In 1992 I found an ANE literary type called "royal chronicle" fit the first Genesis Creation account. What ancient genre is it considered now?

Question

During my university student days, about 1992, I once attended a seminar about ancient near eastern literature concerning kings. Somewhere in the middle of it, one speaker was describing a literary type that was used to tell of a mighty accomplishment of a king, a type that used poetic elements and a memorable structure that wasn't meant literally using things such as the parts of a building or days for organizing the material. I remember suddenly sitting up straight in my chair as it struck me that Genesis 1 matched that type. The speaker referred to this as "royal chronicle", but looking that up online now doesn't bring up anything like that speaker was talking about. I'm hoping someone will recognize this literary type and have the current label for it along with where I can read more about it.

Note: please don't try to claim that this account matches some modern literary type, because it doesn't. I'd like an answer from someone who has studied ancient near eastern literature. This is not a duplicate of any question because it is asking about ancient near eastern literary types, and "Hebrew poetry" does not qualify!

Answer 1

"Literary genre" is a term with many definitions. In the broadest sense, Gen. 1 is religious literature. More narrowly it is Holy Scripture for Christians and Jews. In a secular sense it would be considered an origin story: more specifically, a creation myth. Britannica defines "creation myth" as a:

Philosophical and theological elaboration of the primal myth of creation within a religious community. The term myth here refers to the imaginative expression in narrative form of what is experienced or apprehended as basic reality. The term creation refers to the beginning of things, whether by the will and act of a transcendent being, by emanation from some ultimate source, or in any other way.

The term "myth" here should not be understood as pejorative in the sense of being untrue. It merely describes one of the primary literary genres of Gen. 1. It can also be considered a historical narrative, or more properly a pre-historical one. If it is understood to have been dictated by God to Moses, then it would fall in the category of divine revelation or channeled writing. The idea that it is a royal chronicle is unusual, but worth considering.

Answer 2

The first couple of chapters in Genesis give two accounts of Creation, the second starting at 2:4, running straight on from the first. They are significantly different, yet not contradictory - they are complimentary. Both serve deliberate purposes. There is nothing accidental about them. Different accounts have not been cobbled together. Although it is true that the account of Creation was not observed by any human (Adam being the very last creative act of God in that earthly creation), so that all that God had conveyed to him, and all that that first man experienced had to be passed down verbally to his offspring, that in no way detracts from the reality of the account. Whatever similarities are looked for in other creation accounts, their differences stand out head and shoulders. The Genesis creation account is unique. None of the names given to the literary genre of ancient, near-eastern literature can do justice to the Bible account.

Yes, God is the King of Creation. Yes, there are poetic elements in the account. Yes, there are spiritually symbolic lessons in it. However, it also describes real events, that happened in real-time, with real characters (like Adam and Eve). In the Creation account, God does not make a covenant with the first, directly created man. He provides abundantly for him, gives him a job of work to do (name the animals, and spread the garden by tilling the ground), and adds only one prohibition - Don't partake of one particular fruit. But God doesn't promise anything, nor does he (or Adam) take an oath to abide by any covenant. This is a unique aspect. After Adam's fall into disobedience, God then does make promissory covenants that are oath-bound, with sacrifices. Not prior to the Fall, however.

In other ancient literature, human kings and their gods feature a great deal, with threats and promises, sacrifices and battles at the start of their versions of creation. They have promissory covenants with a senior party (a conquering king or a god) swearing some benefit for a junior (the conquered or the dependent); or a parity covenant where two equals exchange oaths. But the biblical account of Creation is starkly different. It is prophetic, pointing to a second 'Adam' to come, who will restore all things from after the Fall, with a new Creation, a new humanity; and it takes the whole of the Bible to gradually open that out to the careful reader. What Jesus said about the first (literal) Adam needs to be believed, as with what God foretold regarding the seed of the woman, and the crushing of the serpent's head (Genesis 3:15). Symbolic language is in amongst it all, teaching spiritual truths that all lead to the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. It takes thousands of years to work out, so that the rest of the Old Testament and all of the New Testament are required to understand the Bible's first two chapters about Creation.

You won't find anything else like it in all of other ancient, near-eastern literature. It is uniquely prophetic literature, using actual events to teach immense spiritual truths humanity could have had no clue about, unless God chose to have the record written down just the way it was written.