ofwgenesis

Genesis! The first book and the seedbed of the Bible. The name Genesis is a Greek word which means beginning. It can also mean generation, origin, or possibly even source. Genesis was the name given to the first book in the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament, and that title has been transferred to the modern Bibles we know today.

The Hebrew name for the book of Genesis is Bereshith which basically means "in [the] beginning". In olden times, and perhaps even today in some cases, the Hebrew scrolls were recognized by the first words of the text as they were unrolled. It was a handy way to identify which scroll it was, and so in a Genesis scroll the first Hebrew word would be re'shiyth, or "beginning" (Strong's No. 7225). Re'shiyth can also mean firstfruits, first, or chief, and a few other things depending on how it is used.

The received opinion that Moses is the author of Genesis, as well as the rest of the Hebrew Torah, is accepted by many scholars today. The Torah contains the first five books of the Old Testament which are also known collectively as the Pentateuch in Greek. Without hard convincing evidence to the contrary, there is no tangible reason to reject the dictum that Moses was the author of these books. Even in the unlikely event that his hand did not do the actual writing he would still have been the managing editor. That would place their origin somewhere around 1500 BCE.

Genesis is very important in that it lays the groundwork for the rest of the scriptures. Without it the remainder of the Bible would be without proper foundation, and so it is vitally important that you understand it if you are a serious Bible student. How can you understand the scriptures and God's plan for us if you don't know what happened "in the beginning"?

Understanding how we got here, when we got here, and why we are here at all probably has been the desire of most human beings since the creation. But only those first ones who were actually created by the hands of God, and a few generations of their progeny immediately following them, really had accurate information about their origin and the origin of their world until now that is.

Very soon after God placed homo sapien sapiens on the Earth, error and lies entered in under the guise of religion and the truth about the beginning was corrupted. Bummer!

God never gave mankind instruction to practice religion, in fact, He forbade it in principle when he cautioned Adam and Eve about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the Garden of Eden. In other words, they were to stay away from Lucifer and his sweet religious ways. Hopefully you will see that as we go through the book.

God hates religion. Of that I am absolutely certain. When you understand it rightly, practicing religion is a falling away from the Creator and the truth of God, and because of it we have lost the true knowledge of the Creator God(s) 'EL, 'ELOAH, and the 'ELOHIM, and the true knowledge of the Covenant God YAH, YAHWEH, or the I AM. That is my confident assertion, and the Judeo-Christian religions of western civilization today are no exception, they are a big part of the problem because they have substituted a "sweet Jesus" in place of the true Anointed One.

Religion seems so righteous and good on the surface, while in reality it is nothing but mental slavery (spiritual slavery, if you will) that binds us with mighty chains and burdens us with great yokes about our necks. It obscures and obfuscates the truth concerning the creation, the way we should live, and even our Father's plan of salvation for us.

Genesis, the first book of the Bible records the basic information that we need in order to understand the beginning and how we are to conduct ourselves, and so it is incredibly important that we study and understand it. Genesis has been called the seed plot of the Bible and indeed it is that. The seed was sown there and the young tender plants of creation were germinated there, and now they are ready for harvesting. The book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, shows that great harvest. Genesis is the beginning or sowing, and Revelation is the ending or harvesting. How appropriate.

Now concerning my work on Genesis, please go to ourfathersword.org and read my introduction to the studies on Revelation. Don't neglect to do that, it is important. Why? Because all the same things found there will apply here in Genesis.

The beginning chapters of Genesis are ambiguous and controversial to say the least. So in these lessons I have attempted to keep it simple and to apply the principle known as Ockham's Razor (look it up in your dictionary) based upon biblical exegesis and modern science. In other words, I have attempted to achieve the idea suggested in the old acronym K.I.S.S. "keep it simple stupid".

Now, before we get into the actual lessons on Genesis I want to bring out a few things. As you already know, those called creationists ( I use the term loosely) and those called evolutionists (also used loosely) have disagreed and debated over how things were in the beginning for a long time now. It seems that both sides have accomplished nothing other than to agree to disagree, and no wonder because the arguments on both sides are flawed, and in some instances even frivolous. But, that is not to say that there is no truth involved in their contentions because there are some good points to both sides, where sanity is maintained.

Sanity? Why do I say such a thing?

Because some arguments are so far out into the ether that they lack common sense. For instance, I know some people who believe, or say that they believe, and support the premise that the Earth and the universe are only about 6,000 years old. But then there are those who still believe that the world is flat. And incredibly, some believe that man has not walked on the moon, that the Apollo missions to the moon were all contrived fictions perpertrated upon the world. That's what I mean by sanity, or should I say insanity.

So, laying aside frivolous and insane arguments there is no reason to disagree when the truth is laid bare. In truth, there are no real important differences between what we find written in Genesis and what mankind has found to be true through scientific analysis.

The literal transliteration from Hebrew to English is difficult so kindly bear with me.

Now let's get into Genesis and see what falls out.