Reading for Unity in Genesis 1:1-11:9

This volume’s essays discuss how Genesis figures in unity appeals from widely varying times from the Ancient Near East to the twenty-first century and in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

In doing so, the contributors particularly attend to these appeals’ hermeneutical dimensions, to why and how these appeals connect themselves to the text and work to foster unity as they do. Each essay offers its own important portrait of the hermeneutics of unity, and viewed together, these essays’ individual portraits form a larger mosaic. Operation of the hermeneutics of unity in different times and contexts inevitably manifests itself differently. On the other hand, the interpreters that this volume addresses have a common pool of material from which they work (Genesis 1:1–11:9), and they work that material toward a common goal (unity). Thus, for all the differences in these interpreters’ own situations—and, indeed, because of these differences—they illumine what they share in common as readers who attempting to foster unity in dialog with Genesis and the traditions surrounding it.

Author Biography

J. David Stark is professor of Biblical Studies and the Winnie and Cecil May Jr. Biblical Research Fellow at Faulkner University and a Senior Research Fellow at the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology in Cambridge.
Daniel B. Oden is professor of Hebrew Bible in the College of Bible and Ministry at Harding University.