In the Beginning

Scripture: Genesis 1:1, 26–27 Introduction

While most know some Bible stories. Most people don’t know...The story of the Bible. Understanding how we got the Bible is almost as important as knowing what’s in it. The backstory sheds light on the story - the story of God. Part of the challenge is...

The way we got our Bibles is not the way we got the Bible.

Childhood Bible

We got it all chaptered, versed, mapped, and packaged. We sometimes grow to think that this was the way we got it.

Last week we talked about starting in the middle - The story of the Bible begins when Jesus’ tomb was found empty. After he was seen alive, the church launched. The events surrounding Jesus’ life were then documented.

We’re talking in this series about how the Bible came to us.

Prayer

Jesus didn’t write it. Jesus is the reason we have it.

The fact that the four gospels do not come from Jesus himself is a very important thought to consider. According to biblical scholars, had Jesus written something, it would probably look less like our Gospels and more like the Old Testament Prophetic Books, such as Amos - a collection of spoken oracles and sayings, plus a few personal narratives.

Documents documenting the life of Jesus Matthew, Mark, Luke, John Valuable – Reliable – Sacred – Inspired

How did we get four gospels? Why? After all we don’t have four accounts of Acts of the Apostles. It is important to note that the three first gospels are very similar and we call them Synoptic Gospels (meaning “common-view”) Why we have four gospels is genius and let me explain why:

These four gospels tell us virtually everything we know about Jesus, nonetheless are not biographies - although they are partly biographical. The gospels were not recorded to reveal the greatness of men - although they record the greatest man of all time. To use a line from an early church father, Justin Martyr, the four gospels are “memoirs of the apostles.”

These four gospels record the…

facts about Jesus,

recall the teachings of Jesus,

and bear witness to Jesus.

This is why the recording of the four gospels was so genius. Addressing different people groups, having unique perspectives on the life events of Jesus, and and each giving a documented account of the life of Christ.

These four documents were eventually embraced as...Scripture

Still, there was not a Bible. Paul and others left Judea and took the message of Jesus to the gentiles. The biggest transition for gentiles embracing Christianity was coming to grips with the notion that there was only one God.

One God - crazy thought!

This was unimaginable. Ancients didn’t convert from one religion to join another. They just added new gods to the altar.

In the first and second centuries, Christians were considered atheists. They didn’t believe in the gods. They added a new one who claimed to be the only one.

One God: this was novel and completely new for the Gentiles. When gentiles became enamored with a particular Jew, they became enamored with the sacred texts of the Jews. The Law and The Prophets

These writings, the Hebrew scriptures, were the backstory of their new faith. To their amazement, they discovered that the Jews, whose religion was older than the religion of the Greeks or Romans, had always believed in one God, Yahweh. The first line of the first section, or book, of the Torah would cause the ancient world to rethink everything. Genesis 1:1

Genesis 1:1 (NIV)

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

In the beginning God... How could this be? In the beginning were the gods. One God?

In the Gospel of John - John connects to Genesis 1. The patterns of the Old Testament are continued and fulfilled: John 1 is symmetrical to Genesis 1 and culminates in the Lord’s baptism which marks the beginning of the New Creation.

John 1:1-5 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

John’s account of Jesus in chapter 1 is earth shattering. John was address both Jews and Gentiles in the Greco-Roman world and this was paramount. It connected the Hebrew scriptures to the Messiah and it capitalized that Jesus is God and that He was in the beginning.

Genesis Worldview

Genesis: Greek for “Origin” Moses was the author of the first five books of the Bible. In the 19th and 20th centuries, archaeological discoveries created doubt regarding the origins of the Genesis creation account. Egyptian, Babylonian, and Canaanite creation texts were discovered that were very similar to the account found in Genesis - these tablets are referred to Enuma Elish. The initial assumption was...The Hebrews borrowed from other ancient creation stories. That view has been abandoned. Not only does Genesis not borrow from other creation myths...

Big Bang Theory

Genesis stands in startling contrast to other ancient creation stories. Genesis is a worldview unto itself. It’s an extraordinary, ahead-of-its-time worldview. The modern scientific community didn’t begin to catch up until 1927 when a Belgian priest first suggested the theory called...The Big Bang Theory It said the universe had a beginning. Since the time of Aristotle, the assumption was the universe always existed. [With the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964, the view that the universe always existed was abandoned. Scientists pretty much agree that in...] A trillion-trillionth of a second...the universe expanded with incomprehensible speed from its pebble-size origin to astronomical scope. In the words of Genesis...

Genesis 1:1 (NIV)

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The book of Genesis opens with that statement, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". Genesis 1:1-2:3 records in poetic form God's creation of the world and living creatures. Creation comes into existence as God speaks, and it comes to pass. God's word is both powerful and effective, for at his word the creation comes into being.

In the beginning...

Everything that has a beginning has a cause. The debate today is whether it was a personal, purposeful, and intentional cause. The significance of what comes next is lost on us because Moses’ point is assumed by it’s readers…but many miss the point.

The LORD God is Creator-he alone is God

When Gen. 1 and 2 are read together, they reveal that the all-powerful God who creates the world and living creatures and whose Spirit hovers over the creation is the LORD God (Gen. 2:4). Since Yahweh Elohim (translated in our English Bible as LORD God) is the name of Israel's God, the opening chapters of Genesis establish that the God who brings the creation into being is none other than Israel's God, Yahweh.

Why is this so important? As we journey our way through understanding how the Bible came to us, we need to bear in mind that the ancient world was a very "religious" place—it was religious in that people believed in many gods (known as poly-theism). People worshiped all types of gods, including celestial bodies within the creation, such as the sun, moon, and stars, as well as objects made by humans, such as idols made of gold and silver, wood and stone. Underlying the worship of these gods was the belief that appeasing them (usually accomplished through sacrifices), would enable humans to have a measure of control over life, protecting them from things such as sickness and suffering, famine and war. People of the ancient world put their trust in these so-called gods, including man-made statues, in order to have control and security in an unpredictable world. This reminds us that in the ancient world there were no atheists, just polytheists. Even Abraham comes from a family of idol worshipers.

Read against this background, the creation story is not setting out to prove to an atheist world that God exists (for everyone already believes in gods), but is establishing in a polytheistic world that there is only one God, the Creator God. Israel's God, Yahweh Elohim, is the only true and living God. The sun, moon, and stars have been created by him, but they are not gods, nor are they to be worshiped. All creation has its origin in the LORD God, and all praise and honor is due to him alone.

In Genesis, Moses is not trying to explain how God created the heavens and the earth. Moses is making the case that God created the heavens and the Earth, not the gods. Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created...

It was not created by Egypt’s Amon-re or Babylonia’s Marduk, who rode into an epic battle of the gods on his steeds, Slaughterer and Merciless. According to Babylonian myth, Marduk defeated the goddess Ti’-a-mat by shooting an arrow through her mouth. Afterward, he split her body in half. He created the heavens with the upper half of her body and created the Earth with the lower half. Sunday School must have been so interesting for Babylonian children. anyways…the heavens and the earth.

Genesis is nothing like the Egyptian, Babylonian, or Canaanite creation myths where the gods create themselves from body parts and fluids.

This brings us to the next epic, ahead-of-its-time notion. The Babylonian creation story...

Enuma Elish: When on high It states that the human race is created to serve lazy gods. After becoming chief among the gods, Marduk says: “I will establish a savage, man shall be his name. Savage man I will create. He shall be charged with the service of the gods. That they might be at ease.” —Marduk, Enuma Elish The human race was an afterthought to lighten the load of the gods. Consequently, individuals had no rights, hope, or intrinsic value. The violence and injustices of the gods justified the violence and injustice of human rulers. They were acting like their fathers in the heavens.

In stark contrast to this and without parallel is a concept in Genesis the human race continues to wrestle with today.

Image Bearers:

Genesis 1:26–27 (NIV) 26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image... [In the Jewish texts, mankind is the pinnacle of creation. Dignity is established in the beginning. This was unheard of. There was no parallel anywhere. What came next was equally unimaginable.] 26 in our likeness, so that they may rule over... [Not worship or deify, but rule over...] 26 the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals... 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. [Only recently has civilization caught up with the extraordinary value ascribed to men and women in the beginning. We get distracted by the timing and sequencing of the creation account and miss the magnificence of these early statements. Moses dropped a bomb in antiquity that reverberates into our present day.

Moses introduced a radically different, unparalleled, and untested worldview. This would be the foundation of the Golden Rule. It’s a rule not reflected in nature or even in human nature. According to the Enuma Elish...

Enuma Elish says in my paraphrased version, You were born a slave to serve the gods. There was no redeemer or afterlife.

The New Atheists - You were born a slave to your DNA with no free will, redeemer, or afterlife.

Both male and female are made in God's image and are to represent him on the earth. Human beings are appointed by God to rule over his creation.

In order to appreciate the role given to humanity in Gen. 1:26-27, it is important to understand how the term "image" is used in the ancient world.

One of the ways the word image is used is in reference to a king, who is said to be the image of a particular god. When God makes human beings in his image, it is therefore not surprising to read that humans are to rule over the cosmos, since this is a royal task befitting those who are made in the image of God. As human beings fill the earth, the Creator God thereby fills the world with his image-bearers so that they might proclaim: "The earth is the LORD's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein" (Ps. 24:10). Humanity is ultimately created to know God and to reflect his glory to the uttermost limits of the world:

Habakkuk 2:14 (NIV)

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea.

In the ancient world, idols were also identified as "images." An image (cult statue), made of material such as wood, stone, gold, and silver, was not only thought to represent a particular god, but it was understood to become the god through special rites of consecration and vivification. Once an idol or

"image" was crafted, it was "brought to life," so to speak, through an elaborate ritual. But the Bible is clear that these man-made images have no breath in them (Ps. 135:17; Jer. 10:14; 51:17; Hab. 2:19). They are not living images or gods, but merely wood and stone. When God creates his image, however, he “forms" the man (using image-making language, see Isa. 44:9, 10, 12; Hab. 2:18) and breathes into him the breath of life so that Adam actually becomes a living image. In contrast to man-made images, Adam has eyes that see, ears that hear, and a mouth that speaks. He is a living image because he is made in the image of the living God. The Creator God, who alone gives life and breath to all, creates living images made to represent him and reflect his glory in the world.

Recap Genesis 1:1 In the beginning...

We are introduced to God who saves, redeems, delivers, and never gives up on us. God gave us freedom to choose, and he honors our choices. Then, he does the most... Un-selfish...thing imaginable. He went to work to reverse the consequence of mankind’s decision to choose against him. Genesis 1 provides us with the meta-narrative, the big story, and the ultimate context for human experience.]

A monotheistic worldview: It’s a worldview that answers the most important questions of life—the “why” questions.

Why is there is something rather than nothing? Why are you here and why does it matter?

You’re here on purpose with purpose. You are not the result of a cosmic conflict between the gods. You were not created by the universe. God wanted image-bearers who could know one another and him. When the time was right...

He joined us!

Conclusion I’m getting ahead of myself, so let’s go back to the first-century gentiles. In the opening line of the Hebrew Bible, they realized that... The Jews had it right all along. This only fueled their interest in the Law and the Prophets and moved them to quickly accept and adopt the Jewish text as their own sacred Scripture. Thus, the stage was set for the inclusion of the Hebrew Bible in our Christian Bible. That inclusion was not without its difficulties. Please don’t miss episode three of...

Graphic: How the Bible Came to Us

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