Genesis Chapters 5-9 “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the lord said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created-people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ But Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord.”(Genesis 6:5-8) In this essay I will take an interpretive look at Genesis chapters 5-9. The main focuses will be: the relationship between God, Noah, and Noah’s generation of mankind; the barriers and boundaries for humankind that were present and created by God in these chapters, the characteristics of God throughout the text and the overall importance and message of this passage in the Bible. In the days of old -when life could reach more than nine hundred years- “sons of god”(6:2), angels and warriors ruled the earth. One walked the righteous path in the land of the wicked; one saw the grace of the Lord. In these chapters of Genesis, God is seen as an active participant in the story. Through His words and interactions, we can see that His character and relationship towards man is ever-changing and evolving. God is a ruler with expectations. What He had sought out to create in mankind was not being represented, all He saw was evil all the time.(6:5) In Genesis 6:6 we see a God that feels pain from a broken heart. From the grief he has sustained, he demands judgment and justice. His decision and reaction is to destroy all that He has created.(6:7) The Lord’s character here is repentant, judgmental and a potential destroyer. In His grief He finds “favor” for one man: Noah.(6:8) Though it was only one man in an entire generation, we see the grace of God present here. Because of Noah, God finds himself modifying his plans, “the planned destruction becomes a reconstruction” of this earth.(Harper Collins, Study Bible, Notes pp.13) In Genesis chapter 6, we begin to see a God that is forewarning. The lessening of life, to that of one hundred and twenty years, is a disciplinary measure taken due to His displeasure with humankind. This punishment was a warning in and of itself. In Genesis 6:13, God gives a direct warning to Noah ab... ... middle of paper ... ...his creating of the flood. If not for Noah there would have been no human community left at all. Though some may disagree with me, I believe the decreasing of the human life span to be the biggest boundary God has ever put on mankind. Besides the spirit of God, what is more than life itself in this existence of being? Most everyone knows something about the story of Noah and the great flood. It is one of the most illustrated and common stories from the Bible. The knowledge that God was angry, Noah built an ark to carry animals and then there was a flood that killed everything. Though this is the basic picture of the story, it does not capture alone the main point of the story. God’s saving grace is the message. Believe and follow in the path of the Lord and salvation will be yours. All of God’s characteristics and boundaries he conveyed spawn off of the following of this or the ignoring of His omnipotent power and being. Just like in much of the text in the Bible, you have to read between the lines to find the meaning; the same is true for Genesis 5-9. Works Cited Meeks, Wayne A., ed. The Harper Collins Study Bible. New York: Harper Collins Publishers Inc., 1993.
On our planet, phenomena’s occur occasionally in nature. Tornadoes, earthquakes, and flashfloods are all types of phenomena’s that could occur. Most of these mysterious events are small and go unnoticed; however, on a rare occasion these sorts of event can be horrendous. One such occasion occurred back around 4,000 BC (Werner Keller, 48). As the story goes, God’s population was growing rapidly on earth. At this point, he had been growing bored with the same people on earth so he made sure no man would live past the age of 120. Given this time, the people of earth started to take advantage of the human race; these acts of selfishness disgusted God. He decided to destroy everything on earth. A man by the name of Noah had lived his life by God’s nature, which eventually led to a close relationship between the two. God had told Noah to build a boat with exact measurements. God had instructed Noah to put two of every kind of animal into the boat; one had to be male and the other female. Then God told Noah to get into the boat with his family, their families, and the animals. Then for forty days and forty nights the clouds seemed to have poured endless amounts of water onto the earth (Genesis 6:1-9). Floods rushed through the landscape, destroying everything in its path. The waters were higher than the tallest mountains, standing above the highest peaks. All living things on earth had died. The water covered the earth at this level for five months (Paul S. Taylor, 1). In time the water began to dry up. Eventually Noah was able to leave the ship and release all he had brought with him. From this point, evolution occurs.
A fugitive and a vagabond, you shall be on the earth” (Gen 4:11-12). Conclusion The first eleven chapters of Genesis teach us several things about the natural world, human identity, human relationships, and civilization. The Bible’s significance and teachings are pretty straightforward, beginning with Genesis and all of the chapters that follow. We can use Genesis to find solid ground in a stance on tough world issues such as the death penalty, abortion, and assisted suicide, to name a few.
...s why God’s son died on the cross for all. Lastly, Catastrophe in comparison with Christ relates to the global flood that was to come. The flood was a judgment due to man’s wickedness as well as a message of God’s grace and salvation. Ham then concluded how “observational sciences” look at the things we can see in repeatable events now and compares it to “historical science” which uses evidence gathered to determine what happened in the past. Due his comparison he states “we can never truly have “knowledge” regarding the historical sciences.” In summation, the debate aided me in creating a more sophisticated analysis on Genesis. It led me to take away my own interpretation of the text in Genesis 1-3, through listening to Ken Ham, and his young-earth view.
To discuss the similarities and differences between the Old Testament (sometimes called the Hebrew Bible) and The Epic of Gilgamesh, it is important to first understand the separate stories as they are written in their respective texts. For the purposes of discussion here, the King James Version of the Bible has been used. However, the text and translation is relatively similar across all the major translations of the Bible. When discussing the Flood, God says to Noah: “And God said to Noah, ‘The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch...And behold, I Myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is...
“And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy the earth. Make yourself an ark…” (Genesis 6:13-14, English Standard Version) “For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die.” (Genesis 6:17, ESV) “And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female.” (Genesis 6:19, ESV) “Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.” (Genesis 6:22, ESV) “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the second month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” (Genesis 7:11-12, ESV) Everyone has heard the story of Noah’s ark and the great Flood. But is that all it is? Just a story? If a catastrophe of this scale really happened, it would have left plenty of evidence behind. And it did. The fossil record shows evidence of a small period of time in which all the major groups of life (phyla) appear without ancestors. (Wieland, n.d.) This alleged explosion of evolution is called the Cambrian explosion. However, Christians believe the Cambrian explosion is actually the Flood, in which all life on earth is rapidly buried by sediments picked up from the flood waters. Another piece of evidence for the Flood is the perfectly preserved mammoths. The mammoths show signs of being instantly buried and frozen, many while standing up. (Brown, 1995-2013) Evidence for this is fou...
In the beginning, the Fall of Man began when Adam and Eve heeded not the Word of God but that of the serpent, and ate fruit from the forbidden tree. Due to their actions they were cast out of the garden of Eden into a sinful world ashamed and having to provide for themselves (KJV, Genesis 3). These actions have left believers and non believers pondering God’s actions towards man kind.
In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, God can be seen as having a sort of bi-polar attitude. In the beginning chapters God is shown as a caring person when he is creating the earth and when he talks about how he wants Adam and Eve to succeed and do well and how he gives Adam a companion, Eve because he feels Adam will be lonely. As the book unfolds God becomes very angry with how his world is turning out. Sin has been introduced and humans seem to be falling away from the righteous. This upsets God and he creates an idea that he will flood the world so that only Noah and the people and animals inside the ark will live. His intentions seem horrible, trying to kill humans because they have sinned, but in reality he is trying to free the world of sin so that the remaining humans will live wonderful lives free of pain and despair. The flood can be seen as both a positive and negative thing. To non-believers they may find fault in the idea that God felt that he had to punish the world as a result of how sinful the people of earth had become. To help promote their ideas they could use statements from the Bible such as this one when God's feelings are stated about how he seems to be dissatisfied with the people of earth, "The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain" (Genesis 6:6). It can also be revealed when God states, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth" (Genesis 6:13).
...o I have created…’” (Gen. Ch 6, line 12) God tells this to Noah, explaining that he will end the lives of all in order to cleanse the land. The Hebrew belief that their god had the power to end all forced the people to be fearful and respect their covenant with the lord.
The word “genesis”, in the original Hebrew, means “in the beginning”; the book of Genesis tells the account of how all of earth, humanity, celestial bodies, and life came to be. It is more than just a historical document about the origins of life itself; it is a book that establishes the foundation of the Christian faith, and it affects the worldviews that are held by the believers in faith. When analyzing Genesis, it is arguable that chapters one through eleven are very crucial in shaping the way Christians view the natural world, human identity, human relationships, and civilization.
The flood story that is told in The Epic of Gilgamesh has the same principle as the story of Noah told in the book of Genesis in the Bible, but there are some major differences. In the epic, Utnapishtim is immortal and, although Noah was extremely old when he died, he wasn’t immortal. Utnapishtim was a human, but because he saved mankind, Enlil said, “Hitherto Utnapishtim has been a human, now Utnapishtim and his wife shall become like us gods.” (Gilgamesh 11.206-207) In the Biblical story, God told Noah that he was going to send a flood and asked him specifically to make the ark in order to save mankind. In Genesis 6:13-22, God tells Noah why he’s flooding the earth and exact instructions to build the ark. “13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress[a] wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.[b] 16 Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit[c] high all arou...
The ancient reading, “The Epic of Creation/Enuma Elish” and the beginning of the Holy Bible Old Testament, Genesis are two distinct passages that share many different qualities. Ranging from how the universe was ever created, to the origin of power and rule over others, both stories reveal persistence, strength, and honor. Genesis 1:1-2:4, Genesis 2:4-3:34 from the Holy Bible, and “The Epic of Creation”, have similar beginnings that determine the endings of both stories.
There are more than two different levels of biblical interpretation; however in this paper I am going to be focus in two of them which are historical-literal and theological-spiritual. In Genesis 3: 1-7, "The Fall of Man" shows something happen that forever changes our world. Before the beginning of chapter 3, the end of chapter 2 explains the relationship between the Lord, Adam, and his wife Eve. In contrast, in Genesis 3, there was a sin that changed the world we live in recently. Religious scholars and theologians have debated over whether it is the devil or a choice to guilt that led all humans to be sinful on
When you read chapter one of Genesis you have the feeling that God is perfect. God holds all power and control. God turns chaos into order. "God said 'Let there be light.' And there was light, And God saw the light, that it was good" (Gen 1. 3). God's word is action, God's word is law in the universe. When God creates something, he ends it with God seeing that's its good. This is in effect giving support to the perfect nature that is God and the creations God has made. "God does not play dice" (Armstrong 9), God has order and a purpose for what he makes. An important aspect to God is seen while he is creating the world. He separates water from land. Light from Darkens, Day and Night, Male and Female. This shows that boundaries are important to God. We see examples where God put boundaries on mankind with their language by mixing the language up so confuse man and killing off the evil from the good.
In Genesis 6:8 God says “But Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord.” The word “favor” is translated in Greek to “Charis”, which is then translated to the word “grace”. This verse once again shows the grace of God. He could have easily just killed every single man but instead he shows his grace and mercy to save Noah and his family because Noah listened to God. ...
In the Holy Bible, the book of Genesis starts by saying “In the beginning…God created the heavens and the earth…” (The New American Bible, Gen. 1.1). These powerful words layout the base to the entire Bible which tells readers to accept God as the powerful creator, our heavenly father, and remind us the fact that we exist because of God. In fact, the book of Genesis is the most important book in the Bible because it simply tells the story of God’s creation of the universe and how God created man and woman. Moreover, God teaches life lessons throughout in the book of Genesis by explaining different concepts of obeying, punishing, and forgiving others as well as the consequences that can come about if one goes against God’s will. As I read the