Genesis Part 1 Chapters 1-11
In The Beginning
Genesis comes from a Hebrew word. It's pronounced ray-sheet, and it just means "beginning."
The story opens with God confronting chaos and disorder to bring order and beauty in creation. Humans are formed and appointed to participate in God's divine rule of the universe.
The humans are both individual characters, but they're also representative. “Adam" is the Hebrew word for "humanity," and "eve" is the Hebrew word for "life." And God creates them in his image. In other words, humanity reflects, or is meant to reflect, the creativity, the goodness, and character of the Creator out into the world that he's made. They're supposed to reproduce and make cultures and neighborhoods and art and gardens and everything else. But he gives them a moral choice about how they're going to go about building this world. And this is what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is all about.
Random Side Note: Idols in the ancient world were small figures made of wood, stone, or even clay, and worshipers would have a ritual after the idol was made in which the spirit or breath of a god would come down and live inside of the object. Notice that God in Genesis, creates Adam "humanity" out of the dirt and then breathes life into him. In a way, that means we are all representatives of God. So then also notice all of the warnings throughout the bible about false idols. These are those who are not being a proper representative of God.
As his representatives, humanity can choose to trust God for wisdom to rule, resulting in blessing for the entire world.
However, the humans choose to define good and evil on their own, which begins a destructive cycle that reintroduces chaos and disorder back into God's good world. The first eleven chapters of Genesis show a repeated theme of rebellion, from the garden to Cain and Abel, the "sons of God," the flood, and finally Babylon.
God continues to give humanity the chance to bring blessing into the world, and they continually choose their own way. Yet God promises, even in our rebellion, that a wounded victor will come to defeat evil at its source.
God has provided and defined what is good and what is not good. But now God is giving humans the dignity and the freedom of a choice. Are they going to trust God's definition of good and evil or are they going to seize autonomy and define good and evil for themselves?
The snake's given no introduction other than it's a creature that God made. And it becomes clear that it's a creature in rebellion against God and it wants to lead the humans into rebellion and their death. The snake tells a different story about the tree and the choice. It says that seizing the knowledge of good and evil are not going to bring death and that it's actually the way to life and becoming like God themselves.
Back to Random Side Note: Remember that a lot of idols in the ancient world are some from of animal, like a golden cow. God has set mankind apart from all of the animals yet Adam and Eve listen to what an animal has to say about their life in the garden.
As soon as the rebellion happens everyone starts blaming each other. Adam blames God for putting a woman with him and then blames the woman for talking with the serpent, and then the woman blames the serpent. All used to have order but now we are back to disorder.
Cain goes on to build a city in which this disorder continues with a ruler named Lamech. He's the first man in the Bible to have more than one wife. He's accumulating them like property. And then he goes on to sing a short song about how he's more violent and vengeful than Cain ever was.
And then the Bible describes the arrival of giants or angelic beings "Nephilim". They are powerful and take what they want including wives.
Random Side Note 2: David kills a giant but then struggles not to become one himself by taking someone else's wife.
Next, God hits a reset button with the flood. God repeats the divine blessing and commissions Noah's family to be the next Adam and Eve.
At the end of the first section of Genesis mankind has repopulated. All of the nations united together to use this new technology they have, the brick. And they want to make a name for themselves and build this big city with a huge tower that will reach up to the gods. But God knows that this city will be a nightmare, and so in his mercy, he scatters them.
It is the same story over and over again with humans trying to seize autonomy from God, when they define good and evil for themselves, it results in a world of tragedy and death.
But we are also left to remember the promise from God after the serpent was punished.
God promises that one day a seed, or a descendant, will come from the woman, who's going to deliver a lethal strike to the snake's head. Genesis 3:15
way to life and becoming like God themselves.dignity and the freedom of a choice: Are they going to trust God's definition of good and evil or are theyGenesis 12
Comments
Post a Comment