Having been raised and educated in a religious school, it’s pretty surprising to me when I talk to people about the Bible and discover that outside of the story of Christ, the only Bible stories they know are from Genesis.
There are 66 books in the King James Version of the Bible, or 73 if you’re reading from a Catholic version. In both of these, Genesis comes first, and in its short chapters it contains the great bulk of Bible stories from the Old Testament most people are familiar with:
- The Creation
- Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden
- Cain and Abel
- Noah and the Flood
- The Tower of Babel
- Abram/Abraham and Isaac
- Lot and Sodom and Gommorah
- Jacob and Esau
- Jacob’s Ladder
- Joseph’s Coat of Many Colors
- Joseph and Pharaoah
Most people with a passing familiarity with the Bible would probably also mention the story of Moses (seeing and hearing Charlton Heston in their mind’s eye the entire time)– but that’s the next book, Exodus. Taken together, these two books have a definite narrative arc: Genesis goes from the creation of the world to the establishment of the twelve tribes of Israel in Egypt. Exodus traces the nation’s enslavement in Egypt, their liberation by Moses, and their wandering towards the promised land.
Together they make up the “how did we get here?” portion of the Israelite story (Deuteronomy and Numbers, for the most part, cover the “What do we believe?” and “How shall we live?”– but we’re not going through the entire Bible in the BOAT reading list.) The Old Testament, as a whole, deals with the trials and tribulations of the nation of Israel.
