109 Fun Facts About Genesis

Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew Bible; what does its Hebrew name 'Bereshit' mean?

In the beginning is the famous rendering of Bereshit, the book's first word, but the Jewish Publication Society's translation opens 'When God began to create'.

What did the dove carry back to Noah's ark in its beak?

An olive leaf, freshly plucked, so Noah knew the flood waters had gone down; a week later he sent the dove out again.

Genesis 1 says God made the birds on the same day as which other animals?

Sea creatures: God blessed the swimmers and fliers with 'Be fruitful, and multiply', the same words he later spoke to the first humans.

According to Genesis 2, God formed the first man from what?

Dust of the ground, and after the forbidden fruit God told him, 'for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return'.

What guarded the way to the tree of life after Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden?

Cherubim and a flaming sword kept the way, so the man could not take from the tree of life, eat and live for ever.

A river flowing out of Eden splits into four; which river does Genesis name among them?

Euphrates, beside the Tigris, Pishon and Gihon; the historian Josephus took the Pishon and Gihon to be the Ganges and the Nile.

In Genesis, Cain was a farmer; what was his brother Abel?

A shepherd: Abel offered God the firstlings of his flock, and when God favoured his offering over Cain's, Cain killed him.

After killing Abel, Cain settled in which land 'east of Eden'?

Nod: God had sentenced Cain to be a restless wanderer, and put a mark on him so that no one who found him would kill him.

Who is the longest-lived person in the Bible, dying at 969?

Methuselah: adding up the ages in the Hebrew text puts his death in the very year of the Flood.

Which patriarch, who 'walked with God' until God took him, fathered the man who lived to 969?

Enoch: the New Testament Letter of Jude quotes the Book of Enoch, though most churches don't count that book as scripture.

How long did the rain of Noah's flood fall, according to Genesis?

Forty days and forty nights: the waters then took so long to go down that Noah's family spent more than a year inside the ark.

Which of these was one of Noah's sons?

Shem: when Noah lay drunk and uncovered in his tent, Shem and his brother Japheth walked in backwards to cover him with a garment.

Where did the ark come to rest?

On the mountains of Ararat: Noah sent out a dove three times, and after it failed to return he removed the ark's covering and saw dry ground.

What did God set in the sky as a sign of his covenant never again to flood the earth?

A rainbow: the same covenant let Noah's family eat animals as well as plants, as long as they did not eat meat with its blood still in it.

Which wood did God tell Noah to build the ark from?

Gopher wood: the Hebrew word's meaning is uncertain, so the NIV renders it cypress, while the Aramaic Targum Onkelos has cedar.

In which land did the people build the Tower of Babel?

Shinar: the builders there used baked brick instead of stone and tar for mortar, aiming for a tower whose top would reach the sky.

The name Babel is explained in Genesis by a Hebrew verb meaning what?

To confuse: Genesis ties Babel to balal, 'to confuse', though in Akkadian the city's name was read as 'gate of god'.

Genesis says God brought Abram out of which city, to give him the land of Canaan?

Ur: when Abram asked how he would know the land would be his, God had him bring animals, and he split the larger ones in half for a covenant ceremony.

God changed Abram's name to Abraham; what does Genesis say the new name means?

Father of a multitude: in the same speech God said the covenant would pass to a son Sarah would bear, rather than to Ishmael.

What was instituted as the sign of God's covenant with Abraham?

Circumcision of all males: any male left uncircumcised was to be cut off from his people for breaking the covenant.

Who was the mother of Abraham's son Ishmael?

Hagar: after Isaac was born, Sarah demanded that she and her son be cast out, and Abraham sent them into the wilderness with bread and water.

Overhearing that she would bear a son, what did Sarah do?

Laughed: challenged over it, Sarah denied laughing because she was afraid, and was told, 'No, but you did laugh.'

Who stopped Abraham as he was about to sacrifice Isaac?

The Angel of the LORD: it called to Abraham from heaven, and he sacrificed a ram caught by its horns in a thicket instead of his son.

What was the final number of righteous people Abraham got God to accept for sparing Sodom?

Ten: Abraham had opened at fifty and haggled down in five steps, and God agreed not to destroy the city for ten's sake.

What happened to Lot's wife when she looked back at the destruction of Sodom?

She became a pillar of salt: Lot and his two daughters fled on to Zoar, then left it in fear to live in a cave in the hills.

With what did God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah?

Sulfur and fire: next morning Abraham looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and saw smoke rising from the land like smoke from a furnace.

Where did Abraham buy a burial cave that became the tomb of the patriarchs?

Hebron: Abraham refused to take the Cave of Machpelah as a gift and insisted on paying Ephron the Hittite 400 shekels of silver.

Who watered Abraham's servant's camels and married Isaac?

Rebekah: she turned out to be the granddaughter of Abraham's brother Nahor, so the servant bowed and thanked God for leading him to his master's kin.

Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, is described in Genesis as the father of which people?

The Edomites: Genesis says kings reigned in Edom before any king ruled the Israelites, the descendants of Esau's younger twin.

Esau sold his birthright to Jacob in exchange for what?

A bowl of stew: Esau later cried that Jacob had cheated him twice, taking first his birthright and then their father's blessing.

Jacob dreamed of a ladder reaching to heaven while travelling toward which place?

Haran: Jacob was fleeing to his uncle Laban there because Esau planned to kill him, and he named the place of his dream Bethel.

Jacob worked seven years to marry Rachel, but on the wedding night Laban gave him whom instead?

Leah: when Jacob protested, Laban said it was not done in their country to give the younger daughter before the firstborn.

At the end of which event was Jacob first given the name Israel?

Wrestling with an angel: the struggle left Jacob limping, and Genesis says Israelites don't eat the thigh sinew because of it.

How many sons did Jacob father, according to Genesis?

Twelve: the youngest, Benjamin, was born on the road near Bethlehem, and his mother Rachel died giving birth to him.

Rachel's handmaid Bilhah bore Jacob which two sons?

Dan and Naphtali: the childless Rachel gave her maid Bilhah to Jacob so that she could have children through her, and named both boys herself.

Which were the first four sons born to Jacob?

Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah: Genesis ties the first three names to their mother's hope that Jacob would finally love her.

What did Joseph's jealous brothers finally do to him?

Sold him into slavery in Egypt: they stained his coat with blood so their father would believe a wild animal had devoured him.

Whose wife tried and failed to seduce Joseph in Egypt, leading to his imprisonment?

Potiphar's: Joseph fled leaving his garment in her hand, and she kept it to back up her false accusation against him.

In Pharaoh's dream, lean cows devoured fat ones; how many of each were there?

Seven: Joseph read it as seven years of plenty then seven of famine, so Pharaoh set him over Egypt to store up grain in its cities.

Joseph's Egyptian wife Asenath bore him which two sons?

Manasseh and Ephraim: blessing the boys, Jacob crossed his hands to give the younger, Ephraim, the greater blessing over Joseph's protest.

What did Joseph ask of his brothers before he died?

To carry his bones out of Egypt: he was embalmed and kept in a coffin there, and his bones were finally buried at Shechem.

Tradition credits which figure with writing Genesis and the rest of the Torah?

Moses: because the Torah ends by describing his death, one Talmud opinion says Joshua wrote its last eight verses.

Which theory says Genesis and the rest of the Torah combine four once-independent sources, labelled J, E, D and P?

The documentary hypothesis: scholars split the text into strands partly by the name each one uses for God, such as Yahweh or Elohim.

The rock band Genesis formed in 1967 at which English boarding school?

Charterhouse: the founders came from two school bands there, Anon and the Garden Wall, and teamed up in 1967 after both bands had split.

Phil Collins joined Genesis in 1970 in which role?

Drummer: when Peter Gabriel left the band, Collins took over as lead singer.

Which song was Peter Gabriel's debut solo single after he left Genesis?

Solsbury Hill: Gabriel has described it as a song about letting go, risking what you have for what you might become.

Which singer replaced Phil Collins as the frontman of Genesis?

Ray Wilson: the only album he made with the band stalled at No. 54 in the US, where weak ticket sales cancelled the planned tour.

Which was Genesis's only US Hot 100 number-one single?

Invisible Touch: it spent one week at number one in July 1986 before 'Sledgehammer' by former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel replaced it.

Which Genesis album was released in 1973, between Foxtrot and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway?

Selling England by the Pound: its songs lament an older England giving way to commercialism and American influence, as the title suggests.

What was the name of the 2021-22 tour that reunited Banks, Rutherford and Collins?

The Last Domino?: after COVID delays, the tour ended at London's O2 Arena in March 2022 with what Collins called the last show for Genesis.

To pass as his hairy brother Esau, Jacob had his hands and neck covered with what?

Goatskins: Isaac noticed the voice was Jacob's but the hands felt like Esau's, and blessed him anyway.

Genesis is structured around the recurring Hebrew phrase 'elleh toledot', meaning what?

These are the generations: the phrase usually opens a family line, yet its first use introduces the heavens and the earth.

Which two sons of Jacob avenged their sister Dinah by killing the men of Shechem's city?

Simeon and Levi: on his deathbed Jacob cursed their anger and said he would scatter them in Israel.

The name Sarah, which God gave to Abraham's wife Sarai, means what in Hebrew?

Princess: God renamed her while promising that she would bear a son, though she was ninety.

Abraham's other wife Keturah bore children whose descendants included which people?

The Midianites: Abraham gave the sons of his concubines gifts and sent them east, away from Isaac, while he still lived.

Which pop impresario named the band Genesis and produced its 1969 debut album?

Jonathan King: he left the band's name off the album's cover, and the debut sold only a few hundred copies at first.

Which founding Genesis guitarist quit the band soon after recording the album Trespass?

Anthony Phillips: illness and worsening stage fright pushed him out, and doctors had advised him to leave the band.

Which 1978 single became Genesis's first top-ten hit in the UK?

Follow You Follow Me: it closed the album ...And Then There Were Three..., whose title alluded to the trio left after Steve Hackett quit.

Which Frank Zappa and Weather Report musician joined Genesis on tour in 1977?

Chester Thompson: he expected the 1977 tour to be a short-term gig, yet stayed on stage with Genesis through their 2007 reunion tour.

Genesis never names the forbidden fruit of Eden, but Western art often paints it as which fruit?

An apple is often explained by a Latin pun: malum can mean both 'evil' and 'apple'. Rabbinic tradition proposed grapes or wheat instead.

Before Noah released a dove from the ark, which bird did he send out first?

A raven went first and kept flying back and forth until the waters dried up. The dove Noah tried next came back to him, having found nowhere to land.

Which gift from Jacob singled Joseph out as the favorite son and deepened his brothers' hatred?

A coat of many colors is the King James wording. The Hebrew phrase is hard to translate, so some modern Bibles call it a long robe with sleeves instead.

After murdering Abel, Cain dodged God's question about him with which now-famous retort?

"Am I my brother's keeper?" came straight after a lie: asked where Abel was, Cain first said, "I don't know." God answered that Abel's blood was crying out to him from the ground.

Which animal, caught by its horns in a thicket, did Abraham sacrifice in place of his son Isaac?

A ram appeared just as Abraham was stopped, and he named the spot 'Yahweh Will Provide'. Jewish tradition reads the story aloud in synagogue at Rosh Hashanah.

Fearing for his life in Egypt, Abram told his beautiful wife Sarai to say she was his what?

Sister was a half-truth that backfired: Pharaoh took Sarai into his palace, and plagues struck his court until he sent the couple away.

According to Genesis, the newborn Jacob came out gripping which part of his twin brother Esau?

His heel gave Jacob his name, which Genesis ties to the Hebrew word for heel. Esau later puns on it bitterly, saying his brother has supplanted him twice.

On the night Jacob dreamed of a ladder to heaven, what did he use as a pillow?

A stone was Jacob's pillow, and in the morning he stood it upright as a monument and poured oil over it to honor the place.

Adam and Eve, realizing they were naked after eating the forbidden fruit, sewed coverings from what?

Fig leaves were the Bible's first clothing, which is why later painters and sculptors used a fig leaf to cover nude figures.

When Joseph found his brothers at Dothan, they seized him and threw him into what?

An empty pit with no water in it held Joseph while his brothers sat down to eat. The eldest brother had argued for the pit to keep him alive.

What are the first words God speaks in Genesis, on the opening day of creation?

Let there be light comes on the first day, yet the sun and moon do not appear until the fourth.

God puts the first man into a deep sleep and builds the first woman from what?

One of his ribs became the first woman, and on seeing her the man declared her 'flesh of my flesh'.

In Genesis 2, what job does God give the first man concerning every beast and bird?

Naming them doubled as a search: God brought each animal to the man to find him a suitable helper, and none was found.

What did God place on Cain so that no one who met the exiled killer would strike him down?

A mark was protection rather than punishment: God promised heavy vengeance on anyone who killed Cain. What the mark looked like is never said.

Which command does God give the first humans in Genesis 1 and repeat to Noah after the flood?

Be fruitful and multiply is, in Jewish tradition, the first of the Torah's 613 commandments in biblical order: the duty to have children.

God told the childless Abram to look up and count what, promising him as many descendants?

The stars are paired elsewhere with the sand on the seashore as pictures of how numerous Abraham's offspring would be.

Which youngest son of Jacob was born as his mother Rachel died in childbirth on the road?

Benjamin was his father's choice of name. The dying Rachel had called the boy Benoni, 'son of my pain', and Jacob changed it.

In the first dream Joseph described to his brothers, what of theirs bowed down to his own?

Their sheaves of grain gathered round and bowed to Joseph's sheaf, which stood upright. His brothers asked if he meant to reign over them.

According to Genesis 4, what made Cain angry enough to commit the first murder?

God favored Abel's offering over Cain's, then warned the sulking Cain that sin was crouching at his door and that he must rule over it.

Genesis ends with Jacob's family settled in Egypt, setting the scene for which book that follows?

Exodus picks up the story centuries later, when a new king of Egypt who never knew Joseph turns on the family's descendants.

In Genesis 3, which punishment does God give the serpent for deceiving Eve?

Crawling on its belly came with a feud: God declared lasting enmity between the serpent's offspring and the woman's, who would strike its head.

Before sending Adam and Eve out of Eden, God made them clothing from what?

Animal skins replaced the makeshift coverings the couple had sewn for themselves, a last act of care before Eden was closed to them.

Which son did Eve bear after Abel's murder, saying God had granted her another child in his place?

Seth, rather than Cain, heads the family line that Genesis traces down, father to son, to Noah.

God told Noah to seal the ark inside and out with which waterproofing substance?

Pitch sealed a vessel that Genesis describes with three levels, a roof and a single door set in its side.

What was the first thing Noah did after leaving the ark with his family and the animals?

Built an altar and sacrificed on it: the aroma pleased God, who vowed never again to curse the ground because of humankind.

After the flood, Genesis says Noah began farming the soil and planted what?

A vineyard led straight to trouble: Noah drank its wine, got drunk and lay uncovered in his tent, and the episode ends with a curse on Canaan.

Which great-grandson of Noah does Genesis 10 call 'a mighty hunter before the LORD'?

Nimrod ruled a kingdom that began at Babel, yet in American slang his name now means a fool, a twist often credited to Looney Tunes cartoons.

When Abram and his nephew Lot parted ways, Lot chose which region for himself?

The Jordan plain looked like 'the garden of Yahweh' to Lot, but it put him beside Sodom, whose men Genesis calls exceedingly wicked.

Which priest-king of Salem brought out bread and wine and blessed Abram after a battle?

Melchizedek then received a tithe of Abram's spoils. The New Testament letter to the Hebrews later names Jesus a high priest 'in the order of Melchizedek'.

In Genesis, Isaac's pregnant wife felt her twins struggling and was told that what was in her womb?

Two nations, God told her, and the elder would serve the younger: a forecast of Jacob overtaking his firstborn twin, Esau.

Abraham was told to sacrifice Isaac on a mountain in which land, later tied to Jerusalem's Temple?

Moriah is named only twice in the Bible: here, and in Chronicles as the mount in Jerusalem where Solomon built the Temple.

Abraham's chief servant, swearing to find Isaac a wife from the family homeland, put a hand where?

Under his master's thigh is how Genesis seals its gravest oaths: the dying Jacob later asks Joseph to swear the same way.

Which king of Gerar was warned by God in a dream to return Sarah to her husband Abraham?

Abimelech protested that he had been misled about who Sarah was, then returned her with livestock, servants and an invitation to settle anywhere on his land.

In Genesis, Abraham and a neighboring king swore a treaty over a well, giving which town its name?

Beersheba is explained in Genesis as the well of the oath, and Abraham planted a tamarisk tree there once the pact was sworn.

After his dream of a stairway to heaven, Jacob renamed the town of Luz with which name?

Bethel means 'house of God'. Waking in awe, Jacob declared the spot to be the gate of heaven.

As Jacob's family slipped away from her father Laban, what did Rachel secretly steal?

His household idols, the teraphim, stayed hidden in Rachel's camel saddle: she sat on them and told her searching father she could not get up.

Rachel bargained away a night with Jacob to obtain which plants, prized as a fertility charm?

Mandrakes were thought to cure infertility, but the bargain backfired: it was her rival wife who conceived that night and bore a fifth son.

How did Esau greet Jacob when the estranged twins met again after twenty years apart?

Ran and embraced him, kissed him and wept. Jacob had braced for revenge, sending herds ahead as gifts on hearing Esau was coming with 400 men.

Genesis says Rachel was buried beside the road to Ephrath, also known as which town?

Bethlehem appears here long before it enters the stories of Ruth, David and Jesus. Jacob raised a memorial over the grave.

When his brothers came to Egypt to buy food, Joseph hid his identity and accused them of being what?

Spies come 'to see the nakedness of the land', Joseph charged, and he locked them all up for three days.

In an Egyptian prison, Joseph correctly interpreted the dreams of which two royal servants?

A cupbearer and a baker got opposite verdicts: one restored to office, one hanged. The freed man then forgot Joseph for two full years.

When Pharaoh put Joseph in charge of Egypt, which item did he take from his own hand and give him?

His signet ring let Joseph seal orders in Pharaoh's name. Fine linen robes, a gold chain and the second royal chariot came with it.

In Genesis, which object did Joseph have hidden in his youngest brother's sack to test the others?

A silver cup, described as the one Joseph used for divination, made the youngest look like a thief. The others refused to abandon him.

In which region of Egypt did Joseph settle his father Jacob and the rest of the family?

Goshen suited a family of herdsmen, and it kept them apart: Joseph noted that Egyptians looked down on people who tended flocks.

On Joseph's orders, what did Egyptian physicians do to the body of his father Jacob?

Embalmed it, Egyptian-style, so that Jacob could be taken back to Canaan for burial. Genesis closes with Joseph being embalmed too.

Why did Joseph's brothers in Egypt assume he could not understand what they said among themselves?

He used an interpreter, so they spoke freely of their guilt over him. Joseph understood every word and turned away to weep.

Which mysterious beings does Genesis 6 say were on the earth in the days before the flood?

The Nephilim are rendered 'giants' in many translations. Israelite scouts later claim to have seen their descendants in Canaan and felt like grasshoppers.

Which man was the father of Abram and began the family's journey toward Canaan?

Terah set out for Canaan with his family but settled along the way and died there. It was Abram who finished the journey.

After Adam ate the forbidden fruit, God said the cursed ground would bring him which hardship?

Thorns and thistles meant Adam would now eat bread only 'by the sweat of your face', toiling until he returned to the ground.

What weakness of the aged Isaac allowed Jacob to pose as Esau and take the blessing?

Failing eyesight left Isaac relying on touch, and he was suspicious all the same: the voice, he said, was Jacob's.