Genesis

File:Genesis1.JPG

Genesis as seen in the Bible

For the rock band Genesis, please see Genesis (band)

Genesis the book of beginnings, and the first book of the Jewish Torah as well as the Bible, recounts the beginning of all life on earth and the social and cultural formations of mankind. It stands as the introduction of the entire body of the Bible, of the creation of the nation of Israel, and of the earliest promises of the coming redeemer.

Name

The Hebrews had called the First Book of Moses by the name of bereisheet or be'reshith, meaning "in the beginning", based on the three words which start Genesis. The Septuagint, the ancient Greek-language version of the Old Testament, rendered this title under the name he biblos geneseos, from which came the Greek word genesis, meaning "origin". (Unger, pg. 396)

Overview

The fifty chapters of the book of Genesis can be divided into two parts: the early, primeval history of man from the Creation to the fall of the Tower of Babel, and the Patriarchal History of Israel from Abraham and his son Issac, grandson Jacob, and Jacob's sons, primarily Joseph, although there is a continuous genealogy connecting both parts.

The Creation

In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth. This is one of the most famous statements in the Bible, and it starts the account of God's creation. Genesis 1:1 through 2:3 involved the first seven days in history:

• The first day, the creation of the heavens and the Earth, and light (Gen. 1:1 through 1:5).
• The second day, the creation of a "firmament" or expanse, separating the waters (Gen. 1:6 through 1:8).
• The third day, the creation of dry earth and plant life (Gen. 1:9 through 1:13).
• The fourth day, the Sun, the moon, and the stars, are placed in the sky, to mark the seasons (Gen. 1:14 through 1:19).
• The fifth day, the creation of the creatures of the sea and the fowl of the air (Gen. 1:20 through 1:23).
• The sixth day, the creation of the animals of the land, and the creation of Man (Gen. 1:24 through 1:31).
• The seventh day, on which God rested from his task of creating (Gen. 2:1 through 2:3).

The remainder of chapter 2 concentrates on the creation of Adam and Eve, and does not have the same chronological framework as chapter 1. This and perceived differences or even contradictions between chapters 1 and 2 has led some to claim that the two chapters had separate origins and were conflicting creation accounts that have both been included in the one book.

One of these claimed contradictions is that the raw text of chapter 2 describes the creation of animals after the creation of Adam (verses 15-19 [1]), contrary to the clearly-stated order in chapter 1. Creationists usually respond by asserting that chapter 2 is not intended as a chronological list like chapter 1, and at least one modern Bible version exceptionally translates verse 19 as "The LORD God had formed...the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air"[2] (emphasis added), despite the fact that the tense and mood of the original Hebrew verb is imperfect ('formed' or 'was forming'), not pluperfect ('had formed').[3] However, a number of fundamentalist commentators consider it appropriate to treat the verb as a pluperfect, based on its context rather than its strict grammatical form. But this then raises the question of whether chapter 1 is really part of the context of chapter 2 in the first place, and not a contradiction of it - which returns us to our starting point.

The fall of mankind into sin began when the serpent questioned one of God's commands, namely not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and convinced Eve to eat the fruit, followed by Adam. The result of disobeying this command resulted in the driving away of Adam and Eve from the garden to live a life of subsistence farming, and eventually dying. Eve was additionally cursed with painful childbearing, and to be subservient to Adam. All of these curses were applied to Adam and Eve's decendents also. Genesis 3:15 is also cited as being the first reference to the coming Messiah.

The creation of man was by a plural form of God, Elohim (Genesis 1:26: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness"). Some Christians, but no Jews, cite this and other plural references to God in the Old Testament as ancient proof in Hebrew of the existence of the Holy Trinity.

The Flood

The wickedness of mankind is so great the God repents of His creation and decides to destroy it all through a flood. Only Noah is righteous before God, and He instruct Noah to build an ark to carry himself, his family, and pairs of every creature on earth and in the air. God then destroys the earth with water, the ark riding the waves until the waters abate and it comes to rest at the mountains of Ararat. God makes a promise never to destroy the earth by flood again, and shows Noah the sign of that covenant, a rainbow.

The precise nature of the crimes for which God destroyed all life other than that on the ark is not specified.

Noah is also the first planter of a vineyard, and during a drunken sleep one of his sons (Ham) sees him naked. Noah awakes with the knowledge as to what he had done, and places a curse upon his son Canaan, declaring that Canaan and his descendants would be slaves to the his brothers Shem and Japheth. All three sons would have their names and their descendants listed on the Table of Nations, which ends Noah's story.

Abraham

Genesis 11 begins the story of Abram, who leaves the city of Ur with his wife, Sarai, on a journey towards Canaan, where God has shown him what He was going to do: I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.

Sarai, being barren tells Abram to take Hagar, his Egyptian handmaiden, as wife. Hagar becomes pregnant with Ishmael, and God makes a promise that the child will be "a wild ass of a man, his hand against every man and every man's hand against him," with descendants beyond number.

God also makes a covenant with Abram: Abram will have many descendants as well as possession of the land of Canaan. Abram's name is changed to "Abraham”, and Sarai becomes "Sarah." A sign of the new covenant is the circumcision of all males. Abraham is also told of the fact that Sarah will bear a son who will be named Issac, and it is through Issac and his descendants that the covenant will be established; although Ishmael is to be a great nation, he is left out of God’s covenant.

Two angels appeared to Abraham and told him that Sarah, barren for years, will bear a son. They also tell him that the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah is very great, and God will shortly punish them, Abraham asking if the cities be spared if so much as ten righteous men are found inside.

The two angels are received by Lot, much to the consternation of the townspeople who surround the house and demand sexual acts with the strangers; the townspeople are blinded, and the angels warn Lot and his family to flee immediately for the mountains and never look back. Both Sodom and Gomorrah are consumed by fire and brimstone; Lot’s wife turn back to look and is turned to a pillar of salt.

Sarah gives birth to Isaac, and at her insistence demands that Hagar and Ishmael are driven into the wilderness. While Ishmael is near dying, an angel speaks to Hagar and promises that God will not forget them, and will make the descendants of Ishmael a great nation.

God puts Abraham to the test by demanding the sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham obeys God during his ultimate test: the sacrifice of his beloved son Issac; just as he is about to thrust the knife God restrains him, and promises descendants beyond numbering. Abraham dies later, ‘’full of years”, and is laid to rest in the Tomb of Machpelah in Hebron, which he had purchased shortly before as a place of rest for Sarah.

Isaac and Jacob

Isaac had prayed to God that He would deliver a child through Rebekah’s barren womb. He does, and Rebekah gives birth to the twins Esau and Jacob; but prior to the birth God had predicted division between the two, with the elder serving the younger. Esau, the elder, had despised his own birthright and sold it for a bowl of red porridge, allowing Jacob to enter his father’s tent and deceitfully take the blessing intended for Esau. He flees to Haran, the home of his uncle Laban. Along the way he has the dream of the ladder to Heaven, where God tells him of prosperity for himself and his descendants; he names the spot Bethel in commemoration.

Jacob had two wives, Leah and Rachel, and two concubines, Zilpah (Leah's handmaid), and Bilhah (Rachel's handmaid). Together they bore Jacob twelve sons:

• From Leah: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulan.
• From Rachel: Joseph, Benjamin.
• From Zilpah: Gad, Asser.
• From Bilhah: Dan, Naphtali.

Joseph

Joseph, having angered his brothers through the dreams indicating his brothers would bow down before him in addition to a colorful coat given to him by his father, is bound and sold into slavery by his brothers’ wickedness, and claim to a bitter Jacob that Joseph was killed by a wild animal. His dreams while a slave in Egypt come to the attention of Pharaoh, who was troubled by a dream of seven withered cows and stalks of corn which ate seven fat cows and healthy stalks of corn. Joseph interprets the dream as that of Egypt going through seven years of plentiful harvests, followed by seven years of severe famine, and follows it up by asking Pharaoh to appoint a wise man over Egypt to ensure enough is collected and stored during the plentiful years to act as a hedge against the years of famine. Pharaoh responds by appointing Joseph himself in this position, and during the famine "all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth."

Jacob, not knowing Joseph is still alive, sends his sons to buy grain in Egypt. The brothers appear before Joseph, but do not recognize him; Joseph however, recognizes them, and after a series of tests which convinces Joseph their characters have changed, reveals himself to them, convinces them that what happened in the past was God’s plan, and tells them to bring Jacob and their families to live in Egypt. Genesis ends with the blessing of Jacob’s children, his death, and the death of Joseph, who exhorts his brothers to carry his bones when they eventually return to the Promised Land.

Authorship

Biblical tradition within and without the Old Testament, Jesus in the New Testament, as well as extra-Biblical writers such as Josephus, Origen, the early church fathers and many others, have claimed Moses as the author of Genesis, written during the time of the Hebrew wanderings in the Wilderness, between 1440-1400 B.C. Certainly, Moses was well established to have written Genesis in Hebrew, Akkadian, or Egyptian; he was well educated and trained in the Egyptian court. Archaeology demonstrated that such a man did have the eductation necessary to accomplish this during that time in history. (Unger, pp. 35-35)

The higher critical view was that Moses did not write it. Some biblical scholars identified five separate authors of the five 'books of Moses'. Although unidentified, each of these authors has been given the name of a letter:

• J who calls God YHWH (the Jehovist account), and who possibly wrote in the south of Judah, written c. 850 B.C.
• E who uses Elohim ('the gods', 'the spirits') as God's name, and possibly wrote in Ephraim, written c. 750 B.C.
• D who wrote the book of Deuteronomy, about 650 B.C.
• P who wrote an alternate history in what was called the Priestly Code, about 500 B.C.
• R who joined the writings of J, E, D and P to form a single work.

Under this hypothesis, looking at the Creation story

• Genesis 1:1 through 2:3 were written by P.
• Genesis 2:4 was written by R
• Genesis 2:5 through 4:26 were written by J.

This theory has gained in popularity since it was first proposed in the late 19th century. However, it is inevitably a product of modern rationalistic research and the application of literary criteria. Opponents of this research point to the fact that it is difficult to reconcile with the historical, miraculous, and prophetic elements which they claim to be basic to the first five books of the Bible (Unger, 397; Young, pp. 183-276).

By the most optimistic estimates, then, nothing in Genesis was written less than a thousand years after the events it attempts to describe, which isn't to say the authors may not have drawn on earlier texts. After all, no works from the Roman period survive in the authors' handwriting, yet the authenticity of, say, the letters of Cicero is rarely disputed. However, the most recent historical and archeological research reported and collated by Finkelstein and Silberman, among others, suggests that the Torah is unlikely to have been written much before the 7th century BC.

Sources

• Finkelstein, I. & Silberman, N.A. The Bible Unearthed, Touchstone, 2001.
• Holy Bible, King James Version (Thompson Chain Reference), B.B. Kirkbride Bible Co. Indianapolis, IN 1982.
• Unger, Merril F. Unger's Bible Dictionary, Moody Press, Chicago, IL 1966.
• Unger, Merril F. Unger's Bible Handbook, Moody Press, Chicago, IL 1967.
• Young, Edward J. Introduction to the Old Testament, W.B. Eardmans Pub. Co. Grand Rapids, MI 1949.

Links

• Table of Nations chart
• Creation timeline