Reading Genesis 1 in a
post-Brexit pandemic.
While drawing on a centuries-long
oral tradition, the book of Genesis is an exilic and even post-exilic
text, a work of making meaning in a context of enormous upheaval.
If Eden (chapters 2 & 3) is
Babylon, Genesis 1 is centred on Jerusalem. This is not the creation of
the world, but in a world that has become formless and for whom God acts to
bring order out of chaos, Genesis 1 plants us firmly in the ashes of
Jerusalem besieged and plundered by Nebuchadnezzar II.
Chronologically, it follows on from
Jeremiah’s Lamentations over Jerusalem. In the unfolding vision of a sun
and moon and stars, and the reestablishment of a flourishing plant and animal
kingdom, the text actively engages with texts such as Ezra, Nehemiah,
and Haggai, in which God raises up governors and high priests to give light
to the people, and the restoration passages in texts such as Isaiah, Joel
and Amos, which paint pictures of a new world centred on a restored
Jerusalem.
What bearing might this have on how
we read Genesis 1 in a UK ruled by disaster capitalists on the make, or
a world where leaders make promises on tackling climate crisis they have no
intention of keeping?
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