We’ve been working through the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis recently. It’s got me wondering as to who this story and the others in Genesis were originally written for and why? I don’t think the answer is too complicated when you think about it, but it is certainly revealing.
The first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy come as a package that formed the backbone of the Hebrew Bible – they called it the “Torah” meaning law. This is possibly a little deceptive as these books are much more story than law. Any laws laid down in them are in context of the story. They were also laid down at a specific time in the life of Israel that was necessary for Israel’s survival. I believe that time was just before they crossed the Jordan to take possession of the promised land. Certainly, the book of Deuteronomy is written as a sermon by Moses to the people shortly before they crossed the Jordan. The emphasis of Deuteronomy is on what the Israelites had to do to keep a right relationship with God. Similarly, the book of Leviticus is attributed to Moses – this book is about the work of the Levites who were to be the priest who were to lead the people in living a holy life as God’s holy people. Numbers, also attributed as the work of Moses, is a census of the people during their journey in the desert and a continuation of the story of the people as they prepared for entering the promised land. Exodus is, obviously, the story of Moses and God’s rescuing the people from Egypt and taking them through the desert.
So, these four books can all be attributed to Moses as, at least, receiver and conveyor of the messages from God. Scholars may argue whether he was the actual scribe or not, of if the material has been edited at some other stage or not, but it seems clear to me that the first people that these books were intended for were the people who were ready to cross the Jordan and enter the promised land. As I intimated earlier, Genesis has always been part of this group of books. I think it is a very reasonable conclusion that it was also intended first for this same audience – the generation of Jews who had been born in the desert and were about to cross the Jordan. The way Genesis is written is such that it is probably all based on oral tradition passed down the generations. Whilst it is possible that it was not first written down till long after Moses’s day, I believe the stories were ones being told and retold to those desert born children of the Exodus.
So, why were the stories of Genesis important to this generation? I think the answer becomes obvious when we consider where those people had come from and what they were facing. This, in turn, helps us to concentrate on the real messages that come from Genesis, rather than some we “read into” the book ourselves – more on this later. First, who were these people?
They were a generation born to parents who had once been slaves in Egypt. In fact, their ancestors for many many generations had been slaves in Egypt. As such, they no doubt were still familiar with Egyptian ways of doing things, stories, customs, and possibly even language. It is hard to imagine that over 400 years of living in Egyptian culture working to the calendar of the Egyptian people – preparing the soil as they prepared the soil, sewing when they sewed, reaping when they reaped that they were not thoroughly imbued in the Egpytian ways. This is similar for refugee and migrant cultures today. We probably all know second and third generation migrants who are thoroughly familiar with “Kiwi” ways and are obviously Kiwi, yet they still also Vietnamese or Dutch and still maintain contact with that culture. As a slave race they were not integrated with the Egyptians through marriage or by becoming upwardly mobile – there was still a separateness. If there hadn’t been Moses would hardly have been able to identify them to lead them out of the country! In their separateness they would have maintained some customs from long ago and, like many cultures, they would have passed down the stories – stories that helped identify who they were.
I’m intrigued that through these stories they were apparently not strongly monotheistic – ie not strongly tied to one God. I say this because of the experience of the people in the desert. First, they did not readily identify with Moses’s God - “Yahweh.” That is the name of God that God himself gave to Moses (in English meaning “I am who I am”). They trusted him only in that they had seen his action with the plagues, so they reasoned he could get them out from under the thumb of Pharaoh. Once out of danger they began complaining to Moses – so your God can get us out of Egypt, but can he feed us? And, then, when Moses went away for a few days they apparently slipped into some old Egyptian habits and built themselves a god.
A generation later, the children of these obstinate people were facing some of the same questions. So, this God of the old man (and Moses was very old by then!) had apparently helped their parents escaped Egypt (though they hadn’t witnessed that first hand). Supposedly he dwelt in the tent – though only spoke to Moses. Supposedly, the few times we’d travelled it had been Yahweh in the cloud. Supposedly, he was the source of the manna and quail, though this was just a normal everyday occurrence that it wasn’t really all that special. Now, the old man was on the way out. Would is God go with him? We had to find somewhere to live and settle down and farm the land and raise families. Certainly, the fertile land across the Jordan looked good. But, we had to fight for it. Can Yahweh fight battles as well as deliver manna? Can he defeat the gods of these people sitting behind their fortified city walls? Then, again, what does Yahweh know about farming – don’t these fertility gods who have it sussed? Aren’t they responsible for the fantastic grape harvests in this land of milk and honey?
The answer to these questions are given by Moses in the stories of Genesis and what follows. Interestingly it is first in Genesis (in chapter 2) that the name “Yahweh” first appears. In English translations this usually is written as “the Lord” or “the Lord God” or sometimes, as in the Message translation, as a capitalised GOD. This contrasts to the term “el” which is a generic term for any god and, when referring to God, is usually written as God (ie in contrast to the Lord). What this all means is that at or around this time the stories the Israelites knew had something additional added to them … namely, the name of God – Yahweh. Thus, linking Yahweh who saved them from the Pharaoh and fed them in the desert to the Yahweh who created the world and everything in it, who wants to have a relationship with them, who made a promise to their ancestor Abraham about this land they were about to enter, who by saving Joseph and giving him dreams also saved his family from starvation – his family who were the originators of the thirteen tribes of Israel and the heirs apparent of the promised land.
What this means is that Genesis is an answer to the question “Who is this Yahweh?” “What can he do?” “Can he really give us this land and help us to live there?” The answer is a resounding “YES.” Yes, because he is the source of all life – the creator of all the crops and the animals, of the water that gives life. Yes, because he is not some capricious god that needs mollifying in the hope that he won’t do us in, rather, he is our creator who desires a relationship with us. Yes, because what we though of as other gods – like “Ra” the sun god, are mere creations – mere “lamps of the day and lamps of the night.” All this is in the first couple of chapters of Genesis. What follows is the story of Yahweh’s relationship with his people – most importantly it shows he is in charge and can be trusted.
For us today I believe this has a very important message when we come to read Genesis, especially the first few chapters. We must approach it as a book that is answering “Who?” and “Why?” questions as it was written originally to answer just such questions. The tragedy in many churches and with many Christians today is that Genesis is approached as an answer to “How?” questions. It is thought of as a piece of scientific literature that answers How God made the world. ie it is thought of as much like a book that says “Water freezes at 0 Celsius and boils at 100 C.” That is, it is thought of as giving scientific fact. I believe it is very misleading, indeed foolish, to try and read Genesis this way. For a start, such writing of scientific “fact” did not appear until about 3000 years until after Genesis was written (ie about 300-400 years ago). For Genesis to be a statement of scientific fact it would also have to be an invention of a genre of writing 3000 years ahead of when the genre next appeared. This means, that when someone says that Genesis supports the theory of the Big Bang because it separates dark from light, meaning the creation of photons, they are quite wrong. Similarly, when someone says that Genesis tells them that God made the world in seven (literal) days, in contrast to millions of years, they are similarly quite wrong. Genesis makes no claim as to “How” God made the world and that includes how long it took.
The tragedy is the wasted time and energy debating “How” claims when we should be rejoicing in all we can learn about “Who” and “Why.”
The tragedy is even greater in that it has resulted in us building a great barrier to the gospel. For many non-Christians when they hear of Christians proclaiming a young earth and literal 7day creation based on Genesis the message these Christians proclaim immediately looses credibility. The only stumbling block we should be putting in place is the Christ and Christ crucified – anything else is sinful. This includes all the misinterpretations of Genesis as a book of Hows.
As the Israelites stood on the bank of the Jordan asking “Who is this God?” “Can he help us where we are going?” “Why would he want to?”, so to are people asking Who, and Why questions that Christians have the answers to. These are questions of Who can help me, Why are things the way they are and why should I trust God when it is so tough? Genesis helps in answering these questions… let us get back to reading it as it was first intended to be read..
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