I recently provided a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 based on the Babylonian creation myth, Enuma Elish. In that post, I focused on the author’s intention to create a counter-myth to Enuma Elish. But that was not all that the author was trying to do in Genesis 1. Perhaps his biggest message is that the entire cosmos is a temple.
This idea that the cosmos is a temple appears explicitly in the second chapter of Midrash Tadshe, a short rabbinic commentary on Genesis: “The Tabernacle was made in parallel to [God’s] creation of the cosmos.” It goes on to say that the Holy of Holies corresponds to the highest heaven (the abode of God) and the outer courts correspond to the material world.
Gottwald Agrees: The Cosmos Is a Temple
But I first encountered this notion of the cosmos as temple in Norman Gottwald’s book, The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-literary Introduction. My dear professor, Wilbur Fields assigned this book in our Introduction to the Old Testament course as a kind of foil to the fundamentalist readings of the Old Testament for which he was arguing. I remember harboring guilty feelings because I found a whole lot that Gottwald said to be compelling. The thing that most enchanted me was his approach to Genesis 1. This makes up a relatively small portion of his book, but it was the first time that I became aware of the riches of inter-textual interpretation.
The Construction of the Tabernacle Reflects the Construction of the Cosmos
What Gottwald points out is that the recurring phrase “and it was so” in Genesis 1 looks an awful lot like the phrase “as the Lord had commanded, so had they done it” that appears in Exodus 39:43. This passage in Exodus is about the construction of the Tabernacle in the wilderness. At every stage of the completion of the Tabernacle, a phrase very similar to that one appears. For instance, at the beginning of Exodus 39 it says, “they made the holy garments for Aaron; as the Lord had commanded Moses.” The correspondence is especially tight when considering that everything in Genesis 1 “was so” as a direct result of a verbal command from God. The same holds true of the Tabernacle. The Lord gives a verbal command to Moses as to how to construct the furniture of the Tabernacle, and the artisans do it just so.
That’s as much as Gottwald says. But this opens up more considerations for these passages. Consider the order of the days of creation and the furniture of the Tabernacle.
Day One: God Creates by Separating Things
The first day establishes things that will be given form later. All of these figure significantly in the function of the Tabernacle. First of all, these verses establish the basic pattern of creation. God creates by separation. This Hebrew verb (le-havdil) describes one of the roles of the priest, to distinguish between various things. Perhaps Leviticus 10:10 expresses this most explicitly. “You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean.” In a sense, the entire career of the Hebrew priest is bound up in this activity of separation. So, here the text depicts God as creating order in the cosmos by performing a priestly work. Inversely, this conveys that when the priests carry out their work of distinguishing properly, they maintain this cosmic order. The cosmos is a temple, and the Temple is cosmic.
The Liturgical Calendar in Genesis One: If the Cosmos Is a Temple, then It Needs a Calendar
The next thing that really grabs my attention is the fact that God establishes a calendar on the first day of creation. For the Hebrews, the main function of the calendar is liturgy. To really get a sense of just how liturgical Genesis One is, you should read Numbers 28-29, which lays out a detailed sketch of Israel’s festal calendar. If you do this right after having read Genesis 1, the parallels will be obvious. But, note that almost everything in Numbers 28-29 has to do with the sacrificial schedule in the Tabernacle. Again, that is a clue for us as to how to think about the story in Genesis 1, and how it depicts the cosmos as a temple. But it also suggests that the liturgical calendar and the sacrifices that are built into it are a means of participating in the original work of creation.
We’ll return to the waters and the light later on.
Day Two: The Firmament
On the second day, God creates the firmament. The purpose of the firmament is once again to separate, to distinguish between the waters above and below the firmament. There is no firmament in the Tabernacle. But the verbal root for the word translated “firmament,” rq”a’, does show up twice in association with the Tabernacle. Rq”a’ means “to hammer out into a sheet.” This is significant, because the verb only appears eleven times in the entire Hebrew Bible. First, Exodus 39 tells us how Bezalel hammered out gold leaf so that he could turn it into thread for the ephod.
The Ephod
2 And he made the ephod of gold, blue and purple and scarlet stuff, and fine twined linen. 3 And gold leaf was hammered out and cut into threads to work into the blue and purple and the scarlet stuff, and into the fine twined linen, in skilled design.
The Bronze Covering for the Altar
Then, in a more grisly passage in Numbers 16, we hear about the censers that Korah and his company used to offer incense before the Lord. They challenged the Aaronic privilege to the priesthood, and as a consequence, fire came out from the ark of the covenant and consumed them, Raiders of the Lost Ark style. Because these men had consecrated these censers to God, they could not simply dispose of them. Instead, craftsmen hammered them out and turned them into a covering for the altar of sacrifice.
37 “Tell Elea′zar the son of Aaron the priest to take up the censers out of the blaze; then scatter the fire far and wide. For they are holy, 38 the censers of these men who have sinned at the cost of their lives; so let them be made into hammered plates as a covering for the altar, for they offered them before the Lord; therefore they are holy. Thus they shall be a sign to the people of Israel.”
39 So Elea′zar the priest took the bronze censers, which those who were burned had offered; and they were hammered out as a covering for the altar, 40 to be a reminder to the people of Israel, so that no one who is not a priest, who is not of the decendants of Aaron, should draw near to burn incense before the Lord, lest he become as Korah and as his company—as the Lord said to Elea′zar through Moses.
Day Three: God Creates Seas
On the third day, God creates the seas. These correspond to the bronze laver in the Tabernacle, and the molten sea in Solomon’s Temple. (Midrash Tadshe states this unequivocally). Both the laver and the sea were round. Midrash Tadshe says that this was a reflection of the firmament that encircles the disc of the earth, surrounded by the seas. It was thirty cubits in circumference, in accord with the thirty days in a month. It measured ten cubits in diameter. This, too, has a cosmic significance according to Midrash Tadshe: Israel sustains the cosmos by performing the Ten Commandments. (Coincidentally, in the Hebrew text of Genesis, God also creates the universe with ten utterances).
The priests in the Tabernacle and Temple used both of these vessels to ritually wash their hands and their feet before offering sacrifices. The sea, because of its size and height, probably had a pool surrounding it into which water from the sea was run for this purpose. (In the Mass, our priests do this very thing, with much less water, at the beginning of the Eucharistic liturgy, to signify that they are offering the supreme sacrifice that Jesus made at Calvary).
Midrash Tadshe also says that the vegetation that God creates on the third day find its correspondence on the Table of Showbread. It even says that there are six loaves for the six months of winter produce and six for the summer. (They grow produce all year round in Israel).
Day Four: God creates the Luminaries, the Menorah of the Cosmos as Temple
On the fourth day, God creates the luminaries of the heavens. Midrash Tadshe tells us that these the Menorah, the lampstand that illumined the Holy Place, mirrors these. Not only this, but the two bronze pillars, Boaz and Jachin, represent the sun and the moon, respectively.
Day Five: God Creates Birds and Sea Creatures
On the fifth day, God creates the creatures of the sea and the birds of the air. The cosmos begins to be populated. Priests will offer some of these creatures (pigeons and doves) in the Tabernacle as sacrifices in worship.
Day Six: God Creates Land Creatures for Sacrifice and Human Beings to Serve as Priests in the Cosmos Temple
The same is true of the land creatures God makes on the sixth day. Most of these are unclean, and consequently unsuitable for sacrifice. But Torah separates a select few for this purpose: cattle, sheep, and goats. And then, to crown the work of creation, God creates human beings in His image as the priests who will offer these gifts back to Him in sacrifice in the cosmos-temple.
The liturgical calendar of creation reaches its pinnacle on the seventh day, when God ceases from His labor, providing a model for His people to follow. To truly bear the image and likeness of God is to rest from our labors, as He does, and to reconnect with Him on the Sabbath, in the temple cosmos. All of the labors of the week are for the sake of enjoying the peaceful communion afforded by the Sabbath.
Midrash Bereshit Rabbah and the Literary Structure of Genesis One
Before wrapping this up, I’d like to draw attention to another aspect of the structure of Genesis One. The ancient collection of rabbinic commentary known as Midrash Bereshit Rabbah offers intriguing insight on this count. Although it doesn’t directly relate to the theme of cosmos as temple, it demonstrates that the ancient sages were not preoccupied with literalistic interpretations of Genesis One. They recognized it to be a carefully crafted literary work.
Midrash Bereshit Rabbah 12:5
Rabbi Nehemiah, a man from the village of Sihon, offered this midrash on Exodus 20:11, “Because in six days the LORD made the heaven and the earth, etc.”: These three things were the foundation of His creation of the cosmos, and they waited for three days, and brought forth three generations.
According to the house of Hillel: the earth was created on the first day, and waited three days, the first day, the second, and the third, and brought forth three generations, trees and grasses and the Garden of Eden. The firmament was created on the second day, and waited three days, the second day of creation, the third, and the fourth, and brought forth three generations, the sun and the moon and the constellations. And water was created on the third day, and waited three days, the third day of creation, the fourth, and the fifth, and brought forth three generations, birds and fishes and Leviathan.
Rabbi Azariah did not say the same thing. Instead, on the day that the LORD made heaven and earth there were two things that were the foundation of His creation of the cosmos, and they waited for three days, and their work was completed on the fourth.
According to the house of Shammai: The heavens were made on the first day, and waited three days, the first day of creation, the second, and the third, and their work was completed on the fourth. And what completed their work? The luminaries. The earth was made on the third day, “and the earth brought forth …” (Genesis 1:12). This was the foundation of His creation. And it waited three days, the third day of creation, the fourth day, and the fifth, and its work was completed on the sixth. And what completed its work? Adam, as it is said, “I made the earth, and created Adam upon it” (Isaiah 45:12).
Midrash Bereshit Rabbah 12:5, my personal translation
The Literary Structure of Genesis One in Tables
There are actually two different schemas for understanding Genesis 1 presented by two rival schools in that text. Both of them actually work, and perhaps both reflect the author’s intent. What Midrash Bereshit Rabbah is saying is that there is a structural correspondence between the first days of creation and the last ones.
| Day 1: Earth Founded | Day 2: Firmament Founded | Day 3: Water Founded |
| Day 3: Earth populated with Trees | Day 4: Firmament populated with Sun | Day 5: Water produces Birds |
| Day 3: Earth populated with Grass | Day 4: Firmament populated with Moon | Day 5: Water populated with Fishes |
| Day 3: Earth finished with Garden of Eden | Day 4: Firmament populated with Constellations | Day 5: Water populated with Leviathan (“tanninim“) |
| Day 1: Firmament Founded | Day 3: Earth Founded |
| Day 4: Firmament completed with luminaries | Day 6: Earth completed with Adam |
The Cosmos Is a Temple
The cosmos, then, is a temple. And the temple is a microcosm, i.e., a miniature universe. Sacred spaces like the Tabernacle sanctify the common places outside of their bounds. Animals that are sacred, like pigeons and bullocks, when the priest offers them in sacrifice, sanctify the common creatures who are not destined for the altar. Sacred times like the Sabbath sanctify the common days of the workweek. The priests of the Tabernacle and the priests ministering at our Eucharistic altars sanctify us common folk. All of this provides a means for every aspect of creation to actually be turned back to the glory of God in worship. God made you in His image to participate in this cosmic liturgy.
