Books of the Bible--Genesis

Genesis one of my all-time favorite books of the Bible. Not only does it read like a storybook but it sets the foundation for every single thing in the world. The first time for almost everything you can think of happened in Genesis.

Genesis means beginning. The book was either written or, more accurately, compiled or written down by Moses. He of course was not there during  the time of these happenings, but the stories and facts in it were passed down by word of mouth, if not in any written form, from the first generation of man.

The Book of Genesis has the stories of creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Methuselah--the man with the highest age ever recorded, the flood, Tower of Babel, Abraham, Lot's wife, the sacrifice of Isaac, Jacob and Esau, the coat of many colors, and the prince of Egypt.

Some of my favorite memory verses are Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.
Genesis 50:20 The scepter shall not depart from Judah till Shiloh come.
Genesis 49:10 You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to save many people alive.

Genesis begins with the account of Creation. God created everything from nothing by His spoken word in perfect order. He established man, animals, plants, and earth as they were intended to be. Man had a perfect job, a perfect family, and a perfect relationship with his creator God.

All of that changed in chapter 3. This is the account of the fall of man. Man was tempted by Satan and chose to walk away from God in disobedience. The repercussions of this are still with us today. But of course God knew from the beginning of time and had the remedy before it even happened.

From that point on sin was in the world. Adam and Eve had children and they are sinful to. Man fulfilled all the potential that God had instilled in them but it was bent towards evil. Eventually it became so overwhelmingly wicked that God had to destroy the entire Earth. He chooses to do this with a flood and only Noah and his family were saved. They built an ark and cared for all the animals during the flood.

After the flood evil once again rebounded. This is where the story of the Tower of Babel is recounted. This is also the time where our modern secular recorded history begins with the land of Sumer. It's no surprise then that they have accounts of a worldwide flood and a tower in  written works such as the Epic of Gilgamesh from that era.

From Sumer, God called Abram to establish a nation of people that He chose for himself. Abram followed him to the land of Canaan where God changed his name to Abraham and miraculously gave him a son despite the fact that he and Sarah were elderly. Then comes the story of how God asked Abraham to sacrifice that beloved son. This was a picture of how God himself would sacrifice his own son for us.

From here Genesis continues to follow the line of Abraham and the growth of the chosen people of God. Abraham had one son, Isaac.Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau, who were at odds with each other from the womb! From here the line follows Jacob, who had two wives two concubines and twelve sons. His life is full of stories :  tricking his brother into selling his birthright for bowl of porridge, Jacob's ladder, working 7 years for his bride and then being tricked into marrying the wrong woman.

The discord in Jacob's life passed down to his own family which was rife with favoritism and jealousy. His favorite son Joseph was hated by the other eleven Sons and eventually was sold into slavery and ended up in Egypt. The story of Joseph faithfulness to God in spite of all of the fair and unfair things that happened to him is one of the most inspiring in the Bible in my opinion. And we get to see how God makes it all right at the very end which we don't always get to see in the Bible or in our own lives!