Adam's Calling 2.0

After God ordered the world from the primordial chaos, made it his temple, appointed humans as his representatives and priests, and declared all of it “good,” the book of Genesis is a steady descent back toward chaos. Humans reject their priestly vocation and are exiled from the garden-temple, and their evil spreads to corrupt the whole world. This trajectory away from God and Eden is symbolized in the first 11 chapters of Genesis by the repeated movement of people eastward. But a dramatic change happens in Genesis 12. For the first time in the story, someone moves west.