Transcript of New Book Background: Genesis

All right, my Bible in 365, brothers and sisters, we have arrived at the beginning of the year, and you are starting an incredible journey, and I am excited about it. We are starting with the Book of Genesis, which, of course, is the Book of Beginnings. Now, let me just remind you, if you want to know more in-depth information about the Book of Genesis, I have already made three or four generations of videos on the Book of Genesis that you can consult that has lots of information about the book. Now, what we're going to do this year is I am going to pick out somewhere around five of the most difficult questions that I get, not necessarily the most difficult, but the most commonly asked difficult questions that I get about each book, and I'm going to go over those questions as well as the answers. I think that's going to bless you and give you a foundation, give you some food for thought, and then which each of I said, Which each of these books? With each of these books, I am going to give you areas to specifically focus on because I think you are going to be blown away when you give your attention to this.

Today, we are in the Book of Genesis, and let's jump right into the most common questions asked with respect to the difficulties that people observe. Now, the first question, believe it or not, I get this a lot, is simple. It is framed something like this. Is Genesis meant to be taken literally, or is it symbolic or even poetic? Now, the Poetic question, it's obviously not poetic. It's not one of the books of poetry, but people do ask that question because of what people perceive to be the allegory that is found in the first couple of chapters as there is an account of creation being given, and a lot of people don't take that literally. Now, the answer to that is very simple. Genesis is written as a historical narrative. It is. It is a historical document. It is not poetry, it's not allegory. It's not even really meant to be metaphoric at any level. Now, don't get me wrong, when you look at the Hebrew grammar, when you look at the Hebrew structure, they match the same type of function that the rest of the books in the Bible do, which carry much of the same narrative.

But there may be reasons why things are taken that way because of the way that the language works. Keep this in mind. The Hebrew language is an interesting one in that it has a whole series of other things that you have to look at in order to be able to understand how it works. But understand this, in a metaphorical or allegorical book, you would not find things like genealogies, dates, locations, sequential events. All of these things that you see are going to signal the fact that there is historical intent with these writings. Figurative language appears at times, and when I say figurative, meaning There's aspects of the Hebrew language that present a play on specific words, but that's exactly what it is. It does not cancel any of the historical meanings. Just because I might use a phrase that would seem to be metaphorical in nature doesn't mean that I'm taking away from the definitive nature of what's actually being described. The other thing that you have to look at when answering this is that Jesus in the New Testament, and of course, the New Testament writers, all treated Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, and these people that we read about in the Book of Genesis as literal, real people.

Of course, we know that all throughout the course of Jewish history. If Genesis isn't historical, then core doctrines that we fall into with our understanding, like sin and redemption, they all lose their foundation. They don't mean anything. These are some important things to be mindful of. Now, the second question that I get, and this is an interesting one, and that is, how does Genesis relate to modern science, especially evolution and the age of the Earth? My statement to that is, Genesis directly contradicts a lot of those teachings. It's not a modern science textbook, although it probably ought to be. But let me tell you this, this is important. It makes real historical claims, and oftentimes those real claims do contradict directly with the lies that are being taught in many schools and covered up as science. The Bible begins with God as creator and the fact that this was not some unguided natural process. As a matter of fact, it tells us in Genesis 1: 1, that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Then the next verse says that the earth was without form and void, meaning there's no gap between verse one and verse two.

It means that God started by creating out of nothing the raw material, and then later on, he formed and fashioned it. God is the one who did this. He's the designer, he's the creator. This is not some unguided, as they would call it, natural process. It's just ridiculous. Keep this also in mind, humanity is presented as uniquely created in God's image. That's what Genesis 1 tells us, that man was created in the likeness and image of God. Many of the conflicts that take place, they're going to come from naturalistic assumptions rather than observable observable science. The reality of it is what we even deem as observable science is broken because it's built on a model that's broken. Science will look at present data, and the reality of it is even the present data that it's looking at is skewed because it doesn't understand the past, while Genesis, of course, records events that happened in history that we were not there for, nor can we replicate. That's very, very important. Keep this in mind. When science and the Book of Genesis conflict, understand the disagreement might be more philosophical, might be more philosophical instead of what I would deem as being, or anybody would deem as being scientific.

Because, again, the assertions made by the Book of Genesis are becoming more and more scientifically proofable by the minute because there's so much in there that we just didn't see back in the day that we're beginning to see now. There's no real contradiction in the sense that modern science, actually, when it is looked at, honestly, will support the claims of the Book of Genesis. Now, here's another one that I get, and this is question number 3, I guess, and that is, where did Cain get his wife if Adam and Eve were the first humans? That's a tough question, but the answer... I said the answer. The answer is very simple. See, guys, this is what it looks like. When you're coming out of being sick and you're sleep-deprived. But we're going to get through this together. Here's the answer to that question. Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters. Now, some of you might look at that and go, Whoa, James, we're getting weird here. Well, think about this. There's only a small number of people that are named in the biblical text, and we know that Adam and Eve would have had a lot of children and all of those children would have basically continued to populate.

Cain's wife would have been a close relative, like a sister or maybe a niece. Folks, that, make no mistake about it, they all came from Adam and Eve, and It's, I think, important to note the fact that early humanity did not yet suffer some of the genetic damage that we've seen today. That's a fair assertion to make. Of course, later on, God forbade close family marriage in the law of Moses. We saw that later on. Of course, the Prohibition came long after the events of Genesis. That's your answer. As difficult as that answer might be, that's the answer right there. Now, here's the other question that I get, and that is, why would God destroy the world with a flood in Noah's time? Well, it's really simple. I think that God had to do it in order to save humanity. It's that simple. Look, the world had become extremely corrupt. It'd become violent. Human wickedness was widespread. It was continual. The flood followed a long period of God's patience. God literally warned them again and again and again, and nobody listened. Noah even preached righteousness while the Ark was being built. But again, God, even with all of that happening, provided a way for salvation.

Nobody listened. The flood itself actually shows us an apt demonstration of God's justice and his mercy. I want you to think about it this way. The very tool that people were mocking that became a symbol of God's judgment, the Ark, became the symbol of salvation for the righteous. That gives us a lot to think about as believers because we get mocked all the time talking about the second coming of Christ, and we oftentimes get mocked speaking about the Bible, which is in essence the Ark for humanity, if you think about it. That's the way I would answer that question. Now, this is interesting because this is one that I've been getting recently, and I think it's important, and is this, why does Genesis matter today if it is or was written thousands of years ago? I think that that question is a broken one in many ways, although I've been getting it a lot more lately. That's because, look, Genesis speaks to us about the fact that we have an origin, and that origin is God. In other words, it tells us where we came from and why we exist. It explains literally where sin came from where brokenness in the world came from, how death was introduced.

Every major biblical doctrine literally begins in the Book of Genesis. We learn about marriage, morality, judgment, grace, redemption. All of that stuff originates in the Book of Genesis, and Jesus repeatedly referenced Genesis as authoritative truth. Without the Book of Genesis, the rest of the Bible loses coherence, it loses meaning. You really don't get to understand it. With all that said, I want you to focus on one section of Genesis that I think is important. Now, this is a difficult section for me to talk to you about because it's hard to identify just one area I want you to focus on. Because initially I thought, You You need to really pay attention to the institution of marriage, or you should pay attention to what happened when man fell, when sin happened. That's one area I really want you to focus on. But if there's one area that I think would be another great place to focus on, it's going to be Genesis 49. Why is that? Because 49 gives you a list of all of the blessings and curses that Jacob, Israel, gives to his sons, and you learn so much about the foundation for the geopolitical infrastructure that we see today in the Middle East.

You can learn a lot from that. Now, Genesis 50 will give you insight as into trusting in God in the most difficult times because God is sovereignly doing something for your benefit. Of course, Genesis 3 is going to show you so much about the origin of sin and the tactics that the enemy uses. Now, I will say this about Genesis 3. It shows us a great picture of the fact that the enemy will seek to get you to focus so much on what you don't have that you throw away everything that you do have. There's good insight there. If I would pick an area for you to focus on, it would be creation, simply because we see that God told us that we were created in his likeness and image, and that's important. I would look at the fall of mankind, and then I would look at Genesis 49 and Genesis 50. All very powerful stuff. Genesis 49: 10, for example, is a prophecy about Christ that ties us into Revelation 1. There's so much there. It's great stuff. I truly hope that you guys will be blessed as you dig deep into the study of Genesis.

By the way, I taught through the Book of Genesis recently. If you want more information on it, you can go to jameskiddies. Com, and you can get my most recent teachings on Genesis, and I think that you will be blessed. With that said, I'm glad you're starting that journey with us, the journey of reading the Bible. On behalf of my dear sister, Erica Kirk and the amazing team at Bible in 365, we are excited to walk down this path with you, and we are looking forward to watching God doing great things. So get out there, fight the good fight, read the word of God, and watch God do amazing things in your life. I love you guys, and keep fighting the good fight.