Reading Genesis 1-2: An Evangelical Conversation

There has been something of a cottage industry in recent years with respect to the publishing of books addressing Genesis chapters one and two, and / or the historical Adam. Our current book stands somewhat apart from others of the genre, in that it presents five distinct interpretations from well-informed American evangelical Old Testament specialists, each of whom intentionally limits himself to explaining the biblical text in its immediate contexts (i. e. literary, historical, theological, geographical, sociological, political, linguistic and cultural). There are no appeals to external criteria, such as scientific opinion or evidence, for example. Consequently, the volume presents a solid example of a Christian hermeneutic being applied to a thorny biblical text in order to generate / arrive at a given theological position or positions. In our case each of the contributors commenced their interpretative journey from the same start point, but eventually arrived at completely different destinations! If nothing else, this inevitable outcome should caution well-meaning believers about the danger of assuming that the information a given biblical text presents, and how that information is subsequently interpreted by the reader, must necessarily be one-and-the-same. \\nThis is a good book, and will doubtless provide significant material for sustained personal reflection. Christians open to having their opinions challenged in the pursuit of truth will most benefit.

I write the follow review from a confessional reformed perspective. The book is based on a symposium that was held at a Christian college in America to discuss the creation accounts of Genesis. All contributors came from American evangelical instituitions many experts in their OT studies. The book is organised according to a multiple view format where each author contributes an essay and then all the other authors critique it, with a final response to the critiques by each author. Because all the authors are primarily biblical scholars they approach the subject of Genesis 1-2 from a literary, linguistic, theological perspective no detailed interaction with the natural sciences or the history of interpretation from past authors. In this way the interested will get a good insght into where the evangelical world is presently with this thowny subject. I recomend it to anyone prepared to be challenged for it will require the average reader to get into the weeds, which is not everyones cup of tea. I benefited from some good insights, but didn't rock my world!