The Wisdom of the Ancients: Mining the Riches of Genesis 1 - 11

By Steve Langford

Five ancient stories, woven together by genealogical tables, are recorded in Genesis 1-11. Author and spiritual guide Steve Langford explores these ancient stories and genealogies, identifying the ancient wisdom and spiritual truths they reflect. The author walks the reader through each story and then identifies the timeless truths reflected in them. The book takes the reader beyond a casual, superficial reading of the stories, guiding the reader into unexplored depths where the stories’ riches are found.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jun 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781698707822

Steve Langford

Dr. Steve Langford—also known as Pastor Steve—has dedicated his adult life to the study and teaching of scripture in the local church with a focus on spiritual formation. In the spiritual communities in which he has walked, he is known as a gifted teacher with a prophetic spirit. He served as a pastor for fifty years, first in Baptist life and then as an ordained elder in the Central Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church. Since retiring in 2019, he serves—in addition to his writing—as a spiritual guide, Bible study teacher, and Bowen Family Systems coach/counselor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in biblical studies from Howard Payne University along with master’s and doctor of ministry degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. His postdoctoral work has been in Bowen Family System Theory with an applied focus on spiritual formation and leadership in the local church. Pastor Steve is married to Etta, his wife of fifty-three years. They have three adult sons and four grandchildren.

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Copyright 2021 Steve Langford.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Website

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

ISBN: 978-1-6987-0783-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6987-0781-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6987-0782-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021911478

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1 Introducing Genesis 1—11

THE STORY OF CREATION

Genesis 1:1—2:3

Genesis 1:1—2:3

Chapter 2 The Creation Story

Chapter 3 The Creation Story as a Message of Hope and Political Defiance

Chapter 4 In the Image of God

Chapter 5 The Seventh Day

Chapter 6 Mining the Riches of the Creation Story

THE STORY OF THE GARDEN

Genesis 2:4—3:24

Genesis 2:4—3:24

Chapter 7 Introducing the Story of the Garden

Chapter 8 The Story of the Garden, Part One: Life in the Garden, Genesis 2:4—25

Chapter 9 The Story of the Garden, Part Two: Loss of the Garden, Genesis 3:1—24

Chapter 10 Mining the Riches of the Story of the Garden

Chapter 11 How Are We to Understand the Story of the Garden?

Chapter 12 The Story of the Garden in the New Testament

THE STORY OF CAIN

Genesis 4:1—26

Genesis 4:1—26

Chapter 13 Introducing the Story of Cain

Chapter 14 Life after the Garden: The Story of Cain

Chapter 15 Mining the Riches of the Story of Cain

FROM ADAM TO NOAH: A GENEALOGICAL BRIDGE

Genesis 5:1—32

Genesis 5:1—32

Chapter 16 Genealogy: the Story within the Story

THE STORY OF NOAH AND THE FLOOD

Genesis 6:1—9:29

Genesis 6:1—9:29

Chapter 17 Introducing the Story of Noah and the Flood

Chapter 18 Return to Chaos: The Story of Noah and the Flood

Chapter 19 Mining the Riches of the Story of Noah and the Flood

REPOPULATING THE EARTH: THE

GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF NOAH

Genesis 10

Genesis 10

Chapter 20 Repopulating the Earth: The Genealogical Table of Noah

THE STORY OF THE TOWER OF BABEL

Genesis 11:1—9

Genesis 11:1—9

Chapter 21 The Story of the Tower of Babel

Chapter 22 Mining the Riches of The Story of the Tower of Babel

Chapter 23 Pentecost: the Reversal of Babel

FROM THE TOWER OF BABEL TO ABRAM:

THE GENEALOGICAL BRIDGE OF SHEM

Genesis 11:10—32

Genesis 11:10—32

Chapter 24 From the Tower of Babel to Abram: A Genealogical Bridge

End Notes

INTRODUCTION

D id God create the world in seven literal days? Where was the Garden of Eden? Were Adam and Eve really the first man and woman? Where did Cain get his wife? Did people really live to be hundreds of years old back then? Did God really destroy the world with a flood?

These are the kinds of questions that surface when people read the great narratives found in Genesis 1—11. They are questions that probe the historical character of the stories. Each is asking, Were these stories actual historical events?

Some Christians find these questions offensive. For them, the Bible is totally reliable, without question. If it’s what the Bible says, it’s true. End of story.

But, for others, these questions persist, waiting for an answer. They are honest questions that grow out of how we have been trained to think.

Our thinking is shaped by two cultural influences: science and reason. Science is the attempt to understand and explain our natural world using observation, study, testing, and logic. It seeks to identify verifiable facts that we can believe as true. Reason is the companion of science. It is the kind of thinking we use to determine what is true. Our reliance upon reason is the product of the Enlightenment.¹ Both of these influences lie outside our awareness. They are simply the way we naturally think. They are how we in the modern world have been trained to think.

Naturally, these two influences impact how we read the Bible. We read, looking for facts to believe. We read, using reason to question what we read. So the questions that arise as we read these early chapters of Genesis—and the rest of the Bible, as well—are Western, scientifically oriented questions. They are questions that grow out of our ability to reason. They are questions about the facts of the stories. Are the stories accurate? Can we believe them as true?

The problem with our questions—if there is one—is that we are asking Western, scientifically-oriented questions of ancient material which came from Near East cultures. These ancient texts were written from a prescientific perspective. Each of these traits—ancient, Near Eastern, prescientific—is an important factor in our effort to understand these stories.

The ancient Hebrews, rather than using science to explain those aspects of life they did not understand, explained them in theological or spiritual terms. They viewed them as the work of gods or spirits, particularly evil spirits.

The primary way they communicated their understandings was by telling stories. They used stories to communicate from one generation to the next the spiritual truths they knew. Their stories were the vehicles they used to transmit their spiritual understanding. Thus, storytelling was a key component of their culture.

So we face a major challenge when we read the Bible. Everything we find in the Bible is ancient, Near Eastern, and prescientific in its orientation while our orientation is Western, scientific, and reason-based.

This contrast leads us to ask the wrong kind of questions. We ask Western questions of Near Eastern stories. We ask questions the authors never anticipated. We ask questions the Bible does not answer.

The questions we ask determine the answers we find and the conclusions we reach. Asking a question the text does not answer leads us into speculation and to pointless arguments that do nothing to nurture our spiritual lives.² More significantly, asking a question the text does not answer leads us away from what the author was intending to say. We miss the truth the story teaches—truth intended to nurture our spiritual lives.

Our Western, scientifically-oriented thinking leads us to focus on the details of the story—the vehicle that carries the deeper understanding. While we would like to have answers to our Western, scientifically-oriented questions, it is more important for us to understand what the author was communicating. Our objective is to understand the spiritual truth the authors wanted us to know. This objective calls us to set aside our questions about the details of the story in order to ask different questions: what spiritual truth was the biblical writer attempting to communicate? What theological truth does this story contain? What does this story tell us about life, about ourselves, about God? These questions position us to let the text say what it was intended to say. While answering our Western, scientifically-oriented questions may satisfy our curiosity, learning the spiritual truth the biblical text contains has the potential to shape our lives.

This book approaches these ancient texts as stories originally told to communicate spiritual understanding rather than to relate historical events. It views these narratives as great theological statements reflecting the early Hebrews’ understanding of God, creation, us humans, their nation, life, and the relationship that ties them together. These stories and the spiritual truths they communicate are foundational to the identity of the people of Israel. This book seeks to probe their understanding, reclaiming the insights the stories offer. It moves beyond the questions we commonly ask of these stories—Western, scientifically-oriented, reason-based questions—in order to probe the wisdom these ancient narratives offer.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCING GENESIS 1—11

T he first eleven chapters of Genesis are composed of five great narratives:

• the creation story—when God spoke creation into being (Genesis 1:1—2:3)

• the story of the garden (Genesis 2—3),

• the story of Cain (Genesis 4),

• the story of Noah and the flood (Genesis 6—9),

• the story of the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1—9).

The first story is a beautifully crafted poetic narrative about creation that was written during the nation’s experience of exile in Babylon, sometime after 586 B.C.E. The other four were originally a part of the oral history of the Hebrew people. They were passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation until the time they were written down.

These five narratives are woven together by three genealogical tables. The first genealogy links the story of Adam to the story of Noah. The second links the story of Noah to the story of the tower of Babel. The final genealogy links the story of the tower of Babel to the story of Abram, the forefather of the nation of Israel. But these genealogies are more than ways of linking the stories together. They are part of the stories, growing out of the previous story and providing the setting for the next story. They help to advance the larger story being told in Genesis 1—11. These connecting links indicate these stories are not isolated stories that stand alone. They are interrelated and interconnected.

The focus of these epic narratives is humankind in general. They are a part of what is called primeval history. That means they occurred before recorded history. That is why they were passed down orally from generation to generation. At Genesis 11:27, the focus of the narrative shifts from humankind in general to one specific family—the family of Abram (Abraham) whose descendants became the nation of Israel. Beginning with Genesis 11:27, the biblical materials deal with places and cities that can be identified historically.

These narratives set the backdrop to the story of the nation of Israel. They provide a theological framework that undergirds the nation’s identity. They would have been read by the people of Israel as a part of their story.

The stories reflect the hand of an editor who used material from multiple sources to compose the narrative. The editor’s work is evident in the repeated use of the formula these are the generations of. This formula is used ten different times in the book of Genesis, each time indicating a shift in the story. It reflects the editor’s outline of the book. These are the generations of …

• the heavens and the earth, Genesis 2:4

• Adam, Genesis 5:1

• Noah, Genesis 6:9

• Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Genesis 10:1

• Shem, Genesis 11:10

• Terah, Genesis 11:27

• Ishmael, Genesis 25:12

• Isaac, Genesis 25:19

• Esau, Genesis 36:1

• Jacob, Genesis 37:2.

The book of Genesis is a part of a larger unit consisting of the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. This larger unit is known as the Pentateuch.³ For the Hebrew people, they are known as the Torah or the Law. These books tell the story of the people of Israel, beginning with creation, till the time they prepared to enter the Land of Promise. The editor of Genesis was involved in editing this larger unit, as well.

The sources the editor used can be identified in two ways: (1) the underlying interests reflected in the stories and (2) in the names for God that are used in the stories. A primary source is associated with the name Yahweh (YWH), commonly translated as the LORD. The stories from this source are associated with the southern kingdom of Judah. They have a strong interest in the covenant the LORD made with the people at Mt. Sinai. Stories from the northern kingdom of Israel commonly use the name Elohim when speaking of God. This name is translated simply as God. Some stories reflect an interest in things related to the priests and their role. See, for example, Genesis 2:1—3 and 7:1—5. These stories come from a priestly source. A final source is tied to the book of Deuteronomy and its theology.

The Pentateuch—along with the other parts of Hebrew Scripture—was compiled during the time of the Exile. This collecting and compiling of their national story was a way the Hebrew people sought to reclaim their identity after the historical basis of their identity—their nation and king, their capital city of Jerusalem, and their Temple—had been destroyed by the armies of Babylon in 586 B.C.E.

THE STORY OF

CREATION

Genesis 1:1—2:3

Genesis 1:1—2:3 (NRSV) ⁴

I n the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, ² the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

³Then God said, Let there be light; and there was light. ⁴And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

⁶And God said, Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters. ⁷So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. ⁸God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

⁹And God said, Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear. And it was so. ¹⁰God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. ¹¹Then God said, Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it. And it was so. ¹²The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. ¹³And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

¹⁴And God said, Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, ¹⁵and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth. And it was so. ¹⁶God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. ¹⁷God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, ¹⁸to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

²⁰And God said, Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky. ²¹So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. ²²God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. ²³And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

²⁴And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind. And it was so. ²⁵God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

²⁶Then God said, Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. ²⁷So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. ²⁸God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.

²⁹God said, See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. ³⁰And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. And it was so.

³¹God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. ²And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. ³So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

CHAPTER 2

THE CREATION STORY

D id God create the world in seven days?

We will not pursue this common question so that it does not divert us from our objective: identifying the spiritual understanding the creation story communicates. Instead, we will pursue a different question: what truth did the biblical writer want to communicate in describing the creation of the world?

Our quest begins by looking at what the creation story actually says.

When God Spoke Creation into Being

The creation story is a beautifully crafted, intricately designed narrative. It is poetic in nature.⁵ Hebrew parallelism—an essential characteristic of Hebrew poetry—lies at the core of its structure.⁶

The story divides naturally into 3 sections:

• 1:1—2, an introductory description of the earth as God began creating.

• 1:3—31, the six days of creation in which God spoke the world into being.

• 2:1—3, the concluding seventh day in which God rested.

1:1—2, introductory description of the earth as God began creating

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). God’s shaping the earth was a part of God’s larger work of creating the universe. The phrase the heavens and the earth (verse 1) is the Hebrew way of speaking of the universe—all that is.

Two phrases describe the condition of the earth before God began working with it. At this stage, the earth was like the lump of clay a potter throws on the potter’s wheel before beginning to fashion the clay into the shape he has in mind.

The earth was described as a formless void, 1:1. This first phrase translates two Hebrew adjectives: formless and void. Formless communicates the idea of being without shape, structure, or form. The Hebrew adjective