Session 3 of The Great Adventure Bible Study

Our third Session of The Bible Timeline Great Adventure concluded our study of Early Genesis, Chapters 1 - 11. We gained deeper insights into the 2 Creation Accounts, the Fall, the Flood, and the descendants of Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah, and so on.

Some of the most notable things I learned:

The Ark is an old Testament type, or symbol, of the Church. Within the Church, we can safely navigate this treacherous world. God made a covenant with Noah, that he would never again wipe out mankind because He knows that it is in our nature to sin and he patiently waits for us to turn to Him. He marked this covenant with Noah by placing his "bow in the sky" (a rainbow). Isn't it interesting that the word "bow" is used? God hangs His "weapon" in the sky... to signify His love for us and his promise of peace!  After the Flood, it was like a "2nd Creation", and even a "2nd Fall", as man began to fall back into evil and prideful ways, as shown with the building of the Tower of Babel. Why do we have such trouble with trusting entirely in God?

I particular found it interesting that the "confusion" that occurred after the mixing up of languages at The Tower of Babel, was essentially reversed in the New Testament, at Pentecost. when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles! Wow, I had never made THAT connection before!

There's a lot more to say here, but you will have to go through this study yourself to get all the juicy details.

Somewhere in the introduction, it was recommended that we keep a notebook of the "hard-to-answer" questions so we don't get bogged down in the details and prevent ourselves from moving forward in the narrative story. I don't have a notebook, but I'm kind of using this blog to capture some of my thoughts and I'll just list them below. These are my unanswered questions so far, from the book of Genesis ...(and some of them may be goofy, but... they are things I am wondering!):

* Did Noah bring baby dinosaurs on the Ark? Or did they get left behind?

* Were all men vegetarians until after the Flood?  (Genesis 9:3 seems to imply this.)

* What could the Mark of Cain be? (Genesis 4:15) Was it very dark skin? (Wow, isn't it way politically incorrect to say that today? However, many have said this in the past. The descendants of Cain settled in North Africa. Has this biblical narrative been used to perpetuate racism?) Whatever it was, it prevented his own brothers and sisters from killing him, so it was a mark that came from God. Was it a tattoo or something sacred marked on his forehead? Some of our Church Forefathers have interpreted this as a physical trembling and a horrible countenance, perhaps a form of epilepsy and horrible birthmark?

* Genesis 6:4 is a wild verse. I wrote a blog post about it HERE. Many questions on the Giants or Nephilim...

*  Genesis 9:21-22 is just plain disturbing when you understand the biblical language that "uncovering nakedness" implies incest. (Just skim Leviticus 18 if you don't believe that, and you may reconsider.) So did Canaan either rape his grandfather or perhaps Noah's wife and then tell his father, Ham, about it? Did Ham gossip, brag, or laugh instead of trying to cover his father back up like Shem and Japheth did? Yikes! I would rather just go with the literal interpretation on this one...

OK, well, this is all I've got to say today. If you have made it this far, you are probably in the Bible Study yourself, so you will have to let me know what interesting questions you came up with after getting to this point and how you are enjoying your Bible Study.

Have a great weekend everyone!