AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE Its Importance   The most influential, the most published, the most widely read book in history  It continues to be read and written about  It is a spiritual text  And also a source of geography and history, although it lacks precision  Its language, and the many characters to be found in it  Its stories The Biblical Periods   4000 BC to 2000 BC – The Primeval Period  2000 BC to 1700 BC – The Patriarchal Period  1700 BC to 1200 BC – The Egyptian Period  1200 BC to 1000 BC – The Tribal Period  1000 BC to 900 BC – The Davidic Period

And so on, until

 70 BC to 100 AD – The Roman Period The history of the   Septuagint: 70 scholars who translated the Bible from Hebrew to Greek in the 3rd century BC  By ancient tradition, the first 5 books of the Old Testament (OT) were written by Moses  The Greek word for the first five books is ‘Pentateuch’  The is translated into English as, “The First , Called Genesis”  The first 5 books give us traditional history of the Hebrew people, and their laws ‘Genesis’   God is first mentioned; the Hebrew word is ‘Elohim’, meaning many Gods  This is because of the use of the royal ‘we’  Another form of address was, ‘Yahweh Elohim’, meaning the Lord God  References to the Big Bang?  The six days of Creation are clearly marked  The concept of the Sabbath, the seventh day devoted to God Man   Genesis 2:7 ‘And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul’  ‘’ in Hebrew means ‘mankind’, but was translated as a proper name  Here, soul meant breath  Man, the male being, came into existence first, hence patriarchy Eden   Genesis 2:8 ‘And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden’  Eden was supposed to be eastwards from Canaan  Eden seems to have been an actual place  There are several other references to Eden in the Bible as a prosaic, everyday land, not an ideal  Was Eden a general reference to the entire Euphrates valley? The Serpent   Genesis 2:17 ‘But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat’  However, this order was disobeyed  Genesis 3:1 ‘Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field’  Is the serpent representative of evil, and so, Satan?  What was the motive?  Was this a nature myth?   Eve is formed of Adam’s rib, hence the myth of the male ‘spare rib’  Andreas Vesalius, 1543, all humans have 12 pairs of ribs  Anaesthesia  Genesis 3:20 ‘And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living’  Havvah, the Hebrew name for Eve, seems to mean ‘to live’ The Descendants   Children of : , , , Awan, , Aclima  Grandchildren: , , Noam  Great-granchildren: , Irad, Son of Enoch, Mualeleth, Barakiel