B. Thematic Unity
What is the overall intent of these stories when seen together as a whole? The Primeval Story as a whole tells the following tale.God created the world a perfect place. The creation, however, was distorted and corrupted by humanity's efforts to achieve autonomy from God. God's first response to the growing problem of sin was to wipe the slate clean with a flood and begin again with righteous Noah.
Even after the earth was un-created and then re-created, sin was still present. Noah's drunkenness, perhaps a sin in itself, brought out the worst in his son Ham. Just as before the flood, sin continued to spread and increase in perversity. The immensity of sin was evident in the monstrous city and tower building project conceived by humanity. God was outraged by this project. But he did not repeat his prior attempted solution by sending another flood. Indeed, he could not. He had made a covenant through Noah that he would never again eliminate the life he had created just because of sin. Instead, at that point, he narrowed the focus of his attention and concentrated on the line of Shem. Out of that line he took Abram and created a people called Israel.
The true nature of sin, from first to last, was trying to become like God: by knowing good and evil (Adam and Eve), or through divine marriage (Sons of God and human women), or by ascending to heaven (Tower of Babel). Humanity was created as the image of God. But there is a vital distinction between being the image of God and being God. Humanity persistently tried to blur this distinction.
Table 1.4 summarizes the parallel thematic development of the Primeval Story. Specific parallels and similarities between equivalent stories are suggested by the arrangement of elements in the table. Some of the correspondences are remarkable. In part one Eve and Adam eat the forbidden fruit and thereby sin; in part two Noah drinks from the fruit and thereby occasions sin. In part one Cain sins and is cursed; in part two Ham sins and Canaan (which in Hebrew, as in English, sounds much like Cain) is cursed. Genealogies stand in parallel positions across the columns.
| Creation to Noah (10 Generations) | Flood to Abram (10 Generations) |
| A. Creation (1-2) | A. Re-creation (8:1-9:17) |
| 1. Deeps (1:2) | 1. Deeps (8:2) |
| 2. Blessing (1:22) | 2. Blessing (8:17) |
| 3. Mandate (1:28) | 3. Mandate (9:1-2,7) |
| 4. Food (1:29-30) | 4. Food (9:3) |
| 5. Adam worked the ground (2:15) | 5. Noah worked the ground (9:20) |
| B. Adam and Eve ate fruit of the tree (3) | B. Noah drank fruit of the vine (9:18-28) |
| 1. Fruit of the tree (3:1-7) | 1. Wine (9:20-21) |
| 2. Nakedness exposed (3:7) | 2. Nakedness viewed (9:21-23) |
| C. Cain sinned and was cursed (4) | C. Ham sinned and Canaan was cursed (9:25-27) |
| D. Genealogy: Adam to Noah (5) | D. Genealogy: Sons of Noah (10) |
| E. Sons of God (6:1-4) | E. Tower of Babel (11:1-9) |
| 1. Divine-human mix (6:1-2) | 1. Reach heaven (11:4) |
| 2. Men of a name [Heb. shem] (6:4) | 2. Make a name [Heb. shem] (11:4) |
| F. Flood (6:5-7:24) | F. Genealogy of Shem (11:10-26) |
| Result: Undoing of creation | Result: God focuses on Abram and makes his name [Heb. shem] great (12:2) |
The Hebrew word shem, meaning "name," appears to have some significance as a signal of structure. Humanity's essential failure was in trying to make a name for itself. In each parallel series of events, the culminating sin was humanity's attempt to become like God, rather than implicitly trusting God. Be it marriage with divine beings or a building project that gives access to heaven, they were self-deluded and were ultimately frustrated by God.
The first attempt resulted in the flood, a destructive cleansing of the world that had become corrupted. After the second attempt, the Tower of Babel, God turned his attention to Shem, whose name in Hebrew means "name." From his line God took Abram and made a special covenant with him. God promised to make his name great and to make him into a great nation. The lesson was this: The human race would achieve blessing and distinction only through God's initiative, and not through its own engineering and scheming.
The ancestral story comes next in chapter 2 and continues the story line of the Primeval Story. It shows how God developed a plan to bless humanity.
