Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither?: Three Views on the Bible's Earliest Chapters (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology) by James K. Hoffmeier & Gordon John Wenham & Kenton Sparks & Charles Halton

Author:James K. Hoffmeier & Gordon John Wenham & Kenton Sparks & Charles Halton [Hoffmeier, James K. & Wenham, Gordon John & Sparks, Kenton & Halton, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Christian Books & Bibles, Bible Study & Reference, Bible Study, Old Testament, Religion & Spirituality, Old Testament Study, TBible
Amazon: B00L0SPQAA
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2015-05-11T22:00:00+00:00

1. Claus Westermann, Genesis 1 – 11: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 47 – 56.

2. See John H. Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011); Daniel D. Lowery, Toward a Poetics of Genesis 1 – 11: Reading Genesis 4:17 – 22 in its Near Eastern Context (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013).

3. See Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1 – 15: Word Biblical Commentary (Waco: Word, 1987), xxv – xlv and Wenham, Exploring the Old Testament: A Guide to the Pentateuch (Downers Grove: IVP, 2003) for an introductory discussion.

4. For fuller discussions of scribal techniques and attitudes see Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 368 – 71; David M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart (New York: OUP, 2005) especially 26 – 33; Karel van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2007), esp. 11 – 68.

5. For fuller discussion see Robert R.Wilson, Genealogy and History in the Biblical World (New Haven: Yale UP, 1977).

6. Biblical citations are from ESV except where indicated.

7. Lowery, Towards a Poetics, 81.

8. The remark about the Philistines in 10:14 looks like an aside, not an intrinsic part of the genealogy. Further discussion in Wenham, Genesis 1 – 15, 213 – 4.

9. Excluding 36:9 which seems to duplicate 36:1.

10. Wenham, Genesis 1 – 15, 121 – 3 and Wenham, “The Priority of P,” Vetus Testamentum 49 (1999): 240 – 58.

11. Wenham, Genesis 1 – 15, 49 – 56.

12. Hermann Gunkel, Genesis (9th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977), xiv and Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (2nd ed.; London: SCM, 1972), 47, respectively.

13. Westermann, Genesis, 93. According to Westermann Genesis 1 is a festive overture to P, a putative source of the Pentateuch supposedly responsible for the genealogies among other texts.

14. On the nature of biblical monotheism see Michael S. Heiser, “Monotheism and the Language of Divine Plurality in the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Tyndale Bulletin 65 (2014): 85 – 100.

15. See John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis 1 (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009), 72 – 92.

16. The Chambers Dictionary (Edinburgh: Chambers, 2003).

17. Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (London: OUP, 1959).

18. That is, stories that were seen as myths in older cultures, but in Genesis expressed a different theology.

19. Different texts of the king list have different numbers of kings. One version is in James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts (2nd ed.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955): 265.

20. See Thorkild Jacobsen, “The Eridu Genesis,” Journal of Biblical Literature 100 (1981): 513 – 29, reprinted in Richard S. Hess and David T. Tsumura, I Studied Inscriptions from Before the Flood (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1994), 129 – 42.

21. Ibid., 141 = JBL, 528.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid., 140 = JBL, 528.

24. For fuller exposition of these views see Wenham, Genesis 1 – 15, 139 – 41.

25. John Day, From Creation to Babel: Studies in Genesis 1 – 11 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), 95.

26. On sacred prostitution in the ancient Near East see Richard S.