Once again, the scientific point of view takes issue with the suggestion that the varied global languages originated in one location at one point in time. But knowing whether this story is literally true isn’t important to what the story is trying to say about human nature. It may be important to you, but that is where the wide variety of interpretations come into play.
At the heart of all these stories is a common idea. God is God, human beings are not. We are created in the image of God and share certain aspects of God, but we are not God. When human beings attempt to rise to the level of God, they do damage to self and each other. Human beings have created a huge problem. How will God resolve that problem? The answer is a long process that begins in Genesis chapter 12.
Questions for Reflection or Discussion
1. At this point you may want to talk about what you think about these early Genesis stories in general. Which are your favorites? Why?
2. What story seems to be the truest of all of them? In what way? What are other theories about the origins of language?
The elephant in the room for many of you reading up to this point might be the relationship between these stories and the scientific understandings of the origins of life. I tend to read these scriptures with a right-brained, poetic, literary sensibility. So generally speaking, I am not all that interested in whether the stories written by ancient Hebrews are getting the science correct. It isn’t because it is unimportant. Rather, these stories were a sincere attempt to address crucial issues in their lives.
The Garden of Eden is a picture of human beings living in harmony with God and what goes wrong when we reject that notion. Cain and Abel are a picture of our tendency toward using violence to deal with our disappointments and jealousies. The story of the Great Flood underscores this tendency, spiraling out of control and breaking the heart of God. The Tower of Babel is a brief but poignant picture of our inclination to abuse the unique nature that human beings possess. God created us “only slightly less than divine” (Ps. 8:5) with the image of God formed within us. These ancient stories depict a humanity unwilling to be satisfied with the wonder of that nature. It is not enough, it seems, to have the imprint of the imago Dei; we want to be gods ourselves. The first eleven chapters of Genesis are a poetic rendering of the beauty and tragedy of that reality.
God Conceives a Blessing Culture
Genesis 12–50
Scholars agree that the story of Abraham is its own section. Genesis chapters 1–11 are the mytho-poetic origin stories that include the fall of humanity. Genesis chapters 12–50 are in many ways the beginning of the answer to that human fall. Genesis 1–11 presents the problem; Genesis 12–50 begins God’s response.
Watch an overview of Genesis chapters 1–11 from The Bible Project. Then read Genesis chapters 12–13. This is known as the Call of Abraham.
God comes to a descendant of Noah and tells him that he will make him and his descendants a great nation. He will bless him, curse those who curse him, bless those who bless him, and his name will become great. But there is a caveat. Do you see it? Through you all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
Could this exchange between God and Abram be the thesis for the entire Bible? God blesses Abraham so that through his descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Jesus, a descendent of Abram, ultimately fulfills this promise on the grandest of scales. In this way, the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. But as you will see, it is a long and convoluted road getting there. For many Christians using this book to read through the Bible, this might be a frustrating journey. You might ask, “Can’t we study Jesus from the beginning?” In some respects, that would be like reading the last chapter of a novel while you are reading the rest of it. There will be times we will look forward toward Christianity and point out the ways the Old Testament is leading to Jesus, but for the most part we are going to experience this history in a way similar to the people who then experienced it.
How do you feel about this idea that God tells a particular person that his family, and eventually the culture that emerges from them, are charged with a special purpose, that of blessing the entire world? What could that possibly mean? Was Abram interested in such a thing?
Think of it this way: let’s say God told you he would make you the most celebrated person in your community. Everybody would know you, from the elementary students, through middle school up to high school, and all the way up through the administration. You would be respected and everyone would get excited whenever they saw you. But there is a catch: you have to use that influence and power to make sure everyone is doing okay. If someone was being bullied, you would have to step in. If someone was struggling with school, you would talk to them and make sure they had tutors or the help they needed. You would advocate for them among their peer groups, talk to the principal, their teachers, etc.
Would you want that gig?
Abram is considered a person of great faith because he leaves the security of his father’s tribe land and starts his life over in the land of Canaan. (By the way, where have you heard the name Canaan before? Genesis 9:25?) However, read carefully; it isn’t quite that simple. Immediately after Abram’s great act of trust in God, he folds like a cheap accordion; escaping a famine he goes to Egypt and tells the Pharaoh that Sarai is his sister and not his wife, being afraid they would kill him in order to take her because she was so beautiful. But didn’t God just tell him that he would protect him on this Vision Quest? God promised to “curse those who curse him.” These two pictures of Abram and Sarah establish a pattern you should be looking for as you read on—faithful and faithless. Are Abram/Abraham and Sarai/Sarah people of great faith? Or are they not?
Questions for Reflection or Discussion
1. What has been the hardest change you have made as a family? Who did you trust the most in that situation? Each other? God?
2. When you get scared or anxious, how do you handle it? What or who helps you get through it?
3. If God offered you a position of privilege but it required that you “bless all the people around you,” would you take that deal?
4. If you had to pick up and move away to a strange land, who would you take with you besides your immediate family and why?
Abram and Sarai’s Undulating Faith
Look again at Genesis 12–13, then continue, reading chapters 14, 15, and 16.
Most folks think the scriptures are a collection of stories that each have a useful moral lesson about how to be a better person. Sometimes that is true, but more often the collection of stories are better understood as a whole. This is particularly true with Genesis. As I’ve pointed