If you have your copy of God's Word with you, I encourage you to open to Genesis chapter 1. I'm going to read the whole thing through chapter 2 verse 3. I don't know why whoever did the chapters of the Bible didn't go all the way through day 7 in Genesis chapter 1. It's a great mystery. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day. And God said, let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters. And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. And God said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear. And it was so. God called the dry land earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called seas, and God saw that it was good. And God said, let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit, and which is their seed, each according to its kind on the earth. And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, and God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. Then God said, let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons for days and years. Let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth, and it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness, and God saw that it was good. Then there was evening and there was morning the fourth day. And God said, let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens. So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm according to their kinds and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters and the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day. And God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over all the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heaven, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning. The sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Now, this morning, I want to do something a little different. Because I think we need to answer a foundational question before we turn any further in Genesis. We need to answer the question is, is Genesis 1 through 11 in the category of history or is it in the category of myth? Does it present itself as actual historical occurrence? Or is it meant to be understood mythologically, spiritually, allegorically, poetically, any of the above? Can we take Genesis as teaching us important and valid spiritual truths without demanding that it hold up to historical and scientific investigation? The consequences of this question, these questions are huge. Because if Genesis 1 through 11 are to be understood in the category of myth, then we must conclude, for instance, that Adam and Eve were not, strictly speaking, actual human beings, actual people. That means that there was no historical fall into sin. Rather, Adam and Eve come to represent Promethean archetypal human beings. The Fall comes to represent a choice each of us have to make. They represent aspirations rather than what human beings actually were at one point. It would mean that we are not by nature sinners separated from the life of God as a consequence of Adam's first sin. Rather, the story of the forbidden fruit represents how each of us can become sinners by rejecting God's Word. It becomes something of an allegory. But if Adam did not sin, if he did not live, and in his disobedience bring death into the world, then Paul's reasoning in Romans 5 falls flat. What does it mean to argue, as he does in Romans 5, 19, four, as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. What does that mean if Adam was not a person who disobeyed? No, the entire New Testament, the entire gospel comes to us as the solution for the problems created in Genesis chapter 3. The entire New Testament operates on the presupposition that Genesis 1-11 records actual historical events, and this in itself provides a great reason, a compelling argument to take Genesis 1-11 at face value, to understand them to be stories of things that actually happened in real time. If Jesus, Paul, and Peter were mistaken about Genesis, what else were they mistaken about? Indeed, the first question we need to ask ourselves about Genesis 1 through 11 is, does the rest of the Bible view these chapters as historical? And the answer is an unequivocal yes. However, that's not the only question that has bearing at hand. The rest of our sermon will examine three other questions in turn. First, who wrote Genesis? Second, how does Genesis compare to the mythologies of the ancient Near East? And third, how does Genesis 1 in particular present itself? That is, what genre or style of literature is Genesis 1? Now, as you can tell from these titles, this is going to be a bit more of a lecture, if you want to call it that, than an exegetical sermon. But this is what we have to do to answer this question. So who wrote Genesis? Who is the author of Genesis? The traditional view of the Christian church and the Jewish sages is that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, Genesis through Deuteronomy. Prior to the modern era, there is no suggestion of any other author. That view began to be displaced about 200 years ago with the rise of what we call German higher critical scholarship. These were the first critical theories, if you will. In the 1800s, German scholars put forward something that's come to be known as the documentary hypothesis. They posited that the book of Genesis is the synthesis of four different sources that had been woven together by different editors over the course of Genesis' history and of Israel's history. As a result, many scholars today believe that Genesis did not come into its current form until after Israel returned from exile. That means that Genesis as we read it today did not achieve its final form until about 500 BC. Thankfully, the documentary hypothesis has fallen on hard times. It has become increasingly clear that the stories of Genesis are intricately designed literary units. They're linked thematically with one another. And because of the literary integrity of the book, it's getting harder and harder for scholars to honestly discern different sources and editors. Because they read as one book written by one author with one purpose. Nonetheless, outside of conservative and confessional circles, most scholars deny the historicity of the first five books of the Bible, and they believe its material is the result of centuries of literary and religious evolution. Specifically, it is the supernatural elements of Genesis and Exodus. They're clear prophetic fulfillments in history and the difficulties that exist with science and the archaeological record that render faith in the historicity of Genesis absurd to most scholars. And with the problem of historicity goes Moses. What does the traditional view have to offer us? What internal evidence is there that Moses could have actually written the book of Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible? Well, here there are three sub-points. First, we must begin with the understanding that the rest of the Bible views Genesis through Deuteronomy as written by Moses. Though it's not internal to the book of Genesis itself, internal to the entirety of the book is the explicit belief that Moses wrote the book of Genesis. As early as Joshua 1, 7, we have reference to the law of Moses. Ezra, Nehemiah, and 2 Chronicles refer to something called the book of Moses. Likewise, the New Testament treats each of these books as the writing of Moses. And so, Jesus will talk about Moses writing. Paul will talk about Moses writing various passages in Genesis. So, while Moses is never explicitly named the author, he is given explicit commands to record specific laws, events, and songs by the mouth of God. This work is summarized for us in Deuteronomy 31.9 which says, then Moses wrote this law, this Torah, and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord unto all the elders of Israel. Deuteronomy 31, 24 likewise says, when Moses had finished writing the words of this law in a book to the very end, Moses commanded the Levites who carried the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, take this book of the law and put it by the side of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God that it may be there for a witness against you. Now, I personally understand these two verses not just to be referring to the book of Deuteronomy being written and placed with the Ark of the Covenant. but all of Genesis through Deuteronomy being taken and placed in the Ark of the Covenant. Second, Acts 7.22 tells us that Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds. Moses was adopted by Pharaoh's daughter, after all, and raised in the King's house, as a prince of Egypt. Now, if Moses was raised in ancient Egypt, then Genesis and Exodus should reveal an awareness of ancient customs, yes? Especially Egyptian customs, yes? Question is, do they? Well, yeah, indeed they do. Genesis in particular reveals an early and accurate awareness of Egyptian, Canaanite, and Mesopotamian customs, mythologies, and laws. They also share early, early linguistic similarities and loanwords from early in these cultures' history. So there are, in Hebrew, Mesopotamian loanwords and Egyptian loanwords. There are Semitic loanwords in Egypt. There's a sign that early on there was a mixing of language. in bi-, tri-, quadruple-linguism. Archaeologists agree that the customs and lifestyle of both Canaanites and Egyptians are remarkably well-portrayed in Genesis. They accurately reflect what archaeologists refer to as the Middle Bronze Age II of ancient history. The descriptions of Egyptian culture in particular reflect an intimate awareness of what life in Egypt was like in the distant past and what they believed. It is highly unlikely that someone who had never lived in Egypt could have written the book of Genesis or the early chapters of Exodus. If we take the Bible's timeline seriously, Genesis would have been written around 1400 B.C. The events of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would have dated as early as 2000 B.C. with Joseph going to Egypt somewhere around 1800 B.C. Third, the book of Genesis and Exodus reflect an intimate awareness with the myths of the ancient Near East and of Egypt in particular. Now, I'll return to this in my next point, but here I emphasize that Genesis 1 through 11 bears all the markers that we would expect of an author writing around 1400 BC with a royal education in religion and law. Bruce Waltke writes that the book of the covenant in Exodus 20 through 23 shows too much resemblance to the code of Hammurabi to have arisen independently from it. But on the other hand, their differences are too great to support a theory of direct dependence upon that code. In other words, there are way too many similarities between the code of Hammurabi, which was written in 1700 BC-ish, and the law of Moses, for them to have arisen totally autonomously and independently. But they're too different to say that Moses or some author used that as the framework of the book of Deuteronomy. Rather, Hammurabi represents a legal language that is reflected in the Law of Moses. Similarly, Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy show an intimate awareness of Hittite suzerainty treaties. And these suzerainty treaties lie in the background of the way Moses records the Genesis covenants and of the covenant of Israel in Exodus. And so, we have sufficient grounds to believe that Moses was the original author, the foundational author of Genesis. Now, that being said, there are signs that Genesis and the other books of the Pentateuch have been modernized in places. And I use that language intentionally. There are signs of editorial adjustments. But most of these editorial revisions amount to updating the names of places and people so that modern readers in Palestine know what the names of these people mean. Because names in those days meant something, they weren't just the sounds, right? what the names meant, and where these physical locations were. Moses wrote the book of Genesis to be grounded in time and space. And so these details, making sure the name of a town is updated, helps the Israelites to know, oh, that's where this happened. One example of this. We read in the book of Genesis at the end of the book and in the beginning of Exodus that the Israelites, when they settled in Egypt, settled in a place called Ramses. Now, secular archaeologists will throw a hissy fit here and say that there is no archaeological evidence that Semitic people ever lived in Ramses, and that is true. But if you go down a couple of layers in the archaeological record, there's this other city called Avaris. Same location, centuries earlier, and not only does the archaeological record of Avaris show that there was a massive, we're talking millions, of people who were of Semitic culture and language, it also appears in the archeological record that those people disappeared overnight. That there were millions of people living here one minute, and then they just seemed to have vanished. Now I wonder what could account for that. A lot of the archeological issues with the book of Genesis and the book of Exodus is because archeologists are looking in the wrong place. And there's a whole reason for that that's beyond the scope of this sermon. But my point is to say that the modernizations, the redaction, the editorial adjustments to the book of Genesis are faithful. and they don't threaten a doctrine of inerrancy. Okay, so that brings us to the second point. How does Genesis compare to the mythologies of the ancient Near East? Let me say again that the books of Genesis and Exodus reflect an intimate awareness with the myths of the ancient Near East and of Egypt in particular. There are frequent allusions to these mythologies within Genesis 1 through 11. However, the nature of these allusions to myth do not signify dependence any more than the law of Moses signifies dependence on Hammurabi. Rather, scholars are agreed that the allusions to myth in the book of Genesis are wielded polemically. They're wielded, they're displayed, they're used as an argument against the prevailing beliefs and mythologies of the pagan world. They're antagonistic to these myths. And the author of Genesis consistently demythologizes the very illusions that he makes. Kent Hughes states, the opening lines of Genesis would forever establish a true understanding about God, the universe, and humanity. Moses began with a radical and sweeping affirmation of monotheism over polytheism. His style was one of calm, majestic, measured grandeur. Moses did not condescend to mention the pagan worldviews, but answered them through deliberate, solemn utterances that dismissed the opposing cosmologies by silence. and subtle illusion. So one of the things you'll frequently see scholars compare the book of Genesis to, especially these first 11 chapters, is a Babylonian myth called the Enuma Elish. And it's just the record of how the gods of Babylon came into being and why Marduk is the king of the gods. And scholars will like to reference this a lot. Now, in Genesis 1-2, we read that darkness was over the face of the deep. Now that word deep in Hebrew is tihom. And a lot of scholars say there is an allusion to the Babylonian chaos god, Tiamat. Now, if you play video games, you know the name Tiamat for a different reason. But in Babylonian myth, Tiamat was the chaos dragon of the primordial deep. In Genesis, however, there is no tiamat, no sentient enemy of order. There's only to home. There's a chaotic substance, not a chaotic being. There's no battle between God and the deep. It lies pliable before Him, quite literally under the power of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, Tiamat's forces in Mesopotamian myth were called great sea creatures, Tanin. We see God create these very Tanin in Genesis 121. All right, so we have reference to these Babylonian beings and myths, but they're all natural, not supernatural in the Genesis account. However, we need to back up and define our terms at this point. What is a myth? Well, that's actually quite a pickle. Yeah, it's a pickle. Even anthropologists and experts in mythology can't agree on a definition for the word myth. I found a journal article, an academic journal, that was titled Defining Myth in Introduction. And it included 24 academically accepted definitions of myth, none of which were really the same. The Oxford English Dictionary defines myth as a traditional story, either holy or partially fictitious, providing an explanation for or embodying a popular idea concerning some natural or social phenomenon or some religious belief or ritual, especially one involving supernatural persons, actions, or events. Karen Armstrong, in her book, A Short History of Myths, says, mythology is an art form that points beyond history to what is timeless in human existence, helping us get beyond the flux of random events and glimpse the core of reality. However, as I was doing my research on this subject and trying to figure out how to define myth for you guys, I noticed something interesting. Nearly all academic experts in mythology include Genesis in their research sample. However, Genesis is clearly different from ancient Near Eastern myths in some foundational areas. And if for the sake of argument, we remove Genesis from that sample set, then it becomes a lot easier to define and demarcate myth from history. Now, I'm no expert in ancient Near Eastern mythology, so let me summarize what archaeologist and Old Testament scholar John Currid writes on this subject. This is from his book, Ancient Egypt in the Old Testament. And examining the mythological and cosmological systems of the Egyptians, the Mesopotamians, and the Canaanites, he notes that within their differences, they all rest on the same basic four ideas. So ancient mythology rests on these four ideas. First, all three societies believed in polytheism, the worship of many gods. These polytheistic religions identified the gods with the powers and elements of the universe. They gave names to natural phenomenon and endowed them with personalities. Thus, the gods were totally imminent, merely part of the universe, and the gods were not all powerful, so that the gods' power never exceeded the power associated with the natural phenomenon. In other words, there was a god of lightning, and his powers were that of lightning. There was a god of drought, and its powers were that of drought. The gods in these ancient mythologies existed to explain natural phenomenon as part of that natural phenomenon. Second, the gods existed either through self-creation or through creation by other gods. This theogony played a vital and pivotal role in the cosmogonical texts from Egypt and Mesopotamia, almost all of which focused on the origin and genealogy of the gods. Most creation accounts serve to establish and justify the particular culture's pantheon and hierarchy of the gods." So these myths are mostly about where did the gods come from, not where did the world come from. Third, according to ancient polytheism, the true power of the universe was magic. The God who performed the greatest magical feats was considered the most powerful. Ancient peoples also relied on magic to manipulate even the gods for their own benefit. The reason that Marduk in Babylonian myth was the chief of the pantheon, was the king of the gods in their worldview, was because Marduk had the most powerful incantations. Magic was something outside of him that he knew how to use. Fourth, humans were basically viewed as insignificant. They possessed little dignity and worth and were thought to be made as slaves to the gods. They had no freedom since the whim and fancy of the gods decided the direction and outcome of their lives. He then summarizes, the Hebrew conception of the universe differs radically from the other ancient Near Eastern cosmologies. Whereas the ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Canaanites sought to explain the structure and operation of the universe in terms of gods who personified nature, the Old Testament speaks of a deity who is apart from the universe, who began the universe, and was completely sovereign over its operation. To these four observations of Currid, I would add two of my own. First, generally speaking, the mythology of the ancient Near East was recorded in the form of poetry. They were not written as prose. They were not written as historical narratives. The ancients handled their mythology with the flexibility and symbolism that came with poetic expression. Likewise, there's a strong indication that the ancients did not consider their myths to be, strictly speaking, historical, because myths are not presented in history. They're presented outside of, beyond, and before history. In another way, the ancient myths are presented as contemporary. They're ongoing stories that define the cycles of the natural world. So unlike Genesis, ancient myths are not presented in any sort of historically rooted manner. Second, the mythology of the ancient Near East was fluid and flexible. While the broad strokes of mythology remained the same across Mesopotamian or Egyptian cultures, the finer details of a particular myth reflected the current geopolitical situation and the dominant religious culture of a given location. So the early Sumerians called the hero of the flood story Atrahasis. But in the later epic of Gilgamesh, the flood hero is named Utnapishtim. Likewise, in Canaanite mythology, it is Baal who defeated the primordial sea serpent, Yam. But in Babylon, it was Marduk who defeated Tiamat. Furthermore, the presence of variant mythologies doesn't seem to have been a problem for the ancients. Currid writes, the Egyptians accepted various myths and discarded none of them. That there were different versions of the same myth out there doesn't seem to have been problematic for anybody. That means that nobody was really after the right version. All these things suggest that the ancients did not believe that their creation stories were technically speaking historical. Even back then, they were viewed to be supernatural symbolic accounts of origins. It was understood that different nation states had different gods, and so naturally, they have different myths about those gods. You might say, therefore, that pagan mythology was inherently relativistic. You have your myths, I have mine. You have your gods, I have mine. We don't have to figure out which one's right. What matters is whether my god can defeat your god in a battle. That's all that matters. So now we come to the final point. What style of literature is Genesis 1? It's impossible to deny that there is a relationship between Genesis 1 through 11 and the mythologies of the ancient world. However, the nature of this relationship is what we're considering. Did Moses simply co-opt and revise a selection of ancient myths that suited his purpose? Did he posit a myth to defeat all other myths? The answer is a definite no. The differences between the biblical accounts and the mythology of the ancients are too great to suggest a relationship of true dependence or similarity. They are fundamentally different genres. Genesis 1 is not in the genre of myth based on ancient standards. Genesis 1 is written in a straightforward, historically-oriented prose. It features a literary device known as the Wow Consecutive. that only appears in historical narrative. It's why every sentence in Genesis one there, every paragraph begins with, and God said. We do this today when we're verbally telling stories. And so you say, all right, so I went here and then I went there and then this happened, then I went over here. Now this was going on and then this, right? That's what the wow consecutive in Hebrew is doing. It's saying this, and then this, and then this. Thus, Genesis 1, because it features this device, it cannot be considered Hebrew poetry. It can't be considered symbolic literature. Again, the mythologies of Egypt, Canaan, and Mesopotamia were written in poetry and used clearly, explicitly mythological language. Moses, by contrast, wants us to read this chapter as a real world historical description of things. Likewise, the biblical account is radically monotheistic, one God, peaceful, and anti-magical. It describes the creation of the universe in the straightforward terms of, well, a creative process. To this day, the biblical account of creation as a monotheistic, peaceful event separates the Bible from all other creation myths. The Bible rejects all polytheistic magical thinking. It rejects the concept of theogony and etiology that underlies pagan myth. That is, there's no indication in the Bible, for instance, that the sun sets in the evening because the god of the sun has to ride his chariot through the underworld. There's no suggestion in the Bible that the God of the storm and the God of famine, the God of rain and the God of drought are at battle. And we have droughts when the God of famine wins over the God of the rain. That was the belief of the Canaanites. That was the belief of the Mesopotamians. Genesis 1 explains origins and sets up a linear view of history. It doesn't create the idea of mythic cycles that we live year over year. And unlike the pagan mythologies, there's no fluidity or flexibility to the creation account. Even in the poetic sections of the Bible, when creation is referred to, the basic pattern and meaning of Genesis 1 are maintained. We have poetic descriptions of Genesis 1. But none of them are actually other versions of the story. Anytime the conflict motif enters biblical poetry, it's wielded in a demythologizing and polemical fashion. The point being, the Genesis account of creation was fixed and stable in the Hebrew mind. That's because they understood it to be a statement of historical fact. So what style of literature is Genesis 1? Genesis 1 is a historical narrative. But within that, Genesis 1 reflects this particular sub-genre of historical narrative. It's a building account. It's an engineering report. Meredith Klein writes, creation as described in the Genesis prologue is strictly a constructive process without any undercurrent of conflict. Elohim the creator is portrayed not as a mighty warrior but as an omnipotent artisan, not as a cunning conqueror but as an omniscient architect. There is no sense of the tumult of war in the account. Everything proceeds in orderly and stately fashion according to an architectonic plan. The creation as described in the Genesis prologue is a work of construction without trace of struggle. Thus, God has no adversary in his original creating. He does not build with the trowel in one hand and sword in the other. There's no need for the sword. More than that, there's no need for the trowel. This builder does not use tools. He does not really work with his hands. The word of his will is his all-effective instrument. In terms of literary style, we do have something to compare Genesis 1 to. The closest passage in the Old Testament comes from Exodus 36 through 39, which describes the building of the tabernacle. Now, I want to read for you the end of Genesis 1 and compare it to the end of Exodus 39. Go ahead and turn over and put your finger in Exodus 39. So Genesis 1 verse 31 begins, and God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation." Now compare that with Exodus 39, 32 through 43. All the work of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting was finished, and the people of Israel did according to all that the Lord had commanded Moses, so they did. They brought the tabernacle to Moses, the tent and all its utensils, its hooks, its frames, its bars, its pillars, and its bases, and here all the things that were made for the tabernacle are listed." And then jump down to verse 42 which reads, According to all that the Lord had commanded Moses, so the people of Israel had done all the work, and Moses saw all the work. And behold, they had done it." You might say, it was good. As the Lord had commanded, so they had done it. Then Moses blessed them. Do you hear the similarities between these accounts? It's because they serve the same function. They describe the conclusion of a construction project, their evaluations of the constructive work done. And there are so many theological, biblical theological consequences to this idea that the description of the tabernacle being made is reflective of the earth being made. But so what? Does it really matter if these chapters of Genesis are history or myth? I wanna go back to what I said at the beginning. Because the rest of the Bible views Genesis as recording actual verified history. It treats Genesis as the inspired word of God through Moses. And if the New Testament views Genesis as real world history, but Genesis is mythology, or historically mistaken. And that means that not just Genesis is mythological and historically mistaken. It means the entire Bible is mythological and historically mistaken. It means the Bible is not what it claims to be. It is not the inspired word of God. If we say that God does not lie, but Genesis is basically a lie, then God did not write it. God is not behind it. You see, as soon as we categorize Genesis 1 through 11 as myth, we basically force the rest of the Bible into that category. If Genesis is not historically accurate, the rest of the Bible can't be either, because it's based on Genesis, and on the assumption that Genesis is true. Thank you for listening to this sermon from River Community Church in Prairieville, Louisiana, where you will always find biblical preaching, meaningful worship, and the equipping of disciples. For more information on River Community Church and its ministries, please visit rivercommunity.org.