BIBLE STUDY

GENESIS

I. INTRODUCTION

A. The Title

The english title of the book, Genesis came from Vulgate title, Liber Genesis, a latin
bible translation made by Jerome in the 4th century under provision of Pope Damasus I which
influenced by the oldest greek translation of Septuagint. Genesis is a transliteration of greek
word geneseos, that means “generation [of]”, “descendent [of]”, or “account [of]” that made
the structure of the book.
The structure of Genesis is developed by this term. Genesis or geneseos is a greek
translation for hebrew word toledoth that appears 13 times in Genesis, and 10 times framing
the whole book as units of generation or account (toledoth). We can outline the book of
Genesis based on toledoth formula.

Toledoth Unit Structure of Genesis

1. Gen 2:4 The account/toledoth of the heavens and the earth.

2. Gen 5:1 The generations/toledoth of Adam.
3. Gen 6:9 The generations/toledoth of Noah.
4. Gen 10:1,32 The generations/toledoth of sons of Noah.
5. Gen 11:10 The generations/toledoth of Shem.
6. Gen 11:27 The generations/toledoth of Terah.
7. Gen 25:12 The generations/toledoth of Ishmael.
8. Gen 25:19 The generations/toledoth of Isaac.
9. Gen 36:1,9 The generations/toledoth of Esau.
10. Gen 37:2 The generations/toledoth of Jacob.

The book of Genesis can be divided into half, from Gen 1-11:26 (five toledoth) contains
the universal history of earth, and from Gen 11:27-50 (five toledoth) speaks about ancestral
history of God’s people, Israel from one family, Abraham. History of God’s relationship with
his people Israel, began with Abrahamic covenant and through his family line born Israel and
messiah. So Israel was the original receiver of the original book in hebrew in the beginning
then the approach of this study bible is trying to bridge the gap between the original audience
setting or receiver of the book, the nation Israel, with the church as body of believers and
spiritual Israel through spiritual reborn of faith and baptism in Christ Jesus.
So, it is important to understand first the life setting of the book (in german it is called
Sitz im Leben) and its historical background to understand the message and purpose of the
book using historical-grammatical method of scholastic approach of hermeneutic without
undermine the inspiration of God in the writing process of the book unlike the
historical-critical method presupposition.
 I believe in the organic inspiration of the bible that God meet people at their own time
and place, using their own language and life to communicate his message. Inspiration is not
like letter dictation . God has used human with their personalities understanding as his
instrument in writing the bible. So we will take into consideration the date, genre, literary
form, writer and audience with their cultural setting in ancient near eastern, we also consider
the language used in the original context with its cognate and grammar to grasp better the
intention of the writer by understanding nuance of original language and its meaning and
learn the theology of it for the church application .
Genesis is the first part or the first book of the so called five books of Moses (Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deutronomy) or Pentateuch/ Five Scrolls (penta is a greek
word for five, and teuchos means scrolls/book or a suitcase for carrying scrolls in the ancient
world).
Pentateuch is also called Torah or Law/instruction in the Hebrew bible that become the
first part/division in the canon of Hebrew Bible which called Tanakh (an acronym for
Torah/law, Neviim/prophets, and Kethuvim/writings). In the Tanakh, the title of all five books
of Moses or Pentateuch is taken from the first word of each book, so the original title of
Genesis in the Hebrew bible is Bereshit which means “Beginning”.

B. The Writer and Date

The writer of the book and the rest of the five books of Moses in the religious tradition of
Jewish and Christian is Moses, the leader and prophet of Israel in the 16th century before
Christ. This view was held without serious question until 17th century after Christ when the
higher criticism introduced in the field of biblical studies. A new method to study the bible
became popular among bible scholars in Europe and North America since 18th century
pioneered by Tubingen school in german. This method is called historical-critical method
which is used in learning the ancient book that challenge the tradisional mosaic authorship of
pentateuch after some literary examination.
According to this theory, the writer of Pentateuch could not be Moses, since Pentateuch
contains story of the dead of Moses himself in historical narrative fashion and not in some
prophetic sense. So it could not be Moses written his own death and it means that Moses
could not be the author of the book or at least the part which telling his own death. Another
critic raised by this theory was the repetition stories in the bible with slight differences or
variations in the detail such as double creation accounts in genesis chapter one and chapter
two. In both creation accounts beside some different and duplication stories it also use two
different names for God in the original hebrew text which was lost in english translation.
Creation account in genesis one uses Elohim for God, but in genesis chapter two uses the
name Yahwe.
This theory is called Documentary Hypothesis also called Graff-Wellhausen Hypothesis
according to the name of the scholar who popularize it that is Julius Wellhausen from the 19th
century. The other name for it is JEDP theory (JEDP is an ancronym of, ‘J’ stands for
“Jahwistic”, ‘E’ stands for “Elohistic”, ‘D’ stands for “Deutronomistic”, and ‘P’ stands for
“Priestly”).
 The thesis of Documentary Hypothesis is that Pentateuch was a compilation of
composite documents from several unknown authors who wrote in different time and place. J
was the unknown author or editor which used Yahwe name tradition for the calling of God in
the 10th or 9th century BC, and author E was the unknown author/editor who used Elohim for
the name of God in the 8th century BC, and D was another unknown writer in the exilic from
7th century BC, and P was unknown author for priestly codes material from the return of exile
in 5th century BC. But if we look upon Jesus Christ’s testimony when he attributed authorship
of Torah to Moses himself in the new testament text such as Mat 19:8; Mark 7:10; Luke
16:29-31; and John 7:19, then by faith we can accept Moses as the inspired human source and
writer of the Torah or Pentateuch.

C. Theology

The book of Genesis contains theological foundation for old testament theology and
anticipation for many Christian doctrines such as Trinity, God as creator, Christology,
Covenants, Sin, Sabbath, etc. Sometimes theologian gave another title for this book, the book
of the beginning. In genesis we can find the beginning of the history of the world. The
beginning of everything on earth such as life, languages, civilization, land, cultus, death,
heaven and earth.
From the theological point of view :
1. Everything began with God.
2. God created and ordered all things good in heaven and earth.
3. Life (including our life) on earth began with God. It is product of the loving God. Earth is
the object of God’s love and we are all had a beginning from God’s creation activity in
six days
4. God bless the day, he ended (Hebrew Sabbath) because he had completed his work
5. First human is created on day six from the dust and breath of God at the end of his work
as his final closing work art.
6. First human was created according to his image (Imagio Dei) as his elect to manage and
represent him on earth (God through adam, in naming all the other living creatures on
earth and sky).
7. Genesis teach us stewardship. That humans are responsible for the world, and should take
care of it.

II. EXPOSITION

Genesis 1:1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth

Genesis opens with the words “in the beginning”, a translation of hebrew word beresith,
that becomes the title of the book in the original Hebrew bible. This is the story of the
beginning of the heavens and the earth. It delivers profound theological message and truth
that the beginning of heaven and earth is by creation of God. Genesis 1:1 never talks about
the beginning of matter like Old Testament scholar John H. Walton said that this verse refers
to the beginning of a functioning earth and not to the material beginning of matter1.
Science with its own theory for the beginning of heavens and earth using rationalistic
explanation such as big bang and theory of evolution for the origin of life on earth. But that
alternative explanation of creation already took a bias position for no room of supernatural
explanation such as God creative action. If we look upon our galaxy, we can notice how
different our earth with all others surrounding planets.
The words “in the beginning” becomes the foundation for the apostles and their new
testament theology in proclaiming Jesus as the messiah and God incarnate. John 1:1 allude to
this very verse in the beginning of his gospel narrative :

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God.

This allusion to the creation account is also seen when we compare the opening of the
new testament gospel of John in the original greek with the oldest greek translation of genesis,
the Septuagint which is used by jewish and christian at that time in the first century :

John 1:1 Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος2
Gen 1:1 Ἐν ἀρχῃ̂ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γη̂ν.

Not only john’s gospel, but in the synoptic gospels such as Matthew 1 and Luke chapter
3, we can find both gospels also open with genealogy or generation/account of Messiah
traced back to Abraham for Matthew and to Adam for Luke just as the division or groups in
the book of genesis was structured. So we can see how important genesis for all gospels
writers.
So it is God who created the heavens and the earth in the beginning. The word “created”,
a translation from hebrew verb “bara” is a unique verb which appears 53 times and only used
by God as the subject in the entire Hebrew bible. There is another Hebrew verb for make or
create which is shared with other than God, that is “asah”. The common interpretation for this
because only God who can create out of nothing (ex nihilo in latin).

Genesis 1:2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the
deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

The earth was without form and void. What it means? The expression “without form and
void” was a translation from hebrew word ‘tohu’ for “without form”, and ‘bohu’ for “void”. It
is like condition of chaos or mixed materials and things so God divide to create or make a

1
John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One and Genesis 1 As Ancient Cosmology.
2Aland,
Barbara ; Aland, Kurt ; Black, Matthew ; Martini, Carlo M. ; Metzger, Bruce M. ; Wikgren, Allen:
The Greek New Testament. 4th ed. Federal Republic of Germany : United Bible Societies, 1993, c1979, S.
247
new things from it.