In the patriarchal traditions of Genesis, the deity is six times called El Shaddai (Gen 17:1, 28:3, 43:14, 48:3, 49:25, Ex 6:3). Other names are El Elyon (Gen 14:18-22, Ps 78:35), El Olam (Gen 21:33), El Roi (Gen 16:13), and El Bethel (Gen 31:13, 35:7). The common denominator in all of these is "El". El is the proper name of the head of the Canaanite pantheon, as revealed in literary works discovered in 1928 by a peasant at Ras Shamar (ancient Ugarit) in Syria.

Only in the Jewish Study Bible the Hebrew name El Shaddai is kept. In the Protestant bibles this name is rendered as God Almighty. Other names are generally rendered as God Most High, the Everlasting God, or something else. It’s hard to notice the names are different if one can’t read Hebrew and rely on translations.

Names are an important theme of the story. In the biblical contexts name seems to encapsulate the essence of their bearer. Naming something or knowing the name of something gives one power over it.

Justice demands that the guilty be punished and the innocent spared, but Abraham is asking that the guilty be spared for the sake of the righteous. His goal is not, in fact, to convince Yahweh to do justice; he assumes that Yahweh is a god of justice… His aim is to convince Yahweh to transcend justice and forgive the guilty altogether… It may be Abraham’s vocation to teach justice to his offspring, but evidently it is also his vocation to teach mercy to his god.

The earth is destroyed because of ḥamas (literally, "violence and bloodshed" but including all kinds of injustice and oppression), and Noah is saved because of his righteousness.

I can't help but notice the similarity between the word ḥamas in Hebrew and Hamas, an acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement in Arabic. Although they are etymologically unrelated, I wonder if there's implicit priming for Israelis: when they see the name, they might associate it with its negative connotations.

The serpent tells Eve that if she eats the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she will become like the deity. His words are both true and false. The humans will become like gods knowing good and evil, not because of some magical property of the fruit itself. By choosing to eat of the forbidden fruit, the humans learn that they have the power to disobey the deity, that they have moral freedom to conform their actions to the divine will or to defy it. To know good and evil, to know that one has moral freedom, is no guarantee that one will choose or incline toward the good. This is what the serpent omits in his speech. The serpent implies that it is the power of moral choice alone that is godlike. But true godliness is not simply the power to choose good and evil (Sarna, Genesis, 27). True godliness--imitation of the deity--is the exercise of one's power and free will in a manner that is good and life-affirming. For it is the biblical writer's contention that the god of Israel is not only morally free but also essentially and necessarily good.

This chapter is full of gems.

Kaufmann argued that in the Hebrew Bible, evil has no independent existence. Yet evil and suffering are experienced as a condition of human existence, a reality of life. How can this state of affairs be explained? The Garden of Eden story seeks to answer that question, asserting ultimately that evil stems not from the activity of an independent demonic force but from the exercise of human free will in defiance of the creator. The created world is a good world; humans, however, in the exercise of their moral autonomy, have the power to corrupt the good. According to Kaufmann, the Garden of Eden, story communicates this basic idea of the monotheistic worldview: Evil is not a metaphysical reality; it is a moral reality. Ultimately, this means that evil lacks inevitability. It lies within the realm of human responsibility and control. [emphasis added]

On Day 3, vegetation is created, and on Day 6, humans are created. The implication is that the vegetation is for the humans, and indeed it is expressly stated by the deity that humans are given every fruit-bearing tree and seed-bearing plant for food (1:29). No mention is made of animals as food. Moreover, in Gen 1:30 animals are given the green plants (grass, herbs) so that there is no competition between humans and animals for food, and thus no excuse to live in anything but a peaceful coexistence. In short, in the biblical creation story, humans are created vegetarian, and in every respect the original creation is imagined as free of bloodshed and violence of any kind.

Mythology and myth are quite distinct. In contrast to mythology, which deals with the lives of gods, a myth is generally defined as a traditional story -- often fanciful and imaginative -- that relates events in historical time, usually in order to explain a custom, institution, natural phenomenon, religious rite, or belief. It is a story invented as a veiled explanation of truth, a parable or allegory. The Bible may not present stories of the births, lives, and deaths of gods (mythology), but it certainly does contain myths -- traditional stories and legends that attempt to explain how and why something is as it is.

In the Hebrew Bible, evil results from the clash of the will of the deity and the will of humans who have the freedom to defy him, the power to sin… Evil is not a force or a power built into the structure of the universe, and it has no concrete independent reality. It is a moral, not a metaphysical, reality. This means that human beings and only human beings are the potential source of evil in the world. Responsibility for the reign of evil or goodness lies in the hands of humanity.

In many respects, the Bible represents or expresses a basic discontent with the larger cultural milieu in which it was produced. And yet, many moderns think of the Bible as an emblem of conservatism, an outdated document with outdated ideas. The challenge of the present book is to help readers view the Bible with fresh eyes in order to appreciate it for what it was: a revolutionary cultural critique.

This god was not identified with nature; he transcended nature. This god was not known through nature or natural phenomena; he was known through history and a particular relationship with humankind… the view of an utterly transcendent god with absolute control over history made it possible for some Israelites to interpret even the most tragic and catastrophic events, such as the destruction of their capital and the exile of the nation not as a defeat of Israel’s god or even that god’s rejection of them, but as a necessary part of the deity’s larger purpose or plan for Israel.