Tuesday, November 17, 2009

All Eyes on Genesis 1

There seems to be a lot of interest in Genesis 1 at the moment. In addition to my post late last night on variation in its formal elements, there is a post at Early Jewish Monotheisms on whether or not it should be read as polemic. Although it shows a lot of similarities with and adapted the Enuma Elish (and, here, I think it needs to be read in terms of the larger Priestly narrative patterns in the Pentateuch), I tend to read it as liturgy rather than polemic. Gen. 11:1-9 is polemic. And, finally, there is Mark Smith's new book completely dedicated to Genesis 1--The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1--which I have bought but have not read.

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