First let's get something clear about erroneous notions of Paul and his founding a new religion, which he didn't. True, the halakhah of his Judaism switched from the Pharisaic oral law to the Ruach Hakodesh, but his religion was still one of the Judaisms of the time, not a new non-Judaism Gentile religion.

The wrath of G-d can be seen clearly and immediately in this first book

of the Bible. The Serpent and Serpent-deceived mankind encounter the wrath of Hashem.

But Gan Eden is only the beginning. Soon we are reading about the Mabbul, the Flood.

Then the Sodomites incite the wrath of G-d revealed from heaven.

Then a terrible famine grips the earth, but G-d has his Savior in place. Yosef chai!

Yosef's brothers find that in wrath, G-d remembers mercy. Let's take a look.

BERESHIS (GENESIS)

....B'ray-SHEET ("in the beginning") is the Hebrew name for

Genesis. Many of the books of the Hebrew Bible are named from

their first words. This Hebrew word begins the first fifth of

the so-called "book of the Law of Moses" SEFER TORAT-MOSHE

II Kgs. 14:6). In view of the watchword Sola Scriptura (the

Bible alone is authoritative for faith), we must allow inerrantly

inspired authors of Scipture to give us our normative

interpretation of Scripture. For example, when we look at Genesis

1:1, we should remember Rav Sha'ul's teaching of the doctrine of

creation ex nihilo (Latin, "from nothing") that G-d "calls into

being that which does not exist" (Romans 4:17). With Rav Sha'ul's

inerrant teaching to guide us, we will not be tempted to

interpret Genesis 1:1 in any way that would have G-d creating the

cosmos from pre-existing materials. The book of Romans would

have us see the book of Genesis in terms of the sovereignty of

G-d, that G-d created the cosmos out of nothing and the chosen

nation of Israel out of nothing, since Abraham and Sarah were old

and "as good as dead" (Romans 4:19). So Genesis chps 1-11 are

about the creation of the inhabited world. And the book begins

with Adam, who is told to govern the world as the son of G-d,

being a type of "the one who is to come" (Romans 5:14; Genesis

3:15; 49:10 NIV), as expectation begins to build about a promised

eschatological Redeemer-Ruler, a Savior from sin and death, a

Great "Descendant" or "Seed" ZERAH. In Genesis we see the

"fall," that is, "creation being subjected to futility" (Romans

8:20) and the whole human race being brought under the bondage of

the law of sin and death (Romans 6:23) and all this occurred long

before the death-dealing Law of Moses was given at Mt. Sinai.

Romans 5:12 tells us how to exegete (interpret) Genesis 3. Adam

is an epochal figure whose failure and fall determines the

character of all encompassed in his epoch; that is, all of

G-d-alienated humanity in need of the epoch of the second Adam,

the New Man, the Moshiach, and especially in need of the new life

that flows from the Kingdom of G-d and G-d's great King Moshiach

and the Messianic Adamic fountainhead. When we look at the

first man lying on the ground dead (Gen. 5:5), the Bible is

showing us the first sinner of a sinning/dying epoch which only

the Moshiach's death brings to an end (II Cor. 5:14). The six

days of creation may also stand for creationary epochs because

the Seventh Day or Shabbos may also point toward the millennial

epoch at the end of this age, if the book of Revelation (Rev.

20:4) and its creation theology is allowed to exert any force as

an interpretive key to the meaning of Gen. chp. 1-3. YOM can be a

period of indefinite length in the Hebrew Bible. The age-day

interpretation fits well with the geological record. Moreover, if

the sun had not yet been created on Day One, you could hardly

have a 24-hour solar day on that "day" of no sun! If the sun were

not visible until day #4 (as in a long period where thick clouds

constituted the primordial atmosphere) such a description as

Genesis gives us could be reconciled with science. However, we

need to remember in all of this that Moses is not conducting an

amoral science lecture but rather is preaching a life-or-death

sermon (Deut. 30:l5) to get his Jewish people to stop violating

the law and get delivered from the wrath of G-d.

In a sense it would be better to read the book of Genesis last

instead of first. The reason is that Genesis answers all kinds of

questions that only get raised for the reader later in the Bible.

So it is only when you read Obadiah and Malachi that you really

start asking, "Who are the Edomites and when do we first hear of

their patriarch Esau?" Similarly, when Gog and Magog are

mentioned in Ezekiel, when Javan (Greece) is mentioned in

Zechariah, when Babylon (Shinar--Gen. 14:1) is mentioned in

Isaiah, when the Canaanites and the Moabites and the Amorites

(Noah's son Ham is the father of the Amorites) are discussed in

the rest of the Scriptures, Genesis is the place to turn to get

the Bible's theological introduction and overview of their

significance and determinative character. Genesis introduces us

theologically to all the major questions of life. What is

mankind? What is marriage? What is work and rest from work in

relation to G-d? In Proverbs it says that wine is a mocker

(20:1). How does the Bible first introduce us to that fact?

(Hint: see Gen. 9. Read also Lev. 10:8-11; Num.6:l-4; Luke

1:15; Rom. 14:2l.) How did the evil of polygamy begin? (Note

Gen. 4:19 and Lamech's overweening desire for both women and

violence--see Gen. 2:24 on monogamy.) What is sin? What is guilt?

Does man have to sin? (See Gen. 4:7). How in the human heart

did wickedness begin and proliferate over the earth? How did it

happen that the life-blood was set apart as holy in the

beginning, when G-d began to institute blood sacrifice as a

necessary aspect of the faith of Abraham? Where did Moses and

Joseph and the children of Israel come from? How did bondage,

especially bondage in Egypt come about? How can it be circumcised

and rolled away from the human heart so that we might know G-d

personally and become his true sons? Adam, Abel, Seth, Enosh,

Enoch, Noah, Shem, Arphachshad, Shelah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Serug,

Nahor, Terah and Abraham show us sons of G-d, whereas the sons of

the Serpent become a brood of "Lamech's" swallowed in a flood of

wrath. Interpreting Gen 6 and the term in that chapter "Sons of G-d" as angels?

Angels need a physical male body to procreate with physical female bodies,

so fallen "sons of G-d", i.e., fallen angels or demons using demon possessed men

(rather than mere angels leaving real men out of the picture) seem to be

necessitated if you take the line of interpretation that Sons of G-d are angels.    There is something

called "the analogy of faith," meaning you don't interpret Gen 6 in a way that

contradicts Mt 22:30.  The heaven Moshiach Ben Dovid describes is not the Muslim heaven.

There is no intercourse in heaven.  But on earth there is a godly line and there is also one

that is not godly. There are the sons of G-d and the sons of the devil (John chp 8).  Sons of

G-d could refer in an ethical or spiritual sense to the pious descendents of

Seth's line.  There was Abel but there was also Cain. There was also Cain's impious

line. The Nephilim were Titans of strength.  But there was that Titan "Samson"

and then there was that "daughter of men" Delilah.  See Samson and Delilah.

Somewhere this theme of a godly line and an ungodly line begins in Genesis and goes to the end of the Bible (see Rev 22:11).

However, mythology doesn't really get a foot in the door, and this is true

also not only of the Torah but also the torah of Moshiach Ben Dovid.

"the son of Man" and is also part of the promise given to

Abraham.

Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Yehoshua/Yeshua tells us this when he

says, "Abraham your father rejoiced at the thought of seeing the

day of my coming" (Yochanan 8:56) See correct spelling of the

Moshiach's name in the Hebrew Bible Neh.7:39 and 8:17; see prophecy

regarding this name as Moshiach's name Zech.6:12; Ezra 3:8. Now

this is important: Galatians 3:16 interprets in this Messianic

sense Genesis 22:18. G-d promised

many descendents but the fact that the word ZERA or SPERMA is

singular Shliach Sha'ul takes as a Messianic reference, not

merely a reference to the nation. Shliach Sha'ul sees the notion

of promise, including a promised eschatological covenant (Genesis

17:2), as central to the book of Genesis, because the Exodus from

Egypt, the conquering of the land of Israel, the coming of the

King Moshiach, and his inheritance of the nations are all an

unfolding of the promise that has its beginning in Genesis (the

word "Genesis" is from a Greek word meaning "origin"). Since a

gracious promise from a sovereign G-d who creates out of nothing

negates any notion of salvation through meritorious

works-righteousness, Shliach Sha'ul has Moses and Habakkuk to say

"amen" when Shliach Sha'ul teaches that righteousness was

credited to Abraham's faith when Abraham became the father of all

(Jewish people and non-Jews alike) who believe (see Genesis 15:6;

Deuteronomy 7:7-8; 9:4-6; Habakkuk 2:4). This is the teaching of

Yehoshua in Yochanan 6:28-29. Although the book of Genesis tells

us the origin of everything from marriage to polygamy and from

the Edomites to the Sodomites, Shliach Sha'ul shows us the most

important doctrine that originates from Genesis, the doctrine of

justification by faith alone (Romans 3:28).

Important prophecies in Genesis are these: one descendent of

Abraham will bless the nations (see Genesis 12:1-4; Isaiah

49:5-6); Abraham's descendants will be slaves 400 years in a land

not their own (Genesis 15:13); Abraham's descendants will be

delivered in the fourth generation (Genesis 15:14-16); the land

of Canaan would be given to Abraham's descendants as an

inheritance (Genesis 15:16-21) and the promise would be given

graciously and miraculously through Isaac (17:21; 21:12). If the

book of Revelation reads Genesis 3 with an apocalyptic symbolic

interpretation (see Revelation 12:9 and 20:2) then we should not

read it with an empty literalism as though it were just a story

about the origin of lethal snake bites (some famous rabbis have

made this mistake). On the other hand, we would make a big error

if we read Genesis 3 as a fictious myth, as though it weren't

dealing with facts and with the sober historical reality of the

human condition. Just because something is told in picture

language fraught with symbolism rather than with scientific

mathematical formulas does not mean that it is any less true or

that it did not in fact occur. The story in Genesis 3 is not a

mere parable. However, like a parable, the story points beyond

itself to its practical lesson, that the fruit of going our own

way (Isa. 53:6) against G-d's Word is death, and there is a way

that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death

(Prov. 16:25). For Man must live by every word that proceeds from

the mouth of G-d (Deut. 8:3). Satan is not literally a snake.

If he were, we wouldn't need the new birth, just medicine to

neutralize the venom. But Moses talks about the need for

hitkadeshut when he uses the metaphor of the "circumcision of the

heart" in Deut. 10:16; 30:6 and when he talks about the spiritual

change or new birth indicated when Abram and Jacob received their

new names as Abraham ("father of many") and Israel ("he strives

with God"). On this, see Gen. 17:5; 32:28.

Man is morally responsible before G-d and is commanded to yield

his heart in obedience. On the other hand, G-d is free to choose

and to judge. G-d is free to judge the attitude of Cain or to

sovereignly choose the younger rather than the elder son as the

heir of the promise. Judging from what we are saying here, would

you say that Shliach Sha'ul is dealing with the issue of the new

birth versus a works-righteousness religiosity when he refers to

Genesis and to the "children of the promise" in Romans 9:8? Is

Shliach Sha'ul seeing in Genesis the idea that only a sovereign

Creator can effect the new creation, and that self-righteousness

and self-efforts can never be our savior?

The world offers various g-dless cosmogonies (theories of the

origin and development of the universe) such as evolution. But

the Bible declares that without regeneration from G-d, Man is not

evolving upward from the beast but downward toward the Beast, and

the number of his name is 666, the number of unregenerated

Mankind at his most bestial. Without regeneration, man tends

away from the likeness of G-d and toward the likeness of the

unreasoning beast (Jude 10). If you come to the Bible looking for

information to support the latest scientific theory instead of

approaching the Bible to look for Yehoshua (Yochanan 5:39) and to

gather fruit from the Etz HaChayim (the tree of life), you are

reading the Bible the wrong way, like a woman trying to find a

recipe in a telephone directory. The Bible was not written to

form us into g-ds who know exactly how old the universe is or how

scientists might someday create a human being from the mud of

matter. The Bible was written to give assurance of salvation and

to equip the man of G-d for every good work (Yochanan 20:31;

I Yochanan 5:13; II Tim. 3:16-17). Any fool might believe that

such a complex organ as the human eye could by evolution

spontaneously generate itself to see and rationally comprehend

the world, but a miracle is needed before a depraved heart can

believe that it has a need for G-d's Moshi'a (Deliverer), the

Moshiach. The Bible was written to tell us what is man,

something paleoanthropologists only pretend to know. They try to

divine that what differentiates humanity from the animal kingdom

is human speech or rational thought or the ability to use complex

tools or to walk in an upright manner on two feet. They can't

agree, however, and tend to put clever extinct species of apes

and "near-men" and "cave men" and modern man all in the same

genus, Homo (man). However according to the Bible, the genus of

Man is not alone defined by his rationality (which serves a

depraved will) but by the fact that Man is something that animals

are not: man is a sinner needing the covering of G-d's saving

hand, that is, a sinner needing the Moshiach. If we ask

ourselves, where does the notion of a suffering yet innocent

redeemer of the world originate, the answer again is Genesis.

Starting in chp 37, Joseph, like Yehoshua son of Joseph, is an

incognito prophet and savior, unrecognized by his own people,

envied and rejected as not from G-d, buried as dead, but raised

up by G-d to the right hand of supreme power to feed the bread of

new life to the whole world, including at last his own people who

do not recognize him until the end. (Rav Sha'ul may have had

this Joseph cycle in mind when he wrote Romans 11.)

This Anointed King, this Deliverer, will come from the line of

Seth (Genesis 4:25), from the offspring of Shem (Genesis 9:26),

from the family of Abraham (Genesis 12:3), from the seed of Isaac

(Genesis 26:3) and from the sons of Jacob (Genesis 46:3) and from

the tribe of Judah (49:10). Are you staying with me? Got a

dictionary? The word ZERA means what? ______________________

What does ex nihilo mean? _____________________

Read Gen. chps 6-10. Archaeologists are not ignorant of flood

strata in the geological record of ancient Mesopotamia. There

definitely was some kind of horrific flood in antiquity. Flood

stories are part of the memory of the human race and are almost

universally known. The death that swallows Adam and the

generations after him nearly swallows the whole human race in the

wrath of G-d unleashed in the great deluge. But once again there

is a Moshi'a savior figure, a kind of second Adam, and those who

find salvation in his ark survive, while all those outside him

are destroyed. See II Shimon Kefa 3:6. Possibly around 2166

B.C.E. Abraham was born in what is today modern Iraq. His home

was in the city of Ur of the Chaldees (part of today's Iraq and

Kuwait) and his people were Arameans, a Semitic group spreading

out from the Euphrates in Iraq. His family migrated to Haran (an

area near the Turkey-Syrian border 20 miles southeast of Urfa in

modern Turkey), where his father died, where his brother Nahor

settled, and where this Gentile named Abraham received his call

to make aliyah [he was the first foreign emissary of Moshiach's

shlichut (mission) to the Holy Land.] G-d chose to save Abraham

and to make him the founder of a nation (Israel) and the father

of many peoples (the Arab people come through his son Ishmael,

born when Abraham was 86). G-d chose to make him a prophet and

to give to him and to his "seed" both a covenant and a land and

various promises, including the promise of a Moshiach and

salvation, including the inheritance of the Gentile

nations. These covenant promises were renewed to Abraham's son

Isaac and Abraham's grandson Jacob. Jacob's name was changed to

Israel. The area of Haran is important because it was from this

region that Nahor's granddaughter Rebecca came, and she was

destined to become the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob.

Also, Leah and Rachel, the wives of Jacob, came from this region,

because the father of these girls was Laban, Rebecca's brother

and Jacob's uncle/father-in-law.

When we study Genesis, we see this 75 year old Abraham leaving

Haran and being guided by G-d to the land of Canaan with stops at

Shechem, the vicinity of Bethel, the Negev desert to the south of

Israel, Egypt, Bethel again, and then Hebron, where Abraham spent

most of his life. He is a prophet, proclaiming G-d to the heathen

Canaanites by "calling on the name of the L-rd." He acts not only

like a prophet (notice his prophetic intercessory ministry in

20:17 and in 18:23-32) but also like a kohen, building altars and

making sacrifices. But then appears a greater kohen, a

mysterious royal figure ruling almost messianically over the city

that became known later as Jerusalem. This kohen, a type of the

Moshiach, takes Abraham's tithe and blesses him (Gen. 14). Four

eastern kings then attack Sodom and, because Abraham's nephew Lot

lives there, Abraham rescues him. But the same G-d who leads Lot

to escape that homosexual stronghold Sodom, leads Abraham to

miraculously father a son (Isaac) in his old age and then to send

his servant (possibly the Eliezer of Gen. 15:2) to Laban to get

Isaac a bride (see Gen. 24:43). With the birth of Isaac (a promise

25 years in coming), the promise of the rise of the nation, the

possession of the nation's land (Israel), the coming of the

Moshiach, and the inheritance of all the nations of the

world--this great unfolding promise and its fulfillment--is

assured. This is why the visit of the Angel of the L-rd in Gen.

18 is so important (18:2,17,22,33; 19:1 seems to make the

inference that the Angel of the L-rd is G-d himself). Under the

guidance of G-d we see Abraham moving around to different places,

Hebron, the Philistine territory in Gerar, Beersheba, and Mount

Moriah (later the site of the Beis Hamikdash mount--II Chron.

3:1). This is where his faith endured its most difficult test,

prefiguring the vicarious, substitionary sacrifice in the coming

Beis Hamikdash, prefiguring the sacrifice of the Moshiach, and

prefiguring the sacrifice of every true believer who must put all

on the altar to follow the L-rd. But G-d's guidance, made real

to Abraham by the intervention of an angel (Gen. 22:11), came to

his rescue even in the midst of severe testing. Abraham was put

in the right before G-d by faith (15:6), as are all his Messianic

heirs and spiritual children according to the promise (Gal.

3:7-9,29).

Isaac's movements are also under the guidance of G-d from the

time he narrowly escapes death as a child until his dying day:

Mount Moriah, Gerar (Philistine territory), Beersheba. When his

servants dig a well, the L-rd invariably leads them to water and

the eyes of the heathen see "plainly that the L-rd has been with

you" (26:28). Even as a blind old man, Isaac's hands were guided

by the L-rd (see Gen. 27).

The Edomites, a people south and southeast of the Dead Sea, in

the country called Edom or Seir, raided Judah at the time of the

Babylonian invasion (Obad.11) in the 6th century B.C. and

possessed lands in the Negev desert (Ezek.35). But any claim they

might have made on the territory of Israel was forfeited by the

founder of their nation, Jacob's brother, Esau, who despised his

birthright and was supplanted by his twin brother Jacob. We see

the hand of G-d protecting Jacob, sending him away from Esau to

Haran, prospering him in spite of all Laban's deceptive

practices. As G-d was with Abraham and Isaac, so G-d guided

Jacob. Just as both Sarah and her maid-servant, Hagar, gave

Abraham offspring, so from Leah was born Reuben, Simeon, Levi,

Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. From Rachel was born Joseph and

Benjamin. From Rachel's maid-servant Bilhah was born Dan and

Naphtali. From Leah's maid-servant Zilpah was born Gad and Asher.

When Jacob's caravan left Haran, G-d was with him as he headed

for Gilead, protecting him from Laban. "The L-rd watch(ed)"

(31:48) and angels met him at the place he named Mahanaim and he

strove with G-d and prevailed until he received the blessing as

"Israel." G-d guided Jacob to Shechem and met him at Bethel,

leading him to Hebron. Through his son Joseph, G-d led Jacob even

to Pharaoh's court in Egypt. And the same G-d that led his son

Joseph to become a prophet in Egypt led Jacob's body to be

returned for burial in the promised land, where his tomb (Gen.

50) would become a sign pointing to the Moshiach's [empty] tomb and the

Exodus from sin and death. The tribes of Israel that Moses led

out of Egypt in the Exodus were given much assurance by these

stories from G-d's prophetic Word: G-d was likewise leading and

guiding and providing for them as he had for their fathers.

Joseph's movements under the guidance of G-d can be seen in three

days: the day his brothers rejected him as a prophet and as their

savior, refusing to do obeisance, selling him as a slave, and

burying him as dead; the day he was falsely accused and

imprisoned in Egypt; and the third day, the day he was raised to

the right hand of supreme power as a vindicated prophet and the

Moshi'a Savior of the world, ruler of all (Gen. 45:8). (See

I Cor. 15:4 "the third day")

The inference of Gen. 49:10 is that Judah's sovereignty

(shepherd's staff) will remain with that tribe until the coming

of David and the Son of David the Moshiach. See Ezek. 21:27 and

its near quote of Gen. 49:l0, "until he comes to whom it

rightfully belongs." Gen. 49:l0 says "the obedience of the

peoples" is his, that is the Moshiach's. In the Babylonian

Talmud, Sanhedrin 98b says that this is indeed a Messianic

prophecy.

GENESIS 3:15

And I will put enmity between thee (the Serpent) and the woman,

and between thy seed (the children of the evil one--Yochanan

8:44) and her seed; it (the seed of the woman) shall bruise thy

head (the Serpent), and thou shalt strike his heel. ["The Son of

the promise" is an important Messianic theme. The "seed of the

Woman" who is promised in Genesis 3:15 is to crush the Serpent.

This idea of the "Son of the Promise" underscored in Genesis

18:14 points toward the Deliverer foreshadowed also by others,

like Samson and Samuel, whose supernaturally orchestrated births

were a sign of divine rescue on the way. Moses tells us in

Genesis 49:10 that the Deliverer will come through Judah. But

here, even before Judah or Jacob, G-d miraculously brings into

being Isaac, just as G-d miraculously brings into being his true

people of the new birth. The supernatural birth of both people

(from the exile of sin) and the Moshiach (Immanuel) is a key

theme related to the doctrine of salvation in Isaiah.]

GENESIS 49:10

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a ruler's staff from

between his feet until Shiloh (or if Shelo "until he whose it

is") come and the obedience of the nations (peoples) is his.