Genesis

This term I am enrolled in an Old Testament course that I am enjoying very much.  Each week we have a writing assignment and I figured I might as well share a few of them with you.  In this assignment we were supposed to tell the story of Genesis in 600 words.  Here is my 603 word effort!  

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  Everything was made by God and nothing was that was not made by God.  Human beings were created in God’s image and God breathed the breath of life into Adam and Eve who were the first two created persons.  Adam and Eve eventually lost trust in God and ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in direct disobedience of God’s command.  As a result they were banished from the tree of life.  Their new reality was one in which sin, anxious toil, disease, and death were all present.  Adam and Eve then began to populate the earth with their offspring.

As the generations passed the people of the earth’s sinfulness greatly increased to the point that God was grieved that He had made man.  Noah and his family were the only ones who were faithful to God.  God instructed Noah to build a huge boat in which God brought pairs of all the animals.  After all the animals were safely inside the boat along with Noah’s family floodwaters from underneath the earth and above the earth were unleashed until the whole earth was covered in water.  Once the flood subsided Noah’s family and the animals on the ark began to repopulate the earth once again.

God made a covenant with Noah that He would never again flood the earth in this manner.  The rainbow is the sign of this promise.

Once again the people of the earth began to increase.  The people of the earth began to work together to build a magnificent tower that reached high into the sky and the Lord then scattered them all over the earth by giving them different languages.  Because of this the tower was called the tower of Babel.

The Lord found a faithful man who was named Abram.  God called Abram to leave his homeland and asked him to travel to an unknown land.  God then renamed Abram, Abraham and promised to make his descendants into a great nation even though Abraham and his wife Sarah were nearing a hundred years old and had no children.  God fulfilled his promise to them with the birth of Isaac.  Isaac was blessed with two sons Esau and Jacob.  Jacob was the youngest son but God blessed him and it was through him that the line of God’s chosen people continued.  Jacob had twelve sons and one daughter.  Jacob’s second youngest son was his favorite son and his name was Joseph.  God favored Joseph as well and because of this Joseph’s brothers became jealous to the point of hating Joseph.  An opportunity arose when the brothers were far from home to sell Joseph into slavery and they did this very thing.  The brothers told their father that Joseph had been killed and Jacob grieved mightily for Joseph. 

Joseph continued to be faithful to God in all his ways and God blessed him greatly.  Pharaoh, King of Egypt, had a troubling dream that no one could interpret.  Joseph was brought in as he was known to be able to interpret dreams and God showed him the meaning of the dream.  Egypt was soon to have seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of famine.  Joseph was suddenly exalted to second in command in all of Egypt to prepare for the seven years of famine.  During the years of famine Joseph’s brothers and father Jacob were dramatically reunited with Joseph as they came to Egypt in search of food.  Soon Joseph’s whole family was together living in the best land Egypt had to offer.