The most important ideas I took from Genesis 1 are that God created all things with order and intention, and that humanity was created as the pinnacle of his creation. Additionally, God’s love and compassion can be seen through him creating a world full of things that are “good”. Before creation, the earth is described as a “formless void”. God turned this nothingness into a beautiful, ordered place where everything has its own purpose, which shows a sense of caring and compassion towards all life on earth, including humans.
In Genesis 2-4, God is depicted as a firm but caring father figure towards humanity. His punishment for Adam and Eve deciding to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil were harsh. They did not only impact and Adam and Eve, the ones that made that decision, but all of humanity. Not only did he expel Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, but he also made childbirth painful and subjected man to a lifetime of hard labor. By doing this, God made it much more difficult and painful to live as a human. Although arguably this punishment was done in the best interest of Adam and Eve, it still seems harsh, and conflicts with the caring image of God as seen in Genesis 1.
Anna Janzen 
In your first paragraph, you mentioned that God “shows a sense of caring and compassion towards all life on earth”, which pops me the idea that I need to learn God’s love from not only the conceptual way, but understanding his behaviors, his contributions. Moreover, I also agree with your argument that God’s punishment “seems harsh”, since, as far as I concerned, it’s rather a small mistake.
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