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accidentalra's review against another edition
2.0
This feels a bit like an instance of "everybody loved it but me," but, as far as I'm concerned, Marilynne Robinson's Reading Genesis was a total miss. I found it pretentious and dismissive of scholarship in ways that left me with a strong sense of confirmation bias. So, if you already align ideologically with Robinson's erudite Calvinism, you will no doubt feel smug and intelligent when you read this book. If that's you, then great. Honestly, I'd be more than pleased to see the right readers get connected to this book. If you're a critical reader who has picked up this title as part of an investigation of scripture, you might be disappointed. You might even end up outraged. Reading Genesis essentially preaches to the choir, begins with a conclusion, and attempts to fortify deeply held beliefs with sophisticated prose rather than evidence. What's more, it never really says anything new, instead re-presenting close readings and established interpretations with needlessly elevated vocabulary.
In a nutshell: this book was the wrong book for me, but I can see why it might be the right book for others.
[I received an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review. All poor opinions are my own.]
In a nutshell: this book was the wrong book for me, but I can see why it might be the right book for others.
[I received an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review. All poor opinions are my own.]
kalliegrace's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
I wasn't sure what to expect here, but in the end I'm pleasantly surprised, or at least not disappointed.
I grew up taking the Bible literally, and have moved far away from that view at least as far as the old testament is concerned. I'm intimately familiar with Genesis, and it's clear Robinson is as well. Through decades of sermons, I've never heard anyone point out the obvious familial parallels in the patriarchs' stories, from sibling rivalries to father's favoritism. It was an angle that brought a little more humanity to the stories that are so familiar.
The last part of this is just Genesis, and I can't recall what translation she uses but I love that every time someone dies it says they "gave up the ghost".
There's no deep reading of the text here, no "the Hebrew or Greek is actually such as such", but themes of grace and mercy and teased from the text in a way that I think any person could accomplish without the scholarly background of some.
I grew up taking the Bible literally, and have moved far away from that view at least as far as the old testament is concerned. I'm intimately familiar with Genesis, and it's clear Robinson is as well. Through decades of sermons, I've never heard anyone point out the obvious familial parallels in the patriarchs' stories, from sibling rivalries to father's favoritism. It was an angle that brought a little more humanity to the stories that are so familiar.
The last part of this is just Genesis, and I can't recall what translation she uses but I love that every time someone dies it says they "gave up the ghost".
There's no deep reading of the text here, no "the Hebrew or Greek is actually such as such", but themes of grace and mercy and teased from the text in a way that I think any person could accomplish without the scholarly background of some.
jhutchins's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
This book is Marilynn Robinson’s contribution to a very old conversation on the Book of Genesis. On one hand, people often interpret it as literal history. On the other hand, some scholars characterize it as a revisionist jumble of several perspectives.
Robinson goes another route entirely: she engages the first book of the Bible as literature. While her thoughts come from a Christian perspective, her insights here are accessible to anyone who has experienced this book. The strength of this book is her ability to dodge the usual debate about Biblical interpretation by truly feeling the stories and understanding how they engage us as art. This is a very refreshing perspective that I think is very accessible and yet challenging.
As a reading experience, the Robinson caveat is that she does not believe in chapter breaks (or any breaks at all). This makes the structure very fluid, which works here because it focuses your attention on how each part of Genesis flows into the next. She takes breaks only to wax poetic or consider some other trail of thought, so it times it feels like you are listening to her wonder aloud while drinking wine on her back porch in the summer in her house which is probably somewhere in the rural Midwest and has a cool liberal arts college nearby where she guest lectures.
Because the book is conversational in this way, I also wouldn’t take this as a definitive statement on theology. Rather, like the best discussions of the Bible, it’s an invitation into conversation and wonder. Robinson excels at wonder, so the book is enjoyed best just going along for the ride.
I think if more people approached the Bible this way we would have far healthier religious debate around this book that is so important to so many people. I hope this book invites more people into the kind of humility and joy she demonstrates here.
Robinson goes another route entirely: she engages the first book of the Bible as literature. While her thoughts come from a Christian perspective, her insights here are accessible to anyone who has experienced this book. The strength of this book is her ability to dodge the usual debate about Biblical interpretation by truly feeling the stories and understanding how they engage us as art. This is a very refreshing perspective that I think is very accessible and yet challenging.
As a reading experience, the Robinson caveat is that she does not believe in chapter breaks (or any breaks at all). This makes the structure very fluid, which works here because it focuses your attention on how each part of Genesis flows into the next. She takes breaks only to wax poetic or consider some other trail of thought, so it times it feels like you are listening to her wonder aloud while drinking wine on her back porch in the summer in her house which is probably somewhere in the rural Midwest and has a cool liberal arts college nearby where she guest lectures.
Because the book is conversational in this way, I also wouldn’t take this as a definitive statement on theology. Rather, like the best discussions of the Bible, it’s an invitation into conversation and wonder. Robinson excels at wonder, so the book is enjoyed best just going along for the ride.
I think if more people approached the Bible this way we would have far healthier religious debate around this book that is so important to so many people. I hope this book invites more people into the kind of humility and joy she demonstrates here.