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| Book cover for "Genesis for Normal People" |
I recently read Genesis for Normal People: A Guide to the Most Controversial, Misunderstood, and Abused Book of the Bible, by Peter Enns and Jared Byas. I really enjoyed this book. Here's my review of it.
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"Normal people"?
What does this mean, "Genesis for normal people"? The authors of this book, Enns and Byas, are biblical scholars, and the purpose of this book is to present a biblical-scholar view of Genesis to a "normal people" audience.
So, everything in this book is informed by what actual academic scholars know about where the bible came from. For example- Moses didn't write the Pentateuch- it was written much later, after the Israelites were in exile in Babylon. For example- comparing other creation stories, from the other nations nearby, with the creation story in Genesis. Same thing for the flood story- looking at the story of Noah's ark with an awareness that many ancient societies had flood stories.
There's something really fascinating to me about how the title "Genesis for Normal People" exposes the divide between academic research on the bible and what the average Christian believes about the bible. Typically, if you're a "normal person," and you go to buy a book about the bible, the selection available to you will be books written from an evangelical "biblical inerrancy" perspective. You don't really have access to actual grounded academic work about the bible.
And, actually, if you're a good evangelical and you do happen to come across academic scholarship on the bible which says things that good evangelicals are certainly not allowed to believe (Moses didn't write the Pentateuch, etc), you know that you're not supposed to read it. Evangelical leaders warn people that those arrogant scholars are going against God, that they refuse to believe the bible is true, they refuse to believe in miracles, and they're spreading their deceptive ideas in the academic articles they write. Don't listen to them! You'll be led astray!
So we don't have access to writing from actual knowledgeable biblical scholars- and if we did happen to stumble upon such information, we've been trained by the anti-intellectualism in evangelical culture that we must not listen to them and be "led astray."
Very interesting that some of these ideas about the actual reality of the bible are starting to escape from academic circles and become accessible to "normal people."
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The biblical writer's reasons for writing Genesis
"Genesis for Normal People" says that the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the bible, starting with Genesis) was put together some time around 539 BCE, when the Israelites were returning to their land after being in exile in Babylon. It wasn't *written* at that time- the stories had been passed around for a while- but this is when it got assembled into the Scriptures we know today.
As they were returning to their own land after being conquered by Babylon, the Israelites were thinking about their identity as a nation- who are we, where did we come from, how do we relate to God, is there hope that God is still with us and things will get better, etc. The Pentateuch was written to provide a narrative that addressed those questions.
"Genesis for Normal People" says over and over that we need to read Genesis "with ancient eyes." We have to think about it from the perspective of its original audience. We have to read it with an awareness of the reasons it was written, and what the writer was trying to say to the people back then.
So, in particular, don't go looking for arguments about evolution or the big bang. That's not what Genesis is about. It's not about how the world was actually made, or where people actually came from- it's about the mindset that the ancient Israelites had as they were trying to figure out their identity as a nation.
Read it with ancient eyes.
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This book is ONLY about what the writer of Genesis meant
The thing that's really surprising to me about this book is it's ONLY about what the writer of Genesis meant to say to the original audience. That's it.
Reading with "ancient eyes" means we don't get tripped up by things the bible says which we now know (thanks to science) are not true. Just put aside questions about what's true and what's not- we're not talking about that right now- we're only talking about what the writer wanted to say.
And indeed, "Genesis for Normal People" points out a few places where the bible says something that is contradictory or anachronistic. For example, Genesis 10 lists the nations which were descended from Noah's sons, and says these different nations had their own languages. But then Genesis 11 starts out with, "Now the whole world had one language and a common speech," and tells the story of the Tower of Babel and how God made the people speak different languages, to sabotage their work.
So, wait a minute, the various nations which were listed in Genesis 10 had their own languages, but suddenly in Genesis 11 there's only 1 language? What's going on?
Back when I was evangelical and believed the bible was inerrant, I would have immediately responded like this: Genesis 10 lists the different nations that would *eventually* come from the descendants of Noah's 3 sons. It lists them there because it's wrapping up the story of Noah's ark- but actually at this point in the story of Genesis, they didn't have different languages. Genesis 11 is not set *after* Genesis 10, it's sort of happening some time in the middle of Genesis 10. The different nations had different languages, as Genesis 10 says, because of what happened in Genesis 11.
As I've said in other blog posts, this evangelical habit of being extremely quick to explain away biblical contradictions means we're not actually reading the story that's right there in front of us. We're reading an imaginary version of the story where everything happens in the same universe, and little details from different parts of the bible are harmonized together to make it make sense.
This is like if you watched one of the Tom Holland Spiderman movies, and all through the movie you were understanding it as being in the same universe as the Toby Maguire Spiderman movies- that everything that happened in those movies is also true in this movie... and you end up with a really bizarre understanding of what happened. Because, you weren't really watching the movie that was right there in front of you.
Anyway, "Genesis for Normal People" says (p 64):
Chapters 10 and 11 give us two different explanations for why people are spread out around the world and speak different languages. ...
These two explanations of the disbursement of humans with their different languages were clearly not a problem for the writers and editors of the Old Testament. And we should not make it one-- insisting that they both need to say the same thing.
Reading the bible to see what the writers meant- not looking for something that makes sense as one connected and true story.
Another example- Genesis 26 refers to Philistines living in Gerar. But at the time when the story is set, the Philistines did NOT live there. Page 83 says,
The writer simply took for granted that the Philistines had always been there, which makes perfect sense for a culture that could not consult a library or do a Google search.
!!!!! So there's a mistake in the bible. There's a little minor detail that's just not true.
If you believe in biblical inerrancy, you have 2 options here:
- Claim that actually there were Philistines living in that place at that time, and the biblical scholars who say otherwise are godless heathens. Claim that you, a person who has spent 0 time studying ancient history, know this fact, it must be true because the bible says it is, while the scholars who spend their entire careers studying actual artifacts from the ancient world are wrong.
- Tweak the definition of "Philistine" or "inerrant" a tiny bit. Maybe when this verse says "Philistines" it didn't mean the group of people that we understand to be the Philistines, but meant some confusing different thing- and therefore in some sense it *is* correct to say the Philistines were living there at that time. Or maybe this is just 1 little word in the bible that was copied wrong, and that's okay, that doesn't really *count* as an error- the bible is still inerrant.
But anyway, "Genesis for Normal People" doesn't get into that. It's not about whether the stories are true or not. We're just looking at what the original writer meant.
Also, "Genesis for Normal People" doesn't get into the question "What lessons is this bible story teaching us, that we as modern Christians should apply to our lives?"
This is really interesting to me- because yes, evangelicals who believe in biblical inerrancy often *do* talk about the question "what did this mean to its original audience" and about reading the bible in the context of the ancient culture where it came from- but this is done as a way to better understand how the commands of the bible apply to our lives now.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone talking about what the biblical writers meant and then just leaving it at that. But that's what "Genesis for Normal People" does, and I think it's great.
For example, "Genesis for Normal People" compares the creation story from Genesis 1 with creation stories from other cultures at that time. What they have in common is they portray the world before creation as a dark and chaotic ocean, and the act of creation is about bringing order to the chaos. But a key difference is: Other cultures' creation stories had various gods fighting, but in the bible, it's just one God, who simply speaks and the world comes into being. So, the point that the writer of Genesis was making is, our God has power over the whole world. Our God created the world on purpose, the way he wanted it to be, unlike those other gods in the other stories who created the world accidentally through their fighting.
And I've heard this interpretation before- Rachel Held Evans talks about it in her book "Inspired"- but the point was always "the writer of Genesis was saying that God is powerful and organized, and so the lesson we should learn from this story is that God is powerful and organized." It was about learning what the bible meant to its original readers, because what the bible meant to them is what it really means, and that's what it means to us.
Really fascinating to just look at the bible in terms of "what did it mean to them back then" and just leave it at that. To not try to connect it to scientific facts we know about the world, to not treat it like it has to be a true story, to not look for moral lessons we can apply to our lives. And yes, I think Enns and Byas probably do have ideas about how the bible lends itself to those discussions, but they didn't talk about that at all in this book. The point of "Genesis for Normal People" is that the first step is understanding what the writer meant to say- and the book is only about that.
This is great. I love this.
I think even if you're trying to focus on "what the biblical writer meant", if you're coming at it from the mindset that everything in the bible is true and has something meaningful to say to us now, it affects your ability to see "what the biblical writer meant." Reading "with ancient eyes," as I understand it, means to completely put aside the idea that we read the bible to find truth and to find something meaningful to apply to our lives.
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Characters "telling Israel's story in miniature"
For many of the bible characters discussed in this book, Enns and Byas point out the ways that they "tell Israel's story in miniature." For example, Abraham went to Egypt, and his wife was taken as Pharaoh's "property", but then God brought them out of Egypt- kinda similar to how the Israelites were slaves in Egypt and then God brought them out, huh?
Genesis portrays the Israelites' ancestors as having a lot of problems and drama and often doing a bad job of following God. Actually, the name "Israel" means "wrestles with God." This shows the original audience that even though their nation has disobeyed God, even though they were conquered by Babylon as punishment for their sin, God hasn't abandoned them.
I don't really like this- at least, I don't like the way that Christians typically frame it, which is: These bible heroes weren't perfect, but God loved them anyway, isn't that great news for all of us because we're not perfect. I hate this because... if you actually read the bible... the "bible heroes" raped and murdered people. If you read that and the message you get from it is "isn't it great that God loves us anyway even though we're not perfect"... my god. Where's the compassion for the victims? And this is a serious thing- here in the real world, Christians really do respond to sexual abuse by supporting the abuser and telling the victims that they need to forgive and "no one is perfect." Really.
So reading this part of "Genesis for Normal People," I tried to keep in mind that this is just what the biblical writer was saying- it doesn't mean it's the message that we should take from Genesis. Because I want to read the bible in a way that cares about the victims, rather than only looking at how everything turned out fine for the main character of the story because they trusted God.
But another thought I had about this is: So, the Pentateuch (including Genesis) was written as a way to present the Israelites' identity as a nation. And maybe this "there have been a lot of problems, but we still have hope that things can get better" is kind of similar to the way I feel about my country. I'm American (I've lived in China since 2013 so it's complicated, but still) ... I really believe in the ideas about freedom and equality, and the United States has always talked a big game about that but has never ever lived up to it. Like Langston Hughes said, "America never was America to me." So, hmm, maybe I can kind of understand the idea of wanting to frame your nation's identity as "have hope, we can be better."
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I want to read all these books
Back in 2015, I wrote a blog series reviewing Peter Enns's book "The Bible Tells Me So." One of my posts was called Peter Enns Makes Me Want to Actually Read the Bible Again, and yeah, I stand by that sentiment.
After reading "Genesis for Normal People," I feel like I want to read all of Enns's books (there are a lot of them) and also all the books in the "Bible for Normal People" series.
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Don't read the bible to find moral heroes
I like this quote from page 87:
It doesn't take a lot of effort to see that Jacob will be the focus of the story [in Genesis 25-35]. As it turns out, Jacob is also a liar, and so is his mom, Rebekah. There is nothing to be gained from trying to make excuses for either of them. And it's not like Jacob's father and grandfather were models of virtue, either, as they passed off their wives as sisters in order to save their own necks. Reading these stories for the moral virtues of the main characters, like one might read a fable, is a misreading.
!!!!!! This is so real and honest- and it's so rare to see people talking about bible "heroes" in this way. Love it.
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Conclusion
This book presents biblical scholars' view of what the writer of Genesis was intending to say. That's unique because there are a lot of things that biblical scholars know about the bible, that good evangelicals who believe in "biblical inerrancy" aren't allowed to know about, and because this book only talks about what the writer meant, and does NOT say anything about reading the bible to find truth or to find lessons that are meaningful to our lives as modern Christians. It has made me realize how much those assumptions- that the bible is true and meaningful to our lives now- distort our understanding of the bible, causing us to read things into the story which totally aren't there, and to ignore what the writers were actually saying.
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Posts about "Genesis for Normal People":
"Genesis for Normal People": Separating "what the writer meant" from "what is true" and "what it means for us"
God Made the Firmament
When the Bible is Racist
Related:
No One Can Take The Bible From Me
"The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" (book review)
Children's Bibles and the 2 Creation Stories
"Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles" (I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH)
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