Chapter One: Humanity: The First Phase (Genesis 1-11) Chapter Two: In the beginning (Genesis 1:1-2:4a) Chapter Three: The Story of the Man, the Woman, and the Snake (Genesis 2:4b-3:24) Chapter Four: Cain and Abel: A Murder Mystery (Genesis 4:1-26) Chapter Five: Enoch and his times (Genesis 5:1-6:8) Chapter Six: The Cataclysm (Genesis 6:9-9:29) Chapter Seven: The New Humanity (Genesis 10:1-11:9) Chapter Eight: From Shem to Abraham, from Myth to History (Genesis 11:10-26) Epilogue: Towards a biblical theology of creation
A new commentary volume looking at the theological and literary motivations of Genesis 1-11.
Joseph Blenkinsopp is Emeritus Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA.
For Blenkinsopp, the central question of Genesis 1-11 is how evil
could have established itself so quickly and pervasively in a
creation that God declared good, and his reading of the text
addresses this issue in a way that will prove extremely helpful to
those who are called upon to answer that question, whether for
themselves or for other people. Highly recommended as an addition
to the serious biblical student's library.
*Regents Review*
Blenkinsopp has poured a career's worth of scholarship into nearly
200 pages, writing with erudition and insight into the key
difficulties- textual, hermeneutical, and theological-that
accompany Gen 1-11... Blenkinsopp has adeptly raised the profile of
creation in the biblical text and joins a vibrant and robust
conversation currently going on within scholarship that shows
creation is not a marginal idea but one of fundamental and
generative importance.
*Review of Biblical Literature*
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.*
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.*
This stimulating commentary, based on a lifetime's study and
reflection, makes a major contribution to unravelling the myriad
problems of interpretation in Genesis 1-11. The author's great
erudition ensures that scholars and students will learn much from
it, whilst its clear presentation makes it accessible to the lay
reader. This wide ranging volume is packed full of valuable
theological insights and makes impressive use of other biblical,
ancient Near Eastern, classical and later Jewish sources to
illumine the text.
*John Day, Professor of Old Testament Studies, Oxford
University*
Students and pastors will find in this book the holistic approach
they have been looking for.
*The Bible Today*
In his new commentary on Genesis 1–11, Joseph Blenkinsopp
elucidates the intricacies of interpretation of the seminal Genesis
texts in a stimulating way. The commentary is well-written and
addresses the major questions of biblical studies while also
opening the texts to newcomers … Blenkinsopp’s commentary is highly
recommended for its wide-ranging comparative thrust, for its
fruitful and important focus on the current form of Genesis 1–11
and what it communicates, and for the wealth of intertextual
connections that it presents and interprets in an instructive and
stimulating way.
*Journal of Semitic Studies*
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