Genesis, A Royal Epic. Loren R. Fisher
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fascinating structure. It has been and remains a most important element in western culture. The scribes who produced it should be given all the credit. I tire of hearing that otherworldly agents accomplished the great achievements of the ancient Mediterranean world. These scribes were thoughtful and talented human beings who deserve more than a Pulitzer or Nobel Prize in Literature. They may have helped each other, but this just proves the point made in the Egyptian text, The Instruction for King Meri-Ka-Re: “Great is a great man when his great men are great.”5
18 April 2011
Walnut Creek, CA
Loren R. Fisher
Preface to the First Edition
I have been publishing essays on the book of Genesis since 1962. I did not start this translation, however, until 1985. I finished it in 1993, and at that time, I started my historical novel, The Jerusalem Academy (dealing with the scribes who put Genesis together). I have now finished this novel, and since I needed to use parts of this translation in the novel, I found out that this translation works well.
During the last six years other translations have appeared by Robert Alter and Everett Fox (see “Works Consulted”). At the end of my introduction, I make some comments on these translations in a long note that I have added (note 53 at the end of the Introduction), but I was not able to use them during the time that I was working on this translation. Also during the last six years, I have discovered that this translation speaks to some very important problems for which the Alter and Fox’s translations are not very helpful. This is not something that I planned. I just made a very open translation, and it has turned out to be very useful. The first problem has to do with the study of Israel’s ancient history. I have referred to this problem in note 9 in the Introduction. There is now a group of scholars (N. P. Lemche, P. R. Davies, T. L. Thompson, and others) who have argued that Saul, David, Solomon, and the entire Davidic Monarchy are all just parts of a literary fiction written in Persian and Hellenistic times. In my opinion, this is a misguided effort to do away with the history of ancient Israel. My new translation of Genesis is based on the presupposition that Genesis is The Royal Epic of the Davidic Monarchy, and I think that the Davidic Monarchy needed the book of Genesis in order to unify Israel and Judah and to entertain the people on great occasions. Also, stories of the patriarchs and the patriarchs themselves are not much older than the monarchy. I think these stories took their form at the tombs of the patriarchs, and I have shown how they are much older than Lemche and others suggest (I have dealt with this problem in Appendix I: You Can’t Tell a Book by Its Cover).
The second problem has reminded me that my work also stands at the focal point of a much larger problem. This larger problem just resurfaced in Kansas when its State Board of Education voted effectively to exclude references to evolution from the public school curricula. To whom does my work speak? Not to the creationists, because their dogma has already closed their ears to most of what I would say, and not really to evolutionary biologists, at least as they act in that capacity. It is directed instead at the onlookers to this debate—the ‘third parties who are trying to make honest sense of this conflict. People who are interested in the education of their children are entitled to some help as they listen to the old debate between the creationists and the evolutionists. They can learn something of the growth of the Genesis traditions in my novel, The Jerusalem Academy; but these onlookers need a very clear translation of Genesis. In this translation you will not find the word “create” or “creation.” The creationists, along with some other theologians, have maintained that the word creation means “creation out of nothing.” They have brought this dogma to the story. So I have not used the “C” word. I use words such as “form” or “order” (I have another essay on this problem which appears here as Appendix II: Let There Be Light: A Scientific Approach To Genesis).
15 Oct 2000
Willits CA
Loren Fisher
Abbreviations
AAT An American Translation
AB Anchor Bible (see E. A. Speiser and Marvin H. Pope in Bibliography)
AML Ancient Mediterranean Literature
ANET Ancient Near Eastern Texts
Buber and Rosenzweig Die Fünf Bücher der Weisung
BWL Babylonian Wisdom Literature, W. G. Lambert
CAD The Assyrian Dictionary: Of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
Cassuto A Commentary on the Book of Genesis
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
COS The Context of Scripture, 3 vols., edited by William W. Hallo
CRST The Claremont Ras Shamra Tablets, edited by Loren R. Fisher
EA El Amarna tablets
Gesenius Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, edited by E. Kautzsch and A. E. Cowley
Gen R Genesis Rabba (A midrash on the book of Genesis)
HTR Harvard Theological Review
JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JCS Journal of Cuneiform Studies
JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies
JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series
JSS Journal of Semitic Studies
KAI Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften, edited by Herbert Donner and Wolfgang Röllig
KJ King James Version
LCL Loeb Classical Library
MT Masoretic Text
NEB New English Bible
NRSV New Revised Standard Version
PRU III/ IV Le Palais royal d’Ugarit, edited by Jean Nougayrol
RSP I/II/III Ras Shamra Parallels, edited by Loren R. Fisher and Stan Rummel
RSV Revised Standard Version
Sam Samaritan Text
Tanakh The Holy Scriptures
TC Genesis Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary, Nahum Sarna
UF Ugarit-Forschungen
Ug V/VI Ugaritica V/ VI
UT Ugaritic text
UT Ugaritic Textbook, Cyrus H. Gordon
VAB Vorderasiatische Bibliothek
ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
LXX Septuagint
[ ] contains words added by the translator
1. Eiseley, “Charles Darwin.”
2. Mazar et al., “A Cuneiform Tablet from the Ophel in Jerusalem.”
3. See Moran, ed. and trans., The Amarna Letters, 325–34.
4. Mazar et al., “A Cuneiform Tablet from the Ophel in Jerusalem,” 11.
5. John Wilson’s translation in ANET, 415; see also COS 1.35 (pp. 61–65).
Introduction
The