Retranslating Genesis 1–2: Reconnecting Biblical Thought and Contemporary Experience

1. God’s wind/breath (Gen 1.1-3)

Gen 1.1-3

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God [rûaḥ ʼĕlōhîm] moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. (KJV)

In the beginning when God created* the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God* swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (NRSV)

* Or when God began to create or In the beginning God created

* Or while the spirit of God or while a mighty wind

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (NIV)

When God began to create heaven and earth—the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (NJPS)

When God began to create* the heavens and the earth—the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God’s wind swept over the waters—God said, “Let there be light.” And so light appeared. (CEB)

* Or In the beginning, God created

The key issue in Gen 1.1-3 for our purposes here is the understanding of God’s nature imbedded in the phrase rûaḥ ’ĕlōhîm in Gen 1.2. When the translators of KJV rendered rûaḥ as “Spirit,” they introduced into biblical thought the Cartesian split between spirit and matter, unknown to biblical writers, and they thereby connected God as Spirit with a spiritual realm and distanced God categorically from the physical realm of the world. Their capital “S” was a Cartesian exclamation point to impose their new philosophy onto the text. The Cartesian split between spirit and matter is foreign to biblical thought and absent from the semantic possibilities for translating rûaḥ. Even though Brown, Driver, and Briggs and other Hebrew lexicons preserve Cartesian thought and include an entry for “spirit” in their definitions for rûaḥ, the word rûaḥ is always physical and material in the Hebrew Scriptures, referring either to the winds of the atmosphere or to the breath of animate beings. It never signifies a spiritual reality different from the physical world (Hiebert 2008).

When attributed to God here at creation, rûaḥ probably means “wind,” as it is now rendered in NRSV, NJPS, and CEB, since it is likely drawing on the ancient traditions from Mesopotamia of divine winds subduing preexistent chaos at creation. Or rûaḥ may also evoke here its meaning “breath,” since God speaks the world into being in this Priestly creation account. However we translate it, rûaḥ ’ĕlōhîm does not create a spiritual world of ultimate meaning unconnected to the world of nature. Rather, it connects God’s being and God’s activity directly with the earth and its processes, in particular with the air that we breathe, thereby granting the real physical world a central place in biblical theology. Such a view of God as a being primarily active in the physical realm is a much more productive place to begin an ecological conversation with Scripture about God and the world today than the Cartesian God imposed on Scripture by the translators of KJV.

2. Classification of plants (Gen 1.11)

Gen 1.11

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass [deše’], the herb [‘ēśeb] yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. (KJV)

Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on the earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. (NRSV)

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. (NIV)

And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation: seed-bearing plants, fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. (NJPS)

God said, “Let the earth grow plant life: plants yielding seeds and fruit trees bearing fruit with seeds inside it, each according to its kind throughout the earth.” And that’s what happened. (CEB)

God said, “Let the earth grow plants: grains yielding seeds, and fruit trees bearing fruit with its seed inside it, each according to its kind throughout the earth.” And that’s what happened. (my translation)

The Priestly writer’s classification of plants on the third day of creation in Gen 1.11 makes a simple point that badly needs to be recovered today: Biblical writers were seriously interested in the natural world, as seriously interested as contemporary scientists are. This real interest in the world has been obscured because biblical thought has been connected primarily with a spiritual rather than a material realm, or with a historical religion rather than a nature religion. Or the natural world has been handed over to science, because of conflicts between science and the Bible, and biblical creation stories have been understood to be merely religious or mythic or poetic. The fact is that biblical writers took nature seriously. Within their own cosmologies, now outdated of course, they did their best to describe the natural world as a fundamental aspect of their religious worldview.

In Gen 1.11, I want to focus only on one term, ‘ēśeb, which I believe we should translate “grain.” As you can see in the translations above, the second translator and the editor of CEB, as well as other translators, have chosen the traditional translation “plants” for ‘ēśeb, and I want to explain what I think we might gain by the more precise translation “grains.” Everyone since the KJV translation knows we should understand deše’ as the designation for plant life in general, followed by the enumeration of more specific kinds of plants following this word. Note the colon everyone uses. But what we have missed is the biological precision of the Priestly writer, his brief but careful taxonomy of the plant kingdom, and thereby his deeply religious interest in nature.

The Yahwist clearly uses ‘ēśeb as a technical term for “grain” (Hiebert 1996, 34–35). If the Priestly writer does too, then he uses the same careful observational techniques scientists employ to divide the plant kingdom into two branches, branches that a modern scientist would describe as families. The first branch or family comprises grasses or grains, which produce seeds clearly visible on the stalk, and which represent the primary plant on which ancient Israel’s dry-land farming was based. The second family comprises fruits, whose seeds are produced inside the fruit, and which supplement the annual grain crops in the mixed economy of ancient subsistence agriculture. These two plant types are still distinct families in more complex contemporary scientific plant taxonomies. And they should alert us to the fact that the Bible is not just a religious or mythic document. The Priestly writer was really an ancient scientist, who, given his old cosmology and limited observational powers, constructed a worldview in which the natural world was an integral element in his thought and theology.

3. Humans in God’s image (Gen 1.26)

Gen 1.26

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. (KJV)

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” (NRSV)

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” (NIV)

And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.” (NJPS)

Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us so that they may take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and all the crawling things on earth.” (CEB)

Genesis 1.26 has caused more consternation among environmentalists than any other verse in the Bible, and it has been taken in some circles to represent pretty much all the Bible has to say about ecology. Two things are clear in this Priestly view of the role of the human being in the world: Humans have an exceptional place in the world, as the only being made in God’s image, and they have a privileged position, being given power over all the animals. Such human exceptionalism and human power have been considered potentially dangerous views to hold in an age when we human beings ourselves are responsible for the earth’s demise.

The translator can, however, communicate a crucial fact about the Priestly view of humans in this verse, a fact that has been obscured in most translations. Being made in God’s image bestows no unique divine substance or essence on humans that separates them from the earth and from the rest of its life. Rather, the image of God gives humans a unique role or function, the role of being a divine representative on earth. This is clear in the Hebrew grammar of this verse. The volitive form na‘ăśeh, “let us make,” followed by the unconverted imperfect form, wĕyirdû “they will rule,” indicates purpose or result (Lambdin 1971, 119). Therefore, the second clause of God’s speech should be rendered, “so that they may rule [or] take charge,” as it is translated in NIV and CEB. The image of God makes humans God’s representatives in the world. We cannot remove the Priestly writer’s hierarchy of being nor his view that the human dominates it, which is the topic of a much larger conversation than we can have here. But we can say two things: first, that the Priestly writer does not separate humans from creation by their substance, and, second, that he believes they should take charge of creation as representatives of their Creator, a Creator who brings life into being and makes it flourish. Humans’ primary biblical vocation is to be responsible for the world as God would be. The translation “take charge” in CEB further emphasizes this representative nature of human rule.

4. Humans as farmers (Gen 2.7)

Gen 2.7

And the LORD God formed man of the dust [‘āpār] of the ground [ʼădāmâ], and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (KJV)

Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground,* and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. (NRSV)

*Or formed a man (Heb adam) of dust from the ground (Heb adamah)

Then the LORD God formed a man* from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (NIV)

*The Hebrew for man (adam) sounds like and may be related to the Hebrew for ground (adamah); it is also the name Adam (see verse 20)

The LORD God formed man from the dust of the earth. He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. (NJPS)

The LORD God formed the human* from the topsoil of the fertile land* and blew life’s breath into his nostrils. The human came to life. (CEB)

*Heb adam [note: in v. 5 the footnote on “human being” reads: Or man (Heb adam)]

*Heb adamah

When we turn from the Priestly account of creation in Gen 1 to the Yahwist’s story of creation in the garden of Eden in Gen 2, we find a new and different perspective on the world and, in particular, a different view of human origins. According to the Yahwist, God makes the first human being not in God’s image but out of the earth itself. This is a much more integrated view of the relationship between humans and the world than the Priestly view in Gen 1. And the Hebrew of this account suggests an even more precise and richer understanding of the human–world relationship than any of our translations indicate. KJV’s translation, “dust of the ground,” has become standard. I suspect that both the generality of this translation and its sterile outlook stem from three of the dualistic ways of reading that I have mentioned: the Cartesian demotion of the material world as corrupt and transient, the fascination with history over nature, and the pro-nomadic/anti-agrarian views of Israel’s origins.

The Yahwist employs ’ădāmâ throughout his narrative as a technical term for fertile land, the arable soil in which Israelite farmers cultivated the grains and fruits that sustained their subsistence economy (Hiebert 1996, 34–35, 59). That is how we should translate it here. Furthermore, if the Yahwist’s Creator takes ‘āpār from the surface of fertile land to make the first human being, then ‘āpār must be understood here as the topsoil on the land’s surface, as it is now rendered in CEB. To know that the first human was made “from the topsoil of the fertile land” is to know two important things we have generally overlooked about the human–world relationship in this text. The first is that the human–world relationship is not a relationship with dead and sterile matter, “the dust of the ground,” but a living relationship connecting the powers of the living topsoil with the lives of all humans who are dependent on it.

The second and related insight into the human–world relationship is the Yahwist’s view that humans are first and foremost farmers and dependent on agriculture to survive. While the number of farmers in the USA, for example, has dropped precipitously in an age of industrial agriculture, the truth of our dependence on agriculture has not changed. As Tim Weiskel reminds us, there is no such thing as a “post-agricultural society” (Weiskel 1992, 19). In Wendell Berry’s words, “No matter how urban our life, our bodies live by farming; we come from the earth and return to it, and so we live in agriculture as we live in the flesh” (Berry 1977, 97). In their economic blueprint for a sustainable future, World Bank economist Herman Daly and theologian John Cobb say, “If economics is reconceived in the service of community, it will begin with a concern for agriculture and specifically for the production of food” (Daly and Cobb 1989, 268). Thus, one of the most ancient writers in our religious tradition reminds us exactly who we are: beings who live by farming, and beings who cannot live without a healthy agriculture.

5. Humans as members of Earth’s community (Gen 2.7, 19)

Gen 2.7

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul [nepeš ḥayyâ]. (KJV)

Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. (NRSV)

Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (NIV)

The LORD God formed man from the dust of the earth. He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. (NJPS)

The LORD God formed the human from the topsoil of the fertile land and blew life’s breath into his nostrils. The human came to life. (CEB)

Just as the translators of KJV introduced Cartesian dualism into the beginning of the Priestly creation story when they rendered God’s rûaḥ as “Spirit,” connecting God as Spirit with a spiritual realm and distancing God categorically from the physical realm of the world, so they introduced this same spirit–matter dualism into the beginning of the Yahwist’s creation story by attributing a soul–body split to human beings. Subsequent translators have all recognized the conflict with biblical thought of dividing the human into soul and body in this Cartesian way. And they have avoided the translation “soul” for the Hebrew term nepeš, translating the phrase nepeš ḥayyâ properly as “living being” when it is used for the first human in Gen 2.7.

Gen 2.19

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature [nepeš ḥayyâ], that was the name thereof. (KJV)

So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. (NRSV)

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. (NIV)

And the LORD God formed out of the earth all the wild beasts and all the birds of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that would be its name. (NJPS)

So the LORD God formed from the fertile land all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky and brought them to the human to see what he would name them. The human gave each living being its name. (CEB)

However, these same translators have never felt comfortable giving other forms of life the same dignity of the translation “living being” when the Yahwist refers to them later in Gen 2.19 with the same phrase, nepeš ḥayyâ. Apparently, we have been unable to free ourselves, even when not buying the soul–body dualism for human beings, from the legacy of its distinction. Everyone translates nepeš ḥayyâ “living being” when it is used for the first human, but “living creature” when it is used for all of the other forms of life. In CEB, we have tried to overcome this distinction by using “living being” for all life. In fact, CEB has eliminated the translation “soul” for nepeš throughout the Hebrew Scriptures.

6. Humans as the world’s servants (Gen 2.15)

Gen 2.15

And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress [‘ābad] it and to keep it. (KJV)

The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. (NRSV)

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. (NIV)

The LORD God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden, to till it and tend it. (NJPS)

The LORD God took the human and settled him in the garden of Eden to farm it and to take care of it. (CEB)

Just as the Priestly writer did, the Yahwist defines the human vocation, the primary work of humanity in the world, as a responsibility for the earth. The Yahwist, however, defines this human responsibility for the earth in a completely different way from that of the Priestly writer. According to the Yahwist, God puts the first human being in the garden to “serve” it, employing the Hebrew verb ‘ābad. The verb ‘ābad is the common term for subjects serving their kings, for servants serving their masters, and for people serving their God. In this last case, ‘ābad is a religious term of worship, devotion, attentiveness, and commitment. It is the direct opposite of the Priestly term rādāh “rule.” By using ‘ābad, the Yahwist has made nature, which is the object of such human service, to be in fact the subject that sets the demands and requirements of human devotion and commitment.

Since the Yahwist uses ‘ābad for the first human, having been made from the topsoil of fertile land, who is placed in the garden to care of it, most translators have translated it with a term for cultivation, which is clearly intended in this context. To make this agricultural context as clear and contemporary as possible, I selected the translation “farm” for CEB. However, this translation leaves out the most important part of the Yahwist’s view of the human vocation: that the human was made to serve the land, to meet its needs and requirements, to take it as the object of devotion and commitment. I now wish I had submitted the translation “serve” for ‘ābad in Gen 2.15. My editor may or may not have accepted it, but I wish I had tried. It is just so hard for us as humans to take ourselves out of the center of the picture.

In all of the examples above, we have seen how contemporary ways of thinking have produced translations of the Bible that are both inauthentic to biblical thinking and problematic for constructing a viable ecological ethic. These translations have in both subtle and direct ways decentered the world in biblical religion, separated off the human and the human vocation from it, and privileged the human excessively in the larger scheme of things. They have reinforced perspectives that are unbiblical. And they have presented obstacles for thinking constructively about our role in the world today. By recovering translations that are more faithful to the biblical text, we are able to see the world of the Bible more clearly, and we are provided with richer resources for living sensibly and responsibly in the world today. ¹