Genesis by Gary DeLashmutt (2019)

The Beginning of Our World

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Gary DeLashmutt

Genesis 1:1-31; Genesis 2:1-4

Summary

This famous passage on the beginning of our world is distinguished from other creation literature and shown superior. It is also harmonized with what science has discovered about the origin of the universe and life on earth. Genesis is history rather than myth and presents key theological truths to help us make sense of our lives. Will we respond to God speaking to us through His Word?

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Introduction

Genesis means "beginning."  The book of Genesis is a book of beginnings (our world; humans; sin; death; plan of salvation; etc.), and is therefore foundational to the biblical world-view.

This evening we will look at Genesis 1.  I want to spend the first part addressing some important apologetical issues, and then spend the last part reflecting on the key themes of this chapter.  Let's begin by reading a good chunk of the text . . .

Key apologetical issues

The first thing we must realize about Gen. 1 (and chapters 2-11 as well) is that it is history rather than myth.  More than any other passage of scripture, Gen. 1-11 has been rejected by many as true history.  This is because of a lack of extra-biblical historical records for this period, and because of supposed contradictions with science.First, the author (Moses) uses the same historical narrative style in chapters 1-11 as he does in chapters 12-50.  If you read through the book of Genesis in one setting, you will see that the author does not change his style at chapter 12 or give any textual clue that he is moving from myth to history.  Rather, you will see that the book is a unity – a record of historical events that sets the stage for the rest of the Bible.  It makes references to places (location of Eden, Babel, Ararat), and time (how long people lived).  Myths have no interest in places and time, because they want to remove their characters from history.  It ends each section (real chapters?) with the same phrase, ". . . these are the generations of . . ." – thus demonstrating the unity of the book.

Second, the rest of the Old Testament and Jesus himself regard these chapters as real history.  See Ps. 136, where the psalmist praises God for creating the world as described by Gen. 1 in the same way that he praises God for delivering the Israelites from Egypt as described in Ex. 1-19.  See Matt. 19:4,5, where Jesus regards Adam and Eve as real historical people.

Third, the biblical creation account is fundamentally different from other ancient creation myths.  As is so often the case, to actually read the other myths is to realize how very different the biblical account is.  In fact, one of the main purposes of the Genesis account is to correct the erroneous creation myths of the ANE culture.