The Israelites Articles of Faith - Essay Example

Genesis 11and the Israelite’s Articles of Faith Genesis is the ‘oldest book in the world’ (Evans 2009, p. 9) and the first book of the Bible, specifically of the Pentateuch or in the Hebrew Bible also referred to as ‘the Torah’, ‘the Law’, ‘the book of Moses’ (Gooder 2000, p. 4), composed of the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers), highly regarded by the Jews as the most sacred book – immutable and error-free, as it revealed the divine word of God, given to Moses at Mt. Sinai well over three thousand years ago (Zucker 2005, p. 1, 22) and as, it introduces not only the beginnings of the world but specifically, the formation of Israel as God’s chosen people giving them a sense of religious identity (Gooder 2000, p. 2). The book of Genesis, which in Hebrew is ‘Bereshit’, generally translated as ‘In the beginning’ (Zucker 2005, p. 31), can be divided topically into two parts: the Primeval History (1-11) and the Patriarchal History (12-50) or genealogically into 11 parts: general creation (1:1-11: 3), man’s creation (2:4-4:26),Adam-Seth’s generation (5:1-6:18), Noah-Shem’s generation (6:9-9:29), Noah’s sons’ generation (10:1-11:9), Shem’s generation (6:10-11:26), Terah- Abraham, the chosen seed (11:27-25:11), Ishmael’s generation (25:12-25:18), generation of Isaac-Jacob, chosen seed (25:19-35:29, Esau’s generation (36:1-37:1) and generations of Jacob-Joseph, chosen seed (37:2-50:26); or according to general subject analysis: generation (1-2), degeneration (3-11), and regeneration (12-l); or into its 2 major divisions: Human Race History (1-11) and Israel’s – the chosen nation’s history (12-50) (Evans 2009, pp. 11-14). Generally, seven major themes characterise the Book of Genesis: origins, order/meaning in history, blessing, covenant, punishment, sibling conflict, and test of faith. It is filled with various tensions that essentially centre on individual survival: ‘fertility and barrenness’; antagonistic sibling rivalry; hostile interfamilial struggles; jealousy; wives competing for attention from the same husband; starvation; ‘incest, rape and murder;’ threatened and real total destruction; ‘love and exile’. (Zucker, 2005, p. 32-33) For the Israelites, the Book of Genesis stands out from the rest of Torah, and between its topical parts, its Primeval History (Gen 1-11) provides the very foundation of the Israelites monotheistic religion. Genesis 1-11 sets Judaism apart from all other religions with regards to its belief in one omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent God Creator apart and above His creation and its view of the creation (Rooker 1992, p. 414) as accounted in Genesis 1: 1-31. As Waltke (1975) has suggested in his precreation chaos theory that although the Genesis account of creation has some similarity with the pagan cosmogonies, three distinctive features clearly differentiate the Genesis account from other ancient Near Eastern cosmogonies such as, (1) there is only one God, (2) God alone acts according to His will, and (3) the one God is the Creator, meaning ‘creation is not coexistent and coeternal’ (pp. 220-21). To be able to see further the centrality of Genesis 1-11 in the Israelites articles of faith, let us address each of the important issues surrounding this book of the Bible. Genesis 1-11: A Historical Account Is the creation account in the Book of Genesis historical or only symbolical? It should be understood that contrary to others view that “the creation account is not to be taken literally because it is either poetry (as opposed to narrative) or non-historical narrative (allegory, parable, myth, legend or tale)” (Phillips & Fouts, n.d., p.1), for the Israelites, the whole book of Genesis is undoubtedly a historical work. In fact, the Book of Genesis “contains the historical presupposition and basis of the national religious ideas and institutions of Israel and serves as an introduction to its history and legislation” (Jacob & Hirsch, 2002, p. 599). Now if Genesis 1-11 is indeed a historical account, what literary form would characterise it? Biblical scholars have long assented that to achieve precise understanding of prehistory texts like that which composed the Book of Genesis, it is of paramount requirement to establish the original historical settings of these texts (Carr 1996, p. 5). As it has long been acknowledged by biblical scholars that the Book of Genesis had been created through a long process of ‘transmission history’ (Ibid, p.3) – referring not only to the transmission of both the written and oral materials, but also to the process by which these materials were transmitted and so with the traditions (Knierim 1985, p. 146), and as the book is composed of different texts written at different times corresponding to historical contexts that define the ancient Near East, the model suited to establish the historicity of the book can be found in antiquarian histories, which was then very popular in the ancient world (Seters, 1992, p. 86). Genesis represents just such an ‘antiquities’ of the Hebrew people and their neighbours. The form of this history is derived from the learned traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean region (Phoenician/Canaanite). These were combined with Mesopotamian traditions of primeval times, such as the flood story. This diversity of forms and sources accounts for both the framework of genealogy and itinerary and the mixture of traditional stories within it. (Seters 1999, p. 114) Furthermore, Phillips and Fouts (n.d., pp. 1-3) presented a number of arguments proving Genesis 1-11 as a historical narrative which are as follows: (1) it centres on a detailed account of the physical world in a more historical manner than not, such as the description of Eden: And a river went out of Eden to water the garden: and from thence it was parted, and become into four heads, The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of the land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx-stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is that compasseththe whole land Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth is Euphrates. (Gen 2:10-14) the genealogies of Cain, Seth and Shem (Gen 4,5, 11), and as Kaiser (1970, p. 59) added are the physical terms found in Gen 2-11, including “64 geographical terms, 88 personal names, 48 generic names, and at least 12 identifiable cultural items;” (2) unlike in a non-historical literature, every element accounted in Gen 1-3 are non-symbolic, such as the birds, the sun, the plants, the stars, and even God appearing as Himself, as such it has no narrator, interpreter or interpretation; (3) similarly found in both Hebrew poetry and historical narrative, Genesis 1-11 also ‘used numerology, figures of speech, textual symmetry and phenomenological language’; (4) each chapter of the book is a flawless consistent continuation of the Patriarchal History – to this Alter (1998, p. 1) commented that “the details of the narrative, presuppose that Genesis is a coherent book;” (5) the Adam in Gen 1-2 was non-referent to a population but to a historical man, as he had aged, bore a son at age 130 – “And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:” (Gen 5:3), and died at age 930 – And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: And the days of Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. (Gen 5:4-5) (6) other parts of the Scripture consistently allude to the Creation account just like a historical narrative, for example in the Old Testament – the treatment of Moses in Ex 20:11, of Nehemiah in Ne 9:6, of David in Psalm 33-6-9, and even in the New Testament by Jesus Himself in Matt 19:4-6 and Mark 10:6-8, and more; (7) although being disputed by few, not only do the Jews but even the Christians with high esteem consider the account of Creation (Gen 1-2) factual and historical, even at the age of rationalism (Surburg 1959: 47) – in fact, “Jewish monotheism had always prevented the complete integration of Jews into Hellenistic society” (Davies & Finkelstein 1989, p. 158) during that era where tangible evidence was what mattered; (8) and of course, theological teachings are naturally historically founded, as it would be hard to imagine Jewish and Christian monotheism to last through all ages, needless to say the tortuous persecution they had gone through, if the bases of their beliefs are unfounded. This actually is the heart of the matter why Genesis 1-11, which centres on the account of creation has to be established as historical. Although there is this saying that to those who believe, nothing needs an explanation, but to those who do not believe, no explanation can be satisfying. Genesis 1-11: The Foundation of Israel’s Articles of Faith Genesis 1-11 holds much importance in Jewish faith as it laid down the distinguishable features of Israel’s articles of faith. The Jewish principles of faith, in its shorter form was summarized by the 15ht century Jewish theologian, Simon ben Zemah Duran (cited in Cohn-Sherbok 2003, p. 191) as follows: (1) the existence of God, (2) the divine origin of the Torah, and (3) reward and punishment. However, the longer version of this as compiled and composed by Maimonides (1135-1204 C.E), Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, in short, Rambam, in Hebrew, to what is popularly known as the Rambam’s or Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of Jewish Faith, is what is printed in every Jewish prayer book and what is regularly recited as a liturgical hymn to conclude a Friday or Festival service, as this embodies “Judaism’s fundamental pillars of traditional belief” (Young 2007, p. 157). 1. I believe with perfect faith that God is the Creator and Ruler of all things. He alone has made, does make, and will make all things. 2. I believe with perfect faith that God is One. There is no unity that is in any way like His. He alone is our God He was, He is, and He will be. 3. I believe with perfect faith that God does not have a body. Physical concepts do not apply to Him. There is nothing whatsoever that resembles Him at all. 4. I believe with perfect faith that God is first and last. 5. I believe with perfect faith that it is only proper to pray to God. One may not pray to anyone or anything else. 6. I believe with perfect faith that all the words of the prophets are true. 7. I believe with perfect faith that the prophecy of Moses is absolutely true. He was the chief of all prophets, both before and after Him. 8. I believe with perfect faith that the entire Torah that we now have is that which was given to Moses. 9. I believe with perfect faith that this Torah will not be changed, and that there will never be another given by God. 10. I believe with perfect faith that God knows all of mans deeds and thoughts. It is thus written (Psalm 33:15), "He has molded every heart together, He understands what each one does." 11. I believe with perfect faith that God rewards those who keep His commandments, and punishes those who transgress Him. 12. I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah. How long it takes, I will await His coming every day. 13. I believe with perfect faith that the dead will be brought back to life when G-d wills it to happen. (cited in Young 2007, pp. 162-163) These principles provide the basic tenets of Israel’s articles of faith which are encapsulated in their “prayer, known in Hebrew as the Shema” – “Hear o Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one” – the first ever prayer learned and cited by Jewish children for hundreds of generations now (Wool 2007, p. 9). Gen 1-11, established the very foundation of the Jewish faith. First, as Genesis is a book of origins, specifically the Primeval History, it has given the world and humanity a divine purpose, and specifying the Israelites as God’s chosen people/nation. What emphasised more this divine purpose was God’s creation of man in His own image and likeness. And 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. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created he him; male and female created he them. (Gen 1:260-27) The terms ‘image and likeness’, in Biblical language, mean moral, intellectual, and spiritual qualities (Evans 2009, p. 24). And as, “the creation of man is the crowning act of this chapter” (Ibid), means that man as an individual has to live according to his Creator’s image and likeness as spelled out in Rambam’s Thirteen Principles of Jewish Faith. Although Jews believe that they are God’s Chosen people, they regard all people to be part of the same and one branch of family, which they would trace back not only to Adam but also to the biblical patriarchs: ‘Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and one of Jacob’s twelve sons’(Ibid). Second, “one of the main themes of Genesis 1-11 is the sovereignty of God” (Grigg, 1994, p. 38) to which the monotheistic character central to Jewish faith can be attributed and to which man’s relationship to his powerful Creator has to be understood as established in Gen 2:7 – “And 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.” What made man different from all other life forms is his living soul that the Creator Himself breathed into him and which also unites him with his God Creator (Evans 2009, p. 26). Thus, for the Israelites, what completes a man is his belief in one God-Creator. This also, establishes the fact that man is by nature good, because the life that has been breathed into him is divine. So, the sin of Adam and Eve (Gen 3) also referred to as the Original Sin, was man’s conscious choice instigated by the devil from without. Essentially therefore, sinning is denying God’s sovereignty over man, and believing in Satan rather than in God. And since, the belief in God is what completes a man, sinning therefore incompletes man resulting to difficulty and hardship such as: cursing of the ground, 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 sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; (Gen 3:17) painful child bearing of a woman and dominance of man over the woman, Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children: and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. (Gen 3: 16) hard labour to live, and physical and spiritual death (Evans 2009, pp. 31-32). 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 thous art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (Gen. 3: 19) Thus, as the fallen people of God who have sinned against Him, the monotheistic character of Judaism can also be understood as “Israels original covenant with Yahweh on Mount Sinai” (Smith 2001) as God’s chosen nation. It is Israel’s reconciling with the Creator after Adam and Eve did commit the original sin. With this appreciation, Gen 1-11 essentially established the identity and sense of purpose of Israel as the chosen people of God. In doing so, it also established the place of Israel in human history, that the history of Israel as a nation is a history of salvation. Third, another Jewish teaching that had taken its root from Genesis 1-11 is the Jews’ observance of the Sabbath Day. The Sabbath is among the oldest weekly religious ritual being celebrated until today by the Jews. According to Biblical accounts, the Jews’ observance of the Sabbath sometime during the period they received God’s revelation of the Ten Commandments in Mt. Sinai through the prophet Moses, which Biblical scholar calculated to be 3,000 years (Ringwald, 2007, p. 32). The Jew’s strict observance of the Sabbath, which had been religiously passed on to their succeeding generation, springs from the first three verses of Genesis 2, wherein God’ Creation concludes not with man’s creation on the 6th day but with God blessing the seventh day. In fact Gen. 2 is titled: The first sabbath. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. (Gen. 1-3) The word ‘rested’ is derived from the Hebrew verb ‘sabat’ which means to cease or to stop (Ringwald, 2007, p. 32). Rest to English is different from cease or stop, as rest denotes resumption of work. Here stop means completion. God has completed his creation. This act of God implies order, because if God did not stop, then the world would have been in chaos. Thus, this act of God puts order as the primary law of heaven, which again markedly differentiates Genesis account of Creation from other ancient accounts which are characterised by chaotic and conflicting forces (Ibid, p. 36). With God rested on the seventh day, blessed and sanctified this day, “The Israelite household at rest recapitulates the celebration of God at the moment of conclusion and perfection of creation” (Ibid). Thus, the observance of the Sabbath is the Jews’ thanksgiving to the Creator for the creation of day of rest and holiness. This, appreciation of the Jews of the Sabbath is significant, because it could also mean a one day rest from all the toils and hardships of the week, which were Adam and Eve’s – our first parent, punishment of committing the original sin. The book of Genesis also provides the foundation of Jewish marriage which is seen good and sacred as established in the goodness of creation – where the man and the woman was created according to God’s image and likeness and God sees his creation good. This is further affirmed in Genesis 2 which established without doubt not only the natural but more so the beauty in the relatedness and oneness of human sexuality when God himself declared that the woman is the joy of man and that man is the completeness of a woman, consequentially establishing the inherent need of the male for the female and the female for the male. (Weaver 2006, p. 148) This interwoven relatedness of man and the woman is even higher than the interrelatedness of parent to their children, thus the task of the union of man and woman to build a family. ... but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof: And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto man. And Adam 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. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife were not ashamed. (Gen. 2: 20-25) It was after Eve’s seduction of Adam to disobey the Lord, that the equal relationship of man and woman was changed. The woman was cursed to be under the dominion of man, bearing man’s children in agony and pain. Genesis 3 presents the origin of man’s suffering and it is presented as God’s punishment to man’s disobedience of God. However, if whose fault did man sin, is something that Genesis 3 gives different emphasis: the man and the woman, not only both, but they were together when they committed the sin (Gen. 3:1-7), and another emphasis is that the man was simply with the woman when the sin happened (Gen 3:6). But what is clear though in Genesis 3 is the woman’s acknowledgement of her sin – that she was the first to eat the forbidden fruit and that she was deceived by the serpent. (Mickelsen 1986, p. 210) “In Jewish tradition, Genesis 3 was usually understood as to emphasise Eve’s culpability for sin and death” (Ibid). It is believed that the woman is weaker to deception than the man that’s why she was chosen by the serpent to seduce to sin. The rest of Genesis 4-11 deals more on the formation of God’s chosen nation, on man’s susceptibility to sin, and God’s wrath and punishment not because He now hated his master creation for repeatedly choosing evil over God, but because man has to learn his lesson because the Creator loves His Creation very much that he doesn’t want to see them to continuously fall and be enslaved to the devil, so God forgives and again gives man another chance to be reconciled with his creator. Genesis 1-11 assures the Israelites’ relationship with God as a nation, as it accounts how this chosen nation has come into being, and as it accounts how God has continually work through the prophets to save Israel. Reference List Alter, Robert 1998, ‘Reading Genesis’, Judaism, Fall, pp. 1-5. Carr, David M. 1996, Reading the fractures of Genesis: historical and literary approaches, Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, Kentucky. Cohn-Sherbok, Dan 2003, Judaism: history, belief, and practice, Routledge, London Davies, William David, and Finkelstein, Louis 1989, The Cambridge History of Judaism: The Hellenistic age, Cambridge University Press: UK Evans, William 2009, The Book of Genesis, BibioLife, LLC: US Gooder, Paula 2000, The Pentateuch: a story of beginnings, T&T Clark, New York, NY. Grigg, Russell M. 1994, ‘Does God expect us to read Genesis 1-11 as a record of authentic historical fact, or is this simply a collection of parable-like stories?’ Creation Ex Nihilo, vol 16, no. 1, pp. 38-41 Jacob, Benno, and Hirsch, Emil G. 2002, ‘The Book of Genesis’, The Jewish Encyclopedia.com., pp. 599-611, viewed 15 March 2010, Kaiser, Walter C., Jr. 1970, ‘The literary form of Genesis 1-11’, in New Perspectives on the Old Testament, Barton J. Payne (ed.), Word Books, Waco, TX, p. pp. 48-65 Mickelsen, Alvera 1986, Women, authority and the Bible, Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship of the United States of Americs, US. Phillips, Gary W., and Fouts, David M. (n.d.). Genesis 1-11 as Historical Narrative’, viewed 10 March 2010, Ringwald, Christopher D. 2007, A day apart: how Jews, Christians, and Muslims find faith, freedom, and joy on the Sabbath, Oxford University Press, New York. Rooker, Mark F. 1992, “Genesis 1:1-3: Creation or Recreation? Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. 149 , pp. 411-27. Seters, John Van 1992, Prologue to History: The Yahwist As Historian in Genesis, Westminster/John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky. ------------------- 1999, The Pentateuch: a social-science commentary, Sheffield Academic Press, England Smith, Mark S. 2001, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israels Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts, Oxford University Press, Oxford/NY, viewed 15 March 2010, http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/MSmith_BiblicalMonotheism.shtml Waltke,Bruce K. 1975, ‘The Creation Account in Genesis 1:1-3, Part III: The Initial Chaos Theory and the Precreation Chaos Theory’, Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. 132, pp. 220-21. Weaver, John 2006, Outside-in: theological reflection on life ,Regent’s Park College, Oxford, UK. Wool, Daniel 2007, Judaism, Marshall Cavendish Corporation, Tarrytown, NY Young, Brad H. 2007, Meet the Rabbis: Rabbinic Thought and the Teachings of Jesus, Hendirckson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts Zucker, David J 2005, The Torah: an introduction for Christians and Jews, Paulist Press, Mahwah, NJ Read More