SOURCE: “Theme in Genesis 1-11,” The Catholic Bible Quarterly, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4, October, 1976, pp. 483-507.

[In the following essay, Clines studies the theme of the first eleven chapters of Genesis, emphasizing that this thematic investigation focuses on these chapters as a portion of Penteteuchal text, rather than on the individual sources from which Genesis was created. Clines goes on to survey the historical setting and literary pre-history of Genesis.]

I. THE NATURE OF “THEME”

Most recent studies of theme in the Pentateuch turn out to be investigations of the theme of the individual sources of the Pentateuch. Even though the chorus of dissent from the classic four-source analysis is swelling,¹ most scholars still believe that the Graf-Wellhausen theory is the best we have,² and articles and books are being written on “The Kerygma of the Yahwist,”³The Yahwist. The Bible's First Theologian,⁴ “The Elohistic Fragments in the Pentateuch,”⁵ “The Kerygma of the Priestly Writers,”⁶ and so on.

The aim however of this article is to enquire about the theme of a unit of Pentateuchal text, Gen 1-11, considered in and by itself. Almost everyone acknowledges that disparate materials went into the fashioning of Gen 1-11, and most believe they can distinguish at least the major blocks of those materials. But my primary concern here is with the text in its final form,⁷ asking, “What is the theme of Gen 1-11 as it stands?” G. von Rad has already pointed us in the direction of such a concern in some comments he made on Gen 2-3:

Reconstruction of the original texts … is not the primary task of exegesis. … No matter how much a knowledge of the previous stages of the present text can preserve us from false exposition, still there is no question that the narrative of chs. 2f., in spite of certain tensions and irregularities, is not a rubble heap of individual recensions, but is to be understood as a whole with a consistent train of thought. Above all else, the exegete must come to terms with this existing complex unity.⁸

I should like to apply that approach to Gen 1-11 as a whole.

Since my subject is the theme of Gen 1-11, a few remarks about what I mean by “theme” are in order. My understanding of “theme” can best be presented by distinguishing “theme” from similar terms: “intention,” “motif,” “plot,” and “subject.”

“Theme” is both narrower and broader than “the intention of the author.” It is narrower in that it may express only one aspect of an author's intention. That intention may be, variously, to influence a particular historical situation (e.g., of controversy), or to meet a psychological need on the author's part, or even to make money or gain prestige. “Theme” could only refer to that aspect of the author's intention that is expressed in the shape and development of the literary work. But “theme” is broader than “author's intention” in that it cannot always be stated adequately in terms of what the author had consciously in mind: on the one side, authors do not necessarily formulate the theme of their work even to themselves (see further the last paragraph of this section I), and on the other, the reader is under no constraint to make his statement of theme in terms of the author's intention (rather than in terms of the work) when he has no access to that intention apart from the work itself.

“Theme” is broader than “motif” or “topos”⁹ or “typical scene”¹⁰ or “narrative pattern”¹¹ or “theme” in the sense used by Parry and Lord in their studies of South Slavic epic¹² and adopted by other students of techniques of oral composition. It relates to larger units than do these other terms. I am concerned with theme in the sense of the theme of the whole work; one could not speak of the motif or typical scene of a work. Even a recurrent motif¹³ does not necessarily constitute a theme. Theme and motif are of the same substance, however, for the theme of a pericope may become a motif of a larger work into which the pericope is incorporated.

“Theme” is deeper than “plot.” “Plot” may be defined as a kind of story, namely, a story with the emphasis on causality;¹⁴ “theme” tends to conceptualize plot, to focus its significance, and state its implication; it may be said (in a narrative work) to be “plot with the emphasis on meaning.”

To discern the “theme” of a work is a more perceptive undertaking than to discover its “subject.” Both theme and subject may be answers to the question, “What is the work about?” But to identify its subject is merely to classify, while to discover its theme is to see “the attitude, the opinion, the insight about the subject that is revealed through a particular handling of it,”¹⁵ that is, to understand the work more deeply than knowing its “subject.” Theme of course arises out of the subject, but because it is a matter for deeper perception its identification is more complex and involves more subjective considerations than does an enquiry about the “subject.” In a literary work, unlike a scientific or technical work, theme is not usually explicit.

Four further questions about theme are relevant to the present study:

(i) Can there be more than one theme in a literary work? I think not. When different, divergent, or contradictory themes emerge other than the theme the critic has first identified, he has to adapt his statement of the theme to take account of them. There may indeed be different levels on which theme is sought, identified, and articulated. Thus a novel whose theme is the declining fortunes of a family may also be seen as developing the theme of the decay of a society or an empire. If both themes can be shown to belong to the intention of the writer, a statement of the novel's theme would have to express the author's sense of the relationships between the family and the society. But if the latter theme was not consciously part of the author's intention and identified only as the “deep structure” of the plot, we are dealing with theme on quite another level, on which to speak also of the author's theme would be out of place. Unity of theme is a function of the unity of the literary work.¹⁶ Of course, in the case of a work like Gen 1-11, which is self-evidently a composition from other works, the possibility exists that it has no unity and no unified theme. So a second question arises:

(ii) How can the existence of a given theme in a literary work be demonstrated? There is no way of demonstrating a theme to everyone's satisfaction. The only formal criterion for establishing a theme is: the best statement of the theme of a work is the statement that most adequately accounts for the content, structure and development of the work. To state the theme of a work is to say what it means that the work is as it is.

(iii) How can theme be discovered? I know of no technique for exposing an implicit theme apart from: trial and error. Since theme arises from subject, is a conceptualization of plot, and is of the same substance as motif, the critic has already defined for him an area within which to move. All he can do then is to examine likely candidates. That is the method I propose following in this study of theme in Gen 1-11.

(iv) One more preliminary question raises itself: Does our theme need to have been in the mind of the author? Not necessarily. “Theme” is an item from the conceptual equipment of the literary critic, and not necessarily of the creative artist. The function of enquiry about theme is orientation to the work. The author needs no orientation to his own work, and he may not conceptualize its theme. If theme encapsulates the meaning of the work, the theme and the work are created together in the author's mind. It is the critic or reader, looking for a way into the work, for what makes this work the work it is and not another, and for what makes it hang together, who needs to think about theme. None of this is to say that an author cannot or does not perceive the theme of his work or that he is not in many cases far better able to state the theme of his work than any of his readers or critics. All I am asserting is that we do not need to assure ourselves that such and such a theme could have been present in the mind of the author or conceptualized by him before we allow the possibility that such and such is the theme of the work.

II. SUGGESTED THEMES

1. A Sin—Speech—Mitigation—Punishment Theme

The first theme to be considered is realized in the plot or story pattern of the major narratives of Gen 1-11. G. von Rad has pointed out how the narratives of the fall, Cain and Abel, the “sons of God,” the flood and Babel each exhibit a movement from (a) human sin to (b) divine punishment to (c) divine forgiveness or mitigation:

God reacts to these outbreaks of human sin with severe judgments … [Yet] the Yahwistic narrator shows something else along with the consequences of divine judgment. … Each time, in and after the judgment, God's preserving, forgiving will to save is revealed.¹⁷

Although von Rad does not state the theme in quite this fashion, he obviously understands the theme of these narratives to be: whenever man sins, God's response is just, yet gracious; he punishes, yet he forgives. Since these are narratives about the human condition, and not about historical actuality, the theme is an affirmation about the character of God's relationship with mankind.

At this point two questions arise: (i) Can the narrative pattern exemplified in these narratives be differently, or better, analyzed? and (ii) Are the narratives of Gen 1-11 an adequate basis for establishing the theme of Gen 1-11 as a whole?

To (i) we can reply, first, that Claus Westermann's analysis of the narrative pattern¹⁸ brings to light another significant element. He observes that there always intervenes between the act of sin and the act of punishment a divine speech announcing or deciding the penalty. Accordingly he draws up the following table:

	I.Sin	II. Speech	III. Punishment
1. Fall	3:6	3:14-19	3:22-24
2. Cain	4:8b	4:11-12	4:16b
3. Sons of God	6:1-2	6:3	—
4. Flood	6:5-7	6:5-7	7:6-24
5. Babel	11:4	11:6-7	11:8-9
6. (Canaan)	9:22	9:24-25	—

Westermann very properly sees a theological significance in this recurrent element of the divine speech. It means, he says, first that God's acts of judgment are always related to a particular sin and so are the very opposite of arbitrary; secondly that there is but one God, who is responsible for woe and weal alike; and thirdly that it is the character of that God to be a judge and to hold himself responsible for detecting and punishing human sin.

But, secondly, we observe that Westermann does not include within his analysis the important element of mitigation, to which von Rad has drawn attention. And neither Westermann nor von Rad has noted that this element of mitigation or grace occupies a significant place in the pattern of these narratives: it is always to be found after the speech of punishment and before the act of punishment. That is to say, God's grace or “forgiving will to save” is not only revealed “in and after the judgment,” as von Rad says,¹⁹ but even before the execution of judgment. The structure of the narratives may then be exposed thus:

	I.	II.	III.	IV.
	Sin	Speech	Mitigation	Punishment
1. Fall	3:6	3:14-19	3:21	3:22-24
2. Cain	4:8	4:11-12	4:15	4:16
3. Sons of God	6:2	6:3	?6:8, 18ff.	?7:6-24
4. Flood	6:5,11f.	6:7,13-21	6:8,18ff.	7:6-24
5. Babel	11:4	11:6f.	?10:1-32	11:8

To observe that all the narratives of the primeval history conform to a pattern does not destroy the individuality of the narratives, but rather highlights it. Some significant differences exist among the various exemplifications of the overall pattern. In nos. 1 and 2 it is individuals who sin and are punished, in 3-5 it is communities. 1 and 2 contain the element of God's investigation of the crime, while in 3-5 the sins are public and in 3 and 5 God only needs to “see” the crime (6:5, 12; 11:5). In 1 and 2 the same persons sin, are punished, and are partly relieved of the severity of their punishment. In 3 more than those who have sinned are punished, and it is uncertain whether there is any mitigation.²⁰ In 4 the vast majority of those who have sinned are punished and the mitigation operates only for one man and his family;²¹ in 5 all those who have sinned are punished, and there is no direct mitigation. These variations are not insignificant. Where God's relationship with individuals is concerned, his dealing can be highly personalized (note especially the differing punishments for the three protagonists of the fall story). But where a whole community's relationship with God is involved, the operation of justice in punishment can sometimes be undifferentiated, as in the sons of God episode, where all mankind's lifespan (or, the period before the flood) is shortened because of the sins of the sons of God and the daughters of men, but sometimes differentiated, as in the flood story, where Noah escapes. In each case, however, except perhaps for the last, there is an outworking of the basic pattern of sin—speech—mitigation—punishment. Can this pattern, then, form the basis for a statement of the theme of Gen 1-11?

That brings us to our question (ii): can the narratives alone form an adequate basis for establishing the theme of Gen 1-11 as a whole? It is indeed correct that the theme of a narrative work often emerges from a consideration of its plot or narrative pattern, or, as could in principle be the case here, from a narrative pattern repeated in every episode of the narrative. But can the plot of the narratives of Gen 1-11 account for the presence of the creation account (Gen 1), the genealogies (4:17-26; 5; 11:10-26), and the table of nations (10)? I think not. If “theme” is a statement of the content, structure and development of a work, as I have suggested above, the “sin—speech—mitigation—punishment” pattern, significant though it is, can only be called a recurrent motif in the primeval history, and not the unifying theme of Gen 1-11 as a whole. G. von Rad himself, we should note, spoke only of the “Yahwistic Primeval History” when developing his “sin—punishment—mitigation” schema. Although he regarded the Yahwistic scheme as the foundation of the final canonical shape of Gen 1-11, he did not directly express his understanding of the significance of Gen 1-11 in its final form, and so falls short of his own excellent goal of understanding the work “as a whole with a consistent train of thought.”²²

2. A Spread-of-Sin, Spread-of-Grace Theme

a. Statement. Another element in G. von Rad's understanding of the theme of Gen 1-11, which I have left aside hitherto for the sake of our analysis of themes, is the theme of the “spread of sin,” to which corresponds increasingly severe punishment, and a spread of “grace” on God's part.²³ That is: (i) From Eden to Babel by way of the sins of Cain, Lamech, the “sons of God,” and the generation of the flood, there is an evergrowing “avalanche” of sin, a “continually widening chasm between man and God.” There is a movement from disobedience to murder, to reckless killing, to titanic lust, to total corruption and violence, to the full disruption of humanity. (ii) God responds to the extension of human sin with increasingly severe punishment; from expulsion from the garden to expulsion from the tillable earth, to the limitation of human life, to the near annihilation of mankind, to the “dissolution of mankind's unity.” (iii) Nevertheless, these are also stories of divine grace: God not only punishes Adam and Eve, but also withholds the threatened penalty of death; he not only drives out Cain, but also puts his mark of protection upon him; not only sends the flood, but saves the human race alive in preserving Noah and his family. Only in the case of the Babel narrative does it appear that the element of “grace” is lacking—a subject to which we shall return in section III below.

b. Development. Such a statement of the theme of Gen 1-11 is initially open to the same objection as was raised above: it speaks only to the narratives of these chapters. However in the case of this theme there is the possibility that it can be extended to parts of Gen 1-11 outside the main narratives, i.e., that it can account for the content, development and shape of the material as a whole.

(i) The creation account (Gen 1). The connection of this chapter with the spread of sin theme becomes clear if we accept the perspective of D. Kidner: he sees Gen 1-11 as describing “two opposite progressions: first, God's orderly creation, to its climax in man as a responsible and blessed being, and then the disintegrating work of sin, to its first great anticlimax in the corrupt world of the Flood, and its second in the folly of Babel.”²⁴ That is, the theme of the spread of sin is only the negative aspect of the overall theme—which remains yet to be defined. We may take this insight further and observe that the pattern according to which creation proceeds in chap. 1 is in fact the positive aspect of the sin-judgment motif: here it is a matter of obedience followed by blessing, not sin followed by curse. So, for example, light comes into being in prompt obedience to the word of God (1:3), whereupon the divine judgment is pronounced: God saw that it was good. The chapter as a whole moves towards “blessing,” first upon the living creatures (1:22), then upon man (1:28), and finally upon the seventh day (2:3). Gen 1 is thus the positive counterpart to the remainder of the primeval history (though the remainder is not unrelieved gloom).

(ii) The genealogies (Gen 4:17-26;5; 11:10-26). Since the kind of theme appropriate to Gen 1-11 is obviously theological, we may wonder whether the genealogies can in any way be integrated with the overall theme of these chapters. The genealogies have indeed not usually been thought to serve some theological function, but have often been regarded simply as ancient material reproduced here only because of the chronological relationship of their contents to the narratives of Gen 1-11.²⁵ Yet there are some clues in the narrative sections of Gen 1-11 which point to the validity of a theological interpretation of the genealogies; that is, to the likelihood that the final author of the primeval history intended them to express some theological purpose.

The first clue lies in some statements about the multiplication of the race. In 1:28 the procreation of the human race stands under divine command and blessing: “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” To the same effect are the statements by Eve at the birth of Cain and Seth: “I have gained (or, created) a man with the help of Yahweh” (4:1),²⁶ and “God has appointed for me another child” (4:25). Just as the birth of Eve's children is a token of the divine aid, so the whole growth of the human family witnessed by these genealogies is to be viewed under the sign of the divine blessing.²⁷

The second clue to the theological significance of the genealogies is provided by their form. No reader of Gen 5, to take one example, fails to be impressed by the recurrent phrase “And he died,” which baldly and emphatically concludes the entry for each of these antediluvians. The whole movement of the regular form of these notices is toward death. The form is:

1. When A lived x years, he
begat B.
2. A lived after the birth of B y
years, and had other sons and daughters.
3. All the days of A were z (x + y) years.
4. And he died.

Items 3 and 4 are logically unnecessary. They add nothing to the information given in items 1 and 2. Their function is to emphasize a finality about each of these lives; though possessed of an excess of vitality by ordinary human standards,²⁸ these men also die. The thrust of the Gen 5 genealogy is toward death, even though human life continues.

A further hint of progression toward death may be given by the diminishing life-spans attributed to the personages of the primeval history. While the antediluvians usually live 800 or 900 years,²⁹ the generations after the flood live ever shorter lives, from 600 years for Shem (11:10) to 205 for Terah (11:32).³⁰ This decline may perhaps be seen as a deterioration of man's “original wonderful vitality, a deterioration corresponding to his increasing distance from his starting point at creation … thus Gen 5 describes something like a ‘transitional period, during which death caused by sin broke the powerful resistance of primitive human nature.’”³¹

As for the genealogical material of chap. 4, its function within the primeval history becomes clearly visible when it is viewed from the perspective of the spread of sin theme. The Cainite genealogy of 4:17-24 has the same dialectic significance as the Sethite genealogy of chap. 5.³² In chap. 4, while the genealogy appears on the surface to be a list of the founders of the arts of civilization (the city, cattle-breeding, music, metal-working),³³ and was perhaps originally transmitted as such, it is made clear by the point to which the progress of civilization reaches, namely Lamech's tyrannous boast (4:23f.), that this has been a progress in sin as much as in civilization.³⁴ In the seven generations of the line of Cain history has seen a “progress” from an impulsive act of murder to a deliberate reign of terror. But, by affixing the beginning of a Sethite geneology (4:25f.) to the cainite list, the author of Gen 4 has affirmed that the world of men is not totally given over to the cainite life-style. Even while the race of Cain is increasing in congenital violence, he means to say, elsewhere there is a line of men who have begun to “call on the name of Yahweh” (4:26).

Thus, whatever may have been the origin of the genealogies or their original function, the present form of Gen 1-11 permits us to interpret them as displaying a theological purpose analogous to that outlined by von Rad for the narratives. Here also in the genealogies there is in the monotonous reiteration of the fact of death, which increasingly encroaches upon life, a pessimistic note which corresponds to the narrative theme of the continuing spread of sin. But as in the narratives, history is not simply a matter of sin and punishment; where sin abounds, grace much more abounds. Even though the divine grace is experienced not in dramatic acts of deliverance, as it is in the narratives, but in the steady silent expansion of human life, it is the divine grace all the same. To the grace that appoints for Eve another child to take the place of the dead Abel is owed also the furtherance of mankind's growth throughout the genealogy of Gen 5; and to the grace that preserves the human race through the dramatic rescue of Noah and his family from the flood is due also the repeopling of the earth after the flood (Gen 10).

(iii) The Table of Nations (Gen 10). It is a remarkable feature of the structure of the primeval history that the Table of Nations (chap. 10) is located not after the story of the tower of Babel (11:1-9) but before it. Since chap. 10 recounts the “spreading” (pārad, vv 5,32) or “scattering” (pûs, v 18) of men, “each with his own language” (v 5, cf. vv 20,31), it would seem more logically placed after 11:1-9 where the “scattering” (pûs) of men “over the face of all the earth” and the division of languages is narrated.

A thematic explanation for this dischronologization is ready to hand in the “spread of sin, spread of grace” theme as we have been developing it. If the material of chap. 10 had followed the Babel story, the whole Table of Nations would have to be read under the sign of judgment; where it stands it fancations as the fulfillment of the divine command of 9:1 “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth,” which looks back in its turn to 1:28. All this means that the final author of the primeval history understands that the dispersal of the nations may be evaluated both positively (as in chap. 10) and negatively (as in chap. 11). Since Babel, mankind stands under both the blessing and the curse of God; the division of the peoples and their languages is both a token of the divine judgment and a natural concomitant of man's fulfillment of the divine command and so part of the divine “blessing” (9:1). With this ambivalence in the relationship of God with man the primeval history comes to a conclusion. The final author or redactor of the primeval history has, by the sequence in which he has arranged his materials on the dispersal of mankind, made the same theological point as have the narratives and genealogies in the preceding chapters: that though the judgment of God rests upon men as sinful, they experience not only his judgment but also his grace.

c. Criticism. So far the statement of the “spread of sin” theme with which this section began has proved productive of insight into material which von Rad did not himself connect with the theme. But next we should consider whether there are any difficulties in regarding the “spread of sin” as the unifying theme of these chapters.³⁵

(i) While it is readily granted that a “spread” of sin and an intensification of punishment from Adam to Cain and from Cain to the generation of the flood is clear, it may well be asked whether any such extension or intensification can be discerned when the flood and the Babel narratives are compared. Can the theme of Gen 1-11 properly be said to be the increasing spread of sin when the last exemplification of the theme, the Babel story, depicts neither a sin so drastic as that which brings on the flood nor a punishment so severe and universal as the flood?³⁶

This issue will depend to some extent on how precisely the sins of Gen 6:1-4 and 11:1-9 are understood. It is possible, for example, to interpret the sin of the “sons of God” in 6:1-4 not, as is commonly thought, as the unnatural mixing of the divine and the human, but as a sin of violence on the purely human plane.³⁷ Then, if the sin of the “sons of God,” which is partly if not wholly the cause for the flood, is perhaps not so fundamental as some interpreters have claimed, the sin of the tower builders may not be so trivial as at first sight appears. Their sin may be seen not as a mere expression of human self-importance and self-reliance, but as an act of hybris, matched in its defiance of God only by the first sin in the garden; like the eating of the forbidden fruit the tower-building may be an assault on heaven, an attempt at self-divinization.³⁸ Such an interpretation is confirmed by the fact that, so understood, the primeval history would exhibit the common literary technique of inclusio, with the final episode in the story of human sin repeating and balancing the first.

But if the sin of the generation of the flood is not necessarily more heinous than that of the tower-builders, is the scattering of mankind a more severe punishment than the flood? It may be replied that in two ways at least the scattering is more drastic than the flood. First, the flood left no permanent mark on humanity; though the generation of the flood was destroyed, mankind was preserved, and continued to grow. The scattering of mankind is, however, of lasting effect. There are no survivors of Babel. Secondly, what is destroyed at Babel is the community of mankind as a family; hitherto, as the genealogies have witnessed, mankind is one family, and the flood has only accentuated that fact by making one family in the narrowest sense of the word co-terminous with humanity. But the punishment of Babel divides men irrevocably from one another (as did also the first sin in its own way); now mankind is no longer one “people” or “kin-group” (‘am, 11:6), but “nations” (10:32).

In sum, this criticism of a theme of spread of sin from the fall to Babel can be met by a more exact interpretation of the significance of the flood and Babel narratives.

(ii) Another criticism of the spread of sin theme from Eden to Babel arises from the opinion that it is Gen 8:21 (at the close of the Yahwistic flood narrative) and not the Babel story that brings the primeval history to a close. In his influential study,³⁹ Rolf Rendtorff claims that this verse should be translated: “I will no longer curse the earth,” or “I will no longer regard the earth as cursed, and treat it as such.” It is not that God will not again curse the earth, but that at 8:21 the period of the curse uttered by God in 3:17, “Cursed is the ground because of you,” is concluded. “From now on it is no longer curse that rules the world, but blessing. The time of the curse is at an end, the time of blessing has arrived.”⁴⁰ Some who have followed Rendtorff's view have expressed the contrast rather less starkly. Thus W. M. Clark says, “The power of that initial curse to work disruption is limited,”⁴¹ and T. E. Fretheim writes: “The idea of blessing … is here introduced for the first time (v.22). Since the beginning of man's sin the curse has been predominant in the created order of things, leading to the catastrophe of the Flood. This will not continue to be the case. Now blessing stands alongside of the curse and begins to have its beneficial effects on the earth, breaking down the effects of the curse (3:17). This is made concretely evident for the first time in the following story (in J) of Noah and his vineyard.”⁴² If this view is correct, there is of course no point in seeking for a theme of Gen 1-11, since those chapters do not form a literary unit.

The view of Rendtorff and his followers, however, does not appear to me to be well-founded in its central contention.⁴³ The curse that will not again come upon the ground (8:21) is not the curse of 3:17. There the curse upon the ground is that it will bring forth thorns and thistles; and that curse is not said in 8:21 to be lifted, nor is it easy to see how the Yahwist, or any author, could have claimed from his own experience that it had been lifted. In 8:21 the curse has been the smiting of the earth with a flood. It is true, as Rendtorff points out,⁴⁴ that the introduction to the flood story does not specifically view the flood as a “curse,” but that is not a very strong counter-argument to the plain structure of 8:21. Here the clause “I will not again curse the earth” seems clearly parallel to “I will not again smite all living beings,”⁴⁵ as God has done by means of the flood. There is indeed a verbal connection between 3:17 and 8:21 (“Cursed is the ground because of [ba‘ăbûr] thee” and “I will not curse the ground because of [ba‘ăbûr] man”), but the content of the two passages is different, and we are dealing simply with the repetition of a verbal motif which takes on new light in different settings.⁴⁶

A further weakness in the view that 8:21 ends the period of the curse lies in its interpretation of the narrative of Noah's vineyard (9:20-27). According to W. M. Clark, that narrative “does not convey the idea that wine relieves the toil of mankind, but rather is a verification that the curse has been lifted off the ground which can henceforth produce vineyards, a symbol of fertility.”⁴⁷ But this is to misunderstand the clear connection between the vineyard story and the birth-oracle of Noah in 5:29: “Out of the ground which Yahweh has cursed this one [Noah] shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands”; that is, the “relief out of the ground” is the discovery of the cultivation of the vine and the making of wine.⁴⁸ The curse is not lifted from the ground, but even the cursed ground can produce some comfort and enjoyment for man. The pattern of punishment relieved by divine grace is visible here too, though it is not as explicitly spelled out as it is in some of the longer narratives.

It may finally be objected to the view of Rendtorff, especially as developed by Clark, that the remainder of J's post-flood primeval history cannot be satisfactorily interpreted as belonging to an age of blessing rather than of curse. What immediately follows the story of Noah's drunkenness is not blessing but curse—the curse of Canaan (9:25ff.). And even though there is contained in this curse a blessing on Shem and Japheth, the first explicit blessing in J, as Clark says (though not the first in the primeval history as it now stands; cf. 1:22, 28; 2:3; 5:2; 9:1), the structure of vv 25ff., which begin with “Cursed be Canaan,” and in which each blessing is followed with “And let Canaan be his slave,” shows that attention is focused on Canaan and the curse rather than the blessing. Furthermore, it is difficult to see how Clark can interpret the vineyard and Babel narratives as a “recapitulation of the events prior to the flood … a story of sin on the individual level followed by a story in which sin threatens to reach cosmic dimensions again” without understanding them as developing a “spread of sin” theme, which is hardly appropriate for the age of blessing.⁴⁹

It seems incorrect, therefore, to regard Gen 8:22 as marking the major turning-point in the Yahwist's primeval history; the “spread of sin” both includes the flood and extends beyond it.

(iii) A quite different suggestion which would cast doubt on the “spread of sin” as the unifying theme of Gen 1-11 is that of W. Brueggemann in his study, “David and His Theologian.”⁵⁰ He argues that the sequence of episodes in the J material of Gen 1-11 is “dependent upon the career of the sons of David in the quest for the throne.”⁵¹ The four stories of sin in Gen 3-11 (Adam and Eve; Cain and Abel; Noah and the Flood; the Tower of Babel) correspond to the four major episodes of the Succession Narrative (David and Bathsheba; Amnon and Absalom; Absalom and David; Solomon and David). Prima facie, if this is so, the structure of Gen 1-11 is essentially (at least as far as the J material is concerned) shaped by the course of history and not by a conceptual theme such as “the spread of sin.”

Brueggemann is indeed able to point to many striking correspondences of language and motif between the primeval history and the Succession Narrative. But two considerations make his view rather unlikely, in my judgment:⁵² (i) The correspondence between Absalom's rebellion and the flood story is not very strong,⁵³ as Brueggemann himself candidly acknowledges;⁵⁴ and one major disruption of the pattern spoils the argument about sequence, which is crucial to the present discussion. Even if some narratives in Gen 1-11 are reflections of the Davidic history, the sequence of those narratives is not clearly dependent upon it. (ii) Striking parallels of motif and language can also be traced between the Succession Narrative and other sections of J,⁵⁵ and a special relationship with Gen 1-11 cannot be claimed.⁵⁶

Furthermore, even if there is a sequential correspondence between the two works, there is no clear evidence that the Davidic narrative is prior to the primeval history, nor that the telling of the David story has not been influenced—in its selection of episodes and in its language—by the primeval history.⁵⁷ It is unnecessary, therefore, to regard Brueggemann's view, stimulating though it is, as an obstacle to uncovering a conceptual link between the narratives of Gen 1-11, namely the “spread of sin” theme.

To summarize to this point: The theme of the spread of sin accounts for the vast majority of the content of Gen 1-11. It is visible, not just in the narratives, but also in other literary types in these chapters. It is more than probable that, even if this suggested theme alone does not adequately express the thrust of Gen 1-11, its pervasiveness ensures that it will have to be taken into account in any statement of theme in the primeval history.

3. A Creation—Uncreation—Re-creation Theme

We have already noted that the flood episode has given rise to some criticisms of the “spread of sin” theme. While those criticisms can be met, the fact remains that the flood narrative does not function simply as yet a further stage in the development of human sin, but imports concepts of “end” and “re-creation” into the primeval history.⁵⁸ When chap. 1 is also taken into consideration, some case can be made out for suggesting that the theme of the primeval history is “creation—uncreation—re-creation.”

It is very plain that the flood is represented not just as a punishment for the sin of the generation of the flood, but as a reversal of creation—“uncreation,” as Joseph Blenkinsopp has put it: “The world in which order first arose out of a primeval watery chaos is now reduced to the watery chaos out of which it arose—chaos-come-again.”⁵⁹ While Gen 1 depicts creation as largely a matter of separation and distinction, Gen 6f. portrays the annihilation of distinctions. If in Gen 1:6ff. a firmament is established to keep the heavenly waters from falling upon the earth except in properly regulated measure, 7:11 has the “windows of heaven” opening to obliterate this primal distinction. Similarly, the distinction between the lower waters and the earth in 1:9 is done away with by the breaking forth through the earth of the “fountains of the great deep” (7:11). The binary nature of created existence gives way to the formlessness of the tōhû wābōhû before creation. And significantly, the destruction follows much the same sequence as the creation: earth, birds, cattle, wild animals, swarming creatures, man (7:21).

Re-creation occurs, in the first place, by the renewed separation of sea and land: the waters recede from and dry up from the earth (8:3, 7, 13). Then comes the renewal of the divine order to living beings to “breed, be fruitful, and multiply” (8:17). There follows God's guarantee of the binary structure of existence: seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night are re-established (8:22). Finally, the creation ordinances are reannounced, albeit in somewhat altered form (9:1-7),⁶⁰ the separation of sea and land—a fundamental element in the creative process (1:9ff.)—is assured (9:8-17), and mankind begins to be re-created (by procreation, chap. 10), and to fill the earth at God's command (10:32).⁶¹

As for the intervening material of Gen 1-11 between creation and flood, when it is viewed from the perspective of the theme “creation—uncreation—re-creation” new understandings emerge. Chief among them is the recognition that chaps. 3-6 are not simply the story of human sin matched by divine grace, but the story of the undoing of creation. The flood is only the final stage in a process of cosmic disintegration which began in Eden. While chap. 1 views reality as an ordered pattern which is confused by the flood, chaps. 2-3 sees reality as a network of elemental unions which become disintegrated throughout the course of the narrative from Eden to the flood.

Thus, in Gen 2, as in Gen 1, reality has a binary structure; but here creation has not proceeded by distinction and separation, but by the forging of bonds: between man and soil, man and the animals, man and woman, man and God. In ch. 3 the relationship of harmony between each of these parts is disrupted. The communion between God and the man who breathes God's breath (2:7) has become the legal relationship of accuser and defendant (3:9ff.); the relationship of man and woman as “one flesh” (2:24) has soured into mutual recrimination (3:12); and the bond of man ’ădām) with the soil (’ădāmâ) from which he was built has been supplanted by “an alienation that expresses itself in a silent, dogged struggle between man and soil”⁶² (3:17ff.); the harmonious relationship of man with beast in which man is the acknowledged master (2:19ff.) has become a perpetual struggle of intransigent foes (3:15). In Gen 4 another union, of twin (?)⁶³ brothers, which might have been expected to be paradigmatic of human friendship,⁶⁴ is broken by the ultimate act of enmity, murder. Cain is further alienated from the soil, by being driven out from the tillable earth (4:11), and the bond between man and the soil is further loosened. The disintegration of the most intimate bond of all—of man with the divine breath (2:7)—first sets in with the murders by Cain and Lamech (4:8, 23), broadens its scope with the successive deaths of each descendant of Adam in the genealogy of chap. 5, and reaches its climax with the simultaneous death of all mankind in chap. 7, The destruction of mankind is significantly expressed in language reminiscent of creation: Yahweh determines that he will “blot out man whom I have created” (6:7), whereupon “all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life” (nišmat - rûah hayyîm)” died (7:22), an echo of Yahweh Elohim's breathing into man's nostrils the “breath of life (nišmat hayyîm)” (2:7). With this, the creation of man is undone.

The movement towards uncreation viewed as the dissolution of unities begins again directly after the flood. Ham's incest with his mother—if that is the significance of 9:20-27⁶⁵—strikes at the bond between man and wife (2:23f.), and the scattering of mankind after the building of Babel (11:9) is a potent symbol of the disintegration of mankind's unity. Man's tendency has not been changed by the flood: the “imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth” (8:21) as much after the flood as before it.

There can be little doubt that the theme “creation—uncreation—re-creation” is firmly fixed in Gen 1-11, and needs to be taken into account in our general statement of the theme of the work.

III. A STATEMENT OF THEME

There seem to be two ways in which the insights about theme gained from considering the foregoing suggestions can be incorporated into a general statement of the theme of Gen 1-11. The theme of these chapters may be said to be, either:

(a) Mankind tends to destroy what God has made good. Even when God forgives human sin and mitigates the punishment sin continues to spread, to the point where the world suffers uncreation. And even when God makes a fresh start, turning his back on uncreation forever, man's tendency to sin immediately becomes manifest. Or:

(b) No matter how drastic man's sin becomes, destroying what God has made good and bringing the world to the brink of uncreation, God's grace never fails to deliver man from the consequences of his sin. Even when man responds to a fresh start with the old pattern of sin, God's commitment to his world stands firm, and sinful man experiences the favor of God as well as his righteous judgment.⁶⁶

Each of these readings does justice, I hope, to the perspectives of our foregoing discussion. But their thrust is in quite opposite directions. How can we decide between these statements?

At this point two issues that have been ignored up to this point have to be brought into the discussion: (i) What is the precise terminus of the primeval history? and (ii) What is the relationship of the theme of Gen 1-11 to the theme of the Pentateuch?

(i) Although we have been able to speak previously rather loosely of “Gen 1-11,” here the exact terminus of this literary unit becomes critical. If it concludes with the last narrative of these chapters (11:1-9), some color is lent to von Rad's claim (rather strongly expressed) that the absence of the mitigation element in the Babel story means that “the whole primeval history … seems to break off in strict dissonance” and that the question arises: “Is God's gracious forebearance now exhausted; has God rejected the nations in wrath forever?”⁶⁷ A sharp disjunction can then be made between universal history (Gen 1-11) and “salvation history” (Gen 12 onward), with the themes of the two units being set in contrast: universal history leads only to judgment, whereas the narrowing of vision to Abraham opens the way for an era of blessing, that is, for salvation history. Our statement (a) of the theme of the primeval history would thus appear to be appropriate.

However, it is most significant that there is no clear-cut break at the end of the Babel story. Clearly the Abraham material begins a new section of the Pentateuch, but the precise beginning of the Abraham material—and therewith the conclusion of the pre-Abrahamic material—cannot be determined.⁶⁸ In the final form of Genesis there is at no point a break between primeval and patriarchal history—11:10 (descendants of Shem) resumes from 10:21-31 (family of Shem) and is directed toward 11:27-30 (Abram and Sarai). Where there is a developed transitional passage from the one unit to the other, the probability of their being set in opposition thematically is minimized. If the patriarchal history unfolds the fulfillment of the blessing promise (12:2f.), the more positive reading of the theme of the primeval history [statement (b) above], with which it is integrated, is to be preferred. The patriarchal narratives then function as the “mitigation” element for the story of mankind's dissolution at Babel.⁶⁹

(ii) If we broaden our focus beyond Genesis, and consider the function of the primeval history within the Pentateuch as a whole, again I would suggest that the theme of Gen 1-11, as expressed in statement (b) above, is closely parallel to the theme of the Pentateuch. Broadly speaking, the theme of the Pentateuch may be said to be: in spite of Israel's propensity to sinfulness, it experiences not only God's judgment but also his determination to save. Thus despite the patriarchs' deceitfulness and faithlessness, for which they suffer danger and exile, the promise of progeny is fulfilled, and despite Israel's rebellions, for which they suffer a generation's delay in entering the land and the death of their leader, they stand, at the end of the Pentateuch, on the brink of the fulfillment of the promise. That can only be a provisional, and doubtless over-ambitious, attempt to formulate the theme of this vast work, but in so far as it is an appropriate formulation it corresponds well to our reading of the theme of its initial eleven chapters. Gen 1-11, therefore, works out on the plane of universal history the same theme that is developed in the Pentateuch as a whole.

It may finally be as well to make some remarks about what has and what has not been achieved by attempting to state the theme of Gen 1-11. The reader may well wonder whether the seemingly banal, or at least rather unexciting, conclusion to which our quest for theme has led us has been worth the journey. Yet the very banality of statements of “themes,” of whatever literary work, is evident proof of what they are not: they are not themselves literature, and they are not in any sense substitutes for the work itself. While they may point to the essential message of the work, they do not make the work a disposable packaging to be thrown away once the theme or the point has been extracted. At best their function is to orient the reader to the work, or at least to one critic's reading of the work; at most they serve to guide the reader away from possible misconceptions about the work; and one of their greatest values is when they convince the reader—as hopefully may happen in the present case—that the work is a literary work, and not a rag-bag or a scissors-and-paste job. In the end the quest for theme is only really successful if it returns the reader to the text.

IV. HISTORICAL SETTING AND LITERARY HISTORY

Up to this point our quest for theme in Gen 1-11 has been pursued entirely within the boundaries of the text itself in its final form. No consideration has been given to the historical setting of the work or to its literary pre-history. This procedure does not imply any objection in principle to the relevance of such considerations, even although there are some literary critics who assert that a literary work is autonomous and must be understood independently of the circumstances of its origin.⁷⁰ Rather, since in the case of the Pentateuch we have little hard evidence concerning its historical and literary origins, we do better, I think, to rest the weight of our study largely upon what we do have—the work itself—however subjective our understanding of it has to be, than upon hypotheses, however much they deal with “objective” data like dates and sources.

Nevertheless, if our reasoned intuitions about the theme of the work fit with current hypotheses about Pentateuchal origins, well and good; that may provide some confirmation of our proposal about theme. Ultimately, of course, our proposal about theme stands or falls with its applicability to the work itself.

I assume, following K. Elliger,⁷¹ W. Brueggemann,⁷² and others,⁷³ that the Priestly work belongs to the period of the exile as a message to the exiled, and I would argue further, that the Pentateuch as a whole relates to the same situation. It would not, however, affect the argument significantly if the more common date for the Pentateuch—the fifth century—were adopted, and the work were interpreted as addressed to diaspora Jewry before the time of Ezra.

Most significantly, the Pentateuch concludes with Israel outside the promised land, but on the brink of entry under a new leader. This is exilic Israel's situation before the return. Genesis through Numbers incorporates Israel's canonical traditions of God's relationship with Israel, while Deuteronomy, a farewell discourse in the mouth of Moses, relates those traditions to Israel's present existence by declaring Israel, even on the eve of fulfillment, to be still open to the possibility of curse as well as of blessing.

Read from this point of view, Gen 1-11 also takes on new light. The primeval history is not just about the nations, nor about God and man, but is heard in exile as a story of God and Israel. The dispersion of the nations (chap. 11) is Israel's own diaspora, the flood is the uncreation of Israel's life at the destruction of Jerusalem, the judgments of God upon primal sin are his righteous judgments upon sinful Israel. But the movement towards life and salvation which the primeval history evidences is a word of hope to the exiles, a remnant is saved alive through the disaster of uncreation, a divine promise guarantees that such disaster will not recur, and an unbroken line stretches from the moment of dispersion to the summons “Go forth … to the land … ; I will make of you a great nation” (12:1f.). Although sin is congenital even in a re-created Israel, God's commitment to Israel stands as firm as the promise to Noah (so also Isa 54:9f.). Thus the traditional material of Gen 1-11 not only is bound together by a unifying theme, and not only realizes in parvo the theme of the Pentateuch, but also speaks to a historical situation.

Our historical-critical inclinations compel us to ask one more question: Whose is the theme of Gen 1-11? Clearly it is the final redactor who has worked out the theme we have attempted to discern, but he has been using traditional materials. Assuming the essential correctness of the usual analysis of J and P in Gen 1-11, the theme-element “Creation—uncreation—re-creation” comes from the P source (Gen 1;6-8 [partim]; 9), though the sequence creation—flood—re-creation is as old at least as the Atrahasis epic.⁷⁴ P does not depict in narrative episodes the human movement towards uncreation; for him it suffices to observe: “The earth was corrupt in God's sight … and God saw the earth, and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth” (6:11f.). For P, of course, the genealogy of chap. 5 does not signify the encroachment of death upon life; to him death is a natural part of life, not the result of sin. Only when his genealogy follows the Yahwist's account of the origin of death (2:17; 3:19) does it take on that significance. From the Yahwist, we may be sure, comes the theme-element of the “spread of sin.” The narratives of the primeval history are his,⁷⁵ and so especially is their sequence. Particularly if both Gen 3 and the Cain and Abel story were previously told as tales of the first sin, and were first linked by him, his ordering of the narratives will have been in conformity with the theme of his work: the spread of sin cannot defeat, or, has not defeated, the purposes and blessing of God.⁷⁶ I take it that the narratives of the Yahwist's primeval history are older than his work. The fact that they have in common a narrative pattern, the “sin—speech—mitigation—punishment” pattern discussed earlier, is not surprising; this may well be a narrative patterning from oral tradition.

The theme of Gen 1-11, then, from the point of view of the history of tradition, is an amalgam of which the main elements correspond to the layers of the tradition. The amalgam, however, is a new unity, which makes sense and has a meaning independent of the meanings of its sources as they may be uncovered by literary archeology.

Notes

1. So, e.g., D. B. Redford, A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph (Genesis 37-50) (VTSup 20; Leiden: Brill, 1970); R. N. Whybray, “The Joseph Story and Pentateuchal Criticism,” VT 18 (1968) 521-8; S. Sandmel, “The Haggada within Scripture” JBL 80 (1961) 105-22; M. Kessler, “Rhetorical Criticism of Genesis 7,” in Rhetorical Criticism. Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg (ed. J. J. Jackson and M. Kessler; Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1974) 1-17 (16f.).

2. So some time ago H. H. Rowley, The Changing Pattern of Old Testament Studies (London: Epworth, 1959) 12: “If a more satisfactory view can be found, I will eagerly accept it”; similarly more recently W. Richter, “Urgeschichte und Hoftheologie,” BZ 10 (1966) 96-105 (96).

3. H. W. Wolff, Int 20 (1966) 131-158, originally published in EvT 24 (1964) 73-97.

4. P. F. Ellis, The Yahwist. The Bible's First Theologian (London: Chapman, 1969).

5. H. W. Wolff, Int 26 (1972) 158-173, originally published in EvT 27 (1969) 59-72.

6. W. Brueggemann, ZAW 84 (1972) 397-414.

7. On such terms of reference, see J. F. A. Sawyer, “The Meaning of … (‘In the Image of God’) in Genesis I-XI,” JTS 25 (1974) 418-26 (418f.), and for a similar undertaking see M. Fishbane, “Composition and Structure in the Jacob Cycle (Gen 25:19-35: 22),” JJS 26 (1975) 15-38.

8. G. von Rad, Genesis (rev.ed.; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972) 75. Von Rad, however, did not follow his own principle when he came to expound Gen 6-9, where he dealt with the J and P material separately.

9. R. Scholes and R. Kellogg, The Nature of Narrative (New York: Oxford University, 1966) 27, define a topos as consisting of a narrative and a conceptual element; e.g., a combination of (narrative) motif of a hero's descent to the netherworld and a (conceptual) “theme” of the search for wisdom.

10. As in W. Arend, Die typischen Scenen bei Homer (Berlin Weidmann, 1933); B. Fenik, Typical Battle Scenes in the Iliad: Studies in the Narrative Techniques of Homeric Battle Description (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1968).

11. As the term has been used by my colleague D. M. Gunn, “Narrative Patterns and Oral Tradition in Judges and Samuel,” VT 24 (1974) 286-317 (see especially 314 n.2).

12. A. B. Lord defined theme as “a recurrent element of narration or description in traditional oral poetry” (“Composition by Theme in Homer and Southslavic Epos,” TAPA 82 [1951] 71-80 [73]). and elsewhere as “groups of ideas regularly used in telling a tale in the formulaic style of traditional song” (cited from Scholes and Kellogg, Nature of Narrative 26).

13. E.g., the theme of expulsion in Gen 1-11 (Adam, Cain, the tower-builders).

14. “A plot is … a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. ‘The king died and then the queen died’ is a story. ‘The king died, and then the queen died of grief’ is a plot. The time sequence [sc. of the story] is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it” (E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel [Harmondsworth: Penguin 1962; originally published, 1927] 93f.).

15. R. and M. Thompson, Critical Reading and Writing (New York: Random House, 1969) 15.

16. Cf. the definition of “theme” offered by W. F. Thrall and A. Hibberd, A Handbook to Literature (New York: Odyssey, 1960) 486, as “the central or dominating idea in a literary work … the abstract concept which is made concrete through its representation in person, action, and image in the work” (cited from D. L. Petersen, “A Thrice-Told Tale: Genre, Theme and Motif,” BR 18 [1973] 30-43 [36]).

17. Von Rad, Genesis (rev. ed.) 152f.

18. C. Westermann, “Arten der Erzählung in der Genesis,” in Forschung am Alten Testament (Munich: Kaiser, 1964) 9-91 (47).

19. Von Rad, Genesis (rev.ed.) 153.

20. Westermann, Forschung 56, sees a mitigation in the fact that the punishment is only a shortening of life; but this view is unlikely since no hint is given in the narrative that the punishment could have been more severe. If the sons of God episode is closely connected with the Flood narrative, the element of mitigation can be seen in the deliverance of Noah.

21. On the question whether Noah is regarded as typical of his generation or as “righteous” only in view of God's deliverance of him, see W. M. Clark, “The Righteousness of Noah,” VT 21 (1971) 261-80; A. N. Barnard, “Was Noah a Righteous Man?” Theology 84 (1971) 311-14.

22. Genesis (rev.ed.) 75.

23. Genesis (rev.ed.) 152f.; cf. also his Theology of the Old Testament (tr. D. M. G. Stalker; Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1962) I, 154ff. Similarly already H. Gunkel, Genesis (6th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1964) 1, noting themes of human sin, God's wrath, God's grace; and J. Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis (ICC; 2d ed.; Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1930) 2, who thought that the units of the primeval history were arranged “with perhaps a certain unity of conception, in so far as they illustrate the increasing wickedness that accompanied the progress of mankind in civilisation.”

24. Genesis (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries; London: Tyndale Press, 1967) 13.

25. Cf., e.g., M.D. Johnson, The Purpose of the Biblical Genealogies with special reference to the setting of the genealogies of Jesus (SNTSMS 8; Cambridge: University Press, 1969) 14, 26ff., who distinguishes between the genealogies of J and P, finding in the genealogies of J no particular purpose beyond showing the “interrelation of a certain number of tribes,” but in P certain theological purposes, notably to set the stage for the emergence of the chosen people and to trace the narrowing of the line down to Aaron.

26. On the precise significance of the phrase, see most recently I. M. Kikawada, “Two Notes on Eve,” JBL 91 (1972) 33-37.

27. So C. Westermann, Genesis (BKAT I/1; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag des Erziehungsvereins, 1966) 24.

28. Even in the eschatological age pictured in Isa 65:20, 100 years is the normal span of life.

29. The two exceptions are Enoch (365 years) and Lamech (777 years). It seems undeniable that both these figures have a symbolic significance: the 365 years of Enoch correspond to the number of days of the solar year, Enoch's counterpart (the seventh) in the Sumerian King List being Enmeduranki, king of Sippar, the centre of sun-worship (cf.e.g. E.A. Speiser, Genesis [AB; New York: Doubleday, 1964] 43). Lamech's 777 years are presumably to be related to the “sword-song” of the Lamech of 4:24: “If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”

30. The progressive decline, both for antediluvians and postdiluvians, is most consistent in the Samaritan version, but the text-critical value of this version at this point is dubious. A similar progressive decline is apparently exhibited in a portion of the Sumerian King List relating to the first six kings of Kish (they reign 1200, 900 [variant 960], 670, 420, 300, 240 years, though the parallel with Genesis 5 has recently been held to be merely fortuitous (T. C. Hartman, “Some Thoughts on the Sumerian King List and Genesis 5 and 11B,” JBL 91 [1972] 25-32 [30 n. 19]). We might compare also Hesiod's picture of history as a declining succession of metals (Works and Days 1.148) as further evidence of an ancient conception of history as a decline.

31. Von Rad, Genesis 69f., quoting F. Delitzsch. A Connection with the “tree of life.” of chap. 3 as the explanation of the longevity of the patriarchs is however too fanciful.

32. The fact that the two genealogies derive from different sources, according to the usual analysis, is not relevant to our present concern with the final form of the text.

33. We may perhaps compare with the Cainite genealogy the list of the Seven Sages of antediluvian times who appear in Mesopotamian texts to be the founders of the arts of civilization; cf. J. J. Finkelstein, JCS 17 (1963) 50 n.41; and E. Reiner, “The Etiological Myth of the Seven Sages,” Or 30 (1961) 1-11.

34. Cf. T. E. Fretheim, Creation, Fall and Flood. Studies in Genesis 1-11 (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1969) 101; and J. L. McKenzie, “Reflections on Wisdom,” JBL 86 (1967) 1-9 (6): “The culture myths have been woven into a sequence of events in which the progress of culture marches with the growth of human pride and wickedness.”

35. I leave aside the criticism of I. Soisalon-Soininen (“Die Urgeschichte im Geschichtswerk des Jahwisten,” Temenos 6 [1970] 130-41) that there is no need to attribute any theological plan to the Yahwistic primeval history and that his traditional material effectively determined its own position in his narrative (brother-murder must follow creation of primeval pair; flood that almost annihilates mankind must follow genealogy of mankind's multiplication and story of its motivation, the angel-marriages and so on). On one level that may be so; but we are here considering whether the work (of Yahwist or final redactor) has any conceptual theme beyond a merely “logical” development.

36. So R. Rendtorff, “Genesis 8:21 und die Urgeschichte des Yahwisten,” KD 7 (1961) 69-78 (75); W. M. Clark, “The Flood and the Structure of the Pre-Patriarchal History,” ZAW 83 (1971) 184-211 (206); Fretheim, Creation, Fall and Flood 20.

37. That is, that the “sons of God” are dynastic rulers; cf. M. G. Kline, “Divine Kingship and Genesis 6:1-4,” Westminster Theological Journal 24 (1962) 187-204; F. Dexinger, Sturz der Göttersöhne oder Engel vor der Sintflut? (Vienna: Herder, 1966). I would want to add that they are also (semi-) divine beings, like Gilgamesh, two-thirds god and one-third human (Gilgamesh I ii 1; ANET 73 b).

38. “Man's attempt to overstep the bounds of creatureliness” (Fretheim, Creation, Fall and Flood 123). On the theme of hybris, see P. Humbert, “Démesure et chute dans l’A.T.,”-maqqél shâqédh. La Branche d’Amandier. Hommage à Wilhelm Vischer (Montpellier: Graille, Castelnau, 1960) 63-82.

39. See note 36 above.

40. Rendtorff, KD 7 (1961) 74.

41. Clark, ZAW 83 (1971) 207.

42. Fretheim, Creation, Fall and Flood 113.

43. For an independent examination of Rendtorff's view, reaching similar conclusions, see O. H. Steck, “Genesis 12:1-3 und die Urgeschichte des Jahwisten,” in Probleme biblischer Theologie Gerhard von Rad zum 70. Geburtstag (Ed. H. W. Wolff; Munich: Kaiser, 1971) 525-554 (527-542).

44. KD 7 (1961) 70.

45. lo’-’ōsip l^eqallēl ‘ôd ’et-ha’ādāmâ parallel to lo’-’osip ‘ôd l^ehakkôt ’et-kol-hay.

46. For a parallel, cf. 3:16 “your desire [the rare word tušûqâ] shall be toward your husband, but he will rule (māšal) over you,” with 4:7 “[sin's] desire (tešûqâ) is toward you, but you will rule (māšal) over it.” There is no connection of substance between the content of these passages. For another parallel, see n. 48 below.

47. Clark, ZAW 83 (1971) 208; cf. Rendtorff, KD 7 (1961) 74.

48. H. Holzinger, Genesis (Kurzer Hand-Commentar zum Alten Testament; Freiburg: J. C. B. Mohr, 1898) 60f.; Gunkel, Genesis 55; Skinner, Genesis 133f. The observation made by U. Cassuto, Commentary on Genesis(Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1961) I, 303, that the roots of “relief,” “work,” and “toil” (nhm, ‘śh, ‘sb) in 5:29 occur in the same sequence in 6:6, does not destroy the connection of substance between 5:29 and 9:20. 6:6 provides another example of verbal mimicry to add to those mentioned above (n.46).

49. It may also be objected that the strongly marked element of mitigation in Gen 3-8 makes it inappropriate to label this an age of the curse.

50. CBQ 30 (1968) 156-81.

51. Ibid., 158.

52. For another critique, see Clark, ZAW 83 (1971) 201f.

53. Being confined to motifs of wickedness which is punished, but from which Yahweh delivers Noah/David and makes a new beginning.

54. Ibid., 167 and n.45.

55. T. Klaehn, Die sprachliche Verwandschaft der Quelle K (2 Sam.9ff) der Samuelisbücher mit J des Heptateuchs (Borna-Leipzig: Noske, 1914); J. Blenkinsopp, “Theme and Motif in the Succession History (2 Sam XI 2ff.) and the Yahwist Corpus,” VTSup 15 (1966) 44-51.

56. From another point of view, a relationship between the primeval history and Jerusalem court traditions in general—not specifically David material—has been claimed by W. Richter, “Urgeschichte und Hoftheologie,” BZ 10 (1966) 96-105.

57. Even if the Davidic narrative is historically reliable—a view that seems much less certain now than in 1968 when Brueggemann's article was published—(cf., e.g., the role of traditional story-telling elements within it; see D. M. Gunn, “Traditional Composition in the ‘Succession Narrative,’” VT 26/2 [1976])—the conception of the work and the choice of material from the doubtless greater bulk of Davidic material available could well follow a traditional or developmental sequence such as is displayed in the primeval history. Brueggemann's case depends on the assumptions that the David story is “(a) historically reliable, and (b) chronologically prior to the other piece” (CBQ 30 [1968] 158 n. 17).

58. See also D. J. A. Clines, “The Theology of the Flood Narrative,” Faith and Thought 100 (1972-73) 128-42.

59. Blenkinsopp, in J. Blenkinsopp et al., The Pentateuch (Chicago; ACTA, 1971) 46f.

60. See Clines, Faith and Thought 100 (1972-73) 138f.

61. Traditional source analysis, assigning 8:3, 7,13a,22 and parts of chap. 10 to J and 8:13b,17; 9:1-17 and parts of chap. 10 to P, fails to observe how deeply imprinted this element is upon the whole text in its final form.

62. G. von Rad, Genesis (rev.ed.) 94.

63. Does not our text of Gen 4:1f., in which one conception but two births are spoken of, already imply this interpretation, common in rabbinic exegesis? Cf. Ps.-Jonathan in loc.; Ber.R. xxii.2; TB San. 38b. Even Skinner, Genesis 103, acknowledges that this “may very well be the meaning.”

64. It is no disproof of this belief that the Cain and Abel story belongs to the well-known folktale type of “the hostile brothers” (cf. Westermann, Genesis 428 ff.). Such stories are popular just because they are contrary to expectation, like tales of “the unlikely hero.”

65. So F. W. Bassett, “Noah's nakedness and the curse of Canaan,” VT 21 (1971) 232-7; though cf. also G. Rice, “The Curse that Never Was,” JRT 29 (1972) 5-27 (11ff.) for criticism of this view.

66. Cf. similarly Brueggemann, CBQ 30 (1968) 175f.

67. Von Rad, Genesis (rev.ed.) 153.

68. Hence, I suppose, von Rad's indecisiveness on this question. On p. 152 of his Genesis (rev.ed.) we find the Babel story is the end of the primeval history, on p.154 the “real conclusion” is 12:1-3, and on pp. 161ff. 12:4-9 is included in the primeval history.

69. Von Rad's view of the relation of the primeval and patriarchal histories is essentially similar (Genesis 154); my criticism of his exposition is principally that he over-dramatizes the significance of the Babel story, finding tension where none exists.

70. So E. Staiger, Die Kunst der Interpretation (4th ed.; Zürich: Atlantis, 1963); cf. M. Kessler, “Narrative Technique in 1 Sm 16, 1-13,” CBQ 32 (1970) 543-54 (544); J. Blenkinsopp, “Stylistics of Old Testament Poetry,” Bib 44 (1963) 352-8 (353); and for an extreme expression of this point of view, M. Weiss, “Wege der neuen Dichtungswissenschaft in ihrer Auswendung auf die Psalmenforschung,” Bib 42 (1961) 255-302 (259). Cf. also R. E. Palmer, Hermeneutics. Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer (Evanston; Northwestern University Press, 1969) 246f.: “One's interest is in ‘the thing said’ itself, not in [the author's] intentions or personality. In the text a ‘reality’ is brought to stand. In the Garden of Eden scenes in Paradise Lost, a reality is brought to stand; one is not deeply interested in whether Milton actually had these feelings, nor does one really care whether Adam and Eve ‘actually’ had them, for in them something deeper and more universal is coming to expression: the possibilities resident in being, lighted up now for a moment in their truth.”

71. Sinn und Ursprung der priesterschriftlichen Geschichtserzählung,” ZTK 49 (1952) 121-43.

72. “The Kerygma of the Priestly Writers,” ZAW 84 (1972) 397-414 (398,409 n.38).

73. E.g., A Eitz, Studien zum Verhältnis von Priesterschrift und Deuterojesaja (Heidelberg Diss., 1970) (cf. ZAW 82 [1970] 482). The recent study of A. Hurvitz, “The Evidence of Language in Dating the Priestly Code,” RB 81 (1974) 24-56, arguing for a pre-exilic date for P, seems to rest on too narrow a base.

74. See A. R. Millard, “A New Babylonian ‘Genesis’ Story,” Tyndale Bulletin 18 (1967) 3-18; Clark, ZAW 83 (1971) 184-88.

75. Cf. M. Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972) 237f.

76. While Wolff, Int 20 (1966) 131-58, may well be correct in reading the Yahwist's work as addressed to the Israel of David and Solomon, and in focusing on the theme of blessing, I am not convinced that the Yahwist is proclaiming a message about Israel's responsibility to be a channel of blessing for the nations (e.g., p. 155), since the alternative interpretation of Gen 12:3 seems far preferable; see B. Albrektson, History and the Gods. An Essay on the Idea of Historical Events as Divine Manifestations in the Ancient Near East and in Israel (Lund: Gleerup, 1967) 78-81.