Introduction to Genesis

FOUNDATIONAL BOOK OF THE BIBLE

2 TIMOTHY 3:16-17
" All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work."

Genesis REALLY helps us understand the rest of the Bible.
It's the book that gives us the vital information concerning the origin of all things - therefore the meaning of all things. These things would not have been accessible to us if God had not revealed and preserved them in the book of Genesis.

NOTE: The word Genesis means ORIGINS

The book of Genesis is the most attacked in the Bible by evolutionists and scientists. So it is important to understand the importance of this book.
Historians and scientists can only speculate about the origins of life, culture etc. The book of Genesis describes in detail 14 origins that cover the beginning of time to the formation of people to carry out God's plan of salvation.
Although it doesn't really mention any specific nation, the purpose of Genesis was to explain the origin of many things, including the origin of God's people.
So below is a list of the 14 origins mentioned in Genesis and just a little bit of info regarding it.

1. Origin of the universe
2. Origin of order and complexity
3. Origin of the solar system
4. Origin of the atmosphere and hydrosphere
5. Origin of life
6. Origin of man
7. Origin of marriage
8. Origin of evil
9. Origin of language
10.Origin of government
11.Origin of culture
12.Origin of nations
13.Origin of religion
14.Origin of the chosen people



Only the book of Genesis accounts for the origins of space, matter and time. Science can count and study the stars, but science has not found a satisfactory explanation for the beginning of the stars. The latest best they can come up with is the big bang. No one can explain what made the big bang, or where it came from. Their answer, it was always there.
The combination of liquid water, oxygen and nitrogen, the kind of atmosphere that sustains life, has only been found in its present state here on earth. Scientists have looked as far as they can look, but they still haven't found it anywhere else. Genesis still explains, the who, the how and the why this unique mixture came to be here on earth. So the origin of this environment that sustains this kind of life.

How living systems could develop from non living chemicals, today continues to be a mystery to materialistic philosophers. Evolution teaches that we came from inanimate objects. How can we come from a piece of rock or dirt? That in the beginning there were just inanimate objects and yet somehow these inanimate objects produced animate objects. In other words, a bird came from a rock? I'm just simplifying it, but basically that's what is being explained.
Genesis on the other hand explains the process and the order of the appearance of living things on earth. From inanimate to animate and how this happened. The Bible answers to the true origin of man. Now, the universal observation states that complex things tend to decay and become disorganized. But in the face of this, evolutionists try to explain that in the midst of this universal experience, the most complex and or-dally creature, man, has actually arrived in the reverse order. In other words, from decay and disorganization has come, man.
Genesis on the other hand explains that man began as perfect, complex competent, and then began to disintegrate. Evolution turns that upside down.

Genesis records the universal and stable institution of marriage, and the home in a monogamist, stable society. Polygamy, adultery, pedophilia, divorce, all these things come later as this original model began to disintegrate.
The cause and effect model is demonstrated in Genesis showing how evil not only entered the world, and it entered the world as a concession to free will, but also how it caused the ultimate degeneration of a world originally created as perfect. Genesis not only explains the origin of decay through evil, but it also introduces God's ultimate plan to deal with the evil in the world.
Why are there different languages? Genesis has the seed of understanding to why that happened and how it came to be.
Genesis gives the account of the development of the orderly maintenance of society. And in Genesis you have every stage in the process. You begin with the patriarchal age, then the tribal stage, then to the national stage and then the worldwide stage. It also describes the beginning of the main entities which we now associate with organised culture. Scholars today recognize the unity of the human race.
The book of Genesis is the foundation of the true history, true science and philosophy, because it describes where we came from and how we arrived at where we are today. Spiritually and physically. Genesis is also a foundational book for the understanding of the rest of the Bible.

* Genesis introduces key characters
* Over 200 quotes from Genesis in N.T.
* All N.T. authors refer to Genesis 1-11
* Jesus refers to Genesis 1-11 atleast 6 times.

Genesis was written as sober and fact based history of the origin of the world and man. When we try to reduce any part of it to myth or allegory we undermine out faith because the foundation of our faith begins in Genesis.

2 Tim. 3:16 ..."ALL scripture is inspired by God"
"All"...includes all of Genesis!!

SMALL FACT: Genesis was written by Moses. He lived around 1400 years before Christ.