Written by Emil Bock

Edited for Spiritual Science Bible Studies

Copyright2002 by Andrew Flaxman
OT 101
GENESIS:
Creation and History: The Great Cycles of Time (1 of 4 Lecture/Guides)

Lesson One:
Creation: The Great Cycles of Time

As humanity made the transition from the [intuitive wisdom] of the [Far East] to the wakeful thinking of the [West], the
historical form of thinking and the sense of history were born.

The wisdom of the ancient [East] beheld earthly happenings as if from divine heights, sunk in contemplation of the
ever-turning cycles in which tranquil, unending duration with its rounds and repetitions, not yet the stern step of time
and evolution, held sway. Only the western spirit can recognize the goals of will concealed in mankind's evolution and
experience time as a real factor. In place of the cycle of timeless tranquility, the forward path of progressive evolution
begins, with its breathless striving and fear of time's all too rapid flight.

The significance of the Old Testament is that it builds the bridge from the non-historical eastern to the historical
western world conception. The ancient Hebrew world-view . . . gives the first impulse for a historical outlook . . . The
Old Testament is the first great example of a historical approach to events. Hence it bequeathed to the [West] the
heritage of such a historical approach.1 The spark of will penetrates. Humanity awakens to an evolution brought about
and guided by the divine, a path to goals set by the gods.

The study of history in common use today, which is proud of the scientific approach of the past few centuries, certainly
feels superior to a historical representation like the one in the Old Testament, especially in its first books. The method
is based on an exclusive faith in 'outer sources'. An event is acknowledged as true only if reliable contemporary
findings or information about it exist. The start of a historical development is placed in the time of the oldest
information available. The evaluation the Old Testament receives on this basis is obvious, for, with divine unconcern, it
reaches far beyond the realm of provable history into primal times. How can the description of epochs, of which no
source material can exist, withstand the historical criticism of today? One may enjoy the Old Testament as edifying
religious fiction, but for the scientifically disciplined historian, such documents are of no account. Moreover, because
other ancient writings are known for instance, the history of the Chaldeans written in Greek by Berossus which
relate the history of single nations to the world's creation, it is assumed that ancient writers did not yet possess a view
of the entire human race. What true historic value can ancient creation myths have, if they stem only from the naive
style of a writer who poetically dates his own people's history back to the gods?

In reality, we have an important original model of true historical writing in the Old Testament. The history of
humankind no more begins upon earth than does the life of the individual human being. The birth of physical man is
preceded by the growth of the soul-spiritual entity in supersensory spheres. Therefore humankind's destinies in the
realm of earthly densification and embodiment are preceded by eons in which human beings together with the creator-
beings of higher realms, worked on the physical world as on the living garment of God.

In earth history, celestial history continues. This is why all historical writing, though it may be based on the best of
'source materials', must remain incomplete and blind, unless it is aware of the supersensory, super-historical sphere of
real spiritual beings.

As a prophet envisions the future still slumbering and growing in the spirit realm, so the true historian must be capable
of reading the books of the past inscribed in the cosmos. He must have the faculty of retrospection. True myths are
windows of retrospection; they reveal the history prior to history.

1
Rudolf Steiner, The Gospel of St. Mark, Lecture of Sept. 20, 1912
GENESIS: LESSON ONE 2

In the Old Testament we watch earthly history emerge from heavenly history. The prenatal destinies of humankind and
earth itself appear to us. A text speaks to us which can unveil a spiritual-physical primordial history. We witness the
'coming-into-its-own' of history, which, before it becomes historical history, is creation: cosmic history; then the
development of primeval humanity: mythological history. Just as the source, so also does the goal of the Old Testament
belong to the spiritual realms as an all-embracing human-cosmic goal. The intention is not to describe the history of a
single nation. The history of the Israelites is depicted only because through them the body of God who is to become
man is prepared for mankind and for the whole earth creation. It is the concrete Messianic goal that breathes the
onward-moving sense of time into the books of the Old Testament and makes them the first documents of a historical
world conception. The developments described by the Old Testament are not completed within it. They demand to be
continued in the books of the New Testament all the way to the Revelation to John. The last book of the Bible is the
lofty recording of prophetic preview, just as the First Book of Moses, Genesis, is the classical book of spiritual
retrospection, or prophecy in reverse. And between retrospection and preview, between Genesis and Apocalypse, lies
the path of history. The creation myth and the prophecy of the future represent the balance of historical existence.

THIS IS THE END OF LESSON ONE

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW, FOR CONTEMPLATION, AND FOR DIALOGUE:

1. What does Genesis mean?

2. Explain what Bock means when he compares the Far East with the West in terms of the
birth of history. What does he say is the significance of the Old Testament?
3. How does Bock compare the modern study of history with the historical representation
found in the Old Testament? What does Bock think of the conventional historian? What
quality does he say that a true history should have?
4. How does Bock describe Humankind before the birth of physical man? Do you agree with
this interpretation? Why or why not?
5. Why does Bock say that the history of the Israelites is depicted and why this is not just a
history of an ancient nation?
6. How does Bock compare Genesis to the Apocalypse?
7. What questions do you have about this first lesson?
Please email your responses to flaxman@onlinehumanities.com.

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