Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
The Pentateuch (“five books” in Greek) or Torah (instruction/law in Hebrew) is what the 1st 5 books of the Bible are called:
1) Genesis (origin/beginning) has 50 chapters which are separated into 2 parts:
->Primeval History- Beginning with creation, God made the world and everything in it. Because God is perfect, His creation was perfect. The first 2 people, Adam and Eve, disobeyed the one rule they were given to follow. This is known as “the fall”, people were now separated from God by their sin and doomed to spend eternity away from Him. As mankind grew in number, their sin increased, so God flooded the Earth, killing all creation except Noah and his family. Even after this cleansing, mankind continued to choose sin and self over God.
->Patriarchal History, the story of God’s plan of salvation working through a series of fathers (patriarchs) beginning with Abraham, his son Isaac, then Isaac’s son Jacob, and finally Jacob’s 12 sons, the fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel. Through this family, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of mankind, would be born.
2) Exodus (the road/way out)- After many years, there were so many of Abraham’s descendants in Egypt that Pharaoh (the king) was afraid of them, so he did very evil things. He made them slaves and commanded that their baby boys be killed after birth. Moses was saved by Pharaoh’s daughter. He ended up leaving Egypt, but was called by God to go back and be used to free the Israelites. Pharaoh was hard-hearted and God sent plagues to show him that He was not asking for His people to be freed, but demanding it! After 10 plagues, they were finally sent out of Egypt and began their trek to the promised land. The details of the tabernacle and ark of the covenant are included in this book as well.
3) Leviticus (of the Levites)- This book contains the laws God gave the Israelites in order to set them apart from other people. The rules covered what they should eat, how they should treat others, how to sacrifice correctly to the Lord, how to handle illnesses, and also what would happen if the rules were not obeyed. There were very serious consequences for disobedience, often death.
4) Numbers- This book accounted for every single person entering the promised land. This group was not the one originally freed from Egypt. The original people complained a lot and were ungrateful for all that God had done for them, even making false Gods to worship. God punished them by making the Isrealites wait to enter the promised land until this first group who repeatedly sinned against God were no longer alive.
5) Deuteronomy (second/repeated law)- After 40 years of roaming the desert, the Israelites finally came to the boundary of their promised land. Before Moses died he gave his “farewell speech”. He reminded the people of God’s laws and how they would be blessed for obeying, cursed for disobeying. These were the terms of the covenant God made with them.
Phew! We covered a lot of ground in this summary and left out a lot of details! The best way to understand the Pentateuch, of course, is to read it for yourselves!
