GENESIS

1. GENESIS Beginning

2. Introduction to Genesis • Writing of the Book of Genesis • The name Genesis = Beginning • Comes from the Greek. • Can also mean origin, birth, and generation • Hebrew from first word "in the beginning." • Written by Moses • Date written: 1490 BC to 1420 BC.

3. Introduction to Genesis • Content of the Book of Genesis • There is no ancient near eastern document comparable to Genesis. • Book has two unequal parts. • Primeval History (Age): Creation -- fall -- corruption of humanity -- flood -- saving of Noah's family -- tower of Babel (Gen. 1-11) • Patriarchal History (Age): Abraham and his descendants toward fulfilling God's promise (Gen. 12-Ex. 2:25) • Mosaical History (Age): Moses call, prophetic ministry, delivery from Egypt & giving of the law

4. PENTATEUCH CHART

5. Introduction to Genesis • Outline of the Book of Genesis • Creation Genesis 1-2 • Fall (Adam and Eve) Genesis 3 • Noah & the Flood Genesis 4-10 • Babel Genesis 11 • Abraham Genesis 12:1-25:18 • Isaac Genesis 25:19-27:46 • Jacob Genesis 28:1-36:43 • Joseph Genesis 37:1-50:26 • Beginning and ending points of Genesis • Creation of the world • Joseph's death

6. Introduction to Genesis • Purpose of the Book of Genesis • To reveal who God is and his saving work through Israel to bless all peoples.

7. Introduction to Genesis • Important teachings in Genesis • God keeps his promises • All nations will be blessed through Abraham (Gen. 18:18) • Genesis records the actions of a personal God who acts in history for the good of people • God is Creator of the world and Sovereign • God's ways are perfect • Humanity is God's unique creation • God punishes sin • God calls for people to have faith • God shows patience and grace • God is self-revealed – commanding, conversing, entering into covenants

8. Introduction to Genesis • Reason Moses wrote Genesis • Written for the Israelites to teach them about the one God that created and rules everything as opposed to the God's around them and differentiate God from the gods • Distinguish the one God from other religions that had many gods that ruled over various aspects of the world, e.g. rain, crops, sun, moon, love. (How is the world seen to day; e.g. stars rule, science and random chance?) • God's were capricious, unreliable, and threatening. God's were to be appeased by sacrifice to solicit their kindness to people.

9. Introduction to Genesis • Reason Moses wrote Genesis • Reveal a personal God at work, not a world that was the outcome of battle between the gods, Marduk and Tiamat, which were always in a struggle for power and thus gave rise the chaos and problems on earth (Tiamat losses and split in half) -- Mesopotamian creation myth – EnumaElish: • No mention of the creation of woman. • Very few similarities with Biblical account. • The creation account shows God to be the only God who created everything good and rules over an orderly creation. • God does not live in strife with other gods. • God is seen as initiating communication with his creation and providing for it. Humanity is to respond to God's action while in the pagan religions people must solicit with sacrifices and appeals so the gods will be benevolent to them.

10. Introduction to Genesis • Genesis and Humanities place • Humanity's makeup - image of God; relationship; caregiver; labor • Humanity's calling - follow their creator • Humanity's fall - losing sight of God • Humanity's problem - sin and suffering • Humanity's need - redemption from sin and suffering • Humanity's answer - Jesus Christ

11. Introduction to Genesis • Why did God create humanity? • He was lonely • Needed humanity • Need to be worshiped • Glorify God • God relational nature

12. Survey of Genesis Primeval History YHWH - God

13. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Days of Creation (1:1-2:3) • Prologue (1:1-2) • God is the subject of first sentence of the Bible. • Creation is God's action. • Until God created nothing existed (matter has no self-existence) • Created but not yet formed or arranged. • Earth was formless and void (formless = chaos) • Deep means the ocean literally • God's Spirit was moving (working) • Spirit of God in O.T. is creative and sustaining • Spirit brings form and fills the earth

14. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Implications of the Doctrine of Creation • Everything has value as God's creation • God created and continues to work in the world • Scientific investigation is appropriate as creation assumes an orderliness created by intelligence • Only God is self-sufficient or eternal • Everything derives its existence from God • God's creation is of value to him and thus should be for us • Humans are to caretakers of the creation What if man creates life? Intelligence?

15. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History Primeval History – Earliest History • Days of creation and order of creation

16. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • First Day (3-5) • Light created and separated from darkness • How can there be light before the sun was created? • Other sources of light (i.e. ultraviolet light, electromagnetic) • Day - evening and morning one day seems to set the limit. • Day (yom) usually means a normal day or part of the daylight portion • Yom is used "in the time of the judges" for an indefinite time period and in Gen. 2:4 for more than 24 hours

17. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Second Day (4-8) • Expanse (firmament) = space or may refer to the atmosphere • Water above was a vast watery vapor (no rain in those days Gen. 2:5), water canopy like greenhouse • Uniform temperature all over the world • Longer lives because of filtering of ultraviolet radiation, etc.

18. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Third Day (9-13) • Dry land and vegetation • Different after the flood

19. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Fourth Day (14-19) • Lights created in the expanse • Signs for the seasons • Two great lights, greater rules the day, lesser rules the night

20. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Fifth Day (20-23) • Creatures of the water • Creatures of the sky • Produce after their own kind • Sea monsters (tannin), sometimes translated dragon, a large sea animal (dinosaur?)

21. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Sixth Day (24-31) • Land animals after their own kind. • Creation of man (squirrel article) • Man made in God's image contrary to animals, man's uniqueness • Man will rule over the animals • Male and female created in His image (1:27) • Be fruitful and multiply (also after the flood Gen. 9:1) • Subdue the earth • Given all things on the face of the earth • God saw that all he made was very good.

22. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Seventh Day (2:1-3) • Everything completed. • God rested; God's creating work was at an end • God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it (set it a part)

23. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Genesis and Humanities Place before God • Humanity’s makeup – image of God, relational (vertical and horizontal), labor, caretakers, rulers • Humanity’s calling – follow their Creator • Humanity’s fall – not following God • Humanity’s problem – sin and wrong relationships • Humanity’s need – redemption to right relationships • Humanity’s answer – God graciousness shown ultimately in Jesus Christ

24. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Creation and Science • Christian theology does not propose to tell us how the universe came into being; it tells us the source of creation • Science - True science is defined as: The systematic analysis of presently observed processes and their phenomena. • Two areas where science and theology conflict • The origin and age of the universe • The development of creation

25. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Creation and Science • Which would you prefer, intelligent design or accident? • Which makes more sense, a organized universe by accident or intelligence? • We generally do not look at complex machines around us and assume the accidently came together but that someone designed them and created them Kalam Cosmological Argument By William Lane Craig

26. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Age of the Creation • Archbishop James Ussher dated the age of earth at 4004 B.C. • Based his calculations on the genealogies in the Bible • Genealogies don't always have every generation • “Son of” can just mean descendent of • Geology dates the earth at 5 to 6 billion years in age and universe at 8 to 12 (Hubble created a stir when said 2 billion) • Various methods used in dating • Radioactive material • Given probable gaps in the genealogies a longer period could be possible but not necessary to postulate 5 to 6 billion years

27. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Radioactive material like Uranium 238 - lead or Potassium – argon • Carbon 14 dating of organic material is limited to 50,000 years but suffers from some of the same assumptions as others • Three Assumptions • Process of radioactive decay must have always operated at the same rate at which it functions today • Process takes place in a closed system meaning nothing could disturb or change the process (experiments show things can change similar processes) • The initial condition of the elements must be known when it first began the process. • See Morris’ book Biblical Basis for Modern Science

28. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Age of the Creation • Attempts to reconcile these two views • The gap theory - holds that the original creation took place billions of years ago (mentioned in Gen. 1:1) and then re-formed a few thousand years ago (Gen. 1:2ff). • Great age is from the first creation. • A great catastrophe occurred possibly due to Satan. • Creation stayed in ruin for a long time before God reestablished his creation recording in Gen. 1:2ff.

29. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Age of the Creation • Attempts to reconcile these two views • The flood theory - holds that the earth is just a few thousand years old but due to the flood at the time of Noah and the changes that occurred in the geological structures the earth appears older to geologists. • Huge waves cause great stress on the earth • Greater pressure from the amount of water • Life forms and mud deposit in different stratas

30. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Age of the Creation • Attempts to reconcile these two views • The ideal-time theory - holds that God created the world in six days but made it pre-aged or full grown so it is as if it were billions of years old. • Example of trees with rings indicating their "ideal age." • Creation began at some point in the life-cycle. • The word "yom" is a literal 24 hour day and always mean day when used with a number.

31. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Age of the Creation • Attempts to reconcile these two views • The age-day theory - holds that the each day stands for and epoch or long period of time. • The word "yom" usually stand for a 24 hour period but can stand for and indeterminate period of time. • Scriptures: Ex 20:11 says created in six days.

32. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Age of the Creation • Attempts to reconcile these two views • The literary-framework theory - holds that the biblical account is a literary device to give a picture of the God as originator of the world but not to be taken scientifically. • First three days are places - second three days fill the places • Light & Day - Sun, moon, stars • Sea & sky - Creatures of the water and sky • Fertile earth - Creatures of the land

33. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Creation or Evolution • Creation - holds that God created every species. • Some animals have become extinct due to changes in the earths environment or other factors • Animals develop within species • Creative act was in the six days of creation

34. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Creation or Evolution • Evolution - holds that all forms of life have developed from non-living substance to the first living material by a gradual process of selection, mutations, spontaneous variations which caused new types to come into existence. • Survival of the fittest due to better adapted to their environment • Developed from a lower to a higher forms • Problems with evolution • Lack of intermediate stages in geological records • No intermediate stages exist in live animals • Leaves no place for a spiritual nature

35. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Attempt to Reconcile Creation & Evolution • Theistic evolution - God created directly the beginning of the evolutionary process and continues to work in the natural evolutionary process • May have been some modifying of living creatures in the process like giving humans a spiritual nature. • Try to fit the evolutionary process to scripture.

36. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Attempt to Reconcile Creation & Evolution • Progressive creationism - holds that God created over a long period of time each species (kind - min) and other evolved from those first broad group • Science notes gaps between kinds • Intra-kind development vs. Inter-kind development

37. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Doctrine (Teaching) of Creation • God created the entire universe out of nothing; it was originally very good; and he created it to glorify himself through his relationship with His creation.

38. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Objections to theistic evolution: • Scripture teaches that creation was purposeful not random or chance • Scripture pictures God’s creative work as bringing an immediate response • “And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kind.” And after three hundred eighty-seven million four hundred ninety-two thousand eight hundred seventy-one attempts, God finally made a mouse that worked.” (Grudem 277)

39. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Objections to theistic evolution: • Scripture points to God creating animals and plants to reproduce after their kind • God played a active role in creating. • Special creation of Adam and Eve breaks with evolutionary thought • There are many scientific problems with the theory of evolution

40. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Since Charles Darwin first published his Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 – Problems persist: • No change from one species to another - fly is still a fly • Fossil records is still one of the biggest problem • Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. • Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and “fully formed.”

41. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Since Charles Darwin first published his Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 – Problems persist: • Difficulty of explaining how life could have begun by chance. • Even the simplest living organism capable of independent life (the prokaryote bacterial cell) has not been able to be constructed in our best laboratories. “That a living organism emerged by chance from a pre-biotic soup is about as likely as that ‘a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.’

42. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Since Charles Darwin first published his Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 – Problems persist: • Kofahl and Segraves reported a study by evolutionary scientists that calculated the probability of the chance formation of the smallest likely living organism is 10 to 340,000,000.

43. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Since Charles Darwin first published his Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 – Problems persist: • Non-Christian writer, Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crises notes that since the time of Darwin notes, Neither the two fundamental axioms of Darwin’s macroevolutionary theory – the concept of the continuity of nature, that is the idea of a functional continuum of all life forms linking all species together and ultimately leading back to a primeval cell, and the belief that all the adaptive design of life has resulted from a blind random process – have not been validated by one single empirical discovery or scientific advance since 1859.

44. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Evolution of Humanity - Proof & Problems?

45. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Evolution of Humanity - Proof & Problems? Leakey discovered Kenyapithecusafricanus – plaster cast of incisor and canine teeth and bits of the upper and lower jaw Zinjanthropus (fossil man) – nearly complete skull but primitive tool found in the same strata, they should not appear until later Ashley Montagu (anthropologist), Australopithecus are apelike and not of the line the leads to man. Korn and Smith in their book Human Evolution note Australopithecus was evolving toward being man but never crossed to become human.

46. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Evolution of Humanity - Proof & Problems? Pithecanthropines family – Java Man - Dr. Du Bois set out to find the missing link between apes and humans and found the “Java man” as the bones were discovered in north central Java. Found apelike tooth, other teeth about 10 feet away, brain pan and a femur (thighbone). Declared the brain pan too small to be a man but too large for an ape. In 1896 Du Boise got the opinion of 19 authorities – 5 thought it was an ape, 7 thought human and 7 a missing link. Du Bois put the bone in a box and buried it under his dining room floor. Later admitted to finding other bones in the same strata that were unquestionably of modern humans.

47. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Evolution of Humanity - Proof & Problems? Pithecanthropines family – Peking Man In the 1930s Dr. Black original found a molar tooth from which he decided he had found new genus and species. Later, more bone fragments and an almost complete skull were found but their whereabouts is unknown and cannot be studied today. Supposed reconstruction of the Peking Man

48. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Evolution of Humanity – Proof & Problems? Nebraska Man – single tooth but actually from a wild pig Piltdown Man – mandible and portions of a skull - complete hoax Orce Man – skull fragments later found to belong to 6 month old monkey Rodesian Man – actual bones of a modern man Heidelberg Man – large jaw bone with several teeth, jaw bone is large but teeth within modern human norms

49. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Adam and Eve in the Garden (2:4-25) • Amplification on the creation related to humanity place in the created order (2:4-7) • Earth watered by mist not by rain • Formation of Adam and breath of life (physical life)

50. Survey of Genesis: Primeval History • Adam and Eve in the Garden (2:4-25) • Planting of the garden east of Eden (2:8-14) • Tree of life • Tree of knowledge of good and evil • Location of garden by rivers • Gihon • Tigris • Euphrates • Pishon (see BAR, The River Runs Dry, p. 52f)