Genesis: Legends and Annotations

Author: Feng Xiang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-10-01
Features: Genesis (serialized under the title Dust Adam in the Mysterious World magazine) is another writing series by Feng Xiang. This book is written using what the author calls "leftover materials" while translating and annotating the Old Testament/Moses' Five Books. The first part contains 20 chapters, each telling a story from Genesis, such as: the creation of heaven and earth by God, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, Abraham, Judah, and more. There are also 60 illustrations. The Bible as one of the sources of Western civilization has, over nearly two thousand years, been spoken of, examined, interpreted, encoded, and decoded, forming a vast discourse space. As an Easterner, to truly integrate into the wave of globalization and to genuinely understand the new ethics driving capitalist development, the Bible might serve as a key. And to truly understand it, as Feng Xiang, the author of this book, believes, rewriting stories could be a beneficial approach. This book is written using what the author calls "leftover materials" while translating and annotating the Old Testament/Moses' Five Books. The first part contains 20 chapters, each telling a story from Genesis, such as: the creation of heaven and earth by God, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, Abraham, Judah, and more. To tell stories vividly and extract new meaning from old ones is, in my opinion, a great literary talent. Before this, among the rewritten stories I have read, only Lu Xun's are worth praising. The author of this book, Feng Xiang, is a visiting professor at Harvard, knowledgeable, versed in both Eastern and Western traditions, and possessing profound writing skills. Rewriting stories from another tradition, with his deep understanding and grasp of another culture, combined with his fluent writing, is truly a classic of contemporary Chinese writing. Excerpt: Adam Adam was originally God's beloved. I remember Jia Ni explaining this principle, his fingers slowly running through his hair. At the beginning of the semester, in classroom 202 of Emerson Hall, after Professor Morley's Bible lecture. Jia Ni was a year ahead of me, studying theology, with a string of snails dangling from his left ear. God spoke once: Light! And there was light. Night turned to morning, darkness fell into the abyss. A second word, and the waters parted, flowing above and below the heavens. A third word, and the land rose from the sea. A fourth word, and the earth was covered with vegetation, each producing seeds. In this way, over six days, God created heaven and earth (Genesis Chapter), but why? For Adam, his only love. Each of us, as an Adam, as long as we turn back from our wandering and return to his embrace, he will joyfully say, "You shall call me husband (ishi) no more, but call me lord (baali) (Hosea 2:18)." Adam is the Hebrew word for "man." Ancient Jewish scholars who interpreted the scriptures said that Yahweh "created the world with ten words, holding up the sky with one finger." On the sixth day, it was time to create Adam, yet he used both hands, ten fingers, "taking his own image." Thus, Adam's body was like a "microcosm," a miniature universe, where the vast world is but a "magnified man" (macroanthropos). His thick hair was like a forest on the mountain peak; his clear tears were like flowing rivers; his open mouth was like the endless sea, breathing in and out. In truth, his bright eyes had already contained the entire world: the black of his eyes was land, the white was water, the pupil was the holy city of Jerusalem, and the light reflected deep within the pupil was the holy temple of Yahweh! He was beautiful as an angel, walked upright, spoke, and could distinguish right from wrong. Yet at the same time, he needed to eat, drink, excrete, and reproduce. His life was finite and he was bound to die—yes, God, all-knowing and all-seeing, had already foreseen Adam's fall from the beginning of creation. This made him resemble a beast. Thus, the saints said that before the Creator, humans are "half angel and half beast": if they fear God, keep the law, reject evil, and do good, they can receive the grace of Yahweh; otherwise, they will surely fall, living a life like beasts. Jia Ni asked Professor Morley: "In Genesis Chapter, the phrase 'God said' appears only nine times, not the ten words required—how do you explain that?" Seeing fine sweat on his nose, the professor took off his sun hat and pointed to the sky. It was the summer solstice. The six graduate students gathered around Professor Morley, leaving from Eliot College, where he had served as president (undergraduates at Harvard lived and studied in residential colleges, attended by senior professors as presidents), to the Charles Hotel to celebrate his retirement. In the 1980s, the hotel's restaurant was not as luxurious and dull as it is now; it was frequented only by tourists and businesspeople. Back then, a white paper was laid on the table with a box of crayons. Guests could sit down, order food, and doodle while chatting. Those who thought they had drawn well could tear off their creations, sticking them in red and green on the wall, using it as a message board. The professor said, "Let's not talk about that today. But remember, God spoke ten words to create the world, and he truly poured his heart into creating Adam, as a hospitable host personally arranging a room for a visiting friend. Of course, making Adam the ruler of all things was also a warning: Human, you must not be proud! Otherwise, the fish, insects, and birds will laugh at you: In terms of teeth, your generation is the youngest, and yet, the mosquitoes that suck your blood are even your ancestors! Everyone laughed. Jia Ni pretended to swat a mosquito with a on his arm and said, "Ah, that must be the tenth word: 'Yahweh saw that humans were increasingly evil, always scheming against one another in their hearts, and he regretted creating them in the world, saying with great sorrow: I will blot out from the earth all that I have made, including man and beast, and the creeping things! How wrong I was to have created them in the beginning!' (Genesis 6:5 onward)." But God knew Adam's flaws and disgust in advance—how could he regret creating him? Let's not talk about that! Everyone sighed in unison.