First creation story
Second creation story, fall of man
Hitting the reset button with Noah; the tower
Noah's sons
Abraham's exploits, the promise, and an intimate meeting with God
Hagar, and more of Abraham's exploits
A son! Abraham's big finish
Isaac has sons, one is a cheat and runs off with Abraham's promise
Jacob has kids; he and Laban pull some fast ones
Jacob comes to know God through a wrestling match, returns home.
The setup: Joseph is sent to Egypt
Jacob's family reconciled, saved, and relocated.
Jacob's blessings, Joseph's last words
Genesis: literal history or metaphor?

As I finish reading, taking notes on, reflecting on, and posting about each book of the Bible, I plan on writing a post or two reflecting on common issues people have with that book, along with a post summarizing and linking to all the posts about one book. This is the first of the summarizing posts and is related to Genesis.

Genesis, a mix of origin myths and ancestor stories (among other things) is the first book of the Bible. It is very long and its content is very foreign to a modern Western culture. However, it is still very purposeful and thoughtfully themed, with a thick thread that is easy to follow. This thread revolves around God's beautiful creation, the fall of that creation into corruption, including the corruption of man, and God's calculated first steps in returning the creation to harmony, especially as his plan involves one man, Abram, and his son, grandson, and great grandsons.

Parts 1 to 3: The Creation of Earth

The first story in Genesis is a creation myth that is poetic and orderly and beautiful. God makes the world almost like he's stretching a canvas and then painting a picture on top. Humans are created in God's image and their purpose is to rule earth and multiply on it. Everything is great.

The second story is another creation myth, this time it's mostly about mankind's creation. A man is made, and is put in a sweet garden to work, and can live forever, eating from the tree of life. He needs a friend so after he names all the animals God makes him a wife. They're naked but it's a good thing. God warns them not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil or else they'll die.

A serpent tells the woman that if they eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they won't die, but they'll be like God, knowing good and evil for themselves. The woman and her husband eat that fruit, and it only goes down half like the serpent. Yeah, they know good and evil, but it makes them ashamed of their nakedness. Plus, they do end up dying. Not only that, but God puts a curse on a ton of stuff, from the serpent to childbirth to marriage to farming. Things don't heal over time as one of their sons actually murders the other one. One of HIS descendants murders two people and is proud of it. Yikes.

A third story is then told (see above linked post) in which it is reiterated that God made man in his image. Generation after generation passes, and eventually man is totally corrupt and evil. God is sorry he ever made earth, except for one righteous guy, Noah.

This is the story of the creation of earth, according to Genesis. I also wrote a post in which I talked about my thoughts on the literal vs. metaphorical interpretation of the Genesis, and that is worth checking out at this point.

You can see two main things in these first two posts / three stories: God is consistently good, just, powerful, and creative. Meanwhile his creation starts out great, but becomes evil through the acts of Adam and Eve and through the passing of generations.

Parts 4-6: Noah and his family

At this point the story turns to one man: Noah. He is the only person left on earth worth a lick. God reveals his plan to Noah for restoring harmony to earth: he'll destroy absolutely everything with a flood, but will save Noah and his family and some animals in a big boat. It all goes down like God says, and at the end, Noah worships God and God makes a promise to never do this kind of thing again. He tells Noah's family to fill the earth like before, and to stop killing each other.

After that, Noah's family line is traced, and just as humans begin filling the earth, they decide they'll make a name for themselves and not fill the earth by building a huge tower out of brick. They don't get too far before God spreads them all over the earth himself and confuses their languages. Noah's family line is then reiterated, right down to a man named Terah, who has a son named Abram.

So it is seen that God is still the same all-powerful God, very concerned with restoring creation to how he first made it. So he starts over. But he doesn't totally neglect man, saving one man very much on purpose and basically giving man a fresh start with his commands at the end to not murder and to fill the earth again. A few more generations pass and mankind is already fighting against this, trying to stay in one place and follow his own path. God does what he can to proceed with the plan but of course he won't destroy earth again. We end with geneologies leading to Abram, but the story leaves us hanging on what God will do next.

Part 7 - 8: From Abram to Abraham

God gets to work right away, telling a guy named Abram to move to where God shows him, telling him that HE will make Abram's name great, will bless him, give him tons of descendants, give him the land he will show him, and will bless all nations through him. Abram then has a series of exploits in which God blesses him greatly or reiterates his promises, and Noah often responds by giving God credit or worshiping him.

Eventually Abram and God share a powerful scene in which Abram doubt's God's promises of many descendants because his wife Sarai is old and barren. God tells Abram his descendants will be slaves but will come back to take the land, and as a sign, God moves a firepot between some sacrifices.

Nevertheless, Abram takes his slave as a wife because it doesn't seem Sarai will ever have a kid. God says that Abram's slave's kid, Ishmael will become a great nation too, but that Sarai will indeed have a kid. God then makes it a covenant (the blessings, land, descendants, and and blessing all nations) by giving Abram circumcision and by renaming him Abraham and his wife Sarah. Meanwhile not only is Abraham very blessed by he seems to be best friends with God, able to talk with him about anything, with God listening.

Eventually, Sarah does have a son, Isaac, and Abraham now believes God's covenant so much that he'd be willing to sacrifice his son, the son OF the promise, when God tells him to. He finds his son a wife and dies at a good old age.

Meanwhile Ishmael does indeed become the father of a great nation as well.

This part of Genesis focuses on on Abraham exclusively instead of all of mankind, and God not only makes world-big promises to Abraham, but he begins to carry them out in incredible ways and single-handedly carries Abraham from a place of pseudo-belief in what God says to a place of complete trust no matter what the circumstances. God also becomes absolute best friends with Abraham through the process.

Part 9 - 11: Isaac and Jacob

Isaac, to whom God gives the same covenant He gave Abraham (and gets even richer than Abraham), has a couple kids and accidentally hands his blessing down to the younger, deceitful one, Jacob. Jacob runs off in fear of his brother's wrath, and God appears to him, confirming that indeed he has received the covenant from Isaac that Abraham originally got.

Jacob then spends a lot of time with his Uncle, getting four wives, having 12 sons and deceiving and being deceived by Uncle Laban lots of times.

Jacob heads home with his numerous family members and possessions, but when he hears his brother is about to meet him, he panics. He literally wrestles with God all night. God blesses him and changes his name is Israel (struggle with God), telling him he will indeed be blessed and his descendants will be a great nation. His brother meets him and hugs him, and Israel returns home to his dad.

Jacob's brother is shown to have lots of kids and be blessed as well.

Throughout the stories of Isaac and Jacob, God's covenant with Abraham is passed down, so God is working through generations of people. Isaac and Jacob are both made very rich by the covenant. Jacob is given more stage time and is brought over time by God from a state of decietfulness to a state of mature trust and respect for God.

Part 12: Jacob's family

Jacob's sons aren't to nice to the favorite son of Jacob, Joseph, and long story short, he is sent to Egypt as a slave and no one knows he's alive but his brothers. He is continutally blessed in Egypt despite years of hard times and ends up basically the prime minister of Egypt. With God's help he's well prepared for a seven year famine and when it kicks in Egypt is doing great and making money off the whole world by feeding the nations.


Jacob's sons go to Egypt to get food because of the famine and Joseph recognizes him, after getting them to bring the youngest to Egypt, he is emotional in front of them and reveals himself as Joseph. They are afraid but he insists it is God who sent him to Egypt not them, so that he might save his family from starvation. Jacob is delighted to hear his son is alive and they all move down to Egypt.

Jacob, about to die, gives his sons their share of the blessing, especially praising Joseph and giving him a double share of the nation that will one day rise out of the person Israel's blood line. Jacob dies and they bury him back in the land God sent promised to Abraham (Canaan). Eventually Joseph dies but he reminds the Israelites that they belong in Canaan and that one day when God sends them back, to take his (Joseph's) bones back to Canaan with them. Then Joseph dies.

In the final part of Genesis, there is more character development as God brings Joseph's older brothers from a state of violence and deceit to humility and regret over their mistreatment of Joseph. Meanwhile God uses Joseph to save his family by bringing them to Egypt during the famine, which is just the place God told Abraham his descendants would become slaves. As the book ends, Jacob's kids are starting to grow into a nation, the Israelites.

The book ends in great anticipation, because God's covenant with Abraham, the focus on the book, are absolutely certain (because of God's character) and yet mostly not yet there. Yes, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were greatly blessed. But they are not a great nation yet (although that seems to be emerging), they're not yet in the land, they haven't taken the land, and all nations haven't been blessed (although many people comment on how blessed they are). It's like the tiny buds of the covenant are seen but there is much more to come.

I believe Genesis intends to end with that sort of mindset.

Wow! This is my 13th post on Genesis and I've already arrived at the end of the book. The last few pages are Jacob's last days, his death, burial, and Joseph's last days as well. The book has left me both reflecting and looking ahead.

Synopsis

Jacob, about to die, makes Joseph promise to bury him with his fathers, not in Egypt. They use the special "thigh" promise that Abraham used with his servant getting a wife for Isaac.

Later Jacob is ill (wasn't he already?) and tells Joseph the story of God's covenant with him at Luz (when he first left his father's house): God will make him a great nation and will give him the land. Jacob says Joseph's two sons are to become Jacob, which, as far as I can tell, is a blessing to Joseph, that his family will have twice the inheritance. Jacob blesses the younger one ahead of the older one. Kinda like how Jacob got the better blessing as the younger sibling.

Next Jacob gathers his sons around him to bless them/tell about their futures. It's done in verse:
Reuben, his oldest, has been strong, but will no longer excel since he slept with one of his dad's wives.
Simeon and Levi, who killed all those guys because they raped Dinah, are denounced for their violence, and are said to be scattered among Israel.
Judah is to be praised among his brothers, is a lion, will be a ruler until "he to whom it belongs shall come."
Zebulun will live by the sea.
Issachar will live on good land and submit to forced labor.
Dan will be like a snake and give Israel justice.
Gad will be attacked by raiders but will fight back.
Asher will be a good cook.
Naphtali is a doe that bears beautiful fawns.
Joseph gets a long poem... Despite being bitterly attacked, he has persevered because of the power of God, who is a great, great God. He gets really really blessed.
Benjamin is a wolf who devours prey and divides plunder.

These twelve men make up the twelve tribes of Israel.

Jacob reiterates to bury him in his family's burial cave in Canaan. Then he dies.

Joseph asks for permission to take his body to Canaan, and Pharaoh grants it. Joseph, his bros, and tons of others go up with them to Canaan to bury Jacob. They mourn terribly and for a long time, and do bury him in the same cave Abraham is in. Then they go back to Egypt.

Joseph's brothers are still afraid of his wrath, but he assures them again that his slavery was part of God's plan to save Israel's family.

Joseph lives to see his great grandchildren and tells the Israelites that they will eventually go back to Canaan and when they do, to take Joseph's bones with them. then he dies at 110.

Analysis

And that's all, folks. That's where the story ends. The implication is that Israel will grow into a nation. But it hasn't happened yet. They certainly don't have the land (they aren't even living in it) and all nations have not at all been blessed. Genesis, at the end, is a book that looks forward to the future or possibly to the next book.

Response

Overall, what do I come away with? The book is definitely in two halves: before Abraham and after he shows up. Before Abraham seems to be that despite God's beautiful and harmonious creation that man is apart of, mankind is totally and utterly corrupt, evil and violent. God quells the evil for a while with the flood, but clearly another solution is needed.

The second half is about a lot of things. First of all, it's about God making a covenant with Abraham and his family: they he will bless them, that he will bless all nations through them, that he will make a great nation from Abraham, and that he will give Abraham the land of Canaan. Over and over and over again this is stated and restated several times to Abraham, then once to Isaac, a few times to Jacob, and then retold by Jacob. It matters.

Other themes are there though. God demonstrates extreme faithfulness to the family, not just to honor his promises, but to develop them to a point that they really trust him, through Isaac's birth or Jacob wrestling with God or his sons being shown mercy through Joseph.

Over the weekend I plan on making a large post summarizing Genesis in full and linking to appropriate posts. I also will write a few posts just pondering some issues we may have when reading through Genesis.

It's been fun, and I look forward to Exodus.

Ah, after 10 synopsis posts, we are on the final leg of Genesis at last. Parts 1-3 (two posts) told of the harmonious world God created with a man in his likeness in charge and man's corruption and fall. Parts 4-6 (2 posts) told of God starting over and sending Noah's family out to populate earth, with similar results. Parts 7-8 (3 posts) detailed God's epic promises to Abraham and how God blessed Abraham through life while simultaneously bringing Abraham to a place of faith through the birth of his son Isaac. Parts 9-11 (3 posts) Told of Isaac's wealth, and of God passing Abraham's covenant down to Isaac and then to Jacob, who God also brings through a process to bring him to a place of faithfulness to God.

And now, part 12 (this will be 3 posts as well).

Synopsis

Joseph, Jacob's 11th oldest son (older only than his full brother Benjamin), is 17, and is dad's favorite. His brothers hate them because of jealousy, because he brings a bad report to his father about them, because he gets a sweet coat, and, oh, he tells them about a couple dreams in which all of them plus his parents bow down to him.


Alright, so when they're way out far from home keeping the flocks, he goes to check on them for dad and they plot to kill him. The oldest, Rueben, tries to save him, but in the end he ends up being sold as a slave to Ishmaelites. (They trick dad into thinking he was killed by a wild animal.)

(Meanwhile, Judah has an interesting story with God striking a couple of his sons down and him eating some humble pie for using a prostitute and holding his third son from his oldest's widow, who ends up having Judah's kids.)

The Ishmaelites take him to Egypt and sell him to an Egyptian official named Potiphar. God is with Joseph and he's basically put in charge. Potiphar's wife would love to have an affair with Joseph, and since he isn't having it, she accuses him of trying to rape her. So he gets thrown into prison. But here God is with Joseph again and he is so successful he is basically put in charge of the dungeon as well.

This is where it gets interesting. Two of Pharaoh's servants are thrown into prison. After a while they both have dreams and by God's power Joseph interprets them both correctly: one is given his position back, and the other one is executed. Although the cupbearer (the one who is given his job back) promises Joseph he'll remember him and get him out, he forgets.

A couple years later, the Pharaoh has two dreams that nobody can crack, and suddenly the cupbearer's memory is jogged. They bring Joseph up right away, and he interprets the dreams, giving credit to God for the interpretation: Egypt will experience seven years of bountiful harvest followed by seven years of famine.

He tells Pharaoh that Egypt will need someone wise to fix it so the seven lean years are bearable, and Pharaoh can't think of anybody better than Joseph. So Joseph goes from an inmate to more or less the king of Egypt with the Pharaoh as a figurehead. Joseph stores up an absolute insane amount of grain during the first seven years, and when the famine comes, Joseph is able to begin supplying the whole world with grain.

Analysis

There's a few interesting points with this, the first third of Joseph's story. For one thing, it's clear by now that morals have developed in Genesis to mean something. At first, Genesis was just a series of stories and adventures with no moral lesson to learn. Since that, though, Genesis has gotten progressively concerned with morality, and by Joseph's story it is very important how he stays pure and doesn't lie, and it is bad how Judah denies his son's widow a husband and it's a disgrace that he uses a prostitute. I'm not sure when this light switch went on. Meanwhile Joseph is giving God credit left and right.

This part of the story is definitely the set up. It's funny because all of what I read today is 90% of what people know about this story, while the other 2/3rds of the story only make up 10% of our understanding of the passage. I guess it has to do with how quickly events move along. However, I'm guessing the main point Joseph's story (beside a moral exposition) is showing how Israel gets to Egypt. So this part of the story is really just the set up for actually making it happen over the next few pages.

One last note: Jacob/Israel still has his blessing/promise/covenant from God, and has not yet passed it on.

Response

I'm beginning to feel like an outsider. Early Genesis was beautiful commentary on the nature of man and God and our relationship. God's character was further demonstrated through Abraham and his family's story. But as his family continues down the road and Israel has his twelves sons and they'll be on their way to prosper in Egypt soon, the whole thing is transitioning to a story about the Israelite nation, of which I am not a member. I anticipate that a lot of the First Testament is going to seem like an exciting story that I'm viewing from the outside in. We'll see, though.

Genesis is getting closer to the end, and it's becoming evident that God's covenant with Abraham is not going to be completed at the end of the book. Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob are all definitely very blessed. We'll see how much there is of blessing all nations, making a great nation, and giving them the land is fulfilled by the end of the book. If they're not all totally fulfilled, then I will say that at least Genesis is a book that is very much looking toward the future.

I've been enjoying Genesis so much more by reading more of it per day and really charting out the unfolding story of the whole book. It's good reading and it's the beginning of a very passionate story that makes up the rest of the Bible.

First off, sorry I missed a day there. I'm not sure what happened.

Abraham has been "gathered to his ancestors" so now Isaac becomes our main man. He has a lot of similarities to his father, but he takes a backseat to one of his sons pretty quickly.

Synopsis

I began to get confused over whom I was reading about, because Isaac shares a lot in common with his father. The both have barren wives that the Lord provides for. They both lie to a guy named Abimelek about their wives and end up rich because of it. Their sons have a sibling rivalry. And, most importantly, God makes the same promises to Isaac that he made to his father.

Overall, though Isaac's story feels much less significant simply because it's shorter. Rebekah is barren for about a sentence before her twin sons are born. The slightly older, hairier, more outdoorsy one is Esau, and the trickster is Jacob. Jacob means "he grabs the heel" which according to the translation footnote is a Hebrew idiom for "deceives." This is clearly an appropriate name since the baby comes out literally grabbing his brother's heel. But that's not all. When Esau comes in hungry one day, Jacob tricks him into giving up his birthright for some stew. Interesting.

There's a famine but God appears to Isaac and tells him not to go to Egypt, that he'll take care of him. Then he gives the full gamut of blessings that he gave to Abraham: blessings, a great nation, the land, and blessing all nations through him. Isaac gets them all.

Now, Isaac just ends up crazy rich, way richer than Abraham. He pulls that same trick, lying about his wife trick, which gets him protection. His crops reap one hundred fold. All his wells get filled up because everyone is so jealous of his wealth. In fact they ask him to move away because they're afraid of him since he's so freakin' rich. After God tells him again how many descendant's he'll have on account of Abraham, Abimelek shows up and asks him to sign of a treaty because it is obvious Isaac is super-blessed by God.

Esau marries some Hittite women (women native to the area) and they are a big pain.

So when Isaac is so old he's blind, he attempts to pass on his blessings, his promises from God, to Esau. I'm not going to go into all the details, but basically Rebekah and Jacob come up with some crazy tricks and lie about 10 times and Isaac ends up accidently blessing Jacob when he thinks he's blessing Esau. He really blesses him, and says he will rule over his brother.

Esau comes back and the truth is found out, but it's too late and Esau doesn't get much of a blessing. In fact, Isaac tells him he'll serve Jacob, although he will overcome him in the end. Esau's pretty upset and, fearing for his life, Jacob takes his mother's advice and runs for it. Isaac sends him to his brother-in-law's house. Here, Isaac indeed confirms that Jacob gets the blessing.

(By the way, Esau figures out how much his parents hate his wives, so he marries one of Ishmael's kids.)

On the way to Harran, Jacob sees the majesty of God in a dream, and God promises him all the promises he had given Isaac, in my mind, passing on main-character-duties to Jacob. Jacob wakes up, decides that if God indeed does all he promises, then he'll be Jacob's God and he'll give a tenth of what he has to God (geez, good call, Sherlock).

Jacob arrives to his uncle Laban's house, meeting his daughter Rachel and being welcomed in by Uncle Laban.

Analysis

Wow, I had read more than I thought. There's plenty going on there. Isaac more or less just gets really rich and receives God's Abrahamic promises, although I notice they don't mention Jacob and Esau getting circumcised, but who knows.

Jacob really steals the show as soon as he shows up. He really proves himself as a trickster. He cheats his brother out of his birthright and, way more importantly, God's blessings. I can understand why Esau was upset. Yet, despite this, God indeed gives him Abraham's promises on his journey to Uncle Laban's.

Response

We don't really learn new things about God in this section. It's more like "the continuing story," showing that God continues his work with Abraham through Isaac and eventually through Jacob.

What's really interesting to me is how constantly, in Genesis, the characters' moral failings are more or less irrelevant to what God is doing with them. Lie about your wife? Get richer! Have a kid with your slave instead of trusting me? Get two great nations! Cheat your brother out of your blessings? I'll bless you!

The funny thing is, at this point, God is saying that he'll bless Isaac because all the great stuff Abraham did, and Abraham did do great stuff, but really only because God developed him to that point despite many failures.

In some ways, Genesis isn't so concerned about how right or wrong the characters' actions are, so much as showing how God is moving forward with his plans.

It shows that God is concerned with bigger things than striking me with lightning because I told a lie or something. Especially in Genesis, it seems his overall goal is to restore creation to the way he originally made it: Filled with beauty and justice and harmony and with man leading the way justly and under God's wing.

With the people he's dealing with, he's got a long way to go.