Abstract
This is the first volume in a planned two-volume collection concerning the Genesis creation account, and in the introduction, Klingbeil suggests that the volumes are aimed at helping those in the sciences and ‘interested nonspecialists’ (p. 1) to understand and engage with the terminology and theology of the biblical creation narrative. The main theme of the book is the relationship between the creation narrative in Genesis 1 and 2, and later creation theology.
This volume is arranged in three sections. The first, ‘Biblical Cosmology’, contains two essays, both of which discuss the concept of biblical cosmology in relation to Ancient Near Eastern parallels. The second essay on this topic does this by comparing the meaning of the Hebrew word רָקִיעַ (rāqîa’), with ancient Babylonian and Mesopotamian views of the place of the world in the heavens, and by tracing the history of the idea of a vaulted dome over the world. The authors conclude that the notion of a vaulted dome arose from a mistranslation, or figurative instead of literal use, of the word (p. 56).
The second section, ‘Creation Accounts and Theology’ is by far the largest section of the three, and is concerned with the reception of Genesis in the rest of the Old Testament. Themes across the chapters include the appropriation of creation imagery and terminology within canonical books, and intertexuality between these texts.
The final section of the book, ‘Creation, Evolution and Death’, contains two essays which continue the theme of exploring the Genesis creation narrative across other texts: firstly in Ancient Near Eastern creation accounts, and then in the final essay, ‘“When Death Was Not Yet”: The Testimony of Biblical Creation’ by Jacques B. Doukhan (pp. 329–42). This essay ‘ponders the entrance of death into a post-creation world’ (p. 4), particularly emphasising the reversal motif of life and death in Genesis, again using specific Hebrew words as examples.
This book is not aimed at biblical scholars per se, but it offers a rich overview of the creation narrative across the Old Testament from a broad range of perspectives outside of traditional theological studies of Genesis and, for that reason, is a helpful addition to the study of creation in biblical studies. The second volume, which is forthcoming, is focused on the reverberations of Genesis in the New Testament.