Over all of the many years I’ve been keeping this blog, my various projects and series have consistently brought me back to the opening chapters of Genesis. Do we need to reassess our relationship with creation? Turn to Genesis. Do we need to question common understandings of sin? Turn to Genesis. Are we exploring what it means to be human? Turn to Genesis. Are we wondering what our Scriptures really have to say about gender and sex? Turn to Genesis. Indeed, for Christians, there have been few chapters more important for our basic understanding of the world and ourselves than the opening chapters of Genesis.

But this significance is not necessarily obvious. These texts are far less important in Judaism, for example, which of course shares them and has a longer history of reflecting on them. And different Christian traditions have had different ways of understanding them. So, we have to ask ourselves why and how these texts have come to have the outsized influence on Christianity they’ve had, and how they’ve been interpreted, misinterpreted, and reinterpreted over the centuries. It’s hard for us as readers today to come to them ‘clean’, to not just see in them what we expect to see. And that makes them ripe for a more intentional study.

In the Summer of 2024 I applied my Integral hermeneutic method to Genesis 1-11, which covers biblical primordial prehistory, from creation until just before the call of Abram.

In the Beginning: An Integral Study of Genesis 1-11 – Series Introduction

God among the Gods: Genesis 1.1-2.3

Creation, Take 2: Genesis 2.4-3.24

Excursus on the Fall and Original Sin

The Houses of Adam, Cain, and Seth

Blurred Lines: Genesis 6.1-4

Creation Undone: Genesis 6.5-8.19, Part 1

The God of the Flood: Genesis 6.5-8.19, Part 2

A New Beginning: Genesis 8.20-9.17

Things Fall Apart … Again: Genesis 9.18-10.32

A Tower in the Sky: Genesis 11.1-9

Of Beginnings and Endings: Genesis 11.10-32 and concluding thoughts on Genesis 1-11