School of Suspicion

Tag: Primeval History

Genesis 1 to 11, before Abraham: creation, the people outside the garden, Cain and Abel, the sons of God and the Nephilim, the Flood, and Babel.

  • Noah — Prophet and Builder

    Noah — Prophet and Builder

    Lamech named his son for rest. Noah built a chest sealed with the letters of atonement, fed every creature in it for a year, sent out the dove, and woke from his wine to curse a grandson. Read beside the giants of 1 Enoch, the birds of Gilgamesh, Peter’s eight souls, the dove at the…

  • Cain and Abel — The Farmer and the Shepherd

    Cain and Abel — The Farmer and the Shepherd

    Eve says she has gotten a man from the LORD. He ploughs, his brother keeps sheep, and God looks at one offering only. Read beside Josephus on the plough, the Targum’s argument in the field, the smiths called Cain and Romulus at his wall, with the prodigal’s elder brother, seventy times seven and Pilate’s basin.

  • Pre-Adamites, the People Outside the Garden

    Pre-Adamites, the People Outside the Garden

    By the fourth chapter of Genesis the named population of the earth is four people, and one of them has just killed another. The murderer then says something that makes no sense in a world containing three people. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy…

  • Sons of God, Daughters of Men, and Nephilim – The beginning of Ancient religions

    Genesis 6:4 ends with a phrase that belongs to Homer more than to Moses. The children born to the sons of God by the daughters of men, it says, became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. That is heroic vocabulary. It is the language a poet uses of Achilles or of Gilgamesh,…

  • 1. Eden and Göbekli Tepe — Stories Before Scripture

    1. Eden and Göbekli Tepe — Stories Before Scripture

    Genesis opens with no man to till the ground and closes the garden by making one. Read beside the gatherers who raised Göbekli Tepe, Enkidu’s first bread, Hesiod’s golden race and the law that sent farmers back to gathering every seventh year, with the birds that sow not and the bread asked for daily.