The Book of Beginnings

In the beginning … God

Genesis is the first book of the Bible, the beginning of everything but God. If we had to give a contemporary English title to this Bible book, we might call it “The book of beginnings,” or maybe just “In the beginning.” That is what the ancient Hebrews called it: bereshith, meaning “In the beginning.” The title we use today, “Genesis,” comes from the Greek word that means “birth.” This book tells the account of how the universe was born.

But there are more beginnings in the book of Genesis. Genesis records the beginning of the human family—tracing the family tree all the way back to its roots in Adam and Eve. It depicts the beginning of sin, following this polluted river back to its fountainhead in the Garden of Eden. And further, through the family history of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the forefathers of the Messiah, Jesus—Genesis draws up the beginnings, the blueprints, of God’s great plan of salvation for fallen humanity.

So Genesis teaches us about the beginnings of the world, the human race, the problem of sin, and God’s plan of salvation. Each of these themes, which are vitally important in the rest of biblical and human history, finds its origin in this book. That means Genesis is a very significant book, and our study of it will be extremely important for our understanding of our God, of ourselves, of our Bible, and of our world.

Genesis is the book of beginnings. But it is also a book about God. “In the beginning God” is the opening freeze-frame of the Bible. If we try to go back before the world sprang into being, we find God. If we ask where the world came from, Genesis answers: God. If we wonder why the universe continues to operate in an orderly, timely, predictable fashion, the answer in Genesis is God. And as we ponder how all this ancient information has been preserved and passed down to us, the answer again is God, who gave this book to Moses and had him write it down for the ages. So perhaps the best modern title for the book of Genesis would be “In the beginning … God.”

(Source : kurt strassner)

Blindness in the Bible

blindness, sightlessness. It is God who has the power to make people blind (Exod. 4:11) as well as to restore them to sight (Ps. 146:8). In Gen. 19:11 the angels of God who visited Lot struck the evil men of Sodom with blindness. Through Elisha’s prayer God struck the Syrian army with blindness (2 Kings 6:18). In Isa. 42:7 God commissions his servant ‘to open the eyes that are blind.’ 

Blindness was one of the blemishes disqualifying descendants of Aaron from performing sacrifice to God (Lev. 21:16-24). Likewise, it was forbidden to offer blind animals in sacrifice (Lev. 22:22; Deut. 15:21; Mal. 1:8). The blind were to be protected in accord with God’s covenantal instructions: no stumbling block was to be placed in their way (Lev. 19:14); and anyone who misled a blind person was cursed (Deut. 21:18). Isaac (Gen. 27:1), Eli (1 Sam. 3:2), and Ahijah (1 Kings 14:4) suffered the blindness of old age. One of the expectations of the eschatological age was the opening of the eyes of the blind by God (Isa. 29:18; 35:5; lxx 61:1). 

In the NT Jesus’ healing of blindness was one of the ‘deeds of the Christ’ illustrating and bringing about the Kingdom of God (Matt. 11:2-6; 15:29-31; Luke 4:16-19; 7:18-23). There are several examples in which the blind had their sight restored by Jesus: the faith of two blind men enabled them to be healed by Jesus (Matt. 9:27-31); he healed a blind and dumb demoniac (Matt. 12:22); by healing the blind in the Temple Jesus restored them to the worshiping community (Matt. 21:10-17). 

Some of Jesus’ healings of the blind may function as symbolic characterizations of the revelation and recognition of Jesus’ profound identity. That may be the case in the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida in Mark 8:22-26. The painstaking, step-by-step manner in which Jesus performs this healing characterizes the way he is trying to bring his disciples to understand and ‘see’ his profound identity. This healing serves as a symbolic anticipation and transition to the confession of Jesus as ‘the Christ’ in Mark 8:29. Similarly, Bartimaeus, healed of his blindness, represents the insightful disciple who follows Jesus to Jerusalem, the place of his suffering and death (Mark 10:46-52). The healing of the man born blind in John 9 characterizes the spiritual ‘blindness’ of the Jews and indicates how Jesus is the ‘light of the world.’ 

The concept of blindness was particularly appropriate for metaphorical use; it often characterized spiritual ‘blindness’ or lack of insight into the revelation of God (Isa. 6:9-10; 42:16-19; 59:10; Matt. 15:14; Acts 28:26-27; Rom. 2:19; 11:8-10).

J.P.H.

(Source : Logos Bible Study)