Author:
Not stated but traditionally
attributed to Moses.
Date: Moses lived around the 1400s BC, but
the events of Genesis date to the very beginning of time.
Ten Words or Less: God creates the world and chooses a
special people.
Details, Please: The Bible's first book never explains
God; it simply assumes His existence: "In the Beginning, God..."
(1:1). Chapters 1
and 2 describe how God created the universe and everything in it
simply by speaking: "God said... and it was so" (1:6-7, 9, 11,
14-15). Humans, however, received special handling, as "God
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life" (2:7), and woman was crafted from a
rib of man. Those first two people, Adam and Eve, live in
perfection but ruined paradise by disobeying God at the urging
of a "subtil" (crafty, 3:1) serpent. Sin throws humans into a
moral freefall as the world's first child - Cain - murders his
brother Abel. People become so bad that God decides to flood the
entire planet, saving only the righteous Noah, his family, and
an ark (boat) full of animals. After the earth repopulates, God
chooses a man named Abram as patriarch of a specially blessed
people, later called "Israel" after an alternative name of
Abram's grandson Jacob. Genesis ends with Jacob's son Joseph, by
a miraculous chain of events, ruling in Egypt - setting up the
events of the following book of Exodus.
Key Verses: God said, Let there be light: and there
was light. (1:3) |
The LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said,
I know not: Am I my brother's keeper? (4:9) | Noah found grace
in the eyes of he Lord. (6:8) | He [Abram] believed in the LORD;
and he counted it to him for righteousness. (15:6)
Unique and Unusual: Genesis quickly introduces the concept of
one God in multiple persons, a concept later called the Trinity:
"God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness"
(1:26). Also early on, God gives a hint of Jesus' future
suffering and victory when He curses the serpent for deceiving
Eve: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between
thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt
bruise his heel" (3:15).
So What?: Genesis answers the great question
"Where did I come from?" Knowing the answer can give us meaning
in a world that's otherwise hard to figure out.
