Themes of Genesis--My key takeaways from the Hebrew Bible so far

One book of the bible is behind us, so I want to talk about the themes that stood out to me in the book of Genesis. 

I’ve been using this post as a way to synthesize my learning, to struggle with the scriptures in writing, and to share my thoughts in case anyone wants to read them. I admit that it’s a messy blog full of half-baked exegesis (and probably some poorly crafted isegesis), but I do hope that if you read my posts, you find something insightful. If you do–or want to correct, discuss, or deny anything–please tell me. 

God changes

Some of the differences is God’s behavior in different parts of Genesis has to do with different source texts that are combined into a single narrative in what we now know as the Pentateuch (for a brief description of what I mean, see this blog post and for an example with a little more depth, read here). But it seems like even within what is considered the same text, as the story progresses, the God of Israel changes in character. One way in which God’s character evolves is in his relationship to humanity. In this post, in the section titled “To become like God,” I described how on several occasions, God took action to prevent humanity from becoming like him. But as the story progresses, the actions God takes to that effect become less and less severe. He also begins to establish a path of connection to individuals and then to the entire house of Israel through covenants.

Covenants are harsh. They include sacrifice, genital cutting, and long-term blessings amid medium-term suffering. There’s a darkness in forging a relationship with God, I think best illustrated in the story of Abraham, where after a bloody sacrifice in a dark dream, the patriarch is told that the promises made to him will only be achieved long after his death. 

But it has become clear to me that either God resigns himself to the fact that humans will try to approach him regardless, or that he planned on establishing a connection with the humans all along, but only on his terms. The way he establishes that connection evolves slowly in the biblical text, and it’s not simply a linear progression. There are parts where God is very active in the text, and long sections where he is mostly silent.

There are even times when God takes a step backwards in establishing a relationship with humanity. This is the case in the story of Noah, which includes a God who regrets, who repents, and who promises never to return to previous behavior–who even needs a reminder not to flood the earth again. 

People have made noble attempts to reconcile these kinds of changes with the doctrine of an eternally consistent God. The retellings and expandings of Biblical stories by Joseph Smith in the Pearl of Great Price offer some explanations that tidy up the Biblical narrative, and that’s great, but I think there’s benefit to be gained through struggling with what a changing God means. 

What does a changing God mean? It means that it’s not futile to negotiate with God, to disagree, to wrestle with him. And the Genesis text reveals a God who is not beyond bending to human will through these struggles. He negotiates with Abraham over the destruction of Sodom. He negotiates with Lot over his post-Sodom settlement. And he yields to Jacob who says he will not let God go until he blesses him. 

God is personal

Like I said above, one of the explanations for a changing God in Genesis is that there are multiple accounts that have been woven together. What we read in the Pentateuch includes hints at what several ancient authors, and even the redactors who combined the texts, thought about God. The God of each individual text is a little bit different, and I’m sure that if we took deep dives into the mostly unknown lives of the ancient authors, we would understand how their personal theologies and interpretations of God’s actions or lack of actions in their lives influence their writing and editing. For the ancient writers, a personal idea of God is articulated through the way they frame the stories of their culture. 

When I wrote the paragraph above, I kept typing “personal relationship with God” and then deleting it. This is a phrase that people of faith say a lot, and I’ve been really uncomfortable with it for a number of years. What does that mean? I don’t have a personal relationship with God, and I can’t imagine what that would look like. But I do think that one of the themes of Genesis is that individuals have personally established relationships with deity. God makes covenants with individuals. In this post, I wrote about God’s individual dealings with Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. These people have individual and conflicting needs and wants. And yet God seems to support each of them in their endeavors, not pushing them outside what they are comfortable with in some cases (even though from my perspective, I think he should have), and in other cases pushing people like Hagar back to unfavorable circumstances while promising great blessings in return. God’s relationship with each is individual. 

I think I’m most inspired though by a few instances where individuals forge their own relationship with a silent God. I wrote in this post that I was impressed with the servant of Abaraham who didn’t get any clear communication from God, other than the signs he established on his own. He decided what sign would reveal Isaac’s future wife. Then he prayed and told God what sign he’d be looking for. When the sign came, he accepted it. The story is totally valid whether or not God actually had anything to do with it. 

Last week, I was similarly impressed with Joseph. In his story, there likewise wasn’t much divine communication. In fact, most of the things that happened to Joseph, he could have easily interpreted as evidence he had been abandoned by God. But he chose to interpret the events of his life as part of the plan of God. “So it was not you who sent me here, but God,” Joseph tells his brothers; “he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt”(Genesis 45:8). Maybe Joseph had revelations making it clear that his treacherous path to Egyptian success was all guided by the LORD the whole time. But I prefer the story as it is, where Joseph chooses to believe that regardless of God’s silence on the matter itself. 

These two stories (the servant of Abraham and Joseph in Egypt), reveal to me a valuable, if controversial, truth in the Bible: that we invent and establish the terms of our relationships with God. That could be because God doesn’t exist, and our theology is simply the way we frame the world. On the other hand, it could be that God allows us to be equal partners in the covenants he establishes with us, truly establishing a partnership rather than simply a servile agreement. Some people poorly or even toxically construct the terms of their covenant, and I think that’s the source of a lot of suffering in the world. Others construct relationships with God which empower them to reach their potential. Sometimes we take shortcuts to previously-tested covenant relationships–for better or worse–by aligning ourselves with an institutional church. But I think the flawed characters of the Bible illustrate that regardless, God participates–perhaps pushing us ever gently toward a better way, perhaps by not being so gentle, or perhaps by simply being whatever we invent, and the natural consequences of our devotion.

Theme speed round

What I’ve written so far are just two themes I’ve been wrestling with over the past two months of studying the Hebrew Bible. Here are some others that I hope to continue to see in Exodus and beyond. 

• Women shape the story, finding identity and purpose even within narrow social limits and making a big impact (For examples see this post from the early chapters of Genesis, the beginning of this post about the Israelite matriarchs from chapters, and this post which addresses Sarah and Hagar). 
• Earnest faith is actually a higher level of thought than reason, not a naive oversimplification (Here’s a post that highlights this).
• The bible is scandalous (see here).
• The story of Israel is a journey away from a cruel God and into a covenant with a new conception of merciful deity (more on this next week!)