Have you ever wondered if there might be more to Genesis than fodder for anti-evolutionism? Or have you ever thought, «Revelation has to be more than simply a roadmap for the future of the Middle East»? You're not alone. In The Beginning and the End Michael Pahl surveys the opening chapters of Genesis and the concluding chapters of Revelation, taking seriously both their historical and literary features as ancient texts and their theological purposes as inspired Scripture. The result is a reading of the first and last books of the Bible that sketches out, from beginning to end, a story of God, humanity, and all creation–a grand narrative in which we are placed in the middle, and which calls us to live in a particular way as our identity and our values are shaped in light of our origins and our destiny.
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Michael W. Pahl. The Beginning and the End
The Beginning and the End
Preface
Acknowledgments
Beginnings and Endings and Where to Find Them
In the Beginning . .
Reading Ancient Origins Stories
A Story of Creation (Genesis 1)
A Second Story of Creation (Genesis 2)
A Story of Sin’s Curse (Genesis 3)
In the End, a New Beginning . .
Reading Ancient Apocalyptic Visions
A Vision of Jesus’ Coming (Revelation 12)
A Vision of Jesus’ Return (Revelation 19–20)
A Vision of New Creation (Revelation 21–22)
The Beginning and the End
For Further Reading
Scripture Index
Subject Index
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Rereading Genesis’s Stories
and Revelation’s Visions
.....
All this underscores God’s transcendence and omnipotence, or—to put this in “more Hebrew” terms—God’s holiness and his might. God is “holy”—completely other than all else that exists—and no one should confuse God with the natural world he has created. God is “transcendent”—beyond the constraints of this time and space, which he has created. And God is “almighty” or “omnipotent”—able to do anything he wills to do. In short, God is Elohim, the “mightiest one,” who creates and rules over all things by his sovereign will and power.
So then, what is the world? To answer this question we need to explore the way the story is structured.
