Reference no: EM133694307

Assignment:

In beginning of Genesis, there are in fact two different creation stories. That there are two different creation stories may seem shocking to some of you. But when you take away the headings, chapter divisions, verse numbers, and commentaries, this will become clear. After all, the headings, chapter divisions, etc. did not exist in the original, but they were added much later. By the way, these and words picked to translate a document in a foreign language are some of the ways by which editors try to sway a reader to accept or reject the document. The version that I want you to look at is The New American Standard Version.

Genesis 1:1-2:3

1. What was the earth like?

2. What did God create on the first day?

3. What did God create on the second day?

4. What did God create third day?

5. What did God create on the fourth day?

6. What did God create on the fifth day?

7. What did God create first on the sixth day?

8. What do you think "Us," and "Our" refers to in "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness"?

9. If human beings are created in God's image "according to Our likeness," would they be like God, just as a painting created in the image of Mona Lisa would be like it?

10. It states that "God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." How do you think "male and female" is related to God's image?

11. What was man to do? What were human beings supposed to eat? What were animals supposed to eat?

12. What did God do on the seventh day? Why would God need to rest?

Genesis 2:4-9; 2:15-25

1. Does the first sentence in this section sound like a thesis of a paper or beginning of a new story?

2. It says that there was no plantation, why?

3. What did God create first? How?

4. God makes the Garden of Eden. What did he plant there?

5. What could the man eat, and what could he not eat?

6. It states that "...for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." Does this sound like the man will die in the same day that he eats of it, like eating something poisonous?

7. What did God make the next? Why?

8. What was created next? How?

9. What do you think "naked and were not ashamed" mean?

Genesis 3:1-24

1. Was the serpent created by God?

2. What did the serpent ask the woman? Did she add anything to what God said to Adam?

3. After they ate the fruit of the three of the knowledge of good and evil, what did they realize? What did they do?

4. Did they die?

5. If God's footsteps can be heard, does God have to be physical?

6. According to the man, why did they hide themselves?

7. Who does the man blame? The Woman?

8. How was the serpent punished? The woman? The man?

9. As part of Adam's punishment, God says, "You will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." What do you think the punishment here is? Eating bread (remember, they didn't have to cook to eat, and in order to cook, they have to farm. In the Garden of Eden, they had all the trees that were pleasant to eyes and good to eat.), death, or both?

10. The next passage says, "the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"-- therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden...."

a. Were human beings like "one of Us" (in the image of God) before eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil?

b. What is being like "one of Us" involve?

c. Why did God kick them out of Eden?

d. What happens if they ate of the tree of life? So, if they didn't eat of it as of yet, were they to die even if they didn't eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?