The Beginnings

as told in Genesis 1 to 11 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. It is on the sixth day that mankind is created in the form of Adam first, then Eve. God announces the seventh day to be a day of rest and declares it holy. God puts Adam in the garden of Eden, instructing him to dress it and to keep it . Adam is permitted to eat from any tree in the garden, but is commanded not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil . Some time later, after Eve has been formed and presented to Adam, Satan persuades Eve that she could eat from the forbidden tree after all, which she does, then encourages Adam to do the same. For this sin - disobedience of God’s word - they are banned from the Garden of Eden. God pronounces three curses, one each for Satan, Eve and Adam. The curse on Satan initiates the spiritual warfare that continues to exist between him and God, but at the same time foretells its outcome. The woman is to endure pain in childbirth and is reduced to being subordinate to her husband, and man is henceforth to toil for his food. Two of Adam and Eve's sons, Cain and Abel, offer differing sacrifices to God, of which Abel's is accepted but Cain’s is rejected. In time, the affect of this rejection leads Cain to murder his brother Abel, a crime for which God punishes him by sending him away to the land of Nod, east of Eden. Aided by the infiltration of Nephilim (the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of men ), mankind becomes so wicked that God decides to destroy the earth’s inhabitants with a flood. Only righteous Noah, his wife, their three sons and their wives are to be saved, along with many animals, in an ark designed by God and built by Noah. The flood having come and abated, there is now a new beginning, with all the inhabitants of the earth to be descended from Noah’s sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. As the population grows, men resist spreading throughout the earth and begin to build the tower of Babel, thinking it will establish them in one place. But God confounds their language, causing them to divide and scatter abroad as He had originally intended.