Western Lit. 1-5: Hierarchies in the creation narrative

Hierarchies in the creation of narrative

A wise man once said the degree of fundamentality in a text is dependent on the number of its dependent texts within the culture. Another way to say this is that literature is an extension of civilization. The aspects of the Bible reflect themselves on the people who read it, including us. When we talk about subjects such as hierarchies we need to be aware of the texts which influence our perspectives. Genesis 1-3 in a sense is the MOST fundamental text in the entire Bible, itself the corpus of the most fundamental texts to the west. Therefore, in order to understand the western idea of hierarchies, we will examine this story. 

     Before we begin, we must define our terms to reach meaningful conclusions. Hierarchy is best defined as a ranked order of competence. If we define the ultimate competence as the divine, the sum of all ultimate competence is what we call God. Such a being would by nature be set apart from anything lesser. With those ideas in mind, we open to Genesis one. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. We then receive a description of God as a being hovering above the waters he has just created. the idea is that he is set apart from the chaos of the material realm in his perfection. As God goes about creating he makes statements about the quality of his creation, that they are 'good' or 'very good'. This establishes that God is competent to establish hierarchies of value in nature, placing himself at the top of the list as the origin of it. 

    On the sixth day, God created man from dust in his own image and breathed life into him. The first thing God says about man is that he is 'very good', or better than all of creation. God then gives him dominion over all creation. He was to rule over creation and subdue it. This establishes man as the highest being in creation below God. This also means that animals are in subjugation to him. Man is the ultimate in competence among the created. Everything living thing is his subject. A few verses later  Eve is created as his companion. The language used to describe her is like a helper that completes him at his side. Eve is clearly his subordinate, but both are equally low before God in his ultimate nature. 

    Another thing we should consider is the fall. At the time of the fall Man was considered the master of nature, but why was he deceived by a serpent, a form of nature? I think the serpent is an allegory, but a powerful one. The man was supposed to be the master of the serpent, but because of his sin, he was deceived by it, and so lowered himself below the serpent in the mastery hierarchy. This idea that sin makes you lower than you ought to be is compelling for us today.

    In conclusion, We have examined the hierarchies of genesis 1-3. This has been a simplistic examination but a further study would require a far longer philosophical discussion. However, it is rather apparent that hierarchies are fundamental to the story. To summarize the text, God is the ultimate in all hierarchies, completely apart from creation in perfection. Man is the master of creation and is supposed to rule over it with his helper, woman. Sin means that you fail to master the nature which is yours, the serpent within. When you do that you lower yourself from God's divine image for your life.