Sage final
Essay question:
There are 2
worlds- original creation and recreation after the flood. What evidence is there that the world after
the flood was a recreation? If it was a
recreation after the flood, was the new world the same as the original world or
different? In what ways were they the
same, and in what ways did they differ? Describe
man's relationship to the animal kingdom and nature in your answer.
Intertextuality:
Consequences of eating from tree
Exile
Difficulty farming
Hiding from G-d
Where are you? (G-d asks adam)
Consequences of kayin killing havel
Exile (he will be a wanderer)
Difficulty farming
Hiding from G-d
Where are you (to kayin)
All 4
consequences are the same for both sins. Why?
All stories in
the Torah are really short. The Torah is like a tall building. It uses a minimal amount of words and is very
compact, so it builds up and uses layers to give meaning. Intertextuality is a method of layering. To understand story A, you need to understand
story B. Merging the two stories allows
us to understand both better.
The 4
consequences are the same for both stories (eating from the tree and kayin killing
hevel). The consequence of exile for
both are slightly different. Adam is exiled from Eden but can settle elsewhere,
however Kayin's exile is that he cannot settle down anywhere. With farming, Adam had to work the land to
produce as opposed to being handed food. But for Kayin, even if he worked the land, he
wouldn't produce food. Adam hides
momentarily, but Kayin spends the rest of his life hiding. Adam is only temporarily missing, but Havel is
gone for good. The 4 consequences differ
in intensity- the intensity increases in story B. The sin of murder is related
to the sin of eating from the tree because they have similar consequences, but
murder is worse because the intensity of the consequences is worse.
We think that the
world was created from nothing and that it was nothing beforehand. But the text seems to say that there were
things in the world before it was created.
It seems that there was water in the world, because the pasuk says that
Hashem was hovering above the water and it was deep. We also know from the pasuk that this world
was dark. It was also chaotic (unformed
and void).
If you add the
three together (water, darkness, chaotic), it would look like big stormy
waters… A FLOOD! The world was covered
in water splashing all over, just like the world of the flood. The chaotic water covered pre-creation world
sounds like the world of the flood that occurs a few chapters later.
But is the idea
legit or just a coincidence?
As we continue
reading and comparing, there is another similarity. A “wind of G-d” blew over the chaotic waters
to start creating the world in perek 1, and after the flood of Noah in perek 8 the
world began to recover from the flood and a “wind of G-d” again passed over the
earth.
On day two of
creation G-d created the sky to separate upper and lower waters.
Day three- division
of land and water and creation of vegetation
Day four- stars
Day five- birds,
insects and fish
Day six- animal
life and man
Now compared to
Noah…
On day two of
creation the upper and lower waters were separated by sky. After the flood, G-d stopped the well water
from under the ground to stop coming up and the rain from the clouds to stop
coming down. So basically G-d was
putting the upper water (vapor) into clouds and the lower water into the
ground, and sky in between, similar to day 2 of creation.
On day three of
creation the waters receded and dry land was formed. After the flood, the waters receded and dry land
appeared upon which that ark rested.
Then Noah sends out
a dove that comes back with an olive branch, meaning there is tree life, which
happened when the world was created that trees were growing. Then the Dove didn’t come back, meaning that
there were now birds in the world, like day 5.
Then Noah was commanded to open the ark and let himself and the animals
out, like day six when man and animals were created.
The only day of
creation that is not mirrored in the flood story is day 4- stars.
|
Creation Story
|
Post-Flood
|
|
Dark chaotic
water
|
Flood waters rage
|
|
“Wind of G-d”
|
“Wind of G-d”
blows over the waters
|
|
Sky divides upper
and lower waters
|
Sky divides
between clouds (water vapor) and lower water (inundated world)
|
|
Water gathered
and dry land appears
|
Water gathered
into one place, dry land appears
|
|
Trees and Vegetation
appear on earth
|
Dove brings olive
branch
|
|
Lights (stars)
placed in heaven
|
??? No connection
|
|
Bird life
|
Dove enters the
world and stays there
|
|
Animal and human
life
|
Animals and
humans leave ark and inhabit the land
|
What does it mean/
teach us that these two stories are parallel?
The post-flood is a
recreation. It is a new creation story,
as if the world was being created for a second time. People think we had a flood as a punishment
for mankind’s evil. But if mankind was
the only thing being punished and destroyed, then the world would have to only
be repopulated, not recreated entirely.
Instead, the target of the flood was the Earth itself, which was
completely eradicated and recreated after the flood. It wasn’t really people who were the target
of the flood- it was the environment itself.
In the text giving the reason for the flood, the word “Earth” is
repeated 5 times in just 3 psukim. The
Earth is primary, and the people are secondary.
The people ruined the Earth, and so the whole Earth had to be
rebuilt. So really the people weren’t
punished by the flood, G-d was just renovating the world, so the people had to
be gotten rid of during the renovation.
So why was Noah saved? The pasuk
says that he found “grace in G-d’s eyes,” and was therefore able to be saved,
or just not gotten rid of during the “renovation”.
If the world is
being recreated, is it the same world or a different world?
On the 6th
day of creation, man and animals were created, similar to when Noah and the
animals came out of the ark. Something
else happened on the 6th day of creation though- G-d made a speech
to mankind and animals, where he blesses man and animals to be fruitful and
multiply, with mankind master over the fish, birds, land animals, and
vegetation for food. This implication is
that animals are not for food, but
the plants are food for both animals and man.
In the Noah story,
there is also a speech after Noah leaves the ark. In this speech, G-d says, “be fruitful and
multiply,” in the exact same language that He did when He blessed Adam and
Eve. He also says that every animal will
have the fear of mankind, similar to what Hashem said to Adam and Eve. But the blessing for Noah is different,
because it has animals “fearing” mankind, not just mankind having dominion over
animals. Next, G-d tells Noah that he
can eat any living thing- this is different because Adam wasn’t allowed to eat
animals, only plants. Noah was now
allowed to eat animals just like vegetation.
Finally, Noah is restricted from eating a limb from a living animal. Everything between the two stories is
related- they are not exactly the same, but they are similar.
|
Blessing to Adam and Eve
|
Blessing to Noah
|
|
Be fruitful and
multiply
|
Be fruitful and multiply
|
|
Have dominion
over animals
|
Animals will fear you
|
|
You will eat
vegetation
|
You will eat the
animals, like vegetation
|
|
Animals will eat
vegetation too
|
…but not exactly
like vegetation. You need to kill an
animal before eating it
|
|
Adam’s World
|
Noah’s World
|
|
Man and animals
live among each other and both eat vegetation
|
Animals fear man
because man can now kill animals- man has more power!
|
Why are the two
worlds different?
After the flood G-d
promises that He will never destroy the world ever again, but how does G-d know
that we will never be that bad again and deserve the world being
destroyed? If you look closer, G-d is
really saying that no matter how bad we become, G-d will never destroy the
world. G-d’s reason for destroying the
world (man was sinning) is the same as His reason for never destroying it again
(man will always sin)- how could this be?
After the
destruction, the worlds have changed.
|
Creation
|
Recreation
|
|
Mankind has dominion
over animal world, but cannot eat them
|
Mankind can eat
animals
|
|
World is
susceptible to destruction because of mankind’s sins
|
World is not
susceptible to destruction because of mankind’s sins
|
|
G-d is the
landlord and man, animals, and vegetation are the tenants
|
More endurance to
the effects of mankind because it is now mankind’s world, so man can corrupt
it
|
Dates: A
Progression
1.
Noah
was 600 years old at the beginning of the flood. The focus is on Noah
2.
On the
600th year of Noah’s life the flood happen. This pasuk moves away from Noah and focuses
on the flood
3.
In the
601st year the waters dried up.
Noah isn’t even mentioned here- he has become the standard for time
itself. In the time of creation, time
was measured based on creation, and after the flood time was counted based on
Noah
G-d was the one who
closed the door on the ark, and Noah was the one who opened the ark after the
flood. Why? G-d was closing the door on HIS world, and
Noah was opening the door to his own world.
The new world is Noah’s, which is why time begins with Noah and is the
standard because Noah is the center of a new world that revolves around
man. After creation, Man’s role was to
work the Earth and guard it, and then it became corrupt and was destroyed. This was all G-d’s world, that he destroyed
and made MAN’s world, which cannot be destroyed because it’s man’s world and
therefore he could corrupt it.
Questions
Part 1-
methodology
The lullaby
effect best describes:
The tendency of
ppl who know a biblical text well but fail to think critically or question it
like being lulled by a lullaby but not listening to the words
Which of the
following best describes an "external question"
A question that
comes from a readers own assumptions and not from the text itself.
In what way is
Thomas Kuhn's theory...
Answer: A
Intertextuality
describes...
A phenomenon in
which the Bible…
Which tool can
best help...
Chiasmus
If you had to
envision intertextuality and chiasmus in terms of shapes...
Intertextual as
parallel lines and chiasmus as an x
Part 2-
content
What did moral
choices look like pre tree...
True and false
In what way do
trees of knowledge and life contradict...
D
What other
creature does snake resemble?
Human
What word do we put
emphasis on when snake tempted eve
The word
"said"
Evil inclination
is identified with
Unchanneled
desire
Eating after tree
humans....
All of above
Hebrew commonality
between...
The snake’s
cunning and devious ways and the idea of nakedness
The idea of “sin”
and “missing the mark”
An important
dividing line between humans and animals is..
The way G-d
speaks to each- animals through instincts and man through mind
What are some of
the ways Eve’s recapitulation to the serpent of the command not to eat of the
Tree of Knowledge differs from the way G-d originally articulated that command?
G-d names the
forbidden tree; Eve just refers to it as the tree that G-d placed off limits.
G-d says the
forbidden tree must not be eaten; Eve adds that it must not even be touched.
Eve speaks about
the “fruit” of the forbidden tree; G-d doesn’t mention the fruit explicitly.
Which of phrases
seem to express the same basic idea in different words?
Human desire is not
something to be suppressed, but it is something that needs to be directed.
The Torah is like
spice for the evil inclination.
The Torah’s very
first description of the world at the beginning of Genesis seems similar to
what other biblical event?
The great flood.
Which of the
following events in the story of creation doesn’t seem to have an intertextual
parallel in “Noah’s World”?
The creation of
sun, moon, and stars.
Following the
evidence suggested by inter-textual parallels, which event in Recreation does
G-d’s Sabbath seem to correspond with?
The Rainbow Covenant
What piece or
pieces of inter-textual evidence contributes to the impression that the
emergence of man and animals from the ark corresponds to the 6th day
of creation?
The fact that man
and animals emerge from the ark just before the Rainbow covenants.
The fact that G-d’s
speech to man on the 6th day of creation so closely mirrors G-d’s
speech to Noah and the inhabitants of the ark after they emerge into the new
world.
