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- Author: Moses.
- Date written: 1450-1410 B.C.
- Where written: During Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness, now known as the Middle East.
Way back in eternity, before the earth, sun moon and stars existed, God was there, somewhere, everywhere. Then the idea came to Him to create a physical, material universe for Himself, a universe which He could enjoy and upon which He could shower His love.
He then created a heavenly body, called it earth and on it He created plants, fish, birds, animals and two human beings. He looked at it and saw that all of it was very good.
Then, unfortunately, the two human beings, were disobedient to their Creator, causing sin to enter into His perfect world. This caused everything to get corrupted and to slowly die away. The human beings disregarded God and did harmful things to one another, the animals killed one another, the plants bore bad fruit, even thorns and thistles.
God did not destroy His creation when it turned bad, but immediately started putting into action a plan whereby it could eventually be totally salvaged and restored to Him. That plan is still in the process of being carried out.
Later on, God gave us as human beings the Book of Genesis in writing to inform us of all these things that happened in the past and are still happening. As time went by, He added many other Books to it, containing much more teaching.
Since humans are intelligent beings, very much like Himself, He wants us to have a good understanding of all of these matters in order that we may submit our lives to Him and then be used by Him to take part in restoring His creation to its former glory.
The Book of Genesis is God’s first Book to us and contains information on the following:
- Creation of the universe; telling us where everything, including ourselves, come from.
- Man’s fall into sin and God’s covering of their sin.
- Man’s first children: Cain, Abel and Set.
- The genealogies of Cain and of Seth.
- Noah, the ark and the Flood.
- The tower of Babel and dispersal of mankind.
- Abraham, who trusted and obeyed God and from whom God raised up a holy nation for Himself.
- Isaac, son of Abraham who was willing to lay down His life to please God.
- Jacob, son of Isaac, through whom God raised up twelve sons to be the fathers of the twelve tribes of God’s holy nation, called Israel.
- Joseph, son of Jacob whom God used as a saviour for His nation and for mankind.
Genesis means “Beginning” or “Origin” and the revelation contained in this Book is the foundation supporting the revelations contained in all the other books of the Bible. Once we understand Genesis thoroughly, the other books of the Bible open up to us. It is therefore very important that we study it deeply.
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