Genesis in the Real World:: Seven Keys for Understanding the Biblical, Historical, Archaeological, and Scientific Background of Genesis 1-11

This book suggests seven keys for understanding Genesis 1-11. Those keys revolve around two big questions. The first question asks why Moses chose to include specific material in the book of Genesis and how that material addressed specific needs of the wilderness generation. That question involves religious traditions that influenced Israel while the nation sojourned in Egypt. It involved especially holy mountain themes, covenant motifs like the technical treaty vocabulary, Near Eastern genealogical traditions, and Egyptian mortuary myths. The second question asks how Genesis 1-11 can be fit into the post-glacial history of the ancient Near East. It looks at conditions in the region during the full glacial, the Alleröd Fluctuation, the Younger Dryas, and the Pre-Boreal. It puts those climate periods into an archaeological context. It explores the strengths and weaknesses of various dating methods. Then it constructs a model for understanding the history of the ancient Near East during the Holocene Era, and it suggests that Genesis 1-11 may be the most accurate surviving text that traces the history of human settlement of the Near East. The book incorporates recent discoveries like the temple at Tepe Golbeki from 9,000 BC and the Sea of Galilee monument from a similar time period. The book assumes that the autograph of Genesis written by Moses was inspired and inerrant, but it also discusses problems with the transmission of the text through the centuries. It approaches Genesis 1-11 in a thoroughly innovative and iconoclastic way. It encourages readers to approach the Genesis text with new questions drawn from the wealth of evidence now available for Holocene Era history. As a whole, the book stands within the tradition of conservative and evangelical Christianity while rejecting much of what has been taught about Genesis 1-11 in that faith community. It is an appeal to evidential and logical thought instead of a knee jerk rejection of aggression against the modern world.