Originally posted by footwasher
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That is approaching the story as a piece of folklore. It is a legitimate approach, such as it is; although it does not deal with the story as theology.
From another POV, Genesis 2-11.9 can usefully be approached as a series of "transgression stories", stories about "croosing the boundary".
Gen 2-3 is a TS about how the serpent spoke with human words; and how the man and woman took & ate the forbidden fruit.
Part of the story is also a doublet of the creation narrative: one of many doublets in Genesis & Exodus. IMO, the creation narrative in 2 is not primarily a creation narrative, but is primarily a part of the transgression story ending with 3.24. I think it doubles, secondarily, as a creation narrative. But its primary purpose is to set the scene for the transgression & expulsion of the human pair. The expulsion story begins with chapter 2 - not at the beginning of 3. First they are placed in God's Garden - & their eating of the fruit leads to their expulsion from it. The serpent was entirely right in what he said would happen if they ate the fruit: he did not mention that they would be expelled from the Garden.
Gen 4.1-17 is a transgression story.
Perhaps, since Cain builds a city, that too is a transgression story ?
So is the bigamy & (further) killing in 4.18-25.
So are the events in 6.1-4.
So is the "angelic" & human mixing, resulting in giant offspring, that causes the Flood.
So, in a way, is the Flood in 6.5-8.22, because it is a sort of reversal of the creative act that separated "the waters above the firmament" from "the waters under the Earth": they are mixed together with the "seas", so that something resembling the pre-creation "formlessness" results.
The drunkenness of Noah and behaviour of Ham in 9.1-18 are presumably to be taken as two more transgression stories. This is also the first story in which slavery appears.
The Table in Nations in 10 implies a "crossing of boundaries", because here we have the spreading out of 70 Nations, as compared with the couple in the Garden.
The mention of Nimrod in 10.8-12 may be another transgression story, seeing as how Israel's true King is God.
And the story of the Confusion of Tongues at Babel in 11.1-9 shows man "crossing boundaries" by trying to climb up to Heaven.
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