Survey of Genesis: Structure and Themes

I want to move into, with these thoughts in our mind, I want to move into Genesis, Beret Sheet in the beginning, our origins book, and do a quick whole book survey. Now, you've talked about whole book survey with Dr. Brian Taylor, with Dr. David Ward, and I want to talk just very briefly, just a quick refresher and my view kind of on what Whole book surveys aren't what they are and what they do, okay? Because this is very important. What they aren't, let's make sure we don't think I'm just trying to torture you. Whole book surveys are not useless busy work created by Bible profs to torture you. That is not what a whole book survey is. They aren't outlines, though I think outlines that we find in Bible commentaries can be a good source for helping you. think about how you would create a whole book survey of a biblical book, particularly when you're dealing with bigger books and complex books like we have in the Pentateuch. So your whole book survey that you did last class was of a smaller book. Now I'm asking you to do a whole book survey on a large book. And so using resources, we don't have to... recreate the wheel. We don't have to start from ground zero. There are resources out there. In Bible commentaries, they often have an outline. The Bible Project is, those are good whole book surveys and they're more graphic, which is helpful. And so they can be helpful, but they aren't what a whole book survey is. Whole book surveys are not our sermon points. Though we can give catchy titles. I tend not to do catchy titles, but we could. Um, whole book surveys are not... right. Okay, so it's very important that you understand this. I could create five, six, ten different whole book surveys over the book of Genesis that kind of tries to look at it from different angles, think about it slightly differently, maybe move things around slightly, put them in different categories or different segments. And that I can do that. And one of them is not necessarily right. Now they can be wrong. I can't. I could just get something totally wrong. I could see a major, I could miss a major connection. But I don't want you to get so tied to this idea that I have to create the right whole book survey. Okay, so that's what they aren't. This is what they are. They are graphic representations of structure, primarily structure, and flow. I'm not going to emphasize flow as much, though we will talk about it just a little bit. So they're graphic representations. They are. are helpful and easy to process. All right. So I can't sometimes in a Bible commentary, an outline for a book of the Pentateuch could be two or three pages long. That's not easy to process. All right. I have to really read through every single heading and think about subheadings. All right. We're trying to do something graphic that I can process pretty easily to help me. with a way to visualize the connection of a given passage, my passage, to the entire book. All right. So I want to be able to do that pretty quickly. So your whole book surveys that you create in this class can become your starting point to any sermon you ever do on a passage of the Pentateuch. Okay. I want to start here. Okay. Let me, this is where I am. All right. So let me get the kind of the layout, the feel of the whole book. Ah, and then this is where mine fits. So how do I make connections to each of the different major points of the Pentateuch, of this book of the Pentateuch? I mean, you could do a whole book survey of the whole Pentateuch and kind of do the same sort of graphic representation. Again, we don't start at ground zero. So don't get overwhelmed in doing this. What they do, and that kind of already mentioned on what they are, they show me these five things down here at the same time in one easy to read. pretty. Now we have different, we'll have different assessments of what's pretty. But something that is a graphic representation that I can see and actually use. So you're going to see I use some colors. I'm using colors and you've got some colors here. Can be very helpful in this because colors draw our eyes to certain things and help separate and join things in specific ways. So I want to see structure, content, and connections between major sections and subsections. Those top three are most important for me. Movement. high point, low points, especially in narrative, that can be very helpful. I'm not going to do a ton of that, but I'll talk through a little bit of how that might look. All right, so with that said, let's go to Genesis and let's look at the structure. Genesis can be divided pretty clearly into two major sections. And this is again, a pretty definitive scholarly consensus. We have primeval history. and patriarchal history. Let me define this word here, primeval. When you hear me say it, oh, come back. When you hear me say it, you hear evil, not evil, if that's kind of what jumped into your mind. But from the Latin, primus meaning first, and iwum meaning age or epoch. I think that's a weird pronunciation. Age, time, the first age, the first time. Primeval history is kind of the... early history, the earliest history of the world of humanity. Think Genesis origins. And then we had the patriarchal patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his sons, Jacob, Israel, and then the patriarchal history. So this is kind of your earliest history of humanity. And then this moves us with Abraham as that pivotal character who spans from the end of primeval history into the beginning of patriarchal history. This moves us into the specific history of God's people. So history of all people, history of God's people. Salvation history is what we have in patriarchal history. This is the solution to the problem that we see humanity created in primeval history. And so I love that before there was the special history of God. God's people, we see God's heart for all the world. He is the creator of all humanity. We see God's heart for the entire world. There's this missionary focus of primeval history. I love that idea that then we see played out from one specific human and then ultimately back to all humanity. There's that picture in Richter's book. I forget exactly which chapter it's in. That's this, you know, this ever-widening view. But we do have this, we come to a specific point from which we start the widening view to ultimately bring us back to all of humanity. Let me make a note. Usually in shorthand, we talk about primeval history being Genesis chapters 1 through 11, and then patriarchal history being chapters 12 through 50. Technically, we're about to see, we might argue that this wraps up at chapter 11, verse 26. And then this starts at chapter 11, verse 27. But in shorthand, chapters 1 through 11, chapters 12 through 50. Okay, when we think structurally, and one reason that I'm not going to have you do a whole book survey on Genesis is because Genesis, by the hand of the redactor, possibly P, likely P, we might say likely, a priestly author, has a built-in structure that I really want us to... use the cues of this piece of literature to help us understand this. We call it the Toledot structure. Toledot is Hebrew, meaning generations of. So El Toledot, these are the generations of, is a phrase that we see repeated 10 times in the book of Genesis. So in the primeval history, we see it repeated five times. In the patriarchal history, we also see it repeated five times. So we see this symmetry, even though Space-wise, primeval is only 11 chapters, and then patriarchal is chapters 12 through 50. Do that math. I don't know. Lots more chapters, right? In terms of the actual space in the book, we should see these. And if I flip back to, I should have put this up. If I flip back here, I've kind of drawn this line where primeval is shorter and patriarchal is longer. But in some ways, they're somewhat balanced structurally in the book of Genesis. by the Toledot structure. Okay, so these are the generations of... The first one starts at chapter 2 verse 4. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, which that I put that in a different color versus all the rest of them. Notice these are the generations of and we have names. Okay, so we have five here. So and then five on this side and then we're going to see how this Toledot structure breaks out. for both the primeval and the patriarchal histories. Because of restrictions of PowerPoint, I'm going to do these separately, but in a in a whole book survey that, you know, I'd want to look at these all together. So Genesis, using the Toledot structure, the generations of structure, primeval history, our first major part of the Toledot structure starts at 2.4, which leaves chapter 1, verse 1, verses 2.3 as kind of this prologue. Again, scholars are going to kind of debate how that works, but I think this is helpful for us to see that. there's this kind of sets the stage and teaches us certain things that then help us understand going forward all we need to understand in primeval history. So again, another shorthand, you'll often hear people refer to Genesis chapter one and Genesis chapter two, even though due to the Toledot structure that the break actually comes at 2.3 to 2.4. But chapter one is the prologue. Chapter two then is the second creator story. We'll talk about the idea of these how these these function but we have the prologue of creation theology the prologue creator story and then this this next um creator story teaches us primarily about relationships relationships of god and humanity humanity with humanity humanity with the earth and then i have a break chapters two three and four are are this are a grouping that we put under the same heading and yet We know there's a clear break there, right? We move from focus on creator to focus on humanity with the fall and its effects in chapters three and chapter four. But there are literary features that connect chapter two, three, and four kind of as this structural unit that we then move. So we have this narrative here. Then we move in chapter five, again, broadly. to the generations of Adam. This is primarily just a genealogy. Then we have the generations of Noah, which is the flood story again, with the focus on Noah, but also on his sons. Um, and so we have kind of a narrative that's a little bit larger chapter 10 of the sons of Noah. So now we really get the table of nations and the moving into all of the generations of humanity. So, um, Followed by a quick zoom back in to the Tower of Babel, a narrative. And then finishing again with a genealogy, particularly of Shem, the generations of Shem, that take us from Shem to Terah, which gets us to Abram, who is that pivotal picture, pivotal figure. Notice the the primeval history kind of stays at at a. high level with quick zoom in moments, right? So we're looking at all the generations of the world, the table of nations, how nations begin to kind of play out. But with these zoom in moments at a few specific times to tell us, to give us something of a narrative story understanding of a major development that took place. Now I compare that then again. shorter period of time, shorter amount of space in the text, longer period of time to, oh, I forgot. I'm going to jump to patriarchal history, which is longer space in the text, shorter period of time. So that's something to remember. Let me jump back here. Um, talked about flow. Um, so the, the flow, high points, low points of primeval history. really is, you know, from the high point of creation, starting at the fall, all the way down to the end of primeval history, we just kind of had this downward movement. All right, so there's not much movement, I wouldn't say, in primeval history. A lot more movement begins to happen in patriarchal history. These moments of interaction with God, these moments of reliance on self falling into the light, back into the light of the garden. Okay, so there's primeval history. Balanced then by patriarchal history. And so notice the generations of Shem. Start with Shem and move to Terah. The generations of Terah start with Terah and move to Abraham. Just like the generations of Jacob. This is the Joseph story is how we often refer to Genesis 37 through 50 because it's focusing on Jacob's sons. So that's something that becomes much more evident in the patriarchal history. So the generations of Terah, we have a primary focus on Abram, Abraham, with of course Sarai and Sarah, we call it patriarchal history, but the Bible is very clear to also have a focus on our matriarchs as well. So the patriarchs and patriarch and matriarch of Abram. Abram, Sarai, Abraham, Sarah. Within the focus on Isaac and Rebekah, we don't have their kind of part of this, the generations of Terah. Then we have, so that is a very zoomed in, even though it covers this period of time, on Abraham. So, you know, all of primeval history that covered all of the people of the world with these zoom in moments on Noah, zoom in moments at the Tower of Babel. Now we have a much, much longer zoom in moment on this pivotal figure of Abraham and then on his son, Isaac, Isaac and Rebecca. Then we have a zoom back out quickly to a few verses on the generations of Ishmael that show, again, the world focus as God is focusing in specifically on his, who are going to be his people, his covenantal partners. Then we have this zoom back out. to the generations that come from Ishmael, then to the zoom back in on a particular figure of Jacob. These are the generations of Isaac. So then the son of Isaac is Jacob. We get a little more of the Isaac story here at the beginning, but then pretty quickly focuses on Jacob and Esau and his family. Jacob, of course, with his wives Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah. Here in this, again, Again, zoom in moment on a particular character over a more expanded period of time quick zoom out on the nations that come from Esau again we get moved back to that world focused even though we are God is exclusively with his people he is not forgetting those people that are not part of this particular relationship and then we end with the large section of the generations of Jacob which are the focus on his sons Joseph in particular, but all of his sons as they interact together. And so that is how the Toledot structure really takes us from, allows us to see both the big picture of who God is and his interaction with humanity and these very small specific zoom in moments. I want to take just these last few minutes and talk about ways that I then expand, because we have the big picture of the structure of Genesis, but how do specific passages relate to these bigger sections? All right. And I've gone to the patriarchal history. We could do it with primeval history, but what are key passages? How do I identify specific passages that... some of my subcategories that start developing under some of these bigger headings. And again, just for these purposes, I'm not going to go into all the detail that we could go into, but this hopefully begins to situate in your mind how specific things work. And so a big theme that we could pick up would be covenant. And so there are some major covenantal moments with... specifically with Abram Abraham. And so we have his call at Genesis 12. We have the covenantal ceremony, ratification ceremony at Genesis 15. It's a very significant passage. And then we have the extended understanding and discussion of what the covenant is. Abram, Sarai are given the new names, Abraham, Sarah, to kind of recreate them. as these new covenant partners. Richter talks about that. But we also, for the first time in Genesis 17, get God asking for a specific kind of lived response. Now, he asked for a response from Abram back in chapter 12, go to the land I will show you. And Abraham went, very simply. But here, there is kind of a shaping of Abram, Abraham's character. Walk before me, God says, and be blameless. So God asks for Abraham to be a different kind of person as his response in this covenant relationship. We might say responsibility. We'll look at that in a minute. And then there's another significant covenant moment at chapter 22, the binding of Isaac. And much of the covenantal language is repeated again there. I will, Abraham, I will. Make you into a great nation. I will give you many descendants, numerous as the stars in the sky. And I will give you this land where you now stand. So this idea of descendants and land as these promises of God, based upon here, Abraham's response of obedience that he had given to God. Of course, we know from... Hebrews, from the great hall of faith, that at this moment, Abraham acted knowing that if he sacrificed Isaac, God would bring, would raise him from the dead, would bring him back to him. That is the faith of Abraham in God's promise that the covenant would be through Isaac, which of course, indeed, our structure here clearly shows. We have two other major covenant moments at chapter 26, where the covenant's reaffirmed with Abraham's son, Isaac. And then at chapter 28, where the covenant is reaffirmed with Abraham's grandson, Jacob. There are other moments. There are two name change moments for Jacob at 32 and 35. These other significant moments for Jacob. But we could continue to parse those out and see where different particular passages come into play with. this larger structure. I want to stop today, kind of end, by thinking about this idea of covenant, which you're really going to be reading much about in Richter's book. And the ultimate purpose of the covenant, we think about the way the Pentateuch, the way the book of Genesis has been shaped for us. And in Genesis, we have five moments where a very specific formula, a statement, is used to focus us again on God's ultimate purpose of the covenant. I'm going to read, I'm just going to look at these very quickly. Genesis 12, two and three, God says, speaking to Abraham, I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great. And so you shall be a blessing and I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth. will be blessed. Again, at chapter 18, right after Abraham has been assured that Sarah will have Isaac, they arise, they turn and look at Sodom and Gomorrah. So right at the beginning of the Sodom and Gomorrah moment, God says, the Lord says, shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Speaking of Sodom and Gomorrah, since Abraham will surely become. a great and mighty nation. God has just promised him that. And in him, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Think about what's about to happen to another nation, those living in Sodom and Gomorrah. And God says at that moment, affirms the fact that he is working in and through Abraham and his family, ultimately for the blessing of the entire earth. Again, at chapter 22, the binding of Isaac. After God has just given Isaac back to Abraham by his faith, we have the repetition of the, because you have done this, I will greatly bless you, greatly multiply your seed. Your seed will possess the gate of your enemy, this land where they're living. And in your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. So now we begin to have this responsiveness of Abraham that is also it. part of this covenant. At chapter 26, that covenant moment with Isaac. And by your descendants, Isaac, God says, all nations of the earth will be blessed. And finally, at chapter 28 with Jacob, and in his dream, God appears to him, says, I will give this land to you and your descendants. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth. And in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. The ultimate purpose of God's covenantal relationship with this one man, with this one family, is ultimately for blessing upon every nation. Paul says in the book of Galatians, this is how I know that God is approving that the Gentiles be included in his family, that the faith in Jesus Christ be preached to the Gentiles. Why? Because already God had already included the Gentiles from the very beginning. Blessing upon every nation. The blessing of relationship with God, of knowing him. From Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us, the believers in Ephesus, in this Gentile pagan city, that has blessed us, the believers in Jesus Christ, with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. This is the blessing that God has. for his people, has always had for his people in this structure, as I've been saying, of promise, God promising, blessing, Genesis 17, the blessing of... of descendants and land and then the response or the responsibility for Abraham to walk before God and be blameless for him to be the for his character to be such that he is the covenant partner of this God who we are just meeting and in Genesis 17 also that I the idea of of circumcision and going back to Genesis 18 that moment of turning toward Sodom and Gomorrah let's look at this Shall I hide from Abraham? I've already read this part of what I'm about to do. Since Abraham will surely, even though it might not seem like it right now, this childless old man, he, regardless of what we may think or assume, God, he will sure, God says he will surely become a great and mighty nation. And in him, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. For I have chosen him so that, for the purpose that he may command his children. and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice. Those are who God is. He is righteous and he is just. So by being who God is, by reflecting God's image, by doing righteousness and justice so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he has spoken about him. This is the covenant relationship. to which God called Abraham, to which God called his people, the descendants of Abraham, and to which now God calls all his people, his children, his faithful followers, the followers of Jesus Christ, that we would both receive his promises of blessing, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, and that we might respond to him by living the lives. that he created us to live and that he recreates us to live in his image. Enjoy doing that next whole book survey.

That is not what a whole book survey is. They aren't outlines, though I think outlines that we find in Bible commentaries can be a good source for helping you. think about how you would create a whole book survey of a biblical book, particularly when you're dealing with bigger books and complex books like we have in the Pentateuch.

So your whole book survey that you did last class was of a smaller book. Now I'm asking you to do a whole book survey on a large book. And so using resources, we don't have to... recreate the wheel.

We don't have to start from ground zero. There are resources out there. In Bible commentaries, they often have an outline. The Bible Project is, those are good whole book surveys and they're more graphic, which is helpful.

And so they can be helpful, but they aren't what a whole book survey is. Whole book surveys are not our sermon points. Though we can give catchy titles.

I tend not to do catchy titles, but we could. Um, whole book surveys are not... right.

Okay, so it's very important that you understand this. I could create five, six, ten different whole book surveys over the book of Genesis that kind of tries to look at it from different angles, think about it slightly differently, maybe move things around slightly, put them in different categories or different segments. And that I can do that.

And one of them is not necessarily right. Now they can be wrong. I can't. I could just get something totally wrong.

I could see a major, I could miss a major connection. But I don't want you to get so tied to this idea that I have to create the right whole book survey. Okay, so that's what they aren't. This is what they are. They are graphic representations of structure, primarily structure, and flow.

I'm not going to emphasize flow as much, though we will talk about it just a little bit. So they're graphic representations. They are.

are helpful and easy to process. All right. So I can't sometimes in a Bible commentary, an outline for a book of the Pentateuch could be two or three pages long. That's not easy to process.

All right. I have to really read through every single heading and think about subheadings. All right.

We're trying to do something graphic that I can process pretty easily to help me. with a way to visualize the connection of a given passage, my passage, to the entire book. All right. So I want to be able to do that pretty quickly.

So your whole book surveys that you create in this class can become your starting point to any sermon you ever do on a passage of the Pentateuch. Okay. I want to start here.

Okay. Let me, this is where I am. All right.

So let me get the kind of the layout, the feel of the whole book. Ah, and then this is where mine fits. So how do I make connections to each of the different major points of the Pentateuch, of this book of the Pentateuch? I mean, you could do a whole book survey of the whole Pentateuch and kind of do the same sort of graphic representation.

Again, we don't start at ground zero. So don't get overwhelmed in doing this. What they do, and that kind of already mentioned on what they are, they show me these five things down here at the same time in one easy to read.

pretty. Now we have different, we'll have different assessments of what's pretty. But something that is a graphic representation that I can see and actually use.

So you're going to see I use some colors. I'm using colors and you've got some colors here. Can be very helpful in this because colors draw our eyes to certain things and help separate and join things in specific ways.

So I want to see structure, content, and connections between major sections and subsections. Those top three are most important for me. Movement.

high point, low points, especially in narrative, that can be very helpful. I'm not going to do a ton of that, but I'll talk through a little bit of how that might look. All right, so with that said, let's go to Genesis and let's look at the structure.

Genesis can be divided pretty clearly into two major sections. And this is again, a pretty definitive scholarly consensus. We have primeval history. and patriarchal history. Let me define this word here, primeval.

When you hear me say it, oh, come back. When you hear me say it, you hear evil, not evil, if that's kind of what jumped into your mind. But from the Latin, primus meaning first, and iwum meaning age or epoch.

I think that's a weird pronunciation. Age, time, the first age, the first time. Primeval history is kind of the...

early history, the earliest history of the world of humanity. Think Genesis origins. And then we had the patriarchal patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his sons, Jacob, Israel, and then the patriarchal history.

So this is kind of your earliest history of humanity. And then this moves us with Abraham as that pivotal character who spans from the end of primeval history into the beginning of patriarchal history. This moves us into the specific history of God's people.

So history of all people, history of God's people. Salvation history is what we have in patriarchal history. This is the solution to the problem that we see humanity created in primeval history.

And so I love that before there was the special history of God. God's people, we see God's heart for all the world. He is the creator of all humanity.

We see God's heart for the entire world. There's this missionary focus of primeval history. I love that idea that then we see played out from one specific human and then ultimately back to all humanity.

There's that picture in Richter's book. I forget exactly which chapter it's in. That's this, you know, this ever-widening view.

But we do have this, we come to a specific point from which we start the widening view to ultimately bring us back to all of humanity. Let me make a note. Usually in shorthand, we talk about primeval history being Genesis chapters 1 through 11, and then patriarchal history being chapters 12 through 50. Technically, we're about to see, we might argue that this wraps up at chapter 11, verse 26. And then this starts at chapter 11, verse 27. But in shorthand, chapters 1 through 11, chapters 12 through 50. Okay, when we think structurally, and one reason that I'm not going to have you do a whole book survey on Genesis is because Genesis, by the hand of the redactor, possibly P, likely P, we might say likely, a priestly author, has a built-in structure that I really want us to...

use the cues of this piece of literature to help us understand this. We call it the Toledot structure. Toledot is Hebrew, meaning generations of.

So El Toledot, these are the generations of, is a phrase that we see repeated 10 times in the book of Genesis. So in the primeval history, we see it repeated five times. In the patriarchal history, we also see it repeated five times. So we see this symmetry, even though Space-wise, primeval is only 11 chapters, and then patriarchal is chapters 12 through 50. Do that math. I don't know.

Lots more chapters, right? In terms of the actual space in the book, we should see these. And if I flip back to, I should have put this up. If I flip back here, I've kind of drawn this line where primeval is shorter and patriarchal is longer. But in some ways, they're somewhat balanced structurally in the book of Genesis.

by the Toledot structure. Okay, so these are the generations of... The first one starts at chapter 2 verse 4. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, which that I put that in a different color versus all the rest of them. Notice these are the generations of and we have names. Okay, so we have five here.

So and then five on this side and then we're going to see how this Toledot structure breaks out. for both the primeval and the patriarchal histories. Because of restrictions of PowerPoint, I'm going to do these separately, but in a in a whole book survey that, you know, I'd want to look at these all together.

So Genesis, using the Toledot structure, the generations of structure, primeval history, our first major part of the Toledot structure starts at 2.4, which leaves chapter 1, verse 1, verses 2.3 as kind of this prologue. Again, scholars are going to kind of debate how that works, but I think this is helpful for us to see that. there's this kind of sets the stage and teaches us certain things that then help us understand going forward all we need to understand in primeval history.

So again, another shorthand, you'll often hear people refer to Genesis chapter one and Genesis chapter two, even though due to the Toledot structure that the break actually comes at 2.3 to 2.4. But chapter one is the prologue. Chapter two then is the second creator story.

We'll talk about the idea of these how these these function but we have the prologue of creation theology the prologue creator story and then this this next um creator story teaches us primarily about relationships relationships of god and humanity humanity with humanity humanity with the earth and then i have a break chapters two three and four are are this are a grouping that we put under the same heading and yet We know there's a clear break there, right? We move from focus on creator to focus on humanity with the fall and its effects in chapters three and chapter four. But there are literary features that connect chapter two, three, and four kind of as this structural unit that we then move. So we have this narrative here.

Then we move in chapter five, again, broadly. to the generations of Adam. This is primarily just a genealogy.

Then we have the generations of Noah, which is the flood story again, with the focus on Noah, but also on his sons. Um, and so we have kind of a narrative that's a little bit larger chapter 10 of the sons of Noah. So now we really get the table of nations and the moving into all of the generations of humanity.

So, um, Followed by a quick zoom back in to the Tower of Babel, a narrative. And then finishing again with a genealogy, particularly of Shem, the generations of Shem, that take us from Shem to Terah, which gets us to Abram, who is that pivotal picture, pivotal figure. Notice the the primeval history kind of stays at at a.

high level with quick zoom in moments, right? So we're looking at all the generations of the world, the table of nations, how nations begin to kind of play out. But with these zoom in moments at a few specific times to tell us, to give us something of a narrative story understanding of a major development that took place.

Now I compare that then again. shorter period of time, shorter amount of space in the text, longer period of time to, oh, I forgot. I'm going to jump to patriarchal history, which is longer space in the text, shorter period of time.

So that's something to remember. Let me jump back here. Um, talked about flow.

Um, so the, the flow, high points, low points of primeval history. really is, you know, from the high point of creation, starting at the fall, all the way down to the end of primeval history, we just kind of had this downward movement. All right, so there's not much movement, I wouldn't say, in primeval history. A lot more movement begins to happen in patriarchal history. These moments of interaction with God, these moments of reliance on self falling into the light, back into the light of the garden.

Okay, so there's primeval history. Balanced then by patriarchal history. And so notice the generations of Shem.

Start with Shem and move to Terah. The generations of Terah start with Terah and move to Abraham. Just like the generations of Jacob.

This is the Joseph story is how we often refer to Genesis 37 through 50 because it's focusing on Jacob's sons. So that's something that becomes much more evident in the patriarchal history. So the generations of Terah, we have a primary focus on Abram, Abraham, with of course Sarai and Sarah, we call it patriarchal history, but the Bible is very clear to also have a focus on our matriarchs as well.

So the patriarchs and patriarch and matriarch of Abram. Abram, Sarai, Abraham, Sarah. Within the focus on Isaac and Rebekah, we don't have their kind of part of this, the generations of Terah. Then we have, so that is a very zoomed in, even though it covers this period of time, on Abraham.

So, you know, all of primeval history that covered all of the people of the world with these zoom in moments on Noah, zoom in moments at the Tower of Babel. Now we have a much, much longer zoom in moment on this pivotal figure of Abraham and then on his son, Isaac, Isaac and Rebecca. Then we have a zoom back out quickly to a few verses on the generations of Ishmael that show, again, the world focus as God is focusing in specifically on his, who are going to be his people, his covenantal partners.

Then we have this zoom back out. to the generations that come from Ishmael, then to the zoom back in on a particular figure of Jacob. These are the generations of Isaac.

So then the son of Isaac is Jacob. We get a little more of the Isaac story here at the beginning, but then pretty quickly focuses on Jacob and Esau and his family. Jacob, of course, with his wives Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah. Here in this, again, Again, zoom in moment on a particular character over a more expanded period of time quick zoom out on the nations that come from Esau again we get moved back to that world focused even though we are God is exclusively with his people he is not forgetting those people that are not part of this particular relationship and then we end with the large section of the generations of Jacob which are the focus on his sons Joseph in particular, but all of his sons as they interact together. And so that is how the Toledot structure really takes us from, allows us to see both the big picture of who God is and his interaction with humanity and these very small specific zoom in moments.

I want to take just these last few minutes and talk about ways that I then expand, because we have the big picture of the structure of Genesis, but how do specific passages relate to these bigger sections? All right. And I've gone to the patriarchal history.

We could do it with primeval history, but what are key passages? How do I identify specific passages that... some of my subcategories that start developing under some of these bigger headings.

And again, just for these purposes, I'm not going to go into all the detail that we could go into, but this hopefully begins to situate in your mind how specific things work. And so a big theme that we could pick up would be covenant. And so there are some major covenantal moments with... specifically with Abram Abraham. And so we have his call at Genesis 12. We have the covenantal ceremony, ratification ceremony at Genesis 15. It's a very significant passage.

And then we have the extended understanding and discussion of what the covenant is. Abram, Sarai are given the new names, Abraham, Sarah, to kind of recreate them. as these new covenant partners.

Richter talks about that. But we also, for the first time in Genesis 17, get God asking for a specific kind of lived response. Now, he asked for a response from Abram back in chapter 12, go to the land I will show you.

And Abraham went, very simply. But here, there is kind of a shaping of Abram, Abraham's character. Walk before me, God says, and be blameless.

So God asks for Abraham to be a different kind of person as his response in this covenant relationship. We might say responsibility. We'll look at that in a minute. And then there's another significant covenant moment at chapter 22, the binding of Isaac.

And much of the covenantal language is repeated again there. I will, Abraham, I will. Make you into a great nation.

I will give you many descendants, numerous as the stars in the sky. And I will give you this land where you now stand. So this idea of descendants and land as these promises of God, based upon here, Abraham's response of obedience that he had given to God. Of course, we know from... Hebrews, from the great hall of faith, that at this moment, Abraham acted knowing that if he sacrificed Isaac, God would bring, would raise him from the dead, would bring him back to him.

That is the faith of Abraham in God's promise that the covenant would be through Isaac, which of course, indeed, our structure here clearly shows. We have two other major covenant moments at chapter 26, where the covenant's reaffirmed with Abraham's son, Isaac. And then at chapter 28, where the covenant is reaffirmed with Abraham's grandson, Jacob. There are other moments.

There are two name change moments for Jacob at 32 and 35. These other significant moments for Jacob. But we could continue to parse those out and see where different particular passages come into play with. this larger structure. I want to stop today, kind of end, by thinking about this idea of covenant, which you're really going to be reading much about in Richter's book.

And the ultimate purpose of the covenant, we think about the way the Pentateuch, the way the book of Genesis has been shaped for us. And in Genesis, we have five moments where a very specific formula, a statement, is used to focus us again on God's ultimate purpose of the covenant. I'm going to read, I'm just going to look at these very quickly.

Genesis 12, two and three, God says, speaking to Abraham, I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great. And so you shall be a blessing and I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth. will be blessed. Again, at chapter 18, right after Abraham has been assured that Sarah will have Isaac, they arise, they turn and look at Sodom and Gomorrah.

So right at the beginning of the Sodom and Gomorrah moment, God says, the Lord says, shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Speaking of Sodom and Gomorrah, since Abraham will surely become. a great and mighty nation.

God has just promised him that. And in him, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Think about what's about to happen to another nation, those living in Sodom and Gomorrah.

And God says at that moment, affirms the fact that he is working in and through Abraham and his family, ultimately for the blessing of the entire earth. Again, at chapter 22, the binding of Isaac. After God has just given Isaac back to Abraham by his faith, we have the repetition of the, because you have done this, I will greatly bless you, greatly multiply your seed.

Your seed will possess the gate of your enemy, this land where they're living. And in your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. So now we begin to have this responsiveness of Abraham that is also it. part of this covenant.

At chapter 26, that covenant moment with Isaac. And by your descendants, Isaac, God says, all nations of the earth will be blessed. And finally, at chapter 28 with Jacob, and in his dream, God appears to him, says, I will give this land to you and your descendants. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth. And in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

The ultimate purpose of God's covenantal relationship with this one man, with this one family, is ultimately for blessing upon every nation. Paul says in the book of Galatians, this is how I know that God is approving that the Gentiles be included in his family, that the faith in Jesus Christ be preached to the Gentiles. Why?

Because already God had already included the Gentiles from the very beginning. Blessing upon every nation. The blessing of relationship with God, of knowing him.

From Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us, the believers in Ephesus, in this Gentile pagan city, that has blessed us, the believers in Jesus Christ, with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. This is the blessing that God has. for his people, has always had for his people in this structure, as I've been saying, of promise, God promising, blessing, Genesis 17, the blessing of...

of descendants and land and then the response or the responsibility for Abraham to walk before God and be blameless for him to be the for his character to be such that he is the covenant partner of this God who we are just meeting and in Genesis 17 also that I the idea of of circumcision and going back to Genesis 18 that moment of turning toward Sodom and Gomorrah let's look at this Shall I hide from Abraham? I've already read this part of what I'm about to do. Since Abraham will surely, even though it might not seem like it right now, this childless old man, he, regardless of what we may think or assume, God, he will sure, God says he will surely become a great and mighty nation. And in him, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

For I have chosen him so that, for the purpose that he may command his children. and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice. Those are who God is.

He is righteous and he is just. So by being who God is, by reflecting God's image, by doing righteousness and justice so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he has spoken about him. This is the covenant relationship. to which God called Abraham, to which God called his people, the descendants of Abraham, and to which now God calls all his people, his children, his faithful followers, the followers of Jesus Christ, that we would both receive his promises of blessing, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, and that we might respond to him by living the lives.

that he created us to live and that he recreates us to live in his image. Enjoy doing that next whole book survey.

Transcript for:Survey of Genesis: Structure and Themes

Transcript for:
Survey of Genesis: Structure and Themes