OT101 is turning out to be a great class. I’m getting the ‘other side’ of what I learned at Whitworth. I’m a bit surprised (as are many others) that I learned nothing about the documentary hypothesis at Whitworth (in all of its J, D, E & P glory). Our text, Collins’ Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, is quite good as well. Collins, OT professor at Yale, does come across a bit arrogant at times, with such statements as this: “The appearance of a talking snake should alert even the most unsophisticated reader to the fictional nature of the story.” (Damn he has some great one-liners)
In today’s lecture, Dr. Patrick Miller was talking about Gen 1-11, which consists primarily of story, which consists of historic and fictive elements, as any good story does (e.g. the story of David, Jesus, Robin Hood, the Alamo). We talked through some of the mythic material that the OT writer(s) were drawing upon, how the Jewish people may have incorporated some Babylonian/Egyptian mythology into their own spiritual experience, and how that can be seen in scripture. And then we spent the last bit of time discussing the creation of adam (humanity) from the adamah (earth/ground). Dr. Miller made a statement (and I’m currently in an email dialogue with him to see if I in fact heard him correctly, and if he was actually meaning what I interpreted him to be meaning) which immediately made sense to me, and it is as follows: “Woman, notice, is not created for procreation, but for companionship and sexual union.”
God did not say, “I need to populate this creation of mine – so I obviously need two beings that could have sex and procreate.” In fact, in the 2nd Creation narrative, the command to ‘multiply’ is not even present. But rather, God looks at the single, lone male, and says, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.”
One of the arguments I’ve always heard against homosexuality (and gay marriage) is the fact that “Well, homosexuals can’t procreate, and that goes against God’s ordained-order.” Well, who says that procreation is really the most important thing to God. God, who within Godself, had experienced the love and companionship and intimate union wanted the same thing for God’s creation, humankind. God wanted men and women to experience love, companionship and intimate/sexual union. Thus, it was in fact, not good for (hu)man(ity) to be alone.
The Genesis woman was not created for procreation…but to provide the Genesis man with companionship and sexual union. History’s first (mythical) couple were put together by God for the purpose of love, fellowship and sex. Procreation came second…perhaps, an afterthought. Why then, must we (in all of our vast knowledge) prescribe procreation as a necessity for a marriage to be considered ‘legal’ or even ‘holy’ today? Let me suggest that we may have skewed God’s vision for marriage a bit (not that I am claiming at all to know what God’s vision for marriage is, but…). Thoughts?
[Update] Professor Miller sent me a quick reply basically saying that he was not intending on making that inference with his statement, but he thought it was an interesting observation. I’ll take that. Anyway, this is fun. Look at me go. Actually post some theology on pomomusings and all of a sudden, the comments begin flying! I hope this trend continues, because I definitely plan on posting more stuff from classes and from my head.