.. There are three lines of thoughts naturally ignored by Biblical critics and even some Christians when responding to this question. The first is that some people think you always have to interpret the Bible literally. I’m sorry, God gave me a brain and I’m a Christian and God gave me this brain to question things, to reason things. Faith and reason are not mutually exclusive in the eyes of God. God did not give me that brain to read the Bible and think some snake literally put mankind in this state. Yes, it sounds like fairytale, but there’s nothing wrong with it being a fairytale. Or, for those of us who say we believe in Traditional African Religion, aren’t fairy tales our greatest sources of spiritual truths, so why not also for the Christian? The point is that the story about creation in the Bible is to teach us the essence of God, community, family and sinfulness or evil or goodness as a function of freewill. God did not create us as zombies, but as free men and women capable of making decisions about right and wrong according to His will. The second line of thought usually ignored by those raising this question is that the Bible does not purport to be a record of all acts of God. Even the Scripture in Deuteronomy 29:29 says “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law”. So, yeah the Bible is sufficient truth, but not exhaustive truth. Several other verses in the Bible indicate that the Scripture is selective in what it reveals. On that basis, it is therefore no biggie that there is no record of the people of the Land of Nod and how they came about. The third line of thought is that people who ask this question often ignore the first story of creation of man in the Bible. Before the mention of Adam and Eve, which is in Genesis 1:26-31: …………… 26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” 29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. ……….. Obviously, this is not God creating just two people; He was creating a community of people. He was creating mankind to “rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” He created them male and female and just in case we are not sure of the multiplicity, He blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground” and so on. He couldn’t possibly be talking of only two people. This was His first creation of man on the sixth day. We then get to Genesis 2 and read about the creation of Adam as the first man. However, if we consider the fact that the name Adam etymologically predates its use in Semitic languages, with it’s earliest recorded usage being in the Assyrian Kings’ List, we immediately note that the earliest and original usage is not Hebrew. When we further consider that the name in Hebrew means “human” and coupled with the definite article to become “the human”, we have to consider it as beyond a reference to just one individual. In Hebrew usage it is a masculine noun meaning “man” or “mankind” or “humankind” as a collective noun. That is why in the Masoretic or Hebrew Text from which the above Biblical verses were translated, all the references to mankind is actually written as Adam. In Genesis, Adam is used therefore in all of its senses as reference to mankind collectively (as is the above verses) and individually when referring to the creation of the first man in Genesis 2 and as gender-free in Genesis 5. The Jewish Encyclopedia considers the use of Adam in Genesis 1 (Hebrew Text) as generic, while Genesis 2 and 3 are considered mixed generic and individual usages. The bottom line is even though Adam and Eve are recorded to be the first humans, God created other humans to fulfill his purpose on earth as stated in Genesis 1. But, historically, the Adam and Eve creation story is hypothetically considered by Bible scholars to be in two parts. The first part covering Genesis 1 to 2:3 talks about God creating the world in six days, while in the second part from Genesis 2:4-24, He creates the first man from dust. Bible historians believe the first major comprehensive draft of the Torah or Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) was done in the later 7th or 6th century BC by those they refer to as the “Yahwist source” and “Priestly source”. The Yahwist source composed it first and then the Priestly source later expanded it to look very much like what we have today. However, in the creation story, the two sources appear in reverse order. Crucially, what we have to note is that there is no doubt that the story itself is borrowed from Mesopotamian creation mythology, but only adapted to monotheism to suit the Jews. In fact, in rabbinic and core Jewish oral tradition about creation, Adam is represented variously. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, he was said to have died and was buried in Hebron. In Jewish folklore, his first wife was Lilith, a female figure derived from Babylonian mythology – a character said to have been created at the same time and from the same earth as Adam. She refused to become subservient to Adam, left him and then returned to the Garden of Eden after she had mated with Archangel Samael. Samael in Judaism is the angel of death, a character both capable of good and evil. He is said to be the chief ruler of the Fifth Heaven, but resides in the Seven Heavens and served by two million angels. He is identified as the guardian angel of Esau, the one who wrestled Jacob and the one that held back Abraham from sacrificing Isaac. The story of Adam is available in other forms in other canonical works. For instance in the Book of Jubilees, which is a second century BC text considered canonical by most Abrahamic faiths, Adam had two daughters, Azûrâ and Awân who were born after Seth, Cain, Abel, and nine other sons. It states that Cain later married Awân and Seth married Azûrâ, thus, accounting for their descendants. If we consider all this and look at metaphorical meanings of Adam as “earth” or “dust” or Nod as “wandering” and so on, we come to the inevitable conclusion that the creation story is a myth. That does not make it less spiritual. The Scripture only testifies about God and Christ; it’s not meant to be a full record all God or Christ’s actions. So, anyone seeking answer regarding where the people in the Land of Nod come from should know that it’s implied in the book of Genesis already that God created mankind in a collective sense on the sixth day and gave them dominion over all the earth, including the Land of Nod. However, that takes nothing away from Adam and Eve as the first amongst these humans. That the story of creation of man centres mainly around Adam does not indicate he and Eve were the only ones created. As a Christian, I do not read that story literally. I seek the message within it as I explained earlier. It is no worse or better than the message African Traditional Believers seek from their own fairytales and folklores. That elements of the story itself can historically be traced to Mesopotamia or Babylon changes nothing. Human beings are like water; they mix. Civilizations copy from civilizations, just as religions copy from religions, but the essence of God never changes. My choice to be a Christian and a Bible believer is conscious. The white man did not come and force-feed me his Bible and even if he did, I do not feel incapable of rejecting it, if I want. I’m not a fool just believing in fairytales; I’m a believer in God whose essence I find within my practice of Christianity. I begrudge no other where they find Him. ….
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 12:26:35 +0000
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