GENESIS AND THE SYMBOLISM OF THE CREATION

By Marcel Kahne

Translated by Gerald D. Woodard

(Original French text at www.Idumea.org)

In 1859, when Charles Darwin published his book On the Origin of Species, developing the theory that living beings had evolved over millions of years from primitive cells into increasingly complex forms, many people lost their faith because they felt that it showed that the story of the Creation in Genesis was false.This conflict continues today between “creationists” and “evolutionists.” Added o this are differences of opinion among believers in the Genesis account regarding the duration of the Creation. Was it seven days of twenty‑four hours?Or seven periods of a thousand years, as others claim based on Psalms 90:4? Or seven undetermined periods, as still others claim?

The purpose of this article is not to answer this debate, but to attempt to answer a question that comes naturally to mind when we consider this debate: Did the author of Genesis intend to give a scientific description of the Creation, or did he have something else in mind and, if so, what?

Our problem, in the modern western world, is that we claim to understand texts written thousands of years ago by people living in the East, as though they had been written here, by people of our time. This belief applies not only to Genesis, but also the Old and New Testaments and the Book of Mormon. We act as though we were not aware of the cultural divide that separates us from ancient civilizations, from their way of thinking, of seeing the world and of expressing themselves, particularly in writing. We thus invariably go off in the wrong direction.

If we break through the culturalhorizon of the author of Genesis, can we find out what his purpose was, whatconcerned him, what message he wanted to deliver? It would seem so, but to doso, we must first know the role that numbers play in Hebrew thinking.

THE SYMBOLISM OF NUMBERS

In Hebrew, the letters of the alphabet also have a numeric value:

As words are made up of letters, they also have numeric values. Words and numbers are thus closely related. The same is true for certain concepts, symbolized by numbers. Thus:

1    Symbolizes God, the Only

2    Symbolizes creation, the creature (the heavens and the earth, man and woman, dialogue)

3    Symbolizes man, who is spirit,personality and flesh (spirit: relationship with God – personality: man’s relationship with himself – flesh: man’s relationship with others)

4    Symbolizes the world (the four cardinal points). In Matthew 28:18‑20, the word “all” is used four times to represent the entire world, which belongs totally to Jesus.[i]

5    Symbolizes the five fingers of the hand. This is the number for divine action. It should be noted that this refers to the hand (not the hands)of God. To indicate his will, God gave the Pentateuch (five books). In Matthew,Jesus gave five great sermons: 1 – the Sermon on the Mount (5‑7); 2 – the Mission Sermon (10); 3 – the parables of the kingdom (13); 4 – the Community Sermon (18); and 5 – the eschatological sermon (the end of the world) (24‑25).The childhood gospel (Matthew 1‑2) focuses on five teachings of the Old Testament, each introduced with “that it might be fulfilled”, “for thus it is written” or “Then was fulfilled” (1:22, 2:5, 2:15, 2:17, 2:23).

7    Expresses totality. This is the number of divine perfection. That is why, in Matthew 13, there are seven parables of the kingdom: 1 – the parable of the sower (publication of the gospel); 2 – the parable of the wheat and the tares (apostasy); 3 – the parable of the mustard seed (birth of the Church in the latter days); 4 – the parable of the leaven (revelation in the Church goes throughout the world) 5 – the parable of the treasure hid in the field (heritage in Zion); 6 – the parable of the pearl of great price (heritage in Zion); and 7 – the parable of the net cast into the sea (modern missionary work).[ii]

10   Represents the actions of man.These are the ten fingers on two hands. That is why 10 commandments were given to govern man’s activities.

12   (3 x 4) Man (3) multiplied by the4 cardinal points. Mankind.[iii]Hence the 12 tribes and 12 apostles.

Once we understand the subtle role of numbers in Hebrew texts, we are ready to look at the account of the Creation and the book of Genesis in a new way.

GENESIS: A SYMPHONY OF 7s, 5s AND 10s[iv]

A study of Genesis in general, and the account of the Creation in particular, has shown that its author was very careful and very thorough in writing his text. We thus see that the Creation is based entirely on the number 7, the number for divine perfection.

THE CHIASMUS OF THE CREATION

0 Darkness

1       Light*

2             Heavens and waters**

3                      Earth and organic life ***

4                      Stars

5             Fish and birds**

6       Animals and mankind***

7 God rests *

We note that the creation of the stars is in the middle of the chiasmus, as they are between the heavens of Elohim and the earth of man. There is also a correlation between the elements in each part of the chiasmus: the light (beginning of creation) and God’s rest(end of creation), the heavens/waters and the birds/fish, the earth/organic life and animals/mankind.

At the same time, the work of the Creation is presented in two stages: the work of separation (3‑13) and the work of ornamentation (14‑31), where the four works completed on the fourth, fifth and sixth days are in response to the works of the first, second and third days.

The story of the Garden of Eden is characterized by a search for the number 7:

This preoccupation with the number 7 can be seen in the account of the “war of the kings” in chapter 14. The key word melekh (king) is used:

Among other things:

It is also interesting to know that still other techniques were used on writing the texts: Genesis also has a chiasmic structure in that it progresses from the universal to the individual and back to the universal:

1 Universal theme of the creation

2       Conflict between Israel and other nations

3                Jacob[Israel] against Esau (the nations) (27:40)

2       New expansion

1 Universal salvation of Egypt and Israel by Joseph

We should also note that 27:40 is the 767^th verse of 1,534 in Genesis.

THE NUMBER 10 IN GENESIS AND IN THE STORY OF ABRAHAM

The story of Abraham is made up of structures based on the numbers 7, 5 and 10. God makes7 promises to Abraham: Genesis 12:1 3; 12:7; 13:14‑17; 15:18‑21;17:4‑8; 18:14; 22:16‑18. The first promise contains the words “bless” and“blessing” 5 times and is made in 7 successive statements:

“Now the Lord had said unto Abram,Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house,unto a land that I will shew thee: (1) And I will make of thee a great nation, (2) and I will [1] bless thee, (3) and make thy name great; (4)and thou shalt be a [2] blessing: (5) And I will [3] bless them that [4] bless thee, and (6) curse him that curseth thee: and (7) in thee shall all families of the earth be [5] blessed.”

With these blessings come10 tests or trials:

(1^st test) Order to leave his country and parents

(1^st and 2^nd promises) Given with a renewed promise (12:3, 7)

(2^nd test) Driven out of Canaan by famine

(3^rd test) Sarah is taken from him in Egypt

(3^rd promise) Renewal of the promise (13:14‑17)

(4^th test) Lot in danger; war with the kings

(4^th promise) Renewal of the promise (15:18‑21)

(5^th promise) Dispute between Sarah and Hagar

(5^th promise) Renewal of the promise (17:4-8)

(6^th test) Test of circumcision

(6^th promise) Announcement of the birth of Isaac(18:14)

(7^th test) Lot again in danger and saved by Abraham

(8^th test) Sarah at Abimelech’s

(9^th test) Ishmael exiled

(10^th test) Sacrifice of Isaac

(7^th promise) Renewal of the promise (22:16-18)

We have also seen a chiasmic parallel in the ten tests:

1 Separated from parents (1^st test)

2       Exiled in Egypt (2^nd test)

3             Sarah in danger (3^rd test)

4                      Fight against the nations (4^th test)

5                               Ishmael and Isaac (5^th test)

5                               Ishmael and Isaac (6^th test)

4                      Fight against the nations (7^th test)

3          Sarah in danger (8^th test)

2       Exile of Ishmael (9^th test)

1 Sacrifice of child (10^thtest)

Chouraqui concludes: “It is… certain that the text of the Bible was written with great care, that its structural unit suggests writing techniques the complexity and subtlety of which we are only beginning to suspect, probably related to the needs of oral transmission.”(L’Univers de la Bible,Volume 1, p. 91).

CONCLUSION

There is one possible conclusion:the sacred author’s concerns were totally different than ours. His desire was to write something easy to remember to facilitate oral transmission, while passing on the message that the Creation was the work of God and that all merit was His, not to give a western‑style scientific description of events.Apparently, the Hebrews, like other ancient peoples, believed that God had organized the world from primordial chaos.[vii]The time that this may have taken did not seem to be their major concern. After all, if we acknowledge that God is all-powerful, it is easy to imagine that he created the universe in a single day or even a fraction of a second. The seven days may have been chosen for the symbolic value of the number 7 or because it corresponded to the number of days in the week (the Biblical calendar was adopted from the Egyptian calendar). With this in mind, the Creation over seven days has only symbolic value and does not warrant any controversy.