Divine Creation and Human Mortality from Genesis to Ben Sira

Two Creation Stories in Genesis 1–3

Since the advent of modern biblical study, scholars have recognized clear differences between the two Genesis creation accounts. ³ For instance, the first chapter of Genesis describes the creation of humanity as the work of Elohim (‘God’) on the sixth day, whereas in Genesis 2 it is the work of YHWH Elohim (‘the LORD God’) at an unspecified primeval time. Moreover, Gen 1:26 presents humanity as being created by the divine word, but Genesis 2 narrates the fashioning of Adam from the dust and the subsequent making of Eve from Adam’s rib. The sequence of creation also differs, since Gen 1:27 suggests that humanity is created together as ‘male and female,’ whereas in Genesis 2 the LORD God creates the man and then the animals and lastly the woman. ⁴ These differences (as well as other divergences of style and theology) have caused scholars to see Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 as deriving from different traditions, with Genesis 1 being ascribed to the Priestly writer and Genesis 2–3 being attributed to the Yahwist. Although some recent scholarship has raised doubts about such a documentary theory of Pentateuchal origins, ⁵ I will use these designations as convenient shorthand to distinguish the two narratives.

Another clear difference concerns the attitude to the environment. Near the end of the Priestly creation story, God says to humanity: ‘Fill the earth and subdue (כבש) it, and have dominion (רדה)’ over all the animals (Gen 1:28). From this verse, some environmentalists have blamed Genesis for authorizing human beings to practise ecological destruction. ⁶ These two verbs often describe actions of a king or national leader: כבש (‘subdue,’ as in Josh 18:1) and רדה (‘have dominion,’ as in 1 Kgs 5:4[4:24]). ⁷ Yet while these verbs can refer to forceful and even violent actions (2 Sam 8:11; Ezek 34:4), Thomas Dailey interprets the command to subdue the earth ‘not in the sense of a brutalising and oppressive power, but along the lines of a stewardly cultivation of the earth.’ ⁸ By way of contrast with Gen 1:28, the Yahwist’s creation story employs different verbs to describe human treatment of the world. According to Gen 2:15, the LORD God put the man ‘in the garden of Eden to serve (עבד) it and keep (שמר) it,’ which does not give him the licence to cause ecological disaster. In whichever way we may interpret Gen 1:28, at least Gen 2:15 does not grant the human race permission to destroy the environment. ⁹ Instead, the two verbs refer to human actions of service: עבד (‘serve/till,’ as in Gen 4:2), as well as שמר (‘keep/guard,’ as in Gen 3:24)—a verb that suggests protection of the environment.

In their origins, both the Genesis creation stories can be viewed as etiological narratives, seeking in diverse ways to answer questions of where human life comes from and why human beings have power over animals. The two stories address these questions differently, since the Priestly writer sees the all-powerful divine word as originating what exists, whereas the Yahwist speaks of God’s personal involvement in shaping man and woman and letting Adam name the animals.

Three further questions are answered by the Priestly etiological narrative of creation (Genesis 1). ¹⁰ First, why do we Jews not worship the sun and moon and stars? Second, why do we Jews have no images of God? Third, why do we Jews rest on the Sabbath day? Similarly, the Yahwist’s Garden of Eden story (Genesis 2–3) can also be viewed as an etiological narrative that responds to other questions. ¹¹ For example, why are men and women so attracted to each other that they become one flesh? Why do snakes crawl on the ground and bite humans? Why do human beings wear clothes? Why do women feel pain in childbirth? Why do men tend to dominate women? What is the origin of painful work? Why do human beings die, and why are they buried in the ground after death?

Paula Gooder notes a contrast between the two Genesis creation narratives: ‘The Genesis 1 account is simply concerned with portraying how creation took place, whereas the account in Genesis 2 acts as a prologue for Genesis 3, where the fall and its consequences are described.’ ¹² At the risk of oversimplifying, we could say that Genesis 1 deals with the beginnings of life, but Genesis 2–3 is concerned with the beginnings of death as well as life. Genesis 1 explains the origin of what is good, but Genesis 2–3 gives an explanation for the origin of evil as well as good. ¹³ Genesis 1 deals with the generic human species, but Genesis 2–3 is a story concerned with individual human beings possessing moral choice. Only the Creator speaks in Genesis 1, whereas in Genesis 2–3 the speakers include not only the LORD God but also the man and woman and even the snake. Finally, the Priestly story ends with the Sabbath, whereas the Yahwist’s narrative concludes with the coming of sin and death into the world.

Despite the evident differences between the Priestly writer’s story in Genesis 1 (P) and the Yahwist’s narrative in Genesis 2–3 (J), the final redactor of the Pentateuch was content to juxtapose the two creation accounts, without seeking entirely to harmonize them. ¹⁴ Richard Elliott Friedman notes how ‘the combining of sources produced a work that is greater than the sum of its parts. The more transcendent conception of God in P merges with the more personal conception in J.’ ¹⁵

Second Temple Texts Harmonizing the Genesis Creation Stories

Although various differences indicate that Genesis 1–3 contains two diverse accounts of the divine creation of the world, their distinct theologies have often been harmonized within later Jewish and Christian tradition, because of the canonical juxtaposition of the two narratives. Beginning already in the second century BCE, this harmonization process is visible within several Hebrew works, such as the Wisdom of Ben Sira, the Qumran Paraphrase of Genesis and Exodus (4Q422), and the Book of Jubilees, as well as in later Greek texts such as the works of Philo and the Book of Wisdom. ¹⁶

A fragmentary Qumran paraphrase of early sections from the Torah seemingly follows the canonical Genesis in reading both creation stories together as a sequential narrative. Such harmonization is visible in the first fragment of Column I of the Qumran Paraphrase of Genesis and Exodus (4Q422). ¹⁷ The initial part echoes the language of the Priestly creation account (Gen 1:21; 2:1–2), according to the reconstruction made by Torleif Elgvin: ‘[The heavens and the earth and all] their hosts He made by [His] word. [And He rested on the seventh day from all His work which] He had been doing …. [He made every living] being and the small creatures [with which the waters teem]’ (I.1.6–8). However, the text goes on to echo some of the phraseology of the Yahwistic creation narrative (Gen 2:15–17), according to Elgvin’s reconstruction: ‘[He set mankind on the earth], He set him in charge to eat the fruits [of the soil] … that he should not eat from the tree that gives knowledge [of good and evil]’ (I.1.9–10).

Whereas the Qumran composition seems to slide easily from the Priestly to the Yahwistic narrative, the Book of Jubilees shows itself more aware of apparent contradictions in the biblical creation stories. Indeed, Jacques van Ruiten sees Jubilees as seeking to resolve the tensions between the first and second chapters of Genesis: ‘In Gen 1:27 it is stated that God creates man male and female. But if God did create man and woman on the sixth day of creation, how could it be stated in Gen 2:18–20 that man is alone, and the woman had to be formed (again)?’ ¹⁸ Hence Jubilees seeks to harmonize both stories by situating the second timeless account within a framework of days comparable to the first: ‘In the first week Adam was created, and also the rib, his wife. And in the second week he showed her to him’ (Jub. 3:8). ¹⁹

A clear awareness of the apparent contradictions in the Genesis creation stories leads to a completely different sort of harmonization within Philo’s treatise On the Creation of the World (first century CE). Following the Platonic distinction between the ideal forms and the material world, Philo interprets Genesis as describing a double creation. He distinguishes the Garden of Eden story from the Priestly narrative as referring to two different creation events: ‘The man so formed [= Gen 2:7] is … by nature mortal; while he that was after the image [= Gen 1:27] was an idea or type or seal, … by nature incorruptible’ (Opif. 134). ²⁰ Thomas Tobin explains that ‘in Middle Platonism it was a commonplace that man, like other sensible beings, was made according to an intelligible paradigm. The man created in Gen 1:27 became that heavenly paradigm, while the man created in Gen 2:7 became the sensible, earthly man.’ ²¹

A more harmonious fusing of both creation narratives occurs in chapters 9 and 10 of the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon (late first century BCE or early first century CE). The Solomonic prayer in Wis 9:1–3 largely follows Genesis 1: ‘You made all things by your word, and by your wisdom have prepared humankind to have dominion over the creatures made by you and to manage the world with piety and righteousness.’ ²² By way of contrast, Wis 10:1 depends on the story of Adam’s sin (Genesis 2–3) when it describes the role of the personified figure of Wisdom: ‘She herself preserved the first-formed father of the world, when he alone had been created, and she delivered him from his own transgression.’ ²³ However, the next verse reverts to the cosmology of Genesis 1: ‘And she [= Wisdom] gave him [= Adam] strength to rule all things’ (Wis 10:2).

Similarly, Ben Sira harmonizes the Genesis creation stories and ignores any potential inconsistency. Thus, elements from Genesis 1 and Genesis 2–3 are combined in Sir 33:7–15, a passage that mentions God’s allocation of days within creation as well as the fashioning of humanity from the dust. Here, while describing the divine ordering of the world, Ben Sira imitates Gen 1:14 in referring to the Jewish religious calendar: ‘Why is a day superior to another day, when all light of a day within a year is from the sun? By the Lord’s knowledge they have been separated, and he has differentiated times and festivals’ (Sir 33:7–8 G). ²⁴ The sage then echoes the end of the Priestly creation story by alluding particularly to the sanctification of the Sabbath (and perhaps feasts): ‘Some of them [= days] he blessed and they were made holy, and some of them he allocated to the numbered days’ (Sir 33:9 H^E). ²⁵ While the first creation story numbers the six weekdays (Gen 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31), Gen 2:3 declares of the Sabbath: ‘God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.’ The sage next moves from the Priestly vision to an echo of the Yahwist’s account narrating the creation of Adam (Sir 33:10 H^E): ²⁶

וגם איש]כלי חמר ומן עפר נוצר אדם]

[And also man is] a vessel of clay,

and from dust humanity/Adam was fashioned.

Here as in Gen 2:7, the Hebrew verb יצר refers to God’s act of ‘fashioning’ the man from dust, while Sir 33:13 H^E also employs the image of the ‘potter’ (יוצר), using the participle of the same verb.

The short poem (Sir 33:7–15) ends with the contrast of good and evil: ‘Good is the opposite of evil, and death is the opposite of life’ (33:14 H^E/G). The first word pair recalls ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ (Gen 2:17), while the second word pair echoes the theme of death and life within the Yahwist’s narrative (Gen 3:19–22). Mention of these contrasting pairs within a creation context suggests that Ben Sira may be thinking of a balanced creation, along the lines of the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus, who died during Ben Sira’s lifetime (ca. 206 BCE). In the fourth book of his work On Providence (according to Gellius 7.1.1–4), he writes: ‘Since goods are opposite to evils, the two must necessarily exist in opposition to each other and supported by a kind of opposed interdependence …. How could there be perception of justice if there were no injustices?’ (SVF 2.1169). ²⁷ Similarly, Sir 33:15 H^E/G concludes: ‘Look at all God’s works: all of them are in pairs, one corresponding to the other.’

Ben Sira’s reference to the creation of humanity in the Greek of Sir 17:1–2 (where the Hebrew has not survived) also harmonizes both Genesis creation stories with each other, as well as with the Stoic idea of death as a natural element within the providential world order. ²⁸ We shall see that the Greek text of Sir 17:2b–4 mainly echoes Genesis 1: ‘He gave them authority over the things upon it [= the earth]. In accordance with themselves he clothed them with strength, and according to his image he made them. He placed the fear of him upon all flesh, and to have dominion over beasts and birds.’ ²⁹ But we shall also see that the Greek of Sir 17:1 largely echoes Genesis 2–3: ‘The Lord created man/humanity from earth, and again he made him return to it.’ ³⁰ Moreover, we shall observe that while the motif of returning to the earth (Sir 17:1b) may be an echo of the divine condemnation of Adam in Gen 3:19, the statement in the Greek of Sir 17:2a (‘a number of days and a time he gave to them’) is comparable to the Stoic idea of the providential ordering of the world, as well as to Psalm 90.

The mixing of echoes of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2–3 in the opening verses of Sirach 17 is noted by John Collins: ‘In this passage, Ben Sira makes no distinction between the two accounts of creation, in Genesis 1 (the image of God) and Genesis 2–3 (taken from the earth).’ ³¹ Pancratius Beentjes also comments on the mingling of allusions to both Genesis creation narratives here: ³²

Whereas the creation of the [cosmic] elements as well as the creation of the animals (16:26–30) follow the pattern of the first creation story, when it comes to the creation of human beings (17:1a) and their death (17:1b), passages are explicitly quoted from the second creation story. Thereafter [= 17:3–4], Ben Sira restricts himself to quotations from and allusions to the first creation story.

The way that Ben Sira draws on both Genesis creation accounts will be treated in more detail in the following discussion.

Humanity as Made from the Earth and Returning to Dust

We find an echo of the Yahwist’s narrative (Gen 2:7) in Sir 17:1a, since the Greek text states: ‘The Lord created man/humanity from earth.’ After considering the rest of creation (16:26–30), in 17:1 Ben Sira moves on to God’s making of human beings, who, even more than the animals, have received the blessings of divine providence. Using the generic term ἄνθρωπον (‘human being’), Sir 17:1 reflects the story of the creation of Adam from the earth (Gen 2:7) rather than the making of Eve from Adam’s side (Gen 2:21–22). John Collins observes that here ‘Sirach ignores the reference to male and female in Gen 1:27.’ ³³ However, after Sir 17:4 the Latin remedies the omission by adding a gloss: ‘He created from himself a helper resembling himself.’ ³⁴

Even though the human being’s creation from the earth echoes Genesis 2, the wording of Sir 17:1a G (‘The Lord created man/humanity from earth’) differs somewhat from the Greek of Gen 2:7a (‘God fashioned the man, dust from the earth’). Whereas the Hebrew of Gen 2:7 employs the verb ‘fashion’ (יצר = πλάσσω), the Greek of Sir 17:1 utilizes the verb κτίζω, meaning ‘found’ [a city] in classical usage but ‘create’ in Septuagintal and New Testament parlance. However, it is interesting that LXX Genesis 1 never actually uses the verb κτίζω (‘create’) but instead employs the common word ποιέω (‘make’), as in Gen 1:1.

Immediately after referring to the divine creation of humanity, Ben Sira mentions human mortality. According to the Greek text, Sir 17:1b says: ‘And again he made him return (άπέστρεψεν) to it,’ with an echo of LXX Gen 3:19bc: ‘Until your return (άποστρέψαι) to the earth from which you were taken; for earth you are, and to earth you shall depart.’ ³⁵ To be sure, humanity here belongs with the other living things created by God to fill the earth, because ‘into it is their return’ (άποστροφή, Sir 16:30 G). Later, the sage asserts more generally that ‘everything’ returns to the earth (Sir 40:11 H^B):

כל מארץ אל ארץ ישוב ואשר ממרום אל מרום

Everything from the earth will return to the earth,

and what is from on high [will return] on high.

A more complex echo of Gen 3:19–20 appears in Sir 40:1 H^B, where the phrase ‘mother of everyone living’ is transferred from Eve (Gen 3:20) to mother earth (cf. Job 1:21): ‘Great preoccupation did God create/assign, and a heavy yoke upon the sons of men, from the day of his going forth from his mother’s womb until the day of his return (שובו) to the mother of everyone living [= mother earth].’ ³⁶

Qoheleth is also concerned with human mortality, expressed through the Genesis imagery of returning to dust. While questioning whether there is an afterlife, the author says: ‘Everyone goes to one place; everyone came to be from the dust, and everyone returns (שב) to the dust. Who knows whether the spirit of the sons of Adam ascends upwards and the spirit of the beasts descends downwards to the earth?’ (Qoh 3:20–21). Later, at the end of the famous depiction of old age, Qoh 12:7 declares: ‘And let the dust return (וישב) to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return (תשוב) to God who gave it.’ ³⁷

Since death is the common fate of humanity (Sir 8:7; 14:18–19; 38:21–22), it might initially seem also to be presented as something natural in Sir 14:17 H^A: ‘All flesh will wear out like a garment and the eternal/age-old statute (םלוע קוח) is: “They shall indeed expire” (ועוגי עוג).’ The mention of the ‘eternal/age-old statute’ could be regarded as an echo of the Greek idea of the ‘fate of death’ (θανάτου μοῖρα) found in Aeschylus (Pers. 917; Ag. 1462). ³⁸ However, in biblical thought the depiction of death as the ‘eternal/age-old statute’ need not necessarily refer to a ‘law of nature’ (despite Jer 5:22), but may allude to a God-given decree (cf. Sir 45:7)—in this case the divine warning of death if Adam and Eve eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:17; 3:19). ³⁹ A similar allusion to God’s decree in Genesis 2–3 may be implied in Sir 41:3–4 H^M/B: ‘Do not be afraid of death, the statute for you; remember (that) those earlier and those later are alongside you. This is the end/portion of all flesh from God, and why will you reject the law of the Most High (ןוילע תרות)?’ ⁴⁰ The terms used for death, namely ‘statute’ (14:17; 41:3) and ‘law’ (41:4), are Priestly terms, yet here they refer to the divine sentence of mortality pronounced in the Yahwist’s narrative (Gen 3:19)—another case of harmonization of both Genesis creation stories. Nevertheless, Ben Sira’s focus in 17:1 is not on death as a penalty for human sin, but on God’s providential care for mortal human beings.

God’s Allocation of a Number of Days for the Human Lifespan

By contrast with the notion that death entered the world as the divine punishment for the primeval sin of Adam and Eve, we also encounter the view that death is somehow natural for human beings. At first glance, Sirach 17 suggests that divine providence created human beings with a fixed tally of days for earthly life. Accordingly, Ben Sira’s selective use of Genesis in Sirach 17 results in a new presentation, as John Collins has argued, both from what is stated and from what is left unsaid: ‘In this reading of Genesis, there is no Fall, in the sense of one fateful event that changed the circumstances of human life. Neither sin nor death can be attributed to the deed of Adam (or Eve). Death is simply the decree of God for all flesh, and sin is the responsibility of every human being.’ ⁴¹

The opening of Sirach 17 speaks of God’s allocation of a fixed number of days for human life: ‘The Lord created man/humanity from earth, and again he made him return to it; a number of days and a time he gave to them’ (Sir 17:1–2a G). ⁴² Because God has fixed the length of human life, Ben Sira calls death ‘the end/portion of all flesh from God’ as well as ‘the law of the Most High’ (Sir 41:4 H^M/B). Unlike St Paul and 4 Ezra, there is no specific statement here that death resulted from the sin of Adam himself, although Sir 25:24 seems to blame Eve for the introduction of death into the world. Hence we may ask whether Sir 17:1–2 indeed presents death as something natural, unconnected with human sin, or whether Ben Sira is perhaps inconsistent in his view of the origin of sin and death, here emphasizing human freewill and responsibility but in 25:24 alluding to the transgression of Eve.

It is possible that Sir 17:2a reflects God’s announcement before the flood, restricting the lifespan of human beings because of their apostasy: ‘their days will be 120 years’ (Gen 6:3). According to Gerald Sheppard, ‘a statement that arises out of an etiological setting of requisite divine judgment upon the emergence of post-creation sin is now taken simply as generally indicative of created humanity.’ ⁴³ Nevertheless, what seems a declaration about the maximum human lifespan raises problems even within the Book of Genesis, since Abraham later reached the age of 175 (Gen 25:7), Isaac lived 180 years (Gen 35:28) and Jacob died at the age of 147 (Gen 47:28). ⁴⁴

Although the Priestly creation narrative unfolds in a series of ‘days’ (Gen 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31; 2:2) and Gen 6:3 also speaks of a limit for the days of human life, the assertion that God gave humanity ‘a number of days’ (Sir 17:2) seems to derive more immediately from sage reflection on divine eternity and human mortality, clearly expressed in Psalm 90: ‘The days of our years—in them are seventy years, and if with strength eighty years … To number our days (למנות ימינו), so make known [to us], and we will bring a wise heart’ (Ps 90:10, 12). ⁴⁵

Ben Sira’s reference to a ‘number of days’ for human life also reflects his mathematical interest, which corresponds with his belief in God’s providential ordering of the universe, where nothing needs to be added and nothing subtracted (Sir 42:21). ⁴⁶ The sage’s description of the human lifespan (= a ‘number of days’) forms a clear contrast with his assertion of God’s eternity, since the Greek text of Sir 18:1 calls the Deity ‘the one living forever,’ while Sir 36:22 G proclaims: ‘You are the Lord God of the ages.’

Other biblical writings also reflect the awareness that the days of a human life are numbered. For instance, the author of Qoh 2:3 resolves to experience folly as well as wisdom, ‘until I could see what is good for human beings that they should do under the heavens for the number of the days of their lives (מספר ימי חייהם).’ Moreover, from the tempest God makes an ironic comment to Job: ‘You must know, for you were born then, and the number of your days (מספר ימיך) is great’ (Job 38:21). ⁴⁷ The idea that the length of a human life is predetermined also occurs in the late Egyptian wisdom tradition, since Papyrus Insinger 18:5 asserts: ‘Neither the impious nor the godly man can alter the lifetime that was assigned to him.’ ⁴⁸

Echoing the earlier biblical books, the Hebrew text of Ben Sira several times employs the phrase ‘number of days’ (מספר ימים), or a variation thereof. This phrase emphasizes the shortness of human life in comparison with both God’s everlasting nature and the eternity of Israel’s existence. Sirach 37:25 H^D contrasts the limited lifespan of a human individual (cf. Ps 90:10) with the everlasting existence of the people of Israel (cf. Jer 31:36): ‘The life of a mortal is days, a number, but the life of Jeshurun [= Israel] is days without number.’ ⁴⁹ Furthermore, this phrase ‘number of days’ expresses the brevity of human life in comparison with the eternity of a good reputation, since a contrast exists between the limited length of one’s human life and the permanence of a good reputation: ‘The good of someone living is numbered days, but the good of a name is days without number’ (Sir 41:13 H^B). ⁵⁰

Later within the long poem on divine mercy and human sin (15:11–18:14), Ben Sira comes back to the theme of the brevity of human life, since Sir 18:9–10 G asserts: ‘As for the number of days of a human being, a hundred years are many. Like a drop of water from the sea and a grain of sand, so are a few years among the day(s) of eternity.’ In this context, the limitedness of humanity is a motive for divine compassion (cf. Wis 11:21–26), in line with the Psalmist’s statement that recalls Gen 2:7 (Ps 103:13–14): ‘As a father has compassion on sons, YHWH has compassion on those who fear him, for he himself knows our fashioning; it is remembered that we are dust.’

By mentioning a fixed number of days for human life, Ben Sira aims to present death as something that human beings need not fear (Sir 41:3–4). This motif parallels the teaching of the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341–270 BCE), as preserved in Philodemus’s treatise Against the Sophists 4.9–14 (Herculaneum Papyrus 1005): ‘The fourfold remedy: God presents no fears, death no worries. And while good is readily attainable, evil is readily endurable.’ ⁵¹ The second Epicurean element, ‘death [presents] no worries,’ is akin to Ben Sira’s teaching: ‘Do not be afraid of death, the statute for you’ (Sir 41:3 H^M). Elsewhere, Epicurus asserts that human beings need not fear death: ‘There is nothing fearful in living for one who genuinely grasps that there is nothing fearful in not living’ (Letter to Menoeceus 124). ⁵² Such a view contrasts sharply with the teaching of Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics: ‘The most terrible thing of all is death’ (Eth. Nic. 3.3.6 §1115a). ⁵³

Ben Sira’s theology of a limited human lifespan is in line with the Stoic view of divine providence in the ordering of the world. Plutarch’s text On Stoic Self-Contradictions 1050C (SVF 2.937) reports the teaching of the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus: ⁵⁴

Since universal nature reaches everywhere, it must be the case that however anything happens in the whole and in any of its parts, it happens in accordance with universal nature and its reasons in unhindered sequence, because neither is there anything which could interfere with its government from outside, nor is there any way for any of its parts to enter any process or state except in accordance with universal nature.

According to Ursel Wicke-Reuter, the teleological orientation of Ben Sira’s teaching on creation has a parallel to Stoic cosmology: ‘Everything in the world—from the heavenly bodies, through the plants and animals, up to humanity—has received a special function assigned by God.’ ⁵⁵ Although some differences exist between Stoic ideas and Ben Sira’s teaching, ⁵⁶ we can still propose that, along with Psalm 90, Stoic philosophy may well have stimulated the sage’s thinking regarding the limited life-span of human beings as part of the providential ordering of the universe. Hence we conclude that the divine allocation of a set period of time for human life (Sir 17:2) does not directly derive from the Book of Genesis, but echoes Psalm 90 and perhaps Stoic philosophy.

Death as Punishment for the Primeval Sin of Adam and Eve

The traditional view in Christian theology, based on an interpretation of the Yahwist’s narrative in Genesis 2–3, has been that human beings were created immortal but that this immortality was lost by human sin. ⁵⁷ To be sure, James Barr has observed that Genesis 1–3 (when understood on its own) actually makes no explicit pronouncement about initial human immortality: ‘The story nowhere says that Adam, before his disobedience, was immortal, was never going to die.’ ⁵⁸ Similarly, Michael Knibb asserts: ‘There is no suggestion in the narratives of the creation and fall … that man was created immortal and lost his immortality as a result of disobedience.’ ⁵⁹ However, this idea appears plainly in the reflection on creation in the first Sibylline Oracle, perhaps dating from the second century CE: ‘The Immortal [= God] became angry with them and expelled them from the place of immortals’ (Sib. Or. 1:50–51). ⁶⁰ This notion also occurs already in 1 Enoch 69:11 (perhaps first century CE): ‘Human beings were not created but to be like angels, permanently to maintain pure and righteous lives. Death, which destroys everything, would not have touched them, had it not been through their knowledge [= of good and evil] by which they shall perish.’ ⁶¹

This notion of the loss of primeval immortality occurs in St Paul’s letters from the mid-first century CE, since Rom 5:12 asserts: ‘Through one human being, sin came into the world, and through sin came death,’ while 1 Cor 15:21–22 states that ‘through a human being came death,’ and ‘in Adam all die.’ ⁶² Paul’s thinking in Rom 5:14 (‘from Adam to Moses’) and 1 Cor 15:45 (‘The first man, Adam, became a living being’) suggests that the single figure of Adam (rather than Everyman) is primary in Paul’s thought in Rom 5:12 and 1 Cor 15:21. Paul has chosen Adam (rather than Eve) as the figure representing subsequent humanity, so as to draw a contrast with Christ. The portrayal of Adam as bringer of sin and death (Rom 5:12) serves as the opposite of Jesus Christ, seen as bringing righteousness and life.

Here the apostle builds on an idea found in the opening chapter of the Book of Wisdom: ‘God did not make death, nor is he delighted in the destruction of the living, for he created all things so that they might exist’ (Wis 1:13–14). The next chapter of the Book of Wisdom harmonizes both Genesis creation accounts when it describes the entry of death into the world, since Wis 2:23 is based on the Priestly account in Genesis 1 whereas Wis 2:24 derives from the Yahwist’s narrative in either Genesis 3 or Genesis 4. ⁶³ According to Wis 2:23, ‘God created man/humanity for incorruption (ἀφθαρσία), and made him the image of his own nature [or: eternity].’ The term ‘incorruption’ (ἀφθαρσία) is the noun used four times by St Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 to describe the resurrected state (1 Cor 15:42, 50, 53, 54), with the sense of immortality. Mention of the image (εἰκὼν) in Wis 2:23 takes up the language of Gen 1:26–27, with the implication that humanity’s creation in the image of God includes immortality. ⁶⁴

The next verse of the Book of Wisdom alludes to the Yahwist’s narrative describing how mortality came into the world: ‘By the envy of the devil [or: an adversary; Greek διαβόλου] death entered the world’ (Wis 2:24). While the noun διάβολος can be understood as denoting the devil or Satan (LXX Job 1:6; Matt 4:1; Rev 12:9), it can also refer to a human adversary, such as the royal advisor Haman (LXX Esth 7:4). ⁶⁵ Whereas many commentators have seen this passage as referring to the sin of Adam (cf. Wis 10:1–2), Henry Kelly has recently argued that the διάβολος (understood as ‘adversary’) denotes Cain and that the passage alludes to the killing of Abel (cf. Wis 10:3). ⁶⁶ For the purposes of this article, we may note that both views agree that there is an allusion to the Yahwist’s primeval history, whether it be the primeval sin in Genesis 3 or the first recorded murder in Genesis 4.

Paul’s view of the origin of sin and death in the world builds on the interpretations of the early chapters of Genesis, such as in Wisdom 1–2. Despite his misogynistic reputation (based mainly on 1 Cor 11:2–16; 14:34–36), Paul states that sin and death entered the world not through Eve (as in Sir 25:24) but through Adam (Rom 5:12; 1 Cor 15:21–22). Here Paul matches the focus on the unnamed figure of Adam (and the ignoring of Eve) in the thought of Wis 10:1: ‘She [= Wisdom] herself preserved the first-formed father of the world, when he alone had been created, and she delivered him from his own transgression.’ ⁶⁷

Adam is blamed for introducing sin and death into the world, according to two Jewish or Jewish-Christian apocalyptic works that build upon Genesis, dating from around the end of the first century CE. Both 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch wrestle with problems of theodicy because of disasters that have come upon Israel, and they trace the suffering back to the primeval offence. Addressing God, 4 Ezra 3:7 states: ‘You laid upon him [= Adam] one commandment of yours; but he transgressed it, and immediately you appointed death for him and for his descendants,’ while 4 Ezra 3:21 asserts: ‘The first Adam, burdened with an evil heart, transgressed and was overcome.’ ⁶⁸ In a similar vein, 2 Baruch 23:4 says: ‘Adam sinned and death was decreed against those who were to be born,’ while 2 Baruch 54:15 declares: ‘Adam sinned first and has brought death upon all who were not in his own time.’ ⁶⁹

Whereas such texts put the blame on Adam, the notion that death was introduced by the primeval sin of Eve (traced back to Genesis 3) occurs already in Sir 25:24 H^C: ⁷⁰

מאשה תחלת עון ובגללה גוענו יחד

From a woman is the beginning of iniquity,

and on account of her we expire altogether.

This verse is the first surviving Jewish text to attribute to a woman the introduction of sin and death into the world. According to traditional interpreters, such a reading draws out what is implicit in the Yahwist’s creation narrative, though Ben Sira employs language somewhat different from the story in Genesis 2–3. ⁷¹ Scholars have observed that Eve’s name in Gen 3:20 (rendered ζωή, meaning Life, in the LXX) is ironic, since her action brought death into the world (Gen 3:19). ⁷² Nevertheless, by giving birth to Cain and Abel (Gen 4:1–2) and then Seth (Gen 4:25), Eve did indeed become the ‘mother of everyone living’ (Gen 3:20) according to the Yahwist’s narrative. However, ignoring the fact that the man also ate the forbidden fruit with her, Ben Sira has focused on the woman’s error, presenting her as a kind of Pandora figure. ⁷³ The context of Sir 25:24 explains Ben Sira’s purpose in focusing on Eve: he wishes to characterize the bad wife as continuing the evil pattern begun by the first woman in Genesis 3. ⁷⁴

In the wake of Sir 25:24, a misogynistic tradition arose in some traditions within both Judaism and Christianity. ⁷⁵ One Deutero-Pauline passage blames the primeval sin on Eve: ‘Adam was not deceived, but the woman, having been deceived, came to be in transgression’ (1 Tim 2:14). Similarly, the Book of Biblical Antiquities (perhaps first century CE) also says: ‘That man transgressed my ways and was persuaded by his wife, and she was deceived by the serpent. And then death was ordained for the generations of men’ (L.A.B. 13:8). ⁷⁶

Eve also receives blame in the first century CE author Philo, whose treatise on creation declares: ‘Woman becomes for him [= Adam] the beginning of a blameworthy life’ (Opif. 151). ⁷⁷ Elsewhere, viewing woman as ‘the beginning of evil’ (Q.G. 1.45), Philo misogynistically says: ‘It was fitting that man should rule over immortality and everything good, but woman over death and everything vile’ (Q.G. 1.37). ⁷⁸ To be sure, within an outlook influenced by Platonic thought, Philo also apportions blame to Adam for introducing death into the world: ‘Giving up immortality and a blessed life, you [= Adam] have gone over to death and unhappiness’ (Q.G. 1.45). ⁷⁹

Several later pseudepigraphic texts continue the blaming of Eve begun in Ben Sira. The first Sibylline Oracle declares: ‘The woman first became a betrayer to him [= Adam]. She gave, and persuaded him to sin in his ignorance’ (Sib. Or. 1.42–43). ⁸⁰ More pointedly, in the Greek Apocalypse of Moses, Adam asks Eve: ‘Why have you wrought destruction among us and brought upon us great wrath, which is death gaining rule over all our race?’ (Apoc. Mos. 14:2). ⁸¹ Similarly, the parallel passage in the Latin Life of Adam and Eve recounts Adam’s question to Eve: ‘What have you done? You have brought upon us a great wound, transgression and sin in all our generations’ (L.A.E. 44:2). Such texts show that a number of Jewish and Christian writers sought to pin the blame for human mortality on either Eve or Adam, or both of them.

Ben Sira’s View of Primeval Sin

We have seen that because Sir 17:1–2 makes no explicit mention of any sin of Adam and Eve, some scholars have denied that Ben Sira has a doctrine of primeval sin. ⁸² On this view, Ben Sira teaches that death is the natural end for which human beings were created rather than a penalty for the sin of the first human beings. In the present context (Sir 15:11–18:14), ⁸³ where the sage is concerned with the avoidance of sin (e.g., 15:20 H^A/G; cf. 16:21 H^A), it is noteworthy that he does not seem to attribute the origin of death to the primeval sin, as the apostle Paul later does. Possibly here he wishes to emphasize human responsibility (Sir 15:11–20) rather than blaming a sinful ancestor.

It has been claimed that we encounter a contradiction in Ben Sira’s thought between Sir 17:1–2 and 25:24. ⁸⁴ On the one hand, John Collins comments on Sir 17:1–2: ‘The most surprising aspect of this meditation on Genesis is that it ignores the sin of Adam completely …. In chapter 17, death is not considered a punishment for sin. God limited human life from the start (17:2).’ ⁸⁵ On the other hand, Collins also asserts that ‘there can be no doubt that Sir 25:24 … is the earliest extant witness to the view that Eve was responsible for the introduction of sin and death.’ ⁸⁶ This supposed contradiction can be resolved, either by denying that Sir 25:24 refers to Eve, ⁸⁷ or by asserting that Sir 17:1 does in fact see death as a penalty for primeval human sin in accord with Gen 3:19, where the same verb ἀποστρέφω occurs. ⁸⁸ Yet even if Sir 17:1–2 is not a complete contradiction of Sir 25:24, it certainly offers a difference of emphasis, as Collins declares: ‘Ben Sira, then, represents a line of interpretation of Genesis that took the story as paradigmatic of the human situation rather than as a narrative that explained its origin.’ ⁸⁹

Although Sir 17:1 uses the verb from Gen 3:19 to describe the ‘return’ of humanity to the earth in death, Ben Sira here passes over the wider context of Genesis 3 which seems to regard mortality as a divine punishment for the first human sin. Instead, he presents death as completing a fixed number of days allotted to humanity (cf. Sir 37:25; 41:13). Gerald Sheppard comments on Ben Sira’s reinterpretation of Gen 3:19 in Sir 17:1–2: ‘In the Genesis narratives the statement belongs to God’s judgment against Adam and Eve for their rebellion in the garden. Here, however, it is simply recognized as a universal axiom of created humanity. Its original relation to man’s sin in the garden has been intentionally obscured.’ ⁹⁰ Similarly, Shane Berg also asserts: ⁹¹

Genesis 3:19 in its own literary context, of course, is in fact one of the curses that follow on Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the garden and thus represents a tragic departure from the created order. Ben Sira passes over this crucial narrative element completely and instead benignly suggests that human mortality is a natural feature of the ebb and flow of God’s plan for creation.

However, it seems that Ben Sira has reinterpreted Genesis 2–3 in light of Psalm 90, which speaks of a fixed number of days for the life of human beings before they return to the dust. This motif of the return of human beings to the earth echoes the prayer in Psalm 90: ‘Do not make humanity return (ἀποστρέψῃς) to humiliation.—And you said: ‘Turn back, sons of human beings’ (LXX Ps 90:3). The opening verses of this psalm draw a contrast between God’s eternity and the limited number of days for humanity without mentioning human sin, and hence Ps 90:1–4 could be understood to suggest that there is no direct causal connection between sin and death, although Ps 90:8 refers to ‘iniquities.’

Conclusion

Far from ignoring Genesis 1–3, Ben Sira makes ample but selective use of motifs from these chapters, harmonizing elements drawn from the two creation narratives, viewed in light of Psalm 90. Berg sees the juxtaposition of the two Genesis texts in Sir 17:1–2 as significant: ‘In their new literary relationship in Ben Sira’s creation narrative they describe a facet of human existence—mortality—that is built into the created order. Just as people are created from the ground, so too do they return to it in death.’ ⁹² Although some interpretations of Genesis 3 within Second Temple Judaism emphasized human mortality as deriving from the primeval sin, Sir 17:1–2 instead follows Jewish sapiential reflection and Stoic teaching to present death as something natural within God’s providential plan. Since the sage’s original book has no hope of resurrection (unlike the expanded Greek version), ⁹³ he is able to accept human mortality as part of the divine ordering of the world (Sir 41:3–4). In his view, immortality comes from having virtuous descendants and a lasting good reputation (Sir 44:10–15). ⁹⁴ For the sage, according to Seán Goan, the return of living beings to the earth ‘does not in any way undermine the value of creation but is simply another manifestation of the finite nature of the work [of creation] over against the infinite majesty of God.’ ⁹⁵ Thus, ignoring most of the potentially negative elements of Genesis, Ben Sira has instead emphasized God’s providential goodness towards the human race. ⁹⁶