The Gospel Thread

Genesis 2 - The Garden of Eden

In the Beyond the Basics Bible Study Podcast, Dan Snyder discusses Genesis chapter two. The chapter recounts the creation story from a more personal perspective, emphasizing the importance of rest on the seventh day and God's creation of Adam and Eve. Snyder highlights various themes, such as rest in Christ, the role of men and women in marriage, and the significance of vulnerability before God and others. He also provides reflection questions for listeners.
Transcription:
Welcome to the Beyond the Basics Bible Study Podcast. My name is Dan Snyder and I am your host. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode on Genesis 3.
As many of you know, Genesis 3 is about the fall of man, the introduction of evil into the world, and the curse that is brought onto the planet because of Adam's sin. So we'll go through an overview here of the chapter. First of all, we see the serpent introduced. The serpent deceives Eve by convincing her to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then Eve gives the fruit to Adam, and Adam eats of the fruit. And they both notice they're naked. So they sew fig leaves together to cover themselves, and then they hide from God as they hear him walking through the garden. At this point, God finds Adam and Eve. He interrogates them. He finds out what happened, as if God didn't know already. He then curses the serpent. He curses the woman. He curses the man. And then God removes them from the garden and places an angel with a flaming sword to guard the entrance.
So getting into the chapter.
First, some observations about this chapter. I don't know about you, but I seem to notice that there seems to be less separation between the physical and the spiritual world at this time. That is, in the Garden of Eden pre-fall of man. Of course we have a talking serpent, we have God walking through the garden as if God is a man, God personally makes clothes for Adam and Eve, and then we see a cherubim with a flaming sword guarding that entrance to the garden. That Sherebim is clearly seen by people.
And I think what we notice is, and what we're gonna see as we go through the rest of the Bible, is this is a picture of the New Jerusalem. This is a picture of one day when God is going to dwell with humans once again. There's gonna be no separation between the physical and the spiritual realm. Right now we see a very distinct separation between the physical and the spiritual realm, or at least it appears that way to our Western mindset.
Now, you ask somebody in the Eastern hemisphere, if that's the case, and they may not quite agree with that. But here, here in the Western world, where we have been influenced by Greek thought over the last several thousand years, there is a separation between the physical world and the spiritual world, but it was not always that way and will not always be that way. One day there will be a merging of the physical and spiritual world just like there was in Eden.
So who is the serpent? That is the question. The serpent, as we know throughout the rest of the scripture, reveals to us that the serpent is Satan. If this is your first time reading through the Bible, that's not so clear. Revelation 12:9 says: And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, he was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him.
So the question is, how did the serpent talk? And the answer is, I have no idea. Nobody knows. We do know that later on in the book of Numbers there is a donkey that talks. And off the top of my head, that's about the only two examples that I can think of of animals talking in the Bible. So clearly this isn't just any animal. We know that Jesus at one point cast demons into a herd of pigs. And so we know that demons can inhabit animal bodies. So this serpent could have been inhabited by Satan himself, which animated the serpent and gave it a voice. But we have no idea.
So let's move on to the deception of the serpent. First of all, he twists God's words. He said, "Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?"
Now, Eve did not know God's word. Eve says to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden.'"
The tree that is in the midst of the garden actually describes the tree of life. If you go back to chapter 2 verse 9 it says the tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So it was the tree of life that was in the midst of the garden. So Eve didn't know God's word. Then she says, "Neither shall you touch it."
There's another problem here, God didn't actually say this. God didn't say you shall not touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So the problem here is that Adam was the one who heard God's word. God spoke this to Adam. It was Adam's responsibility to explain this to Eve, because God told this to Adam before Eve was created. So Adam had to explain this and pass God's word on to Eve, and he didn't do it properly. Adam did not properly relay God's word to Eve. So as a result, Eve does not know God's word.
Then the serpent plants doubt in her mind. He says, "You will surely not die."
So he makes God sound like a liar. He makes her feel like she's missing out. He says, "You will be like God."
In other words, or in a more literal translation, this word translated God is actually Elohim, which again is plural. So the serpent could be saying, "You will be like gods, you will be like gods, you will be like us, you will be like spiritual beings."
This could refer to the divine council that we talked about in a previous episode. The serpent could be tempting her with the idea that she could be like the gods. She could be on the divine council. She could be a ruler, a spiritual ruler. This would be very tempting for a person, and especially because now it sounds like God is holding out on her. God is withholding something from her. God has more authority that he could give her, and he's holding back.
Here's the problem. This is the first time that humans are tempted to be like gods, or like God. And this is a theme that we're gonna see play out over and over and over and over and over throughout the Bible where man attempts to elevate himself to God status, but God himself came in the form of the man, Jesus, to be a servant. That is God's nature.
God lowered himself to be a servant. Matthew 20:28 says, "...Even as the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."
And in Philippians 2:5-7 it says: Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
This is what is important to God, lowering himself to man status and becoming a servant. And so if anyone thinks that God is holding out, we should see God's actions.
So in verse six, it says that Eve saw three things. First, she sees that the tree was good for food, which refers to her physical appetite. She sees that it was a delight to her eyes, which is her sensual appetite. And then she sees that it was to be desired to make one wise, which fills her prideful appetite.
Again, we see this theme present throughout the Bible. We'll identify it as we go through. We'll see all through the Bible, how these three things, the physical appetite, the sensual appetite, and the prideful appetite, lead to man's downfall over and over again.
So then Eve gives the fruit to her husband, to Adam.
Now why did Adam eat? One reason is because one partner going astray can bring the entire partnership down. It's very common among Christians that we see one Christian dating or marrying a non-Christian thinking that, "I can change that person, I can bring the gospel to that person, I can change that person's mind."
But the reality is that far more often than not, one person going astray is actually gonna bring the other person astray. It's gonna destroy the entire relationship.
The other issue is that Adam was not actually deceived. Now, Eve was deceived, but Adam was not deceived. Adam knew the word of God. This was open rebellion on Adam's part. 1 Timothy 2:14 says: Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
This is why Adam is responsible for the fall and not Eve. The Bible places responsibility for the fall on Adam and not Eve. It's because Adam was rebellious. Eve was deceived. There's a difference. And there seems to be, clearly because of the stance the Bible takes, there seems to be a difference in God's eyes between how serious deception is and how serious rebellion is.
Now that's not to say that deception isn't serious. Deception is very serious. But it's a different kind of serious.
Moving on to verse 7, it says they were naked. Naked refers to and has the connotation of their shamefulness being exposed. This is something that, especially when we get to the books of the law, it's going to refer to the nakedness of a person. It refers to their shame. We're even going to see that in the story of Noah, the story of Lot.
Now it's possible that Adam and Eve were clothed in light before the fall. It's a possibility. That's why they didn't notice their nakedness until they ate the fruit. We'll never know. We have no idea. The Bible isn't clear about that. But it's possible.
So they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths. Now fig leaves are prickly and itchy. Probably not very comfortable as loincloths. And it's funny because the serpent had just told them that this fruit would make them wise. The very first thing they did was really foolish. They sewed together prickly leaves and used them as loincloths. Really dumb thing to do. This fruit was supposed to make them wise.
So after they sewed fig leaves together, they heard God walking through the garden, and so they hid. This right here is the worst consequence of sin. Sin fills us with shame and causes us to separate ourselves from God. It causes us to hide from God. That is the true cost of sin.
So God comes to Adam, asks Adam, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?"
Now Adam blames everyone else but himself for his sin. He blames Eve for giving him the fruit. He blames God for giving him Eve. How many of us have done this? Many, many times we've blamed everybody else for our own sin, for our own problems. We've blamed God for giving us the people that drive us crazy and cause us to get angry. So Adam blames everybody else.
So then God starts pronouncing a curse and he starts with the serpent. So he judges the serpent, he curses the serpent and says, "On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life."
So the question is, why is the serpent being punished for being used by Satan? That's not the serpent's fault. The issue here is now we have a symbol of sin. We have a symbol of the fall. And so that symbol needs a symbolic punishment to show us the defeat of sin. The idea of eating dust refers to humble defeat. We even use that phrase today, eat dust or bite the dust. It's a humiliating defeat. That's what that phrase is referring to.
And so the serpent now having to bite the dust refers to the humiliating defeat that Satan is going to suffer at the cross. It's both prophetic, it's for us to look forward to, it was for ancient Israel to look forward to the prophetic defeat of Satan one day. It was also to recognize that even though Satan was victorious that day, God still had all authority over Satan and over sin.
The next judgment on the serpent was that there would be hatred between the serpent and the woman, but there was a redemptive promise, and that was that the woman's seed will crush the head of the serpent.
And then God's judgment on the woman, that there would be toil in childbearing. In fact, it says, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing."
I find that phrase interesting because to multiply something you have to start with something. You can't start with zero and multiply zero by fifty and get something. You still have zero, right? You have to have at least something there in order to multiply it. And we think of pre-fall or Garden of Eden conditions as being without pain. And this phrase right here implies that there may have been pain, just not very much. But now it's being multiplied.
And then the next judgment on the woman is that there will be tension and conflict between men and women. Now that's not always easy to see depending on what translation you are reading. If you're reading the ESV it says: "Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you."
I think that's a much more accurate translation than some others that imply that the woman would be seeking after the affections of her husband in some sense. The phrase here more accurately describes the tension between husband and wife.
Then comes God's judgment on the man. We see that the ground is now cursed, that there will be toil in work. Again, there was still work before the fall, but it was enjoyable work. It was fulfilling work. There was struggle in work, but it was fruitful. Now there will be toil.
Remember Adam is a gardener, and now instead of growing plants, trees, and fruit, and vegetables, now he's growing thorns and thistles, and he's going to have to contend with thorns and thistles.
And then of course, there's physical death. "For you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
In verse 21, God made skins, garments of skins, and clothed Adam and Eve. This is the first animal sacrifice, and it covers their shame. This is something we wanna keep in mind as we read about sacrifice throughout the rest of the Bible. The blood of animals covers shame. And this is of course contrasted with Adam and Eve's lame attempt with the fig leaves.
In verse 23 we see that the God sends Adam out from the Garden of Eden. Now this sounds like a punishment but it's actually a great mercy because the tree of life, keep in mind, the tree of life was still in the garden, and if Adam had eaten of the tree of life, he would live forever. Imagine if we had to endure all this hardship, pain, suffering for eternity. Think about the struggle that you go through in life. Think about the things that you have struggled with, the pain, the loss, the hardship. Imagine if you had to go through that for all eternity. Imagine if you could never die. And you had to deal with that pain forever. It would drive you insane. So this isn't a punishment, this is mercy. This is God's mercy.
In verse 24, it tells us that God sent the man east of the Garden of Eden. Now, east is something that should cause our ears or our eyes to perk up. East signifies exile. The reason East signifies exile is, as we will get to much later in the Bible, the Israelites after the siege of Babylon are exiled east to Babylon. And because much, in fact most, if not all, of the Old Testament was either written or compiled during the Second Temple Period, after the exile to Babylon, the word East is used to show a concept, to show us a concept, to show us an idea that that man was now exiled from God, that we now live in exile. That's the point here.
So all of this makes us ask the question, was it God's plan for Adam to fall? Did God set up Adam to fail? I think it's very hard to conceive of God setting somebody up to fail or wanting somebody to fail. However, God's desire is for us to know Him. And if Adam had never eaten the fruit, if man had never fallen, and humanity had stayed innocent, God would have never been able to show His mercy. He never would have been able to show His mercy through the ages, and He never would have been able to show His compassion, and His love, and His mercy on the cross.
Whereas through redeemed humans, there's so much more that we can know about God. So many aspects of God that we can understand, that we can experience, that we never would be able to experience if we had never fallen in the first place. God's glory is revealed in our fallen state. If we had never fallen, we would not experience God's glory in this way. We'd be like the angels. The angels experience God's glory and his character in a few ways. But we get to experience that character in a very personal way. In a way that the angels don't get to experience.
So was it God's plan for Adam to fall? I think it was. I don't think it was in a twisted way. I think God created the earth, presented to Adam with a choice, knowing that man was weak enough because nobody could be perfectly weak forever unless he was God. There's only one man who did that. Nobody else was strong enough to resist sin forever.
So how does all this point to Jesus?
First, we see that we know that Jesus is the seed of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent. Obviously, we know that Satan would bruise his heel on the cross, but Romans 16:20 says: The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
Jesus crushed Satan under his feet at the cross and he will crush Satan once and for all when he returns. Jesus broke the curse that is laid out in Genesis 3. Jesus broke it. Jesus took that curse on himself and destroyed the power of it over us. We can now live free of that curse.
It also points to the virgin birth in the detail that Jesus is the seed of the woman, not the seed of the man. It is the woman, Mary, who gave birth to Jesus, not Joseph.
So now I have some questions for reflection for you. Go over these questions on your own. If you want to go over these and have them written down for you, answer them at a later date so you can have some time to think about them. You can purchase the study guide on my website www.beyondthebasics.blog and there will be, of course, additional questions for further study that I will not go over on the podcast. You can purchase each individual study guide or you can subscribe per month and receive every study guide that I release as the podcast is published. Go ahead to the website, subscribe.
Also for this week and this week only, I'm making my study guides available for the first three chapters of Genesis for free on my website. You can go to the free download section of the website and get those study guides for free. So that would be from Monday, April 17th through Sunday, April 23rd. Those study guides will be free. If you're listening to this podcast after the 23rd, I apologize. You're just going to have to go and subscribe on the website.
So here's some questions for reflection. First, what causes you to be tempted to doubt or question God and his word?
Next, how can we maintain a humble spirit to prevent our pride from causing us to stumble? Take a look at Proverbs 16:18 while you're answering that question.
Next, why do you think the serpent tried to deceive Eve first instead of Adam?
Then are there any areas in your life in which you know the command of God, yet you intentionally disobey? And what has been the result of this rebellion in your life?
What are the consequences of misquoting or misunderstanding God's commands? Take a look at Proverbs chapter 30 verses 5 through 6 and Matthew chapter 15 verse 9 as you're answering that question.
Why do you think Adam went along with and participated in Eve's sin?
And then what is the difference between deception and rebellion? Why is each one dangerous?
What was the purpose in God questioning Adam and Eve? Why did God need to ask Adam and Eve what they did? If He's God, didn't God already know?
What does God's approach to dealing with Adam and Eve's sin reveal about God's character in regards to our own sin? What can we learn about God here?
And then finally, how can we still give glory to God in our sin? Check out Joshua chapter 7 verses 19 through 20 when you ask that question.
Well thank you so much for listening. Again, check out my website www.beyondthebasics.blog. You can get the study guides there. You can read my blog posts there. You can stream the podcast directly from the website. Check it out. Leave me a comment. Let me know what you think. I would love to hear from you. Thanks for listening.
Sources:
Middleton, J. Richard. “What Is The Relationship Between The Creation Accounts In Genesis 1 and 2?” BioLogos, 3 Jan. 2018, https://biologos.org/articles/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-creation-accounts-in-genesis-1-and-2.
“Nephesh/Soul.” Bible Project, https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/nephesh-soul/. Accessed 22 Mar. 2023.
Guzik, David. “Study Guide For Genesis 2.” Blue Letter Bible, 2018, https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/guzik_david/study-guide/genesis/genesis-2.cfm. 

Genesis 1 - Creation

In this episode of the Beyond the Basics Bible Study Podcast, the host delves into Genesis chapter one, highlighting the creation of the world in six days and the introduction of God as the main character. Discussions range from the nature of God to the purpose of human creation, with implications drawn to the Trinity and the image of God reflected in humanity.
Transcript:
Welcome to the Beyond the Basics Bible Study Podcast. I am your host, Dan Snyder, and today we will be going through the book of Genesis chapter one.
First of all, we will start with an overview of the chapter. The chapter introduces the main character of the Bible, who is, of course, God. God is introduced in the very first sentence of the Bible. He is the main character beginning to end. Genesis to Revelation, God is the main character of the Bible.
So as we go through this chapter, we see that God created the heavens and the earth in six days. The first three days is marked by separation. So we see separation of light from dark. We see separation of water from water. And we see separation of land from water. And then in the last three days, we see that creation is filled with inhabitants. So we see the creation of stars, sea and sky creatures, land creatures, and of course, humans.
Then at the end of the chapter, humans are given a blessing, and that blessing involves being fruitful and multiplying to fill the earth, to subdue the earth, and to have a dominion over every living thing. And then they are also given plants for food. It's interesting to note they were not given animals for food, only plants.
So let's dive deeper into the chapter.
Very first verse. Chapter 1, verse 1. In the beginning, God. So this word God in Hebrew is Elohim, which is a plural word, yet the verbs and pronouns around this word are singular. Many people use this as support for a Trinitarian doctrine. Very first sentence of the Bible, God is showing us that he is three in one. Many use this as support for that because again, the word Elohim is plural but the verbs and pronouns are singular. If you speak a language such as Spanish, you would recognize this in other languages that use this same sort of sentence construction where if a noun is plural, all the verbs also have to be plural. If a noun is singular, all the verbs have to be singular. Again, many will say that this is proof that God is three in one.
However, there are a couple counterpoints I would like to point out and that is that the same word is used for pagan gods in the Bible. In Judges 16 verse 23: Now the lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to rejoice, and they said, "Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand."
So they're referring to one god Dagon but the word Elohim which is a plural word is used to describe a singular god.
The 11th century Jewish commentator Rashi tells us that a plural word like this means it refers to all authority. So this is saying God Elohim has all authority rather than that it is a word that refers to plural gods.
Charles John Ellicott who is an 18th century theologian says thus in the name Elohim it included in one person all the powers, mights and influences by which the world was first created and is now governed and maintained. In the Bible alone, Elohim is one. Christians may also well see in this a foreshadowing of the plurality of persons in the Divine Trinity, but its primary lesson is that, however diverse may seem the working of the powers of nature, the worker is one and his work is one.
So whether or not this word Elohim tells us that God is three and one, I don't know. I don't know Hebrew well enough to know that. There's a lot of people that know Hebrew a lot more than I do that don't know that. So I'm not going to say that this sentence here right now is proof that God is three and one. However, what it is saying without a doubt is that God has all authority over all other gods, over the power of nature, over anything we could think of or create or conceive of. God has all authority and He is the sole creator of heaven and earth. That's what this is saying.
And again, just as importantly, we do see that God is introduced as the main character of the Bible. He's the first person, the first personality. The Bible is all about God.
So moving on, God created. Now this brings us to, especially in our modern western mindset, at least that is the perspective that I'm coming from, many will look to the Bible as scientific proof that evolution is false, that creationism is true. But we need to be careful. We need to take some time and find out is that the question that the Bible is actually answering? Is that even a question that the authors were asking?
Now obviously evolution was not a theory at the time that the Bible was written. Evolution did not come into the public existence until the 19th century. However, pagan myths were in existence at this time. And so when reading the creation account, we need to remember that the Bible is not answering the question of whether or not evolution is true. Obviously, we do not want to be disturbed by godless theories of creation, but we also can't force the Bible to answer questions that the authors weren't asking. We need to be open to figure out what questions the authors were asking. And as mentioned already by the use of the word Elohim, the authors were asking who has all authority over all creation. And that is Elohim, that is God. It was not Dagon of the Philistines or Baal of the Canaanites. It was God, Yahweh.
Now, the question is always going to arise: Are the seven days of creation literal seven days or are they not? Many people will interpret these days as not being literal days, but that they are extended epochs of many, many millions of years over which God performed his creation. Others believe that there are seven literal 24-hour periods in which God created all things.
Personally, because I believe that the scripture is literal, unless indicated otherwise, I believe that these are seven literal 24-hour days. However, I wouldn't be offended if it turns out to be not the case because God is God and he can do whatever he wants. My view of these seven days of creation does not change how I view God. Either way, he is all powerful. Either way, he created everything. Either way, he has all authority over creation. Whether these are literal days or not. So to me, it doesn't matter. My personal belief is that these are literal 24-hour days, but really, when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter to me.
Moving on to verse two. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. Now this word can also refer to a sea or an ocean, and the entire picture that it gives us implies confusion or chaos. And this is going to be important. This is going to be a theme that we're going to be tracking throughout the scriptures. The sea is representative of chaos. So keep track of that as we go through the Bible.
It says, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Now, this word spirit is ruach means breath. This is the breath of life. And this is the first time that we see the Spirit of God. I think what the text is telling us that the primary function of the Spirit of God is to breathe life. It is to bring what is dead to life and to bring order out of chaos. That is the primary function of the Holy Spirit. And so as we read about the Holy Spirit throughout the rest of the Bible, we're going to see him doing those things. That is his function, to bring what is dead to life and to bring order out of chaos.
So now we have six days of creation and I'm not going to read each one word for word. But in the first three days, and I want you to notice this, and if you purchase the study notes on my website you can see I have these highlighted in different colors for you so you can see how they line up. If you want to do this in your own bible you can you can highlight them in different colors as well.
So the first three days Creation is ordered. On day one we have light separated from darkness. On day two we have the waters above separated from the waters below. And on day three, we have water separated from land and the plants and trees sprout up.
Then in the last three days, that space that was created, that order that was created out of chaos, that space is inhabited. So on day four, lights were created in the heavens, the stars, the sun, the moon. In day five we see creatures in the water below and the water above. And then in day six, we see creatures on land and God creates humans. So that space is filled with creatures or in the case of the heavens, it's filled with lights.
So again, to recap, day one, light is separated from darkness and day four, lights are created in the heavens. In day two, the waters above are separated from the waters below. And in day five, the creatures are created in the waters below and in the waters above. So that's the sea creatures and the birds of the air. And then in day three, the water is separated from the land, plants and trees sprout up. And in day six, we see land creatures created as well as humans.
So these six days of creation are going to provide several themes and images that are going to be explored throughout the rest of scripture. Some of them we've already mentioned. We mentioned the spirit, which is the breath of life. The spirit brings life. The spirit brings order. We mentioned already waters and darkness, which represents death and chaos.
Another theme that we're going to explore is dry land and light, which represents life and refuge. So we'll track that as we go through the Bible.
We see the theme of God splitting the waters, which points to God overcoming evil. I think of, obviously, the most instantly recognizable example is going to be Moses splitting the Red Sea, right? God is splitting the waters of the Red Sea, freeing Israel from oppression in Egypt, and destroying Egypt, overcoming the evil world power that Egypt had become. So that's gonna be a theme that we can track throughout the Bible.
Another theme that we will see is the number seven, which signifies completeness. The completion of creation, the completion of work. That's what the number seven refers to. And we're gonna see seven all over the place in the Bible.
Now moving down to verse 26, we find this interesting phrase where it says: then God said, "Let us make man in our image."
Once again, many will use this as evidence of the Trinity, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Three and One. Right now, I tend to agree with that. However, there is also another school of thought here that believes this is a reference to the Divine Council.
Now, the Divine Council is something that I am not real familiar with, or at least not familiar enough with to speak extensively on the topic. But it is a concept that is shared by many ancient Near East cultures. It is essentially a council of gods headed up by one god. So in the case of the Bible we would see Yahweh at the head of this divine council made up of other gods or we would think of them as angels or other spiritual beings.
Now there is evidence of this in scripture. We see evidence in the book of Job, in the Psalms, that this could be the case. We see in the first chapter of Job it says: Now, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.
This could be a reference to the divine council. And so, when we see that word us, in Genesis 1, verse 26, it could be a reference to God speaking to the divine council saying, "Let us create man in our image," the image of the divine council.
Now again, this is not something I understand well. It is not something that is even well developed in scripture. It is not something that I am qualified to speak on extensively. But I do feel it is my duty to at least present to you that that is a possibility. Again, I tend to lean towards this word referring to the Trinity, but I don't know.
In that same verse, God says, "Let us make man in our image."
In what sense was man made in God's image? That's the question. God is invisible, at least to us. God is spirit, not flesh. We are flesh. How were we made in God's image? I believe this word image refers to receiving God's attributes, his character. We were made with the character of God. We were made with his attributes. We were made as emotional beings. We were made as beings that have the ability to relate to him and be in a relationship with him and with each other. We have the ability to love and to relate to one another. This is what this word image refers to.
David Guzik says in reference to this word, he says, "This means the incarnation was truly possible. God, in the second person of the Trinity, could really become man because although deity and humanity are not the same, they are compatible."
In other words, what he's saying is that if humans were not created in the image of God, God could not have become human. Humans had to be made in the image of God in order for Jesus to appear as human because by being made in the image of God we are compatible with God. Paul tells us that just as food is for the stomach and stomach is for the food, we are for we are made for God. We are made in the image of God.
Verse 28, God says, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it."
This is the first job given to humans. Adam's job, his first job was to partner with God to subdue the earth. To be fruitful, to continue in the work of creation, to multiply and to subdue the earth.
Now I believe that this is implying that creation was unfinished on the earth. That God intentionally left creation unfinished. God made Eden as a beautiful garden. The rest of the world was not like that. The rest of the world was wilderness, potentially dangerous, if it needed to be subdued.
Moving on to verse 29. God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit, you shall have them for food."
So God gave plants to humans for food. Meat was not introduced as food until after the flood. And so I believe that this is the ideal for the human body. Now that does not mean that I practice that ideal because meat is delicious and I enjoy it. But I do believe that for humans to achieve their peak health and vitality, I believe this is the proper diet to do so. We have permission to eat meat, but I don't believe it's something that God intended for us. I think that's clear here in verse 29.
So how does this point to Jesus? How does this, why are we even doing this? Why are we reading this? Well, we we want to find out how this points to Jesus.
First of all, we see that God spoke the world into existence and those words that he spoke were also the word. In John chapter one, it says: in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
And in verse 14: the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son from the father, full of grace and truth.
That word that God spoke, the word through which all creation came, when God said, let there be light, that word was God. That word was God and that word became flesh. That word of creation, that word of let there be light, became flesh. That's Jesus. Jesus is that word.
Colossians 1:16 says: all things were created through Jesus. It says, for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things were created through him and for him.
Again, he is the word. The word that was spoken was the means of creation. That was Jesus. All things were created by him, through him, and for him. He is the center of all creation. This is Jesus. And we even see here in this verse in Colossians the complete authority that Jesus has that is expressed in that word Elohim that we talked about at the very beginning of this podcast. Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. Jesus is Elohim. He has all authority over all creation.
Second Corinthians 4 verses 3-6 says: and even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
So what that section of 2 Corinthians is saying is that new creation begins in us the same way it began in Genesis 1. When we receive the gospel of Jesus Christ, that is new creation that is happening and it happens in the same exact way. God speaks, "Let light shine out of darkness," and light shines in our hearts through Jesus Christ. It's the same story. Genesis 1 happens in our own hearts. Every time somebody receives and hears and obeys the gospel of Jesus, Genesis 1 happens all over again.
We also see in that section of scripture, it says that Christ is the image of God. Now we were made in the image of God, Christ is the image of God. And in Hebrews 1 verse 3, it says: he is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
Jesus is the image of God. Jesus is the image that God intended at creation.
Okay, so what questions should we ask ourselves? What should we reflect on? I'm going to ask these questions. I'm going to let you answer them on your own. I'm not going to answer them. I'll clarify them as as we go through.
First question: what does Genesis 1 1 teach us about God? What do we learn about God here in that very first verse? What do we learn about who he is?
Next question. How is there light present before the sun was created? What is this true source of physical light? If you remember in verse 3 God said, let there be light and there was light. Currently in our universe, we think of light as coming from the sun, because that's what we see every single morning when we wake up. The sun shining light on the planet. But here, God created light before the sun existed. How is that possible? What is the source of that light?
Next question. What are some ways that we reflect the image of God? I mentioned a few of these earlier in the podcast. What are some more? What are some other things that you can think of or that you might see in the Bible that tell us how we reflect the image of God? Why did God even create humans in his image? What is the purpose?
Next question, why did God see the need to create seasons? What was the purpose of seasons?
Why did God create the earth in six days, instead of speaking everything into existence in an instant? If you believe in an all-powerful God like I do, you believe that God could speak everything into existence with the snap of a finger. He could be like the anti-Thanos, right? Instead of removing half of existence with the snap of a finger, he can snap everything into existence with just the snap of a finger. Why didn't he? Why did he take six days? Why did he take, really, why did he take seven days to do it? Why did he use six days and a day of rest to create the earth? What is he trying to tell us by creating the earth in that way?
Thank you very much for listening to this very first episode of Beyond the Basics Bible Study Podcast. This is the first step in many, many, many steps that we're going to take on this journey together. I hope you enjoyed it. Again, I would love it if you would leave a comment on my website, www.beyondthebasics.blog. Tell me what you think. I want to make sure that I am releasing podcasts that you enjoy listening to. Thank you and I'll see you next time.
Sources:
Sigal, Gerald. “Oneness of God - the Meaning of 'Elohim.” Jews for Judaism, https://jewsforjudaism.org/knowledge/articles/oneness-of-god-the-meaning-of-elohim.
Ellicott, Charles J. “The Creative Week.” Ellicott's Commentary For English Readers, https://biblehub.com/commentaries/ellicott/genesis/1.htm.
Mackie, Tim. “Visual Commentary: Genesis 1.” Bible Project, https://d1bsmz3sdihplr.cloudfront.net/media/Study%20Notes/VC_Genesis-1_Study%20Notes_final.pdf.
Guzik, David. “Study Guide For Genesis 1.” Blue Letter Bible, 2018, https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/guzik_david/study-guide/genesis/genesis-1.cfm. 

Podcast Intro and Genesis Overview

This first episode introduces the host and what the listener can expect from the Beyond The Basics podcast. It also introduces an overview of the book of Genesis.
Transcript:
Welcome to the Beyond the Basics Bible Study Podcast. I am your host, Dan Snyder, and I am very excited that you are able to join me today for this very first episode of Beyond the Basics, where we will be going through the Bible chapter by chapter, from Genesis to Revelation, one chapter at a time.
First, a little bit about me so you know who you're listening to. I am married to a beautiful wife, have a 15-month-old son, and a crazy dog, and we live in St. Petersburg, Florida. Originally from Minnesota, I work in construction, moved down here for a job, and loved it here, so we've been here about three and a half years. I am a worship leader at a local house of prayer here in St. Petersburg. I've been leading worship for, oh gosh, probably about 12 years now. My wife and I are also deacons at our local church. We lead a house group.
I've been following the Lord most of my life. I grew up in the church. I got into my mid-20s and started following the Lord again and ended up going to a conference down in Kansas City. I went to Kansas City for this conference and I remember one night listening to one of the speakers, his name is Allen Hood, some of you might be familiar with him, and he was preaching on Revelation 4 and 5, and I remember very, very clearly the Bible just really coming alive to me at that moment, and I have been a student of the Bible ever since then. It felt as if I was reading the Bible for the very first time that night. And I love the Bible and I love Jesus.
So I am a disciple of Jesus and I am a student of the Bible. I am not, however, a scholar. I'm not a Bible scholar. I've never been to seminary. And I'm not an expert in Hebrew or Greek languages. So I've studied the Bible a lot. I've spent many, many years studying the Bible on my own, using various resources, learning how to study the Bible, but I've never been to seminary, so that means I am not going to approach this podcast as a teacher to a student. I am not telling you that what I am saying all the time is 100% right, and because I don't know Hebrew or Greek I will in most cases stay away from speculation on what much of the original languages mean unless I am very certain that the sources that I use are correct.
So a little bit about my approach to the Bible regarding interpretation. First of all, obviously the Bible was written mostly by Jewish people. It is a human book that was inspired by God. It was not written down by God and dictated to humans. The authors of the Bible did not go into a trance and write down directly what they heard from God. That's not how the Bible was written. It was written by humans. These humans wrote down these words that we read today, and these words were inspired by God to convey a message about God.
I believe that there are many applications of scripture, but there is only one interpretation. In other words, there is one plain meaning in the text. And there are many different ways that we can apply that meaning to our lives. I don't believe that much of scripture is symbolic in the sense that many scholars have interpreted it. I believe there are symbols, there are images that represent certain things, but the Bible is very clear when those are used. And that brings me to my next point.
The Bible should be taken literally. Considering the genre, of course, unless indicated otherwise by the Bible itself. So, for example, poetry is going to use metaphors and different imagery. Obviously, poetry is not always intended to be taken literally, but it's going to be clear when that is because we know we're reading poetry. For example, when the book of Joel talks about a flood overtaking the the nation of Israel. Well, we can tell by context that that flood is referring to an army of human beings, not a literal flood. And then we also have apocalyptic literature, which is highly, highly symbolic. But what we often find in apocalyptic literature is there is an angel that describes the symbols and what the symbols represent. And I think many scholars, many biblical scholars have done us a disservice by interpreting apocalyptic literature as only symbolic and leaving it up to all sorts of different interpretation when the Bible offers that interpretation right there for us. We don't have to guess.
Next point, all scripture points to Jesus. Highly, highly important when interpreting the Bible. We should be reading, especially the Old Testament, with a mind that it is pointing to Jesus. And that is what Jesus believed himself. Luke 24:27 says: When Jesus encountered the disciples on the road to Emmaus and he talked to them, it says, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself.
So we need to consider what the Bible is saying about Jesus as we read. Context is very important. When we read a verse, we can't just take that verse in whatever way it seems to be saying as a standalone verse. We need to consider the sentence that it's in. We need to consider the paragraph that it's in. We need to consider the chapter that it's in. We need to consider the book that it's in. And then we need to consider that it's part of the story of the entire Bible. And we need to take into account ancient Near East culture as well. All those factors are going to go into the context of whatever we're reading.
The purpose of the Bible, speaking of the context of the entire Bible, the purpose is to tell the redemptive story of Israel which is also the redemptive story of the world. In other words, the Bible starts in a garden with a man and a woman. It all goes wrong. And from that point on the world needs to be redeemed. And God chooses the nation of Israel to do that. And Jesus is at the center of that entire story. So when reading the entire Bible, that is the story of the Bible.
Also, the purpose of the Bible for us, it's intended to be used for meditation. Psalm 119 verses 97 through 99 says, "'Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.'"
Many people approach the Bible as a self-help book and that is not what it is. The Bible is there for us to learn about God and learn about God's purpose for humanity and learn about Jesus and gain wisdom, but it is not a self-help book.
The intention for this podcast is, first of all, I want to highlight important themes in each chapter. Themes that we're going to see throughout the Bible. I want to make sure that those stick out. I want to provide a basic level of understanding for each chapter. So we're going to go through an overview each chapter as we get to it.
I want to highlight how each chapter points to Jesus. As I mentioned, especially in the Old Testament, it was written with Jesus in mind. Now the Old Testament writers did not know that they were writing about Jesus, but Jesus himself believed that all the scriptures pointed to him. And so I want to highlight how each chapter points to Jesus. I want to help you see how each chapter points to Jesus.
I want to raise questions the text asks questions of us. It forces us to ask questions of ourselves. And so, I want to raise those questions as we go through. I want to prompt further study. I want to inspire you, the listener, to study deeper. I want to inspire a passion and a desire in you to know more about what the Bible is saying about God and as a result, know God deeper. Again, as I mentioned, I'm not claiming an authoritative teaching. I am not a scholar. I am just a guy that loves the Bible and wants other people to love the Bible too. So that's my intention.
What you can expect for each episode. What you can expect is we're going to go, as I mentioned, we're going to go through and do an overview of the chapter to start off. And then we'll go in depth. And it's not going to be verse by verse. Some chapters are going to be closer to verse by verse. Other chapters, we're going to break down various aspects of the chapters in different ways. So we'll go in depth. And then after that, there will be a section of how it points to Jesus for the Old Testament chapters only. Obviously, the New Testament chapters is it's already all about Jesus very blatantly. So there's no need for that for that section in the New Testament chapters. And then we'll go through some questions for reflection. I will ask some questions that I've come up with. Hopefully it prompts you to come up with even more questions on your own.
And then we'll wrap up the episode. Now I do have a study guide that is available for purchase on my website. And that website is www.beyondthebasics.blog. You can go on that website, you can do a couple different things. You can purchase the individual study guide for the episode you just listened to directly from the website for $2. You can also subscribe. You can receive every study guide automatically every time I publish an episode. And that is $6 a month. A $6 a month subscription. So you can do one of those two things.
And on that study guide, there will be questions for further study. Those will not be things that I go over in the episode. Those will be on the study guide only. So that study guide that's going to entail all my notes that I use. It's going to have all the verses that I use. It's going to have those questions for reflection on there. And then it's going to have further study.
So let's get into the book of Genesis. First, we'll talk about the author. The author, obviously, most likely is Moses. Now, we know that Moses was not alive during the period of the book of Genesis, so the question is, how did Moses obtain this information? I think there's two most likely scenarios how Moses got this information.
First would be oral tradition that would be handed down from his ancestors. Now we know that one tradition is known to be handed down and that would be Joseph's bones. Now in Exodus 13 verse 19, it says Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, "God will surely visit you and you shall carry up my bones with you from here."
So Joseph had asked his sons that when they leave Egypt, that they would take his bones with them. And that request had been passed down through the generations until it made it to Moses' generation. So we know that those traditions were passed down. Related to this possibility is we know that Egyptian coffins contained inscriptions, sometimes from the Book of the Dead. So it's very possible that Joseph's coffin could have contained inscriptions from or when Moses took Joseph's coffin with him out of Egypt, written on there could have been his family history.
Another possibility that I believe is that he could have gotten this information directly from God. Now I know that I said earlier that the Bible is not dictated by God and handed down to a human who then just wrote it down. It's possible that may actually be false in certain sections of Genesis, especially the first chapter or so. Now the reason I think this could be the case is in Exodus 33, starting in verse 21, it says, then the Lord says, "Behold, there is a place by me and you shall stand there on the rock and it will come about while my glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take my hand away and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen."
So what that's saying is that the Lord placed Moses in the cleft of the rock and he passed by Moses. Now Moses could not see his face because God covered him up. But as soon as God passed him, Moses could see God's back. Now what do you think the back side of an infinite God looks like? Could it potentially show God's history? I think so. So I think that Moses got much of his information for the book of Genesis in that one encounter with God when he viewed God's glory or his history.
Who is the book of Genesis written for? It was written for the Exodus generation and also for future generations, knowing that this would be compiled into the book of the law and it was intended to be meditated on. The purpose of the book of Genesis is to provide the beginning of the nation of Israel. So again, present family history, present the problem facing humanity, which is that creation is good, but it was destroyed through man's sin. But God had a plan to bring recreation through one family, which is the family of Abraham.
So a quick outline of the book, chapters 1 through 11 describes the creation of the world, the fall of man and angels. It reveals our need for a seed to set things right in the words of the book of Genesis itself. And many of the themes that we find throughout scripture are found in chapters 1 through 3. These are foundational chapters for understanding the entire rest of the Bible. If we don't know these chapters, if we don't know this book, it will be much more difficult to understand the rest of the Bible.
Chapters 12 through 23 tells the story of Abraham. God calls Abraham out of the city of Ur, of the Chaldeans. He promises him a child and an inheritance in Canaan. And we follow the growth of Abraham's faith in God's promises. And then chapters 24 through 27, we read about Isaac carrying the promise forward. Chapters 28 through 36, we read about Jacob and his struggles with trusting God and the origin of the 12 tribes of Israel. And then in chapters 37 through 50, we read about the story of Joseph, his life, the trials and persecution that he went through, and how he was used by God to deliver Israel from a deadly famine and at that point was reunited with his family.
Thank you very much for listening. I look forward to doing this podcast with you. I look forward to going through the Bible with you. I would love to hear your feedback. Please check out my website www.beyondthebasics.blog that's www.beyondthebasics.blog. Leave a comment. Tell me what you think of the podcast. Tell me what you think of the blog. If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears. I'd love to hear your feedback. Anything that I can do to improve and make this podcast better for you, I would love to hear it.
Thanks for listening.
Sources:
Stewart, Don. “How Could Moses Have Written Genesis?” Blue Letter Bible, https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_677.cfm.