Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Sermon Addendum for Genesis 2 and 3

 Picking back up on the "Sermon Addendum" idea, which is to share with you here some of the ideas and points that end up edited between sermon preparation and sermon delivery, let's look at a couple of ideas on Genesis 2 and Genesis 3.

First, Genesis 2 provides a slightly different view on the Creation narrative. It is neither corrective of the Genesis 1 account nor is it a "different Creation." Rather, it looks more relationally at the development of Creation. This is also evidenced by the use of "Lord God," which uses the Divine Name of God that is considered "personal" to the Israelites. 

Second, the NET translation uses "orchard" where many of us are used to the word "Garden." This fits well, as we're mainly focused on trees here and the connotation of "garden," especially in the English-speaking world, is more about neat rows of veggies and flowers. So you have trees. Lots of trees.

Worth noting as well is that "Work" is not bad in the Garden/Orchard. We need to remember that as we fuss about work--we don't like work because the Fall wrecked it.

There are also some things that we just do not know about Genesis 2 and 3:

We do not know how long Adam and Eve are in the Garden/Orchard. It's just not in the text. So be careful with the view that it was instant or that it took millennia. We just do not know.

We also do not know what life is like outside of the Garden. We expect it is still some form of peaceful and proper relation of all things, but there is no information.

Chapter 3 gives us a variety of questions about talking snakes and other things that stand out, but the big question remains: what is it to follow Jesus?

The other big question that arises: Where was the Garden/Orchard? We don't know. I personally think it did not survive the Flood and that we will not encounter it again.

Those are the short notes. Maybe I'll share more of the longer ones later!

No comments:

Post a Comment

To deal with SPAM comments, all comments are moderated. I'm typically willing to post contrary views...but I also only check the list once a day, so if you posted within the last 24 hours, I may not be to it yet.

Sermon Recap for March 24 2024

 I really need to do better getting ahead of Palm Sunday. I miss the tradition of Frond Day in church. Well, we'll work on the classic F...