THE UNIVERSAL STORY

GENESIS 1–11

TRANSFORMATIVE WORD

DRU JOHNSON

Series Editors

Craig G. Bartholomew & David Beldman

The Universal Story: Genesis 1–11

Transformative Word

Copyright 2018 Dru Johnson

Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225

LexhamPress.com

All rights reserved. You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. For all other uses, please write Lexham Press for permission. Email us at permissions@lexhampress.com.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are the author’s own translation.

Print ISBN 9781683590712

Digital ISBN 9781683590729

Series Editor: Craig G. Bartholomew and David Beldman

Lexham Editorial Team: Doug Mangum, Joel Wilcox,

Danielle Thevenaz

Cover Design: Brittany Schrock

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. Genesis 1–11 and the Rest of Scripture

3. The Lineage of the Universe (Genesis 1:1–2:4)

4. Humans, Always in Relation (Genesis 2)

5. Humans Shift Their Trust (Genesis 3–4)

6. God Publicly Commits Himself to the World (Genesis 5–9)

7. Fame and Nations (Genesis 10–11)

8. Genesis 1–11 in the World of Science

9. Genesis 1–11 in the World of Ethics

Conclusions

Recommended Reading

1

INTRODUCTION

Every semester I teach introductory courses to the Old Testament. This custom has yielded rich insights into the college freshman’s perspective of the Bible. When we read Genesis 1–11, I assign readings from the Babylonian/Sumerian creation account Enuma Elish for the sake of comparison. Israel’s account of creation entered the ancient Fertile Crescent, which had many, and competing creation stories. Students are often perplexed by the Babylonian creation story. They note how bizarre it is—not sure of what is going on in the story or whether the characters are gods, humans, forces of nature, etc. After reading together through Genesis 1–3, I ask, “Why doesn’t Genesis seem equally bizarre to you?” The answer is almost always some form of, “It’s just so familiar to me.” Indeed it is familiar to us. We must eventually consider reasons why Genesis has resonated through the ages with people from diverse cultures and time periods, even though Genesis looks so different from the other creation accounts of the ancient Near East.

Genesis 1–11 is outlandish in its scope. The opening chapters parade stories of humanity intertwined with the most intriguing subjects we still wrestle with today: the beginning of the cosmos, the nature of humanity, family, sex, deceit, death, murder, mass murder, ecology, agriculture, urbanization, and more. No topic seems to escape the sweeping narratives of Israel’s initial history. This early history is the story of humanity, but also the story of “all creatures of our God and King,” as Saint Francis once put it.1 It is the story of astronomers, entomologists, cartographers, historians, and social workers because it seeks to explain place, history, and the lineage of every human endeavor. It is the story of stories, because it is a story about how all ...