
How To Read Your Bible
The Beginning
The Bible Opinions
“Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.”― Ronald Reagan
“The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.”― Søren Kierkegaard
The Bible Opinions
“Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.”― Ronald Reagan
“The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.”― Søren Kierkegaard
The Bible Opinions
The Bible is not primarily about controlling things, people or situations.
The Bible is not primarily about presenting ‘timeless truths’ or giving us answers to our most pressing theological questions, although there are timeless truths in the Bible.
The vast majority of Scripture consists not in a list of rules or doctrines, but in narrative. The Bible tells a remarkably consistent story about God’s plan to restore the world back to God.
-N.T. Wright
Humanity in Genesis 1
Anthropology
Within the framework of the six days of Genesis 1, the appointment of humanity as God’s image is clearly the climactic act of God’s work, as this moment is saved for the last. The key moment in Genesis 1:26-28 is designed as a literary symmetry.
Genesis 1
Creation as a Macro-Temple
In Genesis 1, creation is depicted as the cosmic prototype of which all later temples are symbolic miniatures. In each later biblical temple, the seventh day is when God’s presence fills the sacred space.
Genesis 1
Creation as a Macro-Temple
“The function of these correspondences is to underscore the depiction of the sanctuary as a world, that is, an ordered, supportive, and obedient environment, and the depiction of the world as a sanctuary, that is, a place in which the reign of God is visible and unchallenged, and his holiness is palpable, unthreatened, and pervasive… The temple was conceived as a microcosm, a miniature world. But it is equally the case that in Israel, the world, or I should say, the ideal world… was conceived as a macro-temple, the palace of God which is permeated with his presence and in which all is aligned with his will.”
— JON LEVENSON, CREATION AND THE PERSISTENCE OF EVIL: THE JEWISH DRAMA OF DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE, P. 86.
Genesis 1
Genesis 1:1-2:3 paints a large-scale picture…
1. God’s establishment of cosmic order,
2. So that the world becomes sacred space for his presence to dwell.
3. With his divine images who represent his rule.
Genesis 2:15: and Yahweh Elohim took the human and placed him into the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
These two verbs are packed with significance, as they portray the ideal vocation of humanity. • ‘Abad (עבד): ”to
work,” “to serve,” “to worship”.
Genesis 2:15 “To Work and to Keep”
“To serve and keep (shamar / שמר)” = a priestly service of
worship. These verbs are used together as a phrase only elsewhere in descriptions of the priests and Levites working in and around the temple.
Genesis 2:15 “To Work and to Keep”
Numbers 3:5-9 (NASB)
5Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
6 ”Bring the tribe of Levi near and set them before Aaron the priest, that they may serve him.
7They shall shamar the mishmeret for him and the mishmeret of the whole congregation before the tent of meeting, to ‘abad the ‘abodah of the
tabernacle. 8They shall also shamar all the fur- nishings of the tent of meeting, along with the duties of the sons of Israel, to ‘abad the ‘abodah of the tabernacle.
9You shall thus give the Levites to Aaron and
to his sons; they are wholly given to him from among the sons of Israel.”
Genesis 2:15 “To Work and to Keep”
Numbers 8:26
26They may, however, assist their brothers in the tent of meeting, to shamar the mishmeret, but they themselves shall ‘abad no ‘abodah. Thus you shall deal with the Levites concerning their obligations.
Numbers 18:7
7But you and your sons with you shall shamar to your priesthood for everything concerning the altar and inside the veil, and you are to ‘abad the ‘abodah. I am giving you the priesthood as a bestowed service…
Genesis 2:15 “To Work and to Keep”
“The tasks given to Adam are of a priestly nature: caring for sacred space. In ancient thinking, caring for sacred space was a way of upholding creation. By preserving order, non-order was held at bay… If the priestly vocabulary in Genesis 2:15 indicates the same kind of thinking, the point of caring for sacred space should be seen as much more than landscaping or even priestly duties. Maintaining order made one a participant with God in the ongoing task of sustaining the equilibrium God had established in the cosmos.Egyptian thinking attached this not only to the role of priests as they maintained the sacred space in the temples but also to the king, whose task was “to complete what was unfinished, and to preserve the existent, not as a status quo but in a continuing, dynamic, even revolutionary process of remodeling and improvement.”
— JOHN H. WALTON, THE LOST WORLD OF ADAM AND EVE, 106-107.