An Analytical Outline of the Book of Genesis (original) (raw)
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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.
THE LITERARY STRUCTURE OF THE CREATION STORY IN GENESIS 1:1 - 2:3
At the heart of Genesis 1 is a masterpiece of parallelism. However, in the long history of Christian scholarship, recognition of the parallelism structures and literary hues in the Hebrew has been critically missing. The reason is obvious—after the fellowship of early believers lost its Hebrew speaking majority and leadership, the church became colorblind to this painterly Hebrew content for most of its history. The parallelism was not rendered in the Septuagint and Vulgate. The substituted Latin or Greek texts gave only a black and white image of the Hebrew—impairing interpretation for nearly two millennia. Though it is now common to hear of the dual triad of days and the chiasm in Day 4—the discovered structure is vastly more elaborate. The use of parallelism in the first creation story is extensive and so pervasive that it intones the phrasing of every verse. Found parallelism includes: 70+ text parallels, 12 synonymous parallel restatements, 9 parallel creation commands, 6 chiasms, 2 synthetic thematic parallel day-groups of 3 days each, and 2 inclusios. The entire parallelism structure is concisely presented on two pages (page 5 and 6). Included is a simple Literary Structure Study Translation (page 8) formated so English readers can easily see the Hebrew parallelism structure.