Reading Genesis
A new tool explains how to study the Bible effectively
Read the full original review by Kent Harold Richards as it appeared in Biblical Archaeology Review , Sept/Oct 2011
Reading Genesis: Ten Methods
Edited by Ronald Hendel
New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010, 244 pp.
$85 (hardcover), $27.99 (paperback)
A recently published book of essays edited by Ronald Hendel puts forward, in the voices of ten different Biblical scholars, new and enlightening ways to read and understand some of the most well-known stories in the Book of Genesis. Reviewed by Kent Harold Richards, this latest compendium of Biblical scholarship furthers our understanding of Genesis Bible study and demonstrates through each essay how to study the Bible effectively. Richards warns, however, that this book is not for the beginner. While he credits Ronald Hendel with concisely but thoroughly providing proper context for the essays, Richards warns that Ronald Hendel’s new book is predicated upon an understanding of Genesis Bible study, including both basic knowledge of the text and familiarity with traditional critical approaches.
Reading Genesis: Ten Methods edited by Ronald Hendel provides new approaches to Genesis Bible study and is a new tool that explains how to study the Bible effectively.
Richards’s review of this new book by Ronald Hendel makes a strong case for continually striving for fresh and new perspectives in the approach to Genesis Bible study. Richards’s endorsement of Reading Genesis: Ten Methods edited by Ronald Hendel–and reflecting the scholarship of ten dynamic voices in the field–is a strong case for adding both the book and the critical methods it advocates to the practice of Genesis Bible study.
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[…] Reading Genesis – Biblical Archaeology Society […]
I have met one person in my entire 77 years that has the answers! Contact Rev. B.R. Hicks Speaks and writes Hebrew, and the most studied human being of the Bible of anyone I have ever heard of.
Resides in New Albany, Indiana 47150
Sons of god aré angels…and if you read with more attention about how different Noah’s son were….you can imagine that God created Adam with illimitable fiscal posibilieties in his descendants…then adaptation to envoirment influed as well…My English is not good enough…sorry.
I have a problem in reconciling the creation account as given in Genesis 1 with the realities of racial diversification. Traditionally, we have been taught that God created Adam and Eve and they were placed in the Garden of Eden. We are also taught that they are the original parents of all mankind. My problem arises, when we look at the different racial divisions of mankind.
I am suggesting, that if we just broad brush the issue of the origin of racial diversity in humanity, by saying we are all of the same stock, then we are effectively accepting the heresy of evolution with its hypothesis that all life mutates/adapts to its environment and will physically change to suit these adaptations. I have long rejected evolution as a viable basis for anything and have stuck to the creation account.
I am suggesting, therefore, that original pairs of humans were simultaneously created and that because of widespread disobedience to the laws of God, were dispersed out of Eden and settled in diverse places, eventually becoming synonymous with “development poles” scattered throughout the Middle East, Asia, Africa, India, etc.(Semitic, Negroid, Sinoid, et al.) I am especially intrigued by Genesis 6:2. Who are the “sons of God” referred to here and where did they originate from, to make this type of entry into the scriptures?
Will someone please clarify this for me, or recommend reading that can guide me in this respect?