Reading Genesis Well: Navigating History, Poetry, Science, and Truth in Genesis 1-11
Authors: Collins C. John 
Published: November 2022

READING GENESIS WELL: Navigating History, Poetry, Science, and Truth in Genesis 1-11 by C. John Collins. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2018. 336 pages. Paperback; $36.99. ISBN: 9780310598572. *C. John Collins makes judicious use of C. S. Lewis throughout his book and offers a reading of the early chapters of Genesis that seeks to avoid both an ahistorical fundamentalist interpretation and a dismissive scientism that views Genesis as bad science by ignorant people. Collins identifies himself as a "religious traditionalist," and he seeks to read Genesis in ways that take seriously the original context of the author and first readers of the text. In doing so, he makes more evident the real meaning of Genesis as a rival creation story to other creation stories circulating at that time in the ancient near East. Collins has a twofold goal. "The first is to provide guidance to those who want to consider how these Bible passages relate to the findings of the sciences. The second is to establish patterns of good theological reading, patterns applicable to other texts" (p. 32). *Collins emphasizes quite rightly that to interpret a text correctly it is important to consider the context. It is context that determines whether the words, "I'm going to kill you" are a lethal threat to life or the joking retort of a friend. Genesis is not trying to do contemporary science, so to read Genesis as opposed to or in support of contemporary science is to rip Genesis from its ancient context in terms of both its literary form and its world view. The story of Genesis is not trying and failing to answer contemporary scientific questions; rather, the story of Genesis is emphasizing that, "all human beings have a common origin, a common predicament, and a common need to know God and have God's image restored in them" (p. 113). *We can understand what Genesis truly means by putting Genesis back into its ancient context. As Collins notes, "I take the purpose of Genesis to begin with opposing the origin stories of other ancient peoples by telling of one true God who made heaven and earth ..." (p. 137). Once Genesis is put back into its context, we can better appreciate the genre of the work. The language of Genesis is not scientific but poetic. Collins notes that we can communicate truths using different kinds of language. In ordinary language, we say, "You are beautiful." In scientific language, we might say, "You exhibit visible signs of youth, health, fertility, and symmetry." In poetic language, we could say, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date." Imagine someone who got out a weather almanac, looked up the speed of winds last May, and replied, "Last May, the winds were unseasonably calm. No rough winds at all. Shakespeare was horrible at correctly noting the weather! What a dunce!" Of course, in writing Sonnet 18, Shakespeare was not trying and failing to compose an accurate weather report. The Bard's purposes, genre, and context are entirely different than meteorology. So, too, Genesis is not trying and failing to provide a scientific account of the origin of sun, moon, and stars--or man. To fault Genesis as a bad science is like faulting Shakespeare as a bad weather man. Collins correctly notes, "To call Genesis 'science,' whether ancient or modern is an enormous literary confusion" (p. 279). *So, if Genesis is not failing to be good science, since it is not even attempting to do science, what is Genesis about? The Genesis account is a correction to the rival stories of the ancient world. Genesis holds, in contrast to the pagan myths, that the sun, moon, and stars are not gods. The heavenly bodies exist to serve humans, to mark time. The idea that nature is not a god is an idea of signal importance, for if the created order is not divine, then the door is open for science to dissect and examine the secrets of nature. Genesis steers a middle course between a radical environmentalism (worshiping nature as divine) and a radical anti-environmentalism (domineering of nature as worthless material). *The role of humankind is also made more plain by contrasting Genesis with rival stories. Collins notes, "In the Mesopotamian stories the gods made humankind to do the work they do not wish to do, but they regret their action and decide to eliminate humanity because people have multiplied and become so noisy that the gods cannot rest (which was their original goal in making man)" (p. 190). *How unlike the God of Abraham who urges human beings to be fruitful and multiply. The Greek poet Hesiod wrote, "Zeus who thunders on high made women to be an evil to mortal men, with a nurture to do evil." By contrast, Genesis proclaims both man and woman to be made in the image and likeness of God. Both man and woman fall to the serpent's temptation. Both man and woman are cared for by God after the Fall. *Reading Genesis Well is a good book, and it could be made even better. At times, there is a great deal of windup before the pitch. At other times, there is needless repetition. For example, Collins writes, "The creation narrative portrays the sun, moon, and stars as makers for the (liturgical) seasons. They are servants to help humankind worship the Maker, not masters themselves worthy of human worship" (p. 293). This is a great point, but the point is made at least three times in the text. *The organization of the text could be improved in places. For example, when Collins quotes Rudolf Bultmann's famous assertion, "It is impossible to use the electric light and the wireless [radio] and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of spirits and miracles," he does not respond to this assertion until pages later. *In places, not just form but substance can be improved. Collins quotes with approval James Packer saying, "The church no more created the canon [of scripture] than Newton created the law of gravity; recognition is not creation." But this is not quite right. The New Testament was written by early leaders of the church, such as Paul, Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John. It was the Council of Rome (p. 382) that fixed the biblical canon which was in some state of flux until then. The New Testament arose from the leaders of the early church and was cast into its current form by the leaders of the patristic church. That is much more than a mere recognition. Collins touches on the monogensism-polygenism question but does not address the dispute at sufficient length. *None of these quibbles should deter readers from profiting from Collins's research. Reading Genesis Well can indeed help us better understand one of the most ancient, most important, and most influential texts of all time. *Reviewed by Christopher Kaczor, Professor of Philosophy, Loyola Marymount University, 1 LMU Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90045.