Theological Reading of Genesis

Theological Reading of Genesis

Introduction

Religion holds special and outstanding importance in life of every human being, and serves as a method of getting in touch with God. It should be taken into account that religion does not only serve to provide information about the divine creatures, but also seeks to provide answers or the complex and complicated phenomenon, that hold imminent importance in the life of human beings. It is due to the same reason that human beings turn towards religion whenever there is no other option left, which implies that it also serves to provide relief and relaxation to individuals. However there are a number of clauses and factors in religion that are above normal understanding and caliber of common people, and thus has to be explained and elaborated by the religious experts. The following paragraphs would focus on the theological reading of Genesis and would also elaborate the contributions of John Webster in the same regard.

Discussion

Genesis

The book of Genesis is mainly the first and the foremost book of Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament, with the basic narrative providing explanation regarding the central themes of Christianity. The major themes focuses in the Genesis include the creation of world by God and appointment of man as His regent. However, man turned out to the disobedient and invited the wrath of God, causing him to destroy the world through flood. Although the world created thereafter is not composed of all the good attributes and characteristics, God refrained from destroying it and Genesis is mainly about the sequence of events that follow after the creation of the new world.

Theological reading of Genesis

“Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked the Ethiopian who held a copy of Isaiah. “How can I,” he replied, “unless someone guides me?” (Allison, 2010, Pp: 28- 36)

As mentioned earlier, the religious scriptures need proper interpretation in order to allow the general public to understand the same. In order to make sure that all the clauses are properly understood and clearly explained, the scriptures have to be explained and elaborated by the religious scholars who have considerable information on the subject and are in a position to get better understanding of the concept. The same idea has been used to provide theological reading of Genesis, which does not only assist in understanding the basic concepts highlighted in the scripture but also provides the knowledge regarding basis of the same.

The theological reading of Genesis can be carried out in three distinct steps, with the first step focusing specifically on the message delivered by Genesis, only the message and not the other details. The step is mainly intended to assist in determining the meaning of the book itself, instead of understanding the place of the scripture in large context and thus the bigger side of it, thus seeking to get an idea about the meaning delivered to the original and basic readers of the scripture.

The second level of theological reading deals with the ...