Genesis 1–11

A Narrative-Theological Commentary

James Chukwuma Okoye

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781532609916, 9781532609930
• eBook ISBN: 9781532609923
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

Genesis 1-11: A Narrative Theological Commentary combines critical acumen with concern for the theological message of Scripture. It is a commentary in two stages. First, the text is allowed to speak for itself, using a narrative approach. Then, specific Jewish and Christian traditions flowing from the text are identified, and the underlying hermeneutical moves analyzed.

Chapter 1

A Narrative Theology of the Book of Genesis

And so people supported by faith, hope and charity, and retaining a firm grip on them, have no need of the Scriptures except for instructing others. And so there are many who live by these three even in the desert without books. This leads me to think that the text has already been fulfilled in them.

—Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, I, 431

A Narrative Approach

Methods chosen are usually relevant to goals sought; each commentator brings a certain perspective to the text. He or she approaches the text with certain presuppositions, questions, and concerns or is already convinced of the effectiveness of some method for the exegetical task at hand.

Most commentators on the book of Genesis use some form of the historical-critical approach—form criticism or tradition criticism, social science criticism, or some other. In the historical approach, meaning derives from the author and is generally sought in the author’s intentions and historical context and time. Many of such commentators have recourse to the documentary hypothesis2 or some recent adaptation or replacement of it, for example, the Yahwist as postexilic, the entire material as divided into Priestly and non-Priestly, D-Komposition and P-Komposition. For current trends in this area, the advanced reader may consult The Pentateuch, edited by Thomas Dozeman, et al.

Some commentators apply reader-response approaches which privilege the reader. The reader consciously brings his or her convictions and points of view to bear; the meaning of the text is “meaning for me.” Strands of this approach are ideological criticism, liberation and feminist criticism, postcolonial criticism, and so on.

An increasing number of commentators have recourse to literary approaches. These derive meaning from the structure of the text itself and how it intends to mean. They pay full attention to how it does things with words, both with the form (the how) and the content (the what). Strands of this approach are structuralism, rhetorical criticism, and narrative criticism.

Meaning Is Never Divorced from the Participation of the Reader

Left to its own devices by the maker, the text goes in search of a competent reader . . . [What is essential is] that which the text itself provides, the world it evokes and the values it embodies, and then, the confrontation, the interplay, the friction and sometimes the clash between all this and the reader’s world and values.3

Nor is text ever divorced from context. To begin with, the text of Genesis is in ancient Hebrew and this has built-in conventions and patterns of meaning.4 The text itself has had a history and there may be textual riddles to be deciphered and apparent contradictions to be resolved. A synchronic reading thus cannot dispense with all historical or source-oriented inquiries. For this reason, I sometimes call upon the so-called Pentateuchal “sources,” for example, in Genesis 1 (Priestly Theology) or the flood story (Yahwist and Priestly Theologies)—the diachronic in service of the synchronic. For the nonspecialist, some concepts used by narrative criticism may need brief explanation.

The Narrator

The voice telling the story is called the narrator, to be distinguished from the writer of the story. The narrator is also to be distinguished from the characters of the story. Sometimes the narrator’s voice merges with that of the characters, sometimes it diverges or stands in opposition to it. Sometimes indeterminacy may result from irony, the implied author undermining the narrator.5 In any case, the narrator wants to bring the reader to his point of view (in the context of Genesis, the writer was most probably male). The narrator knows everything, even the future, and what is in the mind of God and not just of people, and so scholars apply the term “omniscient narrator.” Such omniscience is, in the first place, to be understood in a literary, not a theological sense: “It is not necessary to consider such a statement ‘historically reliable’ and assume a prior phone call from the Holy Ghost to the writer.”6

God as a Character

In narrative theory, “God” within the narrative is a character created by the narrator. As such, one may distinguish the character of God and the manner in which he functions in different parts of the Bible. Fokkelman writes:

The God of the books of Samuel is not exactly the same as the God of Moses . . . and something else entirely than the God of Ecclesiastes. Add to this the fact that the God of a devout Jew or Christian will always be different and greater than the image that anyone has of God. So let us . . . not immediately lock the narrator of the Hebrew story inside our assumption that he, the maker of the character God, entertains the same values.7

Yet, the biblical narrator presents God as omniscient and omnipotent, always trustworthy. Jewish and Christian faith equates the God of the Bible with the Creator; Christian faith further presents him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The literary and theological points of view can be in some tension: “God” as character in the story versus the God of faith. For how this commentary navigates this conundrum, see “The Approach of This Commentary” below.

Characters

The writer propels the story forward through characters who speak, act, and interact with one another—Cain and Abel, Lamech, Abraham . . . Characters are generally round (complex, with many traits, developing one way o...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: A Narrative Theology of the Book of Genesis
• Chapter 2: Genesis 1:1—2:4a
• Chapter 3: Genesis 2:4b—3:24
• Chapter 4: Genesis 4:1–26
• Chapter 5: Genesis 5:1—6:4
• Chapter 6: Genesis 6:5—8:22
• Chapter 7: Genesis 9
• Chapter 8: Genesis 10–11
• Conclusion
• Bibliography