Robert Alter's Genesis:chapter one.

These are observations on my reading Robert Alter's translation of Genesis.

The creation sequence in Genesis 1:1-2:4 differs so markedly from that which follows in Genesis 2:5-3:20. This first account has a sweep, an order, a procession and nobility. It seems more logical. And yet, in this account, God is more mysterious and majestic: as Robert Alter points out in a note to Gen 2:4, the God of chapter one "summon[s]things into being from a lofty distance [("hovering over the waters")] through the mere agency of divine speech"(7). Unlike the creator of the second chapter, he does not get down into the dirt and mold a man. On a more figurative level, he doesn't involve himself with man. He seems less prone to surprise, anger and regret. Of course, he seems to have less cause; everything he creates pleases him. The world he creates seems more orderly and less prone to disaster than the creation related in the second creation account.


1A-God said, Let there be light
1B-There was light
1C-God saw the light,
1D-God saw that it was good
1E-God divided light from darkness
1F-God names the light and the and the dark (day and night)

2A-God said, Let there be a vault
2B-God 'made' the vault
2C-The vault divided the water above the vault from that below
2D-God names the vault
The second day differs from the first in a number of ways. God declares but also makes. His creation performs the division of elements, or the discrimination between them. He doesn't "look" at the vault as in 1C nor proclaim it good as with 1D.

3A-God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered in one place....
3B-So it was
3C-God names the dry (Earth) and the waters (Seas)
3D-God saw that it was good
3E-God said, Let the earth grow grass..
3F-So it was
3G-And the earth put forth grass, plants...
3H-God saw that it was good.
The third day is distinctive in that it is not a single sequence, but two. Like the two previous, God voices his command/wish. Like the first day, what he voices simply seems to occur without his having to make or do anything further. In the first sequence, he names and then sees that what he's created is good. On the first day, he sees that his creation is good and then names it. On the second, he never proclaims it good. Finally, with the second sequence on day three, he sees his creation is good but does not name it.

4A-God said, let there be lights
4B-And so it was
4C-God placed them
4D-God saw that it was good
Here, God seems to act (with a physical action beyond "speaking," "seeing" and "naming." On day one he divides, on day two he makes the vault, and here he places the lights. He doesn't name here. He does see it is good. This is the third consecutive creation that concludes with his seeing it was good.

5A-God said, let the waters swarm with
5B-And God created
5C-God saw that it was good
5D-God blessed them
No naming of the creatures of the sea and sky. Again, God is furnished with a fairly active verb, although as Alter points out, it is a far more abstract verb for "making" than the verbs we will encounter in chapter 2. In addition, it is interesting to note that God's first blessing is of the wild creatures of the waters and sky.

6A-God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures of each kind,
6B-So it was
6C-And God made wild beasts of each kind and cattle...and crawling...
6D- God saw that it was good
6E-God said, Let us make a human in our image
6F-God created the human
6G-God blessed them
6H-God gives instructions
6I-And so it was
6J-God saw all that he had done
6K-And, look, it was very good.
This busiest day of creation combines nearly all the actions of the previous days, and almost every previously created element is made mention of in this account of day six. The creation of the living things of each kind is the one instance where God says, the the creation then occurs or it was, but then God takes action to make it so.

Alter's translation of line 1:31 is so beautiful. His choice of "Look" instead of the common "Behold" manages to make clear a couple of functions of this line. First, this line moves the book from the past into the present. It acknowledges the reader as a presence in the story. The narrator has seen us! The narrator shifts perspective from God in the third person looking on his creation to an invitation to the reader, to us, to join God in looking at the world. The narrative voice is beyond confident that if we position ourselves with God's perspective, we can't but see the creation as good, through and through. Of course, if this particular passage is written with knowledge of the fall, it has a sadness too it, since we can now not join God in looking at the prelapsarian world. We can only imagine this world.

Reading chapter One, my fundamental question (inspired by a sermon by Msgr Lehocky at St. Peter's in Columbia, SC) is how this account relates/or is meant to relate to the account that follows. This first one is so much more optimistic than the second account. The two don't jibe, either in tone or detail. They are clearly two different accounts of the same episode. Their juxtaposition, in all their contradiction, suggests a very different notion of book and text than our own. It is as if in this most definitive of books, the guiding hands behind it decided to place two contradicting accounts recognizing that fundamental truths can contradict. To the extent we as Christians have latched onto one account, it would seem the second one that is riven with doubt, imperfection and disaster.