Abstract
SPCK’s ‘Discovering’ series seems to be an enterprising cross between introductory orientation to the book and its interpretation, and broad-brush running commentary highlighting points of wide theological interest. We are in the area of a Lonely Planet/Rough Guide accessory to the reading of the text. It will serve best those with some familiarity with the text in question but for whom detailed verse-by-verse analysis may be a level of engagement too far. On this remit, Iain Provan’s Discovering Genesis is a worthwhile guidebook, and Provan himself is a thoughtful guide.
An opening chapter provides an overview of the book in 12 ‘acts’, marked by the ‘generations of’ formula. Provan quite insistently lays out this structure, but only rarely refers to it subsequently, where his chapters of coverage generally group the ‘acts’ together. He does not follow the structure at all for acts 1–2, with no comment as to how his own discussion might be both faithful to the book (in taking Genesis 1–2 together) and also cut across the supposed ‘acts’ of the book (where Act 1 = Genesis 1.1—2.3). Those who have not previously been persuaded that this repeated ‘generations’ marker really assists reading will not find reason to change their view here.
Two chapters on the history of interpretation follow, whetting the appetite of readers for more. They show that what look like straightforward readings of the text often reflect the interpretative milieu. Provan prefers literal-sense reading: ‘In the judgement of most modern readers of Genesis, early non-literal or spiritual reading of the book is nowhere near as illuminating as early plain-sense reading’ (p. 20). He mainly wants to focus on what the author intended, with the caveat that the author in question is something like an implied author, constructed from the text (see p. 58), rather than reconstructed from historical traditions. He does however locate the book in the late Persian period (‘as part of the distinctive “axial age” response of Mosaic Yahwists to the kinds of questions we see arising in the sixth and fifth centuries’, p. 55). Most of the ways in which he subsequently evaluates readings (‘Augustine is unhelpful here …’ for example) come down to those readings not attending to the historically reconstructed authorial intention. There is much merit in this, even if it is on occasion a bit of a straitjacket. The ‘late Persian period’ claim makes a useful end-run around J and P (and possibly E): those ‘discovering Genesis’ are surely pointed in the right direction by being shown that they do not need to produce source-critical dissection.
The final seven chapters work all the way through the book, inevitably picking up speed once past chapters 1–11. The format is basic guidance to how to handle the text, and brief forays into reception history. On the latter, as so often, one wants to say that it is interesting, even a useful whistle-stop tour of cultural highlights, but not always that attuned to improving our reading of the text. On the former, Provan has many helpful orientations, and is at his best on specific contributions from particular words and phrases. A good example is his reading of 3.16 not as the imposition of pain on child-bearing, but as reference to the difficult circumstances into which children will henceforth be brought. More general hermeneutical issues are less explored, with a notable exception in a rather elegant section on ‘what kind of story is the flood narrative?’ (pp. 115–20), where historical, scientific and comparative-literary questions are laid beside a straightforward ‘literary reading’ to good effect.
In my own view, Genesis is a difficult book to introduce. Its pre-Torah conceptuality marks it out as unique even in the strange world of the Old Testament. Its take-up in science vs. faith debates clouds the reading of the opening chapters. The family stories of chapters 12–50 operate in an unusual moral world, at narrative leisure. Attempting to cover all that as well as highlights of interpretation makes this an ambitious guidebook. It is basically successful. I wonder if Provan is slightly caught between letting the text have its strange way ‘on its own terms’ and also wanting to rein in the interpretative options towards constructive Christian readings. I like that latter agenda, but do readers need more help in seeing what sorts of hermeneutical moves are required to make it? In the end, a mark of this book’s success, in the odd way of such guidebooks, is that the reader who follows along will end up wanting more.