In passing office catchup/conversation I learned that some coworkers and members from a local church were going to read Reading Genesis, by Marylinne Robinson. It’s a book I’ve had on the shelf for a while but never got to because there were always other things in my reading queue. But after learning that they were going to start this group, I joined in! I always find it more enjoyable to read and discuss a book with people because everyone has different approaches and questions that they bring to their reading. Maybe I’ll just offer some initial reflections of the book so far and add some thoughts about our group’s engagement.
it’s initially a bit much
I wasn’t expecting this book to be so… dense. When I heard Marylinne Robinson talk and share about this book at NYPL, she was so natural and conversational regarding the book; I expected Reading Genesis to be the same. But I was surprised to see her engaging with Babylonian myths and textual/source criticism (e.g. she casually mentions J E P D without explanation). I was only exposed to these comparisons and critiques later in life as part of my theological studies in seminary. After seminary, I spent much of my time in the church wrestling with how to bring such exploration and curiosity about the text in a way that wouldn’t seem threatening to people’s faith. Upon reflection, I realize that that perceived threat was mine alone. I didn’t get the sense that Robinson herself was concerned about such engagement as a threat to her own faith. She acknowledges that some find such engagement scandalous, but she just quickly moves on; it’s not a question that she cares to answer.
brave and courageous, or just curious?
In our group we touched upon how brave and courageous it was for Robinson to engage these extra biblical texts and sources. But as I reflected on that more, I think it was more that we were really projecting our own experiences into that activity. It would’ve been courageous for us to do that because it would invite an openness to the text that we were not accustomed to in our faith upbringings — at least that’s what it would’ve been for me. To even consider a text as being derivative — a blemish on its spotless divine inspiration. Or to consider its beauty, as opposed to declare its beauty — and that may seem like I’m splitting hairs, but its an important distinction. In the latter, the text is by definition, beautiful. It has to be beautiful or else! But in the former, giving consideration allows the possibility that the text is not beautiful. It allows for a text to be grotesque, abhorrent, even just basic, but this allowance give you the space. You are not confined to a single posture regarding the text. It fosters curiosity and wonder — a openness to the text. Rather than trying to protect its status as “beautiful” by requiring readers affirm it, it welcomes to reader to discover and explore that complexity of the text on its own terms. So I’m not sure if Robinson was being brave or courageous; she didn’t have any particular theological perspective to protect. I think she was just being curious about the text.
beauty and pleasure
I appreciate that in our discussion, we were led to consider the nature of text itself rather than analyze the text for historicity or validity.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”… When I think there was a day when a human first wrote those words, I am filled with awe. This sentence is a masterpiece of compression.
p. 24
There’s a literary beauty expressed here in so few words. Even apart from translations concerns the challenge the adjacent doctrine of creation ex nihilo, the intent and purpose of a god who creates with care is in stark contrast to the explanations of the world from contemporary origin stories. The authors of Genesis convey a character of God that is entirely different from the posture of divine beings in the cultural imagination at the time and it’s quite a different experience to discover it rather than assume it. In my own imagination and experience, this is a more expansive beauty than the beauty that comes from a systematic understanding of the text.
We finished our discussion with a prompt to read a single verse from the KJV translation reprinted as an appendix in Reading Genesis. I found it enlightening that all of us picked verses that touched upon enjoyment and pleasure: “fruit yielding trees,” “be fruitful, and multiply,” “and God saw that it was good.” We didn’t make an explicit connection during our time together, but I found that this resonated with Robinson’s reflection on God’s and our pleasure and enjoyment.
This world is suited to human enjoyment-“out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight”-in anticipation of human pleasure, which the Lord presumably shares… God as the creator of beauty intends it for us to see and enjoy, and that He gives us the gifts of apprehension this pleasure requires… That God Himself in some celestial sense has and enjoys this kind of perception gives us an insight into the meaning of our being made in His image. The world is imbued with these reminders that there is a beautiful intention and assurance expressed in every perception we have of loveliness in the natural world.
p. 39
I love this reflection that Robinson makes in light of reading Genesis in comparison to other origin myths. It gives us a more wholesome understanding and purpose of human existence. We are not made to feed the gods and do meaningless work; we are here for good and to experience goodness.