Chad Chapman

The Book of Genesis

Possession and the Human Family in Genesis

Chad Chapman

Life Context of the Interpretation

As globalization continues to make accessible people and places that were once unknown or out of reach the human community is now faced with the interconnectedness of all life on earth and the damage done to this web by neo-liberal economics and imperialism. More than ever, white Americans are faced with ‘the other’ in the next door neighbor, the store manager or the co-worker. Past values of white, American Protestantism as being the superlative existence of humankind have proven to be extremely dangerous; having horrific consequences as seen in the treatment of African- and Native Americans. In addition, the seemingly inevitable segregation of cities and suburbs based on economic class further exasperates the problem. Growing up in a suburb just west of St. Louis, Missouri, I was raised in a homogenous neighborhood of white, middle-class, conjugal families (father, mother, children). There were two black families, both of which had sons about my age. I do not recall hearing outright racial prejudices in response to my friendships with them. However, the friendships were short lived as it seemed we lacked the common ground necessary for deeper relationships. Today, there are more non-white people in that neighborhood and its white residents are learning to see ‘the other’ as ‘neighbor’. Yet, those from whom we are separated by geographic distance (US/two-thirds world) or cultural distance (suburb/city) remain justifiably ‘the other’. Many Americans are unaware of the atrocities committed in the world of poverty, both abroad and at home. It is with the questions of the natures of personhood and poverty and their interrelatedness that we come to Genesis.

To further expose my context I will take a moment to discuss the meanings of the labels – white, middle-class, Protestant, heterosexual, American – which I have applied to myself for it is one’s self-identification that reveals contextual experience. To be white means that I have never been an outsider based solely on my skin color. It means that I benefit from a system of racism even if I do not actively participate in it. As a member of the middle-class, I have a sense of control over my destiny and the means to achieve the American dream. I am able, even encouraged, to forget about the poor. It means that I have the ability to attend Vanderbilt University. Religiously, I am a Protestant and therefore at the dead center of the American religious identity. In particular, the Protestant emphasis on Scripture, individualism and missions are important to my contextual experience, as is the history of Protestantism being the dominant theological voice in America. Being heterosexual places me at the center of American sexual ideals; I am not seen as a deviant. As a male, I am privileged above all others in America’s and Christianity’s long history of patriarchy. As with racism, I benefit from a system of gender hierarchy even if I am not active in supporting it. Finally, my American citizenship and cultural identity locate me in what is/was the most powerful empire on Earth. It portrays my materialism and self-centeredness. In essence, I am at the center of an American culture which places all others in the periphery. All the while, I find that each of the above delineations of context in some way contribute to my doing the very thing I hate (maintain oppressive structures) rather than what I want to do (work for the freedom of all people from oppression).[1]

The Problems and Root Problems

The religious views of those to whom the same labels might be applied have sometimes been embarrassing and, at worst, deadly. Three of the religious values to which I have been exposed in my context – exclusivist soteriology (no salvation without Christ), equation of wealth/success with blessing, and domination of creation (including women) by men as divine mandate – will be challenged by this reading of Genesis. Again, a brief contextual exposition of these theological problems will be helpful.

While it would be unfair to set an exclusivist view of salvation as the cause of racial and religious discrimination it has been used as a foundation for such hatred. Religion is one of the most fundamental parts of the human experience. As such, it is easily used to define one’s self from the other or to provide rationalization for defining one’s self over and against the other. Taken to the extreme, as it has been, the other is seen as less human, less valuable to God, and less worthy of respect than the one who holds the same religious views. When this occurs, it is possible to injure or deal death (physical, psychological, or spiritual) to the other. Insofar as religions have geographic origins (though Christianity has been thoroughly Westernized), religious difference often accompanies racial difference. Here the theological issue meets the contextual and ideological issue of wrong vision. In terms of religious difference combined with racial diversity, the one who is not like one’s self is seen as dangerous, even evil. This connection has been the foundation of millennia of human struggle. The root problem is not one of ability, for the American Christian has it within his or her ability to find unity with the other. Since the Western Christian has a voice in the church and in government, it is within his or her power to speak up for the other. Neither is the problem generally one of will. It is in fact the goal of many of these Christians to bring the other into Communion. Unfortunately, this often results in killing the identity in order to save the soul of the other. Knowledge is not the problem for the results of this ideology are before us everyday. Thus, the root problem here is wrong vision; a wrong vision supported by bad theology which came out of the wrong vision to begin with. This is not to say that the belief in the necessity of Christ for salvation is wrong but that its application in this way is. The question this ideological issue brings to Genesis is: how are we to view the interconnectedness of humanity?

The gospel of wealth as it has developed in America has found recent popularity in The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce Wilkinson – according to which if we pray the prayer, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain,” from 1 Chronicles 4:10 daily for thirty days, God must bless us – but has been present since the first declaration of ‘God Bless America’. A view of wealth and success as being the fruit of God’s divine blessing may not be totally out of line with Scripture as one sees repeatedly in Genesis alone. However, we operate an economic system based on perceived scarcity. This is evident in the market economy of American culture. There is a limited, though large, supply of resources and we intend to accumulate all of it, we say. Sadly, resources are limited and our gold rush mentality steals economic viability (and therefore the means of life) from the other. Pablo Richard reveals, “[Savage Capitalism] has resulted in a new concept: that of the excluded, the outcast, those who do not count, the dispensable, those who have no impact on market efficiency…those who are not even exploited (since being exploited assumes that one is within a system), those who are powerless.”[2] Here the root problem on the part of the American economy is power, namely too much of it. It is not an issue of power for the individual, though. There does remain a choice to purchase from fair-trade companies or companies that have a realistic eye toward the needs of sustaining the Earth. I must hope that will is not the issue. I hope that an apathetic American Christian, when faced with the vision of poverty in the world would desire to act. Hence, for the American individual, it is again wrong, or a lack of, vision. The questions this ideology brings up in the reading are: what are the consequences when humans overstep their bounds? and how do wealth and poverty affect the human community?

Environmentalists have long been pronouncing the damage being done to the Earth by the economically powerful one-third of the world. In justifying the rapid consumption of natural resources and destruction of ecosystems, we reach for our Bibles (as we do occasionally for our own purposes) and turn to God’s blessing of humanity, “…fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over…every living thing…”[3] Not only does our overuse of resources steal the means of life from others, it means the eventual lack of those means for all humanity. The root problem of this issue is lack of vision of the negative effects of our industry. For surely all humans want to ensure a viable planet for their children and their children’s children. Also, the average American has the power to purchase only from ecologically responsible companies and influence government regulations. The questions that arise from this ideology in Genesis are: what does it mean to subdue and dominate the Earth? and how are we to treat creation (including ourselves) in order to sustain it?

It is with these junctions between the people of God and the world in mind that we come to Genesis. As we will see, the text itself will have some questions for us as well.

Contextual Comment

Structural Overview of Genesis

Our name for the first book of the Bible, Genesis, reflects the title used for the book in the Septuagint which was based on verse 2:4 which speaks of the genesis – the origins – of the cosmos and the Hebrew people. However, the traditional Hebrew name for a Biblical book is typically the first word, in this case “in [the] beginning.” Genesis is truly a book of beginnings; the first day, the first sexual encounter, the first murder, the first city, are examples. While the Anchor Bible Dictionary and Clare Amos in the GBC choose to locate the stories of Genesis around the genealogies, I am choosing to let the story be outlined by four periods of lack, 1:2, 12:10, 26:1 and 41:27. These times of scarcity roughly lay out the book in a similar fashion as when using the genealogies: Primeval myths, stories of Abraham and Sarah, stories of Isaac and Jacob, and stories of Jacob’s sons.[4] It is helpful to divide the books based on these famines since economic and resource inequity is a major contextual concern of this commentary.

Significant Passages for Contextual Reading

1:27 So God created humankind in his

image,

in the image of God he created

them;

male and female he created them.

Our first contextual issue above asks how we are to view the interconnectedness of humanity. This declaration of resemblance to God is the most appropriate starting point. Of particular importance for this reading is the use of the plural pronoun in “in the image of God he created them”; i.e. male and female. Humanity, and all of creation, is utterly and profoundly interrelated; profoundly reflective of the God who created them.

God’s work of creation was not called “very good” until God had made humankind; and then not even until God had made male and female. To say that the human being is made seems to be a truism. Yet given the human tendency to self-aggrandizement at the expense of others, it is an important declaration. We have been told, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”[5] In other words, we did not make ourselves; we are not God.[6] But we are like God in that we have been made in the image of God. We demonstrate this in existing as relational beings. To live without access to relationship, to the conditions of home (recognition, love, food, shelter), or to deny these to another, is to live in death, even in Hell.[7]

If we forget our interconnectedness, we deal death to the world and to ourselves. Thus, we must return to the contextual problem of discrepancy between races, based partly on religion. To address this ideology, we might ask a theological question which will expand our vision: how does God view the non-Christian, or the non-white, person?

While much of Christian theology is based on the idea that there are the saved and the unsaved, two distinct groups, this is perhaps not the only model in scripture. Taking the Word as corrective glasses, let us try to look at the world as God might – with deep and abounding love for all of creation. We read, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). And also, “for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ” (1 Cor 15:22). This is not to say that the Bible is without suggestions of a dual fate (Heaven/Hell) as well, but the overt message of scripture remains the declaration of God’s love for all quoted above. Thus, differences in religious belief are no longer (and never were) valid for defining one’s self over and against another and for cutting off the other from the means of life.

The paragraph above makes an answer to the problem of bad theology which ultimately results from wrong vision. Thus, to set the vision straight, we must see this love of God in action. It is the case that God’s action takes place through human action. Thus, our reconciliation is in bringing the other in, inviting them to join us for a meal, to sit with us at the table where we can break bread and tell our stories.

3:4-7 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that

when you eat of [the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.

In this first act of defiance, humanity began a long tradition of overreaching their right boundaries. God told the man and the woman that they had free reign over the garden and could eat anything they wanted except for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why the tree was there in the first place is a question for another time.

In another account, Genesis 6:1–2, just before the great flood of Noah, things on Earth had gotten pretty rotten. “When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose.” Here, men (sons of God) were not honoring the divine equality originated in the garden between males and females (daughters of men).[8] They were not seeking relationship but satisfaction of desire.

Another case of humanity crossing the line, almost literally, is recounted in verses 11:4. The people after Noah, who all spoke one language and were migrating eastward, decided, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad the face of the whole earth.” God gets very upset at this prospect and comes down to confuse their language so that they will not be able to complete the project and will, after all, be spread abroad the face of the earth, fulfilling God’s original command, “be fruitful and multiply.” Here, the humans overstep their right bounds three times. First, they planned to build a city, the opposite of a garden which is the home God makes for Adam and Eve. With the city comes the accumulation of wealth and the making poor of others. Second, they sought to build a tower which would reach the heavens. This, of course, brings to mind the skyscrapers of America, and even the world trade centers. Third, they refused to “fill the earth” and thus be spread out. Humans today continue to overstep their appropriate boundaries. Consumption in the United States alone outweighs that of other countries despite our smaller population. “Today,” writes Lawrence Surendra, “an average American consumes 50 times what a Haitian consumes.”[9]

Reflecting on the contextual problem of over-consumption of natural resources above, the question - what are the consequences when humans overstep their bounds? - is answered by these stories. In every case mentioned nothing but sin, pain, domination and separation from God result from human ambition. So how can our wrong vision be corrected?

In the ritual of fasting, we are made aware of the hunger of the people of the earth. We take a moment to step back from our self-centeredness and are able to see the poor and to stand alongside those who we have continually forced beneath us. Only then might we who do not hunger feel in our bodies the emptiness of hunger, and thereby face the reality of our part in the pain of the hungry. However, we must remember that while our fast will end, the hunger of the oppressed is ceaseless. Thus this method of fasting is only a step in the long process of liberating the poor from the death-giving circumstances we who are wealthy in the world have dealt them.

Another set of Biblical passages is related to the concept of possession and poverty.

13:8-9 Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herders and my herders; for we are kindred. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, I will go to the right; or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.”

36:6-7 Then Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all the members of his household, his cattle, all his livestock, and all the property he had acquired in the land of Canaan; and he moved to a land some distance from his brother Jacob. For their possessions were too great for them to live together…

Here we see two accounts of great wealth splitting up families. It is said that the land cannot support both families. It is true today that the earth itself would be unable to sustain life if everyone in the world had the standard of living I enjoy. As it is, it will not be long before the Earth can no longer sustain us, even if things stay the same.

Great accumulation of resources by a few results in a divide between the haves and the have-nots. Often such wealth is then used to take even what little the poor have. We see this to be true in Genesis as well. In the story of Jacob, he twice uses food to gain what he desires. The first time, he sells a bowl of red soup to Esau in return for Esau’s birthright (25:31). While in this case, Esau was most likely not starving and therefore made a bad decision, the poor today are starving and are made to sell their dignity, for that is all they have left, if even that remains, for a bowl of soup. Jacob also uses food to trick his father into giving him the blessing his brother traditionally would have received (27:25). Toward the end of the book is a prime example of taking advantage of the powerless. Genesis 47:13-16a reads,

Now there was no food in all the land, for the famine was very severe…Joseph collected all the money to be found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, in exchange for the grain that they bought…When the money from the land of Egypt and from the land of Canaan was spent, all the Egyptians came to Joseph, and said, “Give us food! Why should we die before your eyes? For our money is gone.” And Joseph answered, “Give me your livestock, and I will give you food.”

The cycle continues until finally the Egyptians had sold their livestock, their land and themselves in exchange for food. What is most disturbing is that this progression is recounted in a neutral, if not a positive, way. However, this is the reality of countries suffering from famine and poverty which have become indebted to the first-world, in effect, the people themselves, their lands and their resources have become the collateral for these loans.

Our contextual question was: how do wealth and poverty affect the human community? As we have seen, great wealth divides families, and the divide between the rich and the poor is deadly. The Earth itself is unable to support the lifestyle I am told I deserve. Thus, to correct this wrong vision, as above, we must share communion. This ritual reminds us that a little piece of bread and a small cup of juice (or wine) is all that sustains many people around the world. In addition, it makes us aware of the table manners of the kingdom of God.[10] We must wait until all have been served, until all have been provided for, before we may partake.

1:28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

The creation is a highly ordered system. It is not hierarchical, however. Rather, it is a system of profound relatedness in which each thing is equally dependent on each other thing. God made both man and woman in God’s image as equals. God’s command to the humans concerning creation is not to dominate it with a libido dominandi, but rather to “fill the earth and bring it to order; and have dominion over…every living thing…” (author’s translation). Human beings are stewards of the creation directly accountable to its Owner, God.

We have been misled by our wrong vision, clouded by sin, and have done the very thing which God commanded us to prevent. We have dominated creation rather than protecting God’s work. Our contextual questions were: what does it mean to subdue and dominate the Earth? and how are we to treat creation (including ourselves) in order to sustain it? In answering we must again turn to the theological perspective. God’s plan of redemption includes not only humans but all of creation as well. This does not license the human to trample the earth knowing that it will be restored, but calls the redeemed human to participate in the restoration itself. The time is now for us to turn from our path of destruction of the earth and to cooperate with God’s plan of renewing the planet.

Knowing this, though, is not enough, for the problem was not lack of knowledge but lack of vision. Thus, we must again encounter change through a ritual. This time, we must plant seeds. Time for Americans is precious and is quickly taken up by our tasks. However, we must, for our good as well as for the Earth’s, stop and take a moment to partake of communion with nature; to contribute to the renewing of the world.

Comparison to the GBC

Sharing another view on Genesis is Clare Amos. The questions she brings to the text as a British woman coordinating the Network for Inter Faith Concerns of the Anglican community are:

How can these three monotheistic faiths [Judaism, Christianity, and Islam] all worship the same God? How can they not? Does each one’s affirmation of its own finality invalidate the truth of the others? Above all, perhaps, how can a land claimed by three faiths offer liberty and space, both sacred and secular, to each?

Having spent ten years in the Middle East, Amos is contextually related to these questions. She deals specifically with the issues of ‘Humanity, Earth, Land, and World,’ ‘God and Humanity,’ dualistic fates of pairs, and the origin of Genesis in relation to the Babylonian exile. Ultimately, she concludes that “the text provides us with difficult questions rather than offering easy answers” and asks, “Are we ever likely to be brave enough to treat the Bible itself as such a dialogue partner [as God does with humanity]?”[11] Most importantly, she points out the essential need for such questioning in that “the fate of this region [the Middle East] seems to be fundamentally entwined with the destiny of the world.”[12] As I intend to show, the fate of the entire world is dependent on the actions of the entire world; meaning, the United States is not immune from its own destruction of creation, including plants, animals, and humans.

Two main differences are apparent between my interpretation and Amos’. The first is in the way we chose to divide the book of Genesis. Amos writes, “Genesis is a book that is appropriately named, for it is shaped by its genealogies.” Genealogies are “positioned at key points to divide up the narrative.[13] Instead of following the family lineage, I chose to follow the famines. These four periods of scarcity, 1:2, 12:10, 26:1 and 41:27, divide up the book in roughly the same portions as the genealogical method. The difference is important to my contextual concerns, though, and is a reflection of my interpretation of the narrative.

The second difference is that I rarely venture outside of the primeval narratives in my textual choices while Amos explores a broader base of the entire book. This again reflects that we are coming to the text with different questions and are challenged by the text in different ways.

CONCLUSION

In the commentary above, it has been shown that Genesis speaks to the contextual problems of racism and exclusivism, wealth and poverty, and destruction of the earth. We have been reminded that our neighbor is our brother or sister as well. Furthermore, Genesis reveals how wealth can destroy families and reminds of how the people of the Earth and the Earth itself are suffering from American accumulation of resources and wealth. Finally we have recalled that our commission from God as humans is to care for creation, not to dominate it. Genesis, as I have read it, is a story centered around four famines or periods of lack which either were caused by or they themselves caused a breakdown in the original structures of balance and harmony intended for the world by the One who created it. As we continue the lived narrative of human history, we can use this Biblical text to recognize the fault lines in human and ecological relationship; we must learn to see the other lest the breathe of life given by God to all be stolen from all but a few.

[1] See Romans 7:15 and Daniel Patte, “Romans,” in Global Bible Commentary, ed. Daniel Patte (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 2004), 429–443.

[2] A Theology of Life: Rebuilding Hope from the Perspective of the South, eds. K.C. Abraham and Bernadette Mbuy-Beya, Spirituality of the Third World (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2005), 93.

[4] HarperCollins’ Bible Dictionary, eds. Paul J. Actemeier et al, (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 368. See also, Clare Amos, “Genesis,” in Global Bible Commentary, ed. Daniel Patte (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 2004), 5.

[6] M. Douglas Meeks, Lecture Notes, 15 November 2005.

[8] Men as “sons of God” are not placed above women. I interpret this to be a mere reflection of the creation story in which Adam is made from the dirt by God and Eve is made from Adam’s rib also by God.

[9] Lawrence Surendra, “Global Solidarity for the Future: Where Do We Go from Here in South-North Relationships,” in Spirituality of the Third World, eds. K.C. Abraham and Bernadette Mbuy-Beya (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2005), 34.

[10] M. Douglas Meeks, Lecture Notes, date unknown.