Some Notes on the Book of Genesis

In the last year I attended my parents' church, I sat in on a Sunday School class in which one of the students proclaimed her antipathy for the first 5 books of the Old Testament, and for the Old Testament in general. The disregard for human life, in particular, was a source of consternation for her, as it is for me . . . but I suspect that part of the reason she didn't like these books of the Bible lay in all of the rules and regulations for the ancient Israelites.

It is a common complaint within the American churches these days that the Old Testament is, at its core, obsolete. After all, so the argument goes, we are under grace now, not law, and it is not necessary for us to adhere to all of those "ridiculous" statutes in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Torah (as those books are called) is for ancient and modern Jews, not Christians, and certainly has no application to a world with eletric generators, nuclear physicists, and the World Wide Web--a world, it is presumed, which has outgrown such barbarities as animal sacrifice.

As I read the Torah years ago, and as I have been re-reading it in recent months, I have come to realize that what so many of us find objectionable in its pages has nothing to do with animal sacrifices . . . instead, our opposition arises from the simple prejudice of a heart that is unwilling to see its desires challenged. From sexuality to diet, even to the way we dress and conduct ourselves toward strangers, the Torah is a surgical instrument cutting away at the fat that keeps our spiritual blood from pumping. The God of the Torah is not the nice God of the 21st century American church--death, while a stiff punishment for adultery or idol worship, serves to illustrate the point that every sin has a price.

Today, American culture is an endless scream of wants--voices crying out words like "freedom" and "liberty" in the name of self-gratification. It is inconceivable to generations born less than 40 years ago that we can do without things such as VCR's, televisions, and cell phones, and yet for centuries, human beings not only existed without such conveniences but thrived in their absence. Having an ability to split the atom or conduct genetic research does not indicate that a culture is enlightened--and we should not make the mistake our Greco-Roman forbears made in confusing technology and ingenuity with lasting wisdom.

What the Bible teaches us--what the first 5 books in particular teach us--is that a nation's viability lies not within its clever tricks and devices, but within its people's surrender to a consistent pattern of obedience to a God who demands nothing less than self-sacrifice in the service of others. Where Israel went wrong was not in its lack of interest in committing bloodshed--the Old Testament, after all, is replete with stories of genocide and atavistic violence in the name of God--but in its lack of interest in allowing God to divest its people of their petty conveniences: mental, physical, and spiritual.

The book of Genesis, in this context, is not merely the origin story of an obscure people who happened to be remembered because of one of their descendants (Jesus Christ)--it is, instead, a series of promises, reminders of what Israel could have been . . . and wasn't. The first four chapters of Genesis parallel the rest of the Old Testament, telling the story of a dream created by God that became darkest nightmare through the actions of men and women. The fall of Adam and Eve parallels the slower, later fall of Israel in the pages of Kings and Chronicles, as soul-potential is wasted again and again . . . and in the distance, I believe we can hear the laughter of the very same serpent who tore paradise apart.

I hope that, as we read Genesis together, you see not only what the Lord was saying to the ancient Israelites who preserved its contents over three millennia but what the Lord is saying to you, me, and every one of us. The same judgment that fell on the ancient kingdom of Israel is one that looms over every nation that does not set as a priority the well-being of its people . . . and it looms over the heart of every man, woman, and child who takes the name of God but fails to heed the cries of strangers in pain.