Since October, I’ve been organizing my thoughts on Genesis. At this point, I’ve read enough books on understanding Genesis that I thought a review series was in order.
In my first post back in October, I laid out some the issues related to reading and understanding Genesis well. This is a kind of re-up on that post, with an actual organized table of contents for moving forward.
After more thought, I actually think it is best to first do some ground clearing related to how we read Genesis, particularly 1-11. In particular, I think it is important to get a handle on how the early chapters of Genesis would have been interpreted in an ancient context.
This naturally leads to a discussion of interpretive method. It will not do to insist that the options are literal vs. figurative. Rather, the goal should be to interpret the text according to the intended sense. This is determined in large part by how one understands the genre of literature and what literary conventions in entails.
A good clue to how to proceed down that path is to listen to the wisdom of previous generations of interpreters. So, after thinking about reading Genesis in light of ancient literary conventions, one can then read it in light of less ancient interpreters and theologians.
I think at that point, one can have a clearer picture of what Genesis can and can’t be said to mean. The text doesn’t answer all the questions we might want it to. But, it might be answering questions we’re not even asking. A goal in reading Genesis well is to approach the text with the appropriate questions in mind. Doing that, one is in a better place to avoid reading into the text meanings that don’t belong.
Once a good reading of the text is in hand, I think scientific considerations can be brought to the table. While I think it is a wrong move to force the scientific data to fit an interpretation, it is equally wrong to force the text to fit the scientific data. But, after learning to read Genesis well on its own terms, I think one can think through how the available scientific data might relate to those early chapters of Genesis.
So, all that in mind, here’s the books I’m going to work through:
- Reading Genesis Well
- Scripture and Cosmology
- Ancient Near Eastern Thought and The Old Testament
- The Lost World of The Flood
- Reading Genesis 1-2
- Early Christian Readings of Genesis One
- Since the Beginning
- Old-Earth of Evolutionary Creation?
- Evolution? Scripture and Nature Say Yes!
- Mere Science and Christian Faith
- Can a Scientist Believe in Miracles
- Finding Ourselves After Darwin
- Evolution and The Fall
- Understanding Scientific Theories of Origins
- Theistic Evolution
Next week, I’d like to a mini review of a really great book I read toward the end of last year. It’s not on Genesis per se, and actually doesn’t touch on Genesis 1. But the overarching metaphor the authors use provides a way for me to lay out a general thesis on how I think you should read Genesis 1. I think it makes better sense of it as ancient literature, and doesn’t commit you to any particular scientific interpretation. From there, we can dig into the details, and hopefully by the summer have a better grasp on Genesis.