I am not sure if we’ve mentioned this before but we are publishing a new discursive commentary on Genesis 1-11 written by Professor Joseph Blenkinsopp. His discussion stems from the conviction that, from a biblical point of view, creation cannot be restricted to a single event, nor to two versions of an event (as depicted in Genesis 1-3) but, rather, must take in the whole period of creation arranged in the sequence: creation - uncreation - recreation (as can be derived from Genesis 1-11).
This volume is not going to be available until the beginning of next year, but it is only few months away. I have been asking people to write reviews of this book and received amazing responses! Please, see below:
‘This is an unusual commentary, written by one of the leading biblical scholars of our time, but with the light touch and freshness of a novelist. In something of a tour de force he works meticulously through the text, dealing in exemplary fashion with all the traditional linguistic and historical critical questions raised by modern scholarship, but always keeping an eye on the story-line. Everywhere the meaning is illuminated, gaps in the narrative filled in and the reader’s curiosity addressed, by the use of literary parallels, culled, with enviable ease, not only from other parts of the Bible and the ancient near east, but also from rabbinic, patristic and mediaeval literature, and the works of Homer, Hesiod, Plato, Shakespeare, Donne, Cowper, Nietzsche, Karl Barth and many others. An enthralling Epilogue: Towards a biblical theology of creation traces the main themes of Genesis 1-11 through Deutero-Isaiah, Paul and the Gospels, and concludes, not as the Christian Bible does with a new heaven and a new earth, but with the mysterious “dark side of creation” and in particular a reference by Jesus to Noah’s flood “in terms which are prosaic, chilling and psychologically credible in the light of the many lesser catastrophes which have been the human lot since then” (Luke 17:26-7).’ - John F. A. Sawyer, University of Perugia, Italy.
‘Blenkinsopp brings his vast learning to the much studied chapters of Genesis 1-11. His particular interest and competence is to show the many ways in which these chapters are situated in a rich world of texts including antecedent Mesopotamian texts and belated Jewish and Christian texts. His focus, however, is on the question, “How did things go wrong?” He traces the way in which the narrative probes the deep reality of evil in God’s good creation. Blenkinsopp sets a bountiful table from which his readers will be able to continue the hard, urgent work of theological interpretation. We still live in a world where “things have gone wrong.” This book suggests the connections between “then” and “now.”’ - Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary, USA.
‘Blenkinsopp writes with great erudition and also with great lucidity. He is distilling the insights gained from a lifetime in scholarship. This book will be useful as a supplementary textbook in Old Testament courses.’ - John J. Collins, Holmes Professor of Old Testament, Yale Divinity School, USA.
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