FROM THE TREE TO THE CROSS

The book of Genesis.

On the surface it’s just a book explaining how the earth was created and the events that happened in the beginning to lead up to the next book which is Exodus which is about Moses and how he through YHWH his God saved the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and brought them to the land that they currently inhabit which is Israel.

Most people give the book of Genesis very little attention because they find the very brief stories and lack of context to relate to them very confusing or lacking a shiny plot and storyline like modern literature does.

But the book of Genesis should not be overlooked because it contains the very origins of our selfish desires to rule over each other and become our own gods at the detriment of our own souls.

Most of the book may seem cryptic to us now but to an ancient audience it was not because most cultures knew of the mesopotamian origin stories of the anu or in the bible refered to as Anak or Anakim which is just plural for more then one Anak

The Babylonian reliefs that were present when the israelites were there in captivity around 600 bc is proof that they knew of these origin stories from the cradle of civilization, which mostly involved the many gods all having rivalries with each other and man being caught in the middle of their ambitious plans and endeavors, but the book of Genesis differs greatly from these origin stories of many God’s by making the firm statement that there is only one true God and all of the other would be gods are in fact inventions of mans own wicked heart.

So If we take the book of Genesis at face value and read it through the lens of someone who had this perspective of the world ruled by a pantheon of gods like the Egyptians and Greeks and babylonians had then we can see a very complex and unique story that tells of how God created man and everything to be perfect but man chose to decide for himself what good and evil is by disobeying God’s simple commandments and choosing his own path.

The end result of choosing sin and knowledge was death and then eventually the murder of the innocent and the self justification indoing so,

This culminated in the creation of monsters and giants and evil men that represented the seed of the serpent and had to be destroyed by God with a flood in order to stop their attempted corruption of God’s plan for the redemption of man from taking place by corrupting the very genealogy of Adam himself.

Noah and his sons were chosen to continue the lineage of Adam but the attempted corruption was again resumed with Canaan and Nimrod who created the tower of babel in an attempt for man to become their own gods and rule over his fellow man. This began the journey of man falling away from God, but God chose Abraham to reveal himself back to man who had abandoned him and promised Abraham that through his offspring would come Gods plan for mans salvation. But first his children would become slaves to the Egyptians who believed in many gods, but God would reveal himself as the only one with the power of God by freeing the children of Israel from their captivity and bringing them to the land they currently inhabit which God promised to Abraham and his descendants.

This at its core is the book of Genesis just as the book of Joshua concerns the further elimination of the seed of the serpent or giants from the earth because they desired to stop God’s plans for man.

The bible is much deeper then first appearances and it is best to get a study bible that gives you some historical perspective in order to understand the meaning behind them.