Genesis: Reading Notes

  1. Gen 1-3: Creation
    1. first creation--a poem; a hymn
      1. what's God like; what's the discourse like?
        1. poetry design order serentity; number
        2. what's human about creation
        3. what's principle and menchanism of creation/
        4. what's design of creation?
      2. Celebration; good; fertility and beatuy and diversity; descriptive
      3. Generosity--giving everything away; no tensions; humans rule
      4. holiness as rest and reflection and enjoyment vs. work; festivity and holiness
    2. second creation--a story, a tragedy; with complexity, intrigue, personality; conflict of values; emotive
      1. family drama
      2. sexuality and generational conflict
      3. start with desert and water and then make man; and plant garden for him
      4. specific locations of rivers and Garden--Eden
      5. two trees--knowledge of good and evil; life--choice; complexity; one side or the other
        1. knowledge of good and evil is plunge into reality vs. utopian harmony
        2. prohibition and threat; death and life"
        3. not good for man to be alone; trial and error; good and not good
        4. man names all animals
        5. takes something from man to create his partner; missing; zero sum
        6. taken from parents; choice of parents vs. spouse; relation to good and evil?
        7. naked; one flesh; no shame--sexual utopia; two as one
      6. serpent--crafty, phallic
        1. sexuality and intellect and rebellion; questioning, clever
        2. serpent offers knowledge and power and insubordination; she takes it first, then joins Adam
        3. saw that tree was good--what's good and not good; good and evil
        4. knowledge includes the ambiguity of things; good and not good; questioning what you're told
      7. shame--Adam's fall; dialogue with God; equivocation and hiding; misplacing of blame
        1. violence enters: enmity between serpent and man
        2. sexual frustration and inequality
        3. male sweat, labor and death
      8. God's self protection from threat; banishment from Eden
  2. Gen 4-11: Prehistory
    1. Cain and Abel
      1. pain of birth but fertility
      2. god sets them up; temptation and unfairness; response to unfairness; deprivation of love of father;
      3. relation of brothers vs. relation of children and parents
      4. murder, crime; tragic descent
        1. repetition; Cain's evasion
      5. natural selection
        1. interrogation, punishment, partial reprieve
      6. Lamech is worse
    2. Noah and ark
      1. sons of gods and men; gods respnse to tone man down
        1. god's regret; anger; frustration
      2. Noah the exception
        1. good man and center of super story of deliverance--everyone else gets it; the chosen; the elect
        2. Apocalypse; the plagues
        3. disaster and deliverance
      3. why detail on the ark--ritual building; fastidiousness; priestly functions; avoid profanation and taboo; neurotic ritual
      4. rescue is best story=deliverance=salvation
      5. recreation story--it's so good lets do it again with human spectator
      6. power of god--destructive and creative--power is destructive power--expereince of terror from inside the ark; waters rising and falling; the cosiness of just us
      7. after violence reconciliation: the dove, the olive branch, the rainbow--unity between man and god; a remeinder in case he goes crazy again
    3. Noah and sacrifice
    4. Noah and wine and nakedness
      1. sons and father; seeing nakedness and vulnerability--the magic power and respect over father--cf. Lot and his daughters; insult the other tribes--Hamites
      2. preference of one brother over the other
    5. Babel: story of proliferation and strength of humanity followed by natural disaster and population decline and then coalescence and empire and single culture and rise and fall of empire; and dispersal and conflict; a model for history.
  3. Story of Abraham
  4. Story of Jacob
    1. ch. 25
      1. on brothers vs. parents and children
        1. God and adam and eve; God and other children;
        2. Noah and his sons
        3. Abraham and his son--what God does to Abrahm, abe does to Isaac: dont mess with daddy
      2. two nations in womb; two peoples going their own ways from birth; older servant to younger; prophecy of norm reversal
      3. twins; hairy vs. grasping; hunter vs. settled; father prefers Esau; mother prefers Jacob
      4. Jacob sells E. broth for birthright--Esau valued it little; gave in to hunger
      5. Isaac does the same sister trick as Abraham--be careful about messing with Jewish women; cf. Pharaoh, later story of rape of Dinah
      6. Isaac prospers; philistines are jealous; Isaac finds water
      7. Esau marries a Hittite woman to his parents dismay
    2. ch. 27-29
      1. Isaac old and blind--food and temptation
      2. Jacob's another rebel; wrestles with God
      3. Rebekah listens sneakily; plots to Jacob's advantage; preferential treatment of sons over food; bringing food--Cain and Abel
      4. Rebekah dresses up Jacob in goatskin--like Cyclops
      5. Isaac's blessing on Jacob
      6. Esau=Edom--Palestine and Israel; Easu bore a grudge
      7. Rebekah gets Jacob to sneak away; pay his dues; Esau links with Ishmael
    3. Ch. 30-33: Jacob's rite of passage
      1. Vision of the ladder; God's blessing--repeating Abraham's
      2. meeting with Rachel at the well--his muscle; her beauty
      3. jacob works seven years for Laban for Rachel; is tricked--seems like a few days--the bed trick; Jacob paying his dues
      4. love and fertility; rivalry of Lea and Rachel; like Sarah and Hagar'' slave girl Bilhah of Rachel to get one up on Leah; sisters playing tricks on each other
      5. mandrakes and conception; first and second wives--Joseph is Rachel's first son
      6. Jacob breeds his own flocks and chooses the more vigorous; a breeder--this is genesis story
      7. Jacob convinces his wives to split with him and go back; like Ruth; and Moses; taking treasure along (31)
      8. Deceptive departure; God warns Laban--stealing gods; story of Abraham leaving the Pharaoh
      9. Rachel tricks her father--they're a great couple; uses menstruation as excuse
      10. they make a border agreement 31:52
      11. Peace embassy to Esau at 32: prayer to god for deliverance
      12. sends present in several installments up ahead
      13. Ch.32 NB wrestling at the Jabbok--much activity here: name change; prevailing
      14. Esau comes; reconciliation; but invitation not accepted. 33:20

V. The Joseph Story: Genesis 37-50

A. Location in Genesis--

1. longest narrative;

2. most secular and novelistic in style; similar to David narrative in Samuel and Kings; one argument for its being written then;

3. most sophisticated style; takes place in Egypt, a sophisticated society, rather than among shepherds and tribesmen;

4. moves toward a more national, less individual point of view, point of view of the later books

B. Compare plot and theme and character to Jacob narrative

1. separation and return--travel north, travel south--climactic ending; process of learning and ripening; god's plan worked out and ultimately explaining and justifying the suffering, confusion and fall

2. u shaped plots: into the pit; into the prison; down into Egypt

3. increase of prosperity after adversity

4. god's unaccountable choice and preference; younger brother; competitive family dynamics

5. use of deception on father and brother by youngest son

6. Joseph more refined and God's preference of him more intellectual--diviner of dreams rather than stud of sheep and women, but still a scrapper; bearer of the blessing which is fertility and prosperity and continuity; prophecy and wisdom rather than vision and strength--all interpretation belongs to God.

a. his intelligence; predictor of future; long term prudence; administrator, planner

b. getting control over Pharaoh, establishing network; manipulator and operator; working with God's famine and plenty; selling short and long; investor

C. Character of Joseph; impossible and admirable

D. Language of brothers

E. Crime and misgiving right away

F. ups and downs; virtue and priggishness unpopular; his persistence and prudence--with Potiphar's wife; wisdom; long term interest

G. symmetry of narrative: potiphar's wife and brothers: both jealous of his favor with the master; also shifts of setting and perspective in 39 and 42

H. godlike behavior: Pharaoh who selects those to prefer and those to punish on his birthday: Joseph who tests and tricks

I. dramatic effect; building pressure on brothers; why does he test them.

J. Jacob the cantankerous father; brothers sheepish sense of guilt

K. Accusation of spying, when Jos. is spying; their honesty; why does he test them--for his sake, for theirs, for benjamins

L. Jacob inflicts his suffering for loss of Joseph on them; Benjamin is Joseph stand-in; he sees how they dont want to take youngest brother from father; their care for father and brother

M. Including the gift; forcing their hand; generosity received with guilt

N. recognition scene; dinner party

O. playing cat and mouse; planting cup--the way they did with his coat--and making them come back; keeping bringing back memory of selling of Joseph 44:30

P. great recognition scene