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1[[WMG:[[center:[-'''Literature/TheBible'''\
2'''Old Testament/Tanakh'''\
3'''Genesis''' | [[Literature/BookOfExodus Exodus]] | [[Literature/BookOfJoshua Joshua]] | [[Literature/BookOfJudges Judges]] | [[Literature/BookOfRuth Ruth]] | [[Literature/BooksOfSamuel Samuel]] | [[Literature/BooksOfKings Kings]] | [[Literature/BookOfEzra Ezra]] | [[Literature/BookOfNehemiah Nehemiah]] | [[Literature/BookOfEsther Esther]] | [[Literature/BookOfJob Job]] | [[Literature/BookOfPsalms Psalms]] | [[Literature/BookOfProverbs Proverbs]] | [[Literature/BookOfEcclesiastes Ecclesiastes]] | [[Literature/SongOfSongs Songs]] | [[Literature/BookOfIsaiah Isaiah]] | [[Literature/BookOfJeremiah Jeremiah]] | [[Literature/BookOfEzekiel Ezekiel]] | [[Literature/BookOfDaniel Daniel]] | [[Literature/BookOfHosea Hosea]] | [[Literature/BookOfJoel Joel]] | [[Literature/BookOfAmos Amos]] | [[Literature/BookOfObadiah Obadiah]] | [[Literature/BookOfJonah Jonah]] | [[Literature/BookOfMicah Micah]] | [[Literature/BookOfNahum Nahum]] | [[Literature/BookOfHabakkuk Habakkuk]] | [[Literature/BookOfZephaniah Zephania]] | [[Literature/BookOfHaggai Haggai]] | [[Literature/BookOfZechariah Zechariah]] | [[Literature/BookOfMalachi Malachi]]\
4'''Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical'''\
5[[Literature/BookOfTobit Tobit]] | [[Literature/BookOfJudith Judith]] | [[Literature/BooksOfMaccabees Maccabees]]\
6'''New Testament'''\
7[[Literature/TheFourGospels Gospels]] | [[Literature/ActsOfTheApostles Acts]] | [[Literature/BookOfRomans Romans]] | [[Literature/BookOfCorinthians Corinthians]] | [[Literature/BookOfGalatians Galatians]] | [[Literature/BookOfEphesians Ephesians]] | [[Literature/BookOfPhilippians Philippians]] | [[Literature/BookOfColossians Colossians]] | [[Literature/BooksOfThessalonians Thessalonians]] | [[Literature/EpistlesToTimothy Timothy]] | [[Literature/EpistleToTitus Titus]] | [[Literature/EpistleToPhilemon Philemon]] | [[Literature/BookOfHebrews Hebrews]] | [[Literature/EpistleOfJames James]] | [[Literature/EpistlesOfPeter Peter]] | [[Literature/EpistlesOfJohn John]] | [[Literature/EpistleOfJude Jude]] | [[Literature/BookOfRevelation Revelation]]-]]]]]
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10[[caption-width-right:350:''"In the beginning..."'']]
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12The first book of Literature/TheBible. In the Jewish tradition, it is the first book of the Torah and known as ''Bereshit'' ("In the beginning"; books of the Torah are known in Hebrew by their first word in that language). Literally everything begins here.
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14Genesis starts with a narrative of God's creation of the universe, before focusing on the first two people and how they came to reject God's Paradise. The man who killed their son and their son, Cain, continued the corruption of the world and passed that evil on to his descendants until God had to wash over the whole thing and start anew. The only holdovers from the old creation are the righteous Noah, his family, and the animals they brought along. From them, all the peoples of the world came, including Abraham.
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16Called upon by God, Abraham agreed to serve Him faithfully so that his descendants would outnumber the stars. As part of the covenant, the infertile Sarah gave birth to the beloved Isaac. Isaac himself would have the sons Jacob and Esau, who would hate each other in youth and only after years of deception and fighting come to love each other. In this peace, Jacob had twelve sons, favoring Joseph most of all. Jealous, Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery, but by God's grace, Joseph rose to become the right-hand man of the Pharaoh. Rich and at peace, Joseph would invite his family in Israel to enjoy the bounties of Egypt, where Jacob and Joseph would die while the latter's sons would live without hating each other.
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18The book [[PlayingWithATrope plays with]] some of the aspects from Myth/MesopotamianMythology and other {{Creation Myth}}s, with the most unique feature being the singular, supreme, and intelligent nature of {{God}}. There are also many parallels with its "sequel," the Literature/BookOfExodus, as well as historical events, such as the life of Abraham. People are divided over just how literal the first several chapters even are, with the rest of the book being more or less confirmed by archaeology and the former usually being seen as metaphorical or a semi-literal telling of events.
19-----
20!!Structure of the book:
21* Creation of the world (Genesis 1:1-2:3)
22* Creation of Man (Genesis 2:4-25)
23* Fall of Man (Genesis chapter 3)
24* Cain, Abel and the first murder (Genesis chapter 4)
25* From Adam to Noah (Genesis chapter 5)
26* The story of Noah (Genesis chapters 6 to 9)
27* The children of Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Genesis chapter 10)
28* The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-8)
29* From Shem to Abraham (Genesis 11:9-32)
30* The story of Abraham (Genesis chapters 12 to 18 and 20 to 25)
31* The story of Lot (Genesis chapters 11 to 14, and 18 to 19)
32* The stories of Isaac and Jacob (Genesis chapters 25 to 35)
33* The descendants of Esau (Genesis chapter 36)
34* The story of Joseph (Genesis chapters 37 and 39 to 50)
35* The story of Judah and Tamar (Genesis chapter 38)
36-----
37!!Genesis contains the following tropes:
38%%Don't point out TropeNamers, there's too many of them for them to be really notable.
39* AbsurdlyElderlyMother:
40** Sarah, who was in her nineties and way past menopause, is told by God's visiting angels that she's going to have the promised child from her husband Abraham. Sarah laughs at this, thinking the whole thing to be impossible, but God gets the last laugh when He fulfills this promise and she bears her first and only son Isaac.
41** For that matter, Eve is 130 when her son Seth is born, since she’s one day younger than Adam whose age is given. And the text implies that the majority of her children were born even after that! That said, people lived to be nearly 1000 back then so it’s usually interpreted as fertility scaled to match the lifespan.
42* AccidentalGoodOutcome: Joseph's brothers, out of jealousy for their father's clear favoritism, throw Joseph down a well and then sell him to Egyptian slavers. Joseph endures further trials in Egypt, including imprisonment after a FalseRapeAccusation--but this unexpectedly puts him in the position to interpret a prophetic dream from the Pharaoh himself. Impressed by Joseph's wisdom, Pharaoh promotes him to be his right-hand man, and Joseph's leadership helps save Egypt and its neighbors (including Joseph's old family) from a seven-year famine. When Joseph reunites with his brothers, and they fear that he holds a justified grudge against them, Joseph reassures them of his forgiveness by pointing out it was their misdeed that put him in the position to save an entire nation.
43* AdamAndEvePlot: The TropeNamer. God's instructions to the first people are: "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it." Some Bible students who go by the King James Version's use of the word "replenish" instead of "fill" insist that the first humans God had created were to replace the ones that existed before them in the "gap period" between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2.
44** Later on, when Noah and his family were the only human survivors on the earth after the Flood, God gives them the command to repopulate the earth and make it fruitful. Humanity from that point on is descended from them, as the text implies.
45* AlcoholInducedIdiocy: Noah plants a vineyard, makes wine from the grapes, and gets so plastered that he ends up sleeping in his tent naked.
46* AlcoholicParent: After the flood, Noah plants the first vineyard and gets so drunk he winds up passing out naked. His son Ham thinks this is hilarious and calls his brothers to come see. They respectfully cover him with a blanket instead, walking backwards so they won't have to see their dad naked. For his disrespect, Noah curses Ham's son Canaan to be a "servant of servants" of his relations. Why Canaan and not Ham himself? Nobody's quite sure.[[note]]Unfortunately, Noah's curse--which isn't even a real curse, because it's a hung-over father cussing out his idiot son rather than God imposing punishment--came to be called the "Curse of Ham" and sometimes used to justify enslaving black people, because supposedly Ham was dark-skinned and the ancestor of black people -- ignoring that the curse was specifically narrowed to Ham's only '''non'''-African son, his other three sons free of the curse.[[/note]]
47* AltarDiplomacy: In Chapter 34, after Shechem raped Dinah and then offered to pay her family as much dowry as they desired in order to have her as a wife, her brothers Simeon and Levi told him that they can't give Dinah to him unless he and the men of the city would become one people with the clan of Jacob by becoming circumcised. Of course, this was all a ruse in order to incapacitate the men of Shechem so that Jacob's clan could have revenge for Dinah being raped, but Shechem and his men were willing to go along with it, and so that sealed their fate.
48* AndManGrewProud: Then Man built a tower intended to reach Heaven. God decided to put a stop to it and confuse the language of man. Which is why language classes are needed in the present day.
49* AndNowYouMustMarryMe: Dinah is raped by Shechem, a Canaanite prince who decides ''after'' the fact that he wants to marry her. He keeps her in his tent and goes to ask Jacob's permission to marry her and offers him a hefty bride price. Jacob doesn't really object to this, but his sons (Dinah's {{Knight Templar Big Brother}}s) ''do''. They agree to the marriage OnOneCondition: namely, that all the men of Shechem get circumcised. The Shechemites agree, reasoning that [[AltarDiplomacy the marriage will unite their tribes and make them wealthier and better off]]. While they're recovering, Dinah's brothers come in, slaughter all the adult males, take the women and children as [[MadeASlave plunder]], and rescue Dinah.
50* AngelUnaware: Lot didn't know that his two guests were angels until after taking them in for the night when the citizens of Sodom pound on the door, demanding Lot to bring them out so they can "know" them, and after trying and failing to protect his guests, the guests themselves reveal themselves as such by blinding Lot's assailants and getting Lot, his wife, and his two daughters out of the city before its destruction.
51* ApocalypseHow: The Great Flood destroys all humanity and all land animals on the planet, except for what is saved on Noah's ark. Class 2 or 4, depending on whether any species were completely wiped out.
52* ArrangedMarriage: When it's time for Abraham's son Isaac to get married, Abraham sends his servant back to the old country to find a nice girl for him. Isaac and Rebecca agree to the match without meeting each other. Jacob also arranged Rachel and got a couple of other wives (one of them being [[SiblingTriangle Rachel's big sister Leah]]) in the process.
53* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: When Joseph invites his brothers into his palace for a meal, while he's still unrecognizable to them, they're afraid he will attack them, seize them as slaves, and... take their donkeys?
54* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: In the section describing the lineage of Adam's son Seth, each patriarch's mini-biography ends with "... and he died." ''Except for Enoch'', whose description instead ends with "Enoch walked with God, and he was no longer here, for God took him." It's ambiguous, but the writer of the Literature/BookOfHebrews interpreted it to mean that Enoch "was taken up so that he should not see death".
55* AssholeVictim: Sodom and Gomorrah were cities full of this, with Sodom being notable for the men who wanted to sexually assault Lot's visitors and then desire to do harm to Lot when they were refused. Lot's visitors got him and his family out of there before the two cities were destroyed by God.
56* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: Joseph's ascension into Pharaoh's NumberTwo, with the requisite regalia and parade. Pharaoh makes it clear that the only difference between them is that Pharaoh has the throne; otherwise, Joseph has full authority over the land of Egypt, and 'no one may lift hand or foot in all Egypt without (Joseph's)' word.
57* BeautyEqualsGoodness: Played straight with the matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel. Not specifically mentioned concerning the patriarchs, with the exception of Joseph, whose physical beauty is mentioned.
58* BedTrick:
59** Jacob's wedding. He had worked for Laban for seven years in order to get permission to marry Laban's daughter Rachel, but Laban swapped Rachel out for her older sister Leah on the night of the wedding. Jacob didn't notice this until they were already married, so although he got to marry Rachel the next week, he had to work another seven years to earn (retroactively) his marriage to Rachel, the girl he actually loved.
60** Tamar, a widow of Judah's sons, was due a marriage to another man of the family under the rules of levirate marriage. When it seemed Judah was not going to go through with this, Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute and met him on the road, taking his staff and sigil as payment. She conceived twins and, when Judah realized what had happened and she explained her reasons, he was shamed into admitting his mistakes and, while he didn't marry her, he did acknowledge the twins as his children and heirs.
61* BigBad: It's really the devil's fault the human race fell (even though Adam and Eve shouldn't have eaten the fruit).
62* BigBrotherBully: Abraham's firstborn son Ishmael, who sometime after his half-brother Isaac's birth, was mocking him during his party. This made Isaac's Sarah so upset when she saw it that her husband sent Ishmael and his mother Hagar away from them permanently, thus they will not share in the inheritance that was meant for Isaac. Abraham became worried about this, but God told him to do as Sarah told him, for He will bless Ishmael and make him into a great nation.
63* BigScrewedUpFamily: Jacob's family, with all the rivalries, deceptions, and intrigue.
64* BilingualBackfire: After speaking to the high-ranking Egyptian via an interpreter, Joseph's brothers have a small conversation after the interpreter is gone. In ths conversation, they admit collective guilt for Joseph's sale, but Reuben explicitly claims.that he was not involved. Unbeknownst to them, the Egyptian in question is Joseph, who understands every word. He soon chooses one of them to hold hostage when he sends the rest home to bring the youngest brother--and having heard that the oldest brother was not involved with his sale, the hostage is the second brother.
65* BlameGame: Adam blames Eve (and God), and Eve blames the serpent for the eating of the ForbiddenFruit.
66* {{Blessing}}: Isaac intends to bless his son Esau, but his younger brother Jacob, helped by his mother Rebecca, passes himself as his elder brother and receives his father's blessing.
67* BloodOath: God has Abraham sacrifice animals so that He could seal His covenant with Abraham to give the land of Canaan to him and his descendants forever. Later on, this blood oath would take the form of circumcision, which God commanded Abraham and his descendants to perform on all his male family members as well as any male they have purchased for themselves.
68* BornAsAnAdult: Adam and Eve, the first two of God's human creations ("gap period theology" notwithstanding), came into being as adults, with Adam formed from the dust of the ground, and Eve formed from Adam's rib. In fact, it is likely that all of God's living creatures came into existence as adult forms.
69* BreakingTheFellowship: Abraham and Lot journeyed together through the Promised Land, then to Egypt, then back to the Promised Land again. By Chapter 13, though, strife between Abraham's herdsmen and Lot's herdsmen because the land was not big enough to sustain both men's families together required them to split up. Abraham allowed Lot to choose which direction he wanted to take, and Lot decided to head in the direction of Sodom, which is where he and his family ended up in. Abraham remained in the Promised Land, which God swore that He would give to Abraham and his descendants. Abraham and Lot do meet up together again when Lot and the inhabitants of Sodom were abducted by the four evil kings and Abraham comes to Lot's rescue, but they remained separate from each other from that point onward.
70* BreedingSlave:
71** Sarah's maid, Hagar, is called upon when Sarah realizes she's barren to lie with Abraham and have a child in Sarah's stead. Even though it was her idea, Sarah becomes jealous with Hagar and treats her terribly until she runs away, at which point God has to step in and assure Hagar that she and her son will be protected.
72** Both of Jacob's wives eventually have their maids bear Jacob children on their behalf: Rachel because her chances of accomplishing the task herself appear hopeless at that point, and Leah ... apparently just to keep the tally lopsided in her own favor.
73* BrideAndSwitch: Jacob works for his uncle Laban for seven years to marry his uncle's youngest daughter Rachel. Come wedding day, though, Laban swaps out Rachel for his oldest daughter Leah, and Jacob doesn't realize the swap took place until after the night of consummation. Laban makes an excuse that it isn't the custom of his people to give away the youngest daughter before the oldest, so Jacob has to work another seven years to have Rachel.
74* BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu: Jacob may have pinned the Angel of the Lord or God himself, but he walks with a permanent limp afterward.
75* BuryMeNotOnTheLonePrairie:
76** Joseph makes the Israelites swear that they would take his body with them when they left Egypt. He was eventually reburied in Israel, meaning that they must have carried his coffin through the desert for forty years. [[FantasticReligiousWeirdness This causes complications along the way]], because the people carrying his coffin are therefore ritually impure and can't offer the Passover sacrifice. A "make-up" date for the sacrifice one month later is instituted due to this and other reasons, which means that complications as a result of a will are OlderThanFeudalism.
77** Averted with Rachel, whose body Jacob is forced to leave behind in a roadside grave despite her status as his OneTrueLove.
78* ButICantBePregnant: More like "but I can't ''get'' pregnant" when Sarah, who was in her nineties and way past menopause, overhears from God that she's going to have her husband Abraham's child, which God previously promised would come through Abraham, but only after having her handmaid bear Ishmael did she hear it would be through her as well. Sarah laughs at the possibility, but God proves it by fulfilling the promise and gives her a good reason to laugh, giving the child the name of Isaac ("he laughs").
79* ButLiquorIsQuicker: Lot's daughters got their own father drunk to have sex with him. That showed how corrupt Sodom and Gomorrah had been, to the point that even the ones God had spared engaged in sexual immorality.
80* CainAndAbel: The fall of man away from {{God}} sees the collapse of the family, best seen in the interaction of the many brothers within this Book. The only way for even a single nation to begin to reconcile with God is for the brothers of the nation to reconcile with each other. For some examples:
81** The conflict of brothers starts with the first children of Adam and Eve, the farmer Cain and the herder Abel. God finds the animal sacrifices of Abel preferable to Cain's offerings, which leaves Cain envious. Some time later, Cain is confronted by God with the fact that he has slaughtered his own brother, a fact Cain denies while complaining that he's "not his brother's keeper." Indignant, God dismisses Cain's lie by describing how he can hear the blood of the first corpse ''screaming'' from the Earth, and then punishes Cain to wander the Earth without a place to call home.
82** Jacob and Esau, two children who are described as fighting even in the womb, both end up [[JacobAndEsau the favorite of a different parent]], and so each of them works with that parent to conspire against each other for the right of inheritance. Ultimately, first-born Esau is cheated out of his rightful inheritance which now belongs to Jacob, a fact which nearly leads to Esau killing Jacob before the now rightful inheritor flees his home to make his own family. Although if Esau was more mindful of his future inheritance being anything of worth to him than the immediate satisfaction of his appetite, he wouldn't have sold off his birthright to his brother and thus open the door for himself to be cheated in the first place. Then again, it's unclear whether the material inheritance rights of the birthright and the spiritual benefits of the blessing are the same thing - when he realizes what happened Esau exclaims "He [[NeverMyFault took my birthright]], and '''now''' [emphasis added] he’s taken my blessing!"
83** Joseph, the favorite of Jacob's twelve sons, is so envied by his ten older brothers that they sell him into to slavery and tell their father that Joseph was eaten alive. The tables are turned years later, when the older brothers and the youngest (Benjamin) go to Egypt to request food and shelter for Israel from one of the Pharaoh's advisors: an older Joseph, having risen out of slavery by God's grace. Joseph demands that Benjamin be given to him as a slave in return for the provision of Israel, but the other brothers beg for Benjamin's freedom, not wanting to break their father's heart even further. Impressed by their compassion, Joseph reveals himself as their long-lost brother and allows the people of Israel to come to Egypt.
84** The last group of brothers are the two sons of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim. Despite the fact that Manasseh is the older one, Ephraim was the one who received a blessing from the patriarch Jacob. Manasseh [[SubvertedTrope quietly accepts the situation]]. Genesis doesn't blow trumpets for Manasseh, but unlike every other older brother who ends up less favored than the younger, he preserves his family over lashing out over his perception of injustice. Rabbi David Wolpe touches on this silent victory for brotherhood [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH0VqlPnzpE five minutes into this interview]].
85* CargoCult: The worship of other gods through the use of idols began in this book. Jacob's uncle Laban, in particular, had household gods, which his daughter Rachel stole and hid underneath her camel's saddle and sat upon while making an excuse that she was going through her period when her father came into her tent to look for his missing gods. Jacob also had his sons get rid of the gods they were worshiping, including the earrings they were wearing most likely as part of that worship, and buried them near a tree before they moved on from Shechem.
86* CarpetOfVirility: Goes beyond this for Esau, as the narrative says that even at birth he was "like a hairy garment", which is why he was given the name Esau ("hairy").
87* CassandraTruth: When Lot tells his family about God's imminent plan to destroy their town, his soon-to-be sons-in-law and other relatives (including possibly some sons and/or daughters and their spouses) laugh at him, thinking he's joking. On the other hand, this is averted with the story of Noah: although many later stories about Noah (including a brief retelling of the story in the Epistle of Peter) embellish their tale by depicting him trying to tell others about the Flood and failing to convince them, the original text doesn't mention that happening.
88* AChatWithSatan: In Chapter 3, the serpent, the most cunning of God's creation, convinces the first woman to eat from the one tree God order not to eat from by appealing to man's desire for beauty, great wisdom, and to be god-like, and in turn the woman gives the fruit to the man to eat. Naturally, eating from the tree only manages to get the two expelled from Paradise and cursed with mortality and toil that will be passed to all their descendants. The serpent doesn't get away freely from this, as God reckons all the human descendants will have a bone to pick with him. Interestingly, the serpent is never identified as Satan in this book or in any other part of the Torah; it is only later in Christian writings that the two are connected, specifically the Literature/BookOfRevelation.
89* ChildByRape: Moab and Ben-Ammi, the children of Lot's two daughters, whom they conceived when [[ParentalIncest they raped their own father]] while he was [[ButLiquorIsQuicker drunk]].
90* CircumcisionAngst:
91** Many men were left feeling sore the day Abraham applied the commanded custom.
92** Invoked by Simeon and Levi, who claim they will let Dinah marry the prince who raped her if every man from that village is circumcised. They agree, and for three days the village is defenseless, giving the bandits an [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown incredibly easy opening to take revenge]] and fill their greedy pockets with the loot.
93* ClaimedByTheSupernatural: Cain is marked by God for murdering his younger brother, but the mark is not a punishment; it is bestowed as a warning to anyone who would harm Cain in his exile that Cain's murder would be avenged '''seven times over'''.
94* TheClan: The twelve tribes of Israel descended from Abraham and Isaac, who had their own clans. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are the three [[ThePatriarch patriarchs]] of the Hebrew people. Ephraim and Manasseh, the two sons of Joseph, were reckoned as patriarchs of two of Israel's clans, although for the sake of territorial inheritance and other reasons Israel is still mentioned as having twelve clans. [[note]]This was likely to compensate for the descendants of Levi, who were designated priests and caretakers of the sacred buildings and were not given their own land inheritance.[[/note]]
95* CliffHanger: Will the Israelites permanently settle in Egypt or go back to their homeland? They went to the latter the hard way.
96* CommonLawMarriage: Adam and Eve. They received a blessing from God, but they had no formal wedding, and (being the only people on Earth), no marriage license, certificate, contract, or other legal stuff. However, Adam still refers to Eve as his wife.
97* CompletelyUnnecessaryTranslator: The translator in Joseph's story. While there were probably many people for whom the translator proved indispensable, one case where he wasn't needed at all was when Joseph's own brothers showed up. He employed one anyway to conceal his relation to them.
98* CraftedFromAnimals: In Chapter 3, after God deals with both Adam, Eve, and the serpent following the eating of the ForbiddenFruit, Adam and Eve were both given coats of skin to wear, implying that an animal sacrifice had to take place to atone for their sin.
99* CreationMyth: The story of the creation of the world, as written in the Hebrew Bible, as the word of God.
100* CruelToBeKind: A particularly subtle example is God kicking Adam & Eve out of Eden, so they can't eat from the tree of life and live forever. Not only would the planet be ''incredibly'' overpopulated if mankind[[labelnote:*]]"Adam" and "man" are used relatively interchangeably in early Genesis, and throughout the Bible. In particular, Jesus' title in Literature/TheFourGospels, "Son of Man", ''ben-'adam'', literally means ''Son of Adam''.[[/labelnote]] was immortal on a cursed planet, and not only would many sicknesses be much worse if people were alive and in agony forever, but most importantly, ''Jesus would be unable to die''.
101* CurseOfBabel: When all the people of the world come together to make names for themselves and reach the Heavens to find God, He forces humanity to separate by dispersing language among the peoples.
102%%* TowerOfBabel: The TropeMaker for both.
103* CycleOfRevenge: Repeatedly {{defied}}.
104** After Cain kills Abel, he fears that others would come and kill him to avenge Abel, which would likely begin a cycle of murders. However, God put a mark on him to prevent anyone from murdering Cain. His descendant Lamech, however, tries to claim greater protection on himself for harming another person that struck him: "If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-seven fold."
105** Esau decides to forgive Jacob instead of seeking revenge for having stolen his blessings. (Having also prospered in the meantime seems to have helped him with this.)
106** One generation later, when Joseph understands that his brothers have come a long way since they sold him to slavery, he decides to reconcile with them instead of punishing them.
107* DeathByChildbirth: Rachel dies when she has Benjamin due to the pain of labor, something established in chapter three to be a result of the Fall of Man.
108* DeathByDespair: When Jacob's son Judah saw that his brother Benjamin was implicated in a theft he didn't commit (the whole thing being a frame-up by Joseph to test his brothers) and was subject to becoming Joseph's slave in Egypt, he feared that if he and his brothers didn't return to their home with Benjamin, their father would die of despair (since Benjamin was perceived to be the last surviving son of Jacob's beloved wife Rachel), and so he offered himself in the place of Benjamin so that he wouldn't have to see his father suffer that fate.
109* DeathFakedForYou: After the brothers sell Joseph to Egypt, they "explain" Joseph's sudden disappearance to their dad by dipping his robe in blood and making it look like he was attacked by wild animals.
110* DepravedHomosexual: Quite possibly the men of Sodom who ganged around Lot's house to desire "knowing" the two men who came into his house to sojourn with them. Lot offers his two virgin daughters to the men in exchange for keeping the visitors safe under his roof, but the men persisted, even going so far as to do harm to Lot himself for "acting as a judge". The two angels bring Lot into the house and struck the men with blindness so that they wearied themselves trying to find the door.
111* DidNotThinkThisThrough: When Abraham offers Lot the choice of lands, Lot chooses the pastures near the Dead Sea, the home of Sodom and Gomorrah. After Abraham leads a mission to rescue Lot, he goes back home, and when the violent men of Sodom threaten his household, the angels come and urge him to leave the city without looking back. He escapes with his daughters, but his possessions are destroyed by the fire and brimstone, and when his wife looks back, she is turned into a pillar of salt.
112* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Jacob wrestled ''an angel'' for a night (though many scholars believe Jacob was actually ''wrestling with God'' via theophany). The angel had to resort to cursing Jacob's hip in order to win, and Jacob ''still'' obtained a blessing (which remains in effect to this day) before he let the angel leave. To those of you who don't know, Jacob earned a nickname for that feat, which is translated as "Wrestles with God" ... The nickname is ''"Israel"''.
113* DiningInTheBuff: Probably the most famous example of this trope. Eve, and then Adam, eat the forbidden fruit while she and Adam are living naked in the Garden of Eden.
114* DishonoredDead: Not done on purpose, but because of circumstances and certain customs, Jacob's beloved wife Rachel gets a roadside burial when she dies during childbirth in comparison to his unloved wife Leah, who is buried in the cave of Machpelah alongside his grandparents and parents.
115* DisproportionateRetribution: Several, with some notable examples being:
116** Noah curses his son, Ham, for failing to avert his eyes when Noah was drunk and naked (the curse inherited by only '''one''' son).
117** After Shechem's rape of their sister Dinah, Jacob's sons make every man in Shechem's tribe agree to undergo circumcision to have justice done. They agree to this, but the Disproportionate Retribution only begins when Jacob's sons take advantage of their weakness after the circumcision to kill them all and loot their towns for everything they owned in life. Jacob is furious, but the sons question what else to do in the face of that insidious a crime.
118** Young Joseph may have been a bit of a [[AnnoyingYoungerSibling bratty brother]], with his habit of tattling on his older brothers and announcing his dreams of superiority, but trying to murder him and then selling him into slavery in response? Definitely over-the-top.
119* DivineDate: One of the readings of Genesis 6:2 suggests that the "sons of God" that went into the "daughters of men" were angels that decided to interfere with God's pure gene pool of humanity, thus raising up the legendary Nephilim. (The other alternate reading is that the "sons of God" were the godly line of Seth and the "daughters of men" were the ungodly line of Cain, and thus their offspring were just people fallen into depraved sin. And yet another alternate reading is that the "sons of God" were local powerful rulers calling themselves as such, taking "daughters of men"--i.e., women of lower status--as wives or concubines.)
120* DontLookBack: In the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, God warns Lot, his wife, and daughters to not look back as they flee the cities prior to the imminent destruction of the cities ("Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed" (Genesis 19:15-17)). Yet, [[CuriosityKilledTheCast Lot's wife does]], and upon [[WatchingTroyBurn seeing the flaming ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah]], is turned into a [[TakenForGranite pillar of salt]].
121* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: Dinah's story is remembered as THE rape episode of Genesis, if not the Old Testament as a whole, and every man in the rapist's nation is sexually mutilated and murdered out of revenge. However, multiple female-on-male rapes occur in earlier chapters and generations which, at most, are implied to be an exasperating inconvenience to the victims and a regrettable thing for the rapists to have done.
122* DovesMeanPeace: A dove not returning after Noah released it meant that the ship could now land and that Noah's family had a future.
123* DrivenByEnvy: Notable examples include Cain and Joseph's brothers. Cain was envious because his brother Abel's sacrifices were considered acceptable to God compared to his own, while Joseph's brothers were envious because he was the favorite son that their father lavished all his attention on.
124* TheDrunkenSailor: Noah famously builds and sails the Ark, then after he lands he promptly proceeds to plant a vineyard and gets dead drunk. That just might make him the UrExample.
125* EastwardEndeavor: Adam and Eve travelled eastwards after being exiled from Eden for eating the forbidden fruit, gaining knowledge of good and evil. After the murder of his brother and his own banishment, Cain travelled further east towards the land of Nod. All this eventually culminated in the human race, now numerous, moving further and further east until they reached a plain called Shinar, where they built the Tower of Babel, an endeavor that resulted in the newly polyglot human race scattering to the four corners of the Earth. Whether one considers the eventual results of these developments to be for the better or for the worse is a very contentious matter, but in Abrahamic tradition, the journey from ignorance and innocence towards modern humanity began when Adam and Eve (and their eventual successors) journeyed east of Eden. Interestingly, however, Eden itself is also described as being planted in the East.[[note]]This last bit would follow if Genesis, traditionally attributed to Moses, was written from an Israelite-centric point of view, as the site of many of the early events of Genesis is thought to have been in the area of Mesopotamia, which is indeed east of where the original (and present) nation of Israel eventually settled.[[/note]]
126* TheEndOfTheBeginning: The conclusion to the story of Joseph. On one hand, the family of the patriarchs is now re-united, which is a refreshing development after generations of SiblingRivalry. On the other hand, the Israelites are settled in a foreign land, which is not the promised land. See CliffHanger above. How long will this last?
127* EnemyToAllLivingThings: Due to eating from the Tree of Knowledge, Adam is cursed to no longer be able to work the Earth without toil.
128* EverythingsBetterWithRainbows: After the massive flood, God promises not to drown all the creatures again and puts a rainbow in the sky as a symbol of His covenant with them.
129* ExactWords:
130** Used by both God and the serpent in the Garden of Eden. God tells Adam and Eve that on "the day" they eat the fruit "they will surely die", without mentioning that said death would only come hundreds of years later. On the flip side, the serpent tells them that "they will become like God, knowing good and evil" without mentioning that ''[[BlessedWithSuck that would not be a blessing, but part of a curse]]''. Certain Bible students would interpret God's Words regarding "the day" they would die as being fulfilled in the manner of what Peter the apostle says in [[Literature/EpistlesOfPeter his second epistle]], that "a day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day."
131** Originally God said to Abraham that he was going to have a child in his old age that was going to be his heir. Sarah, never hearing God ever saying it was going to be ''through her'' yet, offers up her handmaid Hagar to Abraham to be a surrogate mother to the supposed promised child, who turned out to be Ishmael. It's only later when God directly visits the couple that He even says in Sarah's hearing that she would be the one to bear the promised child.
132** God agrees that if He even finds ten righteous men in Sodom and Gomorrah He'll spare the entire cities on their behalf. While there ''are'' righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah, they number less than ten so the cities are destroyed though God makes sure [[TokenGoodTeammate Lot and his family]] escape.
133* TheExile:
134** Adam and Eve are banished from the Garden of Eden as the final part of their punishment.
135** Cain was banished from the presence of the Lord when he killed his brother Abel, and he went to live in the land of Nod, fathering generations of people apart from those of his brother Seth's lineage.
136* FakePeriodExcuse: When Jacob and his wives flee Laban's home, Rachel steals her father's idols just before she and her husband's caravan leave. When her father catches up to Jacob and accuses him of stealing, Jacob lets him search his property, saying (not knowing who did it) that anyone who stole the idols will be put to death. Rachel keeps her father from finding them by sitting on top of the saddle where she hid them, while claiming she's on her period (thereby making anything she touches unclean) knowing full well her father wouldn't dare to move her in that condition. As a result, he never finds them.
137* FalseRapeAccusation: When Joseph is the slave of the Egyptian Potiphar, a captain in the royal guard, Potiphar's wife wants him to sleep with her. Joseph runs away from her, but the wife tries to hold him back and tears off his garment. She immediately calls for help and claims that Joseph has assaulted her (as she now needs a cover-up that explains how she comes by Joseph's garment). Potiphar believes his wife and has Joseph thrown into prison.
138* TheFamine:
139** Abram and his wife Sara flee a starving Canaan to go to Egypt, and have to leave the Pharaoh's court after God curses them for Abram denying Sara was his wife.
140** Isaac used the same trick while fleeing the famine to Guerar, denying Rebecca was his wife, but that ends when Abimelech catches the two of them kissing each other outside his window and keeps his people from doing anything towards Isaac's wife.
141** While in AncientEgypt, Joseph manages to predict that seven years of plenty will be followed by seven years of want, and stores food accordingly; his brothers, who sold him years previously, led their families in Egypt to buy grain.
142* FamousAncestor: Chapter 10 is called "The Table of Nations" and it traces the lineage of many Middle Eastern peoples back to Noah's sons.
143* FatalFlaw: Every person in the Book holds on to some characteristic that damages their relationship with God and makes clear that none of these humans, despite being made in God's image, are divine. Flaws include:
144** Adam's ignorance.
145** Eve's greed.
146** Cain's wrath.
147** Noah's drunkenness.
148** Abraham & Sarah's impatience for a child.
149** Lot's short-sightedness in choosing Sodom for its green pastures while being oblivious to the decadent, sinful lifestyle of the area.
150** Rebekah's favoritism, hypocrisy and impatience for making God's prophecies come true.
151** Esau's hunger.
152** Jacob's deceit and favoritism.
153** Joseph's spoiled vanity.
154* FetusTerrible: Esau and Jacob were this when they were still in Rebekah's womb, having a wrestling match with each other. God tells her in a prophecy that she is giving birth to two nations, that "one will be stronger than the other, and the elder will serve the younger." When they are born, Esau the hairy child comes out first, then Jacob, who grasps the heel of his brother, comes out second.
155* FinalSpeech: Jacob spends a good chunk of chapter 49 giving his sons his final blessings before he passes away. Simeon and Levi, however, are cursed to be "divided" for their RapeAndRevenge actions, with Levi becoming the priestly tribe that had no inheritance among the sons of Israel and Simeon becoming absorbed into Judah and losing their tribal identity. Reuben is also cursed for his sleeping with one of his father's concubines.
156%%* FirstGirlWins: Adam and Eve. Although according to some {{Fanon}}, Eve was actually the second girl. A few sources even have her third.
157* FlamingSword: There is a flaming, whirling (in some translations) sword placed at the entrance to the Garden of Eden to prevent Adam and Eve from getting back in.
158* FoodAsBribe: Jacob was able to get his brother Esau to sell his birthright for a bowl of stew.
159* ForbiddenFruit: {{God}} gives free rein to the first two humans over everything in the paradisal Garden of Eden, except for one tree, because eating of its fruits will cause them to die. Unfortunately, a wily serpent manages to tempt the two into eating the fruit out of their desire to be god-like, leading them to be expelled from the Garden and introduce humanity to pain and death. The exact species of fruit wasn't mentioned, and alternatives as pomegranate, fig, or grape have been suggested. Much like FourIsDeath, it's portrayed as an apple because the Latin word for apple, malus, [[StealthPun also means "evil".]]
160-->'''Genesis 2:16-17:''' And the L[-ORD-] God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat 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 you eat of it you shall surely die."
161** Alternately, a sectarian interpretation claims that the Forbidden Fruit that Eve supposedly ate of is actually a forbidden sexual act that occurred between the serpent (whom those who believe in this interpretation claim was not yet forced to "go about on his belly") and Eve, resulting in Cain, her firstborn son, being the first of the "serpent seed" that somehow survived and became the Jews, of whom Jesus (who was a Jew) in John chapter 8 had denounced as "children of the devil". This interpretation also somehow fosters the religious idea that SexIsEvil.
162* ForcedSleep: In Chapter 2, God puts Adam into a deep sleep to extract one of his ribs and then refashion it into a woman so Adam would have a suitable helper as his companion. In Chapter 15, Abraham is put into a deep sleep, where God communicates to him the promise of giving all the land of Canaan to him as part of the everlasting covenant.
163* {{Forgiveness}}:
164** A minor instance of this is when Jacob and Esau reconcile after their struggle for the family inheritance. Nationally, though, it became a case of ForgivenButNotForgotten, as Esau's people Edom became a perpetual thorn in Israel's side, even to the point of cheering for Jerusalem's destruction and cutting off its people from escaping, if [[Literature/BookOfPsalms Psalm 137]] and the Literature/BookOfObadiah are any indication.
165** Arguably ''the'' forgiveness story in the Genesis is that of Joseph and his brothers. The brothers, green with envy, sold Joseph into slavery and convinced their father his favorite son was dead. The brothers assume they'll never see Joseph again, but when they come to Egypt to beg for food, it turns out the Pharaoh's most trusted advisor is a grown-up Joseph. The brothers immediately fear for their lives, but instead of taking vengeance, Joseph not only spares his brothers, but invites them to come live in luxury in Egypt. Then the Hebrews ''[[SarcasmMode never]]'' had to deal with slavery ever again... [[Literature/BookOfExodus right]]?
166* {{Foreshadowing}}:
167** Noah cursed Canaan soon after the flood, and the descendants of Canaan would come to be great enemies of God's chosen people, the Jews.
168** In a time of famine, Abraham is forced to go down to Egypt to wait it out and God eventually calls plague upon the Pharaoh for an injustice he did to Abraham's people. Obviously, this foreshadows the Hebrews' re-location to Egypt at the end of the Book and their conflict with the pharaoh in Exodus.
169** That Esau and Jacob struggle with each other while still in their mother's womb is an early harbinger of their SiblingRivalry in the future and the conflict between the tribes descended of them.
170** Joseph's dreams that his brothers and parents will bow down before him signals his future role as the savior of the clan.
171%%** The order in which Perez and Zerah are born.
172** The blessings given by each patriarch to their sons/grandsons foreshadow the prominence that their respective tribes will gain.
173** The Egyptians ending up selling themselves into slavery to get food near the end of the famine; while the Hebrews are spared this fate for now, guess [[MadeASlave what's going to happen to them]] when [[Literature/BookOfExodus later Pharaohs forget what Joseph and his people did for Egypt]]?
174** Christian teaching holds that Genesis is chock-full of prophecies and references to Jesus, indicating that from the very beginning of creation God already had a plan to fix His relationship with mankind after Adam and Eve screwed it up. To wit: He clothes Adam and Eve with animal skins (something died because of their sin); His curse to the serpent says that the serpent will "bruise the heel" of Eve's offspring, who will "crush his head" (Jesus' death was an apparent victory for Satan, but then backfired on him horribly); the promise to Abraham that all nations of the world will be blessed through him (Jesus was a descendant of Abraham); the business with Melchizedek (see below); the three strangers who may have been a representation of the Trinity; the almost-sacrifice of Isaac (a threefer - the father sacrificing his only son, the one commanded to die being saved by a substitution, and God Himself providing the sacrificial ram); and many more.
175*** An especially big one that crosses over with CruelToBeKind is God kicking Adam and Eve out of Eden, so they can't eat from the tree of life. For Jesus to fix the relationship, He needed to die, which is kinda impossible if Adam[[labelnote:*]][[PunnyName Which means "man"]].[[/labelnote]] can't die.
176* GardenGarment: After they committed their first sin by eating the ForbiddenFruit, Adam and Eve try to cover their shame by creating loin coverings with leaves. God chose to replace it with animal skins, setting up the beginning of His redemptive plan for mankind.
177* GardenOfEden: The original. Adam and Eve live in this paradise before they disobey God by eating the ForbiddenFruit.
178* GenesisEffect: Chapter 1 alone has God speaking every detail of existence into being in the first six days of creation: the light, the sky, the seas, the land, the plants, the sun, moon, and stars, the birds and sea creatures, the various land creatures, and eventually man. When He was finished, He saw that it was "very good".
179* GetOut:
180** The Pharaoh boots Abraham out of Egypt for lying about his wife Sarah being "his sister" (technically his half-sister) and causing God to plague the Egyptians for that misinformation.
181** Abimelech, the king of the Philistines, tells Isaac to leave the region because he was getting too prosperous and the Philistines were envying him.
182*** God demanded Adam and Eve stay away from the Garden of Eden because of their wickedness.
183* GivingThemTheStrip: This is how Joseph struggles free from Potiphar's wife after she tries to seduce him forcefully. It does make it difficult for him to explain why (a) she is claiming that he tried to rape her and (b) [[NotWhatItLooksLike she has his clothes to prove it]].
184* GodhoodSeeker: Adam and Eve are tempted by the Serpent who promises them that by eating the forbidden fruit they won't die and instead "will be like God".
185* GodIsDispleased:
186** After Adam and Eve ate the fruit via deception from the serpent, God punishes them by banishing them from the Garden of Eden as their disobedience has brought sin and suffering into the world.
187** God is not pleased when Cain took the life of his brother Abel and thus banished him from His presence.
188** This is why God sent the Flood, humanity having become too corrupted. So He told Noah to prepare the ark and basically just rebooted humanity.
189** Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because God had enough of all the bad things that the people of both cities were doing.
190* GodIsGood:
191** The first chapter sees God intelligently making the universe and everything in it inherently good.
192** The second chapter shows God more intimately involved in human affairs, breathing life into Adam and creating animals and Eve so that he will not be alone. God even walks in the garden with his human creations until they break his one law and try to hide from him. Even then, He clothes them as they go out of the Garden of Paradise into the now-cursed Earth and delays the punishment of death for them for several hundred years until that "day" (interpreted by certain Bible students as 1000 years, according to what Peter the apostle said in his second epistle) was near its end, showing in Scripture the first example of God's grace. More specifically, many think from Scripture that the soul or spirit "died" on the very first day they ate the fruit, but God allowed time on Earth so they would change.
193** When Cain, the first murderer, asks for mercy, God provides him a mark to keep others from killing him, even though God can hear the blood of Cain's victim screaming from the Earth.
194** God also intervenes to prevent the Pharaoh and Abimelech, both of whom are portrayed as good men but not believers in Him, from unknowingly committing adultery with Sarah.
195* GoneHorriblyWrong: God saw just how wicked antediluvian-era mankind became, and was horrified by what He had made. Every inclination of the human heart's thoughts [[EvilFeelsGood were evil perpetually]]. He grieved and regretted ever making them, before opting to destroy everything in TheGreatFlood.
196* GoodIsNotSoft:
197** In order to preserve the goodness of creation, God completely wipes out the descendants of Cain with a global flood that returns everything on Earth outside of Noah's ark to its original state.
198** In Genesis 12:3, God says to Abraham that He will bless those who bless him and curse those who curse him.
199** Upon seeing the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, God wipes the cities out with fire and brimstone, and turns those who look back unto their destruction into pillars of salt.
200* {{Greed}}:
201** Allowing themselves to be circumcised so that Shechem could marry Jacob's daughter Dinah was not the ''only'' reason the people of Shechem decided to go along with it. There was also the added benefit that, since the people would be allowed to also trade with the sons of Jacob, the belongings of that family would end up becoming theirs in the process.
202** Greed also played a factor in Onan's decision to commit coitus interruptus whenever he went into his sister-in-law Tamar, since he knew that the child he would father through levirate marriage would not inherit anything from him.
203* GuileHero: This seems to be something of a family trait for Abraham and his descendants.
204** Abraham tries to deceive the Egyptians about his relationship with Sarah, which leads to an IdiotBall and a WhatTheHellHero response from the Egyptians. [[LikeFatherLikeSon Pattern repeat by his successor Isaac]], except that instead of God foiling the attempt, it was Abimelech taking a look out of a window by chance to see Isaac "sporting" with Rebekah.
205** Rebecca is the [[ManBehindTheMan Master Mind]] behind securing the greater blessing for her favourite son, Jacob.
206** Jacob thoroughly deserves his reputation as "[[MeaningfulName The Deceiver]]" with respect to his treatment of Esau and Laban, the latter being a ManipulativeBastard himself.
207** Rachel (who is Rebecca's niece and Laban's daughter and therefore shares some of the same guileful gene pool as Jacob) outsmarts her father and successfully removes his household idols.
208** Joseph, being the son of Jacob and Rachel, tops the list by successfully carrying out an elaborate XanatosGambit to reunite the family (see below), and also saves a nation from a famine in the process.
209* HappinessInSlavery: Jacob makes a deal to work seven years of servitude for Laban in exchange for Rachel's hand in marriage, but we're informed it "seemed like no time at all" because he was so in love with her. On the other hand he minds it a bit more when Laban pulls a BrideAndSwitch in exchange for seven ''more'' years.
210* HalfHumanHybrid: {{Nephilim}} are the offspring of "[[OurAngelsAreDifferent sons of God]]" who took human women as wives. They're described as "heroes of old" and may have corresponded to a common Old World belief that there used to be men who were nearly giants. Either way, the Nephilim still are not excepted from obedience to God despite their semi-divine nature.
211* HeavenAbove: Nimrod and the rest of humanity believed they could reach God just by building a really big tower.
212* HereditaryCurse: Because Adam and Eve ate the ForbiddenFruit in the Garden of Eden, both them and their offspring are now cursed with death, with specific curses for the man and woman being:
213** The man must now work the ground (which has been cursed) until he sweats to provide food for himself.
214** The woman must now [[ScreamingBirth experience pain in childbirth]], as well as gender strife between herself and the man.
215* HeroOfAnotherStory:
216** Ishmael, Abraham's son with his Egyptian slave Hagar, becomes the ancestor of a numerous progeny, the Ishmaelites, which includes a great many other Semitic tribes apart from Israel, most notably the Arabs.
217** Whereas Genesis 37 - 50 focuses mainly on Joseph, Chapter 38 shows Judah with his own story to tell. It's Judah's descendants who go on to be the most memorable.
218** Various other nations (sometimes heroic, other times villainous) arise from Abraham and his nephew Lot. Abraham's wife Keturah (after Sarah died) goes on to give birth to Midian, patriarch of (who else?) the Midianites. Lot's [[VillainousIncest sons and grandsons]] Ben-Ammi and Moab go on to found the Ammonites and the Moabites.
219* HopeSpot:
220** After learning that God plans to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for their wickedness, Abraham is able to bargain God down to sparing them if there are at least ten righteous men there for the sake of Lot and his family. It isn't enough for the natives.
221** After Joseph interprets the Pharaoh's cupbearer's dream, that he will be restored to his position, the baker hopes that his fate will be just as good. Unfortunately, as the baker learns from his own dream being interpreted by Joseph, he is beheaded and his body is left on a tree for the birds to devour.
222* HopeSproutsEternal: In Chapter 8, when Noah sends a dove out to see if the waters have receded from the earth, and it returns with a freshly-plucked olive branch in its mouth, Noah takes it as a good sign that the Flood is coming to an end.
223* HowWeGotHere: Tradition holds that the narrator is Moses, and that Genesis was written during the Exodus to record Israel's history leading up to that time.
224* HumanSacrifice: God in chapter 22 calls Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah, which he proceeds to do up until the point where Abraham is ready to slay his son and God says stop, realizing that Abraham would not withhold his own son from God, and thus provides a ram to sacrifice in Isaac's place instead.
225* IdiotBall: Adam and Eve ate fruit they weren't supposed to because of selfishness. If they were smarter, they would've done otherwise, and so the human race wouldn't be suffering today. The Fall of Man could never have occurred.
226* IHaveNoSon: Adam and Eve's first son Cain is disowned after he kills his brother Abel. In fact, in the later books, no mention is ever made of Cain or his lineage, since it was most likely destroyed in the Flood.
227* ImmortalityField: The GardenOfEden is depicted as a place of everlasting joy without death and Adam and Eve's expulsion from it deprived them of those blessings. This is subverted in that it's falling out of God's favor, not the physical act of leaving the Garden, that made them lose their eternal life and experience physical death.
228* ImplausibleDeniability: Cain is enough of a moron to think he can murder his brother and then lie about it to an omniscient and omnipotent God.
229* ImposterForgotOneDetail: Jacob disguises himself as Esau by wearing Esau's clothes and having furry goatskins on the back of his hands and the back of his neck so that he could get the firstborn blessing from his father Isaac when he was near death. Because Isaac was blind at that point, the impersonation works except for one detail that Isaac noticed (although strangely it doesn't stop Isaac from going ahead with the blessing): Jacob didn't bother to disguise his voice, so Isaac recognized his voice as that of Jacob.
230* ImprobableFoodBudget: With Joseph being promoted to governor of Egypt after correctly interpreting the Pharoah's two dreams about seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine, Egypt produces so much food during the first seven years that they are able to help the surrounding nations survive the second seven years.
231* ImprovisedClothes: The fig leaves Adam and Eve make into loincloths when they eat the fruit and realize they're naked and feel ashamed for it.
232* IncestStandardsAreRelative:
233** Jacob married the sister of his then-alive wife. Subsequent Israelite standards, codefied in the Book of Leviticus, forbid a man from marrying his wife's sister until the death of his wife. The Book of Numbers says that Amram, father of Moses, married his father's sister, which is also forbidden under the Leviticus code (which was given over 83 years after Amram's marriage).
234** At one point Abraham goes to the land of Gerar. While there, he lies, claiming that Sarah is his sister. When the lie is discovered, he claims that he didn't really lie--Sarah was both his wife and his paternal half-sister. So apparently he expected the king of Gerar to find it acceptable for paternal half-siblings to marry.
235* INeverSaidItWasPoison: When questioned as to why he was hiding in the Garden, Adam responds that it was because he was ashamed of his nudity. God then responds, "Who told you that you were naked?! You have eaten, then, of the tree that I have commanded you not to eat from."
236* InnocentFanserviceGirl: Well, couple. Adam and Eve are naked when they're first created, but they have no concept of "naked," and are unashamed. It's only after they eat the fruit that they become aware of their nudity, and start to feel... well, naked.
237* InsistsOnPaying: In chapter 23, Abraham's wife Sarah dies, and Abraham talks to the people of Heth about giving him a place to bury his dead. The people of Heth insist on giving him the choicest of burial sites -- the cave of Machpelah -- for his wife without having to pay anything for it, since they consider him a prince among their people, but Abraham insists on purchasing the property. They finally settle on four hundred shekels of silver, which is what Abraham ended up paying, and it became the only site in the Promised Land permanently deeded to Abraham and his descendants, as Abraham, Isaac, Rebekah, Leah, and Jacob are eventually buried there as well.
238* IrrevocableOrder: When Isaac gave the firstborn blessing to Jacob disguised as Esau, and then later Esau comes for the blessing and finds out that it has already been given, Esau cries bitterly for the loss of the blessing that he believed was stolen from him, only to find that his father cannot revoke the blessing and instead gives Esau a lesser blessing (just how much worse it was is a question of translation - opinions differ as to whether Esau was also granted "the earth's richness and the dew of heaven," or explicitly denied it), embittering Esau's heart to seek revenge against his brother.
239* ItIsBeyondSaving:
240** The world at the time of Noah. God saw that mankind was so corrupt at that point that He was going to wipe out everything that breathes on earth, until He found Noah who was "blameless in his generations" and has him and his family build an ark in which they would be saved along with the creatures of the earth.
241** Sodom and Gomorrah in the eyes of God. Abraham tries to bargain with God and see if he can't save the cities if there is at least ten righteous people living in them. God agrees to the bargain, but as He finds out through His angelic visitors, there were only less than ten righteous people (Lot and his immediate family) in Sodom, and thus they were delivered before fire and brimstone rained down and destroyed the cities.
242* ItsTheOnlyWayToBeSure: God glasses Sodom and Gomorrah when He can't find even ten people in their entire population who are not absolute monsters.
243* JacobAndEsau: [[UrExample The prototypical example]] of this trope, at least in western culture, is probably Jacob and Esau from this very book. They are twins, but Esau, the elder brother, is favoured by his father, while Jacob is his mother's favourite. They are very different, too; Esau is [[ARealManIsAKiller a great hunter]] and sports a CarpetOfVirility, and Jacob is good at [[RealMenWearPink cooking and stuff like that, and not hairy at all]]. The latter two even [[WigDressAccent conspire successfully]] to cheat [[WildHair Esau]] out of his inheritance, even though it ends up fulfilling what God had said about the sons, that "the older [Esau] shall serve the younger [Jacob]". [[labelnote:*]]Esau's alienation does not last forever; the two brothers made peace years later. Furthermore, Esau's descendants are the Edomites, and Jacob's descendants are the Israelites (including the Jews). During the Secunda period of Judaea, the Edomites become part of the Jewish people and share their inheritance again.[[/labelnote]]
244* JaywalkingWillRuinYourLife: The first two people decide to have a bit of the wrong fruit, resulting in [[spoiler: the fall of man and eternal punishment]].
245* {{Jerkass}}: Adam and Eve must've been this. They hypocritically cried when God scolded them - but it was already too late. The whole human race still and all is tainted with the curse of sin, and they've made their choice to go to hell since they listened to the Devil.
246* JewsLoveToArgue: Abraham, the mortal half of the Jewish covenant, [[TropeMaker makes the trope]] by haggling with God Himself in a bid to spare Sodom and Gomorrah for Lot's sake.
247* JourneyToTheSky: A unified, single-language civilization tries to build a tower in Shinar, the TowerOfBabel, in order to reach Heaven and meet God. God Himself does not approve of this, so He makes it so the builders end up speaking different languages to make communication impossible, thus rendering them unable to proceed with the tower's construction.
248* JumpedAtTheCall: When God told Abram to take himself and his family and all that he owned out of the land he was living in and go to the country where God was going to take him, Abram did just what the Lord had told him to do, though he also took his own nephew Lot with him. (In the extra-biblical accounts, Abram also destroyed his family idols before he left his homeland to move to the Promised Land.)
249* JustSoStory:
250** Creation, naturally. How did God do it? He just did.
251** The story of the Fall explains that, as a consequence, snakes lost their legs and have to crawl on their stomachs, men have to till the soil to produce food, women have troubles in childbirth and suffer under patriarchy, and corpses decompose back into the dust from which they're made.
252** The explanation given by the Tower of Babel story for all the world's different languages and dialects: God disrupted their communication [[LostInTranslation so they wouldn't understand each other]].
253** The Flood gives the origin of [[RainbowMotif rainbows]] as a sign of God's promise not to drown the earth again.
254* KarmaHoudini: Even if God spoke severely to Lucifer for lying to the human race in Eden, he really got a slap on the wrist. God could've destroyed him immediately but did otherwise. Luckily, Lucifer's KarmaHoudiniWarranty expires in ''Revelation''.
255* KarmicRape: Lot's daughters taking advantage of him while drunk is implied to be divine retribution for Lot selling the daughters out so he could protect his guests.
256* KeepTheReward: In chapter 14, when Abraham and his men and allies rescue the people of Sodom, including his nephew Lot, from the evil kings that held them captive, the king of Sodom offers to reward Abraham by letting him keep the goods that he had recovered. Abraham refuses to take even a single thread or sandal strap for the sake of not giving somebody the reputation of making Abraham rich, and instead lets his allies have their share of the reward.
257* KickedOutOfHeaven: PlayedWith in the sense that the characters didn't die beforehand, but Adam and Eve, the first two human beings, were exiled from the Garden of Eden (which is practically Heaven) for going against God's word of not eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
258* KneelBeforeFrodo: Joseph's brothers bow down before him four times. The first three times, they do not realize that he's Joseph. The fourth and final time, they bow before him fully aware of his identity and in reverence. Technically, only the fourth exemplifies the trope.
259* KnightTemplarBigBrother: Dinah's brothers (Simeon and Levi, anyway) avenge their sister by [[ILied going back on their word]] -- they kill the man who violated her '''and''' wipe out his clan [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown while the clan is down]] and [[CircumcisionAngst not feeling that well...]]!
260* LaserGuidedKarma:
261** God often will kill evil-doers after they continue in their vile habit for some time, like in the case of Onan. Onan is tasked with continuing his deceased brother's family by "knowing" his wife. However, "knowing the offspring would not be his," Onan had intercourse with his brother's wife but "wasted his seed on the ground" each time in spite of his due to his brother's widow. This offended God and he took Onan's life, though it doesn't say how.
262** Although Jacob was favored by God over his brother Esau, the former being tricked by his father-in-law Laban into long years of service and marrying Leah is often seen as retribution for Jacob tricking his father and brother out of the latter's birthright and blessing. Not that it stops Jacob from getting even with his uncle by slowly causing his uncle's flock to become his by having his uncle's flock mate in front of some peeled tree branches so that they become striped or speckled, which is what Jacob asked for his wages from his uncle.
263** After fleeing the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot's daughters, fearing there are no other men left in the world to reproduce with, get Lot drunk and rape him. This is often seen as retribution for Lot having tried to appease the men of Sodom, who'd demanded he hand over his two male guests (angels in human guise) so they could rape them, by offering them his daughters instead.
264* LastMinuteBabyNaming: Jacob's sons are all given {{Meaningful Name}}s, surrounding the circumstances of their birth, and TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry that their mothers were engaged in. The women were expecting to have a son that would be the promised "seed of the woman" God had spoken of to the first man and woman that would "bruise the head" of the serpent (later identified as Satan), which is why when Jacob's daughter Dinah was born, there wasn't given any sort of speech regarding her name.
265* LawOfInverseFertility: Sarah is infertile for most of her adult life, while her maidservant gets pregnant by sleeping with Abraham ''once''. Rebekah ''does'' eventually conceive, but not without divine intervention... and it almost kills her. [[HollywoodHomely Leah]] pumps out six sons and a daughter, while her sister [[TheBeautifulElite Rachel]] struggles to conceive, only [[DeathByChildbirth to be killed]] by the second time.
266* LongLived: Everyone before TheGreatFlood, and a few soon thereafter. Adam lived to 930; Methuselah lived to 969. Post-flood, Shem lived to 602.
267* LoveFatherLoveSon:
268** Jacob's concubine Bilhah cheats on him with his son Reuben. This earns the latter to be cursed by his father on his deathbed.
269** Inverted with Tamar who winds up with Judah after having married his two sons.
270* MalignedMixedMarriage: Esau's marriages to the Canaanite women, which became such a source of grief to both Isaac and Rebekah that they had to tell Jacob to go to his uncle Laban in Paddan-Aram to get himself a wife from there. Esau realized that his wives weren't pleasing to his parents and tried to fix the problem by marrying a woman from Ishmael's family line.
271* MandatoryMotherhood:
272** In the case of Onan, the brother of Judah's first dead son Er and brother-in-law to Tamar, it's Mandatory Fatherhood. Onan provoked God into striking him dead by refusing to have a child with Tamar, his dead brother's wife, as per the laws of levirate marriage (in short, he was required to marry his brother's wife, and their first son would be his brother's to continue his brother's family line). He vowed that he ''would'' (thus avoiding public shaming and being cast out of his family) and then performed ''coitus interruptus'' to prevent it (i.e. probably in the course of having sex with her regularly nonetheless), so he [[AssholeVictim kinda had it]] [[IncrediblyLamePun coming]].
273** The reason Sarah, Rachel, and Leah give [[ChosenConceptionPartner concubines]] to their husbands as a means to have children when they get slammed by the LawOfInverseFertility: this was, in fact, commanded under the Code of Hammurabi, which was the law of the land at that point. (Marriage back then was seen as a way to strengthen sociopolitical alliances, increase socioeconomic status, and [[HeirClubForMen carry on one's lineage]]; [[MarryForLove love and companionship]] came later.)
274* ManlyTears: Joseph is mentioned to be crying at several points during the XanatosGambit involving his brothers. When he reveals his identity to them, he cries so hard that the guards outside can hear him and report the incident to the Pharaoh. However, the narrative does not portray these events as any kind of weakness on his part.
275* MarryThemAll: Jacob works for Laban seven years to marry his beloved Rachel. When the ceremony rolls around, he finds he's married to Leah (her older sister) instead. Laban's solution: you get the other girl next week too, but then you have to work another seven years in retroactive payment. Not only that, but both women bring their handmaids into it as well: Rachel because she's barren (for a while), and Leah because, well, she's [[TheUnfavorite the less favored wife]] and has to keep up. So Jacob winds up having ''four'' wives and a total of thirteen children.
276* MateOrDie: Rachel, being jealous of her sister Leah giving their husband Jacob four sons, cries out to Jacob, "Give me children [literally ''sons''] or I will die." This starts the whole situation of Rachel and Leah both giving Jacob their handmaids for him to have children with through surrogacy. Still not satisfied, Rachel tries to use mandrakes to get herself pregnant by Jacob. It is only when God decides to give Rachel conception that she finally gives birth to her first child Joseph.
277* MeaningfulEcho: The phrase "Am I in the place of God?" is first uttered by Jacob out of frustration, when Rachel says she must have a child by him or she will die. One generation later, their son, Joseph, uses almost exactly the same phrase but under happier circumstances, while reassuring his brothers that he has forgiven them and that they have nothing to fear from him.
278* MeaningfulRename:
279** Abram and Sarai are renamed Abraham and Sarah by divine advice.
280** Jacob becomes Israel after wrestling with an angel.
281** After interpreting Pharaoh's dreams and becoming second-in-command of Egypt, Joseph is renamed Zaphenapt-Paneah (The God speaks and He lives).
282* MenActWomenAre: The men are described in terms of their attributes. The women are typically described in terms of beauty.
283* MisplacedRetribution: After Ham laughs at the sight of his father Noah naked. When the latter wakes up, he curses Ham's son Canaan.
284* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Judah in Chapter 38 has this kind of moment when, after hearing about his daughter-in-law Tamar being pregnant by prostitution and ordering for her to be burned, he realizes that ''he was the actual father'' of the children she conceived, and thus spares her in order to give birth.
285* MysticalPregnancy: The recurring theme of infertile women becoming pregnant against the odds, which is attributed to divine intervention. Special mention goes to Sarah, who was ''way'' past menopause (in her 90's) when Isaac was born.
286* NephariousPharaoh: A pharaoh is furious at Abraham (then known as Abram) for lying about the relationship between him and Sarah (then known as Sarai) as the patriarch had presented her as his sister when she was in fact his wife, fearing that if the truth was known he'd be murdered and an Egyptian would marry his widow. Apparently hosting them and showering them with gifts under this misconception was enough for YHWH to send a plague to Egypt, so he orders his men to deport the couple.
287* {{Nephilim}}: The first of the Bible's two mentions of them, born of mortal women (the "daughters of man") and the "sons of God." (However, see above for alternate interpretations.)
288* NeverMyFault:
289** Adam and Eve. God confronts Adam and Eve with the eating from the Tree Of Knowledge. Adam blames Eve (and God for creating her in the first place), and Eve blames the serpent.
290** Abraham and Sarah. When Hagar gets pregnant with Ishmael and ends up despising her mistress, Sarah blames Abraham for getting her handmaid pregnant in the first place, and Abraham in turn blames Sarah for giving him the handmaid to father a son through.
291** Rebekah instructs Jacob on how to deceive her husband/his father to take the blessing, and when he has qualms about the possible consequences she assures him she'll take them all on her own head. After the plan is successful and she's sending off Jacob to escape the consequences, she pushes all responsibility for the act onto him.
292* NoDoubtTheYearsHaveChangedMe: Joseph's brothers are unable to recognize him after twenty years of separation. It's not surprising, considering that they last saw him as the AnnoyingYoungerSibling whom they [[MadeASlave sold to slavery]], and now he's the [[TheGoodChancellor Vizier of Egypt]] and Pharaoh's NumberTwo.
293* NoEndorHolocaust: The Noah's Ark story would have been ''far'' more horrifying than is generally told to children, or even described in the book. Everyday people, including children and elderly, plus the "extra" animals dying in the GreatFlood. And all because they were allegedly "not good enough."
294* NoMrBondIExpectYouToDine: Joseph subjects his brothers to something rather like this. Joseph is a good guy who intends his brothers no harm, but the brothers, who had previously sold him into slavery, think this is what happened when they realize who he was. It's also extended in time, with the brothers dining and staying with Joseph twice before he tells them who he is.
295* NoodleIncident:
296** God slays Er for being "displeasing to the LORD", though the book gives no explanation for how he was displeasing or why he decided to be a bad guy in the first place.
297** The Pharaoh's chief butler (who tasted the wine to make sure it wasn't poisoned) and the baker are put into prison. We're never told what crimes they committed to be sent there in the first place.
298* OffWithHisHead: In Chapter 40, when the cupbearer and the baker tell their dreams to Joseph in the hopes of understanding the interpretation of the dreams, Joseph tells the baker that his dream of him having three baskets on his head with birds eating baked goods from the topmost basket that the baker is going to have his head "lifted off" from him and that his body will be put on a pole for the birds to eat within three days. And on the third day, when the cupbearer and the baker were released from prison, the baker's dream came true, as the Pharaoh ordered the baker's head to be cut off and his body to be put on a pole for the birds to eat.
299* OhCrap: Isaac's reaction once the real Esau returns and he figures out he gave his blessing to an impostor.
300-->''Isaac trembled violently and said, "Who was it, then, that hunted game and brought it to me?"''
301* OhMyGods: The Angel of the Lord says this in Genesis 22:16-18:
302-->''"By Myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you and I will indeed multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens and as the sand that is on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the gate of their enemies. Through your offspring all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice."''
303* TheOmnipotent: In Genesis chapter 18, when the angels of God declare in Abraham and Sarah's presence that Sarah is going to have a child, and she laughs at the idea, realizing she's an old woman past menopause and her husband is also old, God rebukes her disbelief by saying, "Is anything too difficult for the Lord?"
304* OneNightStandPregnancy: Tamar had one with her father-in-law Judah by disguising herself as a prostitute in order to have a child from him when Judah wouldn't give his surviving son Shelah to her as a husband. Tamar had Judah give over some signature items as collateral for payment of her services, and would later use them to prove that Judah was the father of her children when Judah heard that Tamar was pregnant through prostitution and demanded that she would be brought to be burned to death.
305* OneSteveLimit:
306** Obviously averted in regards to the Pharaohs, since theirs is a title. Might also apply to Abimelech, king of the Philistines; there are two mentions of an Abimelech that take place decades apart, and it's not clear whether these are the same person or Abimelech Sr. and Jr.
307** Cain's and Seth's descendants have very similar names (like Irad and Jared, Methushael and Methuselah). Notably there are Enoch son of Cain and Enoch son of Jared as well as Lamech son of Methushael and Lamech son of Methuselah.
308* OppositeSexClone: God took Adam's rib (or "a piece of his side") and created Eve from it. Adam said when God brought her forth to him that she is now "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh."
309* OurAncestorsAreSuperheroes: The first humans are depicted as living for anywhere from 300 to 900 years, even the ones who were born after the exile from Paradise. There is implication that humans were originally created immortal with natural abilities that would now be considered superhuman, but greatly diminished after the Fall and have been further declining over time, healthcare and technology notwithstanding.
310* OurGiantsAreBigger: Nephilim were generally translated as "giants" in older translations of the book, including the Latin Vulgate and the King James Bible. This was a common explanation for some of the larger people occasionally seen in civilizations at the time, but it also serves to show that even these men towering over ordinary men are only creations subject to the Creator.
311** Some people think the first Nephilim were other species of the human lineage, such as Neanderthals or "Meganthropus", despite the former being a bona fide human being and averaging only five and a half foot tall, and the latter has hardly anything known about it.
312* OutOfCharacterMoment: [[InUniverse A perceived one, anyway.]] When God reveals His plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, which would destroy the wicked and the righteous alike, Abraham claims such ruthlessness is very much unlike God. In the following discussion, God makes a deal that He will spare the cities if there are at least 10 believers there. It turns out in short matter Abraham's objection was pointless, since Lot is the only just person in those two cities.
313* PalsWithJesus:
314** Several characters are on speaking terms with God, but Enoch is probably one of the few who can claim to be a friend.
315--->''Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away''.
316** "These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in all his generations, and Noah walked with God." (Genesis 6:9)
317** Abraham and God get along pretty well too.
318* ParentalFavoritism: A recurring theme, one that sets the stage for much of the drama.
319** Cain murdered his brother Abel because God, the Father of creation, accepted the latter's offering and rejected the former's.
320** The conflict between Esau and Jacob stems from how Isaac favored Esau and planned to cheat Jacob of his inheritance (Jacob had at this point bought Esau's birthright, and though his methods were unscrupulous, the first-born right should now go to Jacob and not Esau), while Rebecca favoured Jacob and conspired to trick the visually impaired Isaac to give the blessing to Jacob-disguised-as-Esau.
321** Then there's Isaac, who was born to Abraham and Sarah very late, and after Sarah (in despair at a total lack of children) had told Abraham to have a child by her maid Hagar. Once Isaac was born, Ishmael did [[TheUnReveal something]] that upset Sarah, and she (with {{God}}'s backing) told Abraham to send Ishmael and Hagar away.
322** Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery because Jacob obviously treat him better than the rest of his sons.
323** Jacob also favors Benjamin to the point that he is willing to let another son (Simeon) rot in an Egyptian prison and let the rest of the clan starve to avoid having to part with Benjamin.
324* ParentalIncest:
325** Lot's daughters have sex with him in Genesis 19:30-38. If you're disgusted by old man Lot, know that ''they'' [[DudeShesLikeInAComa raped]] ''him'' when he was drunk and unconscious.
326** The youngest son of Noah, Ham, is cursed for having "seen his father's nakedness". Since some biblical commentators doubt he would have punished him so severely just for that, saying this must therefore have been a euphemism for molestation or even full sexual relations.
327* PerfectlyArrangedMarriage: Isaac and his wife Rebekah. Abraham sent his servant to the land of his brother in Mesopotamia to get a wife for his son Isaac, and the servants prays to God that the first woman who comes along to the well to offer both him and his camels a drink would be the one God has chosen to be Isaac's wife. As it turns out, Rebekah was the first woman who offers the servant and his camels a drink, and so after the servant spends a night in her family's house and talks with her brother Laban about what happened, Laban gives his sister Rebekah his blessings and has her sent to the land of Canaan where Abraham and Isaac were staying, and both Isaac and Rebekah were married upon her arrival.
328* PerpetualStorm: TheGreatFlood was caused in part by a storm which lasted for 40 days, followed by 150 days of flooding and 220 days of drying out.
329* PersonOfMassConstruction: {{God}} is an exaggerated example of this. He created light, the heavens, the stars, the lands, the animals, and humanity all in only ''six days''.
330* {{Polyamory}}: Several named characters are said to have more than one wife. It tends to cause problems.
331** Cain's descendant Lamech is the first recorded polygamy, having two wives -- Adah and Zillah.
332** Abraham was legally married to Sarah, but also had 2 named concubines, Hagar and Keturah. Sarah gets jealous of how Abraham's son Ishmael (child of Hagar) is being treated and Ishmael and his mother are eventually sent away. Keturah becomes Abraham's second wife after Sarah passes away.
333** Jacob got to have two wives (Leah and Rachel) and two concubines (Bilhah and Zilpah) as per custom with Laban's people. Rachel was his favourite, which led to TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry and Jacob [[ParentalFavouritism favouring her son Joseph over his half-brothers.]]
334** Esau is married to three Canaanite women: Adath, Basemath, and Oholibamah. His mother doesn't like them, mainly because they worship ''their'' gods and goddesses, instead of the Abrahamic {{God}}, and follow ''their'' traditions and customs instead of her and Isaac's.
335* PleaseSpareHimMyLiege: Because it is LostInTranslation, most people don't realize that ''God'' of all people does this at one point. When Abraham is about to sacrifice his son Isaac, God implores him to let him go and sacrifice a ram instead. In Hebrew, there are two ways to formulate a negative sentence: one of them is known as the Prohibitive, the other the Vetative. The former is used when a person talks down to somebody, i.e. is in a superior position. The latter is used when somebody tries to persuade a superior. With one sole other exception every other negative sentence of God in the Tanakh is formulated as a Prohibitive (for example, the Ten Commandments are formulated in a way that makes it very clear that anybody who violates them will suffer a FateWorseThanDeath), but when God asks (not orders, but ''asks'') Abraham to put down the dagger, it reads the same way as a soldier pleading with his commanding officer.
336* {{Plunder}}: When Simeon and Levi struck the city of Shechem with the sword and rescued their sister Dinah from Shechem, they plundered the city of all its goods before returning home. Jacob rebukes them for their actions, but Simeon and Levi said that their sister would not be treated like a prostitute.
337* PosthumousSibling:
338** Eve gives birth to Seth after the murder of Abel.
339** Judah begot twins Perez and Zerah after the death of his elder sons Er and Onan.
340* PregnancyDoesNotWorkThatWay: Jacob and Zerah are both born hand-first (partially in Zerah's case) rather than headfirst or even feet first, which is symbolic but not the incipient medical emergency that such an unusual birth position would actually be.
341* PriestKing: Salem in Canaan had priest-king Melchizedek, noted for giving food and blessing (specifically, [[CallForward bread and wine]]) to Abraham and Sarah. He is also noted for acknowledging the Abrahamic {{God}}, although it's not clear whether Melchizedek was a ''true'' monotheist or henotheist (treating {{God}} as the principal deity of a pantheon). Either way, Abraham saw no issue to tithing to Melchizedek, God doesn't show up to rebuke Abraham about this afterward, and the New Testament goes even further to claim that Melchizedek was (either literally or metaphorically) Jesus Christ.
342* PsychicDreamsForEveryone: In Joseph's story, Joseph, the Pharaoh, the pharaoh's baker and the pharaoh's chief butler all have [[DreamingOfThingsToCome prophetic dreams]]. God is stated to be sending those dreams, which is why Joseph (who is favored by God) is able to interpret them.
343* PungeonMaster: The patriarch Jacob is prophesying what will occur to his descendants, and says to his grandson Ephraim, "And now, I assign to you one portion more than to your brothers". That doesn't seem like a pun in English. But in Hebrew the word for portion is שְׁכֶם, or "Shechem," which just so happens to be the name of the largest city in the land Ephraim inherited in Canaan. To a Judean or Israelite from 3000 years ago that would be instant chuckles right there.
344* RagsToRoyalty: Joseph is MadeASlave, then imprisoned on a FalseRapeAccusation, then appointed second-in-command of Egypt by Pharaoh.
345* RefugeInTheWest: After revealing his true identity, Joseph invites his brothers to bring their father to Egypt to wait out the years of famine.
346* RapeAndRevenge:
347** Among the reasons God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, if the way Sodom's residents planned on treating Lot's guests is any indication.
348** The Canaanite prince Shechem violates Dinah, and her two brothers Levi and Simeon [[KnightTemplar slaughter every man in the prince's village]] for it. (Jacob does not approve.)
349* RashPromise:
350** When Esau returns from a hunt and is famished, he foolishly oaths away his birthright as the eldest son in exchange for his younger brother Jacob cooking him soup.
351** After Jacob's wife Rachel steals her father Laban's household idols, Laban catches up to them and demands them back. Not knowing who stole them, Jacob vows that whoever is the thief is will be put to death. Fortunately for he and Rachel, Laban doesn't find them.
352* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: When Joseph is put into prison, the warden sees that Joseph is a model prisoner, and makes him overseer of the other inmates.
353* ReducedToDust:
354** Just as God created Adam out of dust in Genesis 2, He foretells in Genesis 3 that Adam will be returned to dust due to his eating of the forbidden fruit. [[NightmareFuel The disintegration imagery here is a cruel foretelling of humanity's newfound mortality that will result in decomposition.]]
355** An old and odd variation in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot's wife is reduced to salt particles after seeing the divine destruction of the cities.
356* ReplacementGoldfish:
357** Seth who was born after Abel's death. Eventually all humans share him as an ancestor though Noah.
358** Benjamin becomes one for Jacob after Joseph's disappearance.
359* RevengeBeforeReason:
360** Cain was marked to prevent anyone from murdering him in revenge for his murder of Abel.
361** Jacob's sons Simeon and Levi used deception to incapacitate and then slaughter all the men of a local clan in order to avenge the rape of their younger sister. An irate Jacob points out that now their surviving neighbors will probably band together to wipe them out, and the whole family has to up stakes and flee to Bethel with only divine intervention preventing Jacob's fears from being realized. This ultimately costs Simeon and Levi their right to claim the first-born inheritance after Reuben forfeited it, and Jacob's greatest blessing goes to the fourth son Judah.
362* RightWayWrongWayPair: God responds to Abram's hospitality and faithful obedience by blessing him and Sarah with a baby, then destroys Sodom and Gomorrah because people there failed to behave in the same manner by [[DepravedHomosexual forcing sex upon the visitors]].
363* RuleOfThree:
364** God appears to Abram in the form of three men. It is unclear if all three are angels, if all three are some appearance of God, or if they are a mix of entities.
365** Noah has three sons, who are the ancestors of all people that live after the Flood.
366* SacredHospitality:
367** As far as Lot is concerned, the safety of his guests is more important to him than his own and that of ''his own daughters'' (fortunately for them, [[OurAngelsAreDifferent his guests]] intervened).
368** Abraham is shown displaying extraordinary hospitality towards three "strangers" who turn out to be God and two angels coming to promise Abraham a son and to discuss the issue of Sodom and Gomorrah.
369* SadisticChoice: One interpretation of Lot offering his two daughters to the mob to be raped is that he had to choose between honoring SacredHospitality or [[PapaWolf protecting his family]], and he went with the former.
370* SavedFromTheirOwnHonor: "The Binding of Isaac" is a story in which Abraham is tasked by {{God}} to prove his loyalty by sacrificing his son. Abraham is about to fully go through with it, but is stopped by God at the last moment. Thus, God is benevolent for sparing his loyal servant's son, and Abraham is faithful for being committed to going through with it. (The details of the story vary with telling or belief. Literature/TheBible states that the one sacrificed is Isaac, while in Literature/TheQuran, it's Ishmael)
371* SecretTestOfCharacter:
372** Abraham is told to sacrifice his son Isaac in order to prove his faith.
373** Joseph pulls one of these on his brothers with Benjamin, framing the latter for theft to see if the older brothers will abandon their father's [[ReplacementGoldfish current favorite]] or defend him.
374* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: Jacob is the Sensitive Guy who tends to sheep while Esau is the Manly Man who hunts for his food.
375* SexEqualsLove: When Adam realizes that Eve is "the flesh of my flesh," the narration notes that "the flesh of my flesh" is why it is good for a man to [[UnusualEuphemism "cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."]] The next sentence even comments on how the first people were unabashed in nakedness, showing that [[SexIsGood their sexual expression was wholly uncorrupted]]. Therefore, it is one of the very few times in the Bible that this trope is played straight.
376* SexlessMarriage: Implied to be the case with Abraham and Sarah after a long time of being unable to conceive children, when God's angels visit the couple in Chapter 18 and tell them that Sarah was going to have Abraham's child, and Sarah laughs, saying, "After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?"
377* SiblingRivalry: A running theme in the Genesis. It begins with CainAndAbel, continues through JacobAndEsau and ventures into the domain of TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry with Rachel and Leah. Joseph's relationship and his brothers headed down the same track, until Joseph broke with the trend and forgave his brothers, thereby reuniting the family.
378* SignatureItemClue:
379** Potiphar's wife gets hold of Joseph's cloak as he [[GivingThemTheStrip runs away from her]]. She later shows Potiphar the cloak to support her claim that he tried to rape her.
380** Joseph's brothers distress his coat to use as concrete evidence in their claim that wild animals have eaten him.
381** Tamar takes Judah's staff and cloak as tribute for payment while disguised as a shrine prostitute, so that she can later produce them as proof that he's the father of her baby.
382* SleepingWithTheBosssWife: Defied by Joseph when he is a slave of Potiphar's. Potiphar's wife tries to seduce him, but he resists. However, out of spite Potiphar's wife [[FalseRapeAccusation accuses him of having raped her]] and Joseph finds himself wrongfully imprisoned.
383* SnakesAreSinister: In the garden of Eden, a regular snake (later identified as {{Satan}}) strikes up a conversation with Eve with the intent of getting her to doubt what God had said about His command to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He gets her to say that God has told her and Adam not to eat from the tree ''or even touch it'' (the last part of which God never said) or else they will die. Then he gets her to believe that God Himself was lying about the tree, and that if she ate from the tree, her eyes will be opened and she will be like God, "knowing good and evil". When both Adam and Eve eat from the tree together, and are confronted by God over what they have done, and Eve says that the snake deceived her into eating from the tree, God cursed the snake with crawling on his belly and eating dust all the days of his life, and that there will be enmity between his offspring and that of the woman, that "the seed of the woman" shall crush his head while he shall "bruise His heel".
384* SoiledCityOnAHill:
385** In the world before TheGreatFlood in general, men boasted about being seventy-seven times worse than Cain himself and outside of Noah, every man desired only evil in his heart.
386** Sodom and Gomorrah is filled with brutal men bent on raping the city's newest visitors without any desire for compromise. Even Lot's family falls into evil despite not even being natives of the city, with his sons deriding their father, his wife disobeying God, and his daughters raping their own father.
387* StairwayToHeaven:
388** Jacob dreams of one (or a ladder; translators disagree) that angels were going up and down upon when he was fleeing to his uncle Laban in Paddan-Aram.
389** The Tower of Babel being built in Genesis chapter 11 was intended to be this.
390* StarScraper: The Tower of Babel was envisioned as being tall enough to reach heaven, but God put a stop to it.
391* SterilityPlague: God curses Abimelech and his people with sterility when Abimelech takes in Abraham's wife Sarah as part of his harem, although he was only told by Abraham was Sarah was ''his sister'' (which is technically true) rather than his wife. God prevents Abimelech from touching Sarah in any way that would violate the sanctity of her marriage with Abraham, then after Abimelech restores Sarah to Abraham and Abraham prays to God, the curse is lifted and Abimelech and his people are able to have children again.
392* TakenForGranite: Lot's wife is turned into a pillar of salt when she turned back to look at Sodom which was burning from a storm of fire and brimstone.
393* TeamRocketWins: Satan sniggered after Adam and Eve ate fruit from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. 65 books later, still and all, God finally turns the tables on the serpent.
394* TemptingFate: The civilization at [[TowerOfBabel Babel]] sought glory so they would not be scattered throughout the Earth, but for their vainglory, God cursed them with languages that forced their separations.
395-->..."Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." The LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the LORD said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do now will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confused their language there, so that they will not understand one another's speech."
396* ThenLetMeBeEvil: When Adam and Eve sinned, they lost their salvation. They had joined the Dark Side voluntarily by listening to Satan.
397* ThoughtCrime: In Chapter 6, the people of Noah's generation (excluding Noah and his family) were so wicked that even their thoughts and imaginations were focused on evil all the time, which is why God decided to destroy the world that existed at the time.
398* TheyCalledMeMad: Averted. Though virtually [[LostInImitation every adaptation]] has this as an interpolation, the text does ''not'' actually mention the townspeople mocking Noah for building a boat in the middle of a desert, nor have any specific scene where the Flood then sweeps said taunters away.
399* TopWife: Rachel was the wife Jacob loved above his first wife Leah, since he worked seven years for his right to marry her but was given Leah instead through a BedTrick and had to work for his uncle Laban for another seven years for Rachel. Unfortunately Rachel was left barren while Leah pumped out seven children for Jacob, which made her upset and thus resorted to giving her handmaid to Jacob to create a surrogate child through. It was only by the divine appointment of God that she was able to bear two children, Joseph and Benjamin.
400* TruthInTelevision: Many of the characters and events were found to have historical basis, such as Abraham's life. The first 11 chapters are harder to say, but many think they were at least inspired from real events, such as the Flood being one or more large regional floods, centering around the Middle East during the late Stone Age, and the Neolithic Revolution, where many people around the world began to farm and metallurgy and city building was being experimented during the later Pleistocene. There are oodles of interpretations however, depending on who you ask.
401** Interestingly, the fact that the first mentioned people (Adam and Eve) wear animal skins, and most of the early humans are mentioned to be nomads or pastoral, makes some people think this is referring to the Paleolithic, when most all people were nomads and worked with sticks and stones and wore animal skins.
402* TheUnchosenOne: Abraham's sons Ishmael and Midian, Isaac's son Esau, and each of Jacob's twelve ''other'' sons besides Joseph (along with Joseph's son Manasseh) did not get to be TheChosenOne of their families. They all did pretty well for themselves nonetheless, with each of Abraham and Isaac's children founding whole nations and Jacob's other children producing the tribes of Israel. The hero Gideon arose from Manasseh. Judah's tribe, in particular, went on to produce King David's dynasty and eventually none other than Jesus Christ; and the very term "Jews" in our language derives from his tribe's ultimate ascendancy over Israel.
403* TheUnderworld: All characters expect to "go down to Sheol" after death. The words "go ''down''" suggests that Sheol is conceived of as a somewhat depressing afterlife[[note]]Either that or simply "the grave", suggesting [[CessationOfExistence there's no afterlife]][[/note]] and there's no difference mentioned concerning the fate of righteous and wicked people. Only gradually does the Old Testament go on to suggest there's more sorting to follow.
404* TheUnfavorite:
405** Cain in comparison to his brother Abel, since Abel brought a sacrifice to God that pleased Him but Cain's offering wasn't pleasing.
406** Noah's grandson Canaan was the unfavorite, all because of what his father Ham did when he saw Noah lying in his tent naked from being drunk.
407** Jacob's first wife Leah, since she was given to him through a BedTrick by her father Laban, turned out to be this in comparison to his second wife Rachel, whom he loved more. To that regard, God gave Leah more children to bear than Rachel.
408** Jacob's other sons in comparison to Joseph, whom he lavished so much attention upon that it made them jealous.
409** Jacob's grandson Manasseh, who was the firstborn of Joseph, who was passed over in the firstborn blessing in favor of Joseph's other son Ephraim.
410* UnusualEuphemism:
411** Jacob calling Reuben "the beginning of my strength" was one for being his first biological son, the beginning of Jacob's procreative power as a man. (This is later mentioned in one of God's laws in the book of Deuteronomy.)
412** Abraham having his servant put his hand "under his thigh", as Jacob later had Joseph do in swearing an oath, is understood by certain Bible students to mean grabbing the genitals.
413* UnwantedSpouse: Jacob's first wife Leah, who was given to him through a BedTrick when his uncle Laban promised his daughter Rachel to Jacob but welshed on the deal and made an excuse that it wasn't the custom of his people of give away the younger daughter before the elder one. Despite this, Leah outlived Rachel and was given the honor of being buried in the cave of Machpelah alongside Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Rebekah.
414* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom:
415** Adam and Eve's decision to eat the fruit led to the damnation of all humanity.
416** Joseph's prophecies saved Egypt and the surrounding nations who traveled to Egypt to get food. But this also led the Israelites to settle in Egypt and generations later become enslaved.
417* {{Veganopia}}: Quite possibly the first several generations of man, from Adam to Noah, were vegetarians; animals were mostly raised for clothing and making sacrifices to God. It's after the Flood that God allows man to eat meat, although he must respectfully ''not'' eat meat with the blood still in it.
418* VillainousValor: In a particularly unsympathetic example of brazenness, the Sodomites, in contrast to the hospitable Abraham, who humbly begged God Himself for their lives, stubbornly refuse to change their ways even when blinded by one of God's messengers. They die trying to assault said messengers, as well as Lot and his family, even without their vision.
419* WalkingTheEarth: The fate of Cain, after he had murdered his brother Abel. He did eventually settle and have children and descendants, although they would all perish in The Great Flood.
420* WhateverHappenedToTheMouse: With all the stories going on at once, some of the characters tumble out of focus and fall through the cracks:
421** Genesis at one point traces Cain's family line down to Tubal-Cain, and then casually mentions he also had a sister named Naamah. Since daughters are usually only named in these genealogies when they've got some significant part in these stories, this suggests she was one of the women taken on the Ark with Noah and his sons. His wife, perhaps, or one of his daughters-in-law? Genesis says nothing more about her.
422** Some time after their escape from Sodom and Gomorrah's destruction, Lot and his daughters left Zoar "because he was afraid" of something, possibly his wife being turned into a pillar of salt when she turns back to Sodom and is consumed by the fire and brimstone. What became of the people in that town, and why didn't the daughters seek for husbands among them? We're not told.
423** No further mention is made of what became of Lot after his daughters make him drink wine and they lie with him to impregnate themselves while he's unconscious and unaware of their incestuous act, and they become the mothers of Moab and Ben-Ammi, ancestors of the Moabites and Ammonites.
424** After her ugly experience at Shechem, we hear nothing more about what became of Dinah.
425** Speaking of Shechem, Simeon and Levi put all the ''men'' to the sword there, but not the women and children; the account merely states they "carried them off" along with any valuables they could find. Did they enslave ''all'' of this bunch? (If so, how did they keep them in line and avoid their being an encumbrance to their flight from the area?) Did they release them somewhere along the way to speed up their journey? We simply don't know, and aren't told.
426** What became of Potiphar and his wife after Joseph got out of prison and promoted to Pharaoh's second-in-command? (Potiphar was an important official in Pharaoh's court, so Joseph would likely have met him there again at some point.) Yet again, we're not told.
427* WhatTheHellHero:
428** God flew off the handle when Cain murdered Abel.
429** The Pharaoh is shocked at Abram when he learns that the woman he's taken to his harem is actually Abram's wife and not just his sister, as he'd claimed.
430** Abimelech to Isaac, when the latter tries to play the same trick on the Philistines in relation to his wife Rebecca.
431** Esau to Jacob (although not face-to-face), for deceitfully taking the blessing their father had meant for Esau.
432** Jacob to a 17-year-old Joseph, for going around telling everyone about his dream that his brothers and parents will all bow down before him.
433** Jacob to his other sons when they slaughter a whole city-state to avenge the rape of their little sister, because he's worried that other tribes and nations around them will begin a CycleOfRevenge. Near the end, he also curses their "cruel wrath" further while dispensing his final words of wisdom about their heritage from his deathbed. The descendants of Levi and Shimeon, the two brothers who executed said revenge, are the only two tribes which didn´t earn a separate patch of land when they finally entered Canaan after the Exodus. The Levites were ordained priests and temple servants, while the tribe of Shimeon was assigned to military duties.
434* WhatYouAreInTheDark: In Chapter 39, when Potiphar's wife tries to seduce Joseph into having sex with her, to the effect of saying that nobody will know about it, Joseph refuses on the grounds that, as the head servant of Potiphar's household, nothing has been withheld from him except for Potiphar's wife, and that he cannot go against his master's wishes and thus sin against God, acknowledging that there is One greater than himself who knows what will happen or what has happened.
435* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: Nobody can agree on where the Garden of Eden is supposed to have been located except "somewhere in the Middle East"[[note]]other than Mormons, who believe it was located in Jackson County, Missouri.[[/note]], as two of the rivers named as its borders have no modern equivalent (and the other two are rather generic names). Some theologians think that wherever it was (Israel is among the candidates), it can no longer be accessed by human means.
436** If archaeology helps, the first people (Homo erectus) came from either East Africa or around Georgia, a country in the Middle East. Homo sapiens/neanderthalensis also originated in Eastern Africa, with the branch that would lead to modern humans staying in Africa while the branch that would lead to neanderthals migrating into Europe.
437** As crazy as this may sound to some, Eden ''may'' have been a (semi-)real place. A site called "Gobekli Tepe" was unearthed in what is today Turkey (very close to the border it shares with modern-day Syria). The site features stone henges that predate Stonehenge (and similar structures), and, indeed, farming. The henges feature carvings of animals, which may represent which clan each one (and its associated sitting place) was associated with, or totemic animals. Gobekli Tepe was a site where groups of people gathered to celebrate... something, or to remember their ancestors, as evidenced by wild animal bones (that showed signs of butchering and cooking), and containers that seem to have been used for the production of beer. Now, what does all this have to do with Eden? Well, besides the clan sigils or totemic animals on the henges, it's located in about the right spot. (Right between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, with some tributaries.) Additionally, the story (being a JustSoStory) may reflect the hardship of transitioning from a ''relatively'' easy hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a farming lifestyle (to produce enough food and drink for a growing population) with all of ''its'' challenges. (Living in closer quarters, the uncertainty of the rains, more wear and tear on the body, social stratification, etc.)
438* WretchedHive: Sodom and Gomorrah are so terrible that Lot struggles to find another single righteous man ''even among his own family'' in it, and the people of the towns immediately try to rape two angels that visit the cities. For all of their wickedness, God destroys them both along with the rest of the other unnamed "cities of the plain" other than a tiny out-of-the-way place called Zoar.
439* WhoWantsToLiveForever: Adam and Eve are banished from Eden, in part, so that they won't be able to eat from the Tree of Life, causing them to live forever with the curses they received for eating from the Tree of Knowledge.
440* WithholdingTheirName: After Jacob wrestles with the Angel of the Lord and is given a blessing and a MeaningfulRename to Israel, Jacob asks the Angel for His name, and the Angel refuses, saying “Why do you ask Me My name?”
441* WoundedGazelleGambit: Potiphar's wife uses the garment that Joseph left behind while [[GivingThemTheStrip giving her the strip]] as evidence that he tried to rape her.
442* XanatosGambit: Carried out by Joseph when he demands that the brothers give up Benjamin to be his slave and themselves return to Canaan safely. That way, he ensures that either he gets to keep Benjamin with him (if his brothers treat Benjamin like a dispensable family member, as they treated Joseph years ago), or his brothers show sufficient CharacterDevelopment by refusing to leave Benjamin in Egypt, in which case he reconciles with ''all'' of them and brings his clan over to Egypt. Fortunately for all future Israelites, the latter plan eventuates.
443* YouCantFightFate: Joseph's brothers make the dreams he has that he will rule over his brothers come true by their very efforts to put an end to them (along with him).
444* YouCantGoHomeAgain:
445** The Garden of Eden is forever closed for Adam and Eve and their descendants after they have been expelled from it.
446** Cain is cursed to [[WalkingTheEarth walk the earth]] forever after murdering his brother Abel.
447** Jacob never saw Rebekah again after stealing Esau's inheritance, since she died at some time while he was working for his uncle Laban in Syria. He does manage to return and see his father one last time before Isaac dies.
448* YoungestChildWins: A recurring theme, though Ishmael, Esau, and Joseph's older brothers all got nice inheritances too. Also, Midian and Benjamin were each born later, eventually respectively bumping Isaac and Joseph into the second-youngest place.
449** Before Esau and Jacob are even born, Rebekah prays for an explanation for her difficult pregnancy and is told that "two nations are in your womb [...] and the older will serve the younger." Her knowledge of this prophecy may explain why she champions her younger son to the point of deceiving her own husband.
450* YourDaysAreNumbered: After several generations of man and seeing that mankind has fallen into depraved sin, God decides that number of years man shall live on the earth will be 120 years at the most.

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