# The structure of Genesis

Published on: 21 Mar 2026

I've been reading the Book of Genesis recently. Last night, I tried a favourite exercise of mine. It's very simple. I wrote down a list, in order, of all the 'episodes' in Genesis. That is, I wrote down a list that went:

* Creation
* Adam and Eve
* Cain and Abel
* Genealogy of Noah
* Noah and the Flood
* …

…and so on, all the way to Joseph.

Once I'd finished this, I was surprised at the result. I realised that, without consciously thinking it, I had been expecting to find a single, clear structure, and in particular, one that went: patriarch, genealogy, patriarch, genealogy, and so on. I didn't find that at all.

For sure, patriarchs and genealogies are major structures in Genesis, and you'll get a long way thinking about Genesis as a story of six patriarchs and so many genealogies (though the genealogies are rather more difficult to count). Indeed, you *can*, if you really want, slice up Genesis into six neat patriarch cycles and glue them back together again with genealogies: Adam (1-5), Noah (5-11), Abram (11-25), Isaac (25-27), Jacob (27-36), Joseph (36-50). But this way of thinking cannot comprehensively account for the whole book.

For one thing, there are a good few pieces in Genesis which are difficult to fit into a patriarch jigsaw. Why is there so much material about Cain, Hagar, Ishmael, Esau, and Dinah, including genealogies? Why is the Tower of Babel in there? If Genesis is all about the patriarchs, these are all lengthy side-alleys. (May I say pends? Closes?)

For two things, this neat six-part series is more messy than it might at first appear. On this model, the genealogies function to glue together the patriarch narratives. Sometimes, this model works well: the genealogy in chapter 5 does a good job of connecting Adam to Noah, and the one in chapter 10 gets us from Noah to Abram. But from Abram to Jacob to Joseph, there's no need for genealogies to stitch things together, because we're only taking one step on the genealogical ladder at a time, from father to son to grandson.

So, in chapter 25, instead of a 'genealogy' from Abram to his son Isaac, we get genealogies of Keturah and Esau: genealogical 'dead ends' from a patriarchal point of view. In chapter 36, where we're 'supposed' to be linking Jacob to his son Joseph, we get another genealogy of Esau. And in chapter 27, at the join between the supposed 'Isaac cycle' and the supposed 'Jacob cycle,' there's no genealogy at all.

I'm not for a moment trying to tell you that this model is *useless* for understanding Genesis. Far from it! I don't think you can understand Genesis as a coherent whole without considering it as a story of six patriarchs. I'm just saying this model is *inadequate*. It seems that to account for the Book of Genesis, we're going to have to structure it in multiple ways. To me, that's wonderfully exciting.

In particular, I'm considering all these to be worthwhile ways to look at Genesis as a whole:

* Genealogies! (Without assuming they are centred on the six patriarchs!)
* 'These are the generations of…' (how many occurrences can you find?)
* Yahweh speaking to people! (Always one person alone: did you notice that?)
* Wives! (How many can you think of? Will you include Potiphar's wife in this analysis? What about Dinah?)
* Anti-patriarchs and foreigners! (Does Adam get as much column space as Abimelech, or Esau?)
* Wells! (Some of them appear twice, or even thrice…)
* Names and naming! (Do you remember why Jacob is called 'Jacob'?)
* Deaths and burials! (How did Abraham end up buried in that cave?)

None of these structural lenses is adequate for seeing the whole thing in focus. But each one adds a new dimension. They all pile on top of one another. It's difficult to think of a physical analogy, because in my experience, things don't tend to occupy the same physical space at the same time, and I don't want to resort to the 'kaleidoscope' cliché. I guess it's a bit like quantum super-position, but instead of something being both 'up' and 'down' at the same time, it's multiple Persian rugs. Each one has its own colour scheme, its own patterns, its own delicately balanced symmetries. And yet, just as each rug is intricately harmonious within itself, it is no less intricately arranged into complex symphony with every other rug. And yet, somehow, all the rugs are simultaneously woven out of the same yarn. Picture that!

Of course, you can also read Genesis without attempting to comprehend the entire thing at once. You can also study a single episode, like the Tower of Babel, without trying to squeeze it into a grand narrative of the whole of Genesis. I suspect lots, if not all, of the stories in Genesis were originally told orally and independently of each other, and I think it's perfectly valid to read them independently once again.

Nevertheless, the author or authors of Genesis, and, more importantly, the Holy Ghost who moved them, once decided that it would be a good idea to put these stories and genealogies in an orderly sequence in the same scroll, and deliberately and explicitly relate them to one another. By considering structural lenses, we're joining the human authors, and generations of readers, in the faith that these stories mean something to each other, that they have something to tell us not only independently but also together.
