Daniel SabaBefore rereading the Bible at an older age, I hadn’t realized an important aspect to the structure of the Book of Genesis. The first eleven chapters of it concern all of humanity, and while the remainder of the Book may very well also, it’s immediate, primary concern is of a specific people- those descended from Abraham, then those descended from Isaac, and then those descended from Jacob/Israel.
It is of course, from the first eleven chapters that all of humanity is said to have been subject to the disobedience of the first human being. It is later said that all of humanity is made a promise by what God said to Noah as symbolized by a rainbow. Then, before the reader is introduced to Abraham, the reader is told the story of Babel.
While perhaps easy for Christian readers to miss, I believe the conclusion of this first section of Genesis reflects the Hebraic fundamental (as described by Mr. Nicholson) of pluralism. Christians have been guilty of not embracing pluralism even though (for reasons Mr. Nicholson suggests) it is also part of the Christian Map (by way of the Hebraic one and in accordance with the scripture unique to it). But I think the end of this first part of the Bible’s story tells us that whether or not humanity is destined for a single covenant (whether of Noah or of Christ), the plurality of all mankind was as the God of the Bible designed it, for this God of the Bible’s purposes. The Hebraic map, and also the correct Christian response to the world, embraces this pluralism.
