Todays Covenant WORD is: Genesis (from the Latin Vulgate, in turn borrowed or transliterated from Greek γένεσις, meaning origin. Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית, Bərēšīṯ, In [the] beginning) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) and the Christian Old Testament. The basic narrative expresses the central theme: God creates the world and appoints man as his regent, but man proves disobedient and God destroys his world through the Flood. God creates the world in six days and consecrates the seventh after giving mankind his first commandment: be fruitful and multiply. God pronounces the world very good, but it becomes corrupted by the sin of man and God sends a great flood to destroy it, saving only the righteous (Noah) and his family, from whose seed the world is repopulated. Man sins again, but God has promised that he will not destroy the world a second time with water. God instructs Abram (the future Abraham) to travel from his home in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) to the land of Canaan. There God makes a covenant with Abram promising that his descendants shall be as numerous as the stars in the heavens, but that they shall suffer oppression in a foreign land for four hundred years, after which they shall inherit the land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates. Abrams name is changed to Abraham and that of his wife Sarai to Sarah, and circumcision of all males is instituted as the sign of the covenant.The new post-Flood world is equally corrupt, but God does not destroy it, instead calling one man, Abraham, to be the seed of its salvation. At Gods command Abraham descends from his home into the land of Canaan, given to him by God, where he dwells as a sojourner, as does his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob. Jacobs name is changed to Israel, and through the agency of his son Joseph, the children of Israel descend into Egypt, 70 people in all with their households, and God promises them a future of greatness. Genesis ends with Israel in Egypt, ready for the coming of Moses and the Exodus. The narrative is punctuated by a series of covenants with God, successively narrowing in scope from all mankind (the covenant with Noah) to a special relationship with one people alone (Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob). The books author or authors appear to have structured it around ten toledot sections (the these are the generations of... phrases), but modern commentators see it in terms of a primeval history (chapters 1–11) followed by the cycle of Patriarchal stories (chapters 12–50). For Jews and Christians alike, the theological importance of Genesis centers on the covenants linking God to his Chosen People and the people to the Promised Land. Christianity has interpreted Genesis as the prefiguration of certain cardinal Christian beliefs, primarily the need for salvation (the hope or assurance of all Christians) and the redemptive act of Christ on the Cross as the fulfillment of covenant promises as the Son of God. Tradition credits Moses as the author of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and most of Deuteronomy, but modern scholars increasingly see them as a product of the 6th and 5th centuries BC. Genesis appears to be structured around the recurring phrase elleh toledot, meaning these are the generations, with the first use of the phrase referring to the generations of heaven and earth and the remainder marking individuals—Noah, the sons of Noah, Shem, etc., down to Jacob. It is not clear, however, what this meant to the original authors, and most modern commentators divide it into two parts based on subject matter, a primeval history (chapters 1–11) and a patriarchal history (chapters 12–50). While the first is far shorter than the second, it sets out the basic themes and provides an interpretive key for understanding the entire book. The primeval history has a symmetrical structure hinged around chapter 6–9, the flood story, with the events before the flood mirrored by the events after. The patriarchal history recounts the events of the major patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to whom God reveals himself and to whom the promise of descendants and land is made, while the story of Joseph serves to take the Israelites into Egypt in preparation for the next book, Exodus. Scholars generally agree that the theme of divine promise unites the patriarchal cycles, but many would dispute the idea that a single theme (or theology) runs through Genesis – a theology of the Abraham cycle or the Jacob cycle or the Joseph cycle might be possible, or a theology of the Yahwist or the Priestly source, but not a single theology or overarching theme for all of Genesis.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 00:47:55 +0000
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