The 30-second version
The first 11 chapters of Genesis contain the famous stories of creation, Noah’s Ark, the Tower of Babel, and others. Understood together, they tell us that God made our world a good place, but humans have the free choice of being good or bad. Ever since Adam & Eve got thrown out of the Garden of Eden for disobeying God (eating the forbidden fruit), humans have had to wrestle with that choice and its consequences. Human beings tend to choose sin instead of obeying God, and that choice hurts our relationship with God. Happily, God still “comes looking for us” like God did when he was walking through the Garden of Eden, calling out to Adam and Eve while they were hiding from God after they sinned and knew they had done something that might make God mad. Things went from bad to worse–Adam and Eve’s sons were Cain and Abel, and Cain actually murdered Abel. Eventually sin got so out of hand it threatened to destroy everything, so God sent the flood to “undo” the creation, except that God saved Noah and his family and the animals. But no sooner than the flood was over, Noah’s family sinned and so God had to find another way to deal with sin besides trying to wipe it out of the picture.
The Tower of Babel story illustrates “corporate sin,” the problem of whole communities that do things that are not any one individual’s decision, but as a whole, the society does something that is sinful. More about it below… Meanwhile, these 11 chapters tell us that God made us and God loves us, yet we have rejected God. Rather than justifiably destroying us for our sinfulness, God instead wants to win us back.
In a way, that’s what the whole Bible is about–all the ways that God is working to try to “win us back,” and let us live in a life-giving, perfect, loving relationship with God the way it was originally created to be. It is no coincidence that our idea of “heaven” is really a description of the Garden of Eden. After all, God created the Garden of Eden to be a perfect place where there was no sin, and people had everything they needed, and they never died, and they could live in love and peace with each other and with God. Somewhere down inside of us, we have that wish to “go home” too. That is why these chapters “set the stage” for the story you can read about in the rest of the Bible.
— End of 30 second version! —
Setting the Stage: The Story of Humanity
(Genesis Chapters 1-11)
A Story that Seems Strangely Familiar
To any parent, the following story will seem familiar. One of our children asked for a cookie while we were in the living room; a whole plate of them was on the kitchen table. Our perfect little angel was just about two years old at the time. His mother told him no, he could not have a cookie, because it was almost supper time. Of course, soon he quietly disappeared from the living room. Walking into the kitchen, I found him. There were crumbs on his lips. His hands were behind his back. The plate was now right next to the edge of the table, and the cover was off of it. “Have you been eating those cookies?” I asked. He looked right in my eyes and shook his head “no” (because his mouth was so full).
As a parent, I loved that child then, and I still love that child now. But that child, even at age 2, was already exercising his freedom to decide whether or not to obey his parents. That meant, as parents, we were faced with a dilemma. When you want a loving relationship based on mutual trust, how do you respond to a child who swipes cookies right before supper?
You could compel him to follow the rules by force, but if you do, then he will seethe with resentment. Besides, unless his “obedience” comes from the heart, because he agrees with the rules and willingly lives by them, then he is not really on the same team—he is just someone you can overpower and force to do something he doesn’t want to do. If you don’t believe me, just watch what happens after someone spanks a child to “make them obey.” What follows is not a vision of peace and happiness! On the other hand, doing nothing about the child’s deceit and disobedience are not going to result in a healthy, happy relationship either…right?
I looked at my son standing there, and I’m not sure how I responded that day, but I did want to tell him, “Welcome to the human race.”
You will understand what I mean once you have read Genesis chapter 3. That story is about Adam and Eve instead of my son, and in Genesis 3 they were tempted to eat the fruit of a forbidden tree instead of a plate of cookies. But that’s just a change of names and food—in the most important ways, it is really the same story. The point of it is not the food—it is the significant problem of disobedience, and the threat that poses to our relationship with God.
But I’ve skipped ahead, so now let’s go back to the very beginning, and soon you will see why Genesis chapter 3 is such a key “turning point” for the Bible, and in fact, for all of human history.
This is a great time to open your Bible and read Genesis 1:1-2:4 carefully. (If you don’t know how to look up Bible passages, or what version of the Bible would be easiest for you to read, please look at “How to Find a Scription Verse”).
The Creation of the Universe, Days 1, 2, and 3
(Genesis 1:1-13)
The Bible begins, “In the beginning, when God created the universe, the earth was formless and desolate. The raging ocean that covered everything was engulfed in total darkness, and the Spirit of God was moving over the water.” (Genesis 1:1-2, TEV)
Notice that before anything was created, God was already there. If this was a Broadway play, the curtain would rise, and in the center of the stage would be God. But there would be nothing else on the stage yet. In fact, the stage would not be dry, nor would it be well-lit.
Before God did anything, there was only darkness, and a “raging ocean that covered everything.” That sounds like a flood, doesn’t it? (Be sure to keep that in mind when you read about Noah and the Ark later—that story is certainly linked to the creation story. In fact, the creation story is the opposite of the flood story in Noah and the Ark. In the creation story, God is getting ready to create the earth by separating the waters to make land and a place for people to live. Therefore, to “destroy” the earth later, God simply allows the original waters to come back the way they had been in the first place—a chaotic flood that covered everything.)
When you picture the original “flood” that covered everything before creation started, you may be thinking of a large, flat surface, like an ocean, with waves on it and air above the surface. Instead, try picturing one of those water globes that is completely full of water, so that water was literally everywhere—down below, and up above, and in between—no air or land anywhere. If people were added to this “water globe,” we would have been like one of those specs of glitter, floating around aimlessly with no place to build a house or even launch a boat.
God’s first command was, “Let there be light”–and light appeared.” (Genesis 1:3). As it does now, it was light about half the time. He called the light “day,” and the darkness “night,” but at least each one of them now had their own “space,” defined by the daily gift of light. If it was a Broadway play, now the lighting crew can get busy, but that’s just like flipping on a light in the water globe. There is still a lot of creating to do.
On the second day, “God commanded, ‘Let there be a dome to divide the water and to keep it in two separate places.’” He named the dome ‘sky.’” This is why I asked you to picture a water globe. Imagine, if you could do so without breaking the glass, that you cut it horizontally across the middle, like dividing a grapefruit in half—creating a top half, and a bottom half, and now there is space in between.
First, the top half was called “sky.” They noticed that rain came down from the sky, and on many days, if you look up, the sky looks blue (like water). All this contributed to their understanding that the “layer” above the air we breathe must be water. In fact, if you look at the horizon over the ocean, there are times when it looks like the sky and water are exactly the same color, and it is hard to tell where one begins and the other ends. So it looks like the air around us is “sandwiched” in between water above us and water below us.
On the third day, God worked on the bottom half of this giant water globe. He divided the waters and pushed them to the sides, so that land appeared in the middle. Of course, this reflected the world view of people who lived more than 2000 years ago—remember, they thought the world was flat. They could clearly see that the land they lived on was surrounded by water. In some cases the water appeared to go on as far as they could see, so their piece of land was in the middle of a giant sea of endless (sometimes raging) water.
Creation of the Universe, Part 2
(Genesis 1:14-31)
You might notice that the sun and the moon and the stars are not created until the fourth day, even though “light” appears on the first day. That does not mean that people in Bible times failed to make a connection between the sun, and the light that comes from it. Rather, this story was written in a poetic, structured way. The story itself reflects the orderliness that God is imposing upon the natural chaotic state of affairs that existed without God’s intervention.
Notice that every day begins with God giving a command, in the same form, like this: “Then God commanded ________, and it was done.” Each day also ends with the refrain, “Evening passed and morning came—that was the (first, second, third, etc.) day”
That is the structure, or poetic formula, of each day. But the flow of events during the week is far from random—it is carefully structured too.
To help understand the poetic structure of this creation story, notice that days one, two, and three create these three key “environments” (day/night, sky/water, and land). Then days four, five, and six “populate” each of those environments with life. It is as though days 1-3 set up an aquarium, a pasture, and a house. Days 4-6 puts fish in the aquarium, a horse in the pasture, and people in the house. Do you see? In a chart, the structure looks like this:
Creating a place Creating life to live in that place
Day 1 – Day/night < —— > Day 4 – Sun “lives” in the day, moon/stars at night
Day 2 – Sky/water < —— > Day 5 – Birds in sky, fish in water
Day 3 – Land < —— > Day 6 – Land animals, humans
Consider day one. God creates light, making day and night. Then on day four, the day is “populated” with the sun (the main heavenly body visible in the daytime), and the night is “populated” with the moon and stars (“heavenly bodies” visible at night).
In a similar way, day five “populates” the “environment” that was created on day two. Day two divided the waters above from the waters below, making “sky.” So, to populate the sky and the “waters below,” God created birds and fish on the fifth day of creation.
As you can see from the chart, on day six, God “populates” the land, which is the final “environment,” created on day three. To populate the land with living things, God creates all kinds of animal life to live on the earth, and makes a special point to create humans too. Then, God gives humans a special purpose in this whole creation—God “put us in charge” of all the animals.
If you believe in being environmentally responsible, and that human beings should try to take good care of the planet, then you share the same sense of values and truth found in this creation story, no matter what is your scientific view of the world. If you cringe when poachers hunt rare animals into extinction, or if you find it distressing that greed makes us overuse the earth’s resources, then here is where those values are rooted. God wants humans to take care of God’s creation. We have a partnership with God–it is one of the reasons we exist. If you believe that, it will indeed have an impact on your values, and maybe with the things you choose to buy, the environmental regulations you choose to support, and so on. This understanding will also shape your relationship with God, with other people, and with the creation itself.
The Creation of Time to Reconnect with God
(Genesis 2:1-4)
You will see that on the seventh day, God rested. That was not written to claim that God gets tired after putting in a six day week, and needs a nap. Rather, any Jewish person reading this poetic creation story could immediately see that God was “setting an example” for them by blessing the creation, and creating the Sabbath. Like parting the waters to allow land to appear, the Sabbath is like “parting the days of work,” and allowing a person time to rest, worship, and reconnect with God. Some people do work seven days a week, and so they do not have a “Sabbath,” (whether that is Sunday or Saturday to them). Instead, soon everything in their life is about work, and making more money, and one of the most important parts of themselves gets lost—the spiritual connection to the God who made their life possible in the first place. I guess you could say that in God’s final act of creation, he not only created a place where we could live, but he also created time for us to renew our life-giving relationship with him.
Paradise in The Garden of Eden
(Genesis 2:4-31)
There are actually two stories in the Bible about God creating the universe (most Bible translations divide these two stories for you with a title, right in the middle of Genesis 2:4). We have already looked carefully at the first story, found in Genesis 1:1-2:4.
If you have not done so yet, please take a moment to read Genesis 2:4-31, the second of the two creation stories.
In the second creation story, God’s first creation is to make a man (who is later named “Adam”) from the soil, and breathe life into his nostrils. Then God creates a special garden paradise where the man can live; it is called the “Garden of Eden.” God expects the man to guard and cultivate the garden. Next, God brings the man each of the animals to see what the man will name them. Eventually it is clear that none of the animals are a suitable companion for the man, so God puts the man to sleep and uses a rib from the man to create woman (later named Eve). Adam and Eve were literally “made for each other,” and they got to live in God’s pristine, perfect garden, where God provided everything they could possibly need.
Once you read this creation story, and compare it to the first one, you might ask yourself, “What do these creation stories say about what God is like?” One answer–you will see the awesome, powerful side of God in the first story, and the personal, relational side of God in the second story.
In the first story, God issues a command like a President, and “it was done.” In the second story, God picks up a handful of dirt, forms a man from it like an artist, and then breathes the breath of life into his nostrils to create the man who is later named “Adam,” (the name “Adam” is actually a play on words in Hebrew—it sounds like the same word for the “soil” from which he was made). That’s a “caring, personal touch,” is it not?
It would not be helpful to ask, “Which story is correct?” Both stories tell us something about God, and that is why they are both in Genesis. “Yes,” a person might persist, “but man was created on the last day in one story, and on the first day in the other story. Which is right?”
Even though these two stories are quite different, the church through the ages has chosen to keep them both, and not try to “merge” them or choose between them, as though one is wrong and the other right. That is because their purpose in the Bible was never to scientifically inform us about whether humans were created before or after the animals. Rather, these stories are in the Bible to help us get to know God, like a photo album with two different snapshots. One “picture” of God is the all-powerful Creator who can make light appear out of darkness merely by issuing a command, and the other side of God is a tender friend who literally breathes the breath of life into us.
Can you see the importance of this? Before we can ever talk about anything in the Bible, we must first get to know the main character—God. This is an introduction to a God who is so powerful we do not dare disobey! But on the other hand, when we are caught with cookie crumbs all over our lips, this God just might reach out with kindness and wipe them off for us.
The Disobedience of Adam and Eve
(Genesis 3)
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a completely perfect life? Never a bad day, no sickness or pain or sorrow or regrets, everything you could possibly want, and not even getting stuck behind a slow driver in a no passing zone? Well, that’s what Adam and Eve had—a perfect life.
They had, quite literally, “a marriage made in heaven.” They lived in the Garden of Eden. Not only did it resemble a beautiful Hawaiian paradise, but there was no death in the Garden of Eden. Even the plants and animals had everything they needed to thrive. They were given the opportunity to live forever. They had a perfect relationship with the environment—they were cultivating it, and it was sustaining them.
And…this is key…they had a perfect relationship with God.
Now, you might point out that they did not have any clothes—they were naked. In the Bible, this is meant to show that they had absolutely nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of. Adam and Eve, at this point in the story, are innocent of any wrong-doing or evil thoughts. That is symbolized in the story by the fact that they are naked, but they are not embarrassed about it. Nakedness in the scriptures is often a symbol—it is the way politicians feel when a reporter writes a story in the newspaper about corruption in their campaign, or about an adulterous affair they have had in their past. They feel “exposed,” like being naked–you cannot hide anything if you are naked, and if you have sinned, the “naked truth” is embarrassing.
Meanwhile, the “uh-oh” moment is coming up. Humans are created with a characteristic that other animals do not have—the freedom to know the difference between good and evil, and to willingly choose between them. This freedom is necessary if human are going to be able to choose to be in a healthy relationship with God—but with the power of choice comes the possibility of choosing the opposite. Otherwise, it is not a choice; if God “forces” us to obey, we are nothing more than robots, and we have no more life, no more “spirit” than a rock.
It is a little like my wife tells me after some of our “conversations”: “America is a free country. So you have the freedom to be wrong.” (I think she is kidding…)
In Genesis 3, there is a fascinating conversation between the serpent, who symbolizes evil and tempts Eve to eat fruit from the one and only tree that God said not to eat (remember the plate of cookies in the kitchen?). Of course, Eve decided to eat the fruit, and lest anyone blame women for this, Adam ate his share too, even though both of them knew they were disobeying God the whole time they munched on it.
Like the boy hiding his handful of cookies, knowing that he had done something wrong and not wanting to get caught, Adam and Eve tried to hide from God in the Garden of Eden. Really, seeing them hiding in the bushes from God is a mixture of laughable and tragic. Naturally, it didn’t work any better than a two year old hiding a handful of cookies behind his back. God “took a walk in the Garden of Eden” (remember the personal side of God?), and soon found Adam and Eve, hiding because they now had something to hide. They had “cookie crumbs all over their face,” you could say, and so already, there was a consequence—they hurt their own relationship with God.
Another consequence is that they had to leave the paradise of the Garden of Eden, where everything was handed to them on a silver platter, and work hard all their lives to make the ground grow their food. Also, God pointed out that Adam (meaning “soil”), would have to work the soil until he someday returned to the soil from which he was made. In short, they would no longer live forever because they had “cut off” their own life-sustaining relationship with God. This is not a picture of a mean-spirited God lashing out in anger at disobedient human beings; it is a picture of a heart-broken God wanting to help, but unable to shield Adam and Eve from the natural consequences of their actions. God made clothes for them–what tenderness and concern! Yet their sin meant that they lost their innocence and their eternal life, and once lost, it cannot be recovered.
It is interesting how the concept that “sin leads to death” is communicated throughout the rest of the book of Genesis. As the book progresses, note that people live for shorter and shorter spans of time, from hundreds of years down to an average of 70. The concept is a little like cutting off a flower, and in spite of placing it in water, it has no roots and no long-term future. It is beautiful, but just for a while–you can appreciate it’s beauty, but ultimately, without roots, it will wither away. Likewise, sin steals away the good life that God wants to give us.
This is one key “spiritual” insight you can “mull over”—it means the Bible is saying that death was not part of God’s plan—it is a dreadful consequence of humanity, collectively speaking, making the wrong choice. It also means that for God to “put things right again,” death itself will no longer exist (meaning life with God will again be an eternal gift). If you want to read more about that right away, you might sneak a peek ahead at the life of Christ, but for now, there is a lot more to be gained here in Genesis.
Now, before you watch what happens in Genesis 4, consider covering your eyes!
Cain and Abel
(Genesis 4)
Cain and Abel were brothers—the two sons of Adam and Eve. They made it through sibling rivalry and grew up. Cain became a farmer; Abel a shepherd. One day they each gave an offering to God. Abel gave God the first lamb born to his sheep. The reason that was a real gift of faith is because he did not have any other lambs yet—no “future generation” for his flock. So it meant he was giving God an offering the first time he had something to give, and then counting on God to provide other lambs to sustain him in the future.
By contrast, Cain waited until he had a bin full of grain, and then grabbed up a handful of it (leaving plenty for himself) when it came time to “pass the plate.” Somehow, and we don’t know how, the brothers soon became aware that God was more pleased with Abel’s offering than Cain’s. Knowing how brothers act toward each other, I suspect that Abel said something to Cain first, but I can’t prove it.
Anyway, Cain got really mad about it. God could hear the murder in Cain’s thoughts, and tried to prevent tragedy by urging Cain to “overcome” his anger. The strategy of encouraging sinners to “overcome” their temptation to do wrong…well, it didn’t work. Cain invited his brother out for a walk, and then while nobody was looking, he murdered his brother. Of course, there was no hiding the crime from God. God went on another one of his walks, you might say, and when God asked Cain where his brother was, Cain replied with the famous phrase you can still hear spoken today, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Instead of cookie crumbs all over his face, Cain had blood on his hands, and still lied to God’s face about knowing anything about the crime—incredible, when the list of suspects in the entire world was only three, and two of them were the victim’s mom and dad.
There is a vivid contrast between the way creation was originally meant to be in the Garden of Eden, and Cain, with blood on his hands and lies on his lips! Now, not only has sin expressed itself as disobedience, but by murdering his own brother, Cain had actually worked against God, undoing part of God’s creation.
Again, God pronounces judgment on the sinner. As punishment, Cain is no longer able to farm the land at all, and in the same way his parents were sent away from God’s Garden of Eden, their surviving son Cain is sent away from God’s presence, too. When Cain realizes that his sin is obvious to the Almighty God, he naturally fears for his life, and he is afraid that someone else might find out he is a murderer and kill him (that would be the punishment in Jewish law—have you heard “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”?). In response to Cain’s justifiable fear, God puts a special mark on Cain so people will know that God is protecting him, even though he is a murderer. That is important to notice—God is all powerful and would have every right to punish Cain with death, but instead, even though there are consequences and justice, God still offers protection, even to a murderer!
The damage of sin has led people to disobey him even when God himself tries to reason with them; they lie to him, they murder other human beings, and they have created a terrible separation between God and the people he made. God had hoped humans would love him and live forever with him, and now, they have explored new depths–murder.
As you can see, the problem of sin is rapidly getting worse!
Chapter 5 – People Populate the Earth
After Cain murdered Abel, and Cain was sent away, Adam and Eve had another child, a son named Seth.
Soon the earth was populated with people who all had sinned—Adam, Eve, and Cain. When their family tree grew, you might say the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
Seeing how sinful people had become, and how far apart they were from God, God began to regret that he had ever made humans in the first place. Humanity was wicked through and through, except for one person—a man named Noah.
Chapter 6-9 – Noah and the Ark
This story is well-known, as it is the subject of movies and children’s books. You may also be aware that some people are scouring the mountains trying to find the remains of Noah’s Ark, evidently to prove it really existed. And if they ever do, what’s left of the boat belongs in a museum, where it will be as interesting to look at as some old dinosaur bones, but it will still have nothing to do with our daily lives. That is because this story was not written to prove that all the animals of the world could fit onto a boat. The Bible was written to teach us something about God, and about people, and about their relationship. So while others look for a really old boat, let’s see if we can look for the truth that is relevant to our daily lives in this age-old story.
If you read Genesis chapters 6-9 carefully, you will notice that once again, there are two versions of the Noah story; this time they are interwoven in pieces instead of telling one whole story, then backing up to tell the other one (as in the creation stories). The reason for this is not because the people who wrote the Bible did not know how to edit. If you read each “version” carefully, you will again see the powerful side of God in one version, and the personal side of God in the other.
For those who have not read this or seen the movie “Evan Almighty” recently, here is a quick recap of the basic story. Because of humankind’s sinfulness, God decided to withdraw his support for the creation, so it was “undone” with a massive flood (just think of going backward through the steps of Genesis 1:1-2:4). That way “starting over” from the beginning, the flood, would wipe people off the face of the earth. However, Noah was the one example of a holy person, and God wanted to save him and his family. Therefore, God instructed him to build a giant boat so he and his family (and all the animals) could survive the flood and re-populate the world. Unfortunately, by the time the flood waters were still subsiding, God realized that Noah and his sons had already stumbled into sin, too.
As the flood ended, God regretted letting such death and destruction come upon sinners for their sins. Even if they “got what they deserved,” trying to eliminate sinners was not an effective strategy to prevent sin, and most of all, it was not the kind of relationship God wanted to have with people.
That is why, when the flood was over, God put a rainbow in the sky as a sign that he would never destroy the world by flood again. The significance of the rainbow, besides its godlike size and beauty that appears during or after big storms, is the fact that it is shaped like a weapon—like a bow to shoot arrows. The rainbow, then, is a symbol that God had “laid down his weapon,” and can be trusted not to deal with sin again by destroying the earth.
Now, there may be some who will read this and reply, “Well, that’s only a promise not to wipe out people again with floods. But God still has the option to destroy the world by fire or earthquake or some other method next time.” But this misses the key point. Like the rest of the Bible, this story is meant to be understood as a testimonial about what God is like…it is ruling out God “coming after us” for our sins to destroy us. Jumping ahead, remember what Jesus said in John 3:17? “For God did not send the Son into the world to be its judge, but to be its savior.” This is consistent–God does not want to destroy us, but instead, God is always seeking to find ways to rescue us from sin, to save us.
So yes, the point of Noah’s Ark is that we can trust God to be on our side, not to be a divine warrior out to kill us for our sins.
Chapter 10 & 11 – The Tower of Babylon
In Chapter 10, Noah’s descendants repopulate the earth. Eventually they became so numerous that they formed nations all over the earth, but since they all descended from Noah, they all spoke one language. Please don’t get distracted trying to figure out whether it was English or some other language. That is not the point.
What is the point? Well, all the people of the world understood each other. In fact, they even cooperated with each other! That is the good part.
The bad part is that once they got together, they discovered the power of a group, and they decided they did not need God (sin spreads beyond individuals, and now infects whole groups, societies, and countries). Part of their “group think” was to build a giant tower to reach the sky so they could “make a name,” not for God, but for themselves.
God’s response was not to deal with any particular individual. Rather, God’s response dealt with the entire “group” (in this case, all the nations). To address the problem, God forced each nation to speak a different language, so they could not understand each other and could not coordinate a mass rejection of God any more.
“National Sin”
This story introduces a new idea—individual people can sin, like Adam and Eve did, by turning away from God. Yet there is another “type” of sin which is found when people get together in groups. For example, a whole nation can adopt unjust and oppressive laws, such as racial segregation. No particular individual bears all the responsibility for what the nation as a whole does; still, every person in that nation is part of the whole, and therefore shares in the “responsibility” for the actions of the whole (if you believe this, it certainly elevates the importance of voting and being involved in public debate about important issues). But simply speaking out against an unjust law does not “cleanse” that one individual from the harm that the law is causing on a nationwide basis–in fact, talking about individual “sins” becomes irrelevant when considering national “sin.”
To complicate matters, we are involved in many different groups and communities—not just our nation. We are part of state and local governments, we may own stock in companies or work for them (have you ever heard of companies that seemed to place a higher value on their profit margin than on public safety?). Many people are members of churches, schools, civic groups, and other organizations. All those groups have practices and policies, and as a group, those policies might either be good or oppressive. Who is responsible for that? Rather than a single individual, the whole organization, from top to bottom, has created a “system” or “practice” that is either in keeping with what is right and good, or that is harmful to others and could therefore be termed “sinful.”
This is a critically important concept to understand and remember as you read the rest of the Bible. It is common for prophets (who were like preachers in that day) to identify the sinfulness of whole nations, or of policies that were not in keeping with God’s will. It is interesting that the prophet Isaiah, in his “call story” in Isaiah 6, had a vision of God, and he was afraid for two reasons. First, “every word that passes my lips is sinful” (individual sin), and second, “and I live among a people whose every word is sinful” (corporate sin).
Summary of Genesis 1-11
The Tower of Babel story indicates that God pays attention to sin, not only in individuals, but also in whole “groups,” whether those are nations, companies, churches, or clubs. Understood as a whole, Genesis 1-11 testifies that God does not ignore sin, whether it is found in whole nations or individuals. However, God’s “response” to sin is not simply “punishment.” Rather, God’s character and actions can best be understood as trying to restore a broken relationship instead of seeking vengeance for a bad relationship. Even though the natural consequences of sin are designed to discourage further sinfulness, God constantly leaves the door open for a new and healthy relationship to emerge.
For example, instead of simply “executing” the murderer Cain, God punished him, but still placed a protective mark on him so nobody would ever retaliate against him for what he had done. Even when God let the floodwaters wash human wickedness off the face of the earth, God still saved Noah and the animals so there could be a new beginning…and then give the rainbow as a promise never to approach humanity as the “great destroyer” ever again.
As this section of Genesis ends, nothing has yet restored what was lost when Adam and Eve first disobeyed God—they walked away from a perfect, happy, and life-giving relationship with God. Ever since, the world has been lost in a mess of sinfulness, from individuals to entire nations.
But God was not out of ideas. If whole nations could turn away from God, perhaps a whole nation could be created that would turn toward God, and maybe even lead the rest of the world back to God.
That nation is called Israel—the Jewish people. Their story begins next.
Jeffrey Rasche 