The Structure of the Bible 2: The Adamic Covenant

During their exile in Babylonia the Israelites began to put together the book about their beliefs. They started the Bible with a story about the beginnings of their relationship with God. However, they found that they were faced with two competing narratives:

• one from the Northern kingdom, Israel, which had succumbed to the Assyrians in 734 BC and in turn had been absorbed by the Babylonians
• another from the Southern Kingdom, Judah, which was taken over by the Babylonians in 587 BC

The peoples of both kingdoms had been reunited in their babylonian exile but they had two differing versions about the beginning of their relationship with their God.

The northern kingdom (Israel) proposed the poetic first narrative (Gen 1 – 2/3) called P, for priestly because it was probably the work of priests.

The southern kingdom already had a J versión (Gen 2/4-25), so-called because they gave the name YHWH, the modern-day Jehovah, to their God. This is a less poetic and indeed older versión probably written before the babylonian exile. It was modeled on an existing Arkaddian narrative: The Epic of Gilgamesh.

The editors of the book decided to include both versions about the first covenant God made with his people since the salient fact was not the truth of the narratives but the affirmation of the belief that God had established a relationship with Israel. Thus they knew who they were: the people of God.

The narrative structure of the Adamic Covenant follows a similar scheme to the other covenants found in the Bible:

• An Epiphany: God appears as the creator of the relationship (the Covenant maker).
• The Covenant: the relationship with Yahweh gives creation meaning.
• Rejection: sin is the breaking of the covenant, the rejection of the relationship offered by God (in this case the disobedience of Adam & Eve, the sins of Cain, Lamech(polygamy) and Seth.)
• The Curse : Expulsion from Eden, work & death. The flood, a de-creation, chaos and meaninglessness.
• The Promise: of covenant renewal, redemption. The seed of the woman will destroy the serpent. (Good will conquer evil.)