David J.A. Clines on the Theme of Genesis 1-11 (and the Pentateuch)

David J.A. Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, JSOTS 10 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1978).

David Clines here undertakes to look for the unity not just of Genesis, but of the Pentateuch as a whole. He understands ‘theme’ as a ‘statement of the context, structure and development of a work’, and describes it as follows:

‘The theme of the Pentateuch is the partial fulfilment – which implies also the partial non-fulfilment – of the promise to or blessing of the patriarchs. The promise or blessing is both the divine initiative in a world where human initiatives always lead to disaster, and a re-affirmation of the primal divine intentions for man’ (64).

In a subsequent chapter (61-79), he describes the theme of Genesis 1-11 as:

‘No matter how drastic man’s sin becomes, destroying what God has made good and bringing the world to the brink of uncreation, God’s grace never fails to deliver man from the consequences of his sin. Even when man responds to a fresh start with the old pattern of sin, God’s commitment to his world stands firm, and sinful man experiences the favour of God as well as the righteous judgement’ (76).

That’s it in summary form. Before he gets to this point, he highlights three suggested themes for Genesis 1-11, the first two originally forwarded by Gerhard von Rad and Claus Westermann. They are:

(1) a Sin – Speech – Mitigation – Punishment theme;
(2) a Spread-of-Sin, Spread-of-Grace theme, and
(3) a Creation – Uncreation – Re-creation theme.

Clines opts for a combination of (2) and (3) since they incorporate all the material in Genesis 1-11 – narratives, the creation account, and the genealogies (whereas the first theme, for instance, focuses only on the narratives).

Clines also discusses the theological relationship of the primeval history (Genesis 1-11) to the remaining sections of Genesis. He notes that it is significant that there is no clear-cut break at the end of the Babel story, between the primeval and the patriarchal history (77). What follows the Babel story (11:1-9) is a genealogy leading from Shem to Terah (11:10-26). But, as Clines points out, ‘who Shem is can be learned only from the Table of Nations, where his family is detailed (10:21-31)… or from the Noah story, where Shem is the son upon whom Noah has pronounced the blessing (9:26)’ (78). On the other hand, it is clear that the genealogy is leading to Abram (11:26-30) – it traces the ancestry of Abram and follows the line of descent from Shem.

The patriarchal narratives unfold the fulfilment of the divine promise, and this means that the most likely reading of Genesis 1-11 is a ‘positive’ one. Genesis 1:1-11:5 could be understood ‘negatively’ (as in the first theme above), but once it is followed by the patriarchal and Pentateuchal history, linked by a transitional passage, the tendency to read it as such is reversed (78).

This means that the patriarchal narratives function as the ‘mitigation’ element of the Babel incident, and that the divine promises to Abram may be read in conjunction with Genesis 1 – as a re-affirmation of the divine intentions for men and women. The promise of blessing is found in Genesis 1:26-30 and the promise of blessing to Abram envisages an overspill of blessing to humankind in general.

Clines concludes:

‘To link the primeval history with the patriarchal narrative specifies the thrust of the primeval history; it cannot be viewed negatively since it is the prelude to the promises and their fulfilment. But the dark side of the primeval history still remains. In itself it may be read as a story of how things go wrong when men take the initiatives; mankind tends to destroy what God has made good. Perhaps only the addition of a divine promise (Gen. 12) to a divine command (Gen. 1) can counteract that tendency’ (79).