Lela Miller is an Honors Nursing and French major, currently taking the Honors College’s Retro Readings course on the Bible with Dean Lynda Coon. Lela hopes to pursue an international career in travel nursing, and in her current free time trains Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and enjoys deep diving into philosophical and religious texts.
Liquid, essential to life, is a prominent motif throughout the narrative of Genesis (ca. 900-500 BCE) to Revelation (ca. 100 CE). Whether it be a symbol of sanctification during baptism (Acts 2:38), a mode of miraculous intervention in the Red Sea parting (Exodus 14:21), or a form of destruction like the flood (Genesis 7) and the bowls pouring out God’s wrath in Revelation (16:1), the properties of water enable the unique chemistry of life itself to be possible. Moreover, the foundational particles for life itself, quantum objects such as the electron or the atom, were discovered in later 17th-century research on quantum mechanics to behave like liquids- functioning according to wave-like patterns and later discovered to be able to take on liquid-like shape.
Credit: The second day of Creation: God, suspended in the clouds, divides the heavens from the waters. Line engraving by T. de Leu after M. de Vos. Wellcome Collection.
The biblical creation narrative and unfolding events in Genesis are foundational in Jewish theology, conveying the relationship of the divine to humanity. While the sources of Genesis have been identified by most scholars as J, E, and P, which have been compiled together to produce the text- the authorship remains unknown, and divine inspiration is never explicitly stated. Fascinatingly, the Genesis account for the creation of life, parallels modern scientific discoveries of the wave-like behavior of quantum objects- the units fundamental to life. Genesis 1 illustrates peculiar imagery of the Spirit of God hovering over a primordial liquid, a shapeless void that would soon be the underpinnings for the earth. This imagery coupled with the chemical nature of liquids exemplifies the timeless connection between the divine Spirit of God and liquid, depicting this void as a watery womb out of which solid ground takes shape, encompassing the divinity and purity of original creation.
Genesis 1 narrates the birthing of solid matter and the earth out of these waters. However, this divine water, the essence of creation, is later contorted by evil for malevolent purposes. In Genesis 3, the introduction of evil through Adam and Eve’s consumption of the forbidden fruit represents the corruption of this pure creation, as malevolent forces contort what was created perfect and pure to be a mode to introduce sin, marring the primordial connection between humanity and the divine, and thwarting God’s intended design.
Malevolent forces marring the connection between creation and divine, and contorting purity and order is the primary conflict of the biblical narrative. The Book of Revelation, the final text of the New Testament written by a prophet known as John, who is otherwise anonymous, houses both revelation of divine secrets and prophecy of God’s intentions, which foretells both the denouement of this conflict and depicts peculiar imagery regarding the contortion of the once-divine building block of life, liquid. Revelations 12 illustrates this contortion of the divine in the portent of the cosmic woman anguishing in labor pains, as a beast patiently awaits to consume her child, inferred as the Mesiah, directly from her womb (Revelation 12:4). This is without success as God swiftly takes up the child to heaven, and in vengeance, the beast spits out a river to destroy the woman (Revelation 12:15). Contrasting the beast’s formerly noted mode of destruction, fire, the beast’s ability to spit out liquid in this chapter after consuming birthing liquids gives us a coarse depiction of the perversion of life and birth, and underscores the distortion of divine elements for malevolent purposes. Though divinity prevails in this illustration, as the earth swallows up this spat out river allowing the cosmic woman to escape the grasp of the beast (Revelation 12:16).
The watery void out of which matter and life was birthed in Genesis parallels the womb of the cosmic women and her birth of the wholly pure and perfect Messiah. Further, the introduction of evil in Genesis, thwarting God’s original design and contorting original creation for malevolent purposes parallels the cosmic women birthing the champion of this biblical conflict and the attempt of Satan to contort the mode of which he was introduced- the amniotic and birthing fluids out of which he was grown and delivered. This consuming, spitting, and swallowing of fluids originally signaling birth and new life, then used as a mode for malevolent destruction, signals towards the divinity of creation and evil’s vulgar attempt to contort it, with the culmination of evil being swallowed up by the earth and divine plan prevailing. This struggle of the divine woman, representing purity and life, and the beast, representing malevolency and destruction, signifies the cosmic conflict that takes place throughout the biblical narrative and liquid as a central element in this cosmic struggle, being the fundamental medium through which life is created, sanctified, and ultimately sustained.
The Bible Retro Reading course centers on this magisterial — yet frequently misunderstood — corpus of sacred scripture. In this seminar, led by Honors College Dean Lynda Coon, students will grapple with books of the Bible, selections from Genesis to Revelation. The goals of the Bible seminar are twofold: to enhance critical reading skills and to augment the understanding of scripture through a deep dive into its complex historical layers.