0083 Gordon Wenham asks (more or less), “Can we think of Gen 1-11 as a genealogy, adorned with narratives?”

The literature of the ancient Near East offers parallels.  The Sumerian King List directly compares to Biblical genealogies.  Other writings of the ancient Near East coincide with Biblical narratives.

0084 For example, the Sumerian Flood Story is similar to Noah’s Flood Story.  In terms of content, they refer to an identical prehistoric event.

0085 Yes, this fits Wenham’s overall label of “protohistory” for Gen 1-11.

I return to the virtual nested form in the realm of possibility, found in day 20 of this series.

protohistory_1c( insights for reader_1b( Biblical witness_1a)

There is an advantage to Wenham’s term, “protohistory”.  It expands the field of inquiry to include all discovered written origin myths of the ancient Near East.

0086 From my point of view, the discovery of these extra-Biblical materials is nothing short of miraculous.

These writings are preserved as cuneiform inscriptions on clay tablets, fired into bricks with the immolation of a royal library, and buried in ruins for thousands of years.  Only after Western archaeologists recover tablets and clever people figure out ways to translate them, do these stories come back to life.

0087 Who knows about these tablets?

At the time when the Babylonian exile ends and the Pentateuch takes final form, no one knows about these tablets.

At the time of Christ, no one knows about these buried tablets.

The same goes for Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas.

It is as if God concealed these tablets for the modern West to discover, in the Age of Ideas, after the successful birth of science.

0088 Why do all the written origin stories of the ancient Near East depict a recent creation of humans (with the exception of the Creation Story)?

The hypothesis of the first singularity offers an explanation.  The hypothesis works as a perspective_2c, that virtually brings a situation-dependent interpretation_2b into relation with the contents of the Biblical text_2a.

Figure 09

0089 Of course, the hypothesis is not the only perspective-level actuality_2c.

Another option is God’s Word_2c.

0090 With the passing of the Age of Ideas, the normal context of our current Lebenswelt_3c does not rule out either actuality_2c.

Does the potential of ‘genre as classification’_1c, seem to favor the natural approach of the hypothesis_2c over the supernatural approach of God’s Word_2c?

I wonder.

Well, the name of the book that I am looking at could be titled, “Genesis: Does Genre_1c Contribute to Insights_1b into the Biblical Witness_1a?”.

Plus, the arguments from the contributors seem to give a qualified “yes”.

0091 In other words, the concept of genre_1c gives the reader insight_1b into how the witness is viewing ‘something real’_1a.

0092 The concept of the first singularity_1c offers a hypothesis on the nature of ‘something real’_1a.

At the same time, the hypothesis does not describe the event from within.

Instead, the Genesis witness_1a describes the emergence and fall of Sumerian civilization, the original fruit of the first singularity_2c, from God’s point of view_3c.

So, the answer to the question (in 0090) remains unclear.

0093 Wenham considers an odd passage, Gen 6:1-4.  The passage sounds like fantasy or myth.  But, the placement is crucial.  The mention of the Nephilim comes right before the first announcement of the flood.

Commentators offer a wide variety of explanations.

Here is mine.

0094 If a four-hundred year cycle associates to a genre, and if the primeval history covers nine cycles, then one expects a layering of genres in the same fashion as sedimentary rock.  The Nephilim are mentioned in passing.  It is like a distinct, thin layer in sedimentary rock.

0095 Here is an analogy from modern times.

During the latter half of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth centuries, at the zenith of the Age of Ideas, textbooks in philosophy covered the Greeks, the Romans, then the Renaissance, the Western Enlightenment and Modernism.  Twelve centuries of the Latin Age are thinned down to a funny little term, “the dark ages”.  That is three cycles, one for each word.

0096 With this analogy in mind, Genesis 6:1-4 may cover a lot of history.  It has its own genre.  This genre differs from the genre of the flood.

0097 Wenham moves on to the Flood Story.  This story associates to failure and re-orientation.  It also touches base with extra-Biblical Near Eastern myth.

Both the Story of Noah’s Flood and the Mesopotamian, Epic of Atrahasis, point to a devastating flood prior to the start of the Sumerian Dynastic.  These two versions of the same incident tell me that they belong to the same genre.  They are expressing a similar spirit of the age.

0098 The progression of genres in Gen 1-11 do not smoothly overlay a highly theoretical 400 year cycle starting around 7821 years ago.  However, coincidences such as two stories of the flood, one Biblical and one Mesopotamian, are highly suggestive.

What do they suggest?

The family mythology in Gen 1-11 is told from inside an institution proclaiming the public mythologies of the ancient Near East.

This suggestion is further developed in the dramatic fiction, An Archaeology of the Fall.

The story of Terah marks the event when the two traditions begin to diverge.

0103 Gordon Wenham concludes chapter 2, titled “Genesis 1-11 as Protohistory” with a caveat.

Perhaps, the message of Genesis 1-11, as God’s Word_2c, is more important than defining its genre_1c.  God’s word_2c pours out grace.

0104 Yet, the possibilities inherent in genre as a classification_1c support a complementary natural actuality, the hypothesis of the first singularity_2c.

Grace and nature are not separate, after all.

0105 These comments applaud Wenham’s naming of the genre of Gen 1-11 as “protohistory”.

Protohistory allows the reader to appreciate extra-Biblical materials as part of the big picture.

After all, the written origin stories of the ancient Near East witness the consequences of the same transition, the first singularity.

0106 Here is a picture.

0107 In chapter three, Biblical scholar Kenton Sparks offers another term for the genre of Gen 1-11: ancient historiography.

Because it is ancient, Gen 1-11 cannot yield dependable history or modern science.

Because it is historiography, history is graphed out as images.

Are those images fictional?

0108 Sparks has no interest in discussing the relationship between Gen 1-11 and science.

Perhaps, that stance will change once the hypothesis of the first singularity lands on his desk.

0109 It may be that the evangelicals who teach Gen 1-11 as scientifically and historically accurate may be on target, but in ways they never imagined.

Yes, Gen 1-11 is a histriography, a map of the histrionics of the Ubaid developing and suffering from unconstrained social complexity.

0110 Histrionics?

Forgive me the pun.

Just look at our Zeitgeist today.  The Age of Ideas ends.  The Age of Triadic Relations begins.  Histrionics fills the air.  I mean… the air-waves.

So, in addition to a historiography, Gen 1-11 is a histriography.

0111 The word, “histrionics”, comes from the Latin word, “histrio“, for actor.  “Histrionics” covers everything high maintenance about the theater.

The word, “historiography”, comes from the Latin word, “histor“, for knowing.  “Historiography” is a map (graphic) of knowing.  Today, it refers to the art of writing history.

0112 Sparks plays this game for the word, “genre”, and arrives at a note of caution: histriography (a map of theatrical events) is not the same as historiography (a knowledgeable map of history).

0113 But, where is the knowing when it comes to ancient history?

Wasn’t everyone in the West surprised at the realization that Gen 1-11 is not plainly historical?  Plus, it has a lot in common with the origin literature of the ancient Near East.

Is there a genre that hybridizes histriography and historiography?

Maybe, we may need to figure out a new label.

0114 Here is a picture of how the hypothesis of the first singularity might frame Gen 1-11 as historiography, while at the same time, Gen 1-11 dramatizes scientific knowing through its own being, its histriography.

0115 Interpretation_2b integrates civilizational events and insider witness. 

0116 What are some of the implications of the previous figure?

Allow me to add two nuances

Genesis 1-11_1a is the Word of God_1a.

The hypothesis of the first singularity_1c belongs to scientific knowing_2c.

0117 It’s a little busy.  It recalls the controversy mentioned at the start of this blog. It implies that Gen 1-11_1a is a gift from God that allows us to ideate a perspective that we otherwise never would discern_1c. 

0118 Sparks identifies three stage managers… er… authors to Gen 1-11.  These “authors” may represent intergenerational traditions.  They also may be individuals at the time when the Pentateuch is formally assembled.

The first is the Antiquarian Theologian, who is responsible for the genealogies in chapters four and eleven.

The second is the Ethnic Apologist, who constructs the genealogies in chapters five and ten.

0119 What do these authors add up to? 

The segmented genealogies in the primeval history account for the cultural origins of Israel.

The linear genealogies distinguish the identity of Adam’s tradition from other traditions in southern Mesopotamia.

0120 Can that be all?

Surely, this contributes to the histriography of Gen 1-11.

But, says nothing about the historiography of southern Mesopotamia.

0121 The literature of the ancient Near East anchors the histriography of Gen 1-11 to the historiography of southern Mesopotamia.

One of the characters in An Archaeology of the Fall offers a resolution.  Gen 1-11 associates to a family tradition within the temple tradition of the developing Sumerian civilization.

Seth’s family is capable of maintaining its own traditions, related to, yet, at times, critical of the work of the temple.

0122 For example, Sparks compares the story of Adam in Eden with a tale of the early Mesopotamian sage, Adapa.  Both Adam and Adapa reject an offer from a divine being, thereby ruining their opportunities for an immortal destiny.