As a child I thought there was just one creation story, and it worked like a familiar fairy tale:
“In the beginning, God...” must be the bible’s way of saying “Once upon a time....”
“God saw that it was good....” must be the bible’s way of saying “And they lived happily ever after.”
I loved fairy tales; I felt right at home.
And in between, there was a place for everything –
and everything was in its place.
There was a dome under the heavens, certain things that belonged there, and certain times that governed their belonging. The Sun belonged to that dome during day; the moon and stars belonged to that dome during night. And day or night, in the dome of the heavens belonged “every winged bird of every kind.”
There was dry land – and all the plants and animals that belonged to dry land.
There were seas – and all the fish and sea monsters belonged there.
A place for everything – and everything in its place.
This is what our mother told us about our toys. So it must be right.
How shocked I was to discover years later that there were two creation stories, the second right on the heels of the first, with a different ordering of things. The second creation story begins with the creation of man – and I do mean “man” – and ends with the creation of “woman,” “Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh....”
The creation of “man” and “woman” bookend the creation of everything else, all of which happens in a Garden. So far so good, but nothing ends “happily ever after,” because there is a snake, who apparently hasn’t been made to crawl on its belly yet, but seduces the couple with the promise of knowledge of good and evil.
Things go downhill after that. I’m glad I didn’t run into that story until after I’d had the experiences both of seduction and of endings that were not quite “happily ever after.”
Still, I loved the image of a snake that hasn’t yet had to crawl upon its belly. If there’s room in a story for Satan before the Fall, walking around with a marble-handled walking stick, things can’t be all that bad.
Then, decades later, I ran head on into a third story of creation, which I had never recognized as a story of creation, because Satan is upright again, walking and talking. I had never recognized this as a story of creation, because it doesn’t begin with like a fairy tale, “Once upon a time....” It doesn’t even begin like a biblical fairy tale: “In the beginning....” Rather, Job begins with fire falling from heaven and consuming, with enemy tribes pouring over the horizon with bad intent, with boils and loathsome sores, with shunning neighbors and betraying friends.
The book of Job doesn’t usually surface in Sunday School education, and it’s probably a good thing. Sunday School purees the first two stories of creation together and serves them up like pabulum, the dull but steady diet of a world that is ordered and orderly, governed and governable, a creation that plays by the rules – and think it knows the rules to play by.
The book of Job presents the Other Side of creation, a creation that isn’t quite so tame.
The Satan – and in the book of Job Satan has some definition: a definite article in front of his name – Satan comes to God from walking to and fro on the earth, and up and down in it. And God, out of nowhere, poses a question: “Have you considered my servant Job?” The Satan counters with a question: “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Things go downhill from there.
Stripped of his children (they were killed by the enemy tribes), of his servants and livestock (they were consumed by the fire falling from heaven), and suspected by even his friends of some secret sin, Job questions God: “Why me?” And God responds with the other side of the creation story:
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements– surely you know!” (38:4-5)
The divine interrogation goes on, gaining strength, and it seems like Job is going to get mowed down by the Creation Machine, the last insult for someone who’s done no wrong.
But indeed, where is Job without his children, his servants, his property, and his health? Where is Job without his honor, his standing in the community? Job the Good Guy, who used to be able to do so much for so many people, is rendered useless, a broken toy. He who was once at the center has now been pushed out to a wild, untamed, ungoverned and ungovernable place: the edge of the city, the edges of civilization.
It’s fractured fairy tale at best, but here’s the wonderment -- there is, it seems, a lot of company out there. When you start to look at the list of things the Creation Machine has spewn out, you realize that a lot of them inhabit the fringes of an orderly life
There are wild animals, in particular, the wild ass, to whom God has given
“...the steppe for its home,
the salt land for its dwelling place.
It scorns the tumult of the city;
it does not hear the shouts of the driver.” (39:6-7)
You can tell by the description that God loves this wild thing; God loves its very wildness.
Then there’s the ostrich, which has wings, but does not fly. Its feathers serve
no purpose but beauty. It doesn’t even know how to take care of its young,
“because God has made it forget wisdom,
and given it no share in understanding.” (39:17)
This bird is useless, even as a parent.
And yet:
“...when it spreads its plumes aloft,
it laughs at the horse and its rider.” (39:18)
Indeed, an ostrich on the ground, flapping and flapping its plumes to get aloft, makes even the tamest horse rear. God’s just kind of tickled by that.
The last two creatures mentioned in this alternative story of creation are the Behemoth and the Leviathan. The Behemoth, probably a hippopotamus, violates all kinds of boundaries, living both on land an in water. Now think about it: you’d get a parking ticket for that kind of behavior from the first story of creation, which has carefully segregated animals that live on land from animals that live in air from animals that live in water. The Behemoth, it seems, breaks all the rules. The Behemoth eats whatever it wants, wherever it finds it, again against the rules of the first stories of creation. Humans beware – but to God, this creature is utterly magnificent.
The Leviathan is the Behemoth of the oceans:
“There is terror all around its teeth...
its sneezes flash forth light,
and its eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn.” (41:13-14, 18)
The Leviathan is the most monstrous of the sea monsters ....but wouldn’t you love to see those eyes. Like the Behemoth, the Leviathan is wild, chaotic, utterly ungovernable, completely useless to what we think is the human project.
But these creatures, all outside the cities, romping on the edges of the mountains, the seas, the borders of civilization, these creatures are all emphatically part of the divine project. In all their wildness and their sheer uselessness to the human project, God delights in them. Indeed, God loves them because they are wild; God loves them because they are useless. They serve no purpose but beauty.
Job in his isolation, his uselessness, and his suffering is not abandoned – not at all! Job has just joined The Wild Things. Suffering initiated Job into this wild and crazy tribe of trespassers, tricksters, and border-crossers. Because Job is part of this crowd, God delights in him too. Maybe, in him – especially. More important, God is there, beside Job, in sheer divine delight.
Well: you can see why the book of Job is swept under the carpet in most Sunday and synagogue school curricula – I mean, who would pick up their toys?! But by the time you get to adulthood and accumulated your share of broken toys, had some experience of death or suffering, plans not working out, relationships breaking, after you’ve traveled to another country and seen an infant die of bad water or a child with a cleft palate, you need a God who loves the “edges” – and lives there in solidarity.
