Genesis I
1. When the divine first began to create the sky and
the land,
2. the land was abysmal and dismal with a darkness close
upon the abyss, and wind from the divine was blowing close upon the water.[1]
3. and the divine said “a light should come to be,”
and a light came to be,
4. and the divine saw the light, that it was good,
and the divine made a division between the light and the dark,
5. and the divine called out to the light “hello Day”!
and he called out to the dark “hello Night”! and when it was evening and then
it was morning, it was the first day. ¶
6. And the divine said “an expanse should come to be
in the middle of the water, and it should come about as division in between,
water from water.”
7. And the divine fashioned the expanse, and it
divided between the water that was above the expanse from the water that was
below the expanse. And when it was that
way,
8. the divine called out to the expanse “hello Skies”!
And when it was evening and then it was
morning, it was the second day. ¶
9. And the divine said “the water under the sky
should remain together in one place, and dry ground should appear.” And when it was so,
10. the divine called out to the dry ground “hello Land”!
and to the collection of the water he called out “hello Seas”! And when the
divine saw that it was good,
11. the divine said “the land should sprout vegetation,
plants that yield seeds of its type, the tree that yields fruit for its type
when its seed in it is in the earth.”
And when it was that way,
12. the land sprouted vegetation, plants that yield
seeds of their type. And when the divine saw that it was good.
13. and it was evening and then it was morning, it
was the third day. ¶
14. And the divine said “beacons should come to be in
the expanse of the sky in order to distinguish between the day from the night, and
they should come to be in order to be signals for the seasons and for the days
and for the years,
15. and they should act as beacons in the expense of
the sky in order to cast light on the land.”
And when it was that way,
16. the divine made the two big beacons, the bigger beacon
in order to rule over the day and the smaller beacon to rule over the night,
along with the stars.”
17. And the divine gave these to the expanse of the
sky to cast light onto the land
18. in order to rule over the day and the night, and
to distinguish between the light and the dark.
And when the divine saw that it was good,
19. and it was evening and then it was morning, it
was the fourth day. ¶
20. And the divine said “the water should always
produce flocks that breathe life, and flying things that fly over the land right
in the expanse of the sky.”
21. And the divine made the big sea monsters and
every moving thing that breaths life that the waters flocked with (to be) for
their type, and every thing that fly with wings (to be) for their type. And when the divine saw that this was good,
22. the divine blessed them and said “you should be
productive and become many and fill up the water in the seas, and the things
that fly should become many on the land.”
23. And when it was evening and then it was morning,
it was the fifth day. ¶
24. And the divine said “the land should produce what
breaths life (to be) for its type, herd animals and crawling animals, the things
living on the land (to be) for its type.” And when it was that way,
25. the divine made a herd animal (to be) for its
type, and every crawling animal (to be) for its type. And when the divine saw that it was good,
26. the divine said “we should make a person with our
appearance that looks like us, and they should rule over the fish of the seas,
and over the things flying in the sky and over the land and over all the
crawling animals that crawl on the land.”
27. And when the divine made the person in his own
appearance, he made them, the male and female, with the appearance of the
divine.
28. And when the divine blessed them, the divine said
“you should reproduce and become many and fill up the land, and you should
tread upon the fish of the sea and over the things flying in the sky and over every
animal that moves on the land.”
29. and the divine said “pay attention, I am giving
you every plant that yields the seeds of their type, the tree that yields fruit
of its type, this should be your food,
30. and to everything of the land that breaths life
and to every thing that flies in the sky and every crawling animal that crawls
on the land and everything that breaths life I am giving every ripe plant in
order to be its food.” And when it was
that way,
31. the divine looked at everything that he made, and
it was actually very good. And when it
was evening and then it was morning, it was the sixth day. ¶
Genesis II.
1. And when the sky and the land and all the throng
were finished,
2. on the seventh day when the divine finished the
undertaking he had fashioned and rested from all the undertaking he had
fashioned,
3. the divine blessed and fulfilled it because on it he
rested from all the undertaking that the divine had fashioned. ¶
From The Annals of the Sky and the Land, [which
says] about when they were created:
On the day Yahweh[2] made
the land and the sky,
5.
before every field plant was
there on the land,
before
every field plant had yet to grow forth.
since Yahweh2 had not yet
rained on the land,
so no
earthling had yet cultivated the ground.
6.
a cloud then arose up from
off of the land,
and it
watered the whole of the face of the earth.
7. and Yahweh the divine (it says,)
molded an earthling from out of earth’s soil
he blew in his nostrils the breathing of
living
the earthling became then a spirit of living.
8. And Yahweh the divine planted a garden off from
the east of the land of Gheden, and there he put the earthling that he
modeled,
9. and out of the earth Yahweh the divine made every
tree grow pleasing when you see it and good when you eat it, and in the midst
of this the tree of lives and the tree of the knowing of good and bad,
10.
a river from Gheden flowed to water the garden,
it divided from there it grew four heads there.
11. The
first one, called Pišon, surrounds
all Chawilah, where gold is,
12. that
land’s gold is good where
the pearl and the Onyx are.
13. the
second river’s Gichon it
surrounds all of Kush-land,
14. the
third river’s Hiddeqel it
flows to the east of Assur.
and the fourth river, that one is Prath.
15. And Yahweh the divine took the
earthling and put him in Gheden’s garden to work its ground and to
protect it,
16. and Yahweh the divine enjoined the
earthling to tell him “you will actually eat [the fruits] of any tree in the
garden,
17. from the Tree of Knowing the Good and
the Bad you will not eat [its fruit], because the day you eat its [fruit] you
will actually die,”
18. and Yahweh the divine said “the
earthling is not suitable to be in isolation, I will fabricate a helper for him
like counterpart to him.”
19. And Yahweh the divine modeled
every living thing of the field and every winged thing of the sky, and he
brought it to the earthling in order to see what he would say to it, and
whatever he said to it, the spirit of life, he named it [that].
20. And the earthling called out names
to every animal and every winged thing of the sky and to every creature of the
field, and for the earthling he did not find a helper for him as his
counterpart.
21. And Yahweh the divine caused a
stupor to fall on the earthling, and he slept, and he took one of his sides and
he closed the flesh up under it,
22. and Yahweh the divine formed the
side he had taken from the earthling into a woman and he brought her to the
earthling.
23. And the earthling said when this
was formerly it was actually one of my bones and some of my flesh, to this one I
will say “hello, woman,” because she was taken out of a man,
24. in this way a man leaves his
father and mother and clings onto his woman and they turn into one flesh,
25. and the earthling and his woman
were naked but not ashamed. ¶
Genesis III
1. The snake[3] was
the smartest of all the things living in the field that Yahweh the divine made,
and he said “is it really true that the divine said ‘don’t eat [the fruit] of
any tree in the garden’”?
2. And the woman said “we eat the
garden tree fruit,
3. but the fruit of the tree that’s in
the center of the garden, the divine said ‘don’t eat that, if you even touch it,
you’ll die.’”
4. And the snake said to the woman “of
course you’re not going to die,
5. it’s because the divine knows that
the day you eat it your eyes will open up and you will be like the divine,
because you’ll know the good and the bad.”
6. And the woman saw that the tree was
good for food and it was pleasing to look at, and she desired to investigate
the tree,[4] so she took some of the tree’s fruit and ate
it, and she gave some to her man and he ate it,
7. and both of them had their eyes
opened up so they knew that they were naked, and so they sewed together fig
leaves and made skirts for themselves,
8. and they heard Yahweh the divine as
he was walking in the garden to take the air,[5] and
the earthling and his woman hid themselves from the faces of Yahweh the divine
up in a garden tree.
9. And Yahweh the divine called out to
the earthling and said to him “where are you?”
10. And he said “your sound, I heard
it in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid.”
11. And he said, “who told you that
you were naked? the tree I taught you about not eating from, you ate from it?”
12. And the earthling said “the woman
you gave to be with me, she gave it to me and I ate it.”
13. And Yahweh the divine said “what
is this you did?” And the woman said, “the snake tricked me and I ate.”
14. And Yahweh the divine told the
snake “because you did this, a curse is cast upon you [to bind you] from every
beast and ever life form of the field,[6] go on
your stomach and eat dirt every day of your life.
15. I will put hatred in between you
and the woman and between your descendants and her descendants, and he will
chafe your head and you will chafe his heel.”
16. And he spoke to the woman, “I will
really increase the amount of your toil and child bearing, and when you will
give birth to sons, it will be something to see, and you will long for your man,
and he will be your master.”
17. And he spoke to the earthling, “because
you listened to your woman’s voice, and you ate the fruit of the tree about
which I gave you an order and said ‘you are not going to eat from it,’ a curse
is cast upon you [to bind you] to the soil for what you have done, you will eat
it with toil every day of your life,
18. and it will grow you thorns and
brambles, and you will eat the plants in the fields,
19. and with sweat in your nostrils you
will eat bread until you return to the ground, because you were taken from it
and you are dirt and you will return to dirt.”
20. And the earthling called out the
name of his woman “Livia,” because she was the mother of all lives.
21. And Yahweh the divine made the
earthling and his woman outfits from animal pelts and he dressed them in these.
22. And Yahweh the divine said “look,
the earthling became like one of us by coming to know the good and the bad, now
he must not reach out his hand and take fruit from the Tree of Lives and eat it
and live for eons.”
23. And Yahweh the divine sent him
away from the garden in Gheden to be a servant to the ground that he was taken
from,
24. and he drove out the earthling and
had him pitch his tent to the east of the garden in Gheden, and he stationed
cherubim and the fire of a sword that became a sentry for the way to the Tree
of Lives.
[1] "Abysmal and dismal" represents the phrase tohu wa boho. The adjective tutu is cognate with the noun them in the next clause which is usually translated as deep, abyss (bel sim.).
[2] as elsewhere in Gen. II and III, yhwh ’lwhym,
Yahweh the divine.
[3] or perhaps oracle.
[4] the verb stem hshkl has a basic transitive
meaning of come to know, learn about, investigate.
[5] lruch hyyom, lit. for the breeze of the
day.
[6] ’ruh min, cursed from, seems to imply a katadesmos,
a binding spell.
