spirituality

In the last post we saw how after the flood, God reaffirms humanity’s creation in the image of God, renews humanity’s original blessing, and establishes a covenant with all living things. But the beauty and hopefulness of that narrative is tinged with a hint of warning, for God does all this despite the fact that … Continue reading Things Fall Apart … Again: Genesis 9.18-10.32

The two most recent posts in this series exploring the first eleven chapters of Genesis looked at the flood story, There we saw that Genesis played with familiar stories and symbols to say something about God, namely that God is in control, deliberate, and always leavens punishment with grace. Today we’ll see that in the … Continue reading A New Beginning: Genesis 8.20-9.17

Last time, we looked at how the flood story in Genesis connects with the broader cultural traditions of the Ancient Near East (ANE). We saw that once again, Genesis creatively reshapes older stories for its unique theological purpose. The result is that it portrays God as all-powerful and intentional in the decision to ‘undo’ creation … Continue reading The God of the Flood: Genesis 6.5-8.19, Part 2

So far, this series has been going through Genesis at a slow pace. But today, with the story of Noah and the Ark, we can speed up considerably, and take up the bulk of three chapters in just two posts. This is because this story is very well-known already, because its narrative is pretty straightforward, … Continue reading Creation Undone: Genesis 6.5-8.19, Part 1

As we saw last time, Genesis 5 is connective material that brings us from the stories of Adam and Eve and their children to Noah and the flood. But, chapter 6 does not pick up where this story left us. Instead, it begins with a four-verse story that biblical scholars have called “surely the strangest” … Continue reading Blurred Lines: Genesis 6.1-4