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Literature: Book of Genesis
aka: Genesis

"In the beginning"...

The first book of The Bible. Literally everything begins here. From the story of how God created the world, the first peoples and finally the patriarchs of the Israelites.

Genesis contains the following tropes (note, so many of them are Trope Namers, there's no point in noting the fact!):

Adam and Eve Plot: God's instructions to the first people are: "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth".
Beauty Equals Goodness: Played straight with the matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel. Averted with the patriarchs, with the exception of Joseph, who is described as "attractive in form and figure".
Bed Trick: Jacob's wedding.
Cain and Abel: The Trope Maker.
Cassandra Truth: When Lot tells his family about God's plan to destroy their town, his soon-to-be sons-in-law laugh at him, thinking he's joking.
Catch Phrase: "What is this deed that you have done?" is commonly used to mean "What the Hell, Hero?" or "You Monster!".
Cliff Hanger: Will the Israelites permanently settle in Egypt or go back to their homeland? They went to the latter the hard way.
Circumcision Angst: It had to be a painful week the day the custom was commanded to Abraham.
- 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, making it incredibly easy to take revenge.
Curse Of Babel / Tower Of Babel
Cycle of Revenge: What the mark of Cain was supposed to stop.
Death by Childbirth: Rachel.
Disproportionate Retribution: Jacob thinks his sons' reaction to the rape of Dinah is this. See Circumcision Angst (above) and Rape and Revenge (below).
The End of the Beginning: 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 Sibling Rivalry. On the other hand, the Israelites are settled in a foreign land, which is not the promised land. See Cliff Hanger above. How long will this last?
Fatal Flaw
- Adam's ignorance.
- Eve's greed.
- Cain's anger.
- Abel's self-righteousness.
- Abraham & Sarah's need for a child.
- Rebekah's need to make God's prophecies come true.
- Esau's hunger.
- Jacob's deceit.
- Joseph's pride.
Forgiveness: a minor instance of this is when Jacob and Esau reconcile. Arguably the forgiveness story in the Genesis is that of Joseph and his brothers.
Foreshadowing:
- Noah cursed Canaan right after the flood.
- The fact that Esau and Jacob struggle with each other while still in their mother's womb is a sign of their Sibling Rivalry in the future and the conflict between the tribes descended of them.
- Joseph's dreams that his brothers and parents will bow down before him signals his future role as the saviour of the entire clan.
- The order in which Perez and Zerah are born.
- The blessings given by each patriarch to their sons/grandsons foreshadow the prominence that their respective tribes will gain.
Girl in a Box: Abraham placed Sarah in a box so the Egyptians wouldn't kill him to take her (because of her beauty).
Giving Them the Strip: 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) she has his clothes to prove it.
Guile Hero: This seems to be something of a family trait for Abraham and his descendants.
- Abraham tries to deceive the Egyptians about his relationship with Sarah, which leads to an Idiot Ball and a What the Hell, Hero? response from the Egyptians.
- Rebecca is the MasterMind behind securing the greater blessing for her favourite son, Jacob.
- Jacob thoroughly deserves his reputation as "The Deceiver" with respect to his treatment of Esau and Laban, the latter being a Manipulative Bastard himself.
- 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.
- Joseph, being the son of Jacob and Rachel, tops the list by successfully carrying out an elaborate Xanatos Gambit to reunite the family (see below), and also saves an entire nation from a famine in the process.
Half-Human Hybrid: Nephilim
Hero of Another Story: Ishmael becomes an important patriarch to Muslim people, just as his half-brother Isaac is to Jews and Christians.
- Also, whereas Genesis 37 - 50 focuses mainly on Joseph, Judah has his own story to tell. It's Judah's descendants who go on to become the most important.
Incest Is Relative: Lot and his daughters.
Just So Story: The creation story, naturally.
- Also, the explanation given by the Tower of Babel story for all the world's different languages and dialects: apparently, God didn't want visitors, so He disrupted their communication so they wouldn't understand one another.
Knight Templar Big Brother: Dinah's brothers avenge their sister by going back on their word and wiping out the entire clan of the man who raped her while they are not feeling that well....
Last Minute Baby Naming: Happens a lot, most memorably with Jacob's sons.
Law of Inverse Fertility: 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. Leah pumps out seven sons and a daughter, while her sister Rachel struggles to conceive.
Manly Tears: Joseph in particular is prone to this.
Matzo Fever: Potiphar's wife really likes their new slave. I mean, really likes him. She wants to schtup him.
Meaningful Echo: 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.
Meaningful Name: Every single one of them, starting with the Meaningful Rename of Abraham and Sarah (formerly Abram and Sarai).
No Doubt The Years Have Changed Me: Joseph's brothers are unable to recognise him after twenty years of separation. It's not surprising, considering that they last saw him as the Annoying Younger Sibling whom they sold to slavery, and now he's the Vizier of Egypt and Pharaoh's Number Two.
Our Giants Are Bigger: Nephilim
Pals With Jesus: Several characters are on speaking terms with God, but Enoch is probably the only one who can claim to be a friend.
Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
Parental Favoritism: A recurring theme, one that sets the stage for much of the drama.
Polyamory: Almost every man from Abraham's time and onwards, except for Isaac and Joseph.
Rape and Revenge: Jacob's daughter is raped by a Canaanite prince, and her brothers destroy every man in the prince's village for it. (Jacob was not impressed.)
Replacement Goldfish: Seth who was born after Abel's death. Eventually all humans were descended from him.
Rule of Three: God appears to Abram with two of his agents.
Sacred Hospitality: As far as Lot is concerned, the safety of his guests is more important to him than that of his own daughters.
Secret Test of Character: Abraham is told to sacrifice his son in order to prove his faith.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Joseph's dreams that he will rule over his brothers.
Sibling Rivalry: A running theme in the Genesis. It begins with Cain and Abel, continues through Jacob And Esau and even ventures into the domain of The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry 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.
Soiled City On A Hill: The world before The Great Flood and Sodom and Gomorrah.
Something Completely Different: The story of Judah's involvement with Tamar is told right in the middle of the Joseph narrative, which carries on afterwards as if nothing happened.
Supporting Harem: Jacob's family, with Rachel as the lead, and Leah and the two concubines as the supporters.
Taken for Granite: Lot's wife, with salt.
The Trickster: Abraham and all his descendants.
The Underworld: 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, and there's apparently no difference in the fate of good and bad people. The concept of "Sheol" changes over the course of the Old Testament to resemble the modern Christian concept of "Heaven" more closely.
Vice City: Sodom and Gomorrah.
What the Hell, Hero?:
- God to Eve, when he finds out she has eaten the Forbidden Fruit.
- Pharaoh to 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.
- Abimelech to Isaac, when the latter tries to play the same trick on the Philistines in relation to his wife Rebecca.
- Esau to Jacob (although not face-to-face), for deceitfully taking the blessing their father had meant for Esau.
- 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.
Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Potiphar's wife uses the garment that Joseph left behind while giving her the strip as evidence that he tried to rape her.
Xanatos Gambit: Joseph plays one when he demands that the brothers give up Benjamin to be his slave and themselves return to Canaan safely. That way, he ensure 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 a sufficient Character Arc by refusing to leave Benjamin in Egypt, in which case he reconciles with all of them and brings his entire clan over to Egypt. Luckily for the Israelites, the latter plan eventuates.
You Can't Go Home Again: Eden.
- Jacob never saw his parents again after stealing Esau's inheritance.
Youngest Child Wins: A recurring theme.