en. For the Judeo-Christian culture the initial episode of Genesis that records human behavior through the problem of God in human experience can be seen as fundamental to all biblical episodes. Now the biblical narratives show the reach of diversity and challenge to human judgment, as well as the myriad ways human behavior can prove just how wrong mankind can be (and just how far the consequences of being wrong can reach) when interpreting and acting on the contingencies of its condition.
The moral structures that inform human experience are established along three lines of thought in the Old Testament, according to Gochberg (544): that of tribal identity of the Hebrews as moral, monotheistic beings having a unique relationship to divinity identified with the creative principle; the prophetic line, which articulates the details of morality and immorality consistent with the Hebrew God-concept; and the tradition of what Gochberg calls "wisdom literature" (544), which treats of the problem of evil in a universe supposedly governed by the creative principle.
Gochberg cites the pattern of Genesis as a whole (including the narratives of the beginnings of history and the flood) recurs as "sin, divine judgment and punishment, and--because of the merits of one only, or of a few--divine mercy" (544). Seeing human identity in the world as fundamentally moral in character sets the stage for the emergence of the Hebrews as "the instrument of the divine [creative] purpose" (Gochberg 544), through their historical experience as well as their law and the prophets. Genesis and Exodus establish the uniqueness of Jewish identity and the universal authority of moral experience in a largely non-Jewish ancient world. Exodus articulates God's covenant with the Jews, conditioned on their keeping God's law and so being his "possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exod. 19:5...