Karen Armstrong makes reading the Bible a smooth and liberating experience. The brilliance of Armstrong's analysis of Genesis lies in her ability to draw together the story, the contemporaneous situations of the characters and the writers, and the relevance of themes amid multifarious contradictions, then hold them up for us to contemplate. Edifying and engaging, this short but impressive book comes complete with the entire Genesis text.


From Publishers Weekly
Having written A History of God (1993) and Jerusalem (1996), prolific and bestselling author Armstrong turns her considerable imaginative skill and critical acumen to an interpretation of the first book of the Bible. In a series of short meditations, Armstrong explores each of the major scriptural units in Genesis, from the creation accounts (Genesis 1-3) to the death of Joseph (Genesis 50). In her reflection on and interpretation of Adam and Eve's fall from grace, she notes that the act of plucking the forbidden fruit renders the couple like God, in that they use their "wisdom and the power that comes with it for apparently evil ends as well as for good." Armstrong integrates the sophistication of biblical scholarship with the more raw inquisitiveness of the common reader. The result is a lyrical chronicle of one woman's wrestling with Genesis that can serve as a guide to others grappling with the book. While many of Armstrong's readings may provoke controversy, she provides a model of scriptural interpretation that is as notable for its scholarship as it is for its honesty and vulnerability. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
The best-selling author of A History of God (LJ 9/15/93), Armstrong gives us here essentially a highly personal modern-day midrash. She interprets selected accounts of Genesis using an archetypal approach to literature so as to offer insights into the problematic nature of human religion, especially the problems of separation between humans and God. The author presents the human predicament not as the consequence of a fall that led to the guilt of original sin (per Augustine) but as the "inevitable" result of a process "inherent" in creation. Not all readers will accept her thesis that the God of Genesis is portrayed as no less, and sometimes more, culpable than humans for an ever-widening gulf between them. Nevertheless, one will find here many helpful insights drawn from the religious paradigms of Genesis, such as those concerning the relationship between myth and modern culture. Included here, the text of Genesis (NRSV) makes up a third of the book's volume. For readers of popular religious books. [For more on this book, see "Something To Talk About," LJ 9/1/96, p. 140-143.?Ed.]?Robert H. O'Connell, Colorado Christian Univ., Denve.-?Robert H. O'Connell, Colorado Christian Univ., DenverCopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Armstrong, author of Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths , will unsettle readers who expect to find firm answers and clear doctrines in Sacred Writ. Her reading of Genesis provides no such supports to orthodoxy. Rather, it is the frightening perplexities that Armstrong highlights in her analysis of the text (included in its entirety). How is it that the creator of humanity so quickly becomes its destroyer by sending the Flood? How could a merciful deity command Abraham to cast out one son (Ishmael) and sacrifice another (Isaac)? Armstrong offers no clean resolution to the questions she poses. Certainly, she expects little guidance from a God she sees withdrawing further and further from human affairs as Genesis unfolds. A modern exegete, Armstrong takes interpretive cues from contemporary psychological and ethical theories, yet the mysteries of the ancient text finally defy these modern helps, leaving author and reader to grope for meanings beyond all rational schema. One of many valuable new studies of Genesis (see also Bill Moyers' Genesis: A Living Conversation ). Bryce Christensen


Book Description
"KAREN ARMSTRONG IS A GENIUS."
--A. N. Wilson

As the foundation stone of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, The Book of Genesis unfolds some of the most arresting stories of world literature--the Creation; Adam and Eve; Cain and Abel; the sacrifice of Isaac. Yet the meaning of Genesis remains enigmatic. In this fascinating volume, Karen Armstrong, author of the highly acclaimed bestseller A History of God, brilliantly illuminates the mysteries and profundities of this mystifying work.

"A lyrical chronicle of one woman's wrestling with Genesis that can serve as a guide to others . . . As notable for its scholarship as it is for its honesty and vulnerability."
--Publishers Weekly

"Armstrong can simplify complex ideas, but she is never simplistic."
--The New York Times Book Review


From the Inside Flap
"KAREN ARMSTRONG IS A GENIUS."
--A. N. Wilson

As the foundation stone of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, The Book of Genesis unfolds some of the most arresting stories of world literature--the Creation; Adam and Eve; Cain and Abel; the sacrifice of Isaac. Yet the meaning of Genesis remains enigmatic. In this fascinating volume, Karen Armstrong, author of the highly acclaimed bestseller A History of God, brilliantly illuminates the mysteries and profundities of this mystifying work.

"A lyrical chronicle of one woman's wrestling with Genesis that can serve as a guide to others . . . As notable for its scholarship as it is for its honesty and vulnerability."
--Publishers Weekly

"Armstrong can simplify complex ideas, but she is never simplistic."
--The New York Times Book Review

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The power of Genesis lies in its stories, especially those of the creation, the Fall, Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph. Armstrong traces the grand design of Genesis and its great themes, examines its stories in fascinating detail, and shows why and how they work so well to illustrate the human quest for meaning. We discover how these ancient tales illuminate our most profound and intractable problems: our struggle with evil, with obtuseness, with cowardice, and particularly with the difficulty of facing up to the consequences of our past actions. Most significantly, Armstrong makes clear how the stories in Genesis can help us to relate - morally - to our own personal histories in our strivings to make ourselves whole, and to grasp why the struggle itself is worthwhile even if its goal is never fully achieved.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Having written A History of God (1993) and Jerusalem (1996), prolific and bestselling author Armstrong turns her considerable imaginative skill and critical acumen to an interpretation of the first book of the Bible. In a series of short meditations, Armstrong explores each of the major scriptural units in Genesis, from the creation accounts (Genesis 1-3) to the death of Joseph (Genesis 50). In her reflection on and interpretation of Adam and Eve's fall from grace, she notes that the act of plucking the forbidden fruit renders the couple like God, in that they use their "wisdom and the power that comes with it for apparently evil ends as well as for good." Armstrong integrates the sophistication of biblical scholarship with the more raw inquisitiveness of the common reader. The result is a lyrical chronicle of one woman's wrestling with Genesis that can serve as a guide to others grappling with the book. While many of Armstrong's readings may provoke controversy, she provides a model of scriptural interpretation that is as notable for its scholarship as it is for its honesty and vulnerability. (Oct.)

Library Journal