In Genesis, God’s purposes for the heavens and earth, distorted by sin spreading through all the earth, are focused in one man: Abraham. Through him and his family God would bring blessing to all nations.

Despite God’s good purposes for creation, sin enters and fills the earth (the primeval history; chs. 1–11), and so God moves his plan forward to bless the nations through the offspring of Abraham (the patriarchal history; chs. 12–50). Genesis is foundational to the whole Bible, and to every human life. Genesis tells us who God is, who we are, how things went wrong, and the plan that God has put in place to return the earth to the way it was meant to be.