by alecto » January 7th, 2008, 2:27 am
Genesis is a very interesting book. Very few people seriously think it includes every part of the Creation. An example of this is what Robert said. Even if Genesis be literally true, that does not make false every statement not included in Genesis. There could also have been other families created at the same time as Adam's, after Adam's, or even before Adam's. It turns out that chapter 1 and chapter 2 use different language and speak of God differently, as if they were compiled from two different sources. (You can have this and have Moses be the author of the book if you assume Moses is the one who gathered and committed the stories to Tradition.) Some important points:
Chapter 1 and chapter 2 both treat God as a plural entity. Elohim is a plural noun, literally meaning something like "the powers". (It is translated as "God" and as "judges".) Plural pronouns are also used. "Let us make. . ." etc.
Chapter 1 only uses Elohim but chapter 2 almost always uses IHVH Elohim which means "IHVH who is Elohim" or "IHVH of the Elohim". The latter would imply that as all of the powers created the World (including man), IHVH the One created Eden and Adam. Being thrown out of the Garden then means getting thrown out of the special domain of IHVH and into the world at large, where "mundanes" like Cain's future wife will live.
(I have heard the plural Elohim and the plurality addressed by the pronouns explained as being God and the angels or the "royal plurality" although I have heard that Hebrew doesn't use the latter. What I have hardly ever heard is that Elohim = the Trinity, though that would make one of the better arguments for part of Trinitarianism. Of course Jews would not go that way with it. (Is Rosemary listening?) IHVH is the tetragrammaton, the non-pronounced name of God. Ancients substituted Adonai or kurios for it (both meaning "lord"). KIng James used LORD (all caps) whenever IHVH appears. Moderns sometimes use "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" for IHVH, speculating that if or when the Name was pronounced that that is what it was pronounced like, but this was not proper throughout most of history.)
One of the most striking things to me about the story of Cain and Abel is that the death penalty is specifically prohibited for Cain, though he be the author of murder. Yet eventually there will be death penalties for all sorts of crimes, including murder. Something happened.
I've never actually heard much about the ethics of incest in the "first family". In any case, we certainly are not to assume that the characters in Genesis are at all perfect in their behavior. I usually think that the purpose of including Genesis in the Torah is not to tell us ancient history as much as it is to show us how miserable behavior leads to miserable lives, so it can be a "case book" for the laws that follow.
Sentio ergo est.