Mitch Lewis

Those who followed my recent links to Peter Enns on Creation and Exodus will recognize the title of this post inverts Enns’ title: Adam is Israel.

In his series of posts, Enns argues (successfully, I think) that the author of Exodus intentionally described the birth of Israel in “creation” language and images drawn directly from the the first chapters of Genesis. The creation of Israel is a kind of “new creation.” So far, so good, in my opinion.

His argument leads him to the parallel stories of Adam and Israel in which Enns finds the following pattern:

Israel’s history as a nation can be broken down as follows:

• Israel is “created” by God at the exodus through a cosmic battle (gods are defeated and the Red Sea is “divided”);
• The Israelites are given Canaan to inhabit, a lush land flowing with milk and honey;
• They remain in the land as long as they obey the Mosaic law;
• They persist in a pattern of disobedience and are exiled to Babylon.

Israel’s history parallels Adam’s drama in Genesis:

• Adam is created in Genesis 2 after the taming of chaos in Genesis 1;
• Adam is placed in a lush garden;
• Law (not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) is given as a stipulation for remaining in the garden;
• Adam and Eve disobey and are exiled.

From this, Enns concludes:

Adam is the beginning of Israel, not humanity. . . . In other words, the Adam story is really an Israel story placed in primeval time. It is not a story of human origins but of Israel’s origins. . . . We are quite justified in concluding that the Adam story is not about absolute human origins but the beginning of one smaller subset, one particular people. The parallels between Israel and Adam that we see above tell us that the particular people in mind are Israel. Adam is “proto-Israel.”

Writing at Biologos, Enns expends a good bit of effort addressing those who take the first chapters of Genesis as a scientific explanation of human origins, a topic in which I have absolutely no interest. My concern is this: why did the author of Genesis use the pattern of Israel’s history in telling the story of Adam?

This is Enns’ answer to that question:

Some might object that Genesis 1-11 deals with universal matters, not merely one people: the entire cosmos created in Genesis 1, the flood, the disbursement of the nations after the flood. Absolutely. No question there. But the point is this: after the creation of humanity in Genesis 1, Genesis 2 begins to tell the story of “proto-Israel.” In other words, Israel was not a latecomer, coming into existence only in the exodus. Israel was always there as God’s specially chosen people since the beginning.

The parallelism that Enns sees here is intentional, I think, but Enns turns the authors’ intent on its head. Let me suggest an alternative answer: Israel is God’s new creation, but it  shares an Adam-like rebelliousness that is characteristic of all humanity. Those who belong to the people of Israel also belong to the larger family of Adam.

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Peter Enns has a terrific series of posts at BioLogos on the book of Exodus' recapitulation of the book of Genesis' creation themes.

• Yahweh, Creation, and the Cosmic Battle
• Exodus, the Plagues, and the Cosmic Battle
• Exodus and the Cosmic Battle (Again)
• Exodus, Mt. Sinai and Creation
• Adam is Israel

Enns' observations make the Biblical authors' intention and artistry unmistakable. Read the whole series.

Enns is the author of Inspiration and Incarnation, a model for Old Testament hermeneutics and one of my "Best Theological Books" of the last decade.

My son is a religion major at the University of Georgia. He tells me that his paper, 'And the world was changed': The Nephilim and Watchers in Wider Mythological Context, has been accepted for presentation at a session of the Southeast Commission for the Study of Religion (SECSOR) this spring. Drew will present his paper at one of two undergraduate research sessions on Saturday, 6 March 2010. The three-day conference runs from Friday to Sunday at the Atlanta Marriott Century Center.

According to its web site, "The Southeastern Commission for the Study of Religion promotes the scholarly study and teaching of religion in the Southeast and the professional development of members of its sponsoring and affiliate societies in the Southeast: The American Academy of Religion (AAR/SE), the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL/SE), and the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR/SE)."

Congratulations, Drew!

Ancient Israel often suffered at the hands of the major imperial powers of its day. It's amazing, then, Israel's sacred texts portray the descendents of Jacob serving in positions of some authority and influence within these ancient empires. Among the faithful Israelites are Joseph, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah Nehemiah, Ezra, Mordecai and Esther. Each of the empires in which they served ultimately fell under God's perfect judgment. The Biblical narrative, however, also tells us how these children of Abraham served the cause of good in the service of empire.

Joseph in Genesis and Exodus

Sold into slavery by his brothers and unjustly imprisoned by his Egyptian masters, Joseph eventually became a senior administrator in Pharaoh's government. He enabled his master's household to prosper and later supervised Egypt's entire agricultural industry. His efforts as an officer of Pharaoh saved countless lives in during a severe famine. His work in Pharaoh's court also enabled the entire family of Jacob to endure the famine, insuring the continued existence of God's chosen family. (See Joseph the Dreamer.)

But Genesis and Exodus are two volumes in the same literary stream. In Exodus we find that "a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt." (Exodus 1:8) The same Egyptian empire in which Joseph served - and which saved the Israelites from extinction - now enslaved and mistreated God's people. Egypt earned God's judgment. The plagues which Egypt suffered revealed the LORD's verdict on Egyptian gods. In the destruction of the Egyptian army, God executed his righteous sentence on the empire that had kept Israel in bondage.

The Book of Daniel

The first part of the Book of Daniel tells the stories of four Judean exiles living first in Babylon, and then in Persia. The four Judeans were  from royal families and exceptionally well qualified to serve in the Babylonian court. Their names were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. For three years they studied Chaldean (i.e. Babylonian) writings and language. They even received new Babylonian names: Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Then they served as advisors to the king of Babylon and administrators of the province. When Babylon fell to Persia, Daniel then served the king of the Persian Empire in a similar fashion. "O king, live forever," Daniel said to Darius. (Daniel 6:21)

Overall, these four faithful Judeans refused to violate the dietary laws given through Moses, to worship idols or neglect the worship of Israel's God. Otherwise, they sought the well-being and success of the empires they served.

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Forty years ago this Christmas Eve, the astronauts of Apollo 8 became the first human beings to orbit the Moon. As they orbited the Moon, astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders broadcast a message that was carried live throughout United States and the world. This is NASA's description of that Christmas Eve broadcast.

Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the Moon, entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1968. That evening, the astronauts; Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders did a live television broadcast from lunar orbit, in which they showed pictures of the Earth and Moon seen from Apollo 8. Lovell said, "The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth." They ended the broadcast with the crew taking turns reading from the book of Genesis.

William Anders:

"For all the people on Earth the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send you".

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness."

Jim Lovell:

"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.? And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."

Frank Borman:

"And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good."

Borman then added, "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you - all of you on the good Earth."

Listening to the Apollo 8 Christmas Eve broadcast is still one of the most striking memories of my youth.

Why did this broadcast mean so much to me and to the rest of the world?

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You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. (Genesis 50:20 TNIV)

It strikes me that the first book of the Bible is more about a family than it is about a religion. In Genesis 12, God promised Abraham that He would bless the world through Abraham and his descendants. Abraham, his son Isaac, and his grandson Jacob don't become traveling evangelists. They don't build a temple or write religious books. They just go about their lives in the knowledge that they are God's people and that God is working out his purposes in them and through them.

In Genesis 50, we come to the end of a story of that began in Genesis 37. It is the story of Joseph, Jacob's son, and it occupies about 25% of the text of Genesis. That must be some story. What we find is that God has begun to fulfill the promise he made to Abraham in Genesis 12. God is preserving Abraham's family and blessing the world through Abraham's descendant.

At the end of the Genesis, Joseph is about thirty years old. He is second in command to Pharaoh in the Egyptian government. There is a great famine in the land, and Pharaoh has chosen Joseph to implement a plan that will save all of Egypt (and Israel) from starvation. Pretty impressive, isn't it?

How in the world did this son of a goat herder ever get so high and mighty?

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