ואלה תולדות: What does it mean?

As we have been learning in class, there can be more than one translation for the words ואלה תולדות in ספר בראשית. We said in class that it could be one of two things: a narrative, as in "ואלה תולדות שמים וארץ", when it talks about the beginning of mankind, or it could be a genealogical list, as in "ואלה תולדות שם", where we learn the genealogy from שם to אברהם. After looking at the different places where it is used in ספר בראשית, we began to see a pattern. We found that there is a concept of "נבחר ונדחה" (chosen and pushed aside). For everyone that does good and is chosen, there is a story about their life. For everyone that does bad and is "pushed aside", there is only a list of their descendants until the next chosen person, mentioning the bad person as briefly as possible. Below is an outline of what is written above, along with some other examples of "ואלה תולדות".

ואלה תולדות שמים וארץ

• Everyone on earth was chosen. They were all made בצלם א-לוקים and were given the command to פרו ורבו ומלאו את הארץ וכבשוה. There were religious and moral directives.
• Adam had קין, הבל, and הבל .שת was killed by קין, and קין was expelled from the land. That left שת whose descendants all became corrupt, except for נח.
• Assumed morality wasn't there.
  

אלה תולדות נח

• Recreation of the world- שבע מצוות בני נח created and a religious and moral system spelled out and articulated
• מגדל בבל- דור הפלגה- They don't recognize 'ה.
  

אלה תולדות אברהם

• אברהם and his children are chosen. We don't know if both children were chosen to begin with, but later on, ישמאל only gets a genealogy list. יצחק is the one who gets a story.

אלה תולדות יצחק

• Like in the story of אברהם, both of יצחק's sons may have been chosen to begin with, but in the end, only יעקב gets a story.
  

אלה תולדות יעקב

• The sons of יעקב must have known about the whole story about only one son being chosen in the past, which would be a logical explanation for why they threw יוסף in the pit and sold him. He was obviously the favorite son, and his brothers were scared that he would be the one to get a story told about him, and they would not. They might have thought that if they got rid of יוסף, they would have a better opportunity of getting their own story. Instead, all of them are chosen. there is no more נבחר ונדחה.
• ספר בראשית is the story from the beginning of time until the creation of the ב"ני. The בנ"י become the chosen people in the chosen land. This helps to explain why we got the Torah and became the chosen nation instead of anyone else. ספר בראשית= ספר התולדות.