This reflection on Genesis 1 was written by Avner Moriah for 929 and can also be found here
How can the Creation story be visualized? Where is God in the picture? Is the order of Creation on each of the six days important? What are the most significant features of Creation? Relating to these kinds of questions is so difficult that medieval artists seldom included portrayals of Creation in Hebrew illuminated manuscripts of the Torah.
Avner Moriah illustrates his version of the story using shapes as part of his creation – circles, spirals, spikes, and dots in different configurations. Looking from right to left, we realize that he made no effort to describe the order of Creation day by day, but rather challenged the viewer to decipher the various acts of Creation that are figured in the picture. The artist pictured the tohu, the substance formed in the initial act of Creation, out of which everything else was shaped and made, as erratically arrayed amorphous yellow shapes in the upper right-hand corner.
The continuation of the verse “and the spirit of God (ruach) hovered over the face of the waters” is visualized as a non-anthropomorphic spirit of God, figured as a three-dimensional spiral next to the waters (tehom) on its left. Again shaped as spirals, this time in several other colors, the spirit of God is pictured to the left of a white and a black rectangle, which represent day and night. Below we see a patch of blue between two white circles, suggesting the firmament that separates the waters.
Under the image of the firmament, the artist illustrates the sun and the moon as well as the stars, skipping over the creation of the Third Day, and displaying the flying fowl, which was part of Creation on the Fifth Day.
Returning to the top of the picture, we find images of the two acts of Creation on the Third Day to the left of the two small spirals representing the spirit of God. First, we see a rectangular area in which there is a crocodile (sea-monster), representing the sea, and below it a stretch of yellowish green for a patch of grass and trees. The sea-monster in the water is mentioned specifically with the fowl on the Fifth Day, “And God created the great sea-monsters” (Gen. 1:21), thus making it clear that they are not mythological creatures, but are to be counted among God’s creations.
Elsewhere in the picture are the various animals – wild four-legged beasts, as the lion; domesticated four-legged animals, as the bull and the deer; and the crawling creatures. The winged creatures are figured as well and different kinds of fish are seen in the water. Most prominently, there are four figures standing together in the foreground – Adam and Eve (who are not flanking that certain tree) together with Cain and Abel – all modeled after cult figurines and the images on seals taken from ancient Near Eastern civilizations.
Avner Moriah is a prolific Israel artist who is illuminating the entire Chumash.
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