Lessons from Primeval

- God created all in pairs (opposing forces) o Creation

Sea/air Light/darkness

o Cain/Abelo Noah’s Ark: 6:19o Adam/Eve: 1:23

- God did it carefully o 1:25

- Cyclical structure of human behavior o Noah:

6:5, 6:13 Rain falls for 40 days and 40 nights, water consumes earth for 150 years, sends

wa wind over the waters and they start to subside Parallels creation

Waters recede and some mountains appear (8:5) Be fruitful and multiply again (8:17)

o Adam/Eve: God creates Adam/Eve, fall from grace,

- Introduction of covenants—God works by contractso Adam/Eve: 1:16 o Noah: 6:18o Promises to never destroy humankind again in exchange humans have to avoid violence

and have babies God signs the covenant by putting his bow in the clouds 9:8

- Don’t get too cocky: Tower of Babel o Tower of Babel: 11:6, o Adam/Eve: 3:5, 3:22

- Don’t try to hide from God—it doesn’t work (Deceit) o Adam/Eve: 1:8

- Populate the Eartho 1:28, be fruitful and multiply

- Justice o 9:6, eye for eye

- Marriage o Adam/Eve: marry because they are made of the same flesh

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How are they manifested in the Patriarchs:

- Pairs o 15: 10, Abram chops animals in two and sets the two halves opposite each othero Book 24: Abram buried with Sarai, before Abram dies, begets wife (Rebekah) for Isaaco Book 25: Jacob Vs. Esau

- Reason - Lies/deceit

o Men sometimes get awarded for fooling other men Abram fools pharaoh that Sarai is his sister(12:13) God unleashes plagues onto Pharoah caused by fact harboring Sarai

o Sarah tries to lie to God about laughing about her pregnancy 18:15

o Jacob negotiates stew for Esau’s birthright (25:13)o Jacob dresses up in furs and fools his dad into blessing him because his dad thought that

he was really Esau (27:19)o Jacob gets tricked into marrying Leah (29:25)o Lot’s daughters trick him into having sex with them o Jacob asks Laban to pay him with all of the speckeld goats. He leaves out the fact that

he’s devised a way for the flocks to produce more speckled goats than not (30:34) o Jacob go to city and slaughter all men including Hamor and Shechem, while they’re still

recovering from the circumcision, other brothers loot the city (34:25)o Tamar disguises herself as a prostitute and asks for signet, cord, and staff so that Judah

cannot burn her for being pregnant by harlotry (38:24). o Egyptian official’s wife tries to seduce Joseph and accuses him of rape (39:14) o Joseph tricks his brothers who come to Egypt to find grain

Joseph accuses them of being spies and gives them their silver back along with more grains.

o God is working through deceit? Brothers may have been the ones who sold him into slavery, but God is the one

who sent him down here to sustain them through the famine (45:4) 50:18

o- Promises/Covenants

o 12:1-3, God promises that Abram will be famous, he will be a father of nations, everyone who respects you will be respected, curse you and be cursed

o 13:14- Abram, explore the land and you can have it o 15:5 God promises Abram bountiful children

Seal the deal with ritual 15:13-16 promises are deferred, years of suffering to come first

Descendants will be foreigners in a land that does not belong to them

o 17, pretty much the whole thing; Abram’s fate is too be blessed blameless and favored by God, in return mark his flesh

o 28:13, God promises Jacob all of Canaan- God is supreme over nation’s boundaries

o 12:6, gives Abram land of Canaan even though people are still living there- Reproduction

o God promises Abram numerous childreno 16:3, Sarai can’t get pregnant so she offers Hagar as a surrogate mother to produce a

heir o When Hagar runs away from Sarai, God sends a messenger to get her back by promising

her that she will have numerous offspring o God gives Sarai a son at age 90 (17:15)o Lot’s daughters are so desperate they get pregnant by their fathero Abraham blesses Jacob with plentiful offspring (28:3)o God makes Leah fertile because she is so unloved by Jacob, while Rachel is left barren

(Genesis 29:31) o God kills Onan because he spills his seed on the ground Any baby that Tamar bore

would not be his heir, but his brother’s. Did not want to keep lineage of deceased brother alive. (38:10)

- Cyclical process o Sodom & Gomorrah

- Justiceo 15:23, Abram asks if God will destroy the innocent along with the guilty

- God is malleable o Abram persuades God to save Sodom and Gomorrah if he can find 10 innocent people o Jacob negotiates with God so that he can get some clothes and some food as well out of

his covenant with God (28:20)- Don’t get too cocky

o Abram knows his place even while he is negotiating with God for the fate of Sodom - Tests of faith

o (22: 12), Binding of Isaac, all God wanted to know was that Abram feared God Reconfirms covenant (22:17)

o Tells Jacob to return to homeland even though he is afraid that Esau is there to kill him o

- Omniscent/Prophesy o (5:23) Lord tells Rebekah that one son will be stronger than the other and the elder will

serve the younger - Marriage (should not marry foreign wife)

o Isaac blesses Jacob but prohibits him from marrying a foreign woman (28:1)o Shechem rapes Dinah and Hamor suggests Jacob’s sons intermarry with the Hivites

(34:7)

- Father of nationso

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