This is a Write 31 Days Post
When we study the Bible, it’s helpful to have a sense of the overall patterns in each book that we read. These patterns work like a map, helping us to see how everything in the book relates as well as helping us navigate through each book. In the case of Genesis, we can see two primary patterns.
Pattern #1 – Outline
Knowing the overall outline of a book of the Bible is a great way to organize the information (which is what patterns really do for us). Genesis is divided into two sections.
Chapters 1-11 covers the history of the world at large, the spread of humankind from creation to the tower of Babel. Chapters 12-50 are the story of one particular family, Abraham’s family, and God’s interactions with them.
There are some great videos at TheBibleProject.org on both sections of Genesis. There are two videos each on Chapters 1-11 and Chapters 12-50. I highly suggest you watch them.
Pattern #2 – Progress
Once we get the overall outline of the book down, we can begin to see the patterns emerge. The first pattern we can look for is directional. In other words, what kind of progress do we see in the book?
And unfortunately, in the book of Genesis, the pattern of progress goes down. In Chapters 1-11, we see a continuous downward spiral of human behavior. There’s creation, then the fall. We meet some good people, then all the bad ones. There’s the righteousness of Noah, then the flood. Then Noah’s unrighteousness, more bad people, then Babel. Just down, down, down, everything on a path away from God’s original creation and first humans, which he called “good” and “very good.”
And when we move to Chapters 12-50, we see that the downward spiral isn’t merely a world-wide thing. It’s not just the context against which Abraham’s family shines so brightly. Nope. It shows up in this family, too—they cheat and lie, they sleep around, fathers have favorite children, sibling rivalry is generational and damaging thing. Though they do great feats and display great faith (at moments, anyway), even in this specific family that God chose out of all the world, the downward spiral away from God’s definition of “good” is clear.
Pattern #3 – Perspective
But there is a second pattern we can observe. This one is about our perspective on the action of the stories.
As the stories unfold, Genesis moves back and forth between a panoramic lens and a microscopic lens. First a big picture, then a close-up. Back and forth. And knowing whether a particular story that you’re reading comes in a panorama or a close-up will help you understand what’s going on, or at least how more-or-less important that story or character is.
So we start with a big-picture view of creation, then end with a close-up of the creation of Adam and Eve. There are section of genealogies (big-picture) with specific people given more space (microscope). There’s “everything bad with everyone all the time” (Genesis 6:5) to Noah specifically (Genesis 6:9). There’s an overview of human culture at Babel (chapter 11)–God told them to go and they stayed to build–to one particular man (chapter 12) who got up and left when God told him to, even without knowing where he was going.
And in Chapters 12-50, the pattern continues. Though we’re focused on Abraham’s family, we get the same back and forth. Abraham (small) to Ishmael/Isaac to Isaac’s family problems (big) to Jacob (small) to the growth and failures of his family (big) to one son, Joseph, specifically (small).
Finding the patterns can be an interesting and helpful way to grow our understanding of a book. And it’s true for Genesis as well. Between those two patterns, we can get a good feel for the flow of this book of stories and how each of those stories (and the overall outline) fit together.
