Minute Paper 9.24.15

Today we discussed the Niditch, Sarna, and Speiser texts. Niditch dealt with different tales of the creation of women in Genesis; how they stem from different norms, and reinforce different ideas about gender roles. In Sarna we discussed both Sarna and Coogan’s ideas about whether or not creation came out of nothing, as well as God creating humans “in His image.” We also went over our Thinking Exercise regarding “In the beginning God created…” versus “When God began to create,” and how the latter implies a more active role in which God creates out of raw materials already present. In Speiser we discussed the argument presented regarding the plurality of God as a different translation from Hebrew. Speiser puts much less importance on this observation of plurality. We also discussed the role of Mesopotamian science in conjunction with the tales of creation.