But I suspect that much of religion is not the breath of life, but the stench of death.
Perhaps our breath stinks.
Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan.
Genesis 12:5 (NKJV)
The text says that Abram brought with him the “people he had acquired.” It is literally translated “the souls he made.”
The rabbis see this as “converts” in the Midrash. I suspect the Christian might see it that way, too.
But what I see is an echo of God creating.
Perhaps Abram was invited to be a part of the creation process – to breathe spiritual Life into otherwise dead people.
I say this because many of the “mythical” stories (Creation, the angels/human hybrids, the flood) all exist in other ancient cultures, and there’s no reason God could not have said “this is something you believe to be true, but I’m going to change it so you can know who I am.”
Paul did this same thing with shrine of the “unknown God” of the people of Athens in Acts 17.
God is perfectly capable of taking our myths and converting them into stories about Himself, and quite frankly, this is far more interesting to me than an “accurate” story that lacks a theological message.
There’s something special about taking our misbeliefs about the world, and having God show us that he is greater than the stories we believe.
“You believe monsters? Well God beat all those monsters!”
God uses our stories to reveal himself. That seems more personal… and more powerful.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1 (NIV)
See how he loves us!
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Genesis 1:2 (NIV)
See how he loves us!
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Genesis 1:3 (NIV)
See how he loves us!
If I can’t see how He loves us in the passage, I stop and look for it. And I will never stop looking and listening until it all rings and echoes with this singular truth: See how he loves us!
Perhaps Genesis 1 isn’t an account of things being created, but an account of things being revealed.
when no shrub of the field was yet on earth and no grasses of the field had yet sprouted, because God יהוה had not sent rain upon the earth and there were no human beings to till the soil, but a flow would well up from the ground and water the whole surface of the earth — God יהוה formed the Human from the soil’s humus, blowing into his nostrils the breath of life: the Human became a living being.
Genesis 2:5-7 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS, 2006)
The key is in the word “טֶרֶם” (terem). Some bibles translate it as “before,” but the Rabbis say that this word gives us a tension of “almost, but not quite,” like the way one waits for the green signs of life to break through the surface of the ground. There, but not yet.
טרם יהיה בארץ WAS NOT YET IN THE EARTH — Wherever טרם occurs in the Scriptures it means “not yet” and does not mean “before.” It cannot be made into a verbal form, saying הטרים as one says הקדים (verbal form of קדם) and this passage proves that this is the meaning and not “before” as well as another (Exodus 9:30), כי טרם תראון “that ye do not yet fear the Lord.” Therefore you must explain this verse also thus: “No plant of the field was yet in the earth” at the time when the creation of the world was completed on the sixth day before man was created, and וכל עשב השדה טרם יצמח means “and every herb of the field had not yet grown.”
Rashi on Genesis 2:5:1
In this reading, God “brings forth” plants in Genesis 1, which points to seeds breaking open below the surface, waiting until someone can till the ground in Genesis 2, or perhaps as early as day 6 of creation in Genesis 1. This view is perhaps helpful for anyone who needs reconciliation between the timelines of the two chapters. It seems to work.
This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
Genesis 2:4 (NIV)
Some of you think heaven is greater than earth, due to the order of creation. You’re wrong.
Look.
This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
Genesis 2:4 (NIV)
The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array.
On the seventh day God finished the work that had been undertaken: [God] ceased on the seventh day from doing any of the work.
And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy–having ceased on it from all the work of creation that God had done.
Genesis 2:1-3 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS 2006