Category: Scripture Reflections

Meditations on specific passages, listening for the whisper of God’s voice in the text.

Living Water John 4:1-42

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Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” – John 4:10

The story of the women at the well (John 4) is a famous one, and its narrative elements are as old as time. A wise sage (Jesus) meets a broken person (the woman at the well) and offers her insight about God, life, and herself. As a result, the person and the village are changed, rejoice, and the sage goes on His way to the next group of people who needs His wisdom. Every movie ever. Except this isn’t just a story, Jesus isn’t just a sage, and He gives the broken woman not only sound insight but hope and life. Here’s the scene. It’s a hot afternoon, Jesus, a pure-blooded Jewish rabbi, sits alone by the side of a well. A Samaritan woman (typically hated by the Jews), also alone, comes to draw water from the well when Jesus asks her for a simple drink. This simple request, scandalous for its time, ended up showing the woman that her need was more than just a cup of water, instead, she needed living water from which she’d never thirst.

The theme of living waters is splashed (pun intended) all over the Scriptures. Like most themes, we find it on the first few pages of the Bible in Genesis 1. The first time water is even mentioned is in Genesis 1:2 “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” Coupled with the term without form and void (wild and waste), the imagery here is an earth that is a chaotic watery wasteland with God’s Spirit sovereignly hovering over it ready to order and shape. In the rest of the chapter, waters or seas are mentioned for a total of 16 times. We see from the beginning of the chapter that waters are chaotic, but God eventually turns it into something ordered, good, and life-giving. The theme continues:

  • In Genesis 2 after God rests in His cosmic temple, God places the Garden in Eden, and with the tree of life at the centre of the Garden, rivers flow forth to water and give life to the entire world (Genesis 2:10-14).
  • In Genesis 6-9, the world has become exceedingly wicked. Everyone has turned away from Yahweh and follows after their own rebellious desires. As an act of judgement and restoration, God floods the world both destroying it with chaotic waters but also renewing with those same waters. The flood is giving life to a sort of newly created order in which God will start again with His new Adam Noah.
  • In Exodus 14 after Israel has been freed from the oppressive rule of Pharoah in Egypt, they come to the beach of the Red Sea that separates them from the promised land. God, through Moses, parts the waters to allow His people to safely travel through eventually closing the sea behind them, destroying the pursuing Egyptians.
  • God is depicted as being living water in opposition to idols and other gods (Jeremiah 2:13, 17:13).
  • Like the Garden of Eden, the temple is depicted as having water flowing out of it (Ezekiel 47:1-12) giving life to the surrounding area.
  • Zechariah 14:8 talks about living waters flowing out of Jerusalem (also analogues for sacred space) watering the whole earth in the new creation.
  • As we come back to the woman at the well, we see Jesus obviously identifying Himself as the waters of life. Jesus is the temple that houses the presence of God, that gives life to those around Him (John 4:10-11). In fact, John depicts water flowing from the side of Jesus on the cross (John 19:34).
  • Those who are united to Jesus in faith will also have living waters flowing from their hearts (John 7:38) as part of the new temple and the new creation.
  • Finally, in the new heavens and earth, we see Jesus, the Lamb of God leading people to rivers of living water (Revelation 7:17) to drink from (Revelation 21:6) that flow from the throne of God and the lamb with the tree of life on each side of the river (Revelation 22:1-2).

These are just a few examples of what living waters throughout the Bible. Whether or not the woman at the well was clued into even most of these ideas is uncertain. However, what we do know is that after the conversation she had with Jesus she believed, she was transformed, and as a result, many others believed in Jesus as the Messiah as well. At the end of the day, two things can be taken away from this. 1. That real-life comes from Jesus the Messiah. You will never thirst. 2. If you’re a Christian, your job is to go about watering the earth and giving life to it with the Gospel and by loving others. If salvation is anything, it is giving life to those who don’t have it.

Seven Days that Ruled the World: Genesis 1-11 Part IV

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Genesis 1 is one of the most loved and hotly debated chapters in all the Scriptures. Probably the most famous debate has been around issues like the age of the earth. Young Earth Creationists use Genesis 1 (and of course other passages) to argue for the existence of a Creator and even go so far as to use it as a model or paradigm for their scientific method. Others interpret Genesis exclusively as mythology, seeing no authority in the text whatsoever and understanding it as an ancient Jewish origins account of the world. These people think that in light of modern science, Genesis 1 has nothing to offer its contemporary readers. Two very different understandings of the text lead to two very different ways in which you can understand the world and God. I believe the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

In past blogs in this series, I have categorised Genesis 1-11 as mythological theological history. What I don’t mean by this is that the events in Genesis 1-11 didn’t happen. Instead, the primary point of these chapters is the divine truths the author is presenting. Mythological doesn’t mean fiction in this context. The mythological genre can be better understood as parabolic or allegorical. The events in Genesis 1-11 happened. However, the events recounted in the narrative bring out a theological point rather than a detailed account of the past. As Tremper Longman III says, “The book of Genesis is not a history-like story but rather a story-like history.” After we explore the literary genre of the chapter, we need to ask ourselves some critical questions.

  1. What is this saying about God?
  2. What is this saying about creation?
  3. What is this saying about humanity?

As we have already seen in the first verse, the Lord God is the creator, of all that exists. What we see in the rest of the chapter is that God places importance on an ordered and ruled creation rather than merely leaving it to its own devices. Unlike the other gods of the time, Yahweh is deeply concerned with every piece of His creation as He places everything in the right place and humanity has the crowning jewel.

The seven days of creation in Genesis 1 are not a scientific account of how God created the world, rather, it is a literary device standard in the Ancient Near Eastern world to describe God who is king ordering a cosmic temple to settle in and rule over. Another way to explain it is that Genesis 1 is not about the material origins of the universe. Instead, it is about the function of the things that exist with God at its centre. As John Walton explains:

I believe that people in the ancient world believed that something existed not by virtue of its material properties, but by virtue of its having a function in an ordered system.

Beginning in a state of chaos, in days 1-3 light, darkness, the sky, the earth, and the sea are all formed, separated and ordered. In days 4-6, God fills these spaces with the Sun, moon, stars, animals and humans to rule over them. In other words, God gives them a function. On day 6, humans are made in the image of God. The image or the imago Dei is another debated issue, but two things are clear in the text. The imago Dei is an ontological reality that is reflected in the function of flourishing humanity. They’re to have dominion over the earth (God’s cosmic temple), they’re to multiply and fill the earth.

On day 7 (the Hebrew number for completion – a recurring theme throughout the entire Bible), after having ordered His cosmic temple, Yahweh rests. The word rest here is important because as the story of the Bible progresses, it takes on developed meaning. Here, though, the word rest, according to John Walton, has royal and divine significance. It’s not merely God stopping or ceasing from His work (though that’s, of course, the apparent meaning of the text), instead, it’s God sort of sitting on the throne after completing the structuring of His cosmic temple where He now dwells.

In Genesis 1, the scene is set, the cosmic temple has been ordered, and God rules amid humanity and His good creation. Good though creation may be, it isn’t perfect. There is untapped potential that God wants humanity to cultivate and produce. This is the functional role that humanity is supposed to live in. Humanity in the world, God’s cosmic temple, is supposed to act as proto-priests as they tend to His good creation in harmony and peace. Genesis 2 fleshes this out more where Adam and Eve are to keep guard the Garden which is designated roles given to priests in Israel later in the Biblical story. For now, however, we see both male and female, and indeed all of creation was meant to live in an ordered world where God dwells and reigns from.

So what do these observations say about God? God is a divine king who wants to dwell imminently with His good creation as opposed to the ANE common understanding that gods were separate tyrannical rulers. What does this say about creation? That all of creation is good but has the capacity for more as it’s given to humanity to cultivate and rule over. What does this say about humanity? That humanity as God’s vice-regents, they were to live in harmony with God’s and the created order as they reign alongside God over the rest of creation and cultivate it.

As John Walton summarises

The key features of this interpretation include most prominently: The Hebrew word translated “create” (bārāʾ) concerns assigning functions. The account begins in verse 2 with no functions (rather than with no material). The first three days pertain to the three major functions of life: time, weather, food. Days four to six pertain to functionaries in the cosmos being assigned their roles and spheres. The recurring comment that “it is good” refers to functionality (relative to people). The temple aspect is evident in the climax of day seven when God rests—an activity in a temple. The account can then be seen to be a seven-day inauguration of the cosmic temple, setting up its functions for the benefit of humanity, with God dwelling in relationship with his creatures.

Life and Death: Genesis 1-11 Part III

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Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic. – W. H. Auden

Quick note: I’ve skipped a few sections in this series, but I felt compelled to write about this sooner rather than later. So like Starwars, some of these posts will be out of order. Thanks 🙂

There is nothing more sobering than the death of a loved one. When someone dies, it is the perfect time to deeply reflect on the value of life, purpose and destiny. Why does death exist? Why do we all have to die? After we die, then what? Important questions and the answer largely depends on what you believe about humanity, God and the Bible. It’s taken me a while to write this post because I’m constantly challenged on my perspective of death. Growing up, death was a reasonably foreign idea. I had a cat that died, but apart from that, I didn’t really have any relationship with it. It probably wasn’t until my dad died just a few years ago that the reality of death kicked in.

In the Bible, the first place we come across the idea of death is in Genesis 2:15-17. Here God has placed mankind in Eden to work and keep it. Then God tells them that they could eat from any tree in the Garden except the tree of knowledge of good evil; otherwise, they’ll die. What an odd story. Eat fruit from any tree except this one, or you’ll die? Is the fruit poisoned? Does God really like this one particular tree? Are they allergic to its fruit? What’s going on here? A careful reflection on the story might lead one to consider that there’s more going on here than meets the eye. First, there are two main trees in the Garden here (Gen 2:9). The tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. Don’t eat from one, but you can from the other. In the story, these trees were representative of important and more profound realities. Wisdom/knowledge and eternal life. Let’s focus on the tree of life for a moment.

In the ancient near eastern world, these kinds of trees are associated with youth and the reversal of age. In the Gilgamesh Epic, there is a plant called “old man becomes young” that grows at the bottom of the cosmic river. In the rest of the Bible, the tree of life is portrayed as offering life and new life (Prov 3:16-18; 15-4), and can also be found in Revelation (2:7; 22:1-2, 14-15, 18-19) where the tree of life and the river of life are associated. For me, this sheds a bit of light on the meaning of what’s going on here in Genesis. A new creation is happening in Revelation. Renewal of the earth and the removal of sin and corruption where creation is finally united to God in the complete sense of that phrase. In Genesis 2, something similar is happening, unity, flourishing and absence of sin.

Furthermore, the mention of rivers in Genesis 2 flowing out from the Garden coupled with the tree of life says to me that this is where all life and goodness comes from, this Garden, this sacred space. Except for one crucial difference. In Revelation, there is no tree of knowledge, there is no presence of sin.

Now for the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The name given to the tree is counter-intuitive. Knowledge is good, right? Isn’t gaining the ability to discern between good and evil something we should have? Obviously, something more is at play in the story. First, it’s important to note that the Hebrew word for evil here is different from the way we use it today. Western philosophy is loaded with a certain ethical definition that isn’t necessarily in the original Hebrew word. It’s probably better to understand the word evil as bad or not good for you. For example, the word can also be used of things God does (Jdg 9:56-57; 2 Sam 12:11; Isa 45:7). However, we know that God is good and that in Him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5), so the word doesn’t always have to have the same philosophical definition that we have for it. I suppose my point is; this tree represents knowledge to distinguish between what’s bad for us and what’s good for us in the world. We call this wisdom. Essentially, eating from the tree meant choosing to live by our own wisdom (this is the definition Genesis 3 gives for defining to be like a god), rather than living by Yahweh’s wisdom. Let’s just stop for a moment. It’s not like Adam and Eve didn’t know what the right thing to do was. They certainly believed that they were going to die if they ate the fruit from the tree. It wasn’t until the serpent tempted them that they decided to become gods themselves.

So now to death. God said, “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen 2:17). The thing is Adam and Eve don’t die when they ate the fruit, at least not in the conventional sense. Adam lived until he was 930 years old. He had a long full life, longer than ours. So then death needs to be understood as something more than simply not existing. First, the plain meaning of death here does incorporate physical death. Adam might live until 930 years old, but he does end up dying, and I believe that’s something that’s not apart of God’s good creation (Gen 3:19; Rom 5:12; 1 Cor 15:55). However, the kind of death emphasised here is a relational separation from God who is the source of all light and life (Gen 2:7; Job 33:4; Neh 9:6; John 1:3-4; 1 Tim 6:13). Like I argue in my post on Genesis 1, Moses’ audience and the later Exilic audience would have understood Genesis 2-3 as their current experience, being separated from the land, sacred space, and God’s presence as a result of human rebellion.

To conclude, death is two-fold.  It is separation from God’s presence and the ceasing of one’s physical existence. One inevitably leads to the other. Because Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden (God’s presence), so was all of humanity in Adam. Because the inevitable consequence of rebellion and separation is physical death, all shall die. But there is good news. God makes all things (including death) work together for the good of those who love Him, according to His purposes (Rom 8:28). Though we all may die, those who turn to Christ will actually find their life (Matt 10:39, 16:25; Mark 8:35; John 11:25-26), and will take part in His resurrection (John 6:39; Rom 6; 1 Cor 6:14, 15:20-23; 1 Thess 4:16; Rev 21:1-5). We’re all exiles now (1 Peter 1:1-2), but one day, those who have bowed the knee to Christ and given Him their allegiance will be raised up on the last day and rule alongside Him in a New Heaven and a New Earth in perfect harmony with God, one another, and creation. So let’s choose to eat from the tree of life (God’s wisdom), rather than choosing to decide what’s good for us. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom (Prov 9:10), and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God indeed (Heb 10:31).

Genesis 1-11 Part II: In the Beginning

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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. – Genesis 1:1-2

A long time ago before I became a Christian, I remember dating a girl who’s family were hardcore believers. I remember one day being at their house, bored, and picking up a Creation magazine. Two things stuck out to me. First, that the earth was around 6000-10,000 years old and second that they didn’t believe aliens existed. Immediately I knew they were crazy. However, it wasn’t long until I thought these things myself. When I became a Christian, I hit the ground running with the Scriptures. I soaked up everything it had to say and just believed what I thought it was telling me. For most of my Christian life, I believed that God created the earth around 6000 years ago, that there was a real talking snake in the Garden, and that ideas like evolution were a lie cleverly constructed to deceive the world into believing that God doesn’t exist. I was taught by many people (people who are still dear friends today) that unless you believed these things you weren’t taking Jesus, the Bible or the Faith seriously. So I joined their tribe. I often went street preaching, seeking to debunk evolution and turn people to Jesus. For me, atheism and evolution went hand in hand, and if you could disprove one, the other would fall. Sure, I had heard about Christians out there who believed in evolution (they’re known as theistic evolutionists). However, they were considered liberal, twisting the Scriptures, compromising and it probably wasn’t long until they walked away from the Faith altogether. Since then, a lot has changed. Bible college set me on a trajectory of seriously studying the Scriptures in its original context and genre. I remember quite clearly that the first theological position that shifted was my eschatology. I went from being a Premillenail Dispensationalist to a Convenential Amillinealist. The next thing that started to change was my approach to the Scripture itself. I went from reading Bible verses in isolation from one another to seeing huge thematic threads that reverberated throughout the entire Biblical narrative (I came to know this as biblical theology).

I began to understand the importance of context, genre, audience, authorship and to look for the authors intent (much of which I discuss here). Huge biblical themes like temple and sacred space, priesthood, union with God and much more, lit up the Bible as it began to sing to me a sweet alluring song that I haven’t been able to get out of my head to this day (not that I’ve tried). Eventually, I came across Tim Mackie and the Bible Project. They kept pointing out how important the story of Genesis 1-11 was for the entire biblical narrative, and wow was I amazed. Coupled with what I was learning at college, these guys turned the Bible from Netflix into 4k VR surround sound where, at times, it was almost like I could touch God Himself through the very pages I was reading. Now, as a result of all this, over the last three years or so I’ve shifted in my view of Genesis 1. Let’s explore.

Genesis 1 has been the subject of much speculation and debate for thousands of years. Each generation or era has a different take on what’s happening in the text, and I actually don’t think that’s a horrible thing. I believe God intends for us to reflect on whatever it is we’re reading in the Bible into our own context and live out the implications as God’s people. However, this shouldn’t be at the expense of the original intended meaning of the text. As far as I can tell, I see three main theological themes being explored in the first chapter. 1. God and who He is. 2. The ordering or construction of sacred space. 3. The establishing of humanity and their vocation in relation to God, sacred space, and the created order.

When we turn to the first page in the Bible, the very first thing the author wants us to notice is that there is a god and that this god created the heavens and the earth. Who is this god? This is where context is so important. If Moses wrote Genesis (I discuss authorship in a previous post), then his cognitive environment would have shaped his understanding of who this god was. For Moses and the Israelites in the Exodus events, the same God who brought them out of Egpyt was the same God who was the Creator in Genesis 1. This can be further supported by the use of the title “LORD God” in Genesis 2:4 (and onwards) where the author seems to be making an emphatic claim that this is indeed Yahweh Himself. The God of Israel is the God of the entire cosmos.

Just this line of thought alone has some profound implication for its readers. The most obvious is that God doesn’t merely create the universe, order it, and leave it to its own devices (deism). Instead, if this god is Yahweh Himself, we see that He is always at work throughout human history. God is both transcendent and immanent. He is distinct from His creation but is at work in it and often through it to bring about the redemption of a fallen world. The New Testament later picks this up by throwing Jesus into the mix (see: John 1 and Col 1:15-17).

Furthermore, in a polytheistic world, the idea that one God created the cosmos would have been a little edgy. In the ancient near eastern world (ANE), there were many other creation narratives, each depicting a council of gods creating the cosmos, usually chaotically, through violence and battle. Instead, God here simply speaks, and there is light, stars, animals etc. Very chill. To me, this says something about God’s character. Rather than having chaos reign, God is all about order, peace, shalom. In fact, this can be further supported by the use of the word create. This leads me to my next point. Order out of chaos and sacred space.

Here is where I blend a few ideas together. First, we read that the earth was formless and void. The Hebrew wording here can be translated as wild and waste, desolate and chaotic. Picture, if you can, a tumultuous watery wasteland that continuously churns and destroys. This was the state of the world before day one. Immediately the readers would have picked up on what was happening here. In the surrounding ANE world, there were plenty of creation narratives where chaotic and wild waters were to be overcome by the gods. It’s where the great leviathan dwelt, chaotic and dark sea creatures at odds with the plans of the gods (see the Enûma Eliš as an example). To the ANE world, dark, chaotic waters and leviathan were something to be feared, yet in the text, God simply brings order out of this chaos by speaking, unlike the ANE gods that wared over it. Furthermore, the leviathan was made to be a good creature, not an evil one in Genesis 1:20-23 (c.f. Ps 104:26). Similarities? Yes. Absolutely. It goes without saying that we’re going to find similarities between people groups in the same cognitive environment.

The differences, however, are important. Instead of God having to fight or war for lordship over the chaos and darkness, He is lord from the very beginning. The chaos creatures are actually His, and so are the waters. They’re subdued and ready to be moulded in the hands of the Creator. From here, God takes the wild watery wastes and uses them to form His sacred space – temple.

John Walton in his book “The Lost World of Genesis 1” argues that the Hebrew word for “created” in Genesis 1:1 shouldn’t be understood as ex nihilo (creation out of nothing), rather it should be understood that God orders the cosmos into a cosmic temple (sacred space). I recommend you read his book and wrap your head around the full argument. From what I’ve learned from him and other resources I concur. The ANE world was more concerned with function and order then they were about the material origins we’d usually read into the text. One analogy Walton uses is the difference between a house and a home. The way we usually read the text is like building a house. We place down the foundations, the walls, roof etc. Where the ANE was more interested in a home with furniture, food etc. A home is where one thrives, lives and flourishes, the other is more about material origins. This is likely what’s happening in the text. The author is more interested in function and home in the sacred space God is about to order, rather than the material origins of the universe. In this blog, I explore the theme of temple and how it relates to the biblical story. In the next post, we’ll explore more about the theme of temple and how it relates to what’s happening here.

So to wrap up this part of the series:

  1. The god in Genesis 1 is Yahweh. He is the sole creator, sustainer and Lord of life.
  2. The earth was in a wild, dark and chaotic space then God starts to order it.
  3. God is arranging a sacred space or temple.

How to Read Genesis 1–11: Context, Genre, and Theology

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Editor’s note: This is one of my most popular posts of all time. This post was originally written several years ago (2019) and has been lightly updated to reflect developments in contemporary biblical scholarship, while preserving its original argument, tone, and structure. I’ve also recently written a piece on Genesis 1-11 here.

I also recommend watching this video on Genesis 1-11 by Bible Project if you’re more of a visual learner.

If you’re interested in the history of the interpretation of Genesis, click here

It really all began in Bible college.

I took Intro to the Old Testament and Intro to the New Testament in my first year. Naturally, in the first semester of our OT class, we began to comb through the Torah. But in my NT class, surprisingly, we spent more time in the Old Testament and then in the intertestamental period than I was expecting.

For a while, I was a bit confused. I didn’t want to spend time in Genesis 1–3 or Exodus. Let’s just talk about Jesus and the Gospels.

However, as time went on, I began to realise how important it was to understand that the New Testament is really just the culmination, fulfilment, and climax of everything the Old Testament was working towards. Essentially, the New Testament makes the most sense only in light of the Old Testament, in the same way that Avengers: Endgame only makes sense in light of all the prequels.

Thus, my love for the Bible truly started to evolve. I was now beginning to see that the Bible wasn’t just a collection of random independent books with neat little stories that we can enjoy or live by. Instead, it is, as the Bible Project often puts it, a unified story that leads to Jesus (Tim Mackie).

Eventually, it was Tim Mackie and the Bible Project that went even further in showing me the importance of the Old Testament story, particularly the role Genesis 1–11 plays. In fact, I’ve developed such a love for Genesis 1–11 that if I ever were to go into scholarship, it would have to be related to this section of Scripture. Until then, I must sate my curiosity with blogging about it.

Why Genesis 1–11 Matters

Genesis 1–11 is one of the most vital sections in all of Scripture. It contains the theological mythos of the world, the introduction of God, and the purpose of humanity. Every other story in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament can find its source in these eleven chapters.

In recent years, scholars have increasingly noted that Genesis 1–11 establishes creation as sacred space rather than merely material origin. Creation is presented as ordered, meaningful, and oriented toward God’s presence. This has led many to describe Genesis 1 as functioning like a cosmic temple narrative, with humanity placed within creation as God’s image-bearing representatives (John H. Walton; G. K. Beale).

Before jumping in, however, we must consider two things first: context and genre.

How to Read the Bible: Context, Audience, and Genre

When you study any section of the Bible, three questions must come to mind:

1. Who is the author, and who is the intended audience?

2. What is the context of this verse or passage, both canonical and historical?

3. What is the literary genre (historical, narrative, poetry, apocalyptic, wisdom, epistle)?

These questions help us move closer to the author’s intent and how the original audience would have received the text. Answering them doesn’t necessarily guarantee an accurate interpretation of Scripture, but it does get us a long way towards that goal.

Let’s take a simple example: the book of Romans.

We know the author (the Apostle Paul), the audience (Christians, likely both Gentiles and Jews in Rome), the date of the letter (AD 55–57), and the genre (epistle). While the theological purpose of Romans is still debated, these facts give us a fair understanding of what Paul was writing about, why he wrote, and how we should approach contested passages.

Because Romans is an epistle, we expect less symbolism and poetry and more precise theological argumentation. We can do the same work with the book of Genesis, although the results are more ambiguous (Tremper Longman III).

Who Wrote Genesis? Authorship and Tradition

Genesis is one part of a larger collection of books or scrolls known as the Torah or Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

Authorship is tricky. Unlike Paul’s letters, Genesis does not identify its author. Furthermore, many books in the Old Testament did not have a single author in the modern sense. Literacy and record-keeping in the ancient world were limited, often restricted to royal or priestly circles.

Tradition attributes Genesis to Moses, and not without reason. The Torah is frequently attributed to Moses throughout the Hebrew Bible (Josh 1:7–8; 2 Chron 25:4; Neh 13:1). The New Testament, and Jesus Himself, appear to attribute the Torah and Genesis to Moses as well (Matt 19:7; 22:24; Mk 12:26; John 1:17; 5:46).

Whether Moses literally penned every word is debatable, but what we can reasonably say is that Moses had a significant hand in the origins and shaping of the material (John Sailhamer). This naturally leads us into the question of context.

The Ancient Near Eastern Context of Genesis

If Genesis originates with Moses, then his cognitive environment would have influenced how the text was shaped. The Exodus story and Israel’s journey into the Promised Land draw deeply on the Genesis 1–3 narrative of God giving land (Eden) to humanity, testing obedience, and dealing with exile.

However, this is not the only context to consider.

The final form of Genesis and the Torah as a whole was likely shaped and compiled during or after the Babylonian Exile. This complicates matters, as there is a significant difference between the world of Genesis, the Exodus, and the exilic or post-exilic period.

Israel reading Genesis while living in exile would naturally interpret the text through that experience. Genesis 3, for example, tells a story of humanity being placed in land and then exiled from it due to sin. An exiled Israel would have immediately recognised their own story in that narrative (N. T. Wright).

Additionally, the Ancient Near Eastern world was the cultural backdrop of the Old Testament. Beliefs about gods, temples, family, relationships, and the cosmos all shaped how ancient authors thought and wrote. This cognitive environment inevitably influenced the biblical text (John H. Walton, Michael Heiser).

Abraham himself was called out of a pagan ANE world to form a distinct people for God’s purposes. Not everything Abraham did reflects ideal righteousness. He, like Israel after him, wrestled with shedding cultural norms in order to live faithfully before God.

What this suggests is that God deliberately used each author’s cognitive environment as a means of shaping His revelation. God speaks into real history, through real cultures, without collapsing into them.

What Genre Is Genesis 1–11? Myth, History, and Theology

Genesis, as we have it today, likely passed through Moses, was preserved through oral tradition, and was finally shaped in or after the Exile. Chapters 12–50 can be understood as Israel’s origins, while chapters 1–11 function as the origins of the whole world.

Broadly speaking, Genesis is historical. However, ancient history and modern history are not the same thing. The ancient world preserved history differently, with a far greater emphasis on meaning than on exhaustive detail.

I would categorise Genesis 1–11 as theological history told through mythic and literary forms.

By this, I do not mean that Genesis 1–11 did not happen. Rather, the primary purpose of these chapters is to convey divine truth. In this context, “mythic” does not mean “fictional”. It refers to the use of story, symbolism, and archetypal language to communicate reality at a deep theological level (Tremper Longman III).

The events occurred, but they are presented in a way that draws out theological meaning rather than providing a modern historical account. As Longman succinctly puts it, “The book of Genesis is not a history-like story but rather a story-like history.”

Summary

To summarise Part I:

Authorship: Genesis likely originates with Moses, but its final form was shaped during or after the Babylonian Exile.

Context: The Ancient Near Eastern world, the time of Moses, and the experience of exile all shape how the text should be understood.

Genre: Genesis 1–11 is best read as theological history communicated through rich, mythic, and literary narrative forms. It tells the story of the world’s beginnings in order to reveal divine purpose, not modern scientific detail.

In the next part of this series, we will begin by looking closely at Genesis 1.