Free The Lost World of Adam and Eve by John H. Walton Page B

middle of the previous account to give a more detailed description of a part of the story that was previously told. Such introductions never do this in the rest of Genesis, and the word tōlĕdōt (account) argues against such an understanding. Furthermore, Genesis 2 does not follow the pattern of the recursive examples that follow a genealogy of the unfavored line before returning to the story of the favored line. This evidence then leads us to give strong preference to the view that Genesis 2 is not adding further detail to what happened during the sixth day in Genesis 1. It would therefore also mean that, though Adam and Eve may well be included among the people created in Genesis 1, to think of them as the first couple or the only people in their time is not the only textual option. 4
    Regarding the role of Genesis 2:5-6, we note that the plants referred to in Genesis 2:5 are qualified so as to indicate that they refer to cultivated crops rather than the general vegetation of Genesis 1 available to the gatherer. After all, the land is generally being watered, so we would infer it is not totally without vegetation. In the discussion of Genesis 1:2 ( tōhû wābōhû ) we examined the concept of an inchoate cosmos. Here, attention turns to an inchoate terrestrial setting, which is also well known from ancient Near Eastern cosmologies. 5
    One early-second-millennium text found at Nippur describes this setting with phrases such as the following:
“No water was drawn from the deep, nothing was produced”
“Enlil’s great išib priest did not yet exist, sacred purification rites were not yet performed”
“The host of heaven was not yet adorned”
“Daylight did not yet shine, night spread, but Heaven had lit up his heavenly abode”
“The ground could not by itself make vegetation grow long”
“The gods of Heaven and the gods of earth were not (yet) performing their duties” 6
    More focus on humankind is seen in a Sumerian text from Ur dating to about 1600 B.C. :
The high plain was not being tilled
Canals, ditches and dikes were not being built
No ploughing was being done
Humans were not wearing clothes 7
    Most notable is the description found in the Royal Chronicle of Lagash in relation to the re-creation after the flood:
    After the flood had swept over and caused destruction of the earth, when the permanence of humanity had been assured and its descendants preserved, when the black-headed people had risen up again from their clay, and when, humanity’s name having been given and government having been established, An and Enlil had not yet caused kingship, crown of the cities, to come down from heaven, (and) by (?) Ningirsu, they had not yet put in place the spade, the hoe, the basket, nor the plow that turns the soil, for the countless throng of silent people, at that time the human race in its carefree infancy had a hundred years. (But) without the ability to carry out the required work, its numbers decreased, decreased greatly. In the sheepfolds, its sheep and goats died out. At this time, water was short at Lagaš, there was famine at Girsu. Canals were not dug, irrigation ditches were not dredged, vast lands were not irrigated by a shadoof, abundant water was not used to dampen meadows and fields, (because) humanity counted on rainwater. Ašnan did not bring forth dappled barley, no furrow was plowed nor bore fruit! No land was worked nor bore fruit! . . . No one used the plow to work the vast lands. 8
    These texts offer rich information for comparative studies, but, unfortunately, this is not the place for such a detailed study. 9 Suffice it to say that, as always, such a study would have to take careful note of both the similarities and differences. For our purposes, we should note that the kind of description found in Genesis 2:5-6 is of the same sort that is common in cosmological texts of the ancient world when a terrestrial pre-ordering condition is being described. Genesis is featuring the same sorts of