The Desperation and Hope of Humanity in the Book of Genesis

The Story of Genesis

The book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, often strikes modern readers as irrelevant, hard to understand, and verging on the mythological. What message could this ancient story have for us today? In this study we will be looking at the overall structure of the biblical book of Genesis and a few of the major themes. It will by no means be exhaustive, but rather provide an introduction to start giving interested (or perplexed) readers an idea of how to approach this foundational book of the Bible.

Genesis is divided into two major sections. Chapters 1-11, leading up to the tower of Babel, deal with the origins and growing corruption of humanity as a whole. In chapters 12-50 the focus tightens to the story of a single Middle Bronze Age family over several generations - Abraham and his descendants - which lays the groundwork for the rescue of mankind from the degeneration demonstrated in the first section.

Though it may not look like it at first, Genesis is the basis of the Gospel. The death of Jesus in our place is good news, but this good news is meaningless unless we first know the bad news of the hopeless state in which we as humans find ourselves. Genesis shows the initial fall of mankind into sin and separation from God and the failure of humanity to fix the problems this caused. Then, in the story of Abraham and his descendants Isaac and Jacob, the Bible plants the seeds of God's plan to rescue humanity.

Part 1 - The Desperation of Humanity