A Visual Journey into the Bible Page: 1 A visual Journey into the Bible The Book of Genesis René Jean-Paul Dewil Copyright ©: René Dewil Date: October, 24 2000 A Visual Journey into the Bible Page: 2 Copyright Clause Copyright © René Jean-Paul Dewil 2000 René Jean-Paul Dewil is identified as the sole author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be altered without the written permission of the author. The ebook may be copied in electronic or other forms for personal use only. It may not be printed, introduced in any retrieval system, electronic or otherwise, photocopied or otherwise recorded without the prior written permission of the author. The only system where the ebook may be retrieved from is the Internet website www.theartofpainting.be, which holds the only and original text acknowledged by the author. This publication remains under copyright. Copyright ©: René Dewil Date: October, 24 2000 A Visual Journey into the Bible Page: 3 Table of Contents A visual Journey into the Bible ...................................................................................... 1 The Book of Genesis ...................................................................................................... 1 Table of Contents........................................................................................................ 3 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 4 The Creation ............................................................................................................... 8 Eden .......................................................................................................................... 11 The Creation of Adam and Eve ................................................................................ 17 Cain and Abel ........................................................................................................... 30 The Ark of Noah ....................................................................................................... 37 The Tower of Babel .................................................................................................. 42 The Deluge and the Tower of Babel in the Bible .................................................. 43 Abraham ................................................................................................................... 47 Abraham’s Death................................................................................................... 61 Lot ............................................................................................................................. 64 Isaac and Rebekah .................................................................................................... 70 Jacob ......................................................................................................................... 80 Jacob at Laban’s home .......................................................................................... 81 Jacob’s fight with God .......................................................................................... 87 The Birth of Benjamin........................................................................................... 88 Jacob in Canaan ..................................................................................................... 91 Joseph ....................................................................................................................... 93 Joseph’s story ........................................................................................................ 93 Joseph in Egypt ..................................................................................................... 95 The Borgherini Panels ........................................................................................... 98 The Granacci paintings........................................................................................ 101 The panels of Bachiacca ..................................................................................... 102 The panels of Andrea del Sarto ........................................................................... 105 The four paintings of Jacopo Pontormo .............................................................. 108 Other paintings of Joseph’s Life ......................................................................... 112 The Casa Bartholdy Frescoes .............................................................................. 121 Epilogue - Joseph’s Death ................................................................................... 125 Copyright ©: René Dewil Date: October, 24 2000 A Visual Journey into the Bible Page: 4 Introduction The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Bible, of the Old Testament. It starts explaining the creation of the universe, as we know it. Adam and Eve were the first humans but they were deceived into eating from the Tree of Knowledge. God had forbidden touching this tree that he had planted in the middle of the Garden of Eden. The act brought the first humans’ fall, their expulsion from paradise. Hence they would be mortals and from then on starts the history of the human race as explained by the tradition of the Hebrew people. Here as stories as told over centuries by wandering poets and tellers, who recall the old tales over campfire in the evening. These stories form the tradition of a people that cared about its origins, its history and that was avid for explanations of why the world was as they perceived. Why were there humans, why were humans mortal, why were there languages and different kinds of people? Venerated stories were repeated and accepted as universal truths by generations. Genesis talks about the brother feud between Cain and Abel and of the birth of Seth, last son to Adam and Eve. The descendants of Cain and of Seth are enumerated in an attempt to explain the various people in the known world of the Hebrews. The enumeration goes until the flood came. The story of the great flood that destroyed the world is Noah’s story. Noah was the only to survive in the arch with his family and a small selection of all the animals. These stories have reverberations far into the memories of the people of the Tigris and Euphrates region. With Noah the Book of Genesis tells of the first covenant of God with humans. Yahweh promised to Noah, the just, never to flood the earth again and as a sign of the covenant he drew the rainbow in the skies. The chapter on Noah contains again an enumeration of descendants. Now the list includes potentates and kings of the lands. One of these built the tower of Babel. God destroyed the tower because he saw that humans could do anything they put their mind to. But God created confusion by inventing the different languages. The tale of the tower of Babel is a masterpiece of folklore explanation of the existence of various languages. This was but one explanation of a puzzling fact of life. How many other tales of observation by the people on the strangeness and diversity of their world were lost? One feels that the stories of the Book of Genesis try to explain anomalies of the world. Why was Egypt a land ruled by only one king? Joseph’s story explains in Hebrew terms and in Hebrew origins the united state. There was a famine in Egypt but Pharaoh through Joseph was prepared for it. Joseph gave food for money. When the money was gone he gave food for livestock and then land for grain and cattle. Thus, the whole country came into Pharaoh’s possession and Egypt became the land of one king, contrary to the political organisation of the Mesopotamian city-states with its various peoples living in the lands of Euphrates and Tigris where also the Hebrews originated. Only the lands of the priests did not go to Pharaoh. Was it priests that wrote the Book of Genesis? Other narratives tried to explain the diversity of the races that lived in the land of the Hebrews. The existence of two major races in Canaan was explained as the descendants of Isaac. Jacob became Israel and the Arabs Copyright ©: René Dewil Date: October, 24 2000 A Visual Journey into the Bible Page: 5 descended from Ishmael and were consistently called Ishmaelites in Genesis. Many other stories like these must have existed but were probably not recorded in the Bible. The pieces that have come to use are all the more precious because we feel clearly the eager for understanding of the world by an inquisitive people. The Book of Genesis testifies to at least a double tradition of narratives brought together in it. At least two traditions are intermixed in Genesis. Remnants of these remain in the Bible stories. In the chapter on Joseph’s life, Joseph was sold to Ishmaelites but it were Midianites that heaved him out of the well. When the Hebrews were invited by Pharaoh to dwell in Egypt, they can stay in the land of Goshen and later the site Rameses is mentioned, then Goshen again. Rameses could be the later name for in Exodus it is told how the Hebrews toiled at the construction of Rameses. Was this a site or the monuments of Pharaoh Rameses? Pieces of stories are inserted in the narratives and repeat what was already stated before. God is usually called Yahweh, but sometimes also El or El Shaddai. God caused Creation, but he is at first only called by that name and later on as Yahweh-God. Still later in the tales, one has the feeling that the deity that talks in dreams to Isaac and Jacob is not the God but a God. When