Social Justice in Creation
Social Justice and the Bible, part two
IN THIS ARTICLE: Similarities and differences between the Genesis creation accounts and other ancient Near East literature reveal God’s heart for justice, love, peace, equality between the sexes and among all peoples, and expectations for their loving care of all creation.
God created the universe and our humble place within it – this little rock we call Earth. He made the Earth beautiful and habitable for all the creatures he put here. This would be a place where animal, mineral, and vegetable life would flourish, and every living thing would live together in harmony and joy. The Bible’s creation story is quite a contrast to the other creation stories of the Ancient Near East. And the differences speak volumes about how our God feels about justice.
The most famous and influential Ancient Near East creation story besides the Bible is the Babylonian Enuma Elish. And it shares similarities with the Genesis accounts:
Nothing exists in the beginning.
The first words mention heaven and earth.
Water is important.
Creation is spoken into existence, and much of the order of creation follows the same sequence, including divine rest at the end.1
But the differences are stark, as Carmen Joy Imes shows in Being God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters.2 In the Enuma Elish, creation happens through violent conflict. The gods are part of nature and subject to both nature and magic. They create humans from the blood of an evil god. In Genesis, a God of peace brings order from chaos without a hint of violence. Our God is the benign sovereign of everything, and he creates humans to steward the earth. Humans are made in the image of this good God, who pronounces that all of creation is good.
In the Enuma Elish, the gods rest from their labors because the humans they have created are now their slaves, providing the sustenance that these gods need. The Sabbath rest of Genesis is different. God doesn’t get tired; God doesn’t need to rest. God shows love and joy, surveying creation on this seventh day with satisfaction.
The Sabbath was made for humanity – a pattern of rest each week. We could even say that the Sabbath is the beginning of human rights – the first law of equality – there is nothing like it in any other ancient society. Even the king could not compel the lowest servant to work on that day.
Later, when God commands Sabbath rest in the Law of Moses, the Sabbath commandment is the only one of the Ten Commandments that refers back to Creation and the former slavery of the Israelites in Egypt. As they remember they were slaves until God rescued them, they are to extend Sabbath rest to everyone around them. Bethany Hoang and Kristen Deede Johnson write,
According to the commandment, every son and daughter, every servant, every foreigner, every animal, and the land itself are to join in this Sabbath rest, and God’s people are called to actively protect and extend Sabbath on behalf of others.3
In Genesis One, after the creation of Man and Woman, God says in verse twenty-eight,
Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.
The idea of the words “govern” and “reign over” in Hebrew is not about domination or exploitation. It’s a call to steward and promote the welfare of everything and everyone. God says, “I’m trusting you to enable all of my creation to flourish. I’m delegating my authority over creation to women and men, so govern like I do.” This is not only a stewardship of natural resources but of culture. This is a vision of shalom in an interconnected, interdependent world where everyone and everything delights in God and each other. God calls us to creation care — the earth matters, the air matters, the water matters, and all plant and animal life matters.
Finally, the creation of humanity is the pinnacle of God’s work. After God creates Adam, we hear for the first time the phrase, “It is not good.”
What is not good? That Man should be alone. So, God creates Woman from man’s side. Symbolically, this means man and woman share a common ontology – we are humans, equal before God and each other. When Man sees Woman, he is overcome with joy and gives the world the first song, or poem: “Bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh!”
The Bible, famously, says that Woman is created to be man’s Helper. But the Hebrew word we translate as “helper” is ezer, which does not create the picture of Adam as a high-level executive and Eve as support staff. If I ask one of my children to clean the den and then I find the other one and say, “Help her,” I am not placing one in charge of the other. Neither is the boss — their mother and I are.
The noun ezer occurs twenty-one times in the Bible. Twice it refers to Woman. Three times, it refers to allied nations that Israel was appealing to for help or rescue from a common enemy. And the other sixteen times Ezer is used, it describes God as the helper, the Ezer, of His people.4 Azar is the verb form of the Hebrew ezer. It appears around 80 times, and, again, primarily refers to God and secondarily to military aid.5
Man and Woman – and by extension all of their offspring – are the pinnacle of God’s creation, the only beings made in God’s image, and we get to govern this world together.
In two weeks, when we resume this series, we’ll pick up the tragic story of sin entering the garden, turning God’s world into a place where shalom, righteousness, and justice would no longer flow like living waters. But next week we’ll continue our theme of mutuality between the sexes, showing that the presence of woman prophets in New Testament churches, like counterparts in the Hebrew Scriptures such as Deborah and Huldah, means that women are empowered to preach and teach today.
Carmen Joy Imes, Being God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters (Grand Rapids: IVP Academic, 2023), 25-26
Imes, Being God’s Image, 33-34.
Bethany Hanke Hoang, Kristen Deede Johnson, The Justice Calling: Where Passion Meets Perseverance, Grand Rapids: Brazos Press (2016), 39.
Philip B. Payne, The Bible vs. Biblical Womanhood: How God’s Word Consistently Affirms Gender Equality (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2023), 2-3.
John H. Walton, Genesis (The NIV Application Commentary) (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 176.
Reading John Walton’s book The Lost World of Adam and Eve changed my whole view of everything. I had never considered that there were other creation stories in other cultures. In other creation stories gods use power over people where Gods design is power with people. It made so much sense to see why this story was so important to write and record for his people. Great article!
Bobby, I’ve been absolutely loving your posts. You really have a gift for communicating these fraught issues in understandable terms. Thank you!
Question: how do the ancient creation myths depict the creation of the sexes? The contrast between a benevolent God and the exploitative deities is stark. Is there any parallel oppressive contrast between man and woman in those narratives?