Introduction into Judiaism

The book of Genesis is the first book of the Old Testament. The Old Testament is a form of Judaism. The author of Genesis is unclear, but many believe that it was written by Moses. The date of the book is unknown as well. Genesis tells how God created the universe and human beings. It also covers the promises that God makes to Abraham. In this book, mainly the first 3 chapters, we learn that God created all things. We also learn that he loves all people, but he will punish sin. He promises to save people who trust in him and his word.

Chapter 1 of Genesis deals with the creation of the universe. God begins this process with the creation of the heavens and the earth, and on earth he creates land and sea. God creates the dark and the light and gives them the names night and the day respectively.

Chapter 2 of Genesis deals next with the creation Adam and Eve. This chapter deals with the second creation. During chapter one verse 27 God creates man in his own image. In chapter, however, "the Lord God formed man from dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being" (verse 7). He creates man, or Adam, in order to work the lands. God created the Garden of Eden and there is where he placed man. He commands that man may eat from tree and bush in the garden except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If man is to eat of this tree, Gods proclaims that he will surely die. This statement suggests that death is a punishment and is therefore a bad thing. We can also gather that man is unsure of the meaning of death since it has yet come to exist. However, God feels that man deserves to have help in the garden and so he takes a rib from man and creates Eve, or the woman. Adam chooses to call her a woman "for she was taken out of man" (verse 23). Because of this very reason marriage is viewed as the union of a man and a woman to make one flesh. They were naked, yet felt no shame. And so they worked and maintained the garden together.

Finally, chapter 3 of Genesis speaks of Adam and Eve's sin and then ultimately their punishment. We begin this chapter with the woman being approached by the serpent and he is telling her she can eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because she responds by the quoting the commandment given to Adam, the reader can assume that she knows not eat of this tree. But since we know that God did not tell her this directly, the origin of this knowledge remains unclear. It could be that she knows do to the fact she is of Adam and she knows