Warm up

People want to know how the world began because........(discuss with a partner)

Genesis

The story of Creation is a literary catalog distinguished by classification and division and by incremental repetition.

In the first stage or day of Creation, the narrator recounts that God created light, divided it from darkness, and classified the light as day and the darkness as night.

The narrator follows the same pattern in describing subsequent days of Creation. Accordingly, God separates the earth from the sea, then creates the respective creatures dwelling on land and in the water.

Answer the following questions with a partner

What distinguishes humans from other created things?

What is the relationship of human beings to nature? Why do you think people anthropomorphize the

divine? Refer to the cultural connections box on pg 32

• How do each of the three wedding formulas echo the Genesis account?

Three Major Themes:Man can be easily

tempted toward Sin.

Man must know his place before God and show appropriate deference for authority.

Disobedience is punished!

THE HERO, TEMPTRESS,THE OUTCAST

THE CARETAKER

Paradise

• Serpent

• The Fruit (Apple?)

The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden is etiological helping to explain how sin and temptation came into the world.

This is also a charter story that helps to explain marriage.

Finally, the story is instructional in that it teaches human beings subservience to God.

Evaluation• Work with a partner to analyze the structure of Genesis chapter 1

• Create a chart of the events (include textual evidence) within Genesis

• Look for parallel structure.

Days of Forming Days of Filling

Evaluation• Days of Forming Days of Filling

1) Night/Day 1) Astronomical bodies

* “Let there be light”(1:3) * “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky”

2) Air/Ocean (1:14)

* “Let there be a vault between the 2) Birds /Fish waters to separate water from water” * “Let the water team with living creatures

(1:6). and let the birds fly above” (1:20)

3) Land 3) Land animals/Humans

* “Let water under the sky be gathered to * “Let the land produce living creatures…

one place, and let dry ground appear” Let us make human beings” (1:24-1:26)

(1:9)

4) Plants 4) Gift of plants

* “Let the land produce vegetation” * “ I give you every seed-bearing plant

(1:11) on the face of the whole earth” (1:29).