What is an impossible task you may ask? To do justice in a brief review to Marilyn Robinson's book Reading Genesis. Time and time again she finds grace in the familiar stories of Genesis: in the response to Cain's killing Abel, God's covenant with Noah, Abraham's passing off his wife as his sister, in Judah's defrauding Esau, in Laban's trickery with Judah, in Joseph's response to his brothers in Egypt, etc.
Robinson brings her acute literary eye (she's a Pulitzer Prize winner) to the reading and sees what others simply read past. It's a slow read becasue there are profound insights on almost every page that bear pondering and reflection. In the passage dealing with Abram's passing off his wife as his sister, she writes "The moral appears to be that the fear of outsiders, which amounts to contempt for them, leads to unrighteous behavior, and also that God is attentive to them, too..." P. 84 It is an example of her insight. On P. 178 she writes "Providence can become visible in retrospect." How true! Writing about Genesis she says "I know of no other literature except certain late plays of Shakespeare that elevates grace as this book does." P. 228
This is a book that I wish I could have read in seminary. Were I in ministry today I'd preach a sermon series based on it, while encouraging the congregation to read the book simultaneously.
One questions lingers. Why would she use the King James version of Genesis, which is reproduced in its entirety, when much better translations are available?
Takk for alt,
Al
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