Discovering Genesis by Provan Iain;

Author:Provan, Iain;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Genesis 6.2

The sons of God (Hb. ra’ah) saw the daughters of ’adam, that they were beautiful (Hb. tov), and they married them (Hb. laqach)

When we recall, in addition, the emphasis in the creation story that everything in creation should reproduce ‘according to its kind’, and the later prohibitions in Torah concerning various kinds of ‘mixing’ of different things, especially in the sexual realm – the crossing of set boundaries with respect to intercourse with animals or with human beings of the same gender (Lev 20.13, 16) – it seems clear that here in Genesis 6 a different boundary is described as having been crossed. It is the boundary between the heavens and the earth. It is Genesis 3 all over again, and most likely we are to think that from the human side, the motivation is just the same as in that earlier chapter: these people want immortality. The daughters of ’adam therefore willingly intermarry with divine beings, in order to produce offspring who will attain eternal life. The similar consequence itself indicates the similar motivation. And just as the human grasping after divinity in Genesis 3 leads to death (eventually), the involvement of human beings in these marriages also brings death (Gen. 6.3): ‘my Spirit will not contend with humans for ever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.’ God’s Spirit (Hb. ruach) is probably to be understood here as the breath of life (ruach) mentioned in Genesis 2.17 (and also in the upcoming 6.17 and 7.15). This breath will not ‘abide’ or ‘remain’ with ’adam forever (NRSV, better than NIV’s ‘contend’); lifetimes will now be shorter.38 It must be made unequivocally clear to human beings that they are mortal.

The ultimate background against which this biblical objection to the conjoining of sex and religion in pursuit of immortality is to be understood is probably that of ancient Near Eastern sacred marriage rituals, which had the purpose of ensuring control over fertility. Already back in the ancient Sumerian period (c.2700–1800 BC) we encounter a sacred marriage rite involving the goddess Inanna (the personification of Venus) and her divine spouse Dumuzi, once a priest-king of ancient Uruk. All the kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur and of the Isin Dynasty impersonated Dumuzi, now deified, in this sacred marriage rite, which was believed to fertilize nature and society alike for the coming year, and thus to ensure plenty and abundance for the land.39 It is this same notion of marriage between a god and a mortal that then appears in mythological form in the later Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh, where Ishtar tries to seduce the hero Gilgamesh.40 Gilgamesh himself is said in the Epic to be a product of sexual intercourse between his human father Lugalbanda and his goddess mother Ninsun, and to be partly divine on that account. It is precisely the view of the world that is implied in such a ritual that is rejected by the Hebrew authors of Genesis, who do

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.