Creation Story In The Old Testament

Giving purpose to life is valuable and eases the mind of many questions. However, how is a creation story to be interpreted? The creation story in the Old Testament is a story that has many meanings behind the text. The meanings of the text strongly convey their messages, and possibly impact future cultures. The story seems to go back and forth between what existed before this creation. The very first verse states “God created the heavens and the earth” then the story moves to state “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness”. This was an interesting comparison because it seems God has created the heavens and earth, but then creates mankind in “our” image. Who existed with God before the earth was created. Was heaven created, and then earth created in the image of God and the angels? These two verses encourage deeper questions on what existed before God created this earth. The message of these verses could stand on their own, and should not have been read together. When comparing the two verses a point made by Dennis Bratcher in his article came to mind. Bratcher stresses that the verses should be read in sections and not looked at as a whole. If the story is looked at as whole then messages can be missed. I mostly agree with him, but I believe it is important to focus on both …show more content…
God states “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” which made me wonder why it is emphasized that the man rules the woman. This really made me wonder how this has affected later generations. In the current century this could empower men to miss treat women. This could have resulted in poor treatment of women around this time period. Religions are often followed to define the moral vs. immoral line. According to Genesis 16 men ruling over their wives is moral and should be implemented. I would like to know what purpose this served in the religion, and why it passed down with the