"A Crossroad book." Bibliography: p. [219]-222.

This overture provides the interested reader with a fresh approach to commentary writing, one that engages all the traditional concern with total coverage of the text in question, but with the added feature of uniting that commentary under a single set of larger working concerns. The first-time reader of Deuteronomy is introduced both to the standard critical issues and to the text itself, but within the context of a concern to understand the book's abiding theological legacy. Christopher R. Seitz, from the Editor's Foreword

"[Polzin's] book... will profoundly affect biblical scholarship for at least a generation." -- Frank Kermode "[A] suggestive and rich book, written in a clear and witty style." -- Marc Z. Brettler, The Journal of Religion "Literary commentary at its best." -- Adele Berlin

"A Crossroad book." Bibliography: p. [219]-222.

Modern readers often assume that Genesis 1 depicts the creation of the earth and sky as we know it. Yet in an appeal for textual honesty, Steven DiMattei shows that such beliefs are more representative of modern views about this ancient text than the actual claims and beliefs of its author. Through a culturally contextualized and objective reading of the texts of Genesis 1 and 2, this study not only introduces readers to the textual data that convincingly demonstrate that Genesis' two creation accounts were penned by different authors who held contradictory views and beliefs about the origin of the world and of man and woman, but also establishes on textual grounds that what the author of Genesis 1 portrayed God creating was the world as its author and culture perceived and experienced it--not the objective world, but a subjective world, subject to the culturally conditioned views and beliefs of its author. In the end, this book clearly illustrates that the Bible's ancient texts do in fact represent the beliefs and worldviews of ancient peoples and cultures--not those of God, not those of later readers, and especially not those of modern-day Creationists.