TOM · The Owner's Manual · Old Testament

Genesis 1

Before you read Genesis: who, when, why

BOOK 1 OF 66 · OLD TESTAMENT · BOOKS OF MOSES

In the beginning, God

AUTHOR: Moses, according to Jewish and Christian tradition. Jesus called these books the Law of Moses (Luke 24:44). Many modern scholars think Genesis was put together from older sources over time.
EVENTS TOOK PLACE: From the creation of the world to the death of Joseph in Egypt. Abraham lived about 2000 BC, give or take a couple hundred years.
DATE WRITTEN: Traditionally about 1440 to 1400 BC, while Israel wandered in the wilderness. Many scholars say it reached its final form much later, around 500 BC.
WRITTEN TO: The people of Israel, freed from Egypt and headed for the Promised Land. Genesis tells them who God is, who they are and why they are going there.
ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS: About twenty copies of Genesis were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was also translated into Greek, in the Septuagint, around 250 BC.
KEY VERSE: Genesis 12:3. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.

One of the Oldest Pieces of Genesis

This fragment is called 4QGen g, which means Genesis copy g from Cave 4 at Qumran. It was found with the Dead Sea Scrolls and holds parts of Genesis 1:1 to 2:7, the creation story. Experts date it by its handwriting to somewhere between about 150 and 37 BC. 4Q1, a copy of Genesis and Exodus from about 125 to 100 BC, may be a little older. But this one gives us the very first page of the Bible, copied over a hundred years before Jesus was born. It is kept in Jerusalem.

The Setting

Genesis covers more time than the rest of the Bible put together. Chapters 1 to 11 happen before any history book was written. Chapters 12 to 50 happen in the world of the first great civilizations. In Mesopotamia, which is modern Iraq, cities like Ur had temples, schools and writing. In Egypt the great pyramids were already hundreds of years old when Abraham visited. Canaan, the land God promised, sat between those two superpowers.

What Was Going Wrong

Sin Breaks in. Adam and Eve believe the serpent instead of God, and death enters the world (3:6).
Violence Everywhere. By Noah's day the earth was filled with violence, and every thought was evil (6:5, 6:11).
Pride At Babel. People tried to make a name for themselves instead of honoring God (11:4).
Lies To Save Their Skin. Abraham and Isaac both lied about their wives, and Jacob lied to his blind father (12:13, 26:7, 27:19).
Favorite Children. Isaac loved Esau, Rebekah loved Jacob, Jacob loved Joseph most, and it tore the family apart (25:28, 37:3).
Idols in the House. Rachel stole her father's household gods, and Jacob's family had to bury their idols (31:19, 35:2 to 4).

Where to Find Jesus

Genesis 3:15. The Son of the woman crushes the serpent's head. See Galatians 4:4.
Genesis 12:3. Every family on earth blessed through Abraham, the gospel told ahead of time, Galatians 3:8.
Genesis 14:18. Melchizedek, king and priest of God Most High, a picture of Jesus. See Hebrews 7.
Genesis 22:8. God Himself will provide the lamb. Compare John 1:29.
Genesis 28:12. The stairway between heaven and earth. Jesus says He is that stairway, John 1:51.
Genesis 49:10. The scepter will not depart from Judah. Jesus is the Lion of Judah, Revelation 5:5.

Cool Stuff Most People Miss

The First Real Estate Closing. In chapter 23 Abraham buys a burial cave for about 10 pounds of silver, with witnesses at the city gate. It is the first land deal in the Bible. Tradition says the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron marks the spot.
The First Gospel. Bible teachers call Genesis 3:15 the first gospel. Just minutes after the first sin, God promises a Son of the woman who will crush the serpent.
The Younger Brother Wins. Abel over Cain, Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, Joseph over his brothers, Ephraim over Manasseh. God keeps picking the one nobody expected.
God Says No To Child Sacrifice. Nations around Abraham sacrificed children to their gods. In Genesis 22 God stops Abraham's hand and provides a ram instead, and His law later calls child sacrifice detestable (Leviticus 18:21). The ram in Isaac's place points to Jesus, the Lamb of God.

Did Anybody Listen?

Genesis ends with Joseph in a coffin in Egypt. But he trusted God and made his family promise to carry his bones home. Centuries later Moses did (Exodus 13:19), and Joshua buried him at Shechem (Joshua 24:32). God keeps His promises, even when it takes centuries.

Chapter 1 in 30 seconds

God speaks and things appear: light, sky, land, plants, sun, moon, stars, fish, birds and animals. Then He makes people in His own image, which is the highest compliment anyone has ever been paid. Every day ends with God looking at His work and calling it good. Day six gets an upgrade to very good.

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In this chapterThe Big Question · Christians disagreeWas or Became? · after verse 24

The Creation// John 1:1–5; Hebrews 11:1–3

¹In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

GEN 1:1[MIRACLE]God creates the heavens and the earth

²Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

GEN 1:2[NOTABLE]Was the earth formless from the start, or did it become formless after something went wrong? This verse is the center of the Gap Theory and the debate over how old the earth is. See Was or Became?, the Big Question page facing this verse in The Owner's Manual.

The First Day

³And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴And God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. ⁵God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.”

GEN 1:3[MIRACLE]God speaks and light appears
GEN 1:3[ALLUDED TO]The New Testament refers to this → 2CO 4:6

And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

GEN 1:5[NOTE]DAY. How long were the days? See How Long Were the Days?

The Second Day

⁶And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, to separate the waters from the waters.” ⁷So God made the expanse and separated the waters beneath it from the waters above. And it was so. ⁸God called the expanse “sky.”

GEN 1:6[ALLUDED TO]The New Testament refers to this → 2PE 3:5

And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

The Third Day

⁹And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered into one place, so that the dry land may appear.” And it was so. ¹⁰God called the dry land “earth,” and the gathering of waters He called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

¹¹Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth vegetation: seed-bearing plants and fruit trees, each bearing fruit with seed according to its kind.” And it was so. ¹²The earth produced vegetation: seed-bearing plants according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

¹³And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

The Fourth Day

¹⁴And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to distinguish between the day and the night, and let them be signs to mark the seasons and days and years. ¹⁵And let them serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth.” And it was so.

¹⁶God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. And He made the stars as well.

¹⁷God set these lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth, ¹⁸to preside over the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

¹⁹And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

The Fifth Day

²⁰And God said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the sky.” ²¹So God created the great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters teemed according to their kinds, and every winged bird after its kind. And God saw that it was good.

²²Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters of the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”

²³And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

The Sixth Day

²⁴And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, land crawlers, and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. ²⁵God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that crawls upon the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

The Big Question · Christians disagree

Was or Became?

The Gap Theory and How Old Everything Is

Genesis 1:1 to 2 · Isaiah 45:18 · Jeremiah 4:23 · Exodus 20:11

WHAT 1:2 SAYS: Now the earth was formless and void. The King James says without form, and void. The Hebrew is tohu wa bohu, two rhyming words that mean empty and shapeless. The same pair shows up in Jeremiah 4:23 for a land wrecked by judgment, and again in Isaiah 34:11. Isaiah 45:18 says God did not create the earth to be empty, tohu, but formed it to be lived in.
THE GAP THEORY: Some Christians believe a huge gap of time sits between verse 1 and verse 2. God made a perfect world in 1:1. Then something went wrong, often tied to the fall of Satan, Isaiah 14:12 and Luke 10:18, and the earth became a ruin. In verse 2 God starts over and remakes it in six days. This is also called ruin and restoration.
WHERE IT CAME FROM: An old Jewish teaching in Genesis Rabbah, written about AD 400 to 500, says God made worlds and destroyed them before He made this one. The Scottish preacher Thomas Chalmers taught the gap about 1814, as geologists started saying the earth was very old. G. H. Pember's Earth's Earliest Ages, 1876, the Scofield Reference Bible, 1909, Clarence Larkin and Finis Dake's Annotated Reference Bible, 1963, made it popular with many Bible teachers.
THE CASE FOR IT: The verb in verse 2, hayah, can mean became, as when Lot's wife became a pillar of salt, 19:26. Isaiah 45:18 says God did not make it tohu, so it must have become tohu later. Darkness over the deep sounds like judgment. It makes room for an old earth and its fossils while keeping the six days as normal days.
THE CASE AGAINST IT: In Hebrew, verse 2 starts with and the earth before the verb. That pattern usually describes how things were, not a new event, so almost every Bible says was. Exodus 20:11 says God made the heavens, the earth and everything in them in six days. Tohu can simply mean empty, like the wilderness in Deuteronomy 32:10. The King James word replenish in 1:28 means fill, the same word used for the fish in 1:22, not fill again. Weston Fields wrote against the gap in Unformed and Unfilled, 1976. Most young earth and old earth scholars reject it today.
HOW OLD IS THE EARTH?: Young earth: about 6,000 to 10,000 years. Archbishop Ussher, in 1650, set creation at 4004 BC, and Answers in Genesis teaches a young earth today. Gap theory: the earth is very old, and the six days are recent. Day age and old earth creation: the days are long ages, and the earth is about 4.5 billion years old, as Reasons to Believe teaches. Framework, cosmic temple and evolutionary creation: Genesis is telling who made the world and why, not giving its age, so they accept the science. Scientists date the earth at about 4.5 billion years and the universe at about 13.8 billion. For the days themselves, see How Long Were the Days? after 2:3.
HOW OLD IS MANKIND?: Add up the ages in Genesis 5 and 11, and Adam lived about 4000 BC. The Jewish calendar counts from 3761 BC, so the year that began in fall 2026 is 5787. The Greek Septuagint has bigger numbers and puts Adam about 5500 BC, the date many early church writers used. Others say the family lists skip names, since Matthew 1:8 skips three kings and Luke 3:36 names a Cainan that Genesis 11 does not. William Henry Green, 1890, and B. B. Warfield argued Adam could be older than 4000 BC. Old earth creationists put Adam and Eve tens of thousands of years ago. Scientists date the oldest human fossils, from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, at about 300,000 years. Some Christians answer that God chose one real couple to be the first people in His image, as John Stott suggested. Joshua Swamidass, 2019, argued an Adam who lived about 6,000 years ago could still be the ancestor of everyone alive today.
WHAT ALL SIDES AGREE ON: In the beginning, God. He made everything, 1:1. People are made in His image, 1:27. God made every nation from one man, Acts 17:26. Jesus spoke of Adam and Eve as real, Matthew 19:4. And how old the earth is does not change how you are saved, Romans 10:9.

²⁶Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.”

GEN 1:26[ALLUDED TO]The New Testament refers to this → JAS 3:9

²⁷So God created man in His own image;

in the image of God He created him;

male and female He created them.

GEN 1:27[QUOTED]Quoted in the New Testament → MT 19:4-5
GEN 1:27[QUOTED]Quoted in the New Testament → MK 10:6-8

²⁸God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.”

²⁹Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit contains seed. They will be yours for food. ³⁰And to every beast of the earth and every bird of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth—everything that has the breath of life in it—I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

GEN 1:29[NOTABLE]God gives people every seed bearing plant as a gift. Plants feed us, heal us and keep the earth alive, and this verse shows they came from God's hand.

³¹And God looked upon all that He had made, and indeed, it was very good.

And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

GEN 1:31[MIRACLE]God sees all He made and it is very good

Genesis 1

One of the Oldest Pieces of Genesis

The Setting

What Was Going Wrong

Where to Find Jesus

Cool Stuff Most People Miss

Did Anybody Listen?

The Creation// John 1:1–5; Hebrews 11:1–3

The First Day

The Second Day

The Third Day

The Fourth Day

The Fifth Day

The Sixth Day

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