Though Genesis 1-2 present to us a perfect world, chapter three of Genesis presents an ironic twist of events as the perfect world is corrupted with evil by a trickster in the serpent who tricks the first woman Eve in to eating from the forbiddeen fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve then convinces her husband Adam to eat and through their eating this fruit the state of the world changes as thorns grow on the ground which are symbolic of sin entering into the world. This sin is a result of the dualistic struggle between the angel Lucifer who fell from heaven and who is contending with God for the right to rule over the world. Genesis 3:15 presents the first reference to the theme of redemption of humankind. Genesis 3:16 is a myth which is used to explain why women are now subject to childbearing. The fact that all of human life after the man and the woman would come through the woman is ironic when one considers the fact that it was the woman who was taken out of the body of the man but now all human life comes through the body of the woman in the act of childbearing. Genesis 4 tells the story of Cain and Abel. Cain in this story is symbolic of those who try to offer what they see as fit to offer but what is not an appropriate offering in the eyes of God. Abel is a representation of the one who offers that which is appropriate in the eyes of God. Cain in a lot of ways from reading the big picture of the Biblical text can be equated as a type of the Jews who operate only by ritual, while Abel is atype of those who offer a pure heart to God. Genesis 5 gives us a genealogy of the people who lived at that time. It goes through the line of Seth, who was the third son of Eve. Seth's line is representative of the people who offer acceptable sacrifices to God while Cain's line is representative of those who do not offer acceptable sacrifice's.
Genesis 6 then tells of how the line of Cain influenced the line of Seth. it further tells of how the sons of God (demons) came down from heaven where they were angels and mated with the daughters of the men who were living on the earth and thus a new people were born- the Nephilim. Not much is contained within this text and we do not know much of what happened. Basically, what we do know about this time period is contained within a book that is not a part of scripture but is a good reliable historical narrative. This is the Book of Enoch. Genesis 6 tells why we don;t know what happened as God calls a man Noah to go into an ark and to save humankind from a worldwide flood which is about to be bestowed upon the whole earth. Noah represents us in the sense that though he was man who had flaws, God worked through him in spite of his sin of getting drunk and helped him to build an ark so that people could be saved from the flood. In the same way, we can build an ark today if only we will obey the voice of God and tell them to come aboard the boat that is living victoriously in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The flood is covered in Genesis 6-8. In Genesis 9 God makes a covenant with Noah after the flood has ended that he will never send a worldwide flood upon humanity again. It is this myth that explains the origin of the rainbow and that God's promise is contained within that rainbow everytime we see one in the sky. In the latter portion of Genesis 9, we find the beginnings of God's covenant with the sons of Noah. This starts off with the blessing of the sons of Noah- Japheth and Shem. Shem actually becomes the grandfather of Abraham of whom God would bring the promise of the Messiah through. Shem is where the covenant actualy started. Shem is the predecessor of the Jews. Ham is the predecessor of the Cannanites. Ham's line was cursed because he exposed the nakedness of Noah. Thus, Canaan his son was cursed as the Canaanites were only allowed to live in the land flowing with milk and honey for a short time before the descendants of Shem would come in. Genesis 10:25 presents the myth that the land was once one, but became divided in a short period of time during the time of Peleg whose name means divided. Genesis 11 presents the myth of the Tower of Babel where humanity spread East and deveolped a one world culture with a common language. They tried to build this tower up to the heavens so they could consult the stars for their astrological calculation, but in order that the tower was not completed God came down from heaven and confused their language thus scattering them all over the earth. Thus, we now have an explanation for why the religious system of the world is strikingly similar accept in one small area of the world where God was continuing his revelation through a man named Terah at the end of Genesis 11. The Tower of Babel represents the birth of a culture who first came up with the number 666 as a means of finding a mystery God which they were looking for in these spiritual astrological houses which they built. It also represents the culture that would be a part of every world empire from the time of Egyptian rule over the world to the time that the revived Roman Empire would control the whole world through their one world governmental system which has yet to happen.
When this culture reunites and gets back to a system where they have a common language which is now present through the computers and through society's agreement on postmodern views of logic, then the whole world can build these towers again to compete with God. The narrative continues on with Terah who is called to move from around the area where this tower was built and to settle in Haran. There Terah was at Haran(the crossroads) for the rest of his life. Yet, his son Abraham was called by God to move into the land flowing with milk and honey. God starts the covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12 promising to make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. Yet, first his descendants must spend 430 years in Egypt. Abraham believed God and offered sacrifices to Melchizidek, because he served as a high priest and Hebrews says that is in his line that Christ now is able to serve as high priest. God's coveant is renewed in chapter 15 as God promises Abraham a son. Yet, there is a problem as Sarah his wife is barren. therefore, rather than believing that God can do the unfathomable Abraham takes matters into his own hands and sleeps with Hagar the maidservant. She gives birth to a son Ishmael, and thus you have the Arab people who can claim descent to Abraham.
In Genesis 17, God rebukes Abraham and Sarah for their actions and tells them his plan if for her to bear him a son. God affirms this plan through the covenant of circumcision which is the cutting off a foreskin on the penis which makes a man unhealthy and unproductive and is symbolic of the foreskin of sin which is hanging from our hearts and makes us spiritually unhealthy and productive. Thus, sarah gives birth to a son Isaac who would become the son of the promise. The son of the free woman who represents those who later through the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ, would be redeemed. Yet, there is controversy going on in the world because the Arabs(descendants of Ishmael) insist that their ancestor was the son of the promise. The Bible states in Genesis 22 that it is Isaac. God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son upon a hill. There, Abraham takes his son believing that if he kills him God will raise him from the dead. Rather than having Abraham sacrifice his son, God provides a scapegoat there. In the same way, rather than sacrificing his whole creation and letting them all die, God provides a scapegoat through his son Jesus Christ in the New Testament. In Genesis 24, Abraham sends one of his servants out to find a wife for Isaac. Isaac marries Rebekah and she gives birth to twin boys, Jacob and Esau. Jacob is named such because he comes out grasping the heel of his brother. One concept of importance was the concept of the brithright which would determine who would get the inheritance of their father. The birthright was ordained for the firstborn. However, Esau sold his brithright to Joseph for a bowl of soup. Jacob in this time was a trickster but Esau was more set on filling his appetite than he was on receiving the inheritance of his father. In the same way, people who never surrender to Christ are more concerned about their temporary desire than they are in receiving the inheritance of eternal life through Jesus Christ. In Genesis 27, Jacob further manages to steal the blessing away from his brother by dressing as Esau and pretending to bring his blind father some game. Indeed Jacob was a trickster. This sets up the scheme for the Biblical theme that you reap what you sow as Jacob goes to live with Laban, and Laban tricks Jacob by promising him that if he works seven years for him then he will receive his daughter in marriage, yet after seven years Jacob receives the daughter he did not want and has to work another seven years to recieve the daughter he wanted, which was Rachel. This is the origin of the phrase "The time of Jacob's trouble." Jacob in Genesis is a type of Christ as he has to roll the stone away before the sheep can drink from the well. In the same way, before the sheep could drink from the well of living water which is Jesus Christ, the stone had to be rolled away. Jacob manages to marry two women and to acquire a maidservant from each of them. It is through these four women Rachel, Leah, Zilpah, and Bilhah that Jacob has his twelve sons which would come to comprise the twelve tribes of Israel. In Genesis 32 after wrestling with the angel of the Lord, Jacob's name is changed to Israel meaning "one who struggles with God and overcomes (with God)". After giving birth to twelve sons, there is contention over the birthright between the twelve. Reuben was the firstborn of his sons. Yet Joseph was the firstborn son of his beloved Rachel and so Joseph got the brithright. Jacob also had a daughter Dinah who was raped in Genesis 34. The family of the rapist of Dinah insisted that her family give her away in marriage. Dianh's family agreed in a deceitful plot in which they asked the family of the rapist to be circumcised.
While the family was suffering from circumcision, the sons of Jacob slaughtered them. This is a lesson to show that if you perform a ritualistic covenant solely for your own personal gain, than disaster will strike. Meanwhile as Jacob has bulilt his family, Esua has chased after foreign wives which the Lord had forbid. This is symbolic of humanity's chasing after that which is ungodly. Joseph receives the birthright of Jacion in Genesis 37 and dreams of being over his brother sin h a foreign land. His brothers become jealous of him and his father rebukes him for such actions. Thus, his brothers sell him into slavery. After being sold into slavery, he ends up in Egypt where he eventually ends up in prison for a rape he did not commit. There, in prison he interprets the dreams of Pharoah's that no one else could interpret and then gets elevated to prime minister of Egypt. A sequence of seven year periods is in Pharoah's dream and appears to be a common sequence throughout the book of Genesis. Indeed seven years of prosperity come. Then famine breaks out. During the time of famine which spread to Canaan, Jacob tells his sons who have lied to him telling him Joseph got eaten by a wild animal, to go down to Egypt and to buy supplies. This was already foreshadowed as Abraham went down to Egypt in Genesis 12 during a famine. The brothers go down there and they speak to Joseph whom they do not recognize, but he recognizes them. He sends them back to Cannan but keeps his full brother Benjamin with him. His brothers come back after going back to their father who is distraught about Benjamin being left in Egypt. When his brothers came back, Joseph eventually revealed himself to his brothers. His brothers reacted in shock, but they went and told their father and Jacob's spirit was revived and he went on down to Egypt to see Joseph. There, Jacob sees Joseph before his death. The rest of the brothers stay there in Egypt where they become slaves of Joseph who treats them fairly and protects them during the time of the famine. Jacob before his death pronounces blessings upon the brothers. The key verse in this context is that the scepter would not depart from Judah which is a prophecy about the Messiah who at that time was yet to come and who would come through the tribe of Judah. The books then closes with the death of Joseph in Egypt and tells that he was enbalmed. Jacob thus was carried to Israel to be buried after he was enbalmed in Egypt. Joseph was also enbalmed in Egypt as well but his bones were preserved by the Israelites who would later carry him back to the land flowing with milk and honey.