The Mysteries of Creation : The Genesis Story

Rating:
Summary: Not bad..
Review: I'll start by stating that the book did stick to it's title: The Mysteries of Creation THE "GENSIS" STORY. To help one better gauge this book, if i had my own ranking system, i would give this a 4 on the nose. It's not 4.5 or 4.9, falling short of a 5 star rating. If you're looking for a book that compares creation accounts extensively in great detail, this is not it. At times, the author's writing style can be a bit vanilla but he makes up for it by sharing some interesting tidbits to tickle your mind.

For example, he gives a little background on how there were other Hebrew creation poems and traditions that existed in Israel in ancient times. He refers the reader to Job38:7 and Isaiah40:12,21-22 as remnants and allusions to those earlier epics. He states that the Hebrew Creation account based on biblical experts(no names given) plausibly date the text narrative around the 6th century, B.C.E. and belive the author wrote it for the exicled Jews in Chaldea (Babylon). He does wet the appetite for one to do more research on Creation accounts. He gave a side by side of the Hebrew account vs. the Babylonian Cosmogony, 'Enuma Elish':

GENSIS (Hebrew Creation Account)
1) Chaos; darkness
covering the deep
2) Light created
3) Creation of firmament
4) Creation of dry land
5) Creation of luminaries
6) Creation of man
7) God rests and hallows
the seventh day

ENUMA ELISH (Babylonian Cosmogony)
1) Primeval chaos; the Ti'ama(the sea)
enveloped in darkness
2) Light from the gods
3) Firmament
4) Dry Land
5) Luminaries
6) Man
7) The gods rest and are festive
the seventh day


He also touched on the authorship of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy with reference to sources such as: "J" - Yahwist(Judah/Southern Kingdom); "E" -Elohist (Ephraim/Northern Kingdom); "P"-Priest and "D"-author of Deuteronomy. And also, "R"-Redactor(Editor of the J,E,P, and D accounts.) To better understand this belief or methodology, i'd refer one to Richard Elliott Friedman's: WHO WROTE THE BIBLE? This book is an excellent read but would have been better titled: 'WHO WROTE THE TORAH' or 'WHO WROTE THE FIRST FIVE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE?' This book will give one a greater understanding of what was going on during the time of the judges and kings. I highly recommend it!

Back to the Mysteries of Creation. The author made reference to the HEPTADIC Principle, which focuses on the number 7. He goes on to explain that the number seven was not uncommon to be used as a daily part of Near Eastern Semitic customs and manners. Ex. When a king sat in council he generally had six ministers of state seated with him. He states that in the original Semitic language, Genesis1:1 consisted of "seven" words; the second verse contained fourteen(2 x 7); the literary of teh creation account itself consisting of six creation days and the final day of rest. He lengthens this point by sharing that teh nouns "God(35 times, 7 x 5)," "heaven and earth (21 ties, 7 x 3)" appear in multiples of seven. The term "water" appears seven times. And the expression "that it was beatiful"(Hebrew: "that is was good") appears seven times. He states that this same principle can be seen in the book of Revelation with the body of the book having seven visions, each vision divided into seven parts. Seven churches, angels(messengers) admonitions, lampstands, seals, trumpets, bowls and so forth. He strengthens his arguement by stating how some researchers claim that the adoption of the number seven may have originated from pristine astronomy. Seven planets were known to the ancients: SUN, MOON, MERCURY, VENUS, MARS, JUPITER, and SATURN.

There are quite a few nuggets of insight in this book. The author does does a great job of providing the Hebrew and or Aramaic word for better understanding. An example is the origin of the name Jehovah. He states that a Christian scholar, Petrus Galatinus, who was a confessor to Pope Leo X, around 1518 C.E., transliterated 'yhwh' into the Lating consonants 'jhvh' and combined the vocalization(vowels) of the Hebrew term 'adonai'(Lord) with these Latin consonants, producing the name "JEHOVAH." He goes on to briefly state that the term yahweh was so sacred that the Hebrews never pronounced it. Biblical scribes substituted 'adonai'(Lord) every time they read 'yhwh'.

Later on in the book he breaks down the term "adam" and what it means. I won't go into detail so it will leave one open to the reading of this book. I will say how he noted that the word 'adamah' in Hebrew means "ground." He goes into even further detail than this. Overall, this was a good book and would be best accepted by those who are seeking a deeper understanding and study of the creation account of Genesis.