How to read the Bible

1. Introduction
For the person who wants to get to grips with a large and ancient book that has been read by millions of people over thousands of years, there must be a better way than just starting at the beginning and reading to the end. A better way, that is, of getting the main message, before you read it right through.

The Bible is not just a ‘book’. It is a collection of 66 separate documents. Some we’d call books today. Others are collections of songs, there are letters, some to groups of people, others to friends, and some unusual forms of literature that are most like ‘calls to action’ that sometimes might be made today in speeches or pamphlets.

Some of the more book-like ‘books’ in the Bible are historical accounts, or compilations. These are not like our modern history books, where an author looks back to the past and composes his work, but they are more usually reports prepared at or near the time of the events of interest and brought together into the form in which we now have them.

With a conventional book, one tends to read from start to finish, because this is how the author would expect it to be read. As the Bible was not written by one author at one time (it has dozens of authors who wrote over a period of more than a thousand year), it was arranged according to a general historical logic: the first few books are in rough historical order of their subject, but then there are other books that don’t fit this: Psalms, Proverbs, the prophets, for example. In some cases the books are simply arranged in order of size, with the larger first. The letters of Paul in the New Testament are the best example.

There are two major divisions in the Bible: the Old Testament, with 39 works written BC, or before the birth of Christ (BCE, or ‘before common era’ as some people say), and the New Testament, which is 27 works written AD, or after the birth of Christ, in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Julius Caesar was the Roman emperor just before this period, with these documents written during the first decades of the era (CE, or ‘common era’).

The whole set of books in the Bible is listed and described here. [link]

2. Reading in 5 Easy Steps

It first occurred to me that a ‘method’ of reading the Bible for a new reader could be helpful when I had read a guide by Thomas Merton to reading Augustine’s “The City of God”. Not that I used the guide, I’m a ‘start to finish’ reader myself. But I liked Merton’s idea.

So, here’s how I’d suggest a newcomer read the Bible, so as to get the overall feel.

Before you start, there’s one more thing to know about the Bible’s organisation. Each book is broken into chapters, which are not always logical divisions, and each chapter is divided into verses, again, not always logically. The verses roughly equate to short paragraphs. These divisions were assigned in the Middle Ages as a means of easily referencing specific passages, and are still used for that today. However, when they were written, the books of the Bible were written as continuous prose (or songs) to be read as such. For instance, no one writes a letter and expects people to read a couple of sentences each day. No, the normal thing is to read right through the letter, usually in one sitting.

I’ve set out three alternative reading plans for people with (a) little, (b) some, and (c) more time that they can devote to reading.

1. The Beginning
The reader’s normal instinct, to start at the beginning, is sound here, as it mostly is. The opening of the Bible sets the scene for all that unfolds, showing us the ‘realness’ of the created universe, which is the setting of God’s relationship with us, both as creature, and as friend (the friendship was rapidly betrayed by humanity; the rest of the Bible tells of God restoring the friendship).

(a) Genesis chapters 1-11
The first eleven chapters provide the foundation for the Bible’s entire history, taking us up to the formation of the people of Israel, with Abram’s ‘call’. They also provide the foundation for our universal history and relate the events that underpin all human culture and its physical setting.

(b) Genesis complete
Genesis is the ‘book of beginnings’ and thus the book of orientation: it orients us to our world and relationships with each other and God. It also orients us to the commencement of God’s saving us from alienation from himself. On the historical level, it reads as a great saga (not undercutting its historicity) with a magnificent narrative sweep of huge scope: from the creation of all that is, to the formation of the people through whom God will bring re-creation and restoration of harmony between us and him.

(c) Genesis-Deuteronomy (the entire Pentateuch, or Torah, being the first five books.)
These books include long lists (Numbers) and law codes (Leviticus) which can get dull for a modern reader, but the information is important to allow you to understand the structure of Israel’s society and politico-religious system.

2. Troubles
After its great start, Israel, like most other human groups, had a tendency to run off the rails. People came along speaking for God. They were called prophets, and their job was to warn Israel of the danger and difficulty they were courting, urging them to turn from that path to one that would return them to companionship with God.

(a) Hosea and Joel
As a pair these books show God’s efforts to lead his people back to relationship with him, and the ultimate result of restoration, in Joel.

(b) Isaiah
Isaiah is a great prophesy that points to the messiah, the rescuer appointed by God to retrieve his people, and open the way to the new creation.

(c) Isaiah and Joel.

3. Israel’s contemplative life
The ‘devotional’ works form a set of books that consists of ‘wisdom’ literature, songs (referred to as ‘poetry’ today) and related works. It provides an insight into the devotional life of Israel, and the frankness with which God is approached.

(a) A selection from the ‘messianic’ Psalms: 2, 8, 16, 22, 45, 72, 89, 110, 118, 132 and 23.

(b) Add to (a) Psalms 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14; add 119, to go a little further.

(c) Add the Song of Solomon and Proverbs chapters 2-6; to go further add the book of Job.

4. The Beginning of the New
The Old Testament shows us the long path from the Fall, where God’s creatures rejected his friendship, to God’s restoration of that relationship through his entering our world in Jesus of Nazareth (it is important to note, for Old Testament symbolism, that ‘Jesus’ is the Greek version of the Hebrew name we usually translate as ‘Joshua’). Jesus heralds the new relationship between God and man, and its culmination in the “new creation” which is introduced through the New Testament and given final unveiling in the book of Revelation.

(a) Mark’s account of Jesus’ work.
Mark gives the shortest and most directly written account of Jesus work. Not a biography in our sense, as it is less about the person, and concentrates on his mission.

(b) Luke’s account of Jesus’ work.
Luke’s is probably the most historically rigorous of the four gospels, written to a gentile, and so probably more in tune with our Western mind set than the others.

(c) Luke’s and John’s accounts of Jesus’ work.
Together these two accounts give both historical and spiritual perspectives to the work of Jesus. John’s account is regarded as more the philosophical, or spiritual of the gospels.

5. Into the New
The next readings cover the history of the foundation of the Christian community from the end of Jesus’ mission with his ascension to heaven to the conclusion of the great missionary efforts of Paul the apostle (which means ‘messenger’). They show the significance for us of Jesus’ work in that we now can approach God, because God has ‘stooped’ down to us to re-found the relationships between him and us.

(a) Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letter to the Galatians
Acts is an historical sketch of the foundation of the Christian community, and Paul’s letter to the Galatian Christians is a summary of the profoundly radical Christian theology that Paul brought to the ancient world.

(b) Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letters to the Galatians and Ephesians
Adding Ephesians to the selection at 5(a) provides additional spiritual material with its practical outworking in our everyday lives

(c) Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letter to the Romans
Romans, as it is usually called, is Paul’s ‘tour de force’ and sets out his theology in its full force and its grand cosmic and eternal scope, running from the brokenness of this world, the source of that brokenness, and its being made good in the world to come. It is unparalleled.

Conclusion
The final book, Revelation, shows us, in sometimes extravagant picture language for us moderns, the culmination of God’s restoration in the ‘new creation’ despite all the adversity that can be thrown at his plan.

(a) Revelation 19-22
The end of it all is not the end, but the new beginning; the new creation where there is renewed relationship with God, the creator.

(b) Revelation 5 and 6, then 19-22.


(c) Revelation complete.

Summary Table of the three reading plans

Evolution and Gravity

Amusing blog by Seth that uses gravity and evolution to talk about marketing. Some nice side lights on both.

Study 4: Truly Human (Gen 2:4-25)

First, the passage:

4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven.
5 Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.
6 But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.
7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
8 The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed.
9 Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers.
11 The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.
12 The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there.
13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush.
14 The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria and the fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.
16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."
18 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him."
19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.
20The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper corresponding to him.
21So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.
22The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.
23The man said,
This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man."
24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed

.


We start the study with a ‘dorothy dixer’: “Is work part of God’s good intention for us?”
Mr Adam, the member for Eden “Mr speaker, I’m glad my honourable colleague asked that question…” and so on.

Q: What are we to make of this ‘new’ account of creation? How does it follow from Genesis 1.

A: It is a mistake of enduring popularity that there are two creation accounts in the Bible, that the silly redactor just lumped together, not noticing what he’d done! Sometimes I wonder about the thinking that Wellhausen brought to his hypothesis…well, all the time, actually!

It’s clear to me that Gen 1 tells us about the grand setting of creation, placing earth and its denizens in their place, both genetically and astro-spatially and the making of earth to be a place of habitation. Then Gen 2 takes us into day six to instruct us in the detail of the system of dependent relationships that are formed for our sustenance and delight on that day.

Consider Gen 1:1 and Gen 2:4

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...."

and

"These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created."

The former heads the grand setting of creation, the latter talks about the people as individuals.

The point has also been made that providing two ‘forks’ to an account is not an uncommon literary approach in ANE literature. I refer to two interesting articles on this by Shea: The Unity of the Creation Account and Literary Structural Parallels Between Genesis 1 and 2.

And there are ‘secular’ examples of this, for instance, in the beginning of the Gebel Barkla Stela, there are general terms describing royal supremacy, and immediately following is a restatement that specifically elaborates on the triumphs in Syria-Palestine. In another example, the royal inscriptions from Urartu have the initial paragraph attributing the defeat of certain lands to the god Haldi and then the same victories are repeated in detail as achieved by the king.

Q: Why were there no shrubs or plants originally? How did God fix this?

A: I immediately think of Kline’s article ‘Because it had not rained’ and Futato’s similar work and smell a literary hermeneutic rat. So let’s scotch that straight away.

Grudem does a good job of it:

Genesis 2:5 does not really say that plants were not on the earth because the earth was too dry to support them... If we adopt that reasoning we would also have to say there were no plants because 'there was no man to till the ground' (Gen.2:5), for that is the second half of the comment about no rain coming on the earth. Moreover, the remainder of the sentence says that the earth was the opposite of being too dry to support plants: 'streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground' (Gen.2:6 NIV). The statement in Genesis 2:5 is simply to be understood as an explanation of the general time frame in which God created man. Genesis 2:4-6 sets the stage,... The statements about lack of rain and no man to till the ground do not give the physical reason why there were no plants, but only explain that God's work of creation was not complete. This introduction puts us back into the first six days of creation as a general setting -- into 'the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens' (Gen.2:4). Then in that setting it abruptly introduces the main point of chapter 2 -- the creation of man.

The other considerations that I’d bring are that Ge. 2 is about man in his sphere: the plants mentioned are some of the plants, the animals mentioned are some of the animals; in both cases they are the plants and animals that man lives most closely with; particularly for food (I’m thinking milk and eggs here, not steak and chicken legs); if there is a discussion about the operation of normal providence or not, it must be had against the background of the special events of creation, and the orderly building of the successive relational dependencies that characterises the creative sequence. Kline wants to say that normal providence is operating (throughout all creation, mind you, which is simply crazy on textual as well as logical grounds); but to maintain this he has to disregard the connection of chapter 2 with chapter 1 and deny that chapter two is taking us into day 6 in detail. Thanks Meredith, but no thanks!

Finally, I quote Noel Weeks:

There is nothing which clearly indicates that normal providence was functioning during the creation period. Whereas rain is mentioned as the normal way in which vegetation is watered, in 2:6 the earth is watered by the going up of a mist. We cannot infer from 2:5 that there had been a long period prior to the situation reported in that verse during which the earth had become dry. Rather it fits into the framework of God first providing the environmental necessity (water) and then making the plants. Certainly springs do continue as one of the ways in which the earth has been watered since creation but the concern of the verse is the way it first began. The actual beginning does not assume the operation of normal providence.

I like Noel’s insights because, unusual amongst theologians, he has a degree in biology. Also I enjoyed his talks at a house party about 25 years ago (my, aren’t we all growing old).

Q: In what ways is the creation of man unique? How does this add to the account of Genesis 1?

A: One of the stark differences between Judeo-Christian tradition and others is the very earthiness, the physicality of creation being brought into ‘religious’ focus. Man-made religions have a tendency to deny the material world as somehow not worthy of our elevated spiritual capacities. Bollocks to that! We’re made of dust, and it’s very good. But we are also blessed with God-breathed life: our life is of a different order to mere dust arrangements; even the animals bear a difference and are ‘living’. The life we are given however renders us in Gods image; I don’t think any man-made religion has anything like this in combination with the sheer dusty-groundedness that we have in the Bible!

The whole passage is an amplification of the events of day 6, and expands upon the summary of man’s creation and activity given in Gen 1: 26f.

Q: What does v.9a tell us about God’s design for creation and perhaps his very character?

A: A little acknowledged fact of God’s work is that it does good: it is for Stoics and other types of pagan that pleasure ranks low. For Christians (Jews too) pleasure is a major good and enjoying the creation is part of that. I look around me in the wilds, or I consider the sheer deliciousness of a nashi or blood orange: how wonderfully excessively sumptuous they are: they don’t need to be *that* good; half as good would do the trick, but no, God has made them, even though fallen, to be stunningly good. I could go on about other aspects of our life in the same vein but I won’t: how come it’s *so* very good? Well, God’s like that: he overflows with delights for his creatures.

Q: Vs 10-14 almost form an interruption in the text (it would read fine if they were removed). Why are they here? What is the significance of the rivers?

A: Detail goes to verisimilitude. And so it is here. These rivers no longer exist (the flood fixed that) but that they are recorded makes the creation to have been something that has the earth as its setting. The rivers and the other facts of this passage speak of real place and objects. They have no other function, as far as I can see.

Further, one of the characteristics of mythic or legendary language is the lack of specificity as to verifiable details: whether regarding time (date) or place. This detail may therefore be a pre-emptive counter-mythic move by the author, or simply a natural relation of detail that inter alia goes to the historicity of the account.

Q: Would you say the theme in vs. 4-17 is one of provision or prohibition [leading question counsel]?

A: I guess they want a discussion, not the choice of one of the words, but the word I choose is ‘provision’.

Q: What is the tree of knowledge of good and evil? What does it ‘give’ humans if they eat of it?

A: At first blush it seems a surprising, if not almost cynical move on God’s part to sow the seeds of destruction in his very good creation…just when it was all getting along so well, to, and all to do with a tree.

So, on the assumption that neither the author nor God is an idiot, let’s consider the text.

Taking that it was an actual tree with a time and space location (I think it was a durian, not an apple; eat a durian, and you really do get to know of evil…its smell, anyway) how would eating fruit consign creation to the road to perdition?

I don’t think the problem was the fruit itself, unless it was a durian, of course, but the act that was in question.

The point of man being in God’s image is that his moral judgements have actual significance and real outcomes will flow from them; thus he is fully capable in his relationships: capable that is to undo, which means that his doing truly ‘does’: that relationships can be undone means that good relationships have true value and are not mere hollow images of relationships.

The tree is God’s great risk. He shows to man that man has moral capability and really is ‘ruler’ of this creation; it is not just a game but a great ‘honouring’ of man. The risk is obvious; man might choose to ‘know’ evil. Eating the tree doesn’t just impart a theoretical knowledge, but the act gives the experience of turning from God. Turning from God gives directly the experience of rejection of God, because awayness from God is towardness to ‘not-God’ or the denial of God, which can only be evil: the negation of life and love.

Did God know what man would do? I’ll leave the question hanging, but suffice to say, that man’s choice was man’s responsibility; that was why creation was as it was, with man being in God’s image to make decisions with a real effect.

Q: Gen 2: 18-25. What does this passage tell us about the importance of human community?

A: Alone=bad; companionship=good. And that about sums it up.

Q: What is the significance of the active role that man takes here?

A: Adam does a couple of things in naming the animals: the difference between the ruled creation and his requirement for companion are clearly made; companionship does not involve ruling, but brings a ‘joint-ruler’ by implication. It shows that his aloneness is for one of his own kind, not other kinds. It shows that he cannot by himself meet his need for aloneness: we are creatures that need companionship above all else, and no amount of cattle will substitute. Just ask the Masai.

Q: How does this passage help us [to] understand how we were created to be in relation to God, nature and other people?

A: It shows us the system of relationships: we stand on one part of the creation (the earth) we study and husband another part (beasts and birds) and we are in companionship with each other as the ‘steward’ part. Each part is separated from each other part in ontological ordering and our movement to each is different: we will not treat our companion like we would treat our cattle or our land, as Adam’s hymn (Gen 2:23) makes clear.

Blessings and Curses

The curses in Genesis 3 are sometimes regarded, in my experience, as having an element of arbitrariness to them. Not so, in my view.

The curses systematically deracinate all the identified benefits mentioned in Gen 1 and 2 as attending life in the very good creation. They are all inverted as death is the invert of life and rejection of love brings alienation not fellowship. However, they are not merely the detriments that flow, as adverse as they are; but are markers of the grand turning from God and its result in death: I think they are all about ‘dying you will die’ as the result of taking the fruit (rejecting God). They thus underline the ‘deathliness’ of life that seeks to be against God. To contemplate, against this, that any death might have preceded the fall (required by any scheme of interpretation that denies the timing of Genesis 1) demonstrates a hermeneutic of rejection that ironically parallels the act of Adam.

1
Gen 1: 28
God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth…”

VSS

Gen 3:16a
To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children;

> Being fruitful and multiplying will be attended with suffering.

2
Gen 1:26-28
Then God said, "Let Us make man in our image, according to our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth…”

AND

Ge 2:23-24
“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man."
24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

VSS

Gen 3:16b
Yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."

> Instead of unity, we have a contest; ‘one fleshness’ gives way to competition and rivalry.

3
Gen 2:15-17
Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. 16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."

VSS

Gen 3:17 Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it';

> Listening to Eve instead of God, all the trees ‘free to eat’ including, presumably, the ‘tree of life’; but access to that is cut off by partaking of the tree of rejecting God. There’s one tree we can’t eat: either it is the tree of death, or the tree of life: they are mutually exclusive.

4
Gen 1:29
Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;

VSS

Gen 3:17
Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life.

> From the garden of delights (Gen 2:9a), to the thorn ground of sweat.

5
Gen 2:15-16
Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. 16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely…”

VSS

Gen 3:18-19
"Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; 19 By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."

> Instead of trees leading to life, sweat ends in death; with return to the dust from which we were taken; [but in Christ, we live on, as he will crush the serpent’s head: God bringing his good end from our bad beginning; working all things together for good].

Sermon 7: Genesis 3: The Fall.

There was a lot to like about this sermon, in my view. It started off dealing with the common detraction from the Christian gospel about suffering and the ‘God of love’. Of course, Genesis 3 tells us why we and indeed the whole creation suffer. The greater question for the detractor is, to my mind, why their question has any significance at all. If there is no God, then it’s hard to see how any transcendent values can exist, yet the question pre-supposes them. Confusingly, the question also seems to imply a universal reduction to material, which is void of values of any type.

Nor do I see any alternative to materialism upon denial of God. If an alternative entertains the ‘spiritual’ in some way, it ends up as a type of theism (for which the question of death is maintained).

I suppose one retort from the detractor would be that they don’t regard the question as significant, but they see in it a possible defeater for Christian theism. However, my point stands. If there is no God, then the question of values, upon which the question hinges, is entirely irrelevant in every way! Assertions to the contrary eventually fall into the lap of the theist construct, and undo themselves. If there were no god, how could any question about Christian beliefs, or any beliefs have any interest, because they would all be part of the same soup of randomness.

But, back to the topic:

The outcome of the fall was first seen in Adam and Eve seeking to hide from God (Gen 3:8), rather than embrace him: they seeing in their behaviour the undoing of what they had; the beauty of their friendship undone most profoundly, and shockingly for God, him seeing that now he had to seek man, rather than man being in community with him. The image is rendered corrupt and no longer constituted as the basis for communion and fellowship between God and man.

God seeking man is the first picture of God’s other-directed-ness towards man and his love showing in seeking the lost. God seeks man; God will bring the ‘serpent crusher’ (Gen 3: 15) and God covers man’s new vulnerability (Gen 3:20).

The great and moving irony of this is that as A&E seek to become ‘like God’ and know good and evil: right from wrong, God from not-God; they betray a base lack of trust in God and seek to be like him originating in a motivation that is contrary to him: seeking self, instead of the other-directedness that characterises the God who is love.

Overturning what God has provided, they have partaken in the antithesis of the image they bear, and it all falls apart. In verse 22 of Gen 3, I think God’s statement that they know good and evil, is not one of envy, or jealousy, but of sadness; that they have met that which will kill them: standing for self, cutting them off from life, by having opposed the image they bear. They know good and evil, not as being the creator who in self knowledge knows what he is not, but by participating in evil: knowing by doing, and discovering what is not worth discovering. They may no longer take from the tree of life, because the tree is in the garden of delight. They are now in the land of sweat and curse because they have rejected the delight. To live forever in evil would be perdition. God in his mercy cuts that off to instead bring redemption.

Predictably the idea of Adam listening to Eve per se was regarded as being Adam’s error (Gen 3:17). This was stated as ‘the failure of godly leadership’ as though this is anywhere discernable in chapters 1 and 2. It is not, in my view.

A&E are to be ‘one flesh’ a unity, together and beside each other; there is no ‘leadership’ in marriage, because it is a partnership of love, equals coming into a ‘one fleshness’. The creation of priority within the couple is the result of the fall (Gen 3:16c) because A&E are joint rulers over all living creation (Gen 1:26-28). It is only after the fall that a ‘ruling’ of any kind would occur between the couple; and this was a curse! In fact, Adam’s error was in listening to Eve in preference to God (vs 17c). As I stated in the blog on the study , Eve had primacy in the exchange with the serpent and in the presence of Adam (Gen 3:6b) *pre-fall*. There was no problem with this; the problem was with (a) Adam making no contribution to the situation, and (b) putting aside God’s word to him in preference to the exchange he’d witnessed between Eve and the serpent. Noting that Adam’s setting aside God’s command was in the face of the command being given to Adam directly by God, whereas Eve would have had it second hand.

Nevertheless I was pleased that the sermon reminded us that the Bible slates home sin to Adam, and not Eve, unlike the mistake of Christendom for much of its history. Paul also reminds us of this episode in 1 Tim 2:9ff, his reminder being, I take it, that Eve gave wrong teaching, not teaching per se: Adam listened to wrong teaching, Eve’s sex was irrelevant, according to Gen 3:17c.

The curse couplet in Gen 3:16c was properly explained as being a doublet of inversion: the two who were to be ‘one flesh’, a unity, would now be in a struggle of dissension: she would desire to overwhelm (him) (as sin for Cain: Gen 4:7), he would desire to rule (her) as appointed only for non-image-bearing creatures in Gen 1: nothing good in either direction. Restoration begins with redemption, of course, where the curse is opposed on the way to being undone in the new creation.

An interesting point about the curse is that every element of it undoes a specific aspect of the ‘very good’. See this blog entry for a quick look at this potentially fascinating comparison.

I was pleased to hear the sermon mention the significance of the genealogies in the Bible; from early Genesis to the New Testament, they take us along the path to the ‘serpent crusher’, culminating in Luke’s genealogy that takes us from Adam to Christ, who undoes that basic of fears; the fear of death.

Because the Bible is about real events and people, the genealogies are essential to underline the connection: this is not some myth off in the land of the imagination; but it is here and now. The dust is the stuff that clings to our shoes.

I would also add that the ‘chrono-genealogies’ add historical structure to the lists of names. Firstly, the names are important, because they establish the soteriological trace through real people. The dates (ages at sons’ births) root the lists in history; the history contiguous with our historical experience of God.

Study 3: Man, Ecology and the Environment (Gen 1:27-2:3)

The passage:

Ge 1:27-2:3

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29 Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; 30 and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so. 31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. 2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

NASU

As I was not at the study group meeting for Study 3, I’ll just go through the study…

Once I’ve got the ‘official’ answers for the study, I’ll comment on them too, as the occasion takes me.

1. What does the Bible tell us about…

- our world (Gen 1:31, and see Gen 3:17-19, Roms 8:21-22):

In brief: was very good, was marred and awaits its redemption. These three way posts on the route to interpretation tells not only about the spiritual or moral world, or the human ‘world picture’, which is what must, I think, be the result of a de-reification of the creation account; and what Paul caps off opposition to in the Romans reference; but about the world that we’re standing in. We are separated from the ‘very good’ of God’s pristine creation by the ‘very bad’ of a world cursed as its vicegerent rejected relationship with the creator and wanted to know good and evil (know I take it here includes ‘have direct experience of’ the antithesis of God, the author of the ‘very good’).

- the abundance of our world (Gen 1:29, 9:1-3, Ps 145:15-17):

Plants were given for food (and therefore, not animals, in at least the pre-fall state); after the flood, the food range was increased to animals, which were now resistant to man’s care; nevertheless, in its fallen condition, marred and reflective of what God is not like, God provides for us.

- Humanity’s relationship to and responsibility for the creation (Gen 1:27, 28):

At base, to ‘subdue’ it. Detractors claim that this gives licence for exploitation, and wonton waste of the earth’s bounty; but not so. In a pre-fall condition, it would have man doing for the creation consistently with God’s very-good declaration; that this is a precious thing, to be maintained in harmony and for the sustenance of the interlocking system of benefits that the ‘very-good’ would produce. It would be like a king ruling his kingdom not to destroy and lay waste, but to build up and improve as his home giving to his heirs something that they will thank him for.

2. What does it mean to ‘subdue’ and ‘rule over’ the earth?

See above, but lets look at the references given:

Gen 2:15
Look after the garden

Gen 2:19-20
Husband the animals. This is the passage where Adam names the animals; as the first act of ‘ruling’ them he must understand them. Incidentally, against what idealist theologians say, that Genesis is ‘not a scientific’ text book, this is the ideal counter. It shows Adam doing something that is precisely scientific (referring to the study of the real world to seek knowledge of the creation. Pagans would call it ‘natural’ science), examining the animals, perhaps classifying and describing them (required for ‘naming’ in ANE cultures) and identifying them, to create knowledge about them.
QED, Genesis 1 is a ‘science textbook’.

Ex 23:29-30
The Promised Land is conquered carefully so it does not fall to waste and ruin.

Le 25:3-4
Even rules are given to allow the land to lie fallow and rest, with a system of fallow years being described: the people of Israel’s slogan could be ‘Still managing the land, still caring’.

De 20:19
Caring for the land extends to protecting productive trees for those who would come after!

Pr 12:10
Caring includes caring for animals: there we have it, modern ecological concern and animal liberation predated by just a few thousand years and in the Bible too!

Of course, the ‘kicker’ comes with the spoiling effect of sin: alienation from the source of life and love.

4. What are the effects of human sin [is there any other kind?] on our environment?

Luke 12:15
Greed is to be guarded against. In the end it adds nothing to our lives.

James 4:1-3
And, of course, greed arises from self-obsession, which ends, ultimately, as well as morally, in murder, as we put self before others.

The end of the study consisted with ‘getting practical’ [I can’t think of much more practical than the foregoing, myself]

Q: As Christians, how should we respond to global warning?

A: Start off by not ‘shoulding’ on each other with Pharisaic casuistry! [Often one has to correct the question in Bible studies]. A better question would be: “what considerations arise from the scriptures when we consider the state of our planet?”

As to ‘global warming’ of course, there is no response, unless we can somehow change the sun’s output. But what would we bring to questions such as pollution and land degradation: why, opposition, of course, but seeking a staged correction of careless ways to avoid destroying people’s livelihoods (workers, that is). We might also be modest in our demands on the environment; the benefit is release of funds for mission and other service. Imagine how much money would be so released if all Christian families avoided private schools, operated one car (structuring their lives to use public transport), avoided ‘prestige’ cars, and took modest holidays: lots, is my answer.

Q: What would you say to the Christian who says “The Earth is going to be destroyed one day, so what does it matter if we make a mess of it first?”

A: a) not an attitude consistent with seeking to care for things, b) ‘one day’ but let’s act as if we might leave things better for our children, and theirs; otherwise, we may be leaving a mess for generations while the Lord tarries, c) our basic demeanour is to seek the benefit of others, so depredation would be avoided as we seek positives for our fellows and heirs, d) we are called to create and care, not destroy and despoil.

Q: Are Christians supposed to ‘save the planet”?

A: To the extent that this would be an outcome from living to care, seeking the betterment of others, soberly and with delight in the shards of ‘very good’ that persist against the fall, yes, but not as an object in itself. This needs to be balanced with providing food, homes, and enjoyment for all.

In some ways, not a lot of controversy in this study; but, my refrain for any series of studies in the early chapters of Genesis is this: if the idealists are right, and Genesis provides some sort of picture, but something other ‘really’ happened, then it’s a house of cards that collapses, as the ‘other’ would provide the basis for informing our take on the ‘real’; any action that would be motivated by understanding Genesis would be essentially predicated on its relating events and facts that are consistent with and stand in train, indeed are commensurate with our experience of the world, against the shared framework of time, space and causal delimiters.