Recent posts have
discussed the structure of Genesis 1 and 2 as proposed by Doukhan. The structure of Genesis 1 is quite clear. There is an introduction, 6 days clearly delineated by God finishing his creating at the end of the day, and a conclusion which is the seventh day. The frequency of the phrase, "And spoke Elohim" using the grammar of the waw-consecutive indefinite is 1,1,2,1,1,3 over the 6 days of creation.
Questions still remain around the conclusions to both pericopes. Where does the conclusion end for each pericope And where does the Genesis 2 pericope begin?
As shown previously, the introductions to both pericopes follow very similar structures, that is the introduction of the second pericope starts with,
In the day that Yahweh God made the earth and the heaven,... (Gen 2:4b)
which is highly parallel to
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Gen 1:1)
Doukhan places Genesis 2:4a with the conclusion of the first pericope. He supports this with the claim that the word "create" occurs 7 times in the first pericope and the word "earth" 7 times in the second; assuming this division.
In contrast however, the
toledoth structure acts as an introduction elsewhere in Genesis. Using Genesis 2:4a as a conclusion does not match toledoth use elsewhere; and further, it leaves Genesis chapters 2 to 4 without a toledoth introduction. Secondly, does Genesis 2:4a act as a conclusion to Genesis 1, or does the seventh day purpose this? Genesis 2:3 reads as an appropriate conclusion on its own. Thirdly, there is no parallel to verse 2:4a at the end of the second pericope. So if verse 2:4a is a conclusion, it is a second conclusion to the creation account in Genesis 1, and one without parallel in Genesis 2.
Currently my preference is to consider verse 2:4a as an introduction to the next major section of Genesis: verse 2:4b through to the end of chapter 4.
We will now consider the conclusion of the second pericope. Genesis 2 finishes,
And Yahweh God fashioned the rib, which he had taken from the man, into a woman and brought her to the man. And the man said,
“This one, this time;
bone from my bones
and flesh from my flesh;
she shall be called ‘Woman,’
for she was taken from man.”
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cling to his wife, and they shall be as one flesh.
And both of them were naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed. (2:22-25)
The beginning of chapter 3 has the serpent tempting the woman.
And the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field which Yahweh God had made. (3:1)
There is a play on words between "naked" (arom) and "crafty" (arum), so the last verse of chapter 2 could be the beginning of the next pericope, or the author may just be joining the pericopes by means of this.
The man's speech concerning the woman seems to be closely bound up with the sixth section. No animal was found to correspond to the man; but the woman did—this one, this time. So contrary to Doukhan, I would not place the conclusion at the beginning of verse 23.
Verse 24 seems to be a conclusion relating to the creation of the woman, and not a conclusion to the entire pericope: the reason a man is to leave his parents, who made him, is because he gets a wife and the first wife was made from the first man. Verse 24 ends section 6.
So the conclusion to the pericope seems to be the man and his wife, together in the garden, naked, and unashamed.
In summary, the structure of Genesis 1 and 2 considering grammatical issues and parallelisms.
| Creation universe | Creation mankind |
|---|
| Toledoth |
| Genesis 2:4a |
| Introduction | Genesis 1:1-2 | Genesis 2:4b-6 |
| Section 1 | Genesis 1:3-5 | Genesis 2:7 |
| Section 2 | Genesis 1:6-8 | Genesis 2:8 |
| Section 3 | Genesis 1:9-13 | Genesis 2:9-15 |
| Section 4 | Genesis 1:14-19 | Genesis 2:16-17 |
| Section 5 | Genesis 1:20-23 | Genesis 2:18 |
| Section 6 | Genesis 1:24-31 | Genesis 2:19-24 |
| Conclusion | Genesis 2:1-3 | Genesis 2:25 |
There is a further question which this raises. Which of the two accounts is derivative? Not in terms of content as the content is not derivative, in terms of structure.
The content source of the second account probably relates to family records and the toledoth structure of Genesis supports this. The content source of the first account is more elusive.
Although both pericopes follow a similar outline, Genesis 1 is more highly organised. While both accounts as they are may have been written at a similar time, which one was structured based on the other? Was Genesis 2 written first and Genesis 1 written in a more highly organised form? Or does the nature of creation in Genesis 1 clearly lead to a more organised narrative and then was Genesis 2 written to emulate the structure of Genesis 1?
Lastly, I suspect that translations should format Genesis 2 so that its correspondence to Genesis 1 is more obvious. That will mainly involve paragraphing the sections appropriately.
