Genesis 31:33-55 and The Martyrdom of Polycarp 11-13

Genesis 31:33-55 – Laban searches for the idol taken from his home. He looks in Leah’s tent and the tents of the two serving women; finally he looks in Rachel’s tent. She had hidden the idols in her “camel saddle, and was sitting on them” (31:34). Laban cannot find them. Rachel says she can’t get up because she is having her monthly period.

Jacob gets angry and challenges Laban; he’s angry not only for this assault on his household, but because of Laban’s having taken advantage of him for so many years. Laban offers to make a covenant with Jacob. “Jacob [takes] a stone and set[s] it up as a monument” (31:45). He has everyone bring stones to add to the pile. “Then Jacob and Laban [sit] down beside the pile of stones to eat a covenant meal” (31:46).

Laban declares “’This pile of stones will stand as a witness to remind us of the covenant we have made today.’ This explains why it was called Galeed – ‘Witness Pile.’ But it was also called Mizpah (which means ‘watchtower’), for Laban said, ‘May the Lord keep watch between us to make sure that we keep this covenant when we are out of each other’s sight’” (31:48-49).

They swear to never do each other harm and to respect the boundary line. They feast and sleep. The next morning Laban gets up, kisses his daughters and grandchildren and returns home.

The Martyrdom of Polycarp

Chapter 11 – The governor threatens Polycarp with “wild beasts”- says he will throw him in with them if he does not renounce his faith.  Polycarp responds, “’[C]all them up . . . for it is out of the question for us to exchange a good way of thinking for a bad one’” (128).

Then the governor threatens him with being burnt, and Polycarp responds, “’The fire you threaten me with cannot go on burning for very long; after a while it goes out. But what you are unaware of are the flames of future judgment and everlasting torment which are in store for the ungodly’” (128). Stop wasting time, he says further. Bring it on.

Chapter 12 – The debate with the governor makes Polycarp overflow with courage and joy . . . his whole countenance was beaming with grace” “ (129). The governor is the one who finds himself at a complete loss. He communicates to the herald of the coliseum that Polycarp has admitted to the crime of being a Christian, and the herald announces it to the crowd. They erupt into “loud yells of ungovernable fury” (129).

There are cries for the regional official who oversaw “emperor worship” in the province to throw Polycarp to the lions, but the official announces that the “beast-fighting” portion of the “show” is over. The coliseum’s “entertainment” included a number of things: chariot races, athletic contests, gladiatorial fights, mock battles and other things as well. Wild animals were brought in to fight each other or men who were either condemned criminals or professional animal fighters like modern-day bull-fighters.

The crowd then “set up a unanimous outcry that he [be] burnt alive” (129). This is seen as a “fulfillment of the vision he had had of his pillow, when he saw it catching fire during his prayers, and turned to his loyal friends with the prophetic words, ‘I must be going to be burnt alive’” (129).

Chapter 13 – “It was all done in less time than it takes to tell” (129). The crowd gathers together the timber for the fire, led by the Jews, it says (129).  He removes his “outer garments” and tries to take off his shoes, but cannot. There is comment that he was unused to doing this since his admirers sought to help him with such details, and remember he was quite old.

“The irons with which the pyre was equipped were fastened round him; but when they proposed to nail him as well, he said, ‘Let me be; He who gives me strength to endure the flames will give me strength not to flinch at the stake, without your making sure of it with nails’” (129).

Genesis 31:1-32 and The Martyrdom of Polycarp 8-10

Genesis 31:1-32 – Things begin to get tense between Laban, Laban’s sons and Jacob. They feel that he “’has gained all his wealth at our father’s expense’” (31:1) despite the fact that Jacob has worked very hard for him for a very long time. The Lord decides it is time for Jacob to return to the land of his father Isaac.

Interesting to note is Jacob’s position here  — he is caught between two VERY angry men - at least he feels he is.  On the one side is his brother Esau, angry about the deception Jacob practiced on him to get the blessing.  On the other is Laban, angry because of the deception Jacob is alleged to have perpetrated against him. 

Jacob realizes he MUST leave Laban’s lands and go back to his own lands, but he fears his brother Esau will be waiting to kill him for having “stolen” their father Isaac’s blessing years earlier.  

Jacob wins the support of his two wives and they get ready to go. Rachel secretly takes the household idols and hides them in her things.  They “set out secretly and never told Laban they were leaving” (31:20).

They cross the Euphrates, and three days later Laban learns that they have gone. He “gather[s] a group of his relatives and set[s] out in hot pursuit” (31:23). Laban catches up with Jacob and tries to make him feel guilty, telling him he would have sent him off royally, had he only known they were leaving; but his anger is tapped over the household idols, which they do not find; compare later the story of Benjamin being caught with the silver goblet (44:2) that Joseph plants in his bag. 

We’ll return to the end of the story tomorrow.

The Martyrdom of Polycarp

Chapter 8 – His long prayer included “everyone whom chance had ever brought him into contact with—small and great, known and unknown—as well as the entire world-wide Catholic Church” (127). It was time to leave. They “mounted him on an ass” and took him to the city. Herod was the name of the Police Commissioner. None of these details were missed by anyone. Herod and his father are there when Polycarp arrives. They seem eager to avoid the worst. They ask him, “[W]here is the harm in just saying ‘Caesar is Lord’, and offering the incense . . . when it will save your life?’” (127).

“At first he made no reply, but when they kept on at him he said, ‘No, I am not going to take your advice’ Then, after their effort at persuasion had failed, they took to uttering threats; and they turned him out of the carriage so impatiently that he barked his shins as he was getting down” (127). He limps along as they lead him to the “circus” where a noisy crowd awaits them.

Chapter 9 – “As Polycarp stepped into the arena there came a voice from heaven, ‘Be strong, Polycarp, and play the man’. No one caught sight of the speaker, but those of our friends who were there heard the voice” (128). Polycarp is brought forward before the Governor. When “the news spread round that it was Polycarp who had been captured, a deafening clamour broke out” (128). The Governor tries to persuade him to “recant” – “’Own yourself in the wrong, and say, ‘Down with the infidels!” Polycarp’s brow darkened as he threw a look round the turbulent crowd of heathes in the circus; and then, indicating them with a sweep of his hand, he said with a growl and a glance to heaven, ‘Down with the infidels!’” (128)

When the Governor presses him again to “’Revile your Christ.’ Polycarp’s reply was, ‘Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He has done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?’” (128)

Chapter 10 – The Governor persists in trying to get Polycarp to renounce Christ. A short editorial note comments again on the similarity drawn by the writer to the narrative of Pilate’s reluctance to condemn Christ. Polycarp says that if he imagines that anything will make him “swear by Caesar’s Luck” he doesn’t know what being a Christian is about, he [Polycarp] would be happy to sit down with him to explain it. The governor responds that he should try to explain it to the crowd waiting outside. Polycarp says it is to authorities that they are called to show respect but he thinks trying to convince the crowd would be a waste of time. Another similarity to Jesus’ trial; there it was the crowd that finally sealed his fate.

Genesis 3 and Early Church Writings [Clement of Rome] 26-30

Genesis 3 - Now the drama begins.  There is a serpent in the garden who approaches the woman and asks her if God forbade them any of the fruits of the garden, and Eve tells him of the prohibition on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil along with the threatened penalty, which I must point out is a prohibition given to Adam – before Eve was even part of the picture! She has HEARD of the prohibition from Adam. 

The serpent then tries to convince Eve that God is bluffing them, that they won’t die if they eat from this tree.  Furthermore, the serpent offers, God is just trying to keep man from being “like a god,” for knowing good and evil is a trait pertaining to divinity.

The language of the serpent is important: “’You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’” (3:4-5).

Eve considers all the good things the fruit seems to offer – its pleasing look (beauty), its good as a food (practical usefulness), and she appreciates the desirability of the knowledge it promises to give her (philosophical good).  So she disobeys God, trusts in the word of the serpent and eats.  Her husband, who is with her throughout, also eats.  Then the text tells us “the eyes of both of them were opened” (3:7). They see that they are naked, but of course they always saw that – it’s just that now they feel differently about it.

A lot of the meaning of this story rests in understanding that it is all about “seeing” and less about really eating and learning.  And, I think there is a good deal of irony in the dialogue that is not commented upon.  First of all, when the serpent tells Eve that God doesn’t want them to eat the fruit because it will make them “like god we mustn’t forget that God has specifically created them to be “like us/God” (1:26).  He wants them to be not only like gods but “like” the one and only God. 

Similarly when the text says, “the eyes of both of them were opened”, it is being completely sarcastic – before they ate of the forbidden fruit, their eyes were opened – it is partly the beauty of the fruit that draws Eve into disobedience.  But after disobeying God, they are now really blinded to their true nature and to the nature of their relationships to each other and to God.

Another interesting thing to point out is that Eve is not drawn into disobedience by desiring anything bad; she convinces herself that what she really is seeking is “good.”  The problem is that the first step she must take is a failure of trust in God, for he has already given her the good things she seeks here. And by failing to trust in Him, she will lose the very things she is seeking through her own independence from God.

Back to the story - Later, when God comes to talk to them, the shame they first experienced in relation to each other now comes between God and them.  They are afraid, and God sees that things have changed between him and them.  They have separated themselves from him and from the divine nature He planted in them. 

When he confronts them they proceed to obfuscate and deceive.  The man blames the woman; the woman blames the serpent.  No one accepts responsibility for the act of disobedience (1:9-13).  The consequences of this disobedience are both explicit and implicit.  The consequences already displayed in the story are a dramatic alteration of the way reality is “seen” by man and woman; the rising up of shame and defensiveness--which divides us from each other and from God--and an inability or refusal to accept responsibility for the acts we chose. 

To these consequences God adds others: the serpent is separated from the rest of the animal kingdom.  There will be an on-going struggle between the serpent (what it represents) and the offspring  (seed) of the woman.  The offspring of Eve will struggle with the principle of evil as long as evil strikes at our heels or “dogs our steps” if you will.  “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (NRSV 1:15).

Here it is important to comment briefly on the promise Christians have always attached to these words, and here again the salience of the words is directly related to the translation one works from. Consider just the following:

·      “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed; He shall crush your head, and you shall lie in wait for his heel”(Confraternity).

·      “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel”(KJV).

·      “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel”(NAB).

Christians saw in these words a kind of ur-promise to mankind, or more specifically to Eve and through her to all mankind, that one of her line would eventually overcome the power of evil, and this seed of Eve was seen as a prophesy of Jesus.  The word seed, therefore, took on significance – for many indeed the significance of the two other great images for Christ – God’s Word and God’s Light.  All three of these images may take their origin from these stories of the creation. I must say of all the changes the newer translations have brought the worst change has been abandonment of the word “seed,” for offspring.  So much biblical meaning is tied into the word seed that I just think it should be kept.

Anyway, to return to the story, woman will suffer in and through the having of offspring, yet she will be tied in an unequal yoke with man.  She will yearn for that unity promised with man, but he will lord it over her instead, frustrating both.  Man is burdened with the difficulty of eking out an existence from the soil, yet his labors will be filled with hardship and with a sense of futility, for “you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return” (1:19).

The two of them are helped by God to some garments to cover their nakedness and then banished from the garden.  At the entrance to the garden God posts sentries armed with a flaming, “revolving” sword (1:24), so that they will not be able to come back in, eat the fruit of the tree of life and live forever.  The further implicit consequences of all this are the stuff of the later stories, but these are the main ones: the peace of the garden is disrupted; the union and friendship with God is shattered.  This is the fallen condition in which we live.

Now we must return to the problem alluded to before.  What is the death Adam and Eve suffer as a result of their disobedience?  Have they already suffered it?  Does it hang over their heads for the future – when they return to the dirt or dust from which they came?  Early in history, people who read this story tended to believe that the death threatened by God was an eventual bodily death, an allusion to their mortality which, readers believed, was never part of the intention of God when He created them.  Some more modern theorists, seeing the problem presented by evolutionary theory in this kind of idea, posit that the mortality of man, which is, they admit, part of the natural condition of man’s existence was meant to be overcome supernaturally by God (by God giving us access to the tree of life). 

An insight I had some years ago into this promise of supernatural intervention is that the cross of Christ might well be that supernatural tree and the body and blood of Christ offered us in the Eucharist might well be seen as the fruit of the Tree of Life. The irony of what “seems” to be death being “life” is then applied to BOTH baptism and Eucharist.

Still, the story says that God said that the death we were to suffer would come upon them the very day they eat the fruit.  And that death seems to me to be a spiritual death.  This is not a subtle, nuanced thing but a dramatic change in the way man sees, feels, thinks and responds to his God and to other men and women as well.  They are separated from the closeness from God they were intended to enjoy and from the closeness promised between them as man and woman. Later we will see that the death includes also the turning of man to violence against his brother, and the deep ignorance we have in our “natural” fallen state of what our true nature is and what we are in God’s creative scheme.

The question of what this story has to tell us or teach us about the state of relations between men and women is one that has interested readers for centuries at least.  For many Christians, the story has served to explain why women are to be subordinated to men, just as it explains or pretends to explain why women have pain in childbirth while other animals seem to deliver their young without undue pain.  But the thing that interests me is that both circumstances are not part of God’s intention with respect to our lives, only the results of that deep sin which all mankind begins in “naturally”.   As we enter into the redemption offered by God, however, the consequences of the fall begin to weaken and the lives we are called into begin to free us from the baneful effects of Adam’s disobedience.

The two creation stories together also stimulate in my mind another interesting idea.  Could it be that “man” – male and female together – is for God what Eve is for Adam?  Did God perhaps create us to be his companion, his other?  Sometimes when I look at people and see how amazing they are – how sensitive they are, how profoundly they think and create, I feel in myself—sometimes only for a fleeting moment, but intensely—how God must love us, how lonely it must be to be God and how desirable man is.  God seeks humanity, I believe, because we are “bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh.” He seeks to be wedded to us as Adam seeks Eve.  Complimentarity, mutuality, love, admiration, dignity, and incredible goodness—all are at the heart of this infinitely huge and unfathomable creation we are part of.  The miracle is that we can even sense it in part. 

First Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (96/97 AD) Sections 26-30

Section 26 – Still discussing the importance of the Phoenix story, Clement says he finds the story meaningful because it helps us to see resurrection as a reasonable hope for “those who have served Him in holiness and in the confidence of a sound faith” (34). And he quotes from the Book of Job: “You will raise up this flesh of mine which has had all these trials to endure” (34).

Section 27 – “Seeing then that we have this hope, let us knit fast our souls to Him who is ever true to His word and righteous in His judgments. He who has forbidden us to use any deception can much less be a deceiver Himself; untruth is the only thing that is impossible to God” (34).

It is God’s Word that has brought together all that exists, so he is able to end it if he chooses.

Section 28 – Let us approach our Lord with awe. There is “nothing He does not see and hear” (34). He quotes psalm 139: “Whither shall I go, and where shall I hide from your presence? If I climb up to heaven, you are there; if I retire to the ends of the earth, your right hand is there; if I make my bed in the pit, there is your Spirit” (34)

Section 29 – “It follows that we must approach Him in holiness of spirit, lifting up pure and undefiled hands to Him in love for the gracious and compassionate Father who has chosen us to be His own” (34).

Section 30 – Since we are the “Holy One’s own special portion, let us omit no possible means of sanctification” (35). We must abandon slander, “lewd and unclean coupling”, drinking and rioting, lust and pride. “Let us clothe ourselves in a mutual tolerance of one another’s views, cultivating humility and self-restrain, avoiding all gossiping and backbiting, and earning our justification by deeds and not by words” (35).

And the “testimony to our good deeds is for others to give” (35), not for us to advertise.

Genesis 2 and Early Church Writings [Clement of Rome] 21-25

Genesis 2 – God rests on the seventh day.  The day therefore becomes blessed and hallowed. Then we go on to another story of man’s creation. It is not completely consistent with the details of the first, but its focus is wholly on the place of man in the creation, man’s role in “naming” all that is, and relations between the man and the woman created.

Here the creation of man occurs before the bringing forth of vegetation and rain upon the earth.  There was a stream swelling up out of the ground, and out of the clay near the stream, God forms a man and breathes “the breath of life” into his nostrils (2:7).  Then God “plants” a garden and places the man there.  Only then does God continue his work of creation – planting beautiful trees and placing two special trees at the center of the garden: the tree of life (in the middle) and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (2:9).

Man’s commission here is somewhat smaller in this story, extending primarily to caring for the garden, which apparently is made to represent all the earthly creation. Man is given dominion over it in a limited way, however.  He apparently can eat of the tree of life, but of the other tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, this he is forbidden to eat upon pain of death (2:17). I say that last phrase in my own words, as they might have been said in a U.S. Court. The biblical translations of it are interesting and at one time I became a little obsessed with the differences. My notes from those days are included below.

The translations of this verse are frustratingly inconsistent, especially so because the verse is so central to the meaning of the story. Here they are: 

§  NLT (2007) – “If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”

§  NAB (1987) – “From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.”

§  Jerusalem Bible (1966) – “Nevertheless of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat, for on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die.”

§  Confraternity (1959) – “…but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you must not eat; for the day you eat of it, you must die.”

§  King James – “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.”

§  Good News Bible (1992) – “ . . .except the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad.  You must not eat the fruit of that tree; if you do, you will die the same day.”

§  NRSV (1989) – “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, or in the day that you eat of it, you shall die.”

§  Schocken Bible (1996): “YHWH, God, commanded concerning the human, saying: From every (other) tree of the garden you may eat, yes, eat, but from the Tree of the Knowing of Good and Evil—you are not to eat from it, for on the day that you eat from it, you must die, yes, die.”

§  Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures (1985) – “but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.”

The differences in the translations have been important for scholars in interpreting what is being communicated to us by the story. The traditional reading of this passage led some people to see this story as in explaining the reason for man’s mortality.

Quakers see the story as explaining the fact that man lives in a condition of “spiritual death,” and this seems more convincing and more profound than the other reading.  The interpretation has turned in part on how one reads the clause I have highlighted.  If man merely incurred the fate of eventual mortality, then the story is on point for the mortality approach.  But if the death man incurred was more instantaneous, then the only interpretation that will stand is that he incurred a profound spiritual death that presents the “problem” or issue around which the on-going story of redemption will focus.

Returning to the text, the man in this story is still alone.  There are no other earthly creatures, and woman has yet to make her appearance.  So man is lonely. First, the creatures are created and brought to man to see what he would name them, but none of the creatures proves a suitable mate for man until God creates woman.  The Lord creates Eve not out of the ground as he does all the other creatures.  He creates her out of Adam side, out of part of Adam, and when she is presented to Adam, he recognizes that she is part of his own flesh. 

It is my sense of it that this creation of woman from Adam is meant to echo the first creation of “man” (meaning man and woman) in the first account.  But there the lonely one is God.  After all He created, He still wanted something in the creation to reflect His image and likeness, to be “bone of His bone” if you will.  And His answer was man.  In that account, man, like everything else issues forth from His all-powerful Word, not from the dust.  As the unity of Adam and Eve finds its pinnacle in their coming together as “one flesh,” so the redemption of mankind will take shape as a great eschatological wedding and banquet.  But that will come later.

First Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (96/97 AD)

Section 21

“The spirit of the Lord, as the Bible tells us, is a candle searching the inward parts of the body; so let us keep in mind this nearness of His presence, remembering that not a single one of our thoughts or reasonings can ever be hidden from Him” (32).

“The right thing, then, is not to run away from His will . . . but to reverence the Lord Jesus Christ whose blood was given for us” (32).

“Accordingly, let us be respectful to those who have been set over us, honor our elders and train up our young people in the fear of God; let us set our womenfolk on the road to goodness, by teaching them to be examples of lovable purity, to display real sincerity in their submissiveness, to prove the self-restraint of their tongues by observing silence, and to bestow equal affection, with no favoritism and as becomes holiness, upon all God-fearing persons” (32).

“As for our children, see that they have their share of Christian instruction; let them learn how greatly a humble spirit avails with God, how mightily a chaste and innocent love prevails with Him, and how great and goodly a thing is the fear of Him, by which all who pass their lives therein with holiness and purity of heart are made sure of salvation. For He is the searcher of our thoughts and desires; His is the breath that is in us, and at His own good pleasure will He take it away” (32).

Section 22

“All these promises find their confirmation when we believe in Christ, for it is He Himself who summons us, through His Holy Spirit, with the words, Come, my children; listen to me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord . . . Keep your tongue free of evil, and your lips from uttering deceit; turn away from wrong, and do what is good, seek peacefulness, and make that your aim. The Lord’s eyes are on the righteous, and His ears open to their prayers” (33).

Section 23

“So let us be done with vacillation, and indulge no more inward doubts of the reality of His great and glorious gifts” (33).

Section 24

“Think, my dear friends, how the Lord offers us proof after proof that there is going to be a resurrection, of which He has made Jesus Christ the first-fruits by raising Him from the dead. My friends, look how regularly there are processes of resurrection going on at this very moment. The day and the night show us an example of it; for night sinks to rest, and day arises; day passes away, and night comes again” (33). 

Section 25 – Clement also uses the legend [myth] of the Phoenix as a kind of “figure” of Christ’s resurrection. The Phoenix was a bird thought to have a life-span of 500 years. It must have been a well-known myth in his day:  “When the hour of its dissolution and death approaches, it makes a nest for itself out of frankincense and myrrh and other fragrant spices, and in the fullness of time it enters into this and expires. Its decaying flesh breeds a small grub, which is nourished by the moisture of the dead bird and presently grows wings. This, on reaching full growth, takes up the next containing the bones of its predecessor and carries them all the way from the land of Arabia into Egypt, to the city called Heliopolis. There, in the full light of day and before the eyes of all beholders, it flies to the altar of the Sun, deposits them there, and speeds back to its homeland; and when the priests consult their time records, they find that its arrival has marked the completion of the five-hundredth year” (33-34).

Just looking around for a little information on the reference to this myth, I came across a whole book called The Myth of the Phoenix According to Classical and Early Christian Traditions by R. van den Broek. Sounds interesting!

Genesis 1 and Early Church Writings [Clement of Rome] 16-20

Genesis 1 - God creates the universe and the earth and by his word light came forth that was good and pleasing to God, not the light of the sun, for that is created later, on day four; not the light that physically gives us the experience of day and night—that too is not the focus.  The light that is created in the very beginning is a light that simply is with God in the beginning of his creation—a presence, perhaps a power that is brought forth to be a presence in and through the creation.

God divides the waters—He places a great dome to divide them.  The waters above from the waters beneath.  The dome is the sky  (day 2).

The waters under the dome are gathered together and the dry land appears—and the seas. Then the earth brings forth vegetation sufficient to provide for all the life God intends to create on the earth (day 3).

The lights of the heavens – the sun and moon and stars – are created and with them the means for calculating time set in place (day 4).

Then the waters are ordered to teem with life and birds are sent forth to dwell beneath the dome of heaven.  And they are told to increase and multiply (day 5).

The earth is filled with “all kinds of living creatures” and finally man is created (both male and female) in the divine image (1:27). They too are told to be fertile and to multiply to fill the earth and “subdue” it, bringing it under their care.  Everything was very good and all was created by the end of the sixth day.  Then God rests.

What are we to take from this creation story?  First of all that the entire creation is the product of God’s transcendent power—a power that brings order and good out of chaos or nothingness, a power that is fundamentally “other” from everything we can see – not created, not contingent.  The universe and all of the life and non-life in it are his work.  And we human beings – male and female were created “in his image and likeness”—that God reveals himself to us first and foremost in and through our humanity.  Man has a great dignity in this story, for it is in knowing and understanding ourselves that we come to an understanding of our creator. 

Karl Marx – someone who meant a lot to me early in my adult life - would say that in religion man simply projects his human nature out onto the universe.  But this is mysteriously a biblical truth.  By projecting ourselves, God’s image and likeness, out into the universe, we begin to know what God’s nature is.  The difficulty comes when we realize that not everything in us is in the image and likeness of God.  We are not God – we are his “likeness” but with our own separate existence as well – an existent being with our own will and freedom in the exercise of that will.

Man, in this creation story is the culmination of the creation—it’s pinnacle. A number of things pop out of the story when we get to the creation of man—first the way God speaks of himself.  “Let us make man in our image,” he says.  Now God is one, so you will read and learn many approaches to this apparent mystery.  To whom is God referring?  One explanation I have read is that God is addressing a host of heavenly, spiritual presences—speaking for them in a sense.  Another is that God is using a kind of royal “we” – so as to emphasize his infinite transcendence.  A third, more modern explanation, is that God is speaking out of a spiritual reality that is only captured in the flesh by a human creation that is both male and female—hence both are created simultaneously and reflect the divine nature only in their complimentarity and their unity.  As an Catholic Christian, I myself tend to see the "us" as referring to the Trinitarian reality of the divine nature.  The Light is with God, having been begotten by God’s creative word even before the physical creation; and with the two in being, the Holy Spirit too is given forth and made present, so that the “us” refers to the Trinitarian, divine being from whom all things flow. I love the simultaneity of male and female creation in this story and am thankful for it.

When you consider how ancient the writing is, it is a wonder that it is so profoundly even-handed. As a modern person who has been raised on evolution and anti-religious attitudes of all kinds, it strikes me as interesting that while the creation story outlined here does not make a pretense of being scientific, it does seem to follow in a general way what scientists tell us was the evolutionary order of creation-- the gathering of waters and the creation of living things to inhabit the waters; then the teeming forth of life from the waters, the birds and life on the land. The cosmology is earth-centered, but other than that, there is not much to complain of.

The first story of creation is very important.  It sets forth for us a view of man in the creation that is not easily caricatured.  It claims for man a dignity and goodness that defies all that we know of man in the history that will unfold for him; but it shows us God’s divine intention, the impetus and engine of the divine determination to redeem what he has created, a determination we will see played out in the biblical narrative.

I love the fact that all the complicating factors that come in the 2^nd version are absent: complimentarity for men and women, dignity, God’s intention that all be good.

First Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (96/97 AD) Sections 16-20

Section 16

“Christ belongs to the lowly of heart, and not to those who would exalt themselves over His flock” (29).

Again quoting scripture, he writes, “we proclaimed before the Lord that he resembles a babe in arms, or a root in waterless soil; there is not a trace of shapeliness or splendor about him. We saw him, and he had neither comeliness nor beauty; his appearance was mean, and inferior to that of other men. He was familiar with hard labor and the lash, and schooled to endure weakness . . . Yet this is he who carries the burden of our sins, and suffers pain on our behalf . . . he was led away like a sheep to be slaughtered, and like a lamb that is mute before its shearer he never opened his lips. His sentence was to be humiliated; no one will ever recount his descendants, for his life was destroyed from off the earth” (29).

“Elsewhere, too, it says, I am a worm, and no man; a public reproach, and an object of contempt to the people. All who saw me derided me; they spoke with their lips, nodding their heads and saying, He set his hopes on the Lord; let him deliver him, let him save him, since he has such a liking for him. You see, dear friend, what an example we have been given. If the Lord humbled Himself in this way, what ought we to do, who through Him have come under the yoke of His grace?” (29)

Section 17

We need to follow the example of Old Testament heroes like Elijah and Elisha, Ezekiel and Abraham, “Friend of God,” (30) or Moses, who when he encountered God in the Burning Bush, said “Who am I, that you should send me? My voice is feeble, and my tongue is slow” (30).

Section 18

Then Clement turns to the figure of David: “Thought God says of him, I have found a man after my own heart, even David the son of Jesse, and I have anointed him with everlasting mercy, yet this is how he addresses God: O God, in your great mercy have mercy on me; in the fullness of your compassion blot out my transgressions . . . I know my own disobedience; my sin is always before my eyes. It was against you alone that I sinned, and did what was wrong in your sight . . . But you loved truth, and showed me the hidden secrets of your wisdom. You will sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be made clean; you will wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow” (30).

“Create a clean heart in me, O God; set a new spirit of uprightness in me. Do not send me away from your presence, or withdraw your holy spirit from me . . . Then I will teach your ways to the lawless, and the wicked will turn back to you once more” (30-31).

Section 19

This “ethic” of self-effacement is one that has inspired people for generations. “Thus there exists a vast heritage of glorious achievements for us to share in. Let us then make haste and get back to the state of tranquility which was set before us in the beginning as the mark for us to aim at” (31).

“Let us turn our eyes to the Father and Creator of the universe, and when we consider how precious and peerless are His gifts of peace, let us embrace them eagerly for ourselves. Let us contemplate Him with understanding, noting with the eyes of the spirit the patient forbearance that is everywhere will by Him, and the total absence of any friction that marks the ordering of His whole creation” (31). ??

Section 20

“The heavens, as they revolve beneath His government, do so in quiet submission to Him. The day and the night run the course He has laid down for them, and neither of them interferes with the other. Sun, moon, and the starry choirs roll on in harmony at His command, none swerving from its appointed orbit. Season by season the teeming earth, obedient to His will, causes a wealth of nourishment to spring forth for man and beast and every living thing upon its surface” (31).

“Laws of the same kind sustain the fathomless deeps of the abyss and the untold regions of the underworld” (31).

“The impassable Ocean and all the worlds that lie beyond it are themselves ruled by the like ordinances of the Lord. Spring, summer, autumn and winter succeed one another peaceably; the winds fulfill their punctual duties, each from its own quarter, and give no offence; the ever-flowing streams, created for our well-being and enjoyment, offer their breasts unfailingly for the life of man, and even the minutest of living creatures mingle together in peaceful accord” (31).