The Gospel of Genesis: Learning alongside the Ancient Israelites

Welcome to The Gospel of Genesis: Learning alongside the Ancient Israelites event!

Date: Thu Oct 10 2024

Time: 7:00 PM

Location: Victoria Christian Reformed Church

VISTA- Vancouver Island School of Theology and the Arts is pleased to offer a 4 week course with Dr Paul Teel on the Gospel of Genesis. Starting Thursday Oct 10th from 7-9pm.

Come join us for 4 exciting evenings of exploring the Gospel of Genesis alongside the Ancient Israelites. Dive deep into the rich history and teachings found in this ancient text. Gain a new perspective on the stories and lessons that have been passed down for generations. This in-person event promises to be enlightening and engaging. Don't miss out!

The Gospel of Genesis

Listening Alongside the Ancient Israelites

The good news? We have very successfully turned early Genesis (chapter 1–11) into a series of

picture books, Sunday School lessons, videos, and flannelgraphs. As a result, most children

growing up in the church are quite familiar with those Bible stories. The bad news? There can be

trouble when we never move beyond that child-sized understanding. Ironically, early Genesis can

be a challenge precisely because of our strong start in childhood. We are very familiar with these

passages, but we are also significantly uninformed about their ancient setting.

A good, healthy way to ‘grow up’ in our understanding is to hear these passages in their original

ancient Near Eastern context, to listen alongside the ancient Israelites. What would they have

heard? What kind of literature would they have known this to be? What would have been the

obvious main points? What are we modern folks missing? These questions will be the focus of

this course.

When we approach early Genesis this way, we find that it is not about the various culture-war

issues we often bring to the text, but rather about things far deeper. Early Genesis proclaims

Good News about God, about the world, and about what it means to be human.

Paul Teel — Bio

Paul has been a teacher at Pacific Christian Secondary for over 30 years, specializing in

Calculus, Philosophy, and Biblical Studies. Somewhere in there he also enrolled at UVic and

earned an MA and a PhD in philosophy, concentrating on the relationship between Christian

theology and modern science. As a result, he was a guest lecturer at Regent College (a graduate

school of theology in Vancouver) for nearly 20 years, including a stint on faculty for a program

helping church leaders think about science in a more theologically robust and positive way.

Also during that time, Paul was the interim teaching pastor for one year at Saanich Community

Church before joining the preaching roster at St. Barnabas Anglican Church. For the last two

years, Paul has been one of the co-pastors at The Place Community Church. He and Heidi have

been married for 34 years and have three adult daughters (and two sons-in-law!).

Host or Publisher Kathleen Busch