Starting with Genesis 1, Matthew 1, and Psalm 1, using my trusty NRSV Bible/ Book of Common Prayer combo.  The three pink tabs are there to mark my progress...

GENESIS 1:  In the beginning WHEN God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep. (Gen. 1:1)

The NRSV translation makes it clear that this is about what happened WHEN God created.  And things started out much less defined than when God was "finished" (2:1)

Jewish scholarship has remarked about how a key verb in this whole section is "to divide"/ hivdil.
It's like a big family tree of creation and life, beginning with the divine energy bringing about light, separating or dividing light and dark, water and dry land, etc.

The "wind from God" /Spirit/ruach is there at the very beginning, in motion.
And God starts the process out by speaking.

The formula is evening/morning: a day...
It takes until v. 10 (3rd day) before God pronounces God's work "good". (10, 13, 18, 21, 25)

Then the text adds in v. 22 that "God blessed them..."  This is day 5, when fish and birds are created.

Humanity created in God's image.  Note "LET US" v. 26--is this a way of saying something about community being part of what it is to be made in God's image???
"in the image of God he created THEM; male and female he created THEM"

v. 28:  God Blessed them.
God commands twice:  "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth"--and then adds just to the human beings: and subdue it; and have dominion...over every living thing that moves upon the earth"

then in v. 31 you get the summary: "It was VERY good"

Genesis 2:  God rested on the seventh day; blessed the seventh day and hallowed it

The text appears to say that the day is holy because God rested; not that God rested because they day was holy.  (2:3)


Then we have the second creation account.  It's human oriented in a way, contrasting with the cosmic orientation of the start of the first story:  "these are the GENERATIONS..." (2:4)

The scale is humane; the point of view is human: "..for there was no one to till the ground..." (2:5)

God "forms" the person/man and "breathes" life into his nostrils... (2:7)
And God "places" the person into a garden purpose-made for human beings (2:8, 2:15)

2:16--God's first spoken interaction is one of COMMAND.  "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."

2:18--God says (to whom???) "It is not good that the man should be alone.  I will make him a helper/ezer--same word as is used of God when psalmist speaks of God as his helper--as his partner.

Then the incomplete person needs to learn that non-human companions aren't sufficient for the kind of partnership and help that God intends.
And we see the man imitating God, naming animals. (2:19-20)
The creation of woman happens while the man is asleep--in "a deep sleep," in fact-- and she comes from a part of him.  This unawareness of the process seems somehow important to me, as I think about how challenging women and men find it to understand each other.

Again, look at the "humane" scale of this story:  God BRINGS the woman to the man.
And the man gets it.  At last! this is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh...

2:24: then we have one of those "etiology" statements:  "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh"

And the story rushes on... 2:25: And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

That sentence is a magnificent sentence to lead into the complexities of the next chapter, which describes what Christians call "the fall," but many Jewish scholars see as morally/ethically neutral.

Genesis 3: Introduces a created being, the Serpent.  THE Serpent.  Not just any serpent.  THE Serpent.
A talking serpent.
None of the other animals speaks.
There are a lot of assumptions unwritten in this little verse.

Much has been made of Eve "mis-quoting" God, who is not recorded to have said, '...nor shall you touch it" (3:3).  In any case, Eve was not there when God gave the command.  Perhaps Adam "mis-quoted" God!  Or perhaps one or both of them was so serious about following God's command that they set an extra "fence" around the tree...

But in the traditional understanding of the sinlessness of Paradise/Eden, how could Even have understood anything about death?  How would dying be a threat to her?

Interesting that the Serpent says they will be like God--as if they are already not made in the image of God.  Sometimes Satan tries to bribe us with things that God has already freely given us.

3:6 says the tree was "good for food" and "a delight to the eyes."  But still...
I'm reminded of the experiments on delayed gratification that were done 20 or 30 years ago with little kids and cookies that they were not supposed to eat.

3:7  Then the eyes of both were opened...(were they closed before???)

3:8  Again note the "humane" scale of this story.  God walks in the garden.
3:9  God like an adult playing hide and seek with a child...
3:10  "I was afraid"--fear was not there before.

3:11  Things fail quickly: relationships between man and woman, relationship of humanity to God...
shame and fear and hiding all enter in...

God curses the serpent
God describes to the woman how her desire for her man will be problematic

(Some people read 3:16 as prescriptive and think that God is saying that men are SUPPOSED to rule over women.  I would find that a very problematic interpretation...)
God describes to the man how his desire with nature and work will be problematic.

3:20--God makes skins garments for the man and woman.  This involves slaughter.  More brokenness.
3:22--God in dialogue with--?????  "See, the man has become like one of us..."
3:22--what are we to make of the reference here to the tree of life? (last reference was 2:9)
Living forever in this condition would not be a blessing.

3:23  God sends the man and woman forth  (sending forth does not sound so much like a curse, as like the next stage in a path of redemption/repair)

3:24--There is a divine prevention of returning to the garden and a protection from the Tree of Life and any premature appropriation of its fruit.

PSALM 1:  Note there's also a tree in this, the first psalm!  fruitful trees, in a garden-like setting.
and the contrast between the way of the righteous and the way of the sinner is described in terms of  fruitlessness and dryness (the wind drives away the chaff).

MATTHEW 1:    Genealogy: beginning with Abraham and David.
Very stylized.  Very Jewish.  (Contrast with Luke)
1;18  "Now the birth of Jesus  [referred to in v. 1] the Messiah took place in this way:
This is a Joseph-oriented account.
"She was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit"  (1:18)  That was certainly not obvious to Joseph. This is Matthew speaking later from the point of view of faith.  (Or you might picture Mary explaining her condition to Joseph, pointing to the Holy Spirit as in the Luke tradition.)  But the Holy Spirit is here in the 1st chapter of Matthew, as in the 1st chapter of Genesis (in the ambiguous "wind"/"spirit")
Jesus is a savior from sin. (1:21).  Already by Genesis 3, there's a need for salvation from Sin.
Note the tendency to quote from the Hebrew Bible (1:23).
Note also the tendency to help the hearer/reader who is not familiar with Hebrew.  Christianity was already multicultural by the time the gospel was written!
Note that Joseph also is asleep (like Adam?) when God deals with him (1:24)
note 1:25 that it is clear that the couple were not sexually active "until she had born a son; and HE (Joseph) named him Jesus."
The tradition that Mary was perpetually virgin came into being early, but really was saying more about Jesus' uniqueness as God in the Flesh than it was about virginity being the ideal human state.

Okay...I can see that this is going to take more time than I often will have if I make this many notes.
I will have to find a different way to respond to these readings...