Who Do You Think You Are The Bible

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Who Do You Think You Are? The Bible is “trustworthy in all that it affirms. ” But what does it affirm? It is God’s Word which comes to us “through ordinary sinful human beings. Their personal characters and their historical context determine the very content of the book they wrote. ” (Martin Goldsmith, “Mission Catlayst”, issue 2, 2012, p. 6) Along the way we will look briefly at topics such as What do we mean by ‘history’? What kind of history is Genesis? What is the importance of ‘the generations’ in the book? How should we read Genesis? What kind of God emerges from its pages? Where do we fit into the story? In the light of Genesis, Who Do You Think You Are?

History is not the past and the past is not History. “A Story that will make you believe in God. ” The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Examine the “history” books handed out to the groups and answer: “How does the author tell their history? ” Many of the Bible books are compilations of previous material. Luke used various sources for his Gospel ( Luke 1: 1 -4 ). Corinthians and 2 Peter might well be compilations of letters. The OT historical books often refer to their sources eg. 2 Kings 20: 20. The inspired authors used and reshaped pre-existent material to tell us the “a story that will make you believe in God”.

The Documentary Hypothesis ( Wellhausen ) J P E D J is the source that prefers the name Yahweh ( Jeohovah ) for God. Likes to paint the bigger picture of God in the world ( Geneis chapters 2 -11) and also highlight the origins of Judah. God is the powerful deliverer and organizer of history. Most likely to say “Our God is a great big God. . . ” ” P is a priestly source that focuses on matters of law, the history and utility of the priesthood, an emphasis on the laws and commandments, and the belief that when we obey the laws of God our lives turn out to be better. Most likely to say “God is in His heaven and all’s well with the world. ” E prefers the name “Elohim” for God and likes to emphasise the idea of “covenant”. Focuses on Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses who receive revelations from God in visions and dreams and powerful encounters with God. Most likely to say “Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. Once upon a time there was a man called. . . ” D is the book of Deuteronomy and the subsequent story of the early days of Israel in the Promised Land. It likes to show that “their sufferings were fully deserved consequences of centuries of decline in Israel’s loyalty to Yahweh. ” – M. Noth. But is also shows God’s grace and patience. Most likely to say “I told you so. ”

Note: These sources are all jumbled up in the Pentateuch, are impossible to separate exactly and may not be the only sources used. The Bible is God’s Word as we receive it, so the point is not “which sources did it use? ” but “how does it fit its sources together and how does it mould them to its own purpose? ” Therefore, read the scriptures as a whole, and don’t waste too much energy in dissecting them. e. g. in Genesis 1 -3 there are two different accounts from 2 different sources. 1: 1 -2: 1 from the P source and 2: 4 -3: 24 from the J source. Different name of God, different sequence of events. The sublime, poetical, perfect world created by Elohim gives way to the fractured world where Yahweh expels Adam and Eve from the garden. The two versions have been placed next to each other deliberately and the tensions, the interplay between them is deliberate, and these are in the text for us to think about and react to. Karen Armstrong: “We have to know how to read our scriptures. They demand an imaginative effort that can sometimes be. . . perplexing and painful. . . The true meaning of scripture can never be wholly comprised in a literal reading of the text, since that text points beyond itself to a reality which cannot adequately be expressed in words and concepts. ”

2) The Structure of Genesis: Divide into groups, thumb through the book of Genesis and roughly divide it into sections. What do you note about the sections? How do they differ in length? In content? In style? Note the following: "these are the generations (toledoth) of. . . " You will find the formula, with some variation in 2: 4, 5; 1, 6; 9, 10; 1, 11: 10, 11: 27, 25; 19, 36; 1(9) and 37: 2.

3) The world of Genesis is “Generation Space and Time” Talk about the programme “Who Do You Think You Are? ” Which ancestors do they choose? 1) Easy to research 2) Something out of the ordinary and interesting 3) Have an emotional impact ( best if it reduces the celebrity to tears!)

What are the rules about writing in “Generation Space and Time”? a) How do you show someone to be important? By saying something about him. By dedicating more space to him. By ascribing a very long life. In Genesis the genealogies share the same characteristics as Babylonian and Sumerian lists vertical ( son of. . . ), segmented, and suggesting very long life spans ). In neighbouring nations these lists gave socio-political legitimacy to the rulers and people groups. However, in the Bible they have theological significance b) How selective can you be? See Matthew 1: 1 -17. “thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah. ” Matthew 1: 8 skips over Ahaziah, Athaliah, Jehoash, and Amaziah. Why is writing a book in “Generation Space and Time” important? Brevard Childs: "no part of Genesis can be called "history" in the narrow, modern usage of the term because of the tangential relationship to objective reality, even though different historical elements are evidenced throughout the book in varying degrees. ”

3) The purpose of Genesis In groups thumb through the book of Genesis and try to draw a flow chart of the central characters of each part, wider when dealing with large groups of people and narrower when dealing with just one or two individuals. It focuses down on Abram and then widens out ( before focusing down again on Jesus and then widening out to include us ). The central passage of Genesis is? 12: 1 -3. Why? Complicated answer but: this man’s story is going to change history and impact our lives.

4) God in Genesis Karen Armstrong: we have been introduced to a vision of a serene and omnipotent deity only to dismantle it in later chapters. The God who dominates the first chapter of the Bible has disappeared from the human scene by the end of Genesis. Story after story reveals a much more disturbing God: the omnipotent God of the first chapter soon loses control of his creation. . . the benevolent God becomes the Fearful Destroyer. . . the editors seem to be warning us any simplistic conception of the divine, which must always elude our limited comprehension.

Some of the books which I have used and find valuable: Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture. (London: SCM press, 1979) Walter C. Kaiser, Toward an Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979). Karen Armstrong, In the Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis (London: Vintage Books, 2011) Derek Kidner, Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Series (London: IVP, 1967) Ellen Van Wolde, Stories of the Beginning: Genesis 1 -11 and Other Creation Stories, tr, John Bowden (London: SCM Press, 1996) Ernest Lucas, Genesis Today ( London: Scripture Union, 1989) Helmut Thielicke, How The World Began: Man in the First Chapters of Bible, tr. John W. Doberstein ( London & Cambridge: James Clarke, 1964) Yann Martel, Life of Pi, British Edition (Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 2002) My website: www. notesfortheologystudents. com

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