The Bible Study Podcast, episode 645.

Today, the Bible Study podcast begins a study of the book of Genesis.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast.

I'm your host, Chris Christensen.

Someone asked me recently whether we had ever done a study of the book of Genesis and not in the Bible study podcast.

I've taught it before in different Bible studies at my church, but it's been a little while.

And so we're going to get back and do the book that literally means beginnings.

And that's what the word Genesis means.

And this is going to be an interesting book to study.

It's really sort of three books all in one.

One is the pre-flood and then the story of the flood and then the story of the patriarchs.

And they're going to be quite different.

This is a book that has been traditionally been considered one of the books of Moses,

that Moses was considered by the Jews to have written the first five books of the Bible.

Moses was not there at the beginning during creation.

He was not there during the flood or in the time of the patriarchs.

Obviously, he may have been taking

advantage of some things that had come down to him in oral tradition. We don't know for sure.

It might be that it was written at a later time, as some scholars think. And when we look at the

book of Genesis, I'm going to posit for you that this book is true, but whether it's true in a scientific sense or whether it's true in a poetic sense or what the form of that truth is, is up to some debate.

So, for instance, when Jesus says in the book of Luke that, and speaking in the name of God that I have longed to gather you children together as a hen

gathers her chicks under her wings, that does not imply that God has wings or that God is a big

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