An Analytical Outline of the Book of Genesis (original) (raw)
Genesis is a book telling stories about the interaction and relationship between God and creation, humankind (chapters 1–11) and the family of Abraham (chapters 12–50). It’s more a book about ‘life on earth’ than a treatise on spiritual matters. The theological significance of the book of Genesis cannot be appreciated unless we read the text within its canonical context in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures and not merely as “an interesting papyrological or epigraphic discovery from exploration of the Middle East that can enlarge our knowledge”. In fact, it is possible to argue that the theological message of Genesis to a large degree can be found in its canonical context rather than in the text itself. The inclusion of Genesis as the first book of the Bible is in itself a theological statement. In order to reflect theologically on Genesis we must therefore read the text as ’the first book of the Bible’– a book of foundations, beginnings and origins. Reading Genesis ‘canonically’ and listening the text in its present, received form helps us focus on the overarching theological concerns of the book.
A Literary and Cultural Analysis of the Creation Narrative of Genesis 1:1-2:3
[This is a DRAFT paper. In an updated paper to be released, some information will be changed and the presentation refined.] Genesis continues to defy. Centuries of attempts to shape it to conform to the prevailing paradigm have created a theoretical maelstrom, around which swirl literal theories of chaos. So unsettled are the waters that much of the Genesis text is still in darkness due to modern cultural presuppositions, prior creedal beliefs, and conflicting inherited scholarship. The effort in this study is to look afresh and minimize prior theoretical, creedal or genre expectations. The goal is to discover the original intent of the author that is obscured by cultural and literary expectations. The proposed approach is merely a grammatical-historical method with a heightened awareness of original cultural context and literary genre to overcome hindering eisegesis influences. This approach lead to the documentation of a highly detailed literary structure which is beautiful and inspiring. The structure has been outlined by others before, but the present study provides a number of tables detailing the structure to a greater level. In addition, a historical survey of selected Ancient Near East cosmologies near the time of the writing of Genesis, provides the perspective of the original audience which we can temporarily enter to review the discovered structure. It reveals the polemic purposes that motivated the narrative's structure and wording which have often been mistaken for other purposes or derived from other processes that were concomitant to the commenter's worldview and not Genesis.
Creation and Genesis: A Historical Survey
Creation Research Society Quarterly, 2007
Analysis of the historical development of doctrines and theological motifs is a crucial but often neglected element of the interpretive process. Such investigations protect the interpreter from making the common mistake of reading later ideas back into the biblical text. This survey outlines the major views on Creation and the age of the earth advocated by Christians and Jews throughout history. I also analyzed the influence of scientific naturalism and evolutionary theory on biblical interpretation. Although the survey is by no means exhaustive, it is, nevertheless, intended to be a fair and faithful repre- sentation of the major views and their adherents.
Creation and Genesis: An historical survey
Creation Research Society Quarterly, 2007
A nalysis of the historical development of doctrines and theological motifs is a crucial but often neglected element of the interpretive process. Such investigations protect the interpreter from making the common mistake of reading later ideas back into the biblical text. This survey outlines the major views on Creation and the age of the earth advocated by Christians and Jews throughout history. I also analyzed the influence of scientific naturalism and evolutionary theory on biblical interpretation. Although the survey is by no means exhaustive, it is, nevertheless, intended to be a fair and faithful representation of the major views and their adherents.
Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, 2016
In the March 1991 edition of this journal, I published an article titled "Genesis on the Origin of the Human Race." In that piece, I took the position that Genesis sees humans as essentially religious beings, a nd I went on to argue that this means that the origin of the human race is identical with the origin of religious consciousness in creatures. I still think that is correct. However, in that same article, I also took the position that the Adam of Genesis 2 was the fi rst religious being on Earth, and was therefore the fi rst human and the ancestor of all other humans. In short, I was still under the Augustinian spell of seeing Genesis 2 as a second creation story, contrary to an important rabbinical tradition I have discovered since then. The following article presents the reasons why I am now forced to rescind my earlier position. In what follows, I will show why the Hebrew text does not present Adam and Eve as either the fi rst humans or the ancestors of all humans, and that the New Testament actually denies both those claims. Neither can I any longer agree with Augustine's view that Genesis presents Adam and Eve as created sinless so that their fall from grace is the origin of sin in the world. That runs counter to a longstanding rabbinical tradition as well as to the Eastern Orthodox Christian understanding. It is owing to Augustine's great infl uence, I believe, that we tend to read such claims into Genesis, and are blinded to some crucial parts of the New Testament that could correct them. Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith Article Reading Genesis between Genesis and the results of contemporary science. 2 I must say, however, that if these clergy and scholars have good reasons for thinking there is no such confl ict, they have done an extremely poor job of communicating those reasons to the lay members of their churches. The average lay worshipper knows only that whenever naturalists can get a voice in the popular media, they proclaim that science has disproven what Genesis teaches and so conclude that the scriptures teach falsehood. Since the average layperson is utterly unprepared to meet this challenge, I hope to show here how that can be remedied. One fi nal word before launching my canoe into this (un)Pacifi c Ocean: Augustine prefaced his commentary on early Genesis with the remark that the only interpretations he was sure were wrong, were ones that said "only my view can be right." I second that sentiment. What follows is but one Christian's take on the subject, offered in the hope that it may help others who are struggling with the same issues. Therefore, what is most important is not whether my readers fi nd every interpretation I propose to be correct in every detail. Rather, it is whether exposing the false assumptions behind the fundamentalist agenda can help clear the way for understanding Genesis on its own terms and with respect to its own purposes.