In the beginning

[PrinceMyshkin]

I had second thoughts about this. I apologize to those who spent the time reading it.

[AuntShecky]

What an effort here! Unconsciously or consciously, it might be an alternate take on Milton's stated purpose:
"To justify the ways of God to Man."

I'm wondering if you've ever read The Book of J, with its inspired gloss by the great literary scholar Harold Bloom. If you have, I also wonder if you agree with Bloom's thesis that the author of the first five books of the New Testament (in which the name of the Creator begins with the letter "J") was a woman. If so, you might want to reassess the gender of the writer invoked in your poem.

But again, this piece evokes a powerful message.

[PrinceMyshkin]

What an effort here! Unconsciously or consciously, it might be an alternate take on Milton's stated purpose:
"To justify the ways of God to Man."

I'm wondering if you've ever read The Book of J, with its inspired gloss by the great literary scholar Harold Bloom. If you have, I also wonder if you agree with Bloom's thesis that the author of the first five books of Genesis (in which the name of the Creator begins with the letter "J") was a woman. If so, you might want to reassess the gender of the writer invoked in your poem.

But again, this piece evokes a powerful message.

I did debate with myself re identifying the writer as male. The problem, as I saw it, in writing "she wrote" was that readers would then be looking for a feminist subtext throughout the poem. I haven't read the book you mention but I had heard of the conjecture that a portion of the Pentateuch was written by a woman.

One subversive (?) intention I had was to call into question the assumption that "God" Him- or Herself had dictated the text to a scribe.

[AuntShecky]

Well, we needn't quibble about pronouns. It probably doesn't matter, but evidently the society at the time was prominently patriarchal, as are, we are told, several extant societies in that corner of the world.

But now, I'm wondering, Prince, if your speaker (not necessarily you yourself) believes that the Bible was divinely inspired. I somehow picked up the notion that the tone of your poem was
a tad ironic.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Well, we needn't quibble about pronouns. It probably doesn't matter, but evidently the society at the time was prominently patriarchal, as are, we are told, several extant societies in that corner of the world.

But now, I'm wondering, Prince, if your speaker (not necessarily you yourself) believes that the Bible was divinely inspired. I somehow picked up the notion that the tone of your poem was
a tad ironic.

I thought of the speaker as someone who was out to tell a good story; implicitly, that the whole of Genesis was a human invention. I came to feel, however, that I wasn't shedding any light on why his story took the direction it did and besides, as I have experienced in the writing of some of my own poems, inspiration comes from somewhere and so, I suppose, in this case it might just as well have come from "God."