Genesis to Revelation

 Genesis to Revelation: Abraham's Promise - Finding Christ and Seeing God, Michael McPadden, 2023

This book starts with a spiritual jolt. "Everything you and I were ever taught about the story of the creation of man and the universe from the Bible is wrong." The author asserts that the present-day church has become irrelevant because it does not understand its own teachings. The blame for such a situation goes to the early translators of the Bible, especially those who created the English King James Version, about 500 years ago.

If they encountered a section of Scripture that conflicted with the church's worldview at that time, instead of questioning that worldview, they just changed the meanings of the words to fit that preconceived worldview.

In the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis, the names "Adam" and "Eve" are never mentioned. The man was created from the dust of the ground, but the woman is a product of the man's physical body. Why? The woman is called a "helper" for the man, not "mate" or "companion." The book says that the woman was never given the breath of life, and is never referred to as a living soul. She is part biology and part programming code.

This is an eye-opening book. The author took the time to go back to the Hebrew and Greek versions of the Bible to see what the original authors really meant. It is very dense reading, but very worthwhile reading.