Category: Understanding the Bible

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Understanding the Bible 02: Sin in the Garden of Eden

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02_raphael_adameveCentral to the biblical story is the conviction that something has gone terribly wrong.  The world as we experience it is not the world as God intended.

In this episode we turn to the biblical explanation why – how humanity moved from the Garden of Eden to a cosmos in which “thorns and thistles” are part of our daily reality.

This story of “the Fall” is told  in highly symbolic language and revolves largely around two trees:  The Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  By understanding these images, we come to a much clearer understanding of both biblical theology and basic plot of the Bible.  Along the way we will construct a basic definition of sin and get glimpse at what “salvation” will require.

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Understanding the Bible 01: In the Beginning… (Creation)

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The Creation of AdamUnderstanding the Bible in its various chapters and verses requires that we first understand the story as a whole.  (Hard to make sense of the details when you don’t know much about the big picture.)

So for the next 40 weeks or so, I will do my best to trace the outline of the biblical story, the narrative arc that stretches from Genesis to Revelation.  It is a story with many complexities and comprising a wide variety of literary genres (historial narrative, poetry, letters, aphorisms…); but all are tied to a fundamental story of God’s project of setting creation whole.

In this first installment, we set the stage.  First and foremost we see that this drama is set in our world (not some mythic alternative reality); the Bible is a story about here and now.   Likewise meet the central characters:  God and humanity; and we get a first look at the relationship between them (love!).  The tone of the story both joyful and peaceful.  And we have good reason to believe that while there may (and will!) be many hardships as the narrative unfolds, this is a story that ends with a “…happily ever after.”

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