Genesis

My mom is an ordained minister at our church so I grew up hearing Bible stories at home and in Sunday School each week.  A lot of those stories are from Genesis, like the story of creation or Noah’s ark.  However, even though I was familiar with Genesis and had read parts of it, until it was assigned for this class I had never read the whole thing.  It was interesting to hear the stories that were always sort of left out in Sunday school, like how Dinah is raped or how Jacob had two wives. 

It’s interesting that Genesis is the first book of the Bible, because many of the things that occur in this book that are apparently okay with God (or at least they aren’t punished for doing them) are not so accepted by Christians today.  For example, polygamy is totally believed to be a sin by almost all Christians, but it happened all the time in Genesis.  Also, lying about your wife just being your sister so that she is basically raped but you live is definitely not advocated in the church!  Why then was it okay for those Christians in the ancient days?

For some reason, another fact that always escaped me is that Genesis actually comes from the Torah, which is the Jewish equivalent of the Bible.  I don’t know why I never knew this, since it makes perfect sense now that I know.  Jesus was Hebrew and the Jews are considered to be God’s “chosen people”; Christianity and Judaism pretty much agree up to the point of Jesus being the Son of God and dying to take away our sins, so it is perfectly logical that the two religions have the same texts to begin with before diverging based on each religions different beliefs.  I think this is really interesting either way.

What this text says about knowledge is another interesting but confusing thing I never really thought about before.  The other books we read in class were fairly straight-forward in their perspectives on knowledge, but Genesis is not really as clear for me.  It seemed to me that it was not really being portrayed very positively, but it was never really anti-knowledge either.  It does tell us that the tree from which Eve took the forbidden fruit was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and once she ate that apple, sin came into play and she and her husband were banned from the Garden of Eden.  It sort of seemed like people are better off being less knowledgeable and simply trusting God and following His ways.

Just as I am a little confused as to what Genesis’ stance on the issue of knowledge vs. ignorance is, I am also not all that positive as to why Temple requires everyone to read this in Mosaics I.  My thoughts, though, are that it goes along with the theme “Ways of Knowing” and is important to at least understand because it is a part of a religion that millions of people follow and base their lives around.  Religion is a very important part of people’s lives and often shapes their decisions and how they live, so it makes sense that Temple wants us to delve into some different religions at least a little bit.  Since Genesis relates to both Judaism and Christianity and maybe even Islam, it is a good text to pick since it covers several bases at once.  I was talking to my roommate, Lizzie about this and she had similar thoughts on this.  She said she thinks it’s important for everyone, Christian or non-Christian, to understand because it is such a huge part of our culture today.  She noted how tons of people use the Bible as an argument for or against many popular debates today such as gay marriage and abortion, and in order to understand the arguments being made and assess if they are even accurate, a basic knowledge of the Bible is needed.  Therefore Temple is helping us become better-rounded and preparing us to be engaged citizens of our country.