Genesis: Shaping Christian Worldviews

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 It is more than just a historical document about the origins of life itself; it is a book that establishes the foundation of the Christian faith, and it affects the worldviews that are held by the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.
Natural World In the beginning, God created a perfect world without sin, pain, or agony. God created this world so some of His creation would have a home and a place to serve him. However, this model of a flawless utopia became corrupted very quickly. God’s prized creation, humans, disobeyed the only command that their Father had set in place: not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam and

Then, God realized Adam was needing a partner to help accomplish the tasks he had assigned him; thus, God created Eve from one of the ribs of Adam. In the perfect setting of the Garden of Eden, there was a partnership between man and woman in which they worked side by side, but once sin entered the world, the partnership has been distorted. Part of the punishment for Eve after the fall was that women’s “desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (Genesis 3:16) meaning that there will now be struggles within the partnership of man and woman, and the man will rule over the woman. Yet, there are still key characteristics that prevail in the way humans are to interact with each other. In a biblical worldview, marriage should be held between one man and one woman as seen in Genesis 3:24 when it states “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they’ve become one