The story of the Bible from Creation to Noah
The beginning
The Bible begins at the beginning when there was nothing but God. God spoke and sent forth His Spirit or power by which all things were created. They were not made on a mere whim, for He had a purpose in view – He created the earth to be inhabited, to give Him pleasure and to be full of His glory.
Out of darkness came light creating time: night and day. The watery chaos was separated into the heavens and the oceans. Out of the oceans came land which brought forth vegetation. The lights were placed to rule the day and the night. The water and the land was filled with living creatures. And finally humans were created in the image of God to rule over all the earth and every living creature.
The human story begins with Adam and Eve. Adam was formed from the dust of the ground and God breathed into him the breath of life. He was created in the image of God and was placed in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Eve was created from the side of Adam while he slept and she was brought to Adam to be his companion and helper.
Everything they needed was in the Garden, but there was one rule: not to eat from one tree in the middle of the garden or they would die. But it was delicious looking fruit, pleasant to the eyes and it could make them wise – so they disobeyed and ate from it and consequently had to leave the garden and fend for themselves.
However, God did not abandon His creation at this point. His purpose widened to a future day when He would bring out a people from among His creation who would willingly be obedient and truly reflect His glory.
The flood
And so time went on and the world filled with people. The majority of men and women did not care to please God but only how to please themselves. The earth became full of evil and violence. And God was sorry that He had made humans on the earth.
There was only one family that remained faithful to God. God asked them to build an ark because He would soon send a flood to destroy all flesh from the earth. Over a period of time the ark was built and provisioned and animals collected. However, no one else cared about Noah’s warnings and when it began to rain, only Noah, his wife and his three sons with their wives were on the ark.
A year later, Noah and his family left the ark and started over. At this time, God made a promise to never again destroy all flesh from the earth with a flood. The rainbow became a sign of this everlasting covenant between God and all life on earth.
The tower of Babel
It would be nice to think that the generations that came after Noah remained faithful to God. However, they gathered in one place and began to build for themselves a great city and tower. It was probably meant to be a seat of government so that the whole earth could be ruled from one place. This was not what God had in mind. Up until this point, the people spoke the same language and were a more or less united community. God confounded their language and from that time they divided into separate people and nations.
You can read this story yourself in Genesis 1 to 11.
You may also want to read these other posts on this topic:
Mini History: Abraham to David
Mini-History: Solomon to the Exile
Article by Julie. Illustration by Didier Martin (freebibleimages.org) CCA-4.0.
