Joseph Blenkinsopp,Abraham: The Story of a Life

Joseph Blenkinsopp is emeritus professor in biblical studies at the University of Notre Dame. Abraham: The Story of a Life is the fruit of his long and distinguished career in biblical scholarship. At every point the breadth of Blenkinsopp’s expertise and insight is in evidence. While this is a guide to the Abraham narratives that will be of value to experts in the field, Blenkinsopp has also produced a book that will be easily accessible to a wider audience.

Blenkinsopp categorizes the book as an example of ‘discursive commentary’, by which he means exposition that is ‘basically historical-critical’, but also focused on ‘issues of general theological and human interest’ (p. xi). Blenkinsopp’s approach is historical-critical in the best sense. The text is explored both in light of the historical context of its (extended) period of composition and of the most up-to-date scholarship, incorporating both source-critical and literary approaches. A special feature of Blenkinsopp’s approach is a focus on the geographical setting of the narratives that is not merely technical, but sheds light on their theological and political meaning.

Abraham: The Story of a Life is not exactly a commentary, but Blenkinsopp for the most part moves systematically through the text of Genesis 11.27—25, chapter by chapter. Only later in the book does his discussion jump around, bringing together thematically related portions of the narrative. As a result, this book will be a helpful resource for preachers and educators who are looking for a comprehensive introduction to a discrete portion of the text. Nevertheless, these readers will also find that Blenkinsopp situates individual narratives within the wider narrative arc of the text so that the bigger picture is not lost.

Blenkinsopp endeavours to cater for a wide range of readers. He aims for discussion that is accessible to ‘readers who are prepared to make an effort to understand the issues but are in no sense specialists in ancient and especially biblical texts’ (p. ix), but that also has something to offer the specialist. The discussion is relatively free of jargon and non-specialist readers can conveniently ignore the more technical information included in the footnotes.

One feature of Blenkinsopp’s reading is his view that the Abraham narratives, at least in their final (edited) form, are the product of the fifth century bce. Much of Blenkinsopp’s writing has focused on this period and on reading biblical text against this context. The dating of the final form of Genesis (and the Pentateuch more generally) to the period of Persian occupation following the return of the exiles from Babylon is not yet universally accepted, but is quickly moving towards attaining scholarly consensus. Even if Blenkinsopp may once have been thought ‘progressive’ in terms of his dating of text, there is nothing radical about his overall dating proposal today. In fact, while Blenkinsopp’s reading of the Abraham narratives embraces the most recent scholarship, there is much about his exegesis that is relatively conservative. This means that those looking for a reliable and comprehensive guide to consensus interpretation of the text will be rewarded. This is not the book for those looking for new and radical exegesis.

A final feature of Blenkinsopp’s discussion is a section in each chapter titled ‘filling the gaps’ that outlines early Jewish and Christian responses to the text under discussion. This is to be especially welcomed as many commentaries and monographs limit themselves to discussion of the biblical text alone, so that associated Second Temple period literature is often overlooked or unfamiliar, especially to Christian audiences.