Genesis 1-11
The name "Genesis" comes from a translation of the first Hebrew word of this book: Beresith, which
means "In the beginning." The book of Genesis is the first book of the Pentateuch and sets the stage
for the rest of Scripture. Chapters 1-7 tell a story of creation and fall, while chapters 8-11 tell the story
of God's stubborn love despite human sinfulness. The time covered by Genesis 1-11 stretches for at
least 2000 years, which is the same number of years covered by Genesis 12 all the way to Matthew 1.
Genesis 12-50 spans 350 years, while the rest of the Pentateuch from Exodus to Deuteronomy covers
only about 40 years.
Chapters 1 to 11 of Genesis concludes with God's choice of Shem; he blesses his line, and creates a
nation through it. We can outline the first eleven chapters of Genesis in the following manner:
The Origin of Heaven and Earth
1:1 - 2:3 The Creation account
2:4 - 2:7 The creation of Adam
2:8 - 2:17 Man in paradise
2:18 - 2:25 The creation of Eve
Temptation and Fall
3:1 - 3:20 Temptation and the first sin
3:21 - 3:24 Adam and Eve are expelled from Paradise
4:1 - 4:26 The first children of Adam and Eve
4:3 - 4:16 Cain and Abel
4:17 - 4:24 The descendants of Cain
4:25 - 4:26 The birth of Seth
Adam's Descendants. From Seth to Noah
5:1 - 5:32 The increase of the human race
6:1 - 6:8 The spread of wickedness
The Story of Noah. His Descendants
6:9 - 6:11 Noah, his sons and the situation of the world
6:13 - 7:4 The announcement of the flood
7:5 - 7:10 Boarding the ark
7:11 - 7:24 The flood
8:1 - 8:14 The flood subsides
8:15 - 8:22 Leaving the ark
9:1 - 9:17 God's covenant with Noah
9:18 - 29 A curse on Canaan, a blessing on Shem
The Origin of Peoples. The Tower of Babel
10:1 Enumerating the children of Japheth, Ham and Shem
10:2 - 10:5 The descendants of Japheth
10:6 - 10:20 The descendants of Ham
10:21 - 10:32 The descendants of Shem
11:1 - 11:9 Babel: the confusion of language
The Semites
11:10 - 11:26 From Shem to Terah, Father of Abram, Nahor and Haran
For more details, see the following explanation of Genesis 1-11.
3. Creation of the world and of man: the priestly and Yahwist narratives
Here is a brief outline of the account of creation, distinguishing the priestly and Yahwist narratives:
Priestly Creation Story (1:1-2:4a)
Day 0: Waters of Chaos
Day 1: Light
Day 2: Water Barrier / Dome
Day 3: Dry Land and Vegetation
Day 4: Heavenly Lights
Day 5: Birds and Fish
Day 6: Animals and Humanity
Day 7: Sabbath
The Toledot of Heaven and Earth
Yahwist Creation Story (2:4b-3:24)
Creation of Adam and Eve (2:4b-25)
Disobedience and Expulsion from Eden (3:1-24)
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (no 290) teaches us that
three things are affirmed in these first words of Scripture: the eternal God gave a beginning to all that
exists outside of himself; he alone is Creator (the verb "create" - Hebrew bara - always has God for its
subject). The totality of what exists (expressed by the formula "the heavens and the earth") depends
on the One who gives it being.
4. Origin of evil and hope of salvation
Temptation of Man
Fall of Man
Judgment on Man
The Catechism (no 390) says
The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that
took place at the beginning of the history of man.(Cf. GS 13 § 1) Revelation gives us the certainty of
faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first
parents.(Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1513; Pius XII: DS 3897; Paul VI: AAS 58 (1966), 654)
5. Cain and Abel
The Initial Conflict
The Ungodly Line of Cain
The Godly Line of Seth
The story of Cain and Abel is narrated to us in the fourth chapter of Genesis, verses 1 to 16.
6. Increase of evil and punishment with the great flood: Noah
The account of the spread of evil and the flood are in chapters 6 to 9 of Genesis.
Causes of the Flood
Cain's line multiplies
Cain's descendants sin continually
Judgment of the Flood
The ungodly to be destroyed
The Godly to be saved
The Flood
The ark is entered
The earth is flooded
The flood recedes
Results of the Flood
Noah worships God
God's Covenant with Noah
After the Flood: The Sin of Seth's descendants
The sons of Noah
Ham's sin
The curse on Canaan
Noah's death
GOD, the CREATOR
GENESIS 1-11
The Holy Bible opened to the book of Genesis (1663). This first printing of the Holy Bible in the
American colonies is Christian missionary John Eliot's translation into Massachuset (also known as
Wampanoag), an Algonquian
WHY IS THE BIBLE IMPORTANT?
The Bible contains the sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity and has long been the most
available, familiar, and dependable source and arbiter of intellectual, moral, and spiritual ideals in the
West.
The great biblical themes are God, his revealed works of creation, provision, judgment, and
deliverance, his covenant, and his promises.
The Bible sees what happens to humankind in the light of God’s nature, righteousness, faithfulness,
mercy, and love.
WHAT LANGUAGE THE BIBLE IS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN?
The Hebrew Bible was written in Hebrew.
Its Greek translation, the Septuagint, made accessible in the Hellenistic period (c. 300 BCE–c. 300 CE)
and provided a language for the New Testament and for the Christian liturgy and theology of the first
three centuries CE.
The Bible in Latin, the Vulgate, shaped the thought and life of Western people for a thousand years.
Bible translation led to the study and literary development of many languages.
HOW IS THE BIBLE ORGANIZED?
The Hebrew Bible has three divisions:
Torah (Instruction, or Law; also called the Pentateuch), Neviʾim (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings).
These books are known to Christians as the Old Testament.
The Christian Bible consists of:
The Old Testament and the New Testament. In the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions,
the Old Testament includes writings considered apocryphal by Protestants.
The New Testament contains four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), Acts, 21 letters, and
Revelation.
WHEN WAS THE BIBLE WRITTEN?
Parts of the Hebrew Bible were written in perhaps the 10th century BCE. The final redaction and
canonization of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) most likely took place during the
Babylonian Exile (6th–5th century BCE). The entire Hebrew Bible was complete by about 100 CE.
The books of the New Testament were written in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE.
WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?
The Bible centres on the one and only God, the Creator of all that exists.
God’s will and purpose are viewed as just, loving, and ultimately prevailing.
The Hebrew Bible starts with an account of God’s creation of the world, and it tells the story of the
Israelites and the Promised Land.
The New Testament deals with the life, the person, and the teachings of Jesus and the formation of
the Christian church.
8. GENESIS
This book is called Bereshit in the Hebrew original, after its first word (and the first word of the Bible),
meaning “In the beginning.”
9. It tells of the beginning of the world and creation of human beings and of those acclaimed as
ancestors of the Hebrew people—all under the shaping action and purpose of God.
The book falls into two main parts: chapters 1–11, dealing with the primeval history, and chapters 12–
50, dealing with the patriarchal narratives; the latter section is again divisible into the story of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (chapters 12–36) and the story of Joseph (chapters 37–50), which may be
treated as a unit of its own.
THE PRIMEVAL HISTORY
Genesis Outline (based on literary structure)
A. Introduction 1:1-2:3
B. The PRIMEVAL Generations 2:4-11:26
1. The generations of heaven and earth
2. The generations of Adam 5:1-6:8
3. The generations of Noah 6:9-9:29
4. The generations of the Sons of Noah 10:1-11:9
5. The generations of Shem 11:10-26
The primeval history
The Bible begins with the creation of the universe.
Out of primary chaos, darkness, void, depths, and waters God creates the heaven and the earth and
all that dwell therein—a coherent order of things—by his will and word alone.
He says, “Let there be…” and there is.
Adam and Eve, in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions, the original human couple, parents of the
human race.
GARDEN OF EDEN
Garden of Eden, in the Old Testament Book of Genesis, biblical earthly paradise inhabited by the first
created man and woman, Adam and Eve, prior to their expulsion for disobeying the commandments
of God.
It is also called in Genesis the Garden of Yahweh, the God of Israel, and, in Ezekiel, the Garden of
God.
SONS of ADAM and EVE
CAIN
Cain, in the Bible (Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament), firstborn son of Adam and Eve, who murdered his
brother Abel (Genesis 4:1–16). Cain, a farmer, became enraged when the Lord accepted the offering
of his brother Abel, a shepherd, in preference to his own. He murdered Abel and was banished by the
Lord from the settled country. Cain feared that in his exile he could be killed by anyone, so the Lord
gave him a sign for his protection and a promise that if he were killed, he would be avenged
sevenfold.
ABEL
Abel, in the Old Testament, second son of Adam and Eve, who was slain by his older brother, Cain
(Genesis 4:1–16). According to Genesis, Abel, a shepherd, offered the Lord the firstborn of his flock.
The Lord respected Abel’s sacrifice but did not respect that offered by Cain. In a jealous rage, Cain
murdered Abel. Cain then became a fugitive because his brother’s innocent blood put a curse
NOAH
Noah appears in Genesis 5:29 as the son of Lamech and ninth in descent from Adam. In the story of
the Deluge (Genesis 6:11–9:19), he is represented as the patriarch who, because of his blameless
piety, was chosen by God to perpetuate the human race after his wicked contemporaries had
perished in the Flood. A righteous man, Noah “found favour in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:8).
Thus, when God beheld the corruption of the earth and determined to destroy it, he gave Noah divine
warning of the impending disaster and made a covenant with him, promising to save him and his
family. Noah was instructed to build an ark, and in accordance with God’s instructions he took into
the ark male and female specimens of all the world’s species of animals, from which the stocks might
be replenished.
NOAH - THE FLOOD
The religious meaning of the Flood is conveyed after Noah’s heroic survival. He then built an altar on
which he offered burnt sacrifices to God, who then bound himself to a pact never again to curse the
earth on man’s account. God then set a rainbow in the sky as a visible guarantee of his promise in this
covenant. God also renewed his commands given at creation but with two changes: man could now
kill animals and eat meat, and the murder of a man would be punished by men.
The generations of Terah 11:27-25:11
The Tower of Babel
The Tower of Babel, oil painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563; in the Kunsthistorisches Museum,
Vienna
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