Three Creation Stories and Three Patriarchs An Analysis of the Six Parts of the Book of Genesis David Gooding A Myrtlefield House Transcript www.myrtlefieldhouse.com Contents 1 The First Creation Story 3 2 The Second Creation Story, Part One 16 3 The Second Creation Story, Part Two 27 4 The Third Creation Story 34 5 The Rise of the Hebrew Nation From Among the Gentiles, Part One 40 6 The Rise of the Hebrew Nation From Among the Gentiles, Part Two 54 7 The Maintenance of the Hebrews’ Vision and Their Development into Israelites 66 8 The Development of Israel’s Sons into a Nation 78 Appendix: Handouts 87 About the Author 98 David Gooding has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. Copyright © The Myrtlefield Trust, 2019 Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. You may not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible. Quotations marked KJV are from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press. Scripture quotations marked RV are from the English Revised Version of the Holy Bible (1885). Other quotations are Dr Gooding’s own translations or paraphrases This text has been edited from a transcript of seven talks given by David Gooding in Charlottetown, Canada in April 2001. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to reproduce this document in its entirety, or in unaltered excerpts, for personal and church use only as long as you do not charge a fee. You must not reproduce it on any Internet site. Permission must be obtained if you wish to reproduce it in any other context, translate it, or publish it in any format. Published by The Myrtlefield Trust PO Box 2216 Belfast, N Ireland BT1 9YR w: www.myrtlefieldhouse.com e: [email protected] Myrtlefield catalogue no: gen.003/jf 1 The First Creation Story As we come to study God’s word let us listen to what our Lord Jesus said. Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. (Matt 7:7–8) It is a law both of nature and of God’s spiritual realm that what a person sows that will the person also reap. And we are told reliably that God does not mock us, nor is he mocked. He who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap eternal life (see Gal 6:7–8). So let us turn to our topic, which is the book of Genesis. It is a large book indeed, and these few sessions might appear pitifully small, but there happens to be (at least in my reckoning) six major parts to the book of Genesis, and we will cover each of them in our time together. The book of Genesis in six parts In the period covered from the creation of the world to the flood there are three creation stories, as your notes will record for you.1 Most expositors will tell you that there are two creation stories, but if you will permit me my eccentricity, I think there are three, and they cover the period from creation to the flood. They do not contradict each other, but just as there are four Gospels in our New Testament that sketch for us the life of our blessed Lord from four different points of view, so the Holy Spirit has counted it wise to give us not just one count of creation, but three. They will look at creation from different points of view, and the second and the third stories point to implications that lie embedded in the creation tactics of God that had implications for the history that followed; and the Holy Spirit follows those implications and how they developed on each occasion. The second half of the book is much longer than the first half, and it is likewise in three main parts. There is the story of the patriarch Abraham and the promised seed, which at that time in history was Isaac. Then in the second place there is the story of Isaac, himself now having become patriarch, and the story of the promised seed, which by this time is Jacob. Thirdly and finally there is the story of Jacob, now become patriarch, and his seed, which is no longer one but twelve sons; and the story is told of how they are at last welded in a firm family and tribal structure, and are in process of becoming a nation. There are six major parts to the book of Genesis therefore, and we will to try to cover some of the salient points of each of those six parts. 1 See the Appendix. Genesis: Three Creation Stories and Three Patriarchs P a g e | 4 In the beginning If you care to take your text in hand, you will see that the first creation story begins in Genesis 1:1 and proceeds to 2:3. Let’s read the opening words of this account. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (1:1– 5) And so the first account proceeds with a story of God’s creative acts on six successive days, until it comes to the end in chapter 2. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation (vv. 1–3). So this is the first account of creation, and as you see it is a coherent whole because it consists of this unbroken succession of creative acts of God on successive days. The second account of creation goes back to the beginnings once more: ‘These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens’ (2:4). From that point onward we read a second account of creation, but our task now is to consider the first account of creation and to mark at least some of the main features of the story. Creation in stages If you believed that God is almighty and omnipotent and can do what he likes at a word, your first surprise when reading Genesis for the first time would be to find that when God created our universe he did not create it all at once. He could have done so, by definition. In actual fact, he didn’t; he created it in stages. That is a very interesting phenomenon in the first creation story. Moreover, in the work of creation it soon becomes apparent that each succeeding stage adds complication and development in the course of the creative acts of God. And when you have a series that is increasing in complexity, you come at last to the climax of that series. And then, following Aristotelian logic, you come to what is the main purpose of the series. This particular series comes to completion on the sixth day with the creation of humankind, and thereby makes an exceedingly profound statement about the dignity of humankind being made as the pinnacle of the creation of God. That is a point to which we shall come back more than once in our studies. Genesis: Three Creation Stories and Three Patriarchs P a g e | 5 Creation by the word of God The second thing that will strike us by the sheer force of repetition is that in this account of creation, we are constantly being informed that creation was by the word of God: ‘And God said . And God said . .’. The formula is repeated many times, but it is not merely a literary formula. It is telling us what lies primarily in the creation of the universe. The New Testament agrees with that and repeats it explicitly. Hebrews 11 says, ‘By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God’ (v. 3). And the opening verses of the Gospel of John, with their profound theology and philosophy, read as follows: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. (1:1–3) These are powerful statements in God’s word, both Old and New Testaments, to impress upon us what was primary in the creation of the universe: it was the word of God.