Sample Comments from Area One Papers (C. Ross)
[author’s name], "A New Genesis"
Comments: Your essay argues that the Eurynome myth, carefully edited, could bridge some gaps and
explain some difficulties in Genesis. This is an original and inventive way to approach the assignment;
another virtue of it is that it takes into account the fact that there are already two creation accounts in
Genesis. As you acknowledge, the Eurynome myth in its entirety can't be included, but you argue
convincingly for its depiction of the involvement of its deity with the creation (thereby bridging the
impersonal and personal approaches of God to creating in the two Genesis stories). Of course, Genesis, and
probably the Jewish faith, would be very different if God were actually the bodily, physical source of the
created world: it might look more like the fertility religions of the ancient Near East. Be that as it may, the
explanations (particularly of how the serpent got to be evil) and fuller account produced by the selective
incorporation of the Eurynome myth into Genesis seem worthy of the attempt.
You argue almost all your points well, with appropriate textual evidence and reasoning to show how you got
to your conclusion. The one exception I found was on p. 3, where you are struggling with the problem of
human emotions attributed to divinity in the Eurynome myth. You resolve this inadequately by simply
suggesting that God could make the egg with the help of an advisor serpent. If God is merely going to
create impersonally as he did in the Genesis stories, but now through intermediate means, you beg the
question of 'why an egg at all?'
Because you took the less obvious route of arguing for including rather than excluding the Eurynome myth
(as almost all your colleagues did), you had less of an opportunity to discuss generally what the "big
picture" of Judaism is and how the origin myths in Genesis convey this. One of the most interesting points
raised in arguments for Eurynome's exclusion was her purposelessness and lack of interest in creation,
particularly in her human "children." God's intentionality and focus on the creation of humans in the
Hebrew Bible prepares the way for the divine/human covenant in the Noah's ark story and the Abrahamic
covenant (later ratified with the Ten Commandments). You might think about how you could preserve this
all-important aspect of Genesis and still include something of the Eurynome story.
On a prose style level, your writing is clear and easy to follow. You need to review comma usage (avoid
linking two complete sentences with commas; use semi-colons or separate them with periods instead) and
proofread more carefully for missing words.
[author’s name], "The Myth of Creation: Could Genesis Have Differed?"
Comments: Your essay argues, on the basis of careful analytic work with Genesis and the Eurynome myth,
that the latter has no place in the Hebrew Bible. You don't really give a hint of this conclusion (which is
actually your thesis) in your introduction, but you begin to build your case on your first page, so it's pretty
clear where you'll be going in the argument. You note critical differences between Genesis and Passage A,
focusing on their contrasting focal points (Genesis includes humanity as a central actor in its cosmic drama,
while Passage A doesn't include any sense of humanity's importance over other parts of creation), portrayals
of God, and inclusion or exclusion of a character responsible for evil. This last point is fresh and welltaken: as you point out, human moral responsibility is a critical philosophical point in the Hebrew Bible,
and this would be diminished by the presence of a devil figure. (This, in fact, is exactly what happens in
later Christian thought, creating a quandary that troubles Christians to this day.)
Your essay also does a nice job conceding and rebutting points that might be argued against your position
(see p. 3). Throughout your essay, you support your claims with appropriate evidence and you present your
case in prose that doesn't sacrifice clarity and grace even when it becomes abstractly analytic.
Here are a couple of suggestions to improve on this extremely strong foundation:
•
Your essay could gain additional nuance from a consideration of the second Genesis origin myth
(starting at 2:4). What you say about the depiction of God in Genesis 1 (his creation from a distant
location and from nothing) is somewhat tempered by the more anthropomorphic and less orderproducing God of the second account, so you need to qualify this description with a more explicit
awareness of what the second account does to the depiction of God. (This is harder than treating the
first account only, but it's also truer to the text and to its complex conception of the Hebrew God.)
•
A minor point about paragraph structure: your transitional phrases on p. 1 and 3 actually seem to work
better as introductions to new paragraphs. Accordingly, you should group them with the paragraphs to
which they relate.
These two points aside, this is a balanced and extremely lucid account of the contrasts and incompatibilities
between Passage A and Genesis: excellent work!
[author’s name], "Petition for Exclusion of Passage A from Genesis"
Comments: Your introduction argues for the exclusion of the Eurynome myth from Genesis on simple
grounds: its challenge to the Hebrew belief in one absolute god. This is fine as far as it goes, but such an
introduction actually sells your paper short: your argument in the body of the paper actually goes further,
highlighting some important differences between the Eurynome myth and Genesis (for example,
Eurynome's gender and specific name, the place of fertility in the Eurynome myth, etc.). You work through
the passage sequentially, which provides a clear structure for your argument. Your prose style, for the most
part, is clear and easy to follow.
The main area you need to work on is deepening your points and arguing them more fully. (At about 2 and
1/2 pages of actual text, your paper is rather scanty.) Note the number of times that you simply assert
something about the Hebrew faith or the Eurynome myth without actually reasoning its effects or explaining
its implications (for instance, on p. 1, what's your evidence that the Hebrew God doesn't have a female
image, and why is this an important aspect of the conceptualization of this figure? think, for example, about
its support of a patriarchal culture...).
Another way to develop your points is to pay attention to the quoted evidence you give and comment on or
interpret it more fully. For example, on p. 1, the passage you quote from the Eurynome myth does support
your point that this myth presents, in contrast to Genesis, a goddess with a specific name, but it also does
more: it presents a specific image of her, lacking somewhere to rest and therefore dividing chaos in a divine
dance. Contrast this with Gen. 1: such an image of the creator is clearly not congruent with the
unexplained and disembodied creative actions of God in the Hebrew myth.
Overall, you've got a good start on an argument here, but you need to extend and develop it in order to get
at a deeper level of interpretation and analysis.