Chaos + Earth = Love

Last updated on: December 19, 2012 at 5:26 pm by Michael D. Bobo

Chaos + Earth = Love 2012-12-19T17:26:14-06:00 Michael D. Bobo

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Hesiod’s Theogony suggests a rather insightful equation that informs the Genesis accounts of creation in chapters 1-3. Rhoda A. Hendricks translates it thus:

First of all Chaos came into being, and then Gaea, the broad Earth, the ever certain support of all the deathless gods who dwell on the summit of snowy Olympus, and also dark Tartarus in the innermost part of the broad-pathed earth, and also Eros, the fairest of the immortal gods who relaxes the limbs and overpowers the resolution and thoughtful determination in the hearts of all the gods and all mankind.

Simply put, for Hesiod the following equation explains human origins: Chaos + Earth (Gaea) = Love (Eros). Hesiod does not define Chaos but the term suggests a disordered, mysterious existence that I believe parallels the Hebrew concept of Tohu wa Bohu in Genesis.

Genesis 1:2 (NKJV): The Earth (Gaea) was without form and void (Heb. Tohu wa Bohu) and darkness was on the face of the deep.

Genesis 2:7 (NKJV): And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Genesis 2:21-25 (NKJV): And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said:

“This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

If Adam in fact loved Eve in this mythological founding narrative of humanity, then a provocative parallel holds. For Genesis we could see it: Earth + Void = Humanity (Woman/Man in spiritual/sexual union) = Love?

Maybe we can see the hand of God working in a similar manner today taking the Chaos/Void throughout Earth to produce love and spiritual union? If this is true, chaos is a necessary ingredient in order for love to exist. Or, more positively, who couldn’t use a force that “relaxes the limbs and overpowers the resolution and thoughtful determination in the hearts of all the gods and all mankind” otherwise known as love?

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