. Therefore, anything within nature that acts against man is to be considered dysfunctional, serving no valid purpose, and its existence is therefore to be considered forfeit. Moreover, with regard to those individuals with the temerity to consciously violate the Creator’s injunction and take a human life, society must not await divine punishment of the perpetrator but must itself take retributive action. 9:6. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of Elohim made He man.

Man must rationally order his universe and protect its viability and capacity for perseverance. Society must root out that which would endanger it from within. As the Creator’s lieutenant on earth, man is charged with the responsibility for meting out justice in human society. Human life is sacrosanct, for in the image of Elohim made He man. A transgression against man is also a transgression against the Creator. Having set forth these rudimentary but critical ground rules, the Creator again reassured the Noahides that He wished them to proceed with their civilization-building mission. 9:7. And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; swarm in the earth, and multiply therein.

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In these few brief passages the biblical author provides the first explicit restatement of biblical social legislation. Yet, one may wonder why there was need for such specific moral direction within the context of the biblical narrative at this time. Nothing demanded here of man is so alien to human reason that it required a divine imperative to ensure that man would adopt it as a rule governing his conduct. Surely, in time, through the application of his reason man would arrive at a similar set of prohibitions, which he would incorporate in a humanistic moral code. Why, then, were such divine injunctions necessary? The biblical author seems to be intimating that such moral legislation is necessary because man’s capacity for rational thought is not entirely trustworthy. He is capable of the most outrageous rationalization when driven by appetite to justify a given behavior, no matter how morally reprehensible. This is exemplified by Cain, who had drawn a completely wrong inference from his rational reflections about Abel’s animal sacrifice and its apparent acceptability to God, and thereby set the pattern for a humanist civilization that ultimately saw its fruition in the destruction just concluded. A repetition of this process was not to be permitted now. Man was to understand unequivocally, authoritatively and from the outset, his relation to the world of nature. There was to be no opportunity for evolving these precepts through human experience, thereby running the risk of misperception and distortion. These precepts were therefore communicated directly to the Noahides, and not through Noah as an intermediary, to emphasize unmistakably the fundamental importance they hold for humankind. Having made this point quite clear, the Creator continued to communicate directly to the Noahides, this time addressing their innermost fears. The Creator had already decided that He would not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake, nor again smite any more every living thing (Gen. 8:21). Now He informed man of that decision. Man need no longer hesitate to begin the arduous task of rebuilding and regeneration; his continued viability was assured. 9:8. And Elohim spoke unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying: 9:9. “As for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you, and with your seed after you; [9:10.] and with every living creature that is with you, the fowl, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that go out of the ark, even every beast of the earth. [9:11.] And I will establish My covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of the flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.”

This covenant, which is unilateral and not conditioned on any reciprocal commitment by man, guarantees that a universal destruction such as that which Noah and his family had just survived will not occur again. Neither the earth that serves as man’s habitation nor the creatures of nature that

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constitute its living environment will be subjected to further massive retribution on account of the folly of mankind. However, the Creator gives no assurance here that there will no longer be any natural cataclysm that might engulf man or beast, or that the earth itself will never again be ravaged. What the covenant does promise is any future retribution levied against man, and because of him against earth and beast, will never be total. Such disasters as may occur will be limited in nature and scope. Neither shall all flesh be cut off any more . . . neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. The Creator thus offered His reassurance to the Noahides that it was not futile to carry out the divine charge to be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth (Gen. 9:1). Because of the collective sense of despair experienced by Noah and his sons as they reflected on the enormity of the catastrophe that they alone survived, the Creator sought to ease their minds further by giving them additional assurances concerning what was about to happen. For it had now become necessary to bring heavy rains to the earth once again. When the flood had reached its zenith, powerful winds kept the clouds away from the area of the flood. The accumulation of moisture from evaporation would naturally bring more rain over the flooded area and would have further extended the duration of the flood. Thus, through control of the rainbearing clouds, the earth was permitted to dry. But because of Noah’s repeated procrastination, by the time he and his family left the ark, the earth had become arid. Now it was essential to restore the natural order in the affected region. Without rain, the earth would not again become capable of supporting life. A continued drought would destroy that which had survived the earlier flooding. The season was ripe for the heavy rains that would give new life to the parched earth and its inhabitants. How would the Noahides react to a new downpour of torrential rains? Might such a natural occurrence generate new fears and perhaps even despondency? Might they think that the earlier divine assurances had been negated? Could they retain their faith and trust in the Creator in the face of what they might perceive as a new catastrophe coming to complete the destruction of the flood? To assuage their fears, they are told that they have no valid cause for alarm. The rains will indeed come, but they will be rains that bring blessings to the earth, and not further destruction. Divine assurance of this would come in the form of a sign in the heavens that will be visible to them as the sun breaks through the rain clouds. 9:12. And Elohim said: “This is the token of the covenant which I make between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: [9:13.] I have set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth. [9:14.] And it shall come to pass, when I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow is seen in the cloud, [9:15.] that I

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will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. [9:16.] And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between Elohim and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.”

To assuage their concerns, the Creator tells the Noahides that whenever He sees the rainbow it will cause Him to remember His unilateral covenant with mankind. At that point, He will intervene to stop the rains before they become excessive and destructive, and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. However, despite the reassurance and the specification of a sign in the heavens to serve as a reminder of the covenant, the coming rains would also provide a basic test of faith for Noah and his sons. Because the rainbow will not appear until after the rains begin and subside, their trust in the Creator must overcome their fears if they are not to succumb completely to despair. Having concluded the message the Creator wished the Noahides, collectively, to receive directly from Him, He then turned to Noah, for whose sake the salvation of man had taken place. The future of humanity depended on Noah as patriarch of the Noahide clan, the basic building block of the new society that was to emerge. It was Noah who had to assume the responsibility for imposing a moral regime on his descendants, a regime predicated on absolute faith and trust in God coupled with the rule of human reason over man’s animal urges and appetites. God recalled to Noah the ambiguous promise made to him before the onset of the flood: But I will establish My covenant with thee (Gen. 6:18). Now, He addressed him directly once again: 9:17. And Elohim said unto Noah: “This is the token of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh.”

The rainbow, a natural phenomenon, was to remind Noah every time he saw it that nature itself is a creation of God no less than is man himself. The rainbow, something that men took for granted as they did the rising of the sun and the waning of the moon, was henceforth to serve as a sign of the Creator’s commitment to mankind. Nothing new was to be created for the purpose because all that exists in the universe does so at the will of the Creator. Noah must grasp this truth and convey it successfully to his disciples. They must comprehend the sanctity of all creation as the work of the Creator. Man and beast, earth and sky, all have their parts to play in the grand scheme of existence. That which is everlasting in nature was already created at the beginning, and the rainbow is henceforth to be dedicated as a token of the everlasting covenant between Elohim and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

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NOTES 1. According to Solomon ben Isaac’s commentary on Gen. 8:8, that Noah waited until the forty-seventh day before sending out the dove is evidenced by verse 8:10, which states that he stayed yet another seven days before sending out the bird the second time. The use of the term “another” indicates that Noah had earlier waited seven additional days before dispatching the first dove. 2. For an in-depth analysis of this notion and the biblical verse upon which it is based, see the author’s Between Man and God: Issues in Judaic Thought (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2001), ch. 9.

Chapter 7

Society Astray: The Tower of Babel

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s a preamble to the narrative of the rebirth of civilization and the course of its political and moral history, the biblical author directs our attention once again to the origin of mankind, as we know it. 9:18. And the sons of Noah, that went forth from the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth; and Ham is the father of Canaan. 9:19. These three were the sons of Noah, and of these was the whole world overspread.

It is here reaffirmed that the entire population of the biblical world derived from Noah and his wife through their three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. It was only they who went forth from the ark, and only of these was the whole earth overspread. The crucial implication of this is that because of their common patrilineal and matrilineal descent, Noah bears legitimate patriarchal authority over all mankind, placing an enormous burden of moral responsibility upon him and his three immediate descendants for the civilization that was to emerge from their efforts. There is also an assumption implicit in this statement regarding great differences between the three brothers that might account for the substantial differences among their descendants. However, it is the moral distinction between them that is of primary concern to the biblical author. He implicitly calls our attention to this

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distinction here because it relates to the period of their residence in the ark, but he will amplify his point in some detail later in the narrative. Recall that upon entering the ark Noah and his sons separated from their spouses. For man to indulge in normal sensual pleasures while other living beings about him were suffering was considered inappropriate. This voluntary self-denial demanded the rule of reason and will over the appetites and passion. Indeed, as we saw, Noah showed reluctance to cohabit with his wife even after the deluge until reassured that such cohabitation was purposeful. However, the biblical author now suggests that one of Noah’s sons failed to observe such abstinence during the stay in the ark. Thus we are told, at a point in the narrative where such a partial genealogy seems rather out of place, Ham is the father of Canaan. The implication is that at the time Ham left the ark with his brothers Shem and Japheth, his wife had already conceived his son Canaan. This clue to the character of Ham clears the way to an understanding of subsequent events related in the narrative. Ham proved unwilling to exercise even a modicum of self-discipline by adhering to the norms of behavior adopted by the rest of his family. He thus displayed a weakness of character that ill fitted one destined to be a progenitor of a world based on a morality higher than that of the antediluvian civilization. What a blow to Noah the early birth of a son to Ham must have been! Noah had been chosen to survive the destruction in order to rebuild a moral universe using the family as the fundamental building block. His moral leadership was to guide its birth and development. Yet, his very first attempt to assert moral leadership, his call for compassion for the suffering, which was to be demonstrated by a deliberate abstinence from sexual gratification, was only partially successful. Ham thus undermined the new moral order from its very outset. Canaan, the product of Ham’s incontinent behavior, was to become the living reminder to Noah of his failure to meet the challenge presented to him by the Creator. It was indeed a portentous beginning. Noah, it appears, never quite recovered from the blow Ham delivered to his stature as patriarch and moral guide of the Noahides. A bitterness and estrangement between father and son set in that proved harmful to the harmony of the social units that were evolving out of the Noahide family. The biblical author, in his typically subtle manner, hints at Noah’s loss of moral authority. Noah knew his mission to reconstruct society and civilization would require wresting control of the earth from brute nature, as his forefathers had done in times past. Civilization building implied and required an ordered economic existence. However, the task before Noah was far more complex than that faced by his antediluvian predecessors. Because mankind was vegetarian by divine fiat, his ancestors had to cultivate the earth in order to ensure an adequate food supply for a growing population. Now, after the deluge, man had been given a new divine dispensation that permitted him

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to derive his sustenance directly from the flesh of the creatures of the earth and sky as well as from the produce of the ground. The food supply could be assured through hunting as well as agriculture, the former far less laborious and tedious than the latter. But an economy based on hunting, as was the case with the pastoral economy pursued at the dawn of history by Abel, provided a poor foundation for civilization. As may be concluded from his actions, Noah apparently felt convinced the divine permission to eat flesh was intended only as an emergency measure to assure human viability while the earth was coaxed to yield its riches once more. An agricultural economy remained the essential underpinning for the accomplishment of his civilization-building mission. It is unclear, and rather doubtful, that Noah’s sons fully shared this perception. 9:20. And Noah the husbandman began, and planted a vineyard.

Noah the agriculturist began the task of working the earth. There is no indication that his sons did so as well. As noted, hunting and herding were far less arduous occupations than farming. Pursuing the latter for the purpose of laying the groundwork for a stable future civilization must surely have seemed an idealistic notion quite remote from the concerns of a group of people struggling to persevere in the aftermath of world destruction. Noah’s apparent inability to convince his sons to share his vision and follow his choice of occupation surely resulted in his further loss of moral authority. The Noahide family, which was to be the basic unit of a new morally progressive world, was proving unstable and ill prepared for the task. It was perhaps this domestic situation that caused Noah to plant a vineyard. He did not merely plant grapevines along with other fruit-bearing trees and plants, as he might have done to provide a variety of foods. Within the context of the primitive economy that characterized the world of the Noahides, Noah took the time and trouble to cultivate a vineyard, one that by its very definition would produce an abundance of grapes far in excess of what could have been consumed by them as food. He clearly intended to produce wine. Perhaps he believed the mellowing effect of wine might ease the heartache and dejection he was experiencing with his increasing inability to control the events transpiring within his family. Perhaps the wine might soothe the hurt he would feel every time he saw his grandson Canaan, conceived in the ark in blatant defiance of Noah’s stricture against cohabitation there. Canaan served as a living memorial to the erosion of Noah’s moral authority and consequently of his ability to carry out the mission for which he had been preserved. The biblical author fails to indicate the specific cause of the incident, but on one momentous occasion Noah drank more wine than he should have and became highly intoxicated.

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9:21. And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.

Perhaps aware he was becoming inebriated, Noah hid himself in the inner recesses of his dwelling soothers might not see him in such an intoxicated condition. That the patriarch of the Noahides, a man of very advanced age, one intended as the moral mentor of the generation, be seen in a drunken stupor was certainly unseemly. Once inside his tent, he probably felt an intense bodily warmth that led him to disrobe and sprawl in naked abandon. Noah’s actions, however, did not go unnoticed by his son Ham. Ham, the son whose defiance had caused an irreparable breach with his father and whose continuing estrangement fueled an ever-growing resentment, delighted in his father’s display of human frailty and corruptibility. 9:22. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.

Ham followed his father into the tent and witnessed the pathetic sight of the naked old man, immobilized by drink and without control over his faculties. We can imagine Ham standing and gloating over the body of his father. So this was the great moral leader, the one chosen by God to rebuild the world! This breathing but insensate heap of bones and flesh was the same Noah who so vehemently castigated him as a reprobate simply because he indulged in a most natural passion during the long stay in the ark. The sight of Noah surely made Ham feel vindicated in his own earlier behavior. Was this drunken stupor the proper behavior about which his father had always preached? Not satisfied with keeping this knowledge of his father’s condition to himself, Ham wanted to convey his sense of vindication to his brothers. Instead of covering his father’s embarrassing nakedness, Ham removed the garment his father had taken off and brought it to his brothers as evidence of Noah’s drunken state. Ham must have been taken aback by the reaction of Shem and Japheth, who registered their disgust at Ham’s behavior. They recognized the impropriety of Noah’s drunkenness. However, they viewed his situation as tragic rather than comic. Unlike Ham, they still felt a sense of mutual responsibility to their father. They knew that Noah was not perfect, that as a human being he had weaknesses just as they did. Yet, they also understood that it was because of Noah’s personal vulnerabilities that the Noahides were preserved as a family to be the basic social component of the new civilization. The failings and weaknesses of one were to be offset by the strengths of another, and in this way to compensate for the human deficiencies of each. They took the garment from Ham to return it to their father to cover his embarrassment.

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9:23. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.

The biblical author describes in detail the deliberately complex procedure Shem and Japheth followed in order to accomplish the rather simple task of covering the naked body of their father. First, he informs us, Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father. Ham, the unregenerate immoralist, derived great satisfaction from what he saw. Instead of feeling shame at the sight of his father in such a state, he reveled in it. Shem and Japheth, in contrast, were repelled by what delighted Ham—they were offended by even hearing of it from his lips. They were outraged at Ham, not against Noah, for having told them about it, and they decided to compensate for the evil intent of their brother. In undoing Ham’s outrageous act, they would be particularly careful to avoid duplicating Ham’s brazenness. They proposed to replace the garment on their father’s body without casting an eye on his nakedness. They took the garment between them and walked backward into the tent, always averting any sight of their father no matter which way they moved, and finally covered Noah with the garment. And they saw not their father’s nakedness. Shem and Japheth thus symbolically emphasized the dangers into which one may enter by following one’s eyes without restraint by moral precept. The emotions aroused by visual perceptions must be tempered by the moral sense that speaks to the mind and heart. The intricate procedure they followed clearly indicated to Ham their complete rejection of both his arguments and his values. Noah himself might be undergoing a season of personal decline, but what he stood for had transcendent value and was not wholly contingent for its validity on his personal conduct. Shem and Japheth thus rejected the way of Ham. 9:24. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his youngest son had done unto him.

As Noah recovered from his inebriated state, he immediately sensed that something was wrong. Perhaps finding himself covered neatly by his garment made him realize that someone had placed it on him. As he began to reflect on his situation, he may have recalled vague images of his sons as they intruded upon his privacy in the tent. Soon he fully realized what had happened, and he felt deeply ashamed and aggrieved. Ham’s disrespectful taunts rang in his ears as he pictured his son gloating over his indisposition. And how could he face Shem and Japheth, who had acted with such great tact and circumspection? What right to leadership over them could he now assert? A mixture of self-pity and self-disgust overcame the distraught Noah. He, who had been chosen by the Creator for the great work of building a

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new civilization because he was the most righteous man of his generation, was now looked down upon by his own children. Any deference they continued to show him could be nothing more than patronization on their part. Indeed, it was much easier to be a dissident in a corrupt society than to be the founder of a moral one. He had failed the test almost at the very outset of his new career. He could not maintain the moral authority necessary to control the course of the moral evolution of society. As Noah brooded over his indiscretion and its consequences, he searched for the root cause of his troubles. Almost instinctively, he focused his blame and anger on Ham. Yes, it was Ham who had, through his act of defiance in the ark, brought him to his current state. It was his own inability to exercise control over Ham’s behavior that undermined his patriarchal authority and drove him to seek solace in wine. The very physical presence of his grandson Canaan, conceived through transgression of the first moral injunction Noah had transmitted to his sons, constituted a challenge to his moral regime. Noah was beside himself with rage. 9:25. And he said: “Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.”

Noah’s invocation of a curse upon his grandson is troubling—not only because he was lashing out against his grandson Canaan rather than his son Ham, but also because Noah apparently thought his pronouncing a curse was sufficient to bring it about. Once again Noah had evidently lapsed into the primitive beliefs of the generation of the flood. Surely there was nothing magical about his curse that could control the course of human history. Moreover, in what way would the future subjugation of the descendants of Canaan compensate for the maliciousness Noah had suffered at the hand of Ham? Noah’s momentary loss of self-control once again further aggravated his anguish and self-deprecation. He sought to make his peace with the Creator, whom he had failed. Noah was no longer fit for leadership in carrying out the mission assigned to the Noahides to rebuild the world. The cohesiveness of the Noahide family unit lay in a shamble, another experiment gone awry. Yet, all was not lost. There remained the possibility of a moral order arising out of the Noahide family—from his sons Shem and Japheth—even if not from Ham. Shem, in particular, seemed imbued with the spirit of the Creator. He would surely be able to assume leadership of the development of a new moral order. Presumably for this reason Noah singled Shem out as his spiritual heir. 9:26. And he said: “Blessed be YHVH, the God of Shem; And let Canaan be their servant.”

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Shem would preserve and nurture the purest manifestation of the image of the Creator in man if he were permitted to develop his natural inclinations without external interference. Accordingly, the negative influences symbolized by the very presence of Canaan, the veritable manifestation of immorality, must be constrained and subordinated. Noah therefore prays that the morality of Shem be able to withstand and overcome the corrupting influences of the Canaanites. Moreover, Noah was convinced that Japheth would likewise prove capable of developing an appropriately moral order, though differently from Shem, if only allowed to flourish without hindrance. Expanding on his initial plea, Noah prays: 9:27. Elohim enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; And let Canaan be their servant.

Noah’s plea is that Elohim enlarge Japheth, so his cultural influence may be greater than that of Canaan, and that the Creator shall [continue to] dwell in the tents of Shem. With the Creator’s help, the moral society will evolve despite the immoral influences symbolized by Canaan, who will be subdued like a servant rather than appear and act as the corrupting lord of the world of Shem and Japheth. With this fervent prayer, Noah departed the stage of the moral history of mankind. 9:28. And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. 9:29. And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years; and he died.

Having forfeited his moral leadership, having failed in the great mission assigned to him as patriarch of the Noahides, Noah lived on for another 350 years or so in obscurity. His remaining years must have been years of selfrecrimination and sorrow as he witnessed the struggles between his sons and their descendants. What a tragic end to an auspicious beginning! Before proceeding to recount the next significant developments in the moral history of man, the biblical author interrupts the flow of the narrative to emphasize once more the common origins of mankind and, therefore, the intrinsic equality of all men. The descendants of Noah he lists are the founders of societies and nations that constituted the ancient world, and all, he insists, derive from Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 10:1. Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth; and unto them were sons born after the flood. 10:2. The sons of Japheth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. 10:3. And the sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah. 10:4. And the sons of Javan: Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. 10:5. Of these were the isles of the nations divided in their lands, every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.

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Causing the reader to ponder the wide geographical dispersion and great variations in the characteristics of these peoples, the biblical writer reassures us that all these came into being after the flood. Thus, in his own subtle way, he challenges the various primitive beliefs in the extraordinary birth of different nations. He declares instead that all are derived in a most natural manner from the Noahides, and such predisposition and particular traits as they may possess are traceable to their forefathers Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The biblical author, who is concerned only with such information as bears on his narrative purpose, treats the Japhetic line first, since it is the least directly relevant to subsequent events. However, only the nations deriving from Gomer and Javan are specifically identified, presumably because they played a more important part in those events than the others. Turning next to the Hamites, the biblical author lists the several nations that derived from Ham and gives particular attention to those descending from the line of Canaan. It is these that play so prominent a role in the history of the children of Israel, so much so that the geographical bounds of their sphere of control are detailed for the reader. 10:6. And the sons of Ham: Cush, and Mizraim, and Put, and Canaan. 10:7. And the sons of Cush: Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabteca; and the sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. 10:13. And Mizraim begot Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim, 10:14. and Pathrusim, and Casluhim—whence went forth the Philistines—and Caphtorim. 10:15. And Canaan begot Zidon his first-born, and Heth; 10:16. and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgashite; 10:17. and the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite; 10:18. and the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite; and afterward were the families of the Canaanite spread abroad. 10:19. And the border of the Canaanite was from Zidon, as thou goest toward Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest toward Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim, unto Lasha. 10:20. These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, in their nations.

In describing the line of Cush, the biblical author deviates from his genealogy and inserts a digression of particular political significance. Thus, he first lists the nations derived from Cush and then the origins of Nimrod, who is also a descendant of Cush but not the progenitor of a separate nation. 10:8. And Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one in the earth. 10:9. He was a mighty hunter before YHVH; wherefore it is said: “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before YHVH.” 10:10. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. 10:1.1 Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and Rehoboth-ir, and Calah, 10:12. and Resen between Nineveh and Calah—the same is the great city.

Nimrod is the focus of an important event in the moral history of mankind, the founding of the postdiluvian state. The biblical author tells us that

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Nimrod began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before YHVH.1 These few words provide, by implication, a wealth of information. As suggested earlier, the immediate shortage of food that followed the destruction was relieved through the divine dispensation that permitted man to feed on the other creatures of the earth. Even though this ameliorated the immediate problem, it also had less desirable long-range consequences. It made the task of civilization building much more difficult. To hunt was easier than to spend one’s life in a struggle to conquer the earth. As a result, the process of building stable societies slowed. Indeed, as we saw earlier, the Noahides’ reticence to follow the direction of their father, the husbandman, in this arduous endeavor contributed to weakening family unit as the basis of the new society. Nevertheless, we may assume that the family continued to be the primary social unit, with the aggregations of families constituting clans, tribes, and nations. It is against this background that Nimrod arose to bring into being a new form of social organization, the state. Nimrod is characterized as a mighty hunter. In a universe where perhaps the greatest concern of men was to ensure the adequacy of their food supply, and hence their survival, the great hunter became a highly respected societal figure. His skill ensured that he could produce a food surplus. This capability brought him relative wealth and power, for he was able to trade food for allegiance and obedience. He could also impart his skills to others, gaining respect and authority. In this way, he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He began to apply the skills and techniques of the hunter to the leadership of men.2 The great hunter must be a master of deception, capable of anticipating the behavior of his prey, and able to condition its reactions to serve his purposes. Nimrod was so successful at this that he became the subject of a popular simile, Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before YHVH. Within his lifetime Nimrod was able to transform his personal power into a political form. His influence transcended family relationships and tribal loyalties. He created the first political state, in which power was centralized, with himself at its head. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Afterward he spread to Asshur, and builded Nineveh. The fruits of this political expansion are described later in the narrative. This preliminary picture is given here to place it within the context of the history of mankind deriving from Noah through the line of Ham. Finally, the biblical author turns to Shem’s descendants, on whom the subsequent events to be related will concentrate. 10:21. And unto Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, to him also were children born. 10:22. The sons of Shem: Elam, and Asshur, and Arpachshad, and Lud, and Aram. 10:23. And the sons of Aram: Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash. 10:24. And Arpachshad begot Shelah; and Shelah begot Eber. 10:25. And unto Eber were born two sons; the name

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of the one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan. 10:26. And Joktan begot Almodad, and Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and Jerah; 10:27. and Hadoram, and Uzal, and Diklah; 10:28. and Obal, and Abimael, and Sheba; 10:29. and Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. 10:30. And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest toward Sephar, unto the mountain of the east. 10:31. These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations.

Because of his importance to biblical history, Shem is introduced more elaborately here than are his brothers. The reader is informed at once that Shem is the patriarch of all the children of Eber, of all those that later will be described as Hebrews. Furthermore, by a formula commonly used throughout the Scriptures, he is described in relation to his brother Japheth, who is, translating the Hebrew phrase more literally, the elder of the two. Perhaps we already have here a clue to the later frequent deviations from the principle of primogeniture in moral affairs and leadership. Merit rather than order of birth is to be the key criterion for moral authority. The genealogy presented here is incomplete. The line of Shem, which provides the main actors in the drama to unfold, is delineated down to Peleg and no further. The remainder will be dealt with in a subsequent narrative, where the genealogy will be presented in greater detail. Here the biblical author simply notes that Peleg (meaning “division”) was appropriately named, for in his days was the earth divided; that is, the events about to be related took place during his lifetime. 10:32. These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations; and of these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.

The recitation of the Noahide genealogy ends by calling the reader’s attention once more to the relationship these diverse peoples have to Noah, for they are nothing other than the families of the sons of Noah . . . and of these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood. The great population growth and dispersion throughout the biblical world was accomplished by the Noahides and their descendants in accordance with the Creator’s command to be fruitful, and multiply; swarm in the earth, and multiply therein. The final passage of the genealogy also serves to introduce the events about to be related. The ultimate division of the nations in the earth, and the circumstances that caused it to take place, reflects yet another stage in postdiluvian man’s moral decline. Having concluded his description of the events concerning the original Noahide family, the biblical author returns once again to the beginning of the renewal of the human enterprise and recounts those events from an evidently sociopolitical perspective.

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11:1. And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.

Notwithstanding the emerging personality differences between Noah and his sons, and among the brothers themselves, which were to erupt into more serious and consequential incompatibilities later on, initially the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. Though there might be significant differences among the Noahides in tendencies, attitudes, and desires, they were able to communicate with each other. They not only shared a common language in a linguistic sense but also were of one speech; that is, they also shared a common set of experiences that enabled them to understand the meaning as well as the unstated intent of what each of them might say. In this capacity for mutual comprehension lay a key element for the development of a cohesive society, a society built on confidence and trust. As the Noahides descended from the mountains of Ararat, they sought an appropriate location to settle and begin to build their society and civilization. The biblical author does not tell us how long this period of searching and moving went on, nor does he indicate clearly what sort of homestead they were searching after. We are told simply: 11:2. And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

Ultimately, they found a location that could accommodate the diverse interests of the Noahide family. As suggested earlier, Noah was determined to begin the arduous task of reconstruction through subduing the earth and using its yield as the economic base for a stable society. However, there is every reason to believe that his sons did not share this vision. Noah himself had already spoken of the tents of Shem, a clear indication of the nomadic tendencies of that son, a domicile reflecting the lifestyle of the shepherd or goatherd rather than that of the farmer and planter. Moreover, given the divine dispensation to feed off the animal world, for many hunting may also have proven a more desirable occupation than working the ground. The plain of Shinar was presumably broad enough and varied enough to accommodate these diverse tendencies and therefore permitted the entire Noahide family to settle in the general area. There they began the task of building a new civilization, rapidly expanding their families while developing their primitive economies. Because they were of one language and of one speech, they were able to establish social arrangements that permitted them to live with, and in proximity to, one another without excessively divisive conflicts arising from their differing social and economic bases and structures. The society remained mainly patriarchal, even though Noah’s status as chief patriarch certainly suffered irreparable damage after the incident of his drunkenness. Over time, however, the Noahides began to lose their common identity as members of

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a single cohesive family and increasingly became identified as Shemites, Japhetites, and Hamites, according to their separate lines of descent. Ultimately, even these identities became clouded as the older patriarchs, following the precedent established with Noah, similarly lost their status as the unifying heads of their own family lines. Eventually, multitudes of distinct families, clans, tribes, and nations would emerge with only the faintest recollection of their common origin. Recall that the Creator had instructed Noah and his sons not only to be fruitful and to multiply but also to replenish the earth, that is, to populate it. The divine scheme, as originally conveyed to Adam, called for man to conquer the earth and subdue it, that is, to civilize it. This would, therefore, require the Noahides to disperse and begin to extend civilization over broader reaches of territory. However, apparently Noah and his sons understood implicitly that for such a civilizing enterprise to be successful, certain prerequisites had to be met. The first would have to be a critical mass of people to enable multiple societies to be viable in their struggles for dominance with nature. Second, stable social institutions based on the family would have to be developed to forestall a repetition of the failings and failures of the antediluvian world. It would therefore take some time before the divine instructions could be carried out responsibly. In other words, the basis and fundamental infrastructure of the new civilization would have to be established and developed before it could begin to spread. The challenge facing the Noahides boggles the mind. Equipped only with antediluvian technology, they were to build a new and flourishing civilization virtually from nothing. They were to reconstruct almost overnight what had taken more than a millennium to evolve. Nonetheless, imbued with the sense of mission given them at the outset of this great adventure, they undertook the seemingly impossible task. The differences among them, and especially the antagonisms between Noah and Ham and Canaan as well as between the Noahide brothers, were initially subdued in face of the awesome challenge confronting them. The primitive state of their existence demanded cooperation for survival. The Noahides’ very choice of location made the greatest demands on their ingenuity. Arrived at as a compromise between the conflicting desires of Noah and his sons, the Plain of Shinar presented considerable problems to its new settlers. There was little natural shelter to protect them from the beasts of the field and few natural building materials that could be used to construct the necessary dwellings for themselves and their animals. There was little suitable stone and presumably even less wood available to them. If they were to survive under such circumstances, they would have to rely on their distinctively human ingenuity to overcome the apparent deficiencies of nature. 11:3. And they said to one another: “Come, let us make brick and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.”

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The Noahides appealed to each other and urged a cooperative effort that would permit them to survive and thrive in this marginally hospitable place. Without such cooperation they would be forced to retreat to places of natural shelter or to find a location where natural building materials were plentiful. However, in doing this they would not necessarily live as they wished. For another location might not provide the arable land Noah sought or the pasturage Shem required. Worse yet, a retreat or relocation would signify their inability to master nature. Indeed, that kind of submission to nature ultimately had brought about the decline and destruction of the society into which they were born and raised. Noah and his sons refused to be cowed by nature. The Plain of Shinar suited their purposes, and there they would settle. If there were no stone for building to be found, they would make their own artificial stones. They had the human capacity of intellect and would apply it to satisfy their material needs. They would take earth and fashion it into bricks. Using techniques that may have served ornamental purposes in earlier times, they would fire the bricks to give them the relative hardness of stone. Indeed, as they had been commanded, they would conquer nature and subdue it. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. Their collective effort was crowned with success. This primeval brick-making enterprise served to demonstrate the viability of a cooperative community. Because of this they were able to persevere in the Plain of Shinar, where they began to build the new civilization for which purpose they had been allowed to survive the great disaster. As the generations passed and the population increased, new strains appeared in the social fabric. Vacant arable land became scarce, as did pasturage for the continually growing numbers of flocks and herds. Hunting for food became an increasingly important method of supplementing the inadequate agriculture-based food supply. In addition, hunting as a method of reducing depredations by wild beasts on the domestic animal stock became a most important function and occupation in society. It was presumably at this time in the history of the Noahide clans that the great hunter Nimrod rose to prominence. His skill and ability in ensuring the food supply assured him a powerful voice in the councils of the elders that convened from time to time. As the plain became increasingly saturated, problems surfaced with greater frequency. We can readily imagine the innumerable jurisdictional disputes that arose between families as a result of population pressures on an ever-diminishing availability of usable living space. Surely the time had arrived to carry out the Creator’s instructions issued at the start of the human enterprise. Dispersal of the population would certainly alleviate population congestion and its attendant problems of food supply and shelter, yet how was this to be accomplished? Although the Noahides may have theoretically agreed with such a conclusion, who among them was voluntarily going to move to begin all over again in a strange place?

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Who would be the first to surrender his home and lands to another and set off to face the challenges of brute nature while others benefited from his departure? If no family would move voluntarily, there was no institution with the authority to make and enforce such a decision on their behalf, and this was the core problem. The notion of a central patriarchal authority did not survive Noah’s loss of influence and could not be instituted retroactively later on. The society, built on the autonomy of the numerous Noahide family lines and sublines, was adequately organized to meet its needs during its initial period. Now the society faced the possibility of anarchy and chaos. In such a social environment the great appeal of an authority figure whose status was unrelated to family connections is not difficult to understand. Nimrod, whose inestimable value to society was beyond question, was considered a heroic figure who merited everyone’s respect. Taking advantage of his popularity, Nimrod now directed his immense talents for trickery and dissimulation to the field of politics. He offered to place himself at the service of society, provided that the family and clan patriarchs promised fealty to him. Without such undertakings he would be unable to resolve those crucial issues that threatened to tear the social fabric to shreds. In this way, Nimrod was able to establish himself as undisputed ruler of the confederation of peoples of the Plain of Shinar. At the same time, the Noahide patriarchs’ central concern evidently continued to be that the internal strife caused by unrelenting population pressures would result in the forcible displacement of some of their families. Accordingly, they eagerly sought a means of avoiding such a situation. 11:4. And they said: “Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, with its top in heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”

The solution to their dilemma proposed by Nimrod and accepted and communicated by the elders to the peoples of the plain was, simply, Come, let us build a city. Nimrod had adopted the strategy of Cain. He too would build a city to serve as the center around which men could live and prosper in relative safety. The city would bring peace and order to the land, would serve as a neutral location for the resolution of disputes. It would improve the availability of the food supply by providing central storage facilities and a convenient location for the barter of goods and services. It would be independent of the influence of any particular patriarch or elder and would represent the wishes and needs of all the Noahides as a collectivity. The city would also relieve the problem of population density. Those whose occupations did not require land could reside within it. Furthermore, it would serve as a place of refuge against attack by men or wild beasts. It would serve as the hub of a wheel of population, the radius of which would depend on how much time it would take to reach the city from the periph-

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ery. In this way people would have less fear in spreading out, since those individuals willing to relocate would remain within the perimeter of the city’s control. Ultimately, sub-units of the city, fortified towns and villages, could be established on the periphery in order to extend the area of cultivation farther while remaining part of the same evolving city-state. Growth and expansion would therefore be accomplished through colonization rather than through mere dispersion. The city would give each of its members, both families and individuals, the sense of belonging they previously associated exclusively with the plot of land upon which they lived. Their attachment to the city-state would help alleviate their fears of physical relocation and isolation, particularly for the younger generation. Only a Nimrod could undertake the construction and organization of such a city, and only one such as he could ensure its purposes were carried out as planned, and not subverted. Under his direction the Noahide clans built the city that would allow their civilization to spread incrementally throughout the world. Under this plan, the divine command to spread throughout the earth would be rationally carried out. However, implementation of the divine instruction was clearly not Nimrod’s purpose. His ambition, from the outset was surely something rather different. Nimrod, and those who helped him rise to power, rejected the essential social equality that had been the Noahide heritage. His desires and ambitions more closely resembled those of the antediluvian Nephilim. His own exceptional abilities convinced him that the notion of the essential equality of man was frivolous. Men were certainly not equal in any natural sense. Surely he was superior to other men, perhaps to all other men. The egalitarian morality preached by the ancient Noah, as representing the divine imperative, was repugnant to him. He rebelled against any such belief. He had convinced the heads of the clans to join together in building the city. Now he would use that city as the basis for institutionalizing the inequality of men. He would tread the very same path as the Cainites. He would transform the very essence of Noahide civilization by introducing a secular morality based on reason alone, and his reason argued for essential inequality among men. To carry out his intent Nimrod persuaded the patriarchs of the society not only to build the city but also to let us make us a name, through the construction of a tower, with its top in heaven. With the collusion of the leaders of the generation, Nimrod wanted to attempt that which millennia later would be referred to as the “apotheosis of the state.”3 In the city they would build a tower that would serve several purposes. It would, of course, serve as a watchtower that would permit surveillance of the domain. More important, for as far as the naked eye could see, it would also serve as a visible symbol of the city’s power. The tower would be so tall that its pinnacle would pierce the clouds and so appear to reach to heaven. It would serve as a constant reminder of the “heavenly” powers of man, but only in the context of

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political society. With those powers man could set his own moral standards without reference to the Creator. The tower would constantly serve to remind man he was not dependent on the divine power and could reach up to the Creator’s heavenly abode at will. Man was supreme on earth, where he was essentially free of the sway of the Creator, whose realm was restricted to the world of the heavens above. Of course, carrying out Nimrod’s plan would not be easy. The simple people who had little to gain and much to lose from this social and moral revolution stubbornly clung to the teachings handed down from Noah. To subvert those teachings of equality and its social and ethical concomitants, Nimrod would have to bring about a fundamental transfer of allegiance from the Creator to the city. This would be accomplished by the making of a name. Everything possible would be done to enhance the prestige of the city and its rulers so that, little by little, simple gratitude for peace and security would be transformed into an unquestioning allegiance. As blind loyalty began to overcome the restraints of reason, the Creator would be replaced by the citystate as the source of moral authority. And, of course, the city’s moral authority was embodied in Nimrod and the other rulers of the political society. The construction of what was to be called Babel, the seat of the empire to be built by Nimrod, presented a direct challenge to the authority of the Creator that could not go unanswered. The affront was not one that merely reflected the misguided views of a few random individuals. It came from the leadership of the generation and therefore constituted a threat to the very purpose for which the Noahides had been selected to survive the deluge. If the city and its tower were to fulfill the intent of Nimrod and his supporters, namely, to subvert the moral authority of the Creator, its very existence would preclude the development of a truly moral society. The biblical author employs the imagery of the Creator descending from the heights of His abode to review the actions taken by His earthly lieutenants. 11:5. And YHVH came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

With unmistakable clarity the statement affirms the city is the product of the children of men, a human invention and not that of any demigods or extraordinary beings. It also clearly implies the city and its tower were being built at the instigation of man and not in response to any divine instruction. It was intended to be a completely human project reflecting man’s own perceptions of his needs and wants. It was being built not as a means for achieving the Creator’s purposes but, rather, to subvert them. 11:6. And YHVH said: “Behold they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do; and now nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do.”

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Once again the biblical writer portrays the Creator reflecting on what He sees in very human terms. His principal concern is that they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do. The Noahides are blessed with the ability to communicate freely with one another. The very commonality of language and modes of speech were the most basic of requirements for the building of the universal moral society. The city could well have served as an institutional base from which to carry out man’s mission in the world. Yet, this was not to be the case. Society’s leaders intended to pervert the city into an instrument of oppression, the very antithesis of its avowed purpose—indeed, this is what they begin to do. Once the city is completed and the populace accustomed to it, and later dependent upon it, the leaders will be in a position to carry out their plot against the Creator and man, and now nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do. With a dependent and compliant citizenry, Nimrod and his cronies would have no effective source of opposition and the whole world would once again lapse into the pattern of the antediluvian civilization. Noah had been unable to prevail against the trend of his times, and in the current era there was not even such a one as the Noah of old. The Creator had already determined never again to destroy the entire world because of the failings of man. Consequently, there was no viable alternative to direct intervention into the affairs of men. He would do now that which was not done in the earlier stage of human history. 11:7. Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

In derisive mimicry of the collective suggestion, let us build us a city . . . and let us make us a name, the biblical author portrays the Creator as using the same formula. Let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. If the basic commonality of language and speech, instead of serving as the foundation for the development of a universal moral society, is to be exploited for the purpose of building an essentially corrupt and perverse social order, then that essential facilitating factor must be attacked. Their ability to communicate with one another needed to be impaired, thereby breeding misunderstandings and sowing distrust. The resulting resistance to the leadership would disrupt their plans and open them to yet greater challenges later. The biblical author fails to tell us specifically how their languages were confounded. However, both earlier and subsequent texts suggest the Creator enabled the various extended families of the Noahides to successfully resist Nimrod’s efforts to restructure society without regard to existing family lines. By causing the families and clans to close ranks around their own patriarchal leaders, the Creator stymied the efforts of Nimrod and his collaborators, whose maneuvers would be seen as obvious attempts to

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undermine the family structures, perhaps to the advantage of the Cushites, of which Nimrod himself was a scion. Once this process was set in motion, it was not long before family and clan loyalties made impossible any true loyalty to the city that would serve as the seat of Nimrod’s domain. However, the dissension deliberately fomented by the Creator had dire repercussions: It caused the centrally ruled universal society, as contemplated from the beginning, to fall apart before the city was completed. Without the cohesion of a common culture, social disintegration and mass emigration followed. In effect, circumstances were made to favor the implementation of what the Creator had wished in the first place. Families, clans, and tribes gathered about their own standards and split into a multitude of diverse nations. 11:8. So YHVH scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city. 11:9. Therefore was the name of it called Babel; because YHVH did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did YHVH scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

The original society of the Garden of Eden had been dissolved because of man’s transgression against the Creator. The subsequent Adamite society was disrupted by the transgression of man against his fellow man. The antediluvian civilization founded by Cain and his city ultimately became characterized by man’s transgressions against his society and resulted in the great destruction. It was the divine intention that the Noahides would create a new moral society in place of the one whose destruction they had witnessed and survived. They were expected to do this on the basis of the family, rather than the individual, constituting the elemental social unit. And now, the society that emerged from the survivors of the antediluvian age not only tended to emulate the transgressions of the generation of the flood but also sought to exceed them. Nimrod’s city was designed to permit the collective transgression of society against the individual, a new innovation in contravention of the divine intent. Once again man had failed the crucial test of directing his free will to moral purposes. The Noahide experiment was a failure. A universal society characterized by evil threatened to destroy man’s humanity more effectively than the family-based patriarchal society it attempted to supplant. Nonetheless, the die was cast. Mankind, of necessity, was now dispersed in separate nations. Noah, who was the most righteous man of his generation, had failed the Creator for the various reasons indicated most cryptically by the biblical author. Perhaps the basic flaw in the design was that Noah’s extended family did not, as a unit, have the collective will to carry out their mission in full compliance with the divine wish. Another attempt would have to be made. This time, however, an exceptional individual would be chosen for the great task of bringing into being a truly moral order among men. This

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person would not be reared, as was Noah, apart from the world. He would be not an ascetic but a heroic personality. He would continually be tested to determine his capacity to maintain his moral fortitude in the face of the greatest demands and trials. If he succeeded in that, he would become the progenitor of a new people, hardened by adversity, yet distinguished by compassion and true humanity. Out of this stock would arise a moral order that could serve as a standard for the world, a standard not to be imposed, but to be adhered to voluntarily. NOTES 1. Samson R. Hirsch translates the Hebrew phrase for “mighty hunter” as “crafty hero,” suggesting that the Hebrew term (gibbor tzayid) may also be understood as meaning a hunter of men. See his The Pentateuch on Gen. 10:9. 2. Robert Alter notes: “Perhaps his prowess as hunter is put forth as evidence of the martial prowess that enabled him to conquer kingdoms, since the two skills are often associated in the ruling classes of older civilizations” (Genesis: Translation and Commentary, p. 43). 3. Hirsch notes, “They decide to make something that shall serve as a perpetual reminder of the power of the community over the individual” (The Pentateuch), comment on Gen. 11:4.

Chapter 8

Another Beginning

A

period of ten generations passed between Adam and Noah, and so would another ten generations pass between Noah and his spiritual successor, one who would start from the point where Noah failed. That chosen one was to be Abraham, a scion of the line of Shem, whose descendants would constitute the children of Israel. At this point in the narrative the biblical author returns to the genealogy of Shem, which he had interrupted earlier, to present in detail the lineage and descent of Abraham. In the process of doing this, he provides the careful reader with some intriguing bits of information. 11:10. These are the generations of Shem. Shem was a hundred years old, and begot Arpachshad two years after the flood. 11:11. And Shem lived after he begot Arpachshad five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. 11:12. And Arpachshad lived five and thirty years, and begot Shelah. 11:13. And Arpachshad lived after he begot Shelah four hundred and three years, and begot sons and daughters. 11:14. And Shelah lived thirty years and begot Eber. 11:15. And Shelah lived after he begot Eber four hundred and three years, and begot sons and daughters. 11:16. And Eber lived four and thirty years and begot Peleg. 11:17. And Eber lived after he begot Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begot sons and daughters. 11:18. And Peleg lived thirty years, and begot Reu. 11:19. And Peleg lived after he begot Reu two hundred and nine years, and begot sons and daughters. 11:20. And Reu lived two and thirty years, and

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begot Serug. 11:21. And Reu lived after he begot Serug two hundred and seven years, and begot sons and daughters. 11:22. And Serug lived thirty years and begot Nahor. 11:23. And Serug lived after he begot Nahor two hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. 11:24. And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begot Terah. 11:25. And Nahor lived after he begot Terah a hundred and nineteen years, and begot sons and daughters. 11:26. And Terah lived seventy years, and begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

By providing the age of each patriarch at the birth of the particular son in the line that ultimately reaches to Abraham, the biblical author enables us to date Abraham from the very beginnings of human history, in accordance with the myth of the emergence of man. However, beyond this, the simple data presented also provide clues to that about which the biblical author is silent, namely, the physical environment into which Abraham was born and the cultural influences he experienced in his formative years. A glance at the life span of each of the enumerated patriarchs, presumably representative of the generations in which they lived, shows a rapid decline from Noah, who lived 950 years, to Eber, only four generations later, who reached 464 years, roughly half that of Noah. By the time of Peleg, in the following generation, life span had fallen to approximately one quarter that of Noah. Presumably, these radical changes reflected the long-range effects of the deluge on human longevity. This process of life-span reduction was perhaps further accelerated during the lifetime of Peleg, which the biblical author informed us earlier was the period of the great dispersion of the nations. The pioneering efforts and hardships involved in such a major resettlement process would likely have had adverse effects on the average age of mortality. In this way, the biblical author informs us implicitly, God fulfilled His promise to radically reduce human longevity. Abraham is destined to live only 175 years and his descendants progressively less. 1 Considering the data presented from a cultural perspective, some simple calculations consistent with the biblical chronology will reveal that each of the forefathers of Abraham, including Noah himself, survived into Abraham’s lifetime. Thus, Abraham was 58 years old when Noah died, 148 when Arpachshad died, and 48 when Peleg died. More astonishingly, according to the biblical author’s reckoning, Shem outlived Abraham by 45 years, Shelah by 3 years, and Eber by 64 years. Shem and Eber would therefore also have lived well into the lifetimes of the patriarchs Isaac and Jacob. Since Abraham was 48 years of age when the first of his patriarchal forefathers, Peleg, died, we may well speculate on the cultural impact a ten-generation family might have had on the intellectual development of a young man. Since the dispersion of the peoples of the land of Shinar took place during Peleg’s lifetime, we may reasonably assume Abraham was born at approximately the same time, if not in its immediate aftermath. This too must have had a significant impact on his education and upbringing, perhaps making

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him especially cognizant of the nature of the ties that bind a society together. Also, if Noah’s blessing of Shem bore any fruit, we may further assume that Abraham also received special intellectual and moral nurture in the tents of Shem.2 Moreover, although Noah himself may no longer have had any influence over the affairs of the Noahide nations, he nonetheless clearly embodied the firsthand memory of direct divine intervention into the course of human history. Abraham must have been acutely sensitive to these influences, presumably more so than any of his peers. It was this sensitivity that would ultimately lead the Creator to elect him the progenitor of a line that would truly begin to reflect the divine image in man. The biblical author thus concludes his mythopoeic rendering of the universal political and moral history of man and society. He takes us up to the emergence of Abraham on the stage of history, adding details that set the stage for the story of Abraham and the children of Israel that will occupy the remainder of the Torah. 11:27. Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begot Lot. 11:28. And Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. 11:29. And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah. 11:30. And Sarai was barren; she had no child.

Lot, who is Abraham’s nephew and who plays an important part in the story of Abraham that is to unfold, is orphaned by the premature death of his father Haran, which took place in their ancestral homeland. We are told nothing about the circumstances of his death, nor are we informed about the significance for the biblical narrative of the location of his demise. Perhaps the biblical author is hinting his death may be connected to the upheavals that attended the dissolution of the Noahide society of the Plain of Shinar. In any case, the evident purpose of the information is to establish why Abraham apparently adopts his nephew and then assumes a parent’s concern and responsibility for his well-being. We are informed, further, that the remaining sons of Terah, Abraham and Nahor, both take wives. Abraham takes Sarai, whom he later identifies as his paternal half-sister, and Nahor marries Milcah, who is the daughter, along with her sister Iscah, of Haran—presumably someone other than Abraham’s deceased brother. Why the biblical author supplies us with information that appears to have no direct connection to the events he will describe later in the narrative remains unclear. What is of immediate relevance and importance, however, is the knowledge that Sarai was barren; she had no child. In stark contrast to Noah and his sons, who were assigned their civilizing mission as a family unit, Abraham is to begin his alone, just as Adam did at the onset of the human enterprise.

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Abraham is not to have any children until he has satisfied the basic requirements of his election. To ensure this, the biblical author tells us, Abraham took a single wife who remained not only childless, but barren, incapable of conceiving. Indeed, his wife’s barrenness would constitute a test of Abraham’s character and his complete trust and faith in God’s subsequent promises to him that he would be the progenitor of a distinct nation with a unique divine mission. Finally, the biblical author tells us: 11:31. And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there. 11:32. And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Haran.

Perhaps as part of the great migratory movement begun in the time of Peleg, Terah too departs from the environs of Babel. As patriarch of the extended family, Terah takes Abraham and his wife Sarai, along with his grandson Lot, with him en route to Canaan. We can assume Nahor and his family went along as well, even though the biblical author does not mention him here, probably because he wishes to focus exclusively on Abraham, the principal actor in the events that ensue. The journey from southern Mesopotamia was surely long, circuitous, and arduous, leading Terah along the Fertile Crescent until he reached the major caravan entrepôt of Haran in present-day southeastern Turkey. Terah decided to settle there, evidently abandoning his earlier plans to immigrate to the sparsely populated frontier territory of Canaan. He would remain there for the rest of his life. The break with the society of his birth and upbringing undoubtedly gave Abraham occasion to reflect deeply on all he had experienced and witnessed during his life. The shattering of social ties provided an opportunity to begin anew, to cast off the mold of the past. His years in Haran with his father served as a time of transition for Abraham. Having severed his linkages to the society in which he was reared, he became equally prepared to break his newly developing connections to his present circumstances and to commit all his moral strength and capacity for faith to an undreamed of future. The moment of his divine election as patriarch of a distinctive nation, one intended to embody the divine aspiration for mankind, was at hand. The biblical author has thus achieved his central purpose: He has shown us that the fundamental principle of patriarchalism inherent in the biblical worldview is to be the basis of Mosaic civilization. In the process, he has also shown us why the creation of the nation of Israel, beginning with Abraham, was necessary in light of the failures of all earlier attempts to produce a moral and just society. The biblical author is now free to devote his attention ex-

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clusively to the story of the emergence of Israel and to articulate the divine principles and precepts by which it was expected to live. For the modern reader the biblical author has presented basic principles of his political and social philosophy that, at least in this writer’s opinion, continue to be applicable. First, man is endowed with free will, however constrained by circumstances it may be, and with the intellect to govern and direct it in appropriate paths. Accordingly, he is responsible for his actions and must be held accountable for them. Second, man has a necessary relation to God whether he wishes it or not. Prudence alone will therefore dictate that compliance with divine precept is in man’s best interest. Third, the idea that man can create a moral society without reference to God is a deceptive illusion. Man’s ability to rationalize even his most outrageous behavior clearly indicates the need for an unimpeachable source and standard of moral authority. Fourth, until all men accept the preceding principles, the idea of a universal state is both dangerous and counterproductive. In the twentieth century we have witnessed two different attempts to create such a world state, both of which produced totalitarian monstrosities. Fifth, individualism as a social philosophy tends to be destructive of traditional values and must be tempered by the idea of communal responsibility. These fundamental ideas underlie the elaboration of Mosaic political philosophy and the normative political theory reflected in the Mosaic legislation that comprises the main body of the Pentateuch, Israel’s constitutional legacy. NOTES 1. Robert Alter observes, “From this point, men will have merely the extraordinary life spans of modern Caucasian mountain dwellers and not legendary life spans” (Genesis: Translation and Commentary, p. 48). 2. This interpretation is suggested by the Midrashic commentary on the assertion in Gen. 25:27, and Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents. The latter clause was understood as suggesting, presumably on the basis of the calculations noted here, that dwelling in tents referred to attending “the academy of Shem and the academy of Eber” (Midrash Rabbah: Genesis 58:10).

Bibliography

The following selected bibliography represents sources consulted in the preparation of this book. My understanding of the early chapters of Genesis has been enriched from a variety of perspectives by these writers, even though few of them have contributed directly to my thinking, and none of them is in any way responsible for the political interpretation of the biblical texts that is reflected in what I have written here. Nonetheless, serious study of these works, which reflect entirely different appreciations of the first eleven chapters of Scripture, is surely merited and recommended to the reader in consideration of the range of possible interpretations of that remarkable work. Abravanel, Isaac (1437–1508). Perush haTorah. Warsaw: Levenson, 1862. Alshekh, Moses ben Hayyim (c.1507–c.1600). Torat Moshe. 2 vols. Warsaw, 1875; facsimile edition: New York: Kelulat Yofi Publishing, 1966. Alter, Robert. Genesis: Translation and Commentary. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. Arama, Isaac (c.1420–1494). Akedat Yitzhak. 6 vols. Israel, n.p., 1974. Augustine, St. (354–430). The City of God. Translated by Marcus Dods. New York: Random House, 1950. The Babylonian Talmud. 18 vols. Edited by I. Epstein. London: Soncino Press, 1948. Bahya ben Asher (d., c.1340). Biur al haTorah. 3 vols. Edited by Charles B. Chavel. Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1966–68. Bekhor Shor, Joseph (12th cent.). Perushei haTorah. Edited by Yehoshafat Nevo. Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1994.

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Bibliography

Berlin, Naftali Zvi Judah (1817–1893). HaAmek Davar. 5 vols. New York: Mercaz HaSefarim, 1952. Buber, Martin (1878–1965). On the Bible: Eighteen Studies by Martin Buber. Edited by Nahum N. Glatzer. New York: Schocken Books, 1968. Cassuto, Umberto (1883–1951). MeAdam ad Noah: Perush al Seder Bereshit. 5th ed. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1969. ———. MiNoah ad Avraham: Perush al Seder Noah. 5th ed. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1969. Cohen, H. Hirsch. The Drunkenness of Noah. University: University of Alabama Press, 1974. Cohen, Jeremy. “Be Fertile and Increase, Fill the Earth and Master It”: The Ancient and Medieval Career of a Biblical Text. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992. Davidson, Robert. Genesis 1–11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Ehrlich, Arnold B. (1848–1919). Mikra kiFeshuto. 3 vols. Berlin: Poppelauer’s Buchhandlung, 1899. Eichorn, David Max. Cain: Son of the Serpent. Chappaqua, NY: Rossel Books, 1985. Eldad, Israel. Hegyonot Mikrah. Jerusalem: Sulam, 1958. Eleazar ben Judah of Worms (c.1165–c.1230). Perush haRokeah al haTorah. 3 vols. Bnei Brak, Isr., n.p. 1981. Elijah ben Solomon of Vilna (1720–1797). Aderet Eliyahu: Perush al haTorah. Tel Aviv: Sinai Publishing, n.d. Emmanueli, I. Moshe (d.1976). Sefer Bereshit: Hesbarim veHe’arot. Tel Aviv: HaHevrah LeHeker HaMikra, 1978. Ephraim Solomon of Luntshits (1550–1619). K’li Yakkar. (Published in many editions of the Rabbinic Bible, Mikraot Gedolot.) Epstein, Barukh (1860–1942). Torah Temimah. 5 vols. New York: Otzar HaSefarim, 1962. ———. Tosefet Berakhah. 5 vols. Tel Aviv: Moreshet, 1964. Eybeschutz, Jonathan (1690/95–1764). Tiferet Yehonatan. Jerusalem, n.p., 1966. Firer, Ben-Zion. Hegyonah shel Torah. 5 vols. Tel Aviv: Sifriyati, 1967. ———. MeAdam ve’ad Avraham: Sippur Mikra’i. Nir Galim, Isr.: Moshav Nir Galim, 1971. Fox, Everett. The Five Books of Moses. A New Translation with Introductions, Commentary, and Notes. New York: Schocken Books, 1995. Friedman, Richard Elliott. Commentary on the Torah. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. Ganzfried, Solomon (1804–1886). Apiryon al haTorah. Israel, n.p., n.d. Gersonides (Levi ben Gershon; RALBAG; 1288–1344). Perush al haTorah al Derekh Biur. 2 vols. Venice, 1547; facsimile edition: Israel, n.p., n.d. Gipstein, Joshua (1883–1960). Daat Torah: Biur al haTorah beDerekh haHigayon. 2nd ed. Tel Aviv: Moreshet, n.d. Graves, Robert, and Raphael Patai. Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis. New York: Greenwich House, 1983. Gunkel, Hermann (1862–1932). The Legends of Genesis: The Biblical Saga and History. New York: Schocken Books, 1970. Hayyim ben Moses Attar (1696–1743). Or haHayyim. (Published in many editions of the Rabbinic Bible, Mikraot Gedolot.)

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Hertz, Joseph H.(1872–1946), ed. The Pentateuch and Haftorahs. 2nd ed. London: Soncino Press, 1966. Hezekiah ben Manoah (mid-13th cent.). Hizkuni. Edited by Charles B. Chavel. Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1982. Hirsch, Samson Raphael (1808–1888). The Pentateuch. 5 vols. Translated into English by Isaac Levy. 2nd ed. New York: Judaica Press, 1971. Hoffmann, David Zvi (1843–1921). Bereshit. 2 vols. Translated into Hebrew and edited by Asher Wasserteil. Bnei Brak, Isr.: Netzah, 1969–71. Ibn Ezra, Abraham (1089–1164). Perush haTorah. 3 vols. Edited by Asher Weiser. Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1967. Ibn Kaspi, Joseph (c.1280–c.1340). Mishne Kesef. 2 vols. Jerusalem: Sifriyat Mekorot, 1970. [Vol. 1, Tirat Kesef. Pressburg, 1905; Vol. 2, Matzref leKesef. Crackow, 1906.] Jacob ben Asher (c.1270–c.1343). Perush Baal haTurim al haTorah. Edited by Jacob K. Reinitz. Bnei Brak, Isr.: Philipp Feldheim, 1971. ———. Perush haTur haArokh. Jerusalem: “Biferush ubeRemez,” 1969. Jacob, Benno (1862–1945). The First Book of the Bible: Genesis. Abridged and edited by Ernest I. and Walter Jacob. New York: Ktav Publishing, 1974. Josephus, Flavius (c.38–c.100). Antiquities of the Jews. In Complete Works. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1977. Judah HaLevi (c.1075–1141). Book of Kuzari. Translated by Hartwig Hirschfeld. New York: Pardes Publishing House, 1946. Kasher, Menahem (1895–1983). Torah Shelemah. Vol. 1. Jerusalem: Machon Torah Shelemah, 1927; Vol. 2. New York: Machon Torah Shelemah, 1952. Kimhi, David (RADAK; c.1160–1235). Perush RADAK al haTorah. Edited by Abraham Ginzberg. Pressburg, 1842; facsimile edition: Jerusalem, n.p., 1968. Kugel, James L. The Bible as It Was. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. Leibowitz, Nehama (1905– ). Iyyunim beSefer Bereshit. 3rd ed. Jerusalem: Histadrut haTziyonit haOlamit, 1971. Levenson, Jon D. Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible. New York: HarperCollins, 1987. Luzzatto, Samuel David (SHADAL; 1800–1865). Perush SHADAL al Hamisha Humshei Torah. Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1971. Malbim, Meir Leibush (1809–1879). HaTotah vehaMitzvah. 2 vols. Jerusalem: Pardes, 1956. Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon; RAMBAM; 1135–1204). The Guide for the Perplexed. Translated by M. Friedlander. New York: Pardes Publishing House, 1946. ———. The Guide of the Perplexed. Translated by Shlomo Pines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963. Meir Simha HaCohen (1843–1926). Meshekh Hokhmah. Jerusalem: Eshkol, 1926. Meklenburg, Jacob Zvi (1785–1865). HaKtav vehaKabbalah. 2 vols. Jerusalem: Am Olam, 1969. Midrash Rabbah. 10 vols. London: Soncino Press, 1983. Midrash Tanhuma. 2 vols. Edited by Solomon Buber. Vilna, n.p., n.d.; facsimile edition, Jerusalem, 1964.

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Index

Abel, 43, 45–56, 58–59, 61–62, 65, 69–72, 108, 112, 114, 121 Abraham (Abram), xi, xvii, 100, 139–42 Adah, 64–68 Adam, 13, 18, 23, 39–45, 47, 52–53, 56, 60, 64, 69–75, 80, 82, 89–90, 109–11, 130, 136, 139, 141 Alter, Robert, 137, 143 Aristotle, 20 Augustine, St., 23 Babel, 127, 134, 136, 142 Biblical author (writer), x–xviii, 1–12, 14–21, 25–26, 28, 30, 32, 36–37, 41–45, 47–49, 51, 53, 60, 63–67, 69–74, 76–77, 81–82, 85–91, 93– 99, 102, 104–6, 108–9, 114, 119– 21, 125–29, 134–35, 139–43 Cain, 43, 45–72, 108–10, 112, 114, 132, 136 Cainite(s), 63–66, 69–70, 72–76, 83– 84, 88, 90, 112, 133

Canaan, 119–20, 122–26, 130 Covenant, xii–xvi, 1, 4–5, 12, 90, 114– 16 Cush(ites), 126, 136 Eber, 127–28, 139–40 Enoch (Cainite), 60, 62–63 Enoch (Sethite), 72–75, 77 Enosh, 69–70, 72–73, 82 Equal(ity), 19, 33–34, 37, 40, 64, 68– 69, 71, 76, 78, 82, 88–89, 97, 125, 133–34 Eve, 38–45, 47, 51, 53, 56, 60, 69, 71 Family, xv–xvi, 44–47, 61, 89–95, 97, 99, 101, 103–4, 106–7, 110–11, 120–21, 124, 127, 129, 131–32, 135–36, 140–41 Garden of Eden, 8–18, 21–22, 25–26, 31–33, 36–37, 39–41, 43, 45–46, 50, 52, 58–61, 68, 71–72, 74, 111, 136

152 Habakkuk, 100 Ham, 72, 75, 81, 96, 119–20, 122–24, 126–27, 130 Haran, 140–42 Hirsch, Samson Raphael, 23, 42, 80, 137 Image of God, 3–6, 10, 13–14, 37, 40, 55, 64, 71–73, 84, 89, 102, 113, 141 Inequality, 63, 67–68, 133 Jabal, 65–66, 70, 88 Jacob, Benno, 99 Japheth, 72, 75, 81, 96, 119–20, 122– 28 Jubal, 65–66, 88 Judah Loew ben Bezalel, 23 Kenan, 72–73 Lamech (Cainite), 63–70, 74, 76–78, 84, 88, 97 Lamech (Sethite), 72–75 Lot, 141–42 Mahalalel, 72–73 Maimonides, 23, 42 Methuselah, 72–73 Moral autonomy, 4–5, 14, 17, 22, 28, 35, 39, 42–43, 56, 71, 79 Moses, ix–x, xiii–xv Munk, Elie, 23

Index Naamah, 65, 67 Nahor, 140–42 Nimrod, 126–27, 131–36 Noah, 71–75, 77–111, 114–17, 119–25, 127–37, 139–41 Noahides, 93, 110–16, 120–22, 124–35, 141 Patriarch(alism), xiii–xvi, 6, 13, 20, 22, 25, 37, 45, 48, 50, 52, 63, 65–66, 70, 81–82, 89–90, 92, 110, 116, 119–20, 122, 124–25, 128–29, 132–33, 140, 142 Peleg, 128, 139–40, 142 Sarai (Sarah), 141–42 Seth, 69–75, 82 Sethite(s), 73–74, 76, 90 Shem, 72, 75, 81, 96, 119–20, 122–29, 131, 139–41 Shinar, 129–32, 140–41 Society, ix–xi, xiii, xv–xvii, 7, 16, 19, 21, 67, 70, 77–79, 81–87, 90, 94, 99, 106, 108–9, 113, 116, 120, 124, 127, 129–32, 134–36, 141–43 State, 126–27, 133–34, 143 Terah, 140–41 Torah, ix–xi, xvii–xviii, 141 Tubal-cain, 65–67, 88 Zillah, 64–68

About the Author MARTIN SICKER is a private consultant and lecturer who has taught political science at the American University and George Washington University. He is the author of 19 previous books, including The Judaic State: A Study in Rabbinic Political Theory and The Genesis of the State (Praeger, 1988 and 1991 respectively).