Genesis (means beginning):

At first, God (also called Yahweh or Jehovah) said, "Let there be light" (Genesis1:3). Then... the heavens and earth -- all taking six days. God rested on the seventh day and declared it holy, giving rise to the observance of a holy day. God created the first man (Adam) and then the first woman (Eve) from one of the ribs of the man.

First Sin Story (Genesis 2,3): God provided the Garden of Eden, telling Adam and Eve not to eat fruit from the Tree of Conscience, since it provided awareness of right and wrong, good and bad, and caused eventual death. A snake convinced Eve to eat the fruit. This act condemned mankind to die and womankind to have painful childbirth, because God's instructions were not followed.

Lineage of Adam and Eve:
Cain was their first child, followed by Abel. Cain was jealous of Abel and eventually killed him. Adam died at 930 years old. The oldest man was Methuselah, living to 969.

Noah:
A large population occurred and humans had become wicked, so God told Noah that He was to destroy the life but that Noah (the truly righteous person of the time) would be saved, along with his family and a pair of each kind of bird and animal and reptile. Noah built a boat according to God's instruction ([Genesis 6:15] 450 ft. long, 75 ft. wide, 45 ft. high). Noah, at 600 years old, boarded the boat, and it rained for forty days and forty nights. After 150 days, the boat rested upon the mountains of Ararat. After almost six months more, Noah left the boat to restore the people and animals of the earth. Noah had three sons (Shem, Ham, and Japheth): from these three sons of Noah came all the nations of the earth. God promised to never send another flood to destroy the earth.

Tower of Babel (Genesis 11):
A temple-tower was to be built, rising high to the skies, to demonstrate mankind's power. God gave people different languages to prevent this being built.

Abram/Abraham:
God promised Abram (75 years old at the time -- possibly around 1900 B.C.) that He would cause him to be "the father of many nations." When Abram was 99 years old, God changed his name to Abraham (meaning Father of Nations) and changed his wife's name from Sarai to Sarah (meaning Princess). God told Abraham that He would give all the land of Canaan to Abraham and his children, forever. As part of the contract with God , Abraham was to circumcise every male (cutting off the foreskin of the penis) [Genesis 17: 10-12] on the eighth day after birth. God then told Abraham that he (at 100 years old) would have a son with his wife, Sarah (90 years old), and she gave birth to Isaac (meaning "he laughs").

Sodom and Gomorrah (two cities that were wicked): God allowed Lot (a nephew of Abram) and his family to leave while God destroyed the cities. Lot's wife looked back at the cities, against instructions of God, and was turned into a "pillar of salt" (Genesis 19:26).

Abraham lived and prospered in the Philistine country. A well named Beersheba ("Well of the Oath") was one of many that he established.

Test of Abraham (Genesis 22): Abraham was asked by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and Abraham was willing to carry out God's wishes. God stopped him from killing Isaac, and Abraham sacrificed a ram to God.

Abraham and Sarah were both buried near Hebron in the land of Canaan: this burial place became a prime one for the oldest persons of Biblical history.

Isaac:
Isaac married Rebekah and had two twin sons -- Jacob and Esau . Esau was a very hairy person who liked the outdoors and hunting. Jacob was not hairy and liked to cook, not to hunt. Isaac favored Esau; Rebekah favored Jacob. Jacob traded food to Esau for his "birthright," and Jacob and Rebekah tricked Isaac into giving his blessing to Jacob instead of Esau (Genesis 27). Jacob wore furry material so that his near- blind father would "feel" him to be like hairy Esau.

Jacob left his father to go find a mate to not marry one of "the daughters of the Canaanites." He met Rachel and worked for her father for seven years to marry her. He was tricked into marrying her sister, Leah, first, and had to work an additional seven years to marry Rachel. Finally, he left his father-in-law, Laban, and went back to where his brother Esau lived, Edom. Jacob was given a friendly reception by his brother Esau. Jacob moved to Bethel, where God told him his name would be changed from Jacob (meaning "he grasps the heel") to Israel (meaning "he struggles with God")[Geneses 35:10]. Rachel, Jacob's wife, had two sons --Joseph and Benjamin. Jacob had twelve sons in all, leading to the twelve "tribes" of Israel.

Coat of Many Colors:
Joseph, 17, was given a "richly ornamented (i.e., bright-colored) robe" (Genesis 37:3) by his father, Jacob. His brothers were very jealous of him. They threw him into an empty well, then sold Joseph into slavery (going to Egypt). Joseph's brothers dipped his robe with goat's blood, convincing his father that he had died. In Egypt, Joseph became a great leader there by telling the fortunes of several men and eventually the Pharoah. Reading the Pharaoh's dream, he predicted seven years of harvest followed by seven years of famine. The Pharaoh made Joseph leader of the project to prepare for these fourteen years. Joseph later met his brothers when they needed to buy food in the seven years of famine. He tricked them at first, but later let them all come to Egypt and live in the land of Goshen in Egypt.