GENESIS
UNDERSTANDING GENESIS, PART ONE: CREATION ACCOUNT
-a paper by Jack Crabtree
Updated version of an earlier paper.
This newer version of an earlier paper seeks to explicate the meaning and significance of the initial creation account in the first chapter of the book of Genesis. It contends that this account is one of the most important passages in the whole of Scripture. To understand the message and the significance of this account is to understand the perspective that underlies everything else that the Bible teaches. If one does not understand the message and the significance of this account, he risks misunderstanding everything else that is found in the Bible.
This updated version contains an additional appendix that explores the exact nature of God’s purpose for creating created reality.
ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGINS OF MANKIND—GENESIS, PART TWO: TRANSLATION AND NOTES
GENESIS 2:4B–5:1A
- translation and notes by Jack CrabtreeThe second part of Genesis deals with the creation of man, the creation of woman, the murder of Abel by Cain, and the emergence of two distinct spiritual lines of human beings. In the near future, Jack hopes to publish a paper that fully explores how to understand this account in Genesis. That paper, when completed, will reflect and be based on the interpretation of Genesis 2:4b–5:1a that is embodied in this translation and its accompanying notes.
Jack proposes a rather controversial, non-traditional interpretation of this account. Most notably, he rejects the traditional understanding of the fall of mankind and the origin of sin. He sees eating the forbidden fruit as a failed test rather than the beginning and origin of sin. He sees the account as a straightforward, factually-accurate historical account, not an etiological myth. And he proposes that Eve was not tempted by a snake, but by Satan himself.