Notes on Genesis 1 by Paul Humbert

This page presents an English translation, by James M. Gibbs and Clement Marrou, of Paul Humbert's "Trois Notes sur Genèse I." The original French essay appeared in Interpretationes ad Vetus Testamentum Pertinentes Sigmundo Mowinckel Septuagenario Missae, edited by N. A. Dahl and A. S. Kapelrud (Oslo: Forlaget Land og Kirche, 1955), pp. 83–96.

Humbert's essay consists of three connected but distinct notes, and readers should be aware that the French original occasionally reads as working notes rather than fully finished prose — a character the translation preserves.

The study of ancient narrative opens with the opening chapters of scripture, where creation accounts are read with care for both literary craft and theological weight. Scholars interested in Old Testament prose often return to these early chapters as a kind of baseline, examining how words, repetitions, and structures build meaning across what can otherwise be read as simple story. The page that follows gathers working notes of that exploratory kind, presented in translation and intended for students and teachers who want to sit closely with the Hebrew tradition.

Readers approaching chiastic and structuring analysis will recognise familiar habits of mind: the search for parallel units, the attention to repeated phrases, and the desire to see how a writer shapes a passage so that its theology is carried by its form. Notes like these belong to a long tradition of exegetical work in which the shape of the text is treated as part of its message, and where seemingly small features can illuminate larger patterns. Such studies reward slow reading and patient return.

Within a wider programme of biblical and theological studies, such essays sit alongside Pauline epistles work, wisdom literature investigation, and gospel parallel studies. They share a common conviction that careful attention to the form of ancient writings opens up questions of meaning that more hurried reading tends to miss, and that this kind of patient, scholarly attention remains valuable for anyone engaged in teaching, preaching, or further academic study of the biblical traditions.

Creation from Nothing or from Chaos

A second strand of the essay addresses the debate between creatio ex nihilo — creation from nothing — and the alternative picture of God shaping order out of a pre-existing chaotic state. Humbert examines the Hebrew text's own indications on this question rather than assuming either position at the outset.

Three detached notes, but whose connection the reader will easily perceive.