Finding Jesus in Genesis

Episode Outline:
0:00 Is Jesus actually in Genesis, or are Christians reading him back into the text?
0:53 Bart and Megan on sabbaticals, summer travel, a Europe cruise, and Austin plans
3:25 Why some Christians are taught to see Jesus all over the Old Testament
5:12 Did this begin in modern evangelicalism, or does it go back to the earliest Christians?
6:41 How Paul already identifies Christ in Old Testament stories
8:40 Early Christian writings like Barnabas and the extreme reading of Jesus into Genesis
12:55 Once the Trinity develops, how Christians start finding Father, Son, and Spirit in Genesis 1
17:26 Why Trinity readings of Genesis make sense inside the theological system, even if they sound convoluted outside it
19:16 How scholars understand Elohim, plural language, and “let us make humankind”
21:05 Adam and Eve hiding from God: why some Christians say that figure must be Jesus
26:02 Genesis 3:15 and the serpent’s crushed head as a prophecy of Christ defeating Satan
29:35 Other places Christians have found Jesus in Genesis, including Noah and Joseph
31:50 Can Christians read Genesis without forcing Jesus into every passage?
35:45 In what sense can Genesis still function as Christian scripture if it is not historically about Jesus?
38:07 Bart’s oral exam story: even scholars and theologians deeply disagree about how to read the Old Testament
40:16 Weekly Update: Jodi Magness’s archaeology course and why it matters for understanding Jesus’ world
43:40 Listener Q&A: Matthew’s Magi, literalism before fundamentalism, Greek style and social class, and whether Jesus would recognize modern Christianity
52:16 Final summary: historically, Genesis is not about Jesus, even if Christians can still read it devotionally

Episode Description
Some evangelical preachers claim that Jesus is walking all over the pages of the Old Testament. The Old Testament, of course, doesn't say so. But believing Christians all the way in antiquity claimed that the Jewish Scriptures not only predict Jesus but also portray him as a person involved with the creation of the world and the history of Israel. Where would they get such an idea? And how do they find Jesus as an active figure in the very first book of the Old Testament, from Adam and Eve to the flood of Noah to the story of Joseph, and lots of places in between? Are they just makin' stuff up, or is there a logic behind it all?

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Megan asks about:

- Why do modern Christians want to read Jesus into books of the Old Testament?

- We see this tendency in some of the gospels, don’t we?

- Do other books of the NT do that as well?

- How about other early Christian writings outside the NT, do they read Jesus back into the Old Testament?

- Do we see the trinity in Genesis as well?

- This seems a little convoluted to me, what are your thoughts?

- The next argument is the use of the 1st person plural in Genesis 1, “let us make man”, “our image”, and so on, along with the fact that the Hebrew word often used to refer to God, “elohim”, is a plural noun, means that YHWH is part of the trinity and therefore Jesus is present in Genesis. How do biblical scholars usually understand the appearance of these plurals?

- There’s also an argument that when Adam and Eve hid in shame from God when they heard him walking in the garden, they were actually hiding from Jesus. Can you e- plain that logic?

- Why would YHWH not say “let us make man in your image, not “our” image?

- What about Genesis 3:15? “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel”. I found several websites identifying that as a reference to Jesus - what’s going on there?

- Are there other apparent references to Jesus in the book of Genesis that people have pointed out to you?

- Is it possible for Christians to interpret the Old Testament, and Genesis in particular, WITHOUT thinking it refers to Jesus?

- If the Genesis and the rest of the Old Testament does NOT talk about Jesus, in what sense should it be seen as a Christian book?

- Were there any debates about this?