Unit 5 · Three Rebellions

Genesis is the first book of the Bible. Its first eleven chapters tell stories of beginnings. Three of these stories show someone going against God’s word. They are in Genesis 3, Genesis 6 and Genesis 11.

Genesis 3 tells of a serpent in the garden of Eden. Genesis 6 tells of the sons of God coming to people on earth. Genesis 11 tells of the tower of Babel. In each story, someone refuses God’s plan. That kind of refusal is called a rebellion.

Many readers have noticed links between these stories. The Bible scholar Michael Heiser, in The Unseen Realm (2015), called them three rebellions. He thought they help explain why the world in the Bible is so troubled. Other readers see them as separate stories. This unit reads the first two closely.

Most of the Old Testament was first written in Hebrew. Hebrew is written from right to left. The Hebrew word for the serpent in Genesis 3 is nachash. Readers who know Hebrew can look closely at words like this one.

More than two thousand years ago, Jewish scholars in Egypt put Genesis into Greek. This Greek translation is called the Septuagint. It is one of the oldest windows into how early readers understood Genesis. For the serpent, it uses ophis, the usual Greek word for a snake.

A scholar is a person who studies one subject closely for many years. Scholars compare the Hebrew, the Greek and other old copies. Sometimes one word can mean more than one thing. In this unit you learn what the texts say first. Then you learn how different readers explain them.

Genesis 2 tells of a garden God planted in a place called Eden. The story says it grew every tree that was good to look at and good for food. In the middle stood the tree of life. There was also the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden. Then it split into four rivers. Genesis names two that readers still know today, the Tigris and the Euphrates. These rivers flow through the land that is now Iraq.

The story says God put the first man in the garden to work it and keep it. God told him he could eat from every tree but one. That one was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This rule becomes very important in Genesis 3.

Genesis is not the only book that mentions Eden. The prophet Ezekiel wrote about it too. In Ezekiel 28, he speaks a poem to the king of Tyre, a rich city by the sea. The poem uses pictures from Eden to describe the king.

Ezekiel 28:13 says, "Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God." Verse 14 speaks of "the holy mountain of God." In this poem, Eden is a garden and also a mountain. Many scholars notice this. In the Bible, a holy mountain is often where God meets people. So they read Eden as more than a farm.

Verse 14 also calls the one in the poem an anointed cherub. A cherub is a heavenly guard. Many readers say the poem is about a human king and pictures his pride. Others think it also looks back to a proud being in Eden. Readers still discuss this.

Genesis 3:8 says the man and woman heard God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. In this story, God is close by. People and God share the same place. Many readers find this a warm and peaceful picture.

Genesis 3:22 has a surprise. God says, "Behold, the man is become as one of us." Who is us? Readers give different answers. Many Christians hear a hint of the Trinity. Some Jewish teachers said God was speaking with the angels. Others read it as a royal way of speaking.

Some scholars read us as God’s divine council. That means God’s heavenly court of spirit beings. E. Theodore Mullen studied councils like this in old Canaanite and Hebrew texts (1980). Michael Heiser thought Eden was where this council met with people. Many readers see only God and the first people in Eden.

In Genesis 3, the Hebrew word for the serpent is nachash. Most English Bibles translate it as serpent or snake. That is its usual meaning. Some readers also look at other Hebrew words that sound the same or share the same letters.

One related word means to give omens. An omen is a sign people once used to try to tell the future. Another related word means bronze, a shiny metal. Heiser wrote that these links could point to a being that shines and gives secret messages.

Word links like these are clues, not proof. Hebrew has many words that look alike. Many scholars think nachash here simply means snake. Heiser read the clues together with Ezekiel 28. He called the serpent a shining one, a bright spirit being, not an ordinary snake.

Long ago, Jewish writers retold the Genesis stories in their own books. One is the Book of Jubilees, from about 160 BCE. Jubilees says that in Eden all the animals spoke one language. It says their mouths were closed on the day the people left the garden.

Another is Josephus, a Jewish historian who wrote in Greek about 94 CE. His book Antiquities of the Jews tells the Eden story. He says the serpent lived near Adam and Eve and could talk. He says God took away its speech because it meant harm.

Both writers read the serpent as a real animal in a very different world. Many Jewish and Christian readers still read it that way. Some scholars read Genesis 3 as a teaching story about choices. Others, as you saw, see a spirit being. The same verses lead to different readings.

Read Genesis 3 closely, and you will notice something. The serpent is never given a name. It is only called the serpent. The name Satan does not appear in the Eden story at all.

Later writers began to link Eden with the devil. The Wisdom of Solomon, a Jewish book written in Greek about two thousand years ago, says death came into the world through the devil’s envy. Later came Revelation, the last book of the Christian Bible. Revelation 12:9 calls a great dragon "that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan."

Because of verses like these, many Christians see the Eden serpent as Satan. Jewish readers explain it in more than one way. Some keep the serpent and Satan apart. Others read it simply as a snake. Knowing which book says what keeps the readings clear.

The serpent told the woman she would not die if she ate the fruit. It said she would be like God, knowing good and evil. The woman saw that the fruit looked good. She ate some. She gave some to the man, and he ate too.

Then the story says their eyes were opened. They saw they were naked and made coverings from fig leaves. When they heard God in the garden, they hid. God called out, "Where art thou?" The man and the woman each explained what happened.

Many readers see this as a story about trust. The people had to choose whom to believe. Many Christians call this moment the Fall. Some scholars call it the first rebellion. Readers across traditions agree the story is about a choice.

The choice changed things. Genesis 3 says work would now be hard and life would have pain. God made clothes of skins for the man and the woman. Many readers notice that God still cared for them, even after they chose wrongly.

Then the man and the woman had to leave the garden. Genesis 3:24 says God placed cherubim at the east of Eden. Cherubim are heavenly beings who guard holy places. A flaming sword turned every way to guard the path to the tree of life.

The story tells of a great loss. People no longer lived in God’s garden. Many Christian readers see the rest of the Bible as a long road back toward God. Many Jewish and Christian readers see Eden as a home that people long for.

Before the people leave, God speaks to the serpent. Genesis 3:15 says there will be a struggle between the serpent and the woman. It also says there will be a struggle between their offspring. Offspring means children and the families that come after them.

The verse says the woman’s offspring will bruise the serpent’s head. The serpent will bruise his heel. A hurt heel heals. A crushed head does not. So many readers hear good news in this verse. They see a promise that evil will be beaten.

Many Christians read Genesis 3:15 as the first hint of Jesus. The church writer Irenaeus read it that way about 180 CE. Some old Aramaic translations, called targums, link it to the days of the Messiah. Many Jewish readers see the long struggle between people and wrongdoing.

Genesis 6:1–4 is one of the shortest stories in the Bible. It has only four verses. A verse is one small numbered part of a chapter. Yet these four verses have caused more discussion than many long chapters.

The story says people were spreading over the earth. The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful. They took wives from among them. God then said people’s days would be 120 years. This is in Genesis 6:3.

Verse 4 adds that the Nephilim were on the earth in those days. It says the children born then became mighty men of old, famous men. The verses do not explain much more. Readers have to put the clues together.

One good way to understand a phrase is to find it in other places. The phrase sons of God appears in the book of Job. Job 1:6 says the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD. They gather in God’s heavenly court.

Job 38:7 speaks of the time God made the earth. It says the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. No people were there yet. So in Job, the sons of God are heavenly beings.

Many scholars see these verses as a strong clue for Genesis 6. Some old copies of the Septuagint, the Greek translation, even say angels of God in Genesis 6:2. Other readers say a phrase can mean different things in different books. They look at the story around Genesis 6 instead.

Genesis 6:4 names a group called the Nephilim. The Septuagint, the old Greek translation, calls them gigantes, giants. The King James Version also says giants. Many newer Bibles keep the Hebrew name, Nephilim. Genesis does not describe what they looked like.

The name appears again in Numbers 13:33. Spies sent into Canaan came back with a report. They said they saw the Nephilim there. They said they felt as small as grasshoppers next to them. So the Bible links the name with very tall people.

Readers disagree about where the name comes from. Many connect it to the Hebrew word naphal, to fall. Some scholars, like Michael Heiser, think it comes from an Aramaic word meaning giant. Aramaic is a language close to Hebrew. Either way, the story stays short and calm.

The oldest known writings that explain Genesis 6 are Jewish books from before the time of Jesus. One is 1 Enoch. Its first part, the Book of the Watchers, was likely written about 300 to 200 BCE. It calls the sons of God Watchers, heavenly beings who came down to earth.

1 Enoch 6 says two hundred Watchers came down on Mount Hermon. In the 1950s, pieces of 1 Enoch in Aramaic were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. J. T. Milik published them in 1976. They show that Jews were reading 1 Enoch before the time of Jesus.

Jubilees and the historian Josephus also say angels took wives. Today 1 Enoch is in the Bible only of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox churches. George Nickelsburg wrote a long study of it (2001). Michael Heiser held this reading too, in Reversing Hermon (2017).

Genesis 4 and 5 tell of two families. One comes from Cain, the son of Adam who killed his brother Abel. The other comes from Seth, a son born to Adam and Eve later. Genesis 4:26 says people began to call on the name of the LORD in Seth’s time.

In the early 200s CE, a Christian writer named Julius Africanus read Genesis 6 this way. The sons of God were Seth’s faithful family. The daughters of men came from Cain’s family. Around 420 CE, Augustine, a famous church leader, taught this reading in his book City of God.

This became the most common Christian reading for centuries. Many still hold it. They point out that Jesus says angels do not marry, in Matthew 22:30. Readers who disagree note that Genesis never calls Seth’s family sons of God.

In the ancient world, some kings said they were children of gods. In Egypt, the pharaoh was called a son of the sun god Ra. So some readers think the sons of God in Genesis 6 were proud rulers.

Some Jewish teachers of the early centuries CE read it this way. An old Aramaic translation of Genesis, the Targum Onqelos, calls them the sons of great men. In this reading, the sin was pride. Rulers took any women they chose.

Some modern scholars also hold this view. They note that verse 4 calls the children mighty men and famous men, words often used for warriors. Readers who favor the heavenly beings reading answer that Job and 1 Enoch point the other way.

The New Testament also speaks of angels who sinned. 2 Peter 2:4 says God put them in a dark place to wait for judgment. The Greek word used there for that place is Tartarus.

The next verse, 2 Peter 2:5, talks about Noah and the Flood. Jude 6 tells of angels who left their proper home. A few verses later, Jude 14 names Enoch and quotes words found in 1 Enoch 1:9. Scholars agree on that quote.

Richard Bauckham, in his study Jude, 2 Peter (1983), read these verses in light of the Watchers story in 1 Enoch. Readers who hold the line of Seth reading answer differently. They say these verses could be about a different fall of angels.

No careful reader rests a view on one verse. Michael Heiser, for example, put several clues together. First, sons of God means heavenly beings in Job. Second, the oldest Jewish readers said so. Third, 2 Peter and Jude seem to agree.

Fourth, he pointed to the children. Genesis 6:4 calls them mighty men of old. Numbers 13:33 links the Nephilim with very tall people. Heiser thought ordinary human marriages would not explain this. He saw a heavenly boundary being crossed.

Readers who disagree weigh the clues differently. Some give most weight to Matthew 22:30, about angels not marrying. Some trust later church teaching. Studying this debate shows how scholars build a case from many clues.

Next comes Genesis 6:5. It says the LORD saw that people’s wickedness was great. Every thought of their hearts was only evil all the time. Genesis 6:6 says this grieved God in his heart.

So God decided to send a flood. Many readers see the reason in verse 5, the wrong that people did. 1 Enoch tells a longer story. It says the Watchers taught people harmful skills, and the earth cried out. Some scholars think Genesis placed 6:1–4 before the Flood on purpose.

Genesis 6:8 then says something hopeful. "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD." Grace means kindness that someone did not earn. In the middle of a sad chapter, the story turns to one family.

Genesis 6:9 calls Noah a just man who walked with God. God told Noah to build an ark. An ark is a large boat shaped like a box. Genesis 6:15 gives its size: 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high.

A cubit was the length from an elbow to the tip of the middle finger. That is about 18 inches. So the ark was about 450 feet long. That is longer than a football field.

Noah, his wife, his three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth, and their wives went inside. Animals went in too, by pairs. Genesis 7:12 says rain fell for forty days and forty nights. The story says everyone inside the ark was kept safe.

After the waters went down, Noah and his family came out of the ark. Genesis 9 says God made a covenant with Noah. A covenant is a serious promise that binds two sides together. God promised never again to send a flood to destroy the earth.

God gave a sign of this promise. Genesis 9:13 says, "I do set my bow in the cloud." The bow is a rainbow. The story says God will see the rainbow and remember the promise to every living thing.

Genesis 9:1 repeats words from Genesis 1:28: be fruitful and multiply. So many readers see the Flood as a fresh start, like a new creation. Many see the rainbow as a sign of God’s patience. Genesis 11 tells of Babel next.