Ancient Hebrew Poetry

Reflections on the Audience of the Book of Genesis

    Tim Bulkeley of the 5 minute Bible and sans blogue is teaching a course on the book of Genesis. Tim is simultaneously blogging and podcasting on the subject. For example, he has podcasts on Genesis as an edited text, on humour in the book of Genesis, and the audience of the book of Genesis.

Select Commentaries and Monographs on the Book of Genesis

    Here is a select list of texts, translations, commentaries, monographs, and articles in the languages mentioned in the preceding post – Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, and German – with scholarship in English thrown in for good measure. The first six entries are fundamental. Start with them and go from there: the doors of many worlds will open to you.

Reading the book of Genesis for all it’s worth

    The best way to study a book of the Bible is to read it in a language that is not your mother tongue. It will make a familiar book strange and wonderful again. It will increase the chances that you read it with new eyes. The effect is reinforced by reading commentary thereto in the same language. In the case of the book of Genesis, an excellent path consists of working through it in Hebrew alongside commentary in Hebrew. Another path: think Genesis through in Greek with Greek commentary and French super-commentary. Another: read it in Latin side by side with Latin commentary.

The Book of Genesis: Background Reading

    Ronald Hendel’s running commentary on the book of Genesis in the HarperCollins Study Bible¹ is an excellent point of departure. So is the commentary by Jon D. Levenson in The Jewish Study Bible.²

The Book of Genesis: Summer Reading

    If you have a year of biblical Hebrew under your belt, one way of weaving a part of the Hebrew Bible into your cognitive flesh is to read through the book of Genesis in Hebrew until you understand every line of it on the fly without a dictionary or a grammar to help you.¹ The method I suggest is the following.

A Short Introduction to the Book of Genesis

The book of Genesis consists of a chain of narratives organized by the theme of generations such that all that is, cosmologically and historically, is traced back to protological agents and events. Vivid, terse dialogues fraught with world-making consequences pepper the narrative. The God who speaks sets events in motion, but his purposes are often thwarted and his commands contravened. The provision of a habitat is given, taken away, and re-promised (chaps. 1-3, 6-9, 12-50). The gift of continuation is repeatedly threatened but never withdrawn (chaps. 3, 4, 22-50).

Eschatology is not a Repeat of Protology

After deepening violence leads God to plan the near-annihilation of humankind, inclusive however of a plan of salvation embracing all of creation, such that God post-destruction “remembers” Noah and all the other creatures whose survival he ensured via the Ark (Gen 8:1), humankind’s original grant of dominion over fish, fowl and beast is confirmed. The blessing reported in Gen 1:28-30 is renewed:

The Primary History

“In a thousand words or less, describe the contents of the Hebrew Bible.” A great question. There are many ways of answering it. In this attempt to answer the question, my point of departure will be the “Primary History,” a narrative continuum that runs from Gen 1 to 2 Kings 25.