u/m1stermetoo

Below I would like to quote two discussions from John Day’s books, published in 2014 and 2021, respectively. My questions are

1. Are there any other scholars that agree or partially agree with Smith?
2. What can be said about the God and author in Genesis 1 (what is the source, background, or approximate date)? Who is this specific God in Genesis 1:3; what is their profile and what does the Biblical Hebrew use for the name (is this taken to be taken as a general appellative or proper name)?
3. How exactly does Marduk tie into this?

Here is the first entry from 2014:

>The first day of creation saw what is generally referred to as the creationof light (Gen. 1.3-5). Mark Smith, [25] however, has recently queried whether light actually is created and prefers to envisage here rather an uncreated, primordial divine light. He notes that light is not explicitly stated to have been created, and compares the light with which Yahweh is wrapped in the related Ps. 104.2 as well as the light emanating from Marduk in Enuma elish (1.101-104). However, while I certainly see Ps. 104.2 as lying behind Gen. 1.3-5 (see below for evidence of the dependence of Gen. 1 on Ps. 104), the fact that God declares ‘Let there be light’, followed by the statement ‘and there was light’, can only mean that what was once not in existence now is, that is, we have here an act of creation.

>[25] Mark S. Smith, ‘Light in Genesis 1:3—Created or Uncreated: A Question of Priestly Mysticism?’, in C. Cohen et al. (eds.), Birkat Shalom: Studies in Bible, Ancient Near Eastern Literature, and Postbiblical Judaism Presented to Shalom M. Paul on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (2 vols.; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008), I, pp. 125-34.

>Source: Day, John. From Creation to Babel: Studies in Genesis 1–11. T&T Clark, 2014.

Followed by this in 2021:

>In Gen. 1.3 we read the famous words, ‘And God said, “Let there be light”, and there was light’. We have here what is called creation by divine fiat, a term derived from the Latin Vulgate rendering of ‘Let there be light’, fiat lux. The impression is given that God’s command was fulfilled instantaneously, as if by magic. This event has often been referred to as God’s first act of creation, but as we have seen above, the first act of creation is actually described in v. 1, the formation of the inchoate heaven and earth, together with the consequences referred to in v. 2.

>One scholar, however, Mark Smith, [40] has argued that Gen. 1.3 does not actually describe the creation of light. Rather, he maintains that the light was deemed to be something primordial, divine and uncreated. However, as presented in Gen. 1.3 it certainly sounds as if light is a new thing. God declares, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light’. Surely this is a case of the creation of something new, as in all the other ‘Let … be’ declarations by God in the Genesis 1 creation account. At first there was no light (only darkness, v. 2) and then suddenly light appeared. Further, it is to be noted that immediately afterwards we read, ‘And God saw that the light was good’. This sounds like a new observation on God’s part, not something that he was already familiar with. Smith seeks to defend his position by appealing to various passages which imply that light was something primordial and divine that already existed behind the scenes. Thus, in 2 Esd. 6.40, Ezra says to God, ‘Then you commanded that a ray of light be brought forth from your treasuries, so that your works might then appear’. Again, in Philo, De Opificio Mundi 8(.31) light is the image of the divine Logos, an invisible light preceding the divine word in Gen. 1.3, and in John 1.4-5 the light is God’s own light, located in the Logos which became incarnate in Christ. Finally, the Zohar, in commenting on Gen. 1.3, declares, ‘And there was light – light that already was’. But these are all much later sources, more than five or six hundred years after the time of the Priestly writer of Genesis 1, and in the case of the Zohar about two thousand years later. Can they really be appealed to in order to overthrow the straightforward meaning seemingly implied by Gen. 1.3? It is true that Smith does appeal to one source which I understand as being prior to Genesis 1, namely Ps. 104.2, which declares to God, ‘you cover yourself with light as with a garment’. However, as I have argued elsewhere,⁴¹ there are good grounds for believing that Psalm 104 was a major source behind Genesis 1. As noted earlier, they have the same order of creation, but Psalm 104 is clearly more mythological than Genesis 1, having a divine battle with the waters, not merely control of the waters as in Genesis, speaking of ‘Leviathan’ rather than ‘great sea monsters’, and of Yahweh ‘riding on the wings of the wind’ rather than simply ‘the wind of God was blowing to and fro’. In addition, Gen. 1.24 employs the poetic form ḥayĕtô, ‘beasts’, unattested elsewhere in prose, but occurring in Ps. 104.11, 20. Consequently, it is likely that Ps. 104.2 lies behind Gen. 1.3, and therefore the latter has transformed the pre-existent divine light into something made at the beginning of creation.

>Unlike the light, it is not explicitly stated that God created the darkness, and some scholars deny that it was so created, envisaging it as pre-existent to God’s creative activity in Genesis 1. But if, as we have argued above, everything in Gen. 1.2 was created by God in Gen. 1.1, then the darkness too was created. In Isa. 45.7, God actually declares, ‘I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe’. Contrary to what some suppose, what is stated about the darkness in Isa. 45.7 may be in keeping with Genesis 1.

>[40] M.S. Smith, ‘Light in Genesis 1:3 – Created or Uncreated: A Question of Priestly Mysticism?’, in C. Cohen et al. (eds.), Birkat Shalom: Studies in Bible, Ancient Near Eastern Literature, and Postbiblical Judaism Presented to Shalom M. Paul on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, I (2 vols.; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008), pp. 125-34; idem, The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1, pp. 71-79.

>Source: Day, John. From Creation to Abraham: Further Studies in Genesis 1–11. T&T Clark, 2021

Something that is rarely talked about is the creator of the world god(s) in the Hijaz. Christians and Jews in Arabia would have had or identified a creator of the world god already but what about the pre-Islamic indigenous Arabs?

Besides the creator of the world god that Jews and Christians would have in mind, are there any other pre-Islamic creator of the world gods? Or was this something that wasn’t quite yet conceptualized by the pre-Islamic indigenous Arabs?

Do scholars have any theories about why ʾIlu is not attested as a creator of the world god in the Ugaritic texts? Was this simply not a prominent motif, or was creation of the world not conceptualized in that way within the Ugaritic tradition?

Relatedly, at what point in time (approximately) is El and or El/YHWH attested to as a creator of the world?

What makes the historical Muhammad’s original version of Islam seemingly insufficiently “pure” for later post Quranic movements, such as Mahdism and Wahhabism, which repeatedly sought to purge and reform Islam?

The fact that Muhammad left no clear heir or explicitly designated ruler seems to have profoundly shaped the post Quranic Islamic interpretive tradition especially in the development of sectarian movements outside proto-sunnism and mainstream Sunnism today. In many of these traditions concepts such as the Imamate and Mahdism became central theological doctrines despite being completely absent from the Quran.

As Mercedes García-Arenal notes:

>“The origins of such beliefs in Islam go back to the very beginning and have generated a great deal of controversy. The term Mahdī, or the “rightly guided”, is not used in the Qurʾān, but clearly derives from the root h-d-y, which does appear and generally makes some sort of allusion to divine guidance, with occasional connotations of redemption. For example: “Oh believers, look after your own souls. He who is astray cannot hurt you, if you are rightly guided (idhā ihtadaytum)”. Q5:105. It nevertheless appears as an epithet from a very early period. [2] Scholars have tended to agree that the idea of final redemption was not a part of Muḥammad’s preachings, nor of the beliefs of his early followers, that it developed after the times of the Prophet, during and after the Civil War period, as a part of the religious controversies which accompanied the rise to power of the Umayyad dynasty in the second half of the 7th century. The term itself was first used to designate a long-awaited sovereign who would re-establish the primitive purity of Islam during the second civil war, after the death of the Caliph Muʿāwiya…”

From a historical critical perspective, if concepts such as the Mahdi and infallible Imamate were later post Quranic developments born out of political crisis, civil war, and legitimacy disputes, why did the Arab Muslims of Late Antiquity continue to become so attached to these ideas?

Is this simply the natural consequence of a religious movement that lacked a clearly defined succession structure after the Prophet’s death? Or did the caliphal political instability of Late Antiquity gradually shape Islam into something far more innovative (than perhaps what the historical Muhammad himself intended) thereby allowing later generations of believers to continue embracing these ideas despite being historically removed from both the original context and the environment that gave rise to such developments?

Source:

García-Arenal, Mercedes. Messianism and Puritanical Reform: Mahdīs of the Muslim West. Brill, 2006. p. 7

Himyarite Christianity was the state religion in Himyar (present day Yemen) during the rule of Abraha in the early to mid 6th century. This is epigraphically confirmed in inscriptions invoking the Holy Trinity or to God and his Messiah. Under Abraha, Himyar's church separated from Aksum and subsequently became a refuge for several Roman bishops considered "heretical" (adhering to Julianist doctrines)

There is a detectable doctrinal shift overtime within Himyrite Christiantiy. Earlier inscriptions reflect dependence on Aksumite Christianity using terminology like "Son" and "Christ the Victor" whereas Abraha's later inscriptions shift to Messiah and Syriac-influenced vocabulary.

>It is remarkable that his christological beliefs were in agreement with those of Judeo-Christians—and that he used a terminology identical to the one found 75 years later in the Qur’ān. (pp. 153)

Aksumite inscriptions include several biblical quotes from both the Old and New Testaments in contrast to Himyarite inscriptions that are both Jewish and Christian never do. Epigraphic sources disappear after 560.

The footnote referring to Julianist doctrines is provided below:

>Van Rompay 2005: 252–4. Julianism (after Julian of Halicarnassus) was concerned with the corruptibility of Christ’s human body, with Julian arguing against corruptibility, but opposed by the deposed Miaphysite patriarch of Antioch, Severus. See DHGE s.v. ‘Gaianites’ (M. Jugie).

My question:

Is there any extant evidence that ecclesiastical bodies such as church councils or regional episcopal networks in the Levantine belt or Aksum recognized, endorsed, or contested the shift in Abraha’s inscriptions from “Son” to “Messiah?”

Source:

Fisher, Greg, editor. Arabs and Empires before Islam. Oxford University Press, 2015. pp. 153-154.