STUDY QUESTIONS
HUMANITIES CORE COURSE
WEEK 3
11-12 OCTOBER 2010

On the Book of Genesis:

1-4

How does God’s command to the first couple in Genesis 1 imply a covenant between them and him?

In Genesis 2, we find that the first couple of Genesis 1 are no more and that God is doubling back almost to the beginning for a fresh start at creating the human being and a world for him/them to live in. What happened to the first couple? How does God’s creative procedure differ in this second effort? Regarding covenant, what might the second procedure imply?

In Genesis 3, the first couple does not know that they are naked. Can we infer that they have not yet experienced sexual desire? Does this only begin after they eat the forbidden fruit? Does he approve or disapprove of their sexuality? Where will you look first to find an answer?

“Scavenger Hunt” Exercise:
Find a verse somewhere in Genesis 1-3 from which you can defend the thesis: Adam disobeyed God, Eve did not.

After their disobedience, their sin, could God have punished the first couple mildly for what was, after all, their “first offense” and then forgiven them without blighting the man’s labor in the fields and the woman’s labor in childbirth. He does not take this course(3:14-24). Discuss this action as the biblical writer’s characterization of him. Is creation still “good” in his eyes? What impression do God’s human creatures have of him before and then after this moment? What is its effect upon their covenant with him, such as it has been? What is the effect on the reader?

“Continuity” Exercise:
God could have imposed the punishments of 3:14-24 from within Eden. Why does chosse, in addition, to expel from Eden? Is expulsion the punishment or just the means to another punishment? Did God originally intend for them to live forever? To what combination of verses within Genesis 1-4 could we turn to answer this question?

In what way do God’s actions at the time of and immediately after the expulsion suggest a repair of the ruptured covenant? What verses would you delete if you wanted to make the rupture seem more final and irrevocable?

6-9

Why does God “regret that He had made man” (6:6)? What reason had he to expect something other than what has happened? After the flood, does he expect that anything will now change? How reassured are Noah and his extended family likely to be by the rainbow sign and the new covenant that God proclaims?

12

In view of the second episode reported in Genesis 12, how whole-hearted do you judge Abram to be to obey God’s order and leave his father’s house and country to go to Canaan? What reward does God promise that Abram, personally, will receive for his obedience?

15

Genesis 15 essentially just repeats the terms of the covenant proclaimed in Genesis 12, but it does so, in effect, by way of a nightmare. What is the meaning of the animals bisected and burned in the nightmare?

17

Discuss irony (words that simultaneously mean one thing and suggest its opposite or mean one thing and mock that very thing) and counter-irony (the serious meaning overcoming the mockery) in this passage. Note that the Judaica Press's translation of 17:17 disagrees with the translation you find in the New Jerusalem Bible.

What does Abraham surrender, symbolically, when he surrenders a piece of his penis?
Blood is shed in this operation. Would its meaning be the same if it came from, say, the shoulder?

What does God promise Abraham in exchange for his foreskin and the foreskins of all the males in his household?

16 plus 21, 17 plus 22: Compare-and-Contrast Questions:

Compare (look for common elements) in the role that Eve plays in Genesis 3, Sarai plays in Genesis 12, and Sarah and Hagar play in Genesis 16 and 21.

Contrast (look for unshared or unlike elements) in the relationship between Sarah and God in, respectively, the rescue of Ishmael in 21 and the rescue of Isaac in 22. Imagine Sarah and, respectively, Ishmael and Isaac in the aftermath of each episode. Suggestion: from the website link, read Genesis 23 and 24.

What would have become of God’s most solemn covenant with Abraham (17) if God had not rescued Isaac? What became of Abraham’s relationship with Isaac in the immediate aftermath of the episode? Where might you begin reading to find out?

Contrast the place of women in Genesis 1-4, 6-9, 12, and 16-14 with the place of women in the Discourses of Epictetus and the Letters of Epicurus.

25

If God’s promise to Abram was fertility, the greatest fulfillment of that promise comes in Genesis 25, but this almost matter-of-fact section seems to loom small in the Book of Genesis. Are all these nations in covenant with God or not? How is covenant a clue to the nonchalance of Genesis 25, on the one hand, and the intensity of the Sarah/Hagar rivalry in Genesis 16-17 on the other? Clue: Genesis 27 (read online).

Hagar and Sarah were rivals. Were Ishmael and Isaac rivals as well? Find a clue in this chapter and at 21:9. Read both the Judaica Press translation and the New Jerusalem Bible translation of this verse.