The Jewish Bible: A JPS Guide

Summaries of the Books of the Bible

Summaries of the Books of the Bible Genesis TITLE: “Genesis” is a Greek word signifying “origin” or “beginning.” In Hebrew the book is called “Bereshit” (in the beginning). As the first book of the Bible, it sets the precedent of taking its title from the first significant word in the text itself, bereshit. CONTENTS: Genesis is a book about beginnings. It outlines the origins of the universe and of humankind, and it wrestles with the nature of the relationship between God’s creation and God. The book begins with an account of the creation , the exile of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, and the early history of humankind. This first part of Genesis contains these stories: the initial covenant with humankind; the intrusion of sin through the account of the first murder (of Abel by his brother Cain); the Flood, with which God threatens to eradicate the “mistake” of creating humans, because they have proved themselves capable of great evil; a second covenant (with Noah), wherein God vows to never again flood the world; the repeopling of the earth from Noah’s lineage ; and the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel, concluding with the genealogy of Shem down to Terah and Abraham. The next segment of Genesis contains the special history of the patriarchs, the ancestors of the Jewish people. Here Abraham is the prominent figure, and the history of his call from God is recorded, along with detailed accounts from the Patriarchal era: tales of Abram and Sarai in Egypt (before their names are changed by God to Abraham and Sarah); the covenant between God and Abram; internal family conflict between Sarai and her handmaid, Hagar, who flees from maltreatment at home and returns at God’s request to “father” Ishmael; the surprising conception , birth, and circumcision of Isaac; God’s decision to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, despite Abraham’s resistance; and Abraham’s offering of Isaac on an altar to God (the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac), which is interrupted and halted by an angel of God at the last moment. These are then followed by stories of Isaac, Rebekah, and their children Jacob and Esau. One of the most well known of these stories is that of Jacob, Leah, and 169 The Jewish Bible Rachel: Rebekah sends her son Jacob to live with his uncle Laban, who later tricks him into marrying his daughter Leah instead of Rachel, the daughter he desires. Jacob strikes a deal with Laban to work for seven additional years to earn Rachel’s hand in marriage. And so Jacob marries Leah and Rachel and also fathers twelve sons, who become the Twelve Tribes of Israel. (See “The Twelve Tribes of Israel,” on p. 182) The dramas that unfold in the lives of Jacob’s children—of Joseph and his brothers, and of Dinah—ultimately lead to the emigration of Jacob and his family to Egypt. Later chapters tell the history of Jacob and Joseph, to the death of Joseph in Egypt. Genesis tells the story of the creation of the world, and then it follows one family across the generations, weaving the narrative through space and time until the family’s descendants dwell in Egypt, thereby setting the stage for the narrative to come, in the successive biblical books. OF SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE: Unlike many other early Creation stories, the biblical story of Creation in Genesis is strikingly monotheistic. The Bible opens with an impressive presentation of the fundamental religious truth: that all of creation owes its existence to the One God. This is undoubtedly the most significant 170 Setting the Foundation for the Religion of Israel The theme of Creation, important as it is, serves merely as an introduction to Genesis’s central motif: God’s role in history. The opening chapters are a prologue to the historical drama that begins in chapter 12. They serve to set forth the worldviews and values of the civilization of the Bible, the pillars on which the religion of Israel rests. They provide us with the fountainhead of ideas and concepts from which all future developments spring: the divinely ordained history and destiny of Israel, the nature of God, the nature of humankind as created by God, and the relationships between the two. We learn in these early chapters that the God of Genesis is the wholly selfsufficient One, absolutely independent of nature, the supreme Sovereign of the world, who is providentially involved in human affairs—Lord of history. And...