I.

Objective
At the end of the period, the learners will
be able to:
 Know the two creation accounts.
 Appreciate the distinction of two
creation accounts
 Outline the creation story
Genesis
 The authors of Genesis wished to sketch a
few highlights about human origins that had
particular religious significance for Israel’s
view of life.
 And to record a few traditions about their
own ancestors that would help them
understand how they came to be as a nation.
 No wonder 80% of Genesis is dedicated to
the few founding patriarchs.
 Began to take shape, and although it has been
Genesis 1-11
the first place in the Bible, it is by no means first
part to be written.
 It is rather the fruit of prolong thought and
relfection over several centuries.
 It is the place to begin the biblical story.
 Its strong images and rich language explore the
depths of human experience – in its most
mysterious, awesome wonder of creation, the
joys of life, the agony of sin, the fear of death and
the terrible capacity of man for evil.
 In bold strokes it makes us understand what
God’s salvation meant to Israel.
Gen 1-11
1.Two creation accounts (Gen1-2)
2.The fall of humanity into sin and
punishment (Gen 3-4)
3.The List of Ancient Heroes from Adam to
Noah (Gen 4:117-5:32)
4.The story of how giants were born due to
sin (Gen 6:1-4)
5.The flood as punishment of that sin (Gen
6:5-9:29)
6.The list of two nations spread across the
world (Gen 10)
7.The sin of the Tower of Babel (gen 11:1-9)
8.The list of Patriarchs from Noah down to
YAHWIST PASSAGES
The Garden of Eden Gen 2-3
The sin of Cain G.4
The Giants G.6
A flood G. 6-9
Table of nations G.10
Tower of Babel G.11
Story of Abraham
 YAHWIST (J) SOURCE
This came earlier.
It joined several old stories and myths and
rewrote them to fit its religious message
about Yahweh.
Humankind was created by God.
Other creatures were created for human use.
All this because of God’s goodness
Sin entered the word because of human
disobedience.
God sent the flood to punish humanity and
spare Noah.
PRIESTLY (P) SOURCES
 Is in universalistic in approach
 Creation of the world Gen 1
 First list of Patriarchs Adam – Noah Gen.5
 A flood story Gen 6-9
 2nd list of Patriarchs, Shem to Abraham G.11
 The story of Abraham
 The P writers were the final editors of Genesis.
 PRIESTS AND TEMPLE
SCHOOLS
EVIDENCE
 It emphasizes blessings and sacrifices, a part of
religious ceremonies.
 It maintains an interest in precise genealogy lists, a
task of ancient temple scribes who kept the birth
marriage and death records.
 It stresses the covenant that God makes with all
humans.
Gen 1-11
 J’s purpose - to underlie how God remains
faithful to his human race despite their
hardness and frequently reject him.
 The author taken ancient stories of various
types and used them to show how God gave
us dominion and responsibility for the world.
 Sin in the heart has unleashed on the world
an evergrowing round of murder, etc
 At the back of this morbid reality God’s
faithfulness remains.
 It is not unique because some tradition
has it.
 This type of literature – Myth
 These myth are tied closely to a ritual
action in worship and forms the
dramatic explanation for an actual
celebration.
Myth may be
 Etiological - means explaining causes of
something
 Myth allows us to speak of events of
primal importance at the very beginning
of time because it does not depend on
knowing the scientific facts.
 But understanding the inner meaning of
what happened and what purpose
stands behind the event.
 It specially concerns itself with divine beings
and their relation to the human world.
 Not history in strict sense but not anti-history
either.
 Past events and experience formed the
grounds for future expectations on divine
act.
 By understanding the past we better know
what choices to make in the present moment
 Gen 1-11 though similar with ANE,
Canaanites, Babylonians, it did not
hesitate to use to make use of these
literary forms.
 Theological explanation- Gen 1-11
stresses Yahweh’s freedom and power
versus human refusal of responsibility.
I. Objective
Sin in the Garden (Gen 3)
 Gen 2 ends with peace and harmony in God’s
creation of man and woman expressed – by
nakedness without shame.
 Gen 3 – presents – the temptation of the first
couple to be like god, wise and immortal.
 The serpent hinting – great things possible
and playing upon Eve’s vanity
 Despite their recognition that God had
forbidden them to eat to the tree of
knowledge of good and evil.
 Adam and eve are pictured as free
adults not innocent babes.
 After scrutiny it was concluded by that
the cause of shame and sin are rooted
in human pride and disobedience.
 Gen 2-3 explains why snakes crawl on
the ground, why women have pain in
childbirth, why the sexes are different,
why people are shamed when naked
 What comes are the genealogy (Gen 4-
5)
 The myth of enormous lifespan was
commonly used in the ancient world to
show the superiority of the beginning of
times.
 It has the same resemblance in ANE. Even
in Hindu traditions.
The Giants Born of Sin (Gen
6:1-4)
 Originallythe story explains why there
had been giants in the Old days – a
widespread ancient beliefs as we can
see from other references in Dt 2:20 and
3:11.
 Yahwist views the existence of these
monsters as a sign of gross abnormality
caused by sin in the world.
Noah and Flood (Gen 6-9)
 Yahwist and Priestly share a single message.
When God punish the world from its sin, he
spares one who has been faithful to him by
allowing Noah to ride out the flood on an ark.
 When disaster is over, God restores his
covenant with the world through this man.
 People mays still chose sin, but the goodness
of God and His everlasting mercy will be seen
in the bounty an regularity of nature’s
seasons.
The List of the World’s nations
(Gen 10)
 Shem- includes Arameans, Assyrians,
and Arabs
 Ham – Includes semitic peoples in the
west; Canaanites and peoples of North
Africa (Egyptians, Libyans, Sudanese)
 Japeth – Agean, the Greeks, Hittites and
people of Cyprus
Tower of Babel (Gen 11:1-
9)
 Tomock huge Ziggurat of Babylonians
some times 200ft or more.
 Then follows the genealogies (Gen
11:10-32) From Noah to Abraham.
At the end of the period, the
students will be able to:
 A. Understand the Exodus event.
 B. discern the significance of the bible in
their lives
 C. Evaluate shift of their perception of
the bible for and after discussion
We take note( Nota Bene)
 That chapter 12-50 are presented as
saga -often called legends, half-
historical and half entertaining stories of
the Past like that of Homer’s Iliad and
Odyssey
 Unlike “ legend” that we understand
them today as fictitious – scholars used
the term saga – consist of heroic tales
about the ancestor of a well known
family.
 They give luster to the family or clan
today by telling of the adventures of one
or more of its great-great-grandfathers
or grandmothers long ago.
 They often have legendary features,
building u fearless hero almost bigger
than real life, they share some of the
characteristics of the epic style: and
very elaborate poems about great
heroes who affected then whole course
of nation.
 Sagas show signs of being repeated
orally first, sometimes with more than
one version of each story in circulation.
 Each story teller can adapt or add
themes and local color to this retelling.
 By the time it was written down, oral
saga may have developed much beyond
its earliest form, and two different
versions may show quite some striking
changes from one another.
Moses and the Exodus
The Bible Course, Unit 4

Document #: TX001076
 The Book of Exodus Begins . . .
• Exodus begins by listing Joseph’s
descendants and those of his
brothers, who came to Egypt to live
with him. Together they were the sons
of Israel.
• Pharaoh Ramses II (1290–1224 BC)
came to power and “knew nothing of
Joseph” (Exodus 1:8).
• Ramses II felt threatened by the many
Israelites, so he enslaved them. This
story correlates to the time of his

Image in public domain

reign in history around 1330 to 1280
BC.
• It was even reflected in the writings of
Ancient Near East Tradition that the
Egyptian army chase the run-away
slaves.
 Miriam
• Miriam the prophetess was
the sister of Moses and Aaron.
• She saved Moses from Pharaoh’s
plan to kill all Israelite boys at
birth by floating Moses on the

Image in public domain

Nile in a basket, where Pharaoh's
daughter found him.
• Miriam also provided her mother
the opportunity to remain in
Moses’ life by suggesting her to
Pharaoh’s daughter as a nurse for the
infant Moses.
 Moses’ Early Years
• Moses was brought up as
Egyptian royalty, but his contact
with his family gave him exposure
to and sympathy for the Israelites.
• After Moses reaches adulthood,
he sees an Egyptian striking an
Israelite slave. In defense of the

Image in public domain

slave, Moses kills the Egyptian
and hides the body in the sand.
• When it becomes known what Moses has
done, he fears for his life and flees to the
land of Midian.
• In Midian he encounters the daughters of
Reuel, a priest of Midian. Moses stays with
Reuel and marries his daughter Zipporah.
 God Calls Moses
• Years later God reveals himself to Moses and calls him to
a key role in the salvation of God’s People.
• Moses experiences a theophany through a burning bush.
• God identifies himself as “I am who am” and calls Moses
to be his voice of truth and arm of justice.

Image in public domain

 Moses Returns to Egypt
• Upon returning to Egypt, Moses said to
Pharaoh, “Thus says the LORD, the God of
Israel: Let my people go . . .” (Exodus 5:1).
• Pharaoh refused to release the Israelites, so
God unleashed ten plagues on Pharaoh and
Egypt.
 The Ten Plagues
• First Plague: Water turned into Blood
• Second Plague: Frogs
• Third Plague: Gnats
• Fourth Plague: Flies
• Fifth Plague: Pestilence
• Sixth Plague: Boils

Image in public domain

• Seventh Plague: Hail
• Eighth Plague: Locusts
• Ninth Plague: Darkness
 Modern Critics
• Many of the mentioned plagues could be
explained by science.
• Example minute organisms turn the Nile red in
August flood time, frogs on September, etc
• What stands out is the death of the first born
child of the Egyptians.
 The Tenth Plague and Passover
• Tenth Plague: Death of
the Firstborn
• God spared the Israelites
from this plague by
passing over the
houses marked with

blic domain
Image in pu
the blood of the
sacrificial lamb.
This event is known
What did the event of
as the Passover. the Passover show the
Israelites about God?
 Freedom from Egypt
• After the tenth plague, Pharaoh lets the Israelites
go.
• Pharaoh soon changes his mind and the Egyptian
armies pursue the Israelites. On the shores of the
Red Sea, God defeats the Egyptians.
What did this event show the Israelites
about God?

Image in public domain

The Exodus
 The Sinai Covenant
• Mount Sinai is the sacred ground where God
forms a Covenant with his Chosen People.
• Contained within this Covenant are the laws
and obligations known as the Ten
Commandments.
• Within the framework of the Sinai Covenant,
God declares himself to be their God, a God of
fidelity, love, and justice.
 Exodus 15-18
• Sketches the several incidents of God’s care
that were answered by Israel’s murmuring and
rebellion against the hardship in the desert.
• These stories are feeding of Mana and quail,
gift of water from the rock
 The Ten Commandments
• I am the LORD your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me.
• You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
• Remember to keep holy the LORD’s Day.
• Honor your father and your mother.
• You shall not kill.
• You shall not commit adultery.
• You shall not steal.
• You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
• You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.
• You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.
(CCC, pp. 496–497)
 Importance of Sinai Covenant
• The remaining 22 chapters