Origins: The Ancient Impact and Modern Implications of Genesis 1-11

 

Origins: The Ancient Impact and Modern Implications of Genesis 1-11 by Paul Copan and Douglas Jacoby

I was rather disappointed in this effort.  This book is essentially a very basic Bible Study of the first eleven chapters of the Book of Genesis.  Yet I don’t really think that this was authors’ intentions. It certainly wasn’t my expectations from reading the description. So I felt somewhat cheated and was overall unimpressed. 

If you’re new to the Christian faith, this book might serve as a decent beginner’s study of the aforementioned chapters of Genesis, but even stating that is a stretch.   Overall, it seems like the authors are trying too hard to say too much and cram too many thoughts into such a short, rather trivial, book.  The subject matter could have used a lot more scholarly research and could have really made a big impact on the 21^st century Christian as well as the skeptic.  Instead, it comes across as a hodge-podge mishmash and seems as though it was only written over a period of a few weekends.

The initial attraction of this book for me, and I confess what made me want to read it, was the authors insistence that one needn’t take the material in the book of Genesis literally.  This seems like a no brainer for many.  Most don’t believe the Earth was created in a literal six day period. If it was, how do you account for dinosaurs?   I’ve actually heard two ridiculous theories:  1) They never existed. God planted the fossils to test us –and- 2) They did exist, and were actually on Noah’s Ark.  Call me crazy, but I just can’t picture a pair of tyrannosaur’s rexes on a floating vessel with lions, tigers and elephants.  

The problem is the authors don’t focus enough attention on this aspect.   I must again state that had they done so, this could have been a revolutionary piece of work. As a Christian, it saddens me how many people refuse to come to the faith because there are so many dogmatically diehard disciples who REFUSE to accept the possibility that maybe Genesis shouldn’t be taken literally.  This being the case, one can’t help but not be surprised when the educated unconverted turn and run away.  So had the authors made a convincing argument, it could have at least procured some serious discussions and debates.  They don’t even discuss Evolution until one of the appendices of the book.  A crying shame.  (Hint: They’re argument is evolution is highly probable with God. Without God, not so much.)

Another thing that the authors try to do is compare and contrast the biblical narratives with many of the common myths and pagan tales that were prevalent at the time.  This is another excellent avenue that needs more attention.  The authors (briefly) show us examples of many similarities between these tales and how they differ from what the Bible tells us in the creation stories.  The point the authors make is that much of what is in Genesis isn’t made to tell the reader an actual account, but to rather show the nature of Yahweh (that would be God – ‘I am who I am’) and how his plan for earth and mankind is radically different than what readers at the time were hearing from these ‘other’ stories.  Again, one wishes that this would have possibly been the sole focus of the book.

Sadly, no such luck.   Although the authors sprinkle these two notions within the pages, they seem more focused on simply educating the reader on the lessons of Genesis and how they relate to mankind in general.  Unlike the two notions I discussed, to simply reflect on the book of Genesis really didn’t seem necessary nor earth shattering.  In fact, the authors seem compelled to crowd the pages with the actual texts of the eleven chapters.  Does one really need this when a free copy of the Bible can easily be found on the internet? It felt like the authors were simply trying to pad the pages.  Speaking of padding pages, we also get a lot of irrelevant charts and tables along with ‘recaps and applications’ at the end of each chapter.  Again, good for a Bible study workbook, but not needed for (what one wishes was) a scholarly piece.  

Maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe a scholarly piece wasn’t the intention of the authors.  In fact, many times they’ll address a good point yet quickly shut themselves down by saying that the subject matter is “beyond the scope of this book”.   I really wish it wasn’t.   I wanted more.  I wanted so much more. Had the authors explored the book of Genesis more in depth and elaborated more on how we should read the book, both non-literally and comparing it to popular cultural myths, it would have succeeded.   Instead, this comes across as a garbled, thrown together piece that simply doesn’t add value as a whole.

I wish they would try again.  It really did sound like they were onto something good.  It just never materialized as it should have.