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Theology: Understanding The Old Testament And Salvation History

951 Words4 Pages

Paul Degroot
Professor Jennifer Murphy
Theology-200
7 March 2018 Understanding the Old Testament and Salvation History Through our learnings to date, my understanding of the Old Testament and Salvation History has allowed me to expand my visions related to Genesis 1 and 2-3. My main takeaway from Genesis 1 is that God is greater than the moon and stars. Priestly Author wrote the second creation story in 500 B.C. at Babylon during a time when Jews were exiled from Babylon. Priestly Author pushed the Jews to continue movement towards worship and stay within their faith. According to Perry, “The Priestly Author’s purpose in writing this new account was twofold: (1st) he wished to encourage Sabbath observance as a means of preserving monotheistic …show more content…

One example is in the Enuma Elish, the creation of the sky and water reads as follows “…He split her like a shellfish into two parts: Half of her he set up and ceiled it as sky, pulled down the bar and posted guards. He bade them to allow not her waters to escape” (Enuma Elish, Table IV 130-140). Comparing Enuma Elish to the Priestly source, the Enuma Elish was violent. God’s creation of the sky and water was more orderly and peaceful than the Enuma Elish’s. He didn’t use any blood or kill someone, he merely spoke and things came to be. The Priestly author wanted to make Genesis 1 more appealing than the Babylonian creation account. In the Enuma Elish, humans were made from blood to be servants to the Gods. In Genesis 1, God created man and woman in his image so they could live on the earth he created. “Then God said: Let there be a dome in the middle of the waters, to separate one body of water from the other. God made the dome, and it separated the water below the dome from the water above the dome. And so it happened. God called the dome “sky”. (Gen 1 Verse …show more content…

During King Solomon’s reign it is said that the Yahwist recorded the accounts of that time and is rumored to have recorded accounts as far as King David’s time in power. The Yahwist wrote the stories of creation to deter behavior by King Solomon without being killed and deny any other god other than the god of Abraham.
The Yahwist account was written around 950 B.C. during the reign of King Solomon. During his reign, King Solomon married many women from different nations. Because of this, many of his wives had religions that differed from his own. They began to worship gods other than his and the priests that Solomon called upon to write about Israel’s traditions did not approve. The Yahwist account had two purposes in using the

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