This book has been recently published with an aim by the author to disclose Biblically coherent understanding of Genesis with respect to the original audience. Also, this book can be hard to swallow for us! I, however, do not mean to promote this book to adopt as our obvious hermeneutics for Genesis. But we can just be open to a number of valid interpretations that are available and plausible Biblically and theologically.
Ben Stanhope possesses a degree from Boyce of Southern Seminary where he served as a Garrett Fellow, and an M.A. in Manuscript Cultures from Hamburg University in Germany. His research thesis explored Egyptian iconography on papyrus seals of the biblical royal court.
Interpreting first eleven chapters of Genesis has never been an easy task for theologians since millennia or centuries. There has been diversified views within churches whether to interpret them literally or metaphorically. However, one of the most firm view that has been typically adopted in churches is 'Literal interpretation' without any compromises with any hidden codes embedded in between lines. Answers in Genesis organization has been a major agent to propagate this reading of Genesis. They have also established a real life Ark Encounter and Ben Stanhope has published this book in criticism of their work in favour of a Recent creation.
Stanhope puts forward his queries such as;
What was Genesis 1:7 talking about when it said there are waters “above” the sky? Where was the “evening and morning” light on the first three creation days coming from if the sun, moon, and stars weren’t even made until day four? When God says, “Let us make man in our image,” to whom does the “us” refer? Why was the villain in Eden a talking snake of all things, and why does the author have Eve striking up a conversation with it with no background information as if we are just supposed to accept that sort of thing as reasonable? If Adam and Eve were the only original humans, why does Genesis 4 seem to imply there were already cities on earth right after their first child Cain killed his twin? Who is Cain afraid of finding him? Where did he get his wife, and how did he build a city by himself in 4:17? If Adam and Eve were already created immortal, what was the purpose of there even being a “Tree of Life” in the garden story? After Adam and Eve sin, why does God announce in 3:22, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil”? What does it mean to “know good and evil,” and how is it not blasphemy to say Adam’s sin made him “like God”? For that matter, was the serpent lying or not? Assuming no death can exist in a perfect world as young-earth creationists had always taught me, what happens if an elephant in Eden accidentally stepped on a frog? Would the frog magically reassemble somehow like a video recording thrown in reverse? And if God had created all of nature originally free of all death and predation of any kind, why do scorpions look the way they do—with their bulbous pincers, segmented plate armor, and arching stingers full of complex poisons? Did God only give scorpions all these nasty bits after Adam sinned? What did they look like before the Fall? Why is the introduction of animal predation and death never even remotely mentioned in Genesis 3 when God is listing out all the consequences of the Fall? Was God too busy talking about the introduction of weeds to find this important enough to mention? Is Genesis 1 even describing a “perfect world” when it says the original creation was “very good”?
Did you have these queries ever revolving in your mind?
Three Sections in this book:
1. Proposed Claims of Extinct Animals in the Bible
a. What was Leviathan?
b. Was Behemoth a Dinosaur?
c. King James' Unicorns
d. Making Sense of Isaiah’s Flying Serpents
2. Reading Genesis like an Ancient Israelite
a. Does Genesis 1:1 Describe the Absolute Beginning?
b. Ancient Hebrew Heavenly Cosmology
c. The Ancient Hebrew Conception of the Earth
d. Eden: The Cosmic Mountain of God
e. The Meaning of the Seven Days of Creation
f. The Numerological Lifespans of the Patriarchs
g. Animal Death Before the Fall
3. A Path Forward
a. Why the Holy Spirit isn't your Bible Commentary
b. How Popular Views of Inspiration Protect Readers from Their Bible
You shall get to learn these subjects when you began to navigate through his book:
1. His thesis is that archaeological and linguistic discoveries about the Bible’s original context clearly show that a great deal of mainstream young-earth interpretation of biblical creation texts is wrong. He also aims to demonstrate that these archaeological and linguistic discoveries should correct our understanding of the biblical authors’ core intended messages.
2. He presents the case where YEC gets wrong about 'Behemoth' and 'Leviathan' and their (MIS) correlation with 'dinosaurs'.
3. 'Reading Genesis like an Ancient Israelite' forms the bulk of the book. It shows examples of how modern scholarship of the Bible’s literary context has unveiled new information that helps us understand the first chapters of Genesis as its original audience would have understood them.
4. The author intends to show how the syntax of Genesis 1:1 allows interpretive room for a billions of years old universe. Following this is a survey of the Old Testament’s cosmology—how its authors and readers perceived the physical universe.
5. Examination of the original, ancient Near Eastern meaning of the 'Seven days of creation' and argument that concordist old- and young-earth creationists have both failed adequately to understand the literary and theological motivations of the author of Genesis due to their desire to interpret this document in light of modern science.
6. Examination of the significance of the long lifespans that Genesis says the patriarchs enjoyed before the Flood.
7. Examination if there was any death in the creation before the Fall of humanity.
8. Against the mainstream concordist hermeneutics, the author argues we shouldn’t interpret Genesis through the filter of modern astrophysics and cosmology because the biblical authors shared the same general cosmology as the rest of their ancient neighbors. Specifically, the Old Testament authors assumed the earth is round, flat, and covered by a sky dome that retained above it a literal cosmic ocean.
The additional appendices targets flawed teaching of Answers in Genesis and Creation Museum about Dinosaur and humans co-existing, Global Flood and ancient view of the world against concordist view.
For the author's interview by one of the Leading Apologetics Channel 'Inspiring Philosophy': Here!
Now, hang on! Above contents are just enough by their statements to trouble your busy mind! So first relax and don't get sick of it! My motive is not to promote it as accurate interpretation as I've already stated but as our age is driven by Information, it is always progressive. The information in this book has to be obviously 'NEW' for us and some believers might also label it as heretic! The best thing we can do is to be 'OPEN-MINDED' and let the author speak through this book. Agreement and Disagreement is the rest part of discussion. But, before we tend to critique anything, let us learn to weight them.
Once again, this book can be 'bitter' and has not been recommended as 'Obvious Theological Understanding' of the scripture but as 'Possible Explanation' and we can be open to diversified views even if we do not accept it. Its not about 'New Revelation' but about 'Possible interpretation'. I recommended it so that we can update ourselves with ongoing research on Theological and Apologetics fields. Accepting or Rejecting is another phase.
If you can manage time, you can read this book and think deeply if the cases put forward by the author are quenchable Biblically or not. We are not obligated to replace our current interpretation that has been taught with this one but we can closely examine if the author has really been honest with the scripture in light of its cultural context or not.
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