The Bible as Literature

1
Warm up People want to know how the world began
because........(discuss with a partner)
2

• Genesis
• The story of Creation is a literary catalog
  distinguished by classification and division and
  by incremental repetition.
• In the first stage or day of Creation, the
  narrator recounts that God created light, divided
  it from darkness, and classified the light as day
  and the darkness as night.
• The narrator follows the same pattern in
  describing subsequent days of Creation.
  Accordingly, God separates the earth from the
  sea, then creates the respective creatures
  dwelling on land and in the water.

3

• Answer the following questions with a partner
• What distinguishes humans from other created
  things?
• What is the relationship of human beings to
  nature?
• Why do you think people anthropomorphize the
  divine?
• Refer to the cultural connections box on pg 32
• How do each of the three wedding formulas echo
  the Genesis account?

4
Three Major Themes Man can be easily tempted
toward Sin. Man must know his place before God
and show appropriate deference for authority.
Disobedience is punished!
5
THE CARETAKER
THE HERO, TEMPTRESS, THE OUTCAST
6

• Paradise

• The Fruit (Apple?)

• Serpent

7

• The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden is
  etiological helping to explain how sin and
  temptation came into the world.
• This is also a charter story that helps to
  explain marriage.
• Finally, the story is instructional in that it
  teaches human beings subservience to God.

8
Evaluation

• Work with a partner to analyze the structure of
  Genesis chapter 1
• Create a chart of the events (include textual
  evidence) within Genesis
• Look for parallel structure.
• Days of Forming Days of
  Filling

9
Evaluation

• Days of Forming Days of
  Filling
• 1) Night/Day
  1) Astronomical bodies
• Let there be light(13)
  Let there be lights in the vault of the sky
• 2) Air/Ocean (114)
• Let there be a vault between the
  2) Birds /Fish
• waters to separate water from
  water Let the water team with
  living creatures
• (16). and let the
  birds fly above (120)
• 3) Land
  3) Land
  animals/Humans
• Let water under the sky be gathered to
  Let the land produce living
  creatures
• one place, and let dry ground appear
  Let us make human beings
  (124-126)
• (19)
• 4) Plants
  4) Gift of plants
  
• Let the land produce vegetation
  I give you every
  seed-bearing plant
• (111)
  on the face of
  the whole earth (129).