Genesis 9 looks at the beginnings of life and society after the flood. It can be of interest in a number of ways, because along with parts of chapter 8 it supports the Noahide laws, and is the foundation for blood being forbidden to eat blood (Acts 15:20, which does not quote this, but must…
Tyler Williams is beginning a series on this topic. After reading just the first entry I strongly recommend that any of my readers interested in the creation stories take a look at this material. For those who have not been following my material you can look at the Genesis category on my Participatory Bible Study…
In a previous post I commented on the two flood stories, so instead of covering each and every point of the flood story again here, I’d like to reflect just a bit on the story of the flood. I’ll resume my verse by verse commentary toward the end of Genesis 8. The flood story is…
I’ve been intending to mention this since last week’s Christian Blog Carnival came out, but I’ve been distracted. Mark Olson at Pseudo-Polymath has started a series on Genesis from a philosophical perspective. The first entry is Reflections on Gensis: Chapter 1, and he has now posted the second entry, Reflections on Genesis: Chapters 2-3 (part…
I’m trying to take this passage in smaller chunks than I usually do so that I don’t end up with so many incredibly long posts. We’ve been watching the deterioration of the human race throughout these chapters. Genesis 3 gives one view of the start. Chapter 4 carries that story forward. If viewed in conjuction…
These four verses provide a rather unusual interlude, coming between the genealogy of the patriarchal line in chapter five, and the story of the flood that truly begins in verse 5. I’m attributing them to the redactor who combined the J and P sources of the flood, though I think they work better with the…
I’ve just reposted my essay The Two Flood Stories, correcting some links, improving the notes a bit, making some verse numbering a little bit clearer, and adding a section concluding the flood story. This editing was in preparation for continuing my Genesis series here by discussing the flood story. Thus far, I’ve discussed through Genesis…
Introduction Genesis 5 continues the priestly account of origins. Now I don’t want us to get the idea that there are two separate messages here, because the two sources (priestly [P] and Yahwist [J]) have been brought together with their own message. Nonetheless, we can get some additional breadth and depth to this message by…
While Genesis 1:1-2:3 (or 4a) comes from the Priestly source and continues with Genesis 5, our first dose of the Yahwist begins with Genesis 2:4 and goes through the end of chapter 4. We have plenty of opportunity to see the difference between the two sources. The Yahwistic story will pick up with the description…
I just completed drafting a translation of Genesis 3 for my Totally Free Bible Version project, which is simply where I make my personal translation work available free on the web for anyone who wants to use it within a very limited set of rules. I want to comment some on this story and its…
