Because I want to get to Exodus by next week, I give here a summary of Genesis, which I already did in lecture.
Genesis explains that the world is good. (This is different from Buddhism, for example.) Evil comes from human beings, who ruin their "garden" (Paradise), from envy or by competing with others.
This is the meaning of knowing good and bad (the word, according to Hebrew scholars, is wrongly translated as "evil"). Seen from the point of envy, everything is good and bad, better and worse; but the wise man, the good woman, enjoys everything from God, as equally good ( "for without him who can eat or find enjoyment?" [Ecclesiastes 2:25]); but with envy, we are all rivals, as Ecclesiastes says: "And I saw that all labor and achievement spring from man's envy of his neighbor" (4:4).
We also saw the trinitarian motif in the opening: that is, three Gods in one of Christianity. Since God's Spirit moves on the waters (Holy Spirit) and he says, "Let us make man in our image," which could be read as referring to Jesus.
We'll also see, however, that monotheism (belief in one God) developed slowly among the Jews, which originally believed in henotheism (that is, many gods, but one main God). A strong monotheism did not develop until the classical (book) prophets made clear there could only be one God; all others must be fakes (idols).
Another motif from the beginning to the end of the Bible is the Sabbath: Rest. St. Augustine says of God, he is our one repose (rest). Rest is both temporal (time) and spatial (Jerusalem). By dividing up the week into six days + one, man is reminded of a promised rest; and this rest is later identified with Jerusalem, the City of Peace (shalom); later, with the Holy City in the final verses of the book of Revelation.
Both the Sabbath and the Creation of Man affirm the dignity of Man, the basis of all modern democracies. In worshiping God, one affirms one's own dignity too; as in resting, in honor of God, one enjoys one's own rest too.
A main theme of Genesis is rivalry, especially between siblings (brothers). Another theme is deceit.
Both themes come together in the Fall. The serpent lies to Eve; but that lie is based on a false desire (to be like God; not to be happy with oneself).
In that scene we studied typology. That is, the Old Testament is read by Christians in terms of the New. People are seen as types of Jesus. We saw that in the Protevangelium of Gen 3:15, where the "seed" is Jesus, predicting Jesus' conquest of the Devil in the book of Revelation.
Adam is the First man redeemed by the Second Man, Jesus. But where Adam sinned, Jesus was obedient. Where a Tree brought death, the Tree (Cross) of Jesus brings life.
Jesus' New Testament (Promise; Agreement; Covenant) fulfills the Old Testament. Eve in turn is fulfilled by Mary, obedient to the "word" of God (Eve was obedient to the word of the serpent, not God).
The story of Cain and Abel develops themes of sibling rivalry and envy. Abel is innocent, not guilty; another theme in the Bible: the victim, ending in Jesus himself (the perfectly innocent Victim), but also noticeable in the Psalms.
Abel is a type of Jesus. So Jesus warns, "Upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from Abel to Zechariah" (Matthew 23:34). This is the A-Z argument, covering all good people who became victims of envy or hatred.
Abel becomes the first Shepherd, a type realized throughout the Bible, in Joseph, Moses, King David, God himself ("The Lord is my shepherd"), and the image of Jesus as Good Shepherd.
It's noteworthy that religion divides people as well as unites them (God refused Cain's offering), something happening this very day.
The other important theme is attitude rather than worship. From the beginning the Bible makes clear that sacrifice is not as important as a feeling of the heart (like the Christmas song says, "Christmas is a feeling in the heart"). This theme is clear in the prophets, never surpassed in their cry for social justice.
It's significant for this nomadic people that Cain founded the first city! This opposition of city and nomadism (traveling) continues in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Now we see a good world gone from bad to worse! Soon there's so much evil in the world God destroys it, except for Noah and his wife and three sons, from whom we trace all humans. Shem founds the Semite people (Jews and Arabs); Ham founds the darker people; and others are traced back to Japheth.
The rainbow promises God will never punish people again. This is an example of etiology (etiological story).
Note that God uses the same words to forgive people after the flood as he used to condemn them before the flood: "because people are evil," he will now forgive instead of condemn. This is a merciful God, despite belief the O.T. God was one of anger.
This agreement between God and Noah's descendants is known as the Noachide Covenant, the first of four covenants in the O.T. (there's one more in the N.T.). This is for all mankind.
But it's not good enough. God needs a disciplined group that can advance the cause of justice. So he chooses Abraham, knowing Abraham will obey completely.
First Abraham must leave his family. That's because the family reflects the past, supposedly a worship of many gods (false gods).
Abraham leaves at once, burning bridges, as we say. His name is changed from Abram to Abraham, because he belongs completely to God. Jacob too becomes Israel.
Now we get another motif in the Bible: miracle birth. How can a couple as old as Abraham and Sarah bear a child to carry the promise (yet another motif: the Promise)?
Because God is more than nature. God is above Nature, and not simply part of it, as some religions believe.
This motif of the miracle birth continues in other couples, including Rebecca and Isaac, Hannah and her husband (son, Samuel), and Joseph and Mary.
This frees us from slavery to nature, as ignoring the rule of primogeniture does. (Jesus is an exception, because Jesus is an only child; and, besides, God's child.)
Now we arrive at one of the great scenes in the Bible: Abraham is called to sacrifice his "only son" (note how these words are repeated) on God's command, even though that doesn't make sense of God's own promise! For without his son, how can the promise be fulfilled?
So Abraham becomes a type of perfect faith in God, even if it seems "absurd." At the last moment, God (or an angel) spares Isaac.
(If you read the next verses carefully, there is no mention of Isaac coming down the mountain with Abraham, suggesting Isaac was killed in an earlier redaction of the Bible.)
Isaac becomes a type of Christ: an "only son" is spared; but Jesus is better than Isaac, because Jesus died, fulfilling the O.T. without violating the law against human sacrifice!
Abraham finds outs Lot has been captured. Naturally. Since Lot chose the "cities of the plain." Cities are evil in the Bible.
After Abraham rescues Lot, with other kings, Melchizedek, the king of Salem (Jerusalem) brings out bread and wine. He's a priest of God and he blesses Abraham, who gives him a tenth of everything.
This king never appears again but becomes a key type of Jesus. Because if Melchizedek blesses Abraham, that means he's greater than Abraham, who gives him a tenth (tithe), as priests are given. So Melchizedek is the eternal priest and king too; he also serves bread and wine, as Jesus does at the Last Supper. So Jesus comes before Abraham, as he himself says, "Before Abraham was, I am."
The stories of Sodom and Gomorrah might have been backwritten, as we can see from mention of these cities in Ezekiel during the Exile. In other words, the cities became types to explain to contemporary Israel why they were punished. In any case, the cities became types of sexual evil; though Ezekiel refers to the sin of "pride," not "sex" and links the two cities with Israel (north) and Judah (south).
The moment when Abraham argues with God whether destroying these cities with innocent people in them is just is a defining moment in Hebrew thought. It shows that the bottom line is justice, not God's arbitrary will. Once more we see a rational relationship to God, with man and God as co-partners (like Eden shows) rather than frightened worshiper.
That's why the Jewish God has no name; because he can't be controlled except by doing right. So we have something new in human history. That's why sacrifice is not as important as a change of heart, as we see from the beginning in the story of Cain, whose sacrifice is refused.
The two great narratives, of Jacob and Joseph, continue main themes of deceit and sibling rivalry.
Jacob struggles with God for his identity, and only by this means wins it. Hence he's renamed IsraEL, one who struggles with God.
But Edom (Esau) sells his birthright for quick satisfaction (food). This will later become a type of moral weakness.
Once more God chooses the younger, not the elder. God replaces biology; we are no longer doomed by Nature; by Destiny.
Everything is free with this God, the I AM, with no name, just pure Action, whose only claim on us is Justice and Faith.
Jacob steals Esau's birthright; as Isaac repeats Esau's sin of wanting food too much. Isaac besides is blind and passive; his wife has more energy than he and teaches her favored son, Jacob, how to defy even God (she'll bear God's curse, she says boldly).
Jacob repeats the sin of rivalry again: he chooses Rachel over Leah. More rivalry in childbirth.
God chooses Leah and gives her six children; their maids have four more; then Rachel has two: Joseph and Benjamin. They are the twelve tribes of Israel.
But Jacob is deceived by Uncle Laban first. Just like Isaac was blind and couldn't see, so Jacob is blind and can't see Leah for Rachel. So he serves Laban twelve years, which seemed short for his love of Rachel.
Rachel's son, Joseph, then becomes Jacob's favored son and the rivalry starts again. The other eleven sons hate him and try to kill him. He becomes a slave, then governor in Egypt, helping in the end to feed his starving family who go to Egypt for food.
God does not appear at all, but Joseph mentions him. This is Wisdom literature. Joseph knows that, in the long run, the bad ends up good (if one works hard enough).
Part of the point of Joseph's story is his high moral standards and the way he controls sexual temptation. Judah on the other hand can't control himself and has sex with his own daughter-in-law (Tamar). (In another act of sexual weakness, Reuben, the first born, loses his birthright for "knowing" Jacob's concubine.) But even that ends happily in the long run: for from that line comes King David, then Jesus.
Related to the Judah story is the story of Onan, whom God kills for refusing to fulfill God's command to have sex with his widowed sister-in-law in order to give her a child. This later became a law known as the Levirate.
Onan is important historically because the act of self-stimulation called masturbation is traced back to him (another name for masturbation is onanism). Yet the story makes clear that Onan was punished for refusing to impregnate his sister-in-law (Tamar) at God's command, not for self-stimulation (Onan's act, by the way, is called, in Latin, "coitus interruptus," or withdrawing from the woman to prevent impregnation). Onan's sin is disobedience to God.
The Bible is a salvation history of losers who become winners with the help of God. This motif continues in the Jesus story too: Jesus' apostles are weak men and they all betray him; but it is they who spread the Gospel to the world.
And so Genesis ends: Joseph forgives his brothers, putting an end to family battles that started with Cain and Abel.
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