What Does Genesis Leave Out?

There is no clear description of the beginning of Hell, of when Satan was cast down. Even if this certainly happened well before Nimrod's time.

There is also no clear description of how idolatry began. Even if it could have happened in Nimrod's time, according to some, and had certainly happened before Abraham's vocation.

Why are these left out? It is possible that Moses did not consider his people mature enough for demonology (except for the kohanim and levites who had access to information not written in the law). It is certain that idolatry was not discussed. There is a direct ban on mentioning the names of pagan deities.

"Keep all things that I have said to you. And by the name of strange gods you shall not swear, neither shall it be heard out of your mouth."
[Exodus 23:13]

Nevertheless, Moses does mention a false deity's name:

Numbers 25:[3] And Israel was initiated to Beelphegor: upon which the Lord being angry

One must however suppose, the Israelites of old were not allowed to mention Beelphegor by name on a daiy basis after the killing of the initiates. The name was retained in the narrative, but it was not a subject for free conversation.

Therefore, I suppose, Genesis does not tell us directly how idolatry began. Some say Tower of Babel was esoteric, magic, and idolatry began over that project to "build a portal" - but you do not find that speculation in the text itself any more than you find mine that it was mainly technological, a rocket project as an "extra Ark" by those mistrusting God, or that of some other men, simply a project of power politics in administration, making a one world government (btw, these two types of project do not exclude each other).

Historia scholastica in the part dedicated to Genesis, by contrast, says Ninus (the husband of Semiramis, and he is not identified but clearly disidentified from "Nembroth") started idolatry inadvertently by too much mourning over his father Belus and too much attachment to his image ... sth leading to the populace eventually attributing divinity to the image. Meanwhile, Semiramis was doing hanging gardens. This happened in the time of Sarug - which is then well after the birth of Peleg, well after Tower of Babel.

Genesis does not decide in the text.

Neither does Genesis tell us how Satan fell. It is most probable Isaiah tells us, but he was not discussing the days of creation. Hence there is a discussion on when Satan fell. Did he make Earth waste and desolate and pour darkness over the water when he fell down to Hell? Did he "survive in grace" to when Adam was created on day six, as Muslims say he was told to bow down to Adam and refused? Did he fall after the last time the words "they were very good" were pronounced by God? Here one could argue back and forth.

• 1) Satan after his fall was not very good. Thus he fell after the mention in Genesis 1:31 of the qualification on all things God had made as very good.
• 2) On the other hand, God had made his nature, which remains very good, it is only his will (not will faculty, but will content) which is very evil, and that he chose himself, God did not make it so for him. Thus he can have fallen before day six. This would be the position of St Thomas Aquinas, and it also explains why Hell fire is for eternity : God punishes the will, not the being, of the damned, since their being is sth which He has created and which remains good. Annihilation would be punishing the being instead of the will, the creation instead of the human choice.

Nevertheless, most Christians with some claim to theological profundity think they have use for a position on these two questions, and they are not directly adressed by the text of Genesis.

I noted that, while the fall of Satan is adressed on CMI - Russell Grigg argues Satan fell some time after creation week, Keaton Halley supports this (and presumably also Russell's using argument one of previous two options) - the beginning of idolatry is not adressed on their site. When Lita Cosner makes a kind of parallel to St Augustine's City of God where he follows the fates of the "two cities", she only says:

After every other judgment, there is still a clear ‘open door’ where there is assurance of God’s continuing salvific plan for humanity. But here there is no righteous remnant standing out. There is no indication that humanity is anything other than uniformly rebellious, mirroring God’s statement in 8:21, after the Flood subsided, that every thought of man’s heart was only evil, from his youth. Even the descendants of righteous Shem seem to be participating. And where is Noah in all this? Five generations have entered the world since the Flood, and it seems that the whole earth fell into idolatry. But the seeming victory of the serpent was only an illusion.

Eve’s offspring, the serpent, and his offspring—Part 1, Adam to Babel
by Lita Cosner, Published: 23 September 2014
https://creation.com/offspring-1

Her conclusion is actually wrong.* While Thare (mentioned at beginning of part 2) was an idolater, as his son Nachor, probably others were not yet such. At no single time was all earth in idolatry, with no man alive excepted. The City of God was not founded twice over, and while Abram received a call, he was also a heir, otherwise he would not have been able to transmit the story of Genesis 2 to 11 (creation days and up to Genesis 2:4 may have been Moses' vision on Sinai, added by Moses as final compiler and redactor).

Joshua 24:2b in Douay Rheims:

Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Your fathers dwelt of old on the other side of the river, Thare the father of Abraham, and Nachor: and they served strange gods.

This is perfectly compatible with idolatry beginning at the time of Sarug, as Historia Scholastica says, who was father of the older Nachor and grandfather of Thare.

In other words, Sarug at least refused idolatry even up to the vocation of his greatgrandson Abram, whom God renamed Abraham. God never left the Earth without true worshippers.

This is important because Abram was 51 years when Sarug died. His own vocation was at 75. The grand maximum of a void of believers would have been those 24 years. And it does not stand to reason he was even an idolater up to his vocation, it is possible God was giving him the needed chance to avoid falling into it, but without him having done so.

St Augustine is adament that the Hebrew patriarchs were not involved in the building of Babel. One reason why a geographic spread (but no linguistic or even political diversity) before Babel is a desideratum for exegesis is, this way the innocent Hebrew patriarchs could simply have succeeded in keeping out of the way, doing sth else - perhaps lowly work like growing crops or tending sheep a bit outside Babel. Like Djemdet Nasr and other agricultural places are outside Göbekli Tepe.

Now, why is this non-participation important? Because it means, you cannot have a Church falling into error and having God fix it only later, after generations had been left in error, through Mohammed or Joseph Smith, through Ellen Gould White or Martin Luther, through Calvin or through Zwingli. Sarug would have warned Abraham against idolatry, which was not yet there when he was a child, as one Francis lord of Sales, of Boisy and of Novel warned one St Francis of Sales, as yet a teen, against Calvinism, which was not yet there when the saints feudal lord father was a child. (Young future saint had been anguished that Calvinism could be true and he could be among the "foreknown"). Even the Reformation under King Joas presupposed that a Jewish Church had been continuing in hiding, but known to exist, while Athalia was persecuting it. So, the Protestant Reformation cannot have happened. Luther is no new Abraham, and one cannot make Abraham a proto-Luther. Without tradition from Sarug, Abram would not have been able to reasonably know for certain whether the voice came from God. With it, Abram could identify the voice of God as the one voice left keeping up the tradition he had received from Sarug.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Martina, Virgin and Martyr**
30.I.2019

Update: it seems Answers in Genesis have less reticence.

At the Tower of Babel, the concept of the unity and absoluteness of God had begun to be lost. When the people were dispersed at Babel, they would have taken with them a hybrid truth of the living God mixed with the twisted and distorted truth of that revelation about him. The loss of a unified language led to the loss of unified religion; every people and nation now deviated to worship its own national god. At Babel monotheism degenerated into animism, sorcery, magic, and polytheism—though some still retained it (e.g., Melchizedek, Genesis 14, Noah—who lived for another 350 years or so after the flood). The pure revelation of God had been generally lost, corrupted, and perverted by sin, leading to religious idolatry and giving rise to religious pluralism (Joshua 24:2).

Here, Religion: What Is It, Where Did It Come from and How Does the Bible View It?, Simon Turpin seems to imply that apostasy into idolatry (in the religious, not the more general moral sense) happened at Babel. This is not just more than Genesis says, it is even not well compatible with Deuteronomy 32 of which only selected verses were cited. Noting how verses 16 and 17 come after the mention of Jacob (9) and the mention of a specific Canaanean idolatrous people in Canaan (or apostasy of Israelites?), this is not talking of the immediate result of Babel./HGL

* Or Currid's : Currid, J., Genesis: Volume 1, Evangelical Press Study Commentary, Webster, NY, p. 128, 2003. ** Sanctae Martinae, Virginis et Martyris, cujus dies natalis Kalendis Januarii recolitur. (Going back to January 1:st) Romae passio sanctae Martinae, Virginis et Martyris; quae, sub Alexandro Imperatore, diversis tormentorum generibus cruciata, tandem, gladio percussa, martyrii palmam adepta est. Ipsius vero festum tertio Kalendas Februarii recolitur.