Week 1

Questions to keep in mind while reading.

Read TIOT Chapter 1 – “The OT as Theological Witness”

• What difference does it make to be reading the Old Testament as a Christian in contrast to a non-Christian Jewish person? GENESIS GROUP
• How do you understand this statement made on page 22? - “Interpretation is more a rhetorical than a historical enterprise.”
• “Any adequate theological reading of the Old Testament must take into account the diverse theological voices that speak through its texts.” (p. 29) What challenges does such an acknowledgement pose? What potential gifts does it offer? JOSHUA GROUP

Read Genesis 1-11

• 1.27: What does it mean to be created in God’s “image”?
• What is the relationship between Genesis 1.1-2.4a and Genesis 2.4b-25? See the exercise on the next page.
• Were Adam and Eve vegetarians?
• Someone asks you how there can be two creation stories in the Bible. If the Bible is true, there can only be one or else one would be right and the other not! How would you respond? EXODUS GROUP
• God said that “in the day” they would eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would die. (1.17) The serpent said they wouldn’t. (3.4) Who was right? LEVITICUS GROUP
• Why did they eat the fruit? In 3.14-19, God declares some results of their disobedience. Is this a punishment or a consequence? What is the difference?
• In 3.22-24, who was God protecting when he sent Adam and Eve out of the garden?
• In the story of Cain and Abel in 4.1-16, what disturbs Cain about his punishment?
• Why didn’t God require Cain’s life for killing Abel? (I.e., why not capital punishment for Cain?) What then about Genesis 9.6? DEUTERONOMY GROUP
• Why did Noah find favor with God? (6.8) What sort of person do you think Noah was, especially after reading 9.18-28?
• What was so wrong about building the tower of Babel?
• How does the following quote from T. S. Eliot (Murder in the Cathedral) apply to the story in Genesis 3?

The last temptation is the greatest treason:

To do the right deed for the wrong reason.                NUMBERS GROUP