THE GENERATIONS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH
A Polytheist Commentary on The Book of Beginnings I
What follows is an attempted polytheist reading of Genesis 1 and a bit of Genesis 2, taking the phrase “the generations of heaven and earth” as referring to the fact that creation is the activity of living beings, Gods, as the word plural word “Elohim” entails, possibly speaking through one or two of these Gods, El Elyon and/or YHWH. I do not claim it perfect, but it’s the start of something I have been pondering for a few months now. I encourage similar readings of these passages and many others throughout the Bible. I think it is an interesting experiment and a worthwhile devotional activity. All verses are from the Berean Study Bible (BSB) unless stated otherwise or italicised.
0
In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth.
It is well noted in Christian sources, and in certain non-Christian sources like Philo, that the “beginning” here refers to “the Logos”. In Latin, the translation for “beginning” is “principio”, meaning “principle”. However, as valid as that previous interpretation is, I will take it back a bit further, and say that rather than just the Logos, which concerns Intelligible Being, Elohim created all things in themselves prior to Being. Both interpretations can hold. In one sense, it can refer to the fact that, according to many a metaphysician, all things are in the Gods, and also that all things are in the principle of Being itself, the Logos of the Gods. I take Elohim here to be Gods because of its plural connotation, although I take the fact that it is grammatically singular[1] as indicating the all in each nature of supraessential divinity, and that we are probably seeing the entire creation through one God in particular, that is El Elyon, in whom and from whom all Gods here will be considered to proceed for this particular Cosmos. This takes nothing away from the Gods here as themselves supraessential and contingent on nothing. It is a theology, a statement about their activity and the natures and roles they take on for us, and so this language is appropriate. In this verse is a statement that encompasses the entire myth. The Gods, with El Elyon and YHWH in the centre, created the heavens and the earth in themselves, the principle of reality. Before we continue, we should note, with Edward Butler, that “the temporal process of mythic narrative is converted in Neoplatonic interpretation into a progression from lesser to greater differentiation within a static hierarchy”[2], and this “reading seeks to apply formal Neoplatonic hermeneutical principles to…” a Jewish text “…not to conflate the contents of Neoplatonic ontology and…” ancient Jewish theology[3].
I
Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
Here we see that the earth was formless and void, that is, it didn’t “exist” yet. The earth is not yet born. It is potential. The identity of the “earth” will be important later on, but for now we should focus on what is “veiling” this “potential” earth. It is said that the darkness was “over the face” and that the spirit was “hovering”. It really seems like the “Spirit” and the “Darkness” are in exactly the same place, two descriptions of the same entity. The fact that this “darkness” covers like a veil indicates the presence of something more than simple absence of light. This is a positive entity, and is in the same position as the Spirit, who, in another translation says that “God’s breath hovering over the waters”, like a blowing wind. Who else can this be except Chokmah who says she was with her Lord in the beginning? The one who has been equated to the Spirit[4]. She is the one who searches the deep things of the Lord. She, who calls herself “Dark” (Songs of Solomon 1:5), the Goddess who is hidden knowledge, is here, as the “veil” covering all that is to come forth.
And Elohim said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And Elohim saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. Elohim called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.”
And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
Then, in the midst of her, her consort appears. Note the manner in which Jewish theology in general conveys the concept of divine activity, as words, which in this case, in this myth, has no particular direction. The words have no intelligible source apart from the Elohim, who are not placed in any place. This, for our purposes, indicates the supraessential nature of divine activity and procession. It is immediate, that is, without mediation. The words are the very activities themselves. Thus, Light, who is immediately paired with Chokmah, the dark Goddess of wisdom, appears, and Chokmah response is as John records it, she could not comprehend him, for this is not intellectual knowledge, but suprarational eros, the meeting of husband and wife in nuptial union. The Generations of Heaven and Earth starts with this first couple, as described in Proverbs, as “possession”, an erotic statement in context[5]. In case it was not clear, this God of Light is YHWH, who is the Lord Chokmah is possessed by in Proverbs. This is his first possible appearance. This could also be El Elyon. I guess you would choose your perspective depending on your preferences. The couple will appear again in another form later on. This is the highest heaven, where intellectual knowledge will not reach, but rapturous love of the Gods will. The days are ordered evening to morning because of the priority of the bride who waits for her husband to appear and is surprised and elated at his “return”. From their union, the next generation is born, the second heaven, the second “day”, which begins the cycle of wait and return in rapturous surprise and eros.
II
And Elohim said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, to separate the waters from the waters.” So Elohim made the expanse and separated the waters beneath it from the waters above. And it was so. Elohim called the expanse “sky.”
And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
With the nuptial union of both Gods (whether the husband is El Elyon or YHWH), the possibilities that were “formless and void” begin to appear. This will continue till the Sixth day. Although the days are sequential and repetitive, they can be said to simply be the manifestation of the Principle that the highest causes have the furthest reach of effects[6], such that each day shows the same “day” as it appears in each subsequent level of Being or heaven.
The first of these is “Sky” or “Heaven” (in other translations). The “waters” are not actually transmuted into some “definite” entities, but an “expanse”. These are the heavenly or “supraformal” possibilities[7]. You could say that this is the “impregnation” of Chokmah. Instead of all possibilities being merely “potential”, they are all actual, all at once, in the “expanse” of her womb that is said, in the figure of Mary, to contain all of creation[8]. All the Gods that will be “born” qua activity, are present here, their possible relationships still in indefinite actuality. From this, they begin to come forth in definite forms, roles, and relationships, and even those who are parents here, YHWH/El Elyon and Chokmah, will reproduce themselves on to these planes for new activity. Mediation of activity continues, but the words themselves are unmediated.
III
And Elohim said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered into one place, so that the dry land may appear.” And it was so. Elohim called the dry land “earth,” and the gathering of waters He called “seas.” And Elohim saw that it was good.
On the next plane of Being, we see a “gathering” and an “appearance”. “Waters” are “gathered” and land “appears”. Similarly in the book of revelation, the nations are “gathered”. It is a sign of the appearance of a particular God, the one described as the “Dragon” or “Sea Serpent”. In the book of revelation, he gathers “around” the holy city, which here is the appearing “land”. The association is obvious. If the sea is the serpent, the land is the “serpent slayer” YHWH. But here, there is no conflict. They coexist. This is infact the first appearance of the “tree of life”, which, when the serpent is around it, is the tree of knowledge, for he represents and is the arche or principle of knowledge. However, YHWH is also a serpent, as Moses showed with his staff, so this reading might go two ways. My preference would be for the Serpent, elsewhere named “Rahab” (Psalm 89:11), since YHWH is not himself named the “Sea” as far as I know, although he has watery imagery associated with Him. This “Sea” is seen around his throne, and is fiery. The connection between the fiery Sea, the serpent or dragon, and the Cherubim leads me to see this as infact three ways of seeing the same God, a guardian God, Rahab, who is by nature ambivalent in being a “boundary”. Rahab is either the principle of, or the several Seraphim and Cherub around the Throne, Logos of Logos. On the one hand, as Seraph, they “radiate” the knowledge of YHWH – recall Isaiah 6 – who is the demiurge from whose perspective unfolds, as the centre, the definite world below the indefinite heaven. As Cherub he guards the way to the throne, swinging his sword in every direction. El Elyon is here only indirectly present, as the “land” is also Israel, the possession of YHWH, while El Elyon seems to be a Common high God belonging to no particular people. Rahab, also a God, is to be considered ultimate and ineffable in herself, even if her activity here is on behalf of YHWH. There is an interesting interpretation here of the dragon “thrown in the lake of fire” that is “before the throne”, where it could be seen as a return to the seraphim of a “wayward” manifestation of Rahab, something that could have had a ritual counterpart.
Then Elohim said, “Let the earth bring forth vegetation: seed-bearing plants and fruit trees, each bearing fruit with seed according to its kind.” And it was so. The earth produced vegetation: seed-bearing plants according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed according to their kinds. And Elohim saw that it was good.
And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
Here we have the presence of Chokmah in YHWH, or Asherah. It is unclear to me if they are two names for the same deity or different deities. It could be both. But I would err on the side of Asherah since she is the God associated with trees in Scripture, and that Chokmah would either be another Goddess and/or the name of an attribute of Asherah, perhaps the “Chokmah attribute” of Asherah, if the former is a different Goddess[9]. This also reinforces the image of the tree of knowledge around which there is a “clever” and “ambiguous” serpent. One might say Asherah is both trees, or YHWH is both trees in his Asherah aspect, or both, since the “city”, which is the pinnacle of “land”, has been described as often both. The myth gives no proper names for which divinities are for which roles, so perhaps we could admit different “versions” of the myth. I would interpret the “seed” as the principles, wisdom and/or knowledge, almost like the logos spermatikos or logoi, that “nourish” the entities below this third “day”, this third heaven. These two principles, just like their parents, will continue their causation beyond this level of being, although their “range” is not that of their parents.
IV
And Elohim said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to distinguish between the day and the night, and let them be signs to mark the seasons and days and years. And let them serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth.” And it was so.
Elohim made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. And He made the stars as well.
Elohim set these lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth, to preside over the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And Elohim saw that it was good.
And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
And here we enter the realm of Change, and with it, Souls and bodies. This heaven is for the “rulers” of this realm, the “host of heaven” in their temporal aspect. A visible multiplicity of Gods is now present as the various heavenly bodies, already organized into “greater” and “lesser”, which would imply hierarchy. The Sun is “higher”, and so marks the “boundary” perhaps, between time and eternity. It has been noticed that YHWH has been depicted as a Sun disc. So the Sun could be YHWH, but we can’t be sure. As they are lights and perhaps “fires”, they would be under the beyond temporal rule of Rahab, especially since they are associated with time, something that could be said to “flow”. They would extend the causative power of Rahab who is herself the “servant” of YHWH, his “Logos” and “Priest”. It would be safe not to name any God in this instance since we do not have enough information. All we can say is that these are Gods, and are, as such, supraessential in existence, even if manifest as these seemingly everlasting (and perhaps “fallible”) bodies. The moon is “lesser”, and therefore “lower” on this power hierarchy. The stars seem like an afterthought in this schema, but if we do follow the ways stars were thought of, and their description here, they are important. I can’t place them definitively, but I could place them between the Sun and moon on a purely hierarchical basis, even if Genesis elsewhere seem to think the Stars as the offspring of both Sun and Moon (Genesis 37:9). As an alternative, because of the idea of Stars as offspring, they could be lower than the Moon here. This would fit well with the myth of the watchers, who can fall and are seemingly corruptible. Some may be Gods, others may simply be angeloi or daimones or heroes. I don’t think even myths of corruptibility changes the fact that Gods are Good and their roles are providential. Also keep in mind the association with Rahab and the possibility of fall and corruption That is for the higher, more “everlasting” reaches of the Cosmos. The fourth heaven.
V
And Elohim said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the sky.” So Elohim created the great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters teemed according to their kinds, and every bird of flight after its kind. And Elohim saw that it was good.
Then Elohim blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters of the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”
And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
The birds in scripture are associated with mortality and judgement. In the book of revelation and earlier, they “eat” the flesh of YHWH’s enemies. Their presence below the celestial bodies represents this presence with mortality and mortal beings. They are the lower daimons, who are themselves morally ambiguous, at least, with respect to us. They are the shifting shape of Soul and its “circuits”[10], and the cycles of life and death. In a sense, we are all “enemies” of YHWH insofar as we are flesh, and the flesh must die, according to St. Paul. It is the birds, “Satan”, “Legion”, who will eat it. The placement of the birds suggest they are a “part of the system”, that is, they seem to be on the YHWH side of the YHWH/Rahab duality. The birds are to “multiply on the earth” and they obey YHWH’s commands. The sea creatures, on the other hand, are on Rahab’s side of this duality. This is where the myths of conflict between the two could come into play. Rahab’s “crookedness” and her association with formal knowledge leads to an association with the “edge” and a “promethean” tendency to transgression. She can be, in her “multiplicity”, the face of Israel’s enemies, or neighbours, in short, the “outside” and the “underworld”, the “waters” both under and around the earth. Recall that the creatures “under the earth” also worshipped the one on the throne and the Lamb in the book of revelation. They are his servants, included in Providence and Fate. Their “multiplication” is an indication of their emergence from their prior principles and their procession into the world they form in their interaction. These two groups of entities form the “environment”, the prior principles that will govern the next level.
VI
And Elohim said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, land crawlers, and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. Elohim made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that crawls upon the earth according to its kind. And Elohim saw that it was good.
On this last level, the level of mortality itself, is the realm of the “beasts”. We could understand this in the straightforward sense of “non-human” animals, and this would be correct, but I would rather, for this reading, see it in the sense the prophets saw it. In certain Jewish prophetic and apocalyptic books, “animals” represent people in the carnal sense[11]. In Paul’s terms, those “in the flesh”. I think this is a plausible reason for Christ as incarnate to be called an animal, a “lamb”. His ascension in the book of revelation eventually has him on the same throne, the same spot or space as the one on the throne who is in (glorified) human form. This is consistent with the theme. Glorified, deified people are “men”, usually in white, while non-deified people are animals, whether goat, sheep, bulls, etc. So, here, according to my reading, these “beasts” are we mortals, in our irrational desires and frailties. That is what makes the next set of commands interesting.
Then Elohim said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.”
So Elohim created man in His own image;
in the image of Elohim He created him;
male and female He created them.
Elohim blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.”
Then Elohim said, “Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit contains seed. They will be yours for food. And to every beast of the earth and every bird of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth—everything that has the breath of life in it—I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
And Elohim looked upon all that He had made, and indeed, it was very good.
And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
If the “beasts” are we mortals as irrational, frail creatures, subject to the “birds”, the “humans” are the glorified souls. Those are “resurrected” and “raised” to the heights of the stars. Here, Elohim speaks to themselves. Humans are thus the collective work of Elohim from themselves as a collectivity. Humans therefore have, here, the potential to rule with Elohim, as their icons in the world of time. Following the example of Prophetic literature, it is the beasts that are transformed into men, not out of any natural capacity of the beasts, in the sense of a higher principle producing the lower, but rather by the pure supraessential causation of the Elohim through their words. Elohim, in speaking to themselves, are constituting a reversion of everything they have done in this myth. The beasts, the last things created in procession, are transformed in reversion, such that they are now the lowers parts of cosmic humanity that rules everything below the moon and stars qua human, participating in the Gods themselves above them, because, recall, the “principles” or “Gods” or “rulers” stop at the stars. It is the Humans, as the whole of the lower creation objectified as their image, that is to rule the lower world, the land, and in this, they mirror YHWH and the host. As male and female they mirror the first divine couple, and their “multiplication” by implication is itself the maintenance of the whole world in this male-female conjunction as it moves through time. Whether this gender differential is as separate souls or as each soul, or both, is up for debate, but it could well be all at once. I think that’s my preferred interpretation.
VII
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. And by the seventh day Elohim had finished the work He had been doing; so on that day He rested from all His work.
Then Elohim blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on that day He rested from all the work of creation that He had accomplished.
This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that YHWH made them.
My preference of the last part of the verses quoted is the KJV: “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created…”
This shows the very familial way this “creation” works. It is a genealogy. The end of the genealogy actually ends with the sixth day, as the “day that YHWH made them” and the “Seventh day” are one and the same day, the “day one” looked at from the perspective of the end. The Shalom is the completion, the wholeness of creation that ends in the man who is the final reversion of the Gods’ activity in this Cosmos, and their icons. That last verse also makes the moment we switch to the perspective of YHWH’s proper demiurgic rule, the perspective from which we can now see another description of man’s transgression into mortality, a commentary for another time.
[1] I want to thank Reginald O’Donoghue for pointing this out for me.
[2] Butler, Edward P. “The Book of the Celestial Cow : A Theological Interpretation.” Teologi, 2009, 27–41.
[3] Butler, 2009. Original text reads “This reading seeks to apply formal Neoplatonic hermeneutical principles to an Egyptian text, not to conflate the contents of Neoplatonic ontology and Egyptian theology.”
[4] “The Wisdom of Solomon has more information about her. Solomon sought her as his bride (9:2), she gave him immortality (8:13), she sat by the throne of the Lord in heaven (9:10), and she was also known as the Holy Spirit (9:17).” Barker, Margaret. “Wisdom: The Queen of Heaven.” Scottish Journal of Theology 55, no. 2 (2002): 141–59. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0036930602000224.
[5] “what is perhaps more subtle for the untrained reader is that Wisdom has an obviously sexual relationship to God. As Michael Coogan points out, the image of God “delighting in” or, really in Hebrew, “laughing with” Wisdom is a sexual image, drawn from parallel texts like, for example, Sarah’s “laughter” in Genesis 18:13-14, or Isaac and Rebekah “laughing” together in the field in 26:8, revealing to King Abimelech that they are husband and wife, not brother and sister. Wisdom is God’s spouse, whose sexual relationship with him is integral to the creation of the world order. As Philo says, “God is Wisdom’s husband” (De cherubim 14.49)” Armstrong, David. “The Goddess Wisdom: Sophia, Shakti, and the Virgin.” A Perennial Digression, March 25, 2022. https://perennialdigression.substack.com/p/the-goddess-wisdom?s=r.
[6] On why matter is caused only by the One, Vanderkwaak writes “When the properties from all secondary causes are stripped away, at cosmic bottom lies a nature like the One alone, caused by the One alone, and with no other comparison. The result is that this ‘last’ matter, while inferior to all it receives, is also causally prior to them, for nothing received could subsist without it. This causal priority in matter follows from the greater persistence of the higher causes’ power: “Every principal cause that is more universal (τὸ ὁλικώτερον, ‘more whole,’ or we might say, ‘more comprehensive’) both irradiates before the parts into their participants and are later to withdraw from their participation” (§ 70). For this reason, we may venture to call matter ‘prevenient.’” Vanderkwaak, Matthew. “‘A Shrine for the Everlasting Gods’: Matter and the Gods in Proclus.” Dionysius 37, no. December (2019): 87–113.
[7] “The totalities of formal possibilities and of non-formal possibilities are what the various traditional doctrines symbolize by the 'Lower Waters' and the 'Upper Waters' respectively” Guenon, Rene. The Multiple States of the Being. Sophia Perennis, 2004. Note that “formal” for Guenon means particulars as opposed to universals.
[8] “Behind the iconostasis, and behind the altar, in the apse of the Orthodox temple, there is always––or almost always––a huge icon of the Virgin called the Platytera, meaning “the one who is more capacious [than the heavens themselves]”. For unlike the heavens, she is able to contain God Himself. What need for a “goddess-dogma” when one is able to gaze upon this visionary equivalent, or rather more than equivalent?” Cutsinger, James S. “A Visionary Equivalent .” Anamnesis, February 24, 2015. https://www.cutsinger.net/a-visionary-equivalent/.
[9] Writing on the fusion of Amun and Re in Egyptian mythology, Butler writes “…Re’s ‘Amun-function’. This is not the same as Amun’s ‘Re-function’, which results in the popular fusion deity Amun-Re, for it seems likely that the order of the names in such a fusion is meaningful. We cannot say why ‘Re-Amun’, that is, the Amun-aspect of Re, is apparently unattested, when Amun-Re, the Re aspect of Amun, is so well known from a certain point in Egyptian history, but we can think through the differences between these divine dispositions. The Re-aspect of Amun is the shining forth of the hidden, the hidden showing itself in the manifest, the essence of revelation. The Amun aspect of Re, on the other hand, is the manifest hiding itself in its very appearance.” - Butler, Edward P. “The Wrath of Sekhmet,”, 276–316. Note that these Gods are not confused. They remain distinct Gods even in their “fusions”.
[10] I want to thank Petter Hübner for the imagery of “circuits” to describe daimonic activity.
[11] “There is another history in 1 Enoch, apart from the Apocalypse of Weeks, which is told as an elaborate animal fable, with all mortals described as animals, and all the angels as men. This convention is familiar in the New Testament, when Jesus described the day of judgement as the separation of sheep from goats—humans —by the Son of Man, who has appeared with his angels to inaugurate the Kingdom (Matt. 25:31–4).” Barker, Margaret. The Hidden Tradition of the Kingdom of God. SPCK, 2007.
Is God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father, Jehovah Himself?