Deception, lust, incest, violence, murder, and vengeance. These are the topics of the first chapter of the biggest bestseller of all time: The Holy Bible. Its frequently told tales have inspired, cautioned, and challenged humankind for generations. But in the first book of the Pentateuch, Genesis, the flawed behavior of its flawed protagonists provides the foundation for a deeper, richer sense of justice that any mere code could ever provide.
True, the concept of justice in Genesis and the rest of the Old Testament is hard to understand, much less describe. It is whimsical, for a personal vendetta, or dealt out too harshly if righteous. The characters in the Jewish Bible, even its heroes, are all fallible. They are credible people who sometimes commit very deplorable acts. As Ecclesiastes says: “Surely there is no one on earth so righteous as to do good without ever sinning” (Eccl. 7.20) . This tradition of human weakness starts at the front, in Genesis. Even the God of Genesis can be seen as an imperfect God, neither omnipotent, omniscient, nor always good. He ‘atones’ the creation of man, pledges not to flood the earth again, and even allows Abraham to sermonize Him about imperfection injustice and injustice. Genesis demands the reader to respond, to think for himself, or even to disagree. It raises profound questions about the ultimate being. Generations of scholars have debated these questions, and rightly so. They need addressing, because the stories of Genesis cannot stand on their own.
The first story of justice and vengeance is the one of the serpent and the fruit. After God creates man and woman He warns them: “You may eat freely of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that yo ...