During your study of the works in this class, you will be examining the theme of responsibility and how characters demonstrate responsibility (or irresponsibility) toward their fellow humans, society, or themselves.
This blog will be the place where you will keep track of and share your thoughts on responsibility for each major unit.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Responsibility in The Bible - Genesis
How does the concept of responsibility manifest itself in the book of Genesis?
In chapters 6-9 of Genesis the theme of responsibility can be seen both in God's actions and in Noah and his family's actions. As time goes on human turn evil, their bloodshed poisoning the earth. God sees it as his responsibility to rid the beautiful earth of man kind, saying that he is, "sorry he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart" (genesis 6.1). However, God also saw a pious and good human being, Noah. Because Noah was not evil like all other humans it was also God's responsibility to let him live, as a reward for his goodness. Then the responsibility is passed off to Noah, who must collect pairs of all the animals on the earth, and to collet some of every kind of food for them to eat. After the flood it is also Noah and his family's responsibility to, not only repopulate the earth, but to pass God's word on to the next generation.
In the book of Genesis, God, Noah, and his family exemplify responsibility. First, God embraces the challenge of creating earth and thus all of its inhabitants. God works for 6 days and rests on the 7th. Although God did not anticipate Eve's decision to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it was important to give humans freewill regardless of their mistakes. God establishes a covenant with the people claiming, "never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth" (Genesis 9.11). He takes full responsibility for his actions and ensures that his people do not live in fear of another flood. In addition, Noah demonstrates responsibility by building the ark without questioning God's commands. He brings two of every species on this voyage and thus was responsible for their survival. Finally, Noah's family personifies responsibility by taking on the task of multiplying and sustaining the human species.
Throughout the Book of Genesis, God grants humankind, his last and most precious creation, an enormous amount of responsibility. At the very beginning of mankind's existence, when Adam and Eve are living in the Garden of Eden, God grants them the control over this garden. He specifically states, "and let them [humankind] have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air... and over every creeping thing that creeps the Earth" (Genesis 1.26). To His own detriment, and even though He explicitly forbids it, He allows them to come into contact with the tree of knowledge of good and evil, giving them the responsibility over whether or not to eat the fruit from that tree. Even after seeing that the responsibility given to Adam and his descendants proves to be fatal for them, God continues to give responsibility to Adam's direct descendant, Noah. Noah has the obligation to transport humankind, all animals, and all food through the flood on an ark (Genesis 6.14-22). God tells Noah of his covenant between them that not only Noah is responsible for spreading, but also is a promise which God is responsible for keeping (Genesis 9.8-17). This pact between them epitomizes a dual responsibility over the world. Quite explicitly stated in the first nine chapters of Genesis and in the passage above, humankind is responsible for looking after the world and its wellbeing. However, God also holds an omnipresent responsibility over humans and over the world in general, especially since he is the one who created it in the first place. In conclusion, both God and humans hold dual (and sometimes intertwined) responsibility over the world
In the book of Genesis, and throughout the Bible, God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, but he gives humans the responsibility of making decisions on their own. Adam is commanded to rule over all creation and he names every creature as he wishes. God wishes Adam and Eve to have freewill, and places the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden to give them a choice. He warns them not to eat of the fruit, (Genesis 2:17) and it was not his responsibility to prevent Eve from eating it. It was her choice. God did not simply let go of all responsibility as it may appear at first, but his omniscient power comes into play many times later to save mankind, in the form of prophets and Christ himself. In Genesis chapter 7, God intervenes and speaks to Noah. He gives Noah the responsibility to save the animals and his family from the flood. God, instead of using the supernatural, uses people to save the Earth. Humans are his most beloved creation, created in his image with his very breath (Genesis 2:7), unlike anything else. As much as it pained him, he had to let humans make choices for themselves- a gift to humans, but also a burden. Humans must bear the responsibility for their choices, whether good or bad.
Responsibility is attributed to at least one party in every action or decision in Genesis. Whether it be God or another character, responsibility always makes apparent its rewards or consequences. An example of this is in chapter 3, God says "You may freely eat of every tree; but 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" God gives Adam and Eve the choice to choose eternal life, or knowledge. Adam and Eve are given the responsibility of not being tempted to sin (AKA eat from the tree of knowledge), and in reward they can live forever. However, temptation and thirst for knowledge naturally takes over and Adam and Eve face the full brunt of not being "responsible". God presented great rewards for responsibility, but also great consequences for disobeying. Thus Adam and Eve become mortal and now suffer the pains of mortality such as child birth and manual labor. Another example is in chapter 4, when God berates Cain for murdering Abel, "What have you done? Listen; your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground! And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand." Again, God punishes Cain for committing murder, the worst sin, with a consequence that is equal to it's crime. Thus, Cain is forced to wander the earth as a fugitive for eternity. In conclusion, the choice to be responsible or not in Genesis is always present, and the rewards of being good are just as glamorous as the consequences of being bad are unpleasant. Subsequently, in Genesis good coexists with evil.
The theme of responsibility features heavily in Genesis. After God creates Adam and Eve, he gives them the responsibility of staying away from the Tree of Life. Their failure to meet up with this responsibility is what caused God to banish them from the Garden of Eden. From there, the failure of people to meet their responsibility to God brings them ruin, and the people who do meet their responsibilities are rewarded. When Cain fails to meet his responsibility, he is cursed by God. When humankind overall fails to meet their responsibilities that god gave them, he decides that they must be wiped out. However, because he feels that Noah met his responsibilities, he allows him and his family to live, and gives them the privilege of starting the human race again. Throughout the Bible, the success or failure of people to meet their responsibility to God determines their fate.
Responsibility is an extremely important concept that the Judeo-Christian religions instill upon their followers. Responsibility, or the lack thereof is a pivotal part of the first few chapters of Genesis, and throughout the rest of the bible. Starting at the beginning, every character that is introduced, including God, have a certain amount of responsibilities. The bible shows that God is responsible for all living and nonliving things on the earth. Not only a creator but an authoritative commander, God is placed at the very top of the totem pole, and with being so powerful, he is challenged with a lot of responsibility. The next two characters, Adam and Eve, are found with two main commandments given by God that they are responsible for: to multiply and replenish the earth, and to not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Adam and Eve, being unable to resist temptation eventually succumb to eating from the Tree, proving their irresponsibility. God punishes them heavily for showing their lack of responsibility in the freedom that God had granted them. In chapters 6-9, a new character, Noah, comes into the bible. The text in chapter 6, verses 5-6, explain how the world was at this time. God was ashamed that the people sinned and that the people were not holy and committed unholy acts. God decides to punish the people of the earth - all except one: Noah. Noah is given the responsibility to carry on humankind, for God was to destroy all evil and sinful humans on the earth. Because Noah was a holy, responsible man he was able to complete the task given to him.
Throughout the bible, responsibility plays a huge role in the commandments given to the people of the Judeo-Christian religions. Responsibility is seen in even the first chapter of the bible, and is a constant recurring theme throughout.
The theme of responsibility is incredibly abundant throughout the chapters of the Book of Genesis. In the beginning, when God created Adam and Eve,he presented them the ability to choose wrong from right, as well as the single command to stay away from the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil"(2). With this in mind, we realize that God gave His humans the responsibility of making their own decisions. When Eve disobeys God's requests, it is clear she has failed to fulfill her responsibilities, and therefore is forever punished with the "pangs of childbearing"(3). Adam, in addition to Eve, is heavily scolding by God, because of his poor judgment. This is a prime example of God's creations failing to satisfy their obligations.
Not only does the theme of responsibility appear in the story of Adam and Eve, but likewise in Noah's Ark. When the Lord saw that the "wickedness of humankind was great in the earth," and decided that "everything that is on the earth shall die," he presented Noah with an important errand (6). The responsibility of building an ark and gathering couples of each living creative was a lot of weight for Noah to carry; however, his faith and trust in God helped him succeed in restarting life on earth. Noah's ability to follow the Lord's commands, and accomplish this hardy task, represents the importance of responsibility in the book of Genesis. If Noah had failed to meet God's requirements, as Adam and Eve had, what would have come of the human race? Would the possibility of life on earth be demolished?
Furthermore, responsibility is a key aspect in many of the Bible's stories. In some instances, God's children abuse their privileges and fail to fulfill their duties, and are therefore faced with severe punishments. In contrast, other stories display faith and cooperation which lead to accomplishments that please the Lord. The stories follow positive and/or negative paths depending on each characters ability to fulfill their responsibilities, so it is ideal that they follow the word of their Lord.
Responsibility is evident throughout the entirety of Genesis, but a few instances stood out to me. For example,when God creates Humans, he immediately feels responsible for them and wants them to prosper. To aid in this, God gives the humans dominion over all the living creatures on earth, and in addition, creates the humans in his image, indicating the responsibility he feels for them. He attempts to protect them from teh knowledge of evil, but Eve's curiosity wins over. God realizing that humanity is a evil thing, and feeling accountable for his creation, sends out a enormous flood to destroy humans and start a new.
While "responsibility" is shown quite frequently throughout the bible, Genesis in particular, I think that the best example of responsibility in Genesis is how God needs to take responsibility for his creations. When each of his creations strays and does something that God deems unacceptable, God does the responsible thing and reprimands each creation so they learn there lesson. An example of a situation such as this is with the serpent in the Garden of Eden. God realized that the serpent needed to be reprimanded greatly for his sin, so he lost his legs and forever had to remember why he has no legs. Also the same situation is applied to Cain. After Cain killed his brother, God took responsibility and instead of killing Cain, which would have been easier, God made Cain live with a mark on himself, as a reminder of what he did.
Apparently there's a limit to the number of characters that you can have in a post, so I divided mine into two.
Part I. The manifest of responsibility in Genesis is both the epitome of God's expectations for man as well as the driving cause for Adam and Eve's failure to comply with the expectations of God and subsequently the dissension form Paradise.
The presence of responsibility is prevalent almost immediately upon the creation of man. When God places Adam on the Earth, he charges him with his mission and the responsibility to establish dominion over the creatures that God had created. (2.15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.)
Soon afterward, God bestows the full responsibility of the Garden of Eden's paradise. (2.16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 2.17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.") Perhaps as a method of alleviating some of the responsibility that god has placed on Adam, he provides him with a companion to aid him; however, given the events that would soon transpire, Eve's presence would prove to be far from aiding. (2.18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.")
Soon, the expectations and the responsibility entrusted with Adam and Eve become the reason for their expulsion from the Garden, and the breaking of man's initial covenant with God. Despite what they were duly charged with, Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge, invoking the wrath of God at their failure to handle the responsibilities of their great paradise. (3.6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.)
Upon discovering this, God punishes Adam and Eve, casting them from the Garden of Eden, and severing their covenant. (23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.)
The Lord “…saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord as sorry that he had made humankind on the earth” (Genesis, 5:6). Upon seeing all the strife, disobedience, and violence of the people, he decides to kill them by sending down a flood. This act can be interpreted in two different ways. Firstly, his decision could exhibit that he does not accept any responsibility for his actions; he creates evil but now does not want any part of it. In fact, he explicitly regrets forming human life in the first place. On the other hand, his decision could show that he accepts responsibility, because by punishing the people and destroying everything he creates a way to begin anew. He wants to protect the people from self- destruction. It is up to individual interpretation to decide if the Lord actually accepts responsibility or not.
Another questionable instance is when the Lord forms different languages when the people build the Tower of Babel. The Lord thinks, “This is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them” (Genesis: 3:6). The Lord notices the people’s success and accepts responsibility for his people. He understands that people will soon become overzealous and filled with hubris. Therefore, he confuses their languages to delay the process. Once again, this can be interpreted in different ways. One might think that he creates chaos in order to maintain his omnipotent and omnipresent control over the people. Others might believe that he is afraid that the people will eventually self- destruct, so he confuses their languages in order to slow that development. As the Lord brings the flood down on the people, the Lord creates chaos. This constant cycle of order and chaos is perplexing and contradictory, especially when one always views the Lord as all- knowing and perfect. Whether or not he acts responsibly is based on each individual’s interpretation.
Throughout Genesis we continue to see reverberations of man's failure to handle the responsibilities that they were charged with, as well as God's wrath and punishment. The human race has gone on to do something to fall out of God's favor once more and he is angered. As a result, he floods the entire Earth, entrusting the fate of every animal species to Noah and his family. Noah is responsible for building an arch and selecting two of each animal to bring aboard before the flood of 40 days and 40 nights that ultimately obliterates the world and begins it anew. In some ways, this responsibility could be viewed as a great one than what Adam and Eve were charged with. However, it is the fact that Adam and Eve were entrusted with the original covenant between man and god that makes their failure to handle the responsibility all the more significant. Essentially, it is Adam and Eve that sever this covenant and therefore cast humans from paradise. Had these initial expectations never been broken, we may all still be in this great paradise that God had created for us. However, due to failure of many people to handle responsibility in Genesis, we find that the Garden of Eden has been destroyed by the flood that god unleashed on the Earth. Some might think: If only they had not severed these expectations, perhaps I could have this paradise. However, this is reminiscent of what Jesus will say in Matthew (far later in the New Testament) when posed with the question as to why he did not merely save himself. His answer: Do you not think that at once I could not call upon my father, and have him send 50 legions of angels? But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled?
While this is not a part of Genesis, I believe that the Bible is designed to provide answers to our earliest questions with repercussions in later books. I believe that god must have known that man would be unable to meet his expectations. After all, the snake was one of the creatures that God had created. Had he wished to withhold responsibility and simply design us to follow orders and be perfect beings, he would never have placed it in the Garden to begin with. Therefore, I believe that while man's failure to comply with the responsibility assigned by God cause the dissension from paradise, that this was merely just the beginning of a multitude of tests that God has in place for us as we traverse the great path that he has paved for our lives.
In the book of Genesis, specifically chapters 11-16 we start to see the line of God holding most of the responsibility and him delegating it to human beings. Abram is a good example of this. We see that God hands a lot ownership of land and countless amounts of descendants and puts it in the hands of one human. This is the beginning of God beginning to put more and more faith in the hands of humans, and him stepping into the background.
Throughout Genesis, we see God as a parental figure. He tests his "children" and punishes them when they misbehave. God bestows much of his responsibility on mankind which he created. Like a parent, he transfers his flaws, as well as his strengths to his creations. As the book progresses, God gradually abdicates his responsibility more and more. But when he floods the earth because of the "wickedness of humankind" (Genesis 6:5), it raises the question of whether he dealt with the situation responsibly, or if he simply didn't feel like dealing with it. God didn't take responsibility for his own creations, for if he created the world, he created wickedness, as well as mankind's weakness for it.
"Responsibility" in Genisis, I feel is the underlying theme. There are multiple instances where God challenges Adam and Eve's responsibility, but at the same time God is also coping with his own responsibility. When God first created Man, he was disgusted by their greed and evil, so he felt it was HIS responsibility to kill them and create new beings. God test's Adam and Eve's obedience with the Tree of Knowledge, and they failed the task. Genesis is the beginning, and responsibility is new, as weird as that sounds.
I feel that responsibility only manifests itself in one entity in the first few episodes of the bible; God. I feel that god betrays his children, Adam and Eve, by creating them in his image but failing to convey any virtue or maturity. Fortunately for the human race, God's betrayal actually allotted our existence. This lack of responsibility by god is also displayed in his creation of the Earth in 7 days. His trial and error approach to creation may be interpreted as God working on his latest whim. In terms of God's charge of Noah to create the arc I feel that Noah was actually working out of fear than discipline and servitude. On numerous occasions the Bible preaches fear of the lord. Noah feared the wrath of god and feared the deaths of his relatives. He didn't build the arc to honor his "duty" to god.
In Genesis there are a lot of aspects of responsibility. There is God's responsibility to the people and their responsibility to God. This is in common in any parent-child relationship. In addition to this there is one other type of responsibility and that is a human responsibility. In the book of Genesis there is this aspect of whether or not humans have some form of obligation to one another. For example does Cain have and obligation to take care of Abel? Does Noah have an obligation to protect the people of the world? Or do Adam and Eve have a responsibility to those after them to not eat the forbidden fruit? In most cases in Genesis the characters show that they do not have a duty to think about how their actions will effect others. But at the same time early man has not learned this fact of life yet. After these characters are punished they learn that what they did was wrong and has implications. I believe that as humans we have a responsibility to try to stop things that knowingly harms someone else. What do you think do think that as humans we have a responsibility to others?
Throughout what we read of Genesis, a human beings have a huge amount of responsibility. Humans often have a task that they must complete whether it just be not to eat a certain fruit while populating the earth, or to build a giant arc to save all the different species from a flood to rid the world of evil. These tasks always require the humans to be responsible. One story from the Genesis that has possibly more points about responsibility than any other is that of Cain and Abel. When Cain kills his brother and is ask by God where Abel is, Cain gets annoyed and asks if he's his brother keeper. This begs the question is Cain really meant to be responsible for Abel. I think the answer to this question is yes because an older brother should always be a role model for the younger sibling and Cain fails to fulfill this role.
The dictionary definition of "responsibility" is as follows: a moral obligation to behave correctly toward or in respect of . This manifests itself in the book of Genesis as Adam and Eve hold a moral imperative to respect and follow the instructions that God had left them with, as He had been the one to create them and grant them life. However, the woman acted in an irresponsible fashion when she let herself become tricked by the serpent. Afterwards, God finds out that Adam and Eve's eyes have been opened after eating the forbidden fruit. He then has to punish all involved in order to set clear ground rules. Part of being responsible is to having to own up to mistakes and accepting any resulting consequences, which is what Adam and Eve have to do when God penalizes them for their mistake, and lapse of responsibility. This is just one of many instances where responsibility comes into play.
God creates the earth and thus has the responsibility to give it order. In Genesis 2.19 he* does so by having Adam name the animals and, by doing so, giving the animals a sort of power and order. God also gives a sort of order to the earth by giving humans responsibility over all living things on earth and letting the humans and the animals eat the plants. Since God has the responsibility to give order to the earth, he also sees it necessary to give responsibility to the inhabitants of the the earth. When God tells only Adam to not eat “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”, Adam then has the responsibility to listen to his master and not eat from the tree of knowledge (2.17). Likewise, when Eve is made of Adam’s rib, she also picks up his responsibilities without being told to, and thus is punished when she proves irresponsible and disobeys her master, God. In Genesis chapter four, when Cain breaks his responsibility to not kill, he is punished by being thrown from his job as a farmer and exiled to become a wanderer. However, by killing someone himself, the punishment for someone killing him as he wanders or for revenge is increased “sevenfold” (4.15). In this way, God makes it so that Cain’s irresponsibility increases humankind’s responsibility. When someone creates a mess, they are expected to clean it up. In chapter six, God is “sorry that he had made humankind on the earth” and thus figures he needs to clean them up (6.6). To do so, God decides to use the Mop 3000 of the day -- a world wide flood. By killing all the humans off (except Noah and his family) he is doing exactly what he punished Cain for doing in chapter four and is therefore being irresponsible. However, since he is God, nothing happens to him. Despite this, God has a minor redemption by not killing Noah as well and so giving human kind a way to repopulate the world through incest. In Genesis, God has and gives responsibility to other beings. Likewise, God is and sees others being irresponsible.
* Disclaimer: While God could be a he, she or it, for the purposes of this response God will be referred to as a “he” based on the norm terminology of society.
Responsibility is a major theme in Genesis. Obviously, the concept of responsibility is a large issue in the Garden of Eden: whose fault is it that Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? God feels that Adam must be in charge of Eve so she does not do something else irresponsible. The theme also comes up in the story of Cain and Abel, when Cain asks God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” We are supposed to think that God says yes, Cain is his brother’s keeper, and humans are responsible for one another, especially their close kin.
The theme of responsibility is also evident in the crimes and punishments throughout Genesis. If someone does something contrary to God’s wish, they are shown their responsibility for their actions by being instantly punished. Lot’s wife looks back at Sodom as their family is leaving, and she is turned into a pillar of salt for betraying God’s wish. When God thinks people as a whole are behaving badly, he floods the whole earth and saves only one family and two of each animal. Humans undoubtedly do commit actions that are against God’s instructions, but one must also ask: is this ultimately God’s fault? God never lets people try again; the punishments he doles out always prohibit humans from having a second chance. People never actually learn not to do things or have the opportunity to prove themselves right and figure out what they should do; they are only showed that what they have done is wrong. This begs the question of whether God is responsible for his creation messing up all the time: he never lets them fix it, and children must have the opportunity to try again or they will never learn from their mistakes.
In the story of Joseph, responsibility plays a large part. Joseph starts as a slave in Egypt to becoming the right-hand man of Pharaoh, by interpreting Pharaoh's dream and trusting in God. Joseph's brothers did an evil act toward him, but God meant it for good, to save many lives, and God was always with him blessing Joseph in everything he did. When Joseph becomes the right-hand man of Pharaoh, he becomes responsible for everyone in the lands, in and surrounding Egypt. Without Joseph's interpretation of the dream, all these people would have died due to the severe famine that befell the land. Joseph became responsible for all these lives and it is surprising that it started as Joseph being sold as a slave. In the beginning of Joseph's adventure, his brothers were responsible for him, because he was the second youngest son and Jacob favored him. But his brothers hated him and, forgetting about their responsibilities as brothers, sold him to slavery. Reuben, however, seemed to care about Jacob as when he finds Jacob missing, "he tore his clothes" (38). Tearing one's clothes was a sign of mourning and weeping, so it is evident that Reuben knew his responsibilities as a brother, and knew that killing or selling his brother would be a wicked act.
Throughout Genesis, God uses responsibility as an epicenter for conflict, punishment, and power. At the beginning of Genesis God has the absolute responsibility of the world, and his children are demagogues of responsibility. Although Adam and Eve have a responsibility to maintain the utopia of the world, God is still omnipresent and punishes them. God’s role with Cain and Abel is also the punisher. In Noah’s case God has more of a submissive role, but he still is in complete control. Real responsibility for others emerges with Abraham and Sarah. For the first time God cares about what someone (Abraham) thinks and he even asks Abraham for his opinion. Further he gives Abraham the nation of Israel as his own to govern and develop. Uncharacteristically, God does not punish Sarah after she laughs at him, whereas before he might have reacted abruptly. Abraham and Sarah have the responsibility to spread god’s word and to multiply and govern their land. It is evident that God is stepping back from his creation to let his children fend for themselves and learn through their own mistakes. In some sense, God realizes that part of his responsibility to his people is to let them live on their own and learn responsibility.
The concept of responsibility represents itself many times in the Book of Genesis. All of the stories involve God giving a responsibility to humans, and revolve around how humans meet up to this responsibility. To give one example, in the Cain and Able story, after Cain kills his brother, and God asks Cain about him, he replies "Am I my brother's keeper?" God's response to this, calling him a liar and banishing him, shows how Cain failed to meet up to his responsibilities. In a sense, this story is saying that all humans have a responsibility towards other humans, and that we are all each other's "keeper. In this sense, the Bible is not actually talking about responsibilities to God, but using the character of God to illustrate the responsibilities that humans have to the rest of humanity
Contrary to popular belief, I think that in the book of Genesis, God approves or disapproves of people not because of their moral decisions, but because of their level of responsibility and reverence toward Him. An example of this is in the story of Cain and Abel. Both brothers pay a sacrifice to God willingly and without contempt, however, God disapproves of Cain because he lacked a feeling of responsibility to revere God by not giving Him the best of his crop. Another example of this is how Jacob tricks his father into giving him the blessing as the first born son, instead of Esau, the rightful recipient. This is definitely an immoral thing to do (it involves trickery and stealing) however, God does not punish Jacob because he fulfilled his responsibility to God, in that he becomes the "father of many nations" as a result of this blessing.
In the book of Genesis, it seems that God gives human beings the most responsibility. In Genesis Chapter 1, Verse 28, God creates humans and bestows them with the responsibility of managing all things on the earth. He gives them dominion over the creatures of the earth, sea, and land and dominion of the plants. He gives humans the responsibility of multiplying and filling the earth. Of all humans, he gives Adam the most responsibility. Adam is given the task of naming all the animals and all the plants. He is also presented the responsibility of tending to the Garden of Eden and all its components and most importantly responsibility over himself and Eve. Adam seems to be able to handle all his responsibilities but one, the responsibility over his and Eve's actions and fails God after eating from the forbidden tree. In Genesis, it seems that after God created the earth, he left all responsibility over it to humans.
In the story of Joseph, there is an obvious neglect of responsibility. His brothers facilitate this neglect. Joseph's brothers let jealousy consume them and in the process, they disregard their responsibility as older brothers to protect and teach Joseph. Instead they sell him to traveling merchants, leaving him unprotected amongst people he does not know. Lucky for Joseph, God continues to fulfill his responsibilities and Joseph remains safe and grows into a prosperous ruler.
In Egypt, Joseph has many responsibilities, be it from God, the pharaoh, or the people of Egypt. His first trial is with his moral responsibility to God. It his responsibility as a man of God not to give into temptation, which takes the form of the pharaoh's wife. Joseph being upright resists her and therefore fulfills his responsibility to the Lord. AS the Lord leads Joseph to greater success he then receives more responsibility from the pharaoh and the people. He is responsible for storing the food for the people and making sure everyone is fed during the years of famine. Joseph fulfills all his responsibilities; he is blessed and watched over. His story shows us that if everyone fulfills their responsibilities, God appreciates it and rewards them.
In the book of Genesis, God’s power prompts human responsibility. Although Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph all demonstrate responsibility, God has a profound influence on the decisions they make. The lord says to Jacob, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (Genesis 28:15). God makes a similar promise of protection to Abraham and his descendants. Thus, God takes responsibility over the well being of each prophet. In addition, humans often trust and revere Abraham’s sons because of their connection with God. Pharaoh says to Moses, “since God has shown you all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you. You shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command” (Genesis 41:39-40). Joseph gains authority over the land of Egypt and thus responsibility because of God’s presence.
Through out the book of Genesis, the role of responsibility has been taken on by God and humans. Both God and humans have had to take on responsibility and either followed through with it, successfully, or come upon the realization that they made a mistake. In the beginning of the book, God took on the responsibility of creating the earth and everything on it. Later on he realizes that he is not satisfied with the people living among the land he created, he realizes a flaw in his creation.
In Genesis, and the Bible as a whole, God usually tells human beings what to do during complicated times. However, the human beings are obligated to take on the responsibility of making their own decisions. Human beings also have to accept the consequences of their mistakes. A recurring theme in the Bible is that humans must always accept the responsibility for their choices. For example, Noah accepted God's request when he asked Noah to save his family and two of every living creature on earth. Therefore it was his RESPONSIBILITY to get them on the ark and return them safely to land.
Another example of responsibility in Genesis comes in the story of Joseph and his brothers. As the youngest of twelve brothers, Joseph was innately the responsibility of his older brothers. (While I don't have any siblings, I'm sure that anybody who does can attest to this). In this portion of Genesis we see yet another example of figures in the Bible handling their responsibility very poorly. In the story, Joseph has a series of dreams about his brothers. In these dreams he sees his brothers bowing down to him. Joseph shares these dreams with his brothers (we later see that it is merely Joseph's own responsibility, as an interpreter of God through dream, to communicate these dreams). Joseph's brothers soon grow to resent these dreams of their younger brother exercising supremacy over them. Forsaking their responsibility to watch over and protect their brother, they secretly blot his ultimate downfall. While out together as a group, the brothers throw Joseph down a well and dip his coat in blood to create the story that he has been attacked by a wild animal. While we see that Joseph's brothers handled their responsibility poorly, we have to remember that Joseph was actually handling his very well. God sent these dreams to Joseph with the responsibility of him interpreting them. Even after Joseph is sold into slavery, works for Potiphar, is thrown in jail, and eventually earns his freedom, he continues to preach these dreams as God wished. As a result, Joseph is able to prepare the Egyptians for the seven years of famine that will follow. In this section of Genesis we see examples of figures who handled their responsibility well, and people who handled them poorly.
In the Bible, humans were responsible to listen to the commands put on them by God and they were also responsible to face the consequences of not following God's commands. For example, God expected Adam and Eve to live in blissful ignorance in the Garden of Eden, without eating any forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. After Adam and Eve eat the fruit, and betray God, they had to take responsibility for their actions. Therefore, they were given punishments, just like countless other figures in the Bible. Another example of God's punishment, was when Lot's wife did not follow God's instructions to never look back at Sodom, and she was turned into a pillar of salt. There is a common theme in the Bible, of being punished when one does not listen to God, and having to bear the responsibility if one fails to follow God's instructions.
The concept of responsibility in Genesis goes hand in hand with the idea of contributing to the world God created. The people’s responsibilities lead to the creation of a system of organization where people are obligated to perform different tasks. The bible suggests gender roles with independent responsibilities. The women’s contribution is bearing children to help “multiply” and produce more contributors.
When God recognizes his world as a violent and corrupt place, he undertakes the responsibility of destroying it so that it can be restored. God’s disappointment in his people is rooted in the fact that they weren’t responsible for the moral upkeep of their home. After god decides to begin a covenant with Noah, god grants Noah with the tremendous responsibility of the ark. Noah has been handed the pressure of preserving God’s creatures until the end of the flood. God is sharing the responsibility of the renewal of the world with Noah.
God holds the responsibility of teaching his people how to create a world built on peace and moral growth. In order for his people to grow independent and just, he grants them responsibility over their own fates. Adam, Eve and Cain all serve as examples of god’s students; they failed at living morally while independent, so God punishes them and expects them to learn from their mistakes.
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ReplyDeleteIn chapters 6-9 of Genesis the theme of responsibility can be seen both in God's actions and in Noah and his family's actions. As time goes on human turn evil, their bloodshed poisoning the earth. God sees it as his responsibility to rid the beautiful earth of man kind, saying that he is, "sorry he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart" (genesis 6.1). However, God also saw a pious and good human being, Noah. Because Noah was not evil like all other humans it was also God's responsibility to let him live, as a reward for his goodness. Then the responsibility is passed off to Noah, who must collect pairs of all the animals on the earth, and to collet some of every kind of food for them to eat. After the flood it is also Noah and his family's responsibility to, not only repopulate the earth, but to pass God's word on to the next generation.
ReplyDeleteIn the book of Genesis, God, Noah, and his family exemplify responsibility. First, God embraces the challenge of creating earth and thus all of its inhabitants. God works for 6 days and rests on the 7th. Although God did not anticipate Eve's decision to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it was important to give humans freewill regardless of their mistakes. God establishes a covenant with the people claiming, "never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth" (Genesis 9.11). He takes full responsibility for his actions and ensures that his people do not live in fear of another flood. In addition, Noah demonstrates responsibility by building the ark without questioning God's commands. He brings two of every species on this voyage and thus was responsible for their survival. Finally, Noah's family personifies responsibility by taking on the task of multiplying and sustaining the human species.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the Book of Genesis, God grants humankind, his last and most precious creation, an enormous amount of responsibility. At the very beginning of mankind's existence, when Adam and Eve are living in the Garden of Eden, God grants them the control over this garden. He specifically states, "and let them [humankind] have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air... and over every creeping thing that creeps the Earth" (Genesis 1.26). To His own detriment, and even though He explicitly forbids it, He allows them to come into contact with the tree of knowledge of good and evil, giving them the responsibility over whether or not to eat the fruit from that tree. Even after seeing that the responsibility given to Adam and his descendants proves to be fatal for them, God continues to give responsibility to Adam's direct descendant, Noah. Noah has the obligation to transport humankind, all animals, and all food through the flood on an ark (Genesis 6.14-22). God tells Noah of his covenant between them that not only Noah is responsible for spreading, but also is a promise which God is responsible for keeping (Genesis 9.8-17). This pact between them epitomizes a dual responsibility over the world. Quite explicitly stated in the first nine chapters of Genesis and in the passage above, humankind is responsible for looking after the world and its wellbeing. However, God also holds an omnipresent responsibility over humans and over the world in general, especially since he is the one who created it in the first place. In conclusion, both God and humans hold dual (and sometimes intertwined) responsibility over the world
ReplyDeleteIn the book of Genesis, and throughout the Bible, God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, but he gives humans the responsibility of making decisions on their own. Adam is commanded to rule over all creation and he names every creature as he wishes. God wishes Adam and Eve to have freewill, and places the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden to give them a choice. He warns them not to eat of the fruit, (Genesis 2:17) and it was not his responsibility to prevent Eve from eating it. It was her choice. God did not simply let go of all responsibility as it may appear at first, but his omniscient power comes into play many times later to save mankind, in the form of prophets and Christ himself. In Genesis chapter 7, God intervenes and speaks to Noah. He gives Noah the responsibility to save the animals and his family from the flood. God, instead of using the supernatural, uses people to save the Earth. Humans are his most beloved creation, created in his image with his very breath (Genesis 2:7), unlike anything else. As much as it pained him, he had to let humans make choices for themselves- a gift to humans, but also a burden. Humans must bear the responsibility for their choices, whether good or bad.
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ReplyDeleteResponsibility is attributed to at least one party in every action or decision in Genesis. Whether it be God or another character, responsibility always makes apparent its rewards or consequences. An example of this is in chapter 3, God says "You may freely eat of every tree; but 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" God gives Adam and Eve the choice to choose eternal life, or knowledge. Adam and Eve are given the responsibility of not being tempted to sin (AKA eat from the tree of knowledge), and in reward they can live forever. However, temptation and thirst for knowledge naturally takes over and Adam and Eve face the full brunt of not being "responsible". God presented great rewards for responsibility, but also great consequences for disobeying. Thus Adam and Eve become mortal and now suffer the pains of mortality such as child birth and manual labor. Another example is in chapter 4, when God berates Cain for murdering Abel, "What have you done? Listen; your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground! And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand." Again, God punishes Cain for committing murder, the worst sin, with a consequence that is equal to it's crime. Thus, Cain is forced to wander the earth as a fugitive for eternity. In conclusion, the choice to be responsible or not in Genesis is always present, and the rewards of being good are just as glamorous as the consequences of being bad are unpleasant. Subsequently, in Genesis good coexists with evil.
ReplyDeleteThe theme of responsibility features heavily in Genesis. After God creates Adam and Eve, he gives them the responsibility of staying away from the Tree of Life. Their failure to meet up with this responsibility is what caused God to banish them from the Garden of Eden. From there, the failure of people to meet their responsibility to God brings them ruin, and the people who do meet their responsibilities are rewarded. When Cain fails to meet his responsibility, he is cursed by God. When humankind overall fails to meet their responsibilities that god gave them, he decides that they must be wiped out. However, because he feels that Noah met his responsibilities, he allows him and his family to live, and gives them the privilege of starting the human race again. Throughout the Bible, the success or failure of people to meet their responsibility to God determines their fate.
ReplyDeleteResponsibility is an extremely important concept that the Judeo-Christian religions instill upon their followers. Responsibility, or the lack thereof is a pivotal part of the first few chapters of Genesis, and throughout the rest of the bible. Starting at the beginning, every character that is introduced, including God, have a certain amount of responsibilities. The bible shows that God is responsible for all living and nonliving things on the earth. Not only a creator but an authoritative commander, God is placed at the very top of the totem pole, and with being so powerful, he is challenged with a lot of responsibility. The next two characters, Adam and Eve, are found with two main commandments given by God that they are responsible for: to multiply and replenish the earth, and to not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Adam and Eve, being unable to resist temptation eventually succumb to eating from the Tree, proving their irresponsibility. God punishes them heavily for showing their lack of responsibility in the freedom that God had granted them. In chapters 6-9, a new character, Noah, comes into the bible. The text in chapter 6, verses 5-6, explain how the world was at this time. God was ashamed that the people sinned and that the people were not holy and committed unholy acts. God decides to punish the people of the earth - all except one: Noah. Noah is given the responsibility to carry on humankind, for God was to destroy all evil and sinful humans on the earth. Because Noah was a holy, responsible man he was able to complete the task given to him.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the bible, responsibility plays a huge role in the commandments given to the people of the Judeo-Christian religions. Responsibility is seen in even the first chapter of the bible, and is a constant recurring theme throughout.
The theme of responsibility is incredibly abundant throughout the chapters of the Book of Genesis. In the beginning, when God created Adam and Eve,he presented them the ability to choose wrong from right, as well as the single command to stay away from the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil"(2). With this in mind, we realize that God gave His humans the responsibility of making their own decisions. When Eve disobeys God's requests, it is clear she has failed to fulfill her responsibilities, and therefore is forever punished with the "pangs of childbearing"(3). Adam, in addition to Eve, is heavily scolding by God, because of his poor judgment. This is a prime example of God's creations failing to satisfy their obligations.
ReplyDeleteNot only does the theme of responsibility appear in the story of Adam and Eve, but likewise in Noah's Ark. When the Lord saw that the "wickedness of humankind was great in the earth," and decided that "everything that is on the earth shall die," he presented Noah with an important errand (6). The responsibility of building an ark and gathering couples of each living creative was a lot of weight for Noah to carry; however, his faith and trust in God helped him succeed in restarting life on earth. Noah's ability to follow the Lord's commands, and accomplish this hardy task, represents the importance of responsibility in the book of Genesis. If Noah had failed to meet God's requirements, as Adam and Eve had, what would have come of the human race? Would the possibility of life on earth be demolished?
Furthermore, responsibility is a key aspect in many of the Bible's stories. In some instances, God's children abuse their privileges and fail to fulfill their duties, and are therefore faced with severe punishments. In contrast, other stories display faith and cooperation which lead to accomplishments that please the Lord. The stories follow positive and/or negative paths depending on each characters ability to fulfill their responsibilities, so it is ideal that they follow the word of their Lord.
Responsibility is evident throughout the entirety of Genesis, but a few instances stood out to me. For example,when God creates Humans, he immediately feels responsible for them and wants them to prosper. To aid in this, God gives the humans dominion over all the living creatures on earth, and in addition, creates the humans in his image, indicating the responsibility he feels for them. He attempts to protect them from teh knowledge of evil, but Eve's curiosity wins over. God realizing that humanity is a evil thing, and feeling accountable for his creation, sends out a enormous flood to destroy humans and start a new.
ReplyDeleteWhile "responsibility" is shown quite frequently throughout the bible, Genesis in particular, I think that the best example of responsibility in Genesis is how God needs to take responsibility for his creations. When each of his creations strays and does something that God deems unacceptable, God does the responsible thing and reprimands each creation so they learn there lesson. An example of a situation such as this is with the serpent in the Garden of Eden. God realized that the serpent needed to be reprimanded greatly for his sin, so he lost his legs and forever had to remember why he has no legs. Also the same situation is applied to Cain. After Cain killed his brother, God took responsibility and instead of killing Cain, which would have been easier, God made Cain live with a mark on himself, as a reminder of what he did.
ReplyDeleteApparently there's a limit to the number of characters that you can have in a post, so I divided mine into two.
ReplyDeletePart I.
The manifest of responsibility in Genesis is both the epitome of God's expectations for man as well as the driving cause for Adam and Eve's failure to comply with the expectations of God and subsequently the dissension form Paradise.
The presence of responsibility is prevalent almost immediately upon the creation of man. When God places Adam on the Earth, he charges him with his mission and the responsibility to establish dominion over the creatures that God had created. (2.15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.)
Soon afterward, God bestows the full responsibility of the Garden of Eden's paradise. (2.16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 2.17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.")
Perhaps as a method of alleviating some of the responsibility that god has placed on Adam, he provides him with a companion to aid him; however, given the events that would soon transpire, Eve's presence would prove to be far from aiding. (2.18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.")
Soon, the expectations and the responsibility entrusted with Adam and Eve become the reason for their expulsion from the Garden, and the breaking of man's initial covenant with God. Despite what they were duly charged with, Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge, invoking the wrath of God at their failure to handle the responsibilities of their great paradise. (3.6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.)
Upon discovering this, God punishes Adam and Eve, casting them from the Garden of Eden, and severing their covenant. (23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.)
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ReplyDeleteThe Lord “…saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord as sorry that he had made humankind on the earth” (Genesis, 5:6). Upon seeing all the strife, disobedience, and violence of the people, he decides to kill them by sending down a flood. This act can be interpreted in two different ways. Firstly, his decision could exhibit that he does not accept any responsibility for his actions; he creates evil but now does not want any part of it. In fact, he explicitly regrets forming human life in the first place. On the other hand, his decision could show that he accepts responsibility, because by punishing the people and destroying everything he creates a way to begin anew. He wants to protect the people from self- destruction. It is up to individual interpretation to decide if the Lord actually accepts responsibility or not.
ReplyDeleteAnother questionable instance is when the Lord forms different languages when the people build the Tower of Babel. The Lord thinks, “This is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them” (Genesis: 3:6). The Lord notices the people’s success and accepts responsibility for his people. He understands that people will soon become overzealous and filled with hubris. Therefore, he confuses their languages to delay the process. Once again, this can be interpreted in different ways. One might think that he creates chaos in order to maintain his omnipotent and omnipresent control over the people. Others might believe that he is afraid that the people will eventually self- destruct, so he confuses their languages in order to slow that development. As the Lord brings the flood down on the people, the Lord creates chaos. This constant cycle of order and chaos is perplexing and contradictory, especially when one always views the Lord as all- knowing and perfect. Whether or not he acts responsibly is based on each individual’s interpretation.
Throughout Genesis we continue to see reverberations of man's failure to handle the responsibilities that they were charged with, as well as God's wrath and punishment. The human race has gone on to do something to fall out of God's favor once more and he is angered. As a result, he floods the entire Earth, entrusting the fate of every animal species to Noah and his family. Noah is responsible for building an arch and selecting two of each animal to bring aboard before the flood of 40 days and 40 nights that ultimately obliterates the world and begins it anew. In some ways, this responsibility could be viewed as a great one than what Adam and Eve were charged with. However, it is the fact that Adam and Eve were entrusted with the original covenant between man and god that makes their failure to handle the responsibility all the more significant. Essentially, it is Adam and Eve that sever this covenant and therefore cast humans from paradise. Had these initial expectations never been broken, we may all still be in this great paradise that God had created for us. However, due to failure of many people to handle responsibility in Genesis, we find that the Garden of Eden has been destroyed by the flood that god unleashed on the Earth. Some might think: If only they had not severed these expectations, perhaps I could have this paradise. However, this is reminiscent of what Jesus will say in Matthew (far later in the New Testament) when posed with the question as to why he did not merely save himself. His answer: Do you not think that at once I could not call upon my father, and have him send 50 legions of angels? But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled?
ReplyDeleteWhile this is not a part of Genesis, I believe that the Bible is designed to provide answers to our earliest questions with repercussions in later books. I believe that god must have known that man would be unable to meet his expectations. After all, the snake was one of the creatures that God had created. Had he wished to withhold responsibility and simply design us to follow orders and be perfect beings, he would never have placed it in the Garden to begin with.
Therefore, I believe that while man's failure to comply with the responsibility assigned by God cause the dissension from paradise, that this was merely just the beginning of a multitude of tests that God has in place for us as we traverse the great path that he has paved for our lives.
In the book of Genesis, specifically chapters 11-16 we start to see the line of God holding most of the responsibility and him delegating it to human beings. Abram is a good example of this. We see that God hands a lot ownership of land and countless amounts of descendants and puts it in the hands of one human. This is the beginning of God beginning to put more and more faith in the hands of humans, and him stepping into the background.
ReplyDeleteThroughout Genesis, we see God as a parental figure. He tests his "children" and punishes them when they misbehave. God bestows much of his responsibility on mankind which he created. Like a parent, he transfers his flaws, as well as his strengths to his creations. As the book progresses, God gradually abdicates his responsibility more and more. But when he floods the earth because of the "wickedness of humankind" (Genesis 6:5), it raises the question of whether he dealt with the situation responsibly, or if he simply didn't feel like dealing with it. God didn't take responsibility for his own creations, for if he created the world, he created wickedness, as well as mankind's weakness for it.
ReplyDelete"Responsibility" in Genisis, I feel is the underlying theme. There are multiple instances where God challenges Adam and Eve's responsibility, but at the same time God is also coping with his own responsibility. When God first created Man, he was disgusted by their greed and evil, so he felt it was HIS responsibility to kill them and create new beings. God test's Adam and Eve's obedience with the Tree of Knowledge, and they failed the task. Genesis is the beginning, and responsibility is new, as weird as that sounds.
ReplyDeleteI feel that responsibility only manifests itself in one entity in the first few episodes of the bible; God. I feel that god betrays his children, Adam and Eve, by creating them in his image but failing to convey any virtue or maturity. Fortunately for the human race, God's betrayal actually allotted our existence. This lack of responsibility by god is also displayed in his creation of the Earth in 7 days. His trial and error approach to creation may be interpreted as God working on his latest whim. In terms of God's charge of Noah to create the arc I feel that Noah was actually working out of fear than discipline and servitude. On numerous occasions the Bible preaches fear of the lord. Noah feared the wrath of god and feared the deaths of his relatives. He didn't build the arc to honor his "duty" to god.
ReplyDeleteIn Genesis there are a lot of aspects of responsibility. There is God's responsibility to the people and their responsibility to God. This is in common in any parent-child relationship. In addition to this there is one other type of responsibility and that is a human responsibility. In the book of Genesis there is this aspect of whether or not humans have some form of obligation to one another. For example does Cain have and obligation to take care of Abel? Does Noah have an obligation to protect the people of the world? Or do Adam and Eve have a responsibility to those after them to not eat the forbidden fruit? In most cases in Genesis the characters show that they do not have a duty to think about how their actions will effect others. But at the same time early man has not learned this fact of life yet. After these characters are punished they learn that what they did was wrong and has implications. I believe that as humans we have a responsibility to try to stop things that knowingly harms someone else. What do you think do think that as humans we have a responsibility to others?
ReplyDeleteThroughout what we read of Genesis, a human beings have a huge amount of responsibility. Humans often have a task that they must complete whether it just be not to eat a certain fruit while populating the earth, or to build a giant arc to save all the different species from a flood to rid the world of evil. These tasks always require the humans to be responsible. One story from the Genesis that has possibly more points about responsibility than any other is that of Cain and Abel. When Cain kills his brother and is ask by God where Abel is, Cain gets annoyed and asks if he's his brother keeper. This begs the question is Cain really meant to be responsible for Abel. I think the answer to this question is yes because an older brother should always be a role model for the younger sibling and Cain fails to fulfill this role.
ReplyDeleteThe dictionary definition of "responsibility" is as follows: a moral obligation to behave correctly toward or in respect of . This manifests itself in the book of Genesis as Adam and Eve hold a moral imperative to respect and follow the instructions that God had left them with, as He had been the one to create them and grant them life. However, the woman acted in an irresponsible fashion when she let herself become tricked by the serpent. Afterwards, God finds out that Adam and Eve's eyes have been opened after eating the forbidden fruit. He then has to punish all involved in order to set clear ground rules. Part of being responsible is to having to own up to mistakes and accepting any resulting consequences, which is what Adam and Eve have to do when God penalizes them for their mistake, and lapse of responsibility. This is just one of many instances where responsibility comes into play.
ReplyDeleteGod creates the earth and thus has the responsibility to give it order. In Genesis 2.19 he* does so by having Adam name the animals and, by doing so, giving the animals a sort of power and order. God also gives a sort of order to the earth by giving humans responsibility over all living things on earth and letting the humans and the animals eat the plants.
ReplyDeleteSince God has the responsibility to give order to the earth, he also sees it necessary to give responsibility to the inhabitants of the the earth. When God tells only Adam to not eat “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”, Adam then has the responsibility to listen to his master and not eat from the tree of knowledge (2.17). Likewise, when Eve is made of Adam’s rib, she also picks up his responsibilities without being told to, and thus is punished when she proves irresponsible and disobeys her master, God. In Genesis chapter four, when Cain breaks his responsibility to not kill, he is punished by being thrown from his job as a farmer and exiled to become a wanderer. However, by killing someone himself, the punishment for someone killing him as he wanders or for revenge is increased “sevenfold” (4.15). In this way, God makes it so that Cain’s irresponsibility increases humankind’s responsibility.
When someone creates a mess, they are expected to clean it up. In chapter six, God is “sorry that he had made humankind on the earth” and thus figures he needs to clean them up (6.6). To do so, God decides to use the Mop 3000 of the day -- a world wide flood. By killing all the humans off (except Noah and his family) he is doing exactly what he punished Cain for doing in chapter four and is therefore being irresponsible. However, since he is God, nothing happens to him. Despite this, God has a minor redemption by not killing Noah as well and so giving human kind a way to repopulate the world through incest. In Genesis, God has and gives responsibility to other beings. Likewise, God is and sees others being irresponsible.
* Disclaimer: While God could be a he, she or it, for the purposes of this response God will be referred to as a “he” based on the norm terminology of society.
Responsibility is a major theme in Genesis. Obviously, the concept of responsibility is a large issue in the Garden of Eden: whose fault is it that Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? God feels that Adam must be in charge of Eve so she does not do something else irresponsible. The theme also comes up in the story of Cain and Abel, when Cain asks God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” We are supposed to think that God says yes, Cain is his brother’s keeper, and humans are responsible for one another, especially their close kin.
ReplyDeleteThe theme of responsibility is also evident in the crimes and punishments throughout Genesis. If someone does something contrary to God’s wish, they are shown their responsibility for their actions by being instantly punished. Lot’s wife looks back at Sodom as their family is leaving, and she is turned into a pillar of salt for betraying God’s wish. When God thinks people as a whole are behaving badly, he floods the whole earth and saves only one family and two of each animal. Humans undoubtedly do commit actions that are against God’s instructions, but one must also ask: is this ultimately God’s fault? God never lets people try again; the punishments he doles out always prohibit humans from having a second chance. People never actually learn not to do things or have the opportunity to prove themselves right and figure out what they should do; they are only showed that what they have done is wrong. This begs the question of whether God is responsible for his creation messing up all the time: he never lets them fix it, and children must have the opportunity to try again or they will never learn from their mistakes.
ReplyDeleteIn the story of Joseph, responsibility plays a large part. Joseph starts as a slave in Egypt to becoming the right-hand man of Pharaoh, by interpreting Pharaoh's dream and trusting in God. Joseph's brothers did an evil act toward him, but God meant it for good, to save many lives, and God was always with him blessing Joseph in everything he did. When Joseph becomes the right-hand man of Pharaoh, he becomes responsible for everyone in the lands, in and surrounding Egypt. Without Joseph's interpretation of the dream, all these people would have died due to the severe famine that befell the land. Joseph became responsible for all these lives and it is surprising that it started as Joseph being sold as a slave.
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning of Joseph's adventure, his brothers were responsible for him, because he was the second youngest son and Jacob favored him. But his brothers hated him and, forgetting about their responsibilities as brothers, sold him to slavery. Reuben, however, seemed to care about Jacob as when he finds Jacob missing, "he tore his clothes" (38). Tearing one's clothes was a sign of mourning and weeping, so it is evident that Reuben knew his responsibilities as a brother, and knew that killing or selling his brother would be a wicked act.
Throughout Genesis, God uses responsibility as an epicenter for conflict, punishment, and power. At the beginning of Genesis God has the absolute responsibility of the world, and his children are demagogues of responsibility. Although Adam and Eve have a responsibility to maintain the utopia of the world, God is still omnipresent and punishes them. God’s role with Cain and Abel is also the punisher. In Noah’s case God has more of a submissive role, but he still is in complete control. Real responsibility for others emerges with Abraham and Sarah. For the first time God cares about what someone (Abraham) thinks and he even asks Abraham for his opinion. Further he gives Abraham the nation of Israel as his own to govern and develop. Uncharacteristically, God does not punish Sarah after she laughs at him, whereas before he might have reacted abruptly. Abraham and Sarah have the responsibility to spread god’s word and to multiply and govern their land. It is evident that God is stepping back from his creation to let his children fend for themselves and learn through their own mistakes. In some sense, God realizes that part of his responsibility to his people is to let them live on their own and learn responsibility.
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ReplyDeleteThe concept of responsibility represents itself many times in the Book of Genesis. All of the stories involve God giving a responsibility to humans, and revolve around how humans meet up to this responsibility. To give one example, in the Cain and Able story, after Cain kills his brother, and God asks Cain about him, he replies "Am I my brother's keeper?" God's response to this, calling him a liar and banishing him, shows how Cain failed to meet up to his responsibilities. In a sense, this story is saying that all humans have a responsibility towards other humans, and that we are all each other's "keeper. In this sense, the Bible is not actually talking about responsibilities to God, but using the character of God to illustrate the responsibilities that humans have to the rest of humanity
ReplyDeleteContrary to popular belief, I think that in the book of Genesis, God approves or disapproves of people not because of their moral decisions, but because of their level of responsibility and reverence toward Him. An example of this is in the story of Cain and Abel. Both brothers pay a sacrifice to God willingly and without contempt, however, God disapproves of Cain because he lacked a feeling of responsibility to revere God by not giving Him the best of his crop.
ReplyDeleteAnother example of this is how Jacob tricks his father into giving him the blessing as the first born son, instead of Esau, the rightful recipient. This is definitely an immoral thing to do (it involves trickery and stealing) however, God does not punish Jacob because he fulfilled his responsibility to God, in that he becomes the "father of many nations" as a result of this blessing.
In the book of Genesis, it seems that God gives human beings the most responsibility. In Genesis Chapter 1, Verse 28, God creates humans and bestows them with the responsibility of managing all things on the earth. He gives them dominion over the creatures of the earth, sea, and land and dominion of the plants. He gives humans the responsibility of multiplying and filling the earth. Of all humans, he gives Adam the most responsibility. Adam is given the task of naming all the animals and all the plants. He is also presented the responsibility of tending to the Garden of Eden and all its components and most importantly responsibility over himself and Eve. Adam seems to be able to handle all his responsibilities but one, the responsibility over his and Eve's actions and fails God after eating from the forbidden tree. In Genesis, it seems that after God created the earth, he left all responsibility over it to humans.
ReplyDeleteIn the story of Joseph, there is an obvious neglect of responsibility. His brothers facilitate this neglect. Joseph's brothers let jealousy consume them and in the process, they disregard their responsibility as older brothers to protect and teach Joseph. Instead they sell him to traveling merchants, leaving him unprotected amongst people he does not know. Lucky for Joseph, God continues to fulfill his responsibilities and Joseph remains safe and grows into a prosperous ruler.
In Egypt, Joseph has many responsibilities, be it from God, the pharaoh, or the people of Egypt. His first trial is with his moral responsibility to God. It his responsibility as a man of God not to give into temptation, which takes the form of the pharaoh's wife. Joseph being upright resists her and therefore fulfills his responsibility to the Lord. AS the Lord leads Joseph to greater success he then receives more responsibility from the pharaoh and the people. He is responsible for storing the food for the people and making sure everyone is fed during the years of famine. Joseph fulfills all his responsibilities; he is blessed and watched over. His story shows us that if everyone fulfills their responsibilities, God appreciates it and rewards them.
In the book of Genesis, God’s power prompts human responsibility. Although Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph all demonstrate responsibility, God has a profound influence on the decisions they make. The lord says to Jacob, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (Genesis 28:15). God makes a similar promise of protection to Abraham and his descendants. Thus, God takes responsibility over the well being of each prophet. In addition, humans often trust and revere Abraham’s sons because of their connection with God. Pharaoh says to Moses, “since God has shown you all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you. You shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command” (Genesis 41:39-40). Joseph gains authority over the land of Egypt and thus responsibility because of God’s presence.
ReplyDeleteThrough out the book of Genesis, the role of responsibility has been taken on by God and humans. Both God and humans have had to take on responsibility and either followed through with it, successfully, or come upon the realization that they made a mistake. In the beginning of the book, God took on the responsibility of creating the earth and everything on it. Later on he realizes that he is not satisfied with the people living among the land he created, he realizes a flaw in his creation.
ReplyDeleteIn Genesis, and the Bible as a whole, God usually tells human beings what to do during complicated times. However, the human beings are obligated to take on the responsibility of making their own decisions. Human beings also have to accept the consequences of their mistakes. A recurring theme in the Bible is that humans must always accept the responsibility for their choices. For example, Noah accepted God's request when he asked Noah to save his family and two of every living creature on earth. Therefore it was his RESPONSIBILITY to get them on the ark and return them safely to land.
ReplyDeleteAnother example of responsibility in Genesis comes in the story of Joseph and his brothers. As the youngest of twelve brothers, Joseph was innately the responsibility of his older brothers. (While I don't have any siblings, I'm sure that anybody who does can attest to this). In this portion of Genesis we see yet another example of figures in the Bible handling their responsibility very poorly.
ReplyDeleteIn the story, Joseph has a series of dreams about his brothers. In these dreams he sees his brothers bowing down to him. Joseph shares these dreams with his brothers (we later see that it is merely Joseph's own responsibility, as an interpreter of God through dream, to communicate these dreams). Joseph's brothers soon grow to resent these dreams of their younger brother exercising supremacy over them. Forsaking their responsibility to watch over and protect their brother, they secretly blot his ultimate downfall.
While out together as a group, the brothers throw Joseph down a well and dip his coat in blood to create the story that he has been attacked by a wild animal.
While we see that Joseph's brothers handled their responsibility poorly, we have to remember that Joseph was actually handling his very well. God sent these dreams to Joseph with the responsibility of him interpreting them. Even after Joseph is sold into slavery, works for Potiphar, is thrown in jail, and eventually earns his freedom, he continues to preach these dreams as God wished. As a result, Joseph is able to prepare the Egyptians for the seven years of famine that will follow.
In this section of Genesis we see examples of figures who handled their responsibility well, and people who handled them poorly.
In the Bible, humans were responsible to listen to the commands put on them by God and they were also responsible to face the consequences of not following God's commands. For example, God expected Adam and Eve to live in blissful ignorance in the Garden of Eden, without eating any forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. After Adam and Eve eat the fruit, and betray God, they had to take responsibility for their actions. Therefore, they were given punishments, just like countless other figures in the Bible. Another example of God's punishment, was when Lot's wife did not follow God's instructions to never look back at Sodom, and she was turned into a pillar of salt. There is a common theme in the Bible, of being punished when one does not listen to God, and having to bear the responsibility if one fails to follow God's instructions.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of responsibility in Genesis goes hand in hand with the idea of contributing to the world God created. The people’s responsibilities lead to the creation of a system of organization where people are obligated to perform different tasks. The bible suggests gender roles with independent responsibilities. The women’s contribution is bearing children to help “multiply” and produce more contributors.
ReplyDeleteWhen God recognizes his world as a violent and corrupt place, he undertakes the responsibility of destroying it so that it can be restored. God’s disappointment in his people is rooted in the fact that they weren’t responsible for the moral upkeep of their home. After god decides to begin a covenant with Noah, god grants Noah with the tremendous responsibility of the ark. Noah has been handed the pressure of preserving God’s creatures until the end of the flood. God is sharing the responsibility of the renewal of the world with Noah.
God holds the responsibility of teaching his people how to create a world built on peace and moral growth. In order for his people to grow independent and just, he grants them responsibility over their own fates. Adam, Eve and Cain all serve as examples of god’s students; they failed at living morally while independent, so God punishes them and expects them to learn from their mistakes.