Is Genesis 1 a Polemic?

Since the discovery of Mesopotamian creation stories at the end of the nineteenth century it has been common in scholarship to view Genesis 1 as ‘polemic’. With Enuma Elish in one hand and Genesis 1 in another, it is not difficult to weave a compelling narrative with the priestly writer as a monotheistic satirist. It makes for a good lecture or tutorial, and is something of a bastion against fundamentalist readings of Genesis 1 (e.g. see Robert P. Gordon’s recent essay in the Wenham FS).

Yet Genesis 1 does not read like polemic, and it is hard to imagine a student doing so without first being told to read Enuma Elish. After all, when the proto-history of Genesis 1-11 wants to be polemical it lays it on pretty thick, as the tower of Babel story shows.

The time is certainly ripe then for Jan Gertz’s recent article in ZThK entitled, ‘Antibabylonische Polemik im priesterlichen Schöpfungsbericht?’ (‘Antibabylonian Polemic in the priestly creation story?’). There are many aspects of Gertz’s argument, but let us examine that favourite example of ‘polemic’ in Genesis 1: the creation of the celestial luminaries. Drawing on recent discussion of ancient astronomical knowledge, Gertz argues that the creation of the sun, moon and stars reflects P’s reception of the latest Mesopotamian knowledge in these areas. His language of ‘greater’ and ‘lesser’ lights reflects the abstract descriptive language found throughout Genesis 1. If you want to find polemic here you have to read it in, as commentators frequently have. For Gertz we are better to speak of Genesis 1 as ‘Wissenschaftsprosa’ (‘scientific prose’).

In many respects this takes us back to the disagreement between Gunkel and Wellhausen over Genesis 1. Is Genesis 1 ‘faded myth’ or ‘cosmogonic theory’? Fewer and fewer scholars appeal to Chaoskampf as a way of illuminating the first three verses of Genesis 1, and Gertz’s proposal removes the last planks of Gunkel’s shaky structure.