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128 - Creation Versus Chaos: The Reinterpretation of Mythical Symbolism in the Bible |
Creation Versus Chaos: The Reinterpretation
of Mythical Symbolism in the Bible
By Bernhard W. Anderson
192 pp. New York, Association Press, 1967. $4.95
Biblical theologians have been stressing for some times the uniqueness of Israelite faith, a uniqueness deriving from its opposition to the mytho-
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129 - Creation Versus Chaos: The Reinterpretation of Mythical Symbolism in the Bible |
logical and cosmological orientations of other ancient Near Eastern religions. More recently, an appreciation for the human seriousness behind the cosmic myths has increased. Both in title and content, Bernhard Anderson's latest book combines this new appreciation with the older perspective of biblical theology.
Creation Versus Chaos is a series of variations on a theme. The theme is creation faith, or, more specifically, the subordination of creation to history in ancient Israelites' understanding of God, man, and the world. The theme is stated by contrasting the cosmic myths of Mesopotamia and Ugarit with Israelite Heilsgeschichte. Creation faith was not something the Israelites slowly evolved out of an earlier naivete; it was an older, cosmic perspective that Israelites deliberately avoided or minimized (F. M. Cross).
The variations on this theme show how creation did, nevertheless, become important in Israelite faith and some potentialities it opened up. The first variation identifies Jerusalem as the great center of creation faith. Early Israelite tradition, with its Sinai covenant, emphasized freedom and responsibility, the challenges presented by historical experience rather than cosmic order. The Davidic monarchy, on the other hand, derived its sanction from a covenant that promoted stability and continuity, the values of civilization embodied in the cosmic myths of the Near East. Only at Jerusalem, therefore, was creation faith given a firm place in Israelite tradition. Two further variations are appreciative treatments of creation motifs in worship and in eschatological writings. Creation motifs, in these variations, mean conventional imagery and language portraying conflict between a creator god and chaotic powers. Conflict and struggle, in individual and community life or in the movement of world history toward its culmination, were often symbolized by the resurgence of chaos against created order.
A final chapter restates the theme theologically. Human experience of what is destructive and harmful can be interpreted as the result of sin, the source of which is historic and human, or as the result of transcendent evil, the source of which is ultimately divine. The first interpretation appears in an Adamic myth, the second in a theogonic myth (Ricoeur). Though late apocalyptic and the New Testament recognize a kingdom of evil, that kingdom never has an existence entirely independent of the creator god. Ricoeur's question whether ethical monotheism must be transcended in so far as it is ethical-because the source of human pain and tragedy is not finally human but ontological-can be answered negatively (Herberg), as Paul answered it in Romans 8.
The book is suggestive and ecclectic rather than synthetic, and its brief scope permits some significant problems to remain untreated. For one
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130 - Creation Versus Chaos: The Reinterpretation of Mythical Symbolism in the Bible |
thing, it is a question whether Anderson's theme is not really cosmos rather than creation. As he notes, Ugarit provides no creation myth in any strict sense. What is important there, as well as in many biblical texts, is the recurring cosmic struggle between divine powers, not the origin of the world. Also, the role of Jerusalem in tradition history is greatly oversimplified. There was a complex of traditions maintained at Jerusalem throughout the monarchy, and prominent within it was the Israelite tradition proper (the Yahwist et al.) with its Sinai covenant. The city-state of Jerusalem had its own largely independent cultic tradition (the Zion tradition, à la Rohland and von Rad), which was never completely integrated with the Israelite tradition. There is no simple distinction between Jerusalemite and non-Jerusalemite tradition.
The book may be most significant, however, as marking a modest shift in mood: the willingness of a prominent biblical theologian to take seriously the mythic and cosmic language and imagery that some Israelites clearly found meaningful. In this respect, Anderson is surely to be congratulated on reading the mood of our time and uncovering some of the biblical resources for addressing it.
Jay A. Wilcoxen
The Divinity School
The University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois