Scripture's Cornerstone
Genesis or Bereishis (“In the beginning”) is the first book of the Bible. It tells the story of creation and God’s covenants with the first men (1-11) and the patriarchs (12-50). It ends with the death of Joseph, who had brought to Egypt both his brothers and his father, Jacob. Many of the stories related in Genesis are amongst the most memorable ones in the Bible. They also constitute many of the most fundamental episodes in salvation history. St. Jerome’s dictum that knowing Scripture is essential for knowing Christ is particularly applicable to Genesis. Understanding Genesis is indispensable for understanding who Jesus is and what he has accomplished.
In this interview, Steve Ray discusses some of the books that can help us understand Genesis.
Steve Ray is a Catholic speaker, author, and convert to Catholicism who shares his conversion story and his insights on various topics such as apologetics, the Bible, evangelism, family, and more. With his wife, Janet, he regularly guides pilgrimages to the Holy Land. He is the host of the popular film series The Footprints of God and the author of the best-selling books Crossing the Tiber and St. John's Gospel. Among his recent publications is Genesis: A Bible Study Guide and Introduction.
- The GPS Torah Commentary: Genesis
by Nahum M. Sarna - The Commentator's Bible: Genesis
by Michael Carasik - The Lexham Research Commentary: Genesis 1-11
by Douglas Mangum, Miles Custis, and Wendy Widder - On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis (alternative edition)
by St. Augustine - Genesis: With Introduction, Commentary, and Notes
by Curtis Mitch and Scott Hahn - Commentary on the Torah : Translated and Annotated: Bereishis/Genesis
by Rabbi Moshe Ben Nachman
Who wrote Genesis?
There is a big debate about that. According to Jesus, Moses wrote it. Throughout the Bible, the view is that Moses was the author not just of Genesis but of all five books of the Law of Moses or the Pentateuch (penta means five, and teuch means scrolls). They have always been viewed as the work of Moses the prophet and the lawgiver.
However, over the last hundred years or so, there has been a movement that disputes this view. It believes that the Pentateuch was written by various authors around 400 or 500 BC, and then redacted or knit together into the story that we have now. It divides these authors up and says that those who use the name Yahweh or Elohim wrote this part, whereas the priest wrote this part. This becomes confusing and distracting. It causes scepticism in people. There is no good reason to conclude that Moses did not write it. Currently, many scholars, such as Scott Hahn, defend the traditional view of its Mosaic authorship. In my book, I go through these various views on the authorship, though not too pedantically. You do not want to bog the reader down. I conclude that Moses is the author but Genesis may have been redacted subsequently. For example, the end of Deuteronomy talks about the death of Moses. He did not write that part. That was redacted and added by a future author. In general, however, Genesis has Moses as its author yet may have been put together by later editors.
What is the central theme of Genesis?
Genesis is probably the most important book of the Bible. It lays the foundation for everything else. Each of the following seventy-two books depends on Genesis. It tells us where we came from, what existed before the beginning, why there are abnormal problems in the world, or as C.S. Lewis puts it, a bentness. It tells us about our purpose and why we are here. It also tells us that there is a creator, artist, or poet. Romans says that we can see a lot about God by looking at what he has made (poema in Greek). So, God is a poet. He has made something, and we can learn about him through it.
The main objective of Genesis is to lay the foundation for everything else in the Bible. It pulls back the curtain and tells us things that we could never know with our five senses or through science.
That is the main theme. There are some sub-themes too. You see that God’s plan seems to have been thwarted by the serpent right away. One of the themes in Genesis, then, is that God can turn evil into good. He can fulfil his purposes and plans even when there is opposition to them. He can draw straight with crooked lines. He can use sinful men and actions to bring about his purposes, even though, from a human point of view, everything seems to have become messed up. The serpent came in. Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden. God's plan was thwarted. Nevertheless, God ends up turning that into something even better for us. As it says in the Easter Vigil, “Oh, happy fault of Adam, which brought us such a great Redeemer!”
Another sub-theme is that God winnows people out. He takes two and from those he chooses one. There is Esau and Jacob. Even though Esau was the firstborn, God chooses Jacob and, through his sovereign choices, he carries the line to bring about a people, the land of Israel, and the Jewish people, so that when his plan is brought to fulfilment by Jesus Christ, there is a people prepared for him and who will recognise him, or should have recognised him. So, Genesis is the foundation of the rest of the Bible. There is always a remnant, no matter how sinful people get. He always preserves a remnant, winnows people out, and keeps that line to bring his plan to fulfilment in Jesus Christ.
"Genesis is probably the most important book of the Bible. It lays the foundation for everything else."
What is the general structure of Genesis?
The general structure is so simple that people can put it in their shirt pocket. Memorise this simple outline, and you have the whole of Genesis in a nutshell.
Genesis has two parts: chapters 1-11 and chapters 12-50. My book also has fifty chapters so that the reader can follow the chapters of Genesis easily.
Chapters 1-11 are about the prehistory, before the period where there are dates assigned to events. For example, you cannot say that God created the world in 6000 BC, on April 4th at 12:00. We do not know the date of creation or the fall. But we know that these are historical events.
You can divide this first section into four parts: creation, the fall, the flood, and the Tower of Babel.
The second part is also divided into four parts: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
It begins with Abraham, in Ur of the Chaldeans. This is a period for which we have dates, archaeology, and other cultures.
These eight divisions give you the whole book of Genesis in a nutshell. First, there is creation, fall, flood, and the Tower of Babel. Then there is Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
"To really understand Genesis and the beginning of the story, you need to go to that land, and understand the customs, language, and laws those people had"
With your wife, Janet, you regularly lead pilgrimages to the Holy Land. Has visiting the sites of the biblical events changed your understanding and appreciation of Genesis?
It sure does.
I was raised as a Baptist. My parents became Baptists in 1953, on account of Billy Graham. My dad just fell in love with the Bible. I was born in 1954 as an answer to their prayers to have kids that they could raise for Jesus. As you can imagine, I was immersed in the Bible when I was a kid and so I always have loved it. This love for the Bible is a gift that my parents gave me. In the dedication of my book-on-book Genesis, I credit my mom and dad for instilling in me the love of Scripture and thank them for that.
So, when I became Catholic, I had this insatiable desire to visit the places mentioned in the Bible. I wanted to live the Bible in the Holy Land.
My wife and I have been to Israel over 200 times, whether leading pilgrimages, making documentaries, doing research, or taking our kids on pilgrimages. By the way, taking your kids there is the smartest thing you can do. It leaves an indelible mark on their souls. I can say that we have visited every place that Genesis mentions, even Iraq. Abraham started in Iraq, at Ur. The flood was in Iraq, whereas the Ark rested on Mount Ararat, which is in Turkey.
Visiting all the places that Genesis mentions really does help you understand the Bible. The Bible was not written for us. People will say, “What are you talking about? Of course it was written for us.” Yes, but it was written in a definite period, culture, and geographical area. To understand the context of the text and the richness of the story, you need to be familiar with its historical, geographical, and linguistic context. It was not written in English, under a democracy, or in 2023. Some of it was written around 18,400 years ago, whereas Jesus lived 2000 years ago. So, to really understand Genesis and the beginning of the story, you need to go to that land, and understand the customs, language, and laws those people had.
I will give you an example. When Sarah wants to have a baby and is losing hope because she is already in her eighties, she tells Abrahm to father a child with Hagar that will become Sarah’s son. We might think that this is outrageous. In those days, however, the law was that if a woman could not have a child, she could have her husband father a child with her slave, with the act of having the baby born on the mistress's knees constituting a form of adoption. If you understand the laws of the surrounding culture of time, this passage makes sense. This was normal four thousand years ago. The more we understand the culture, the more we understand the story and God’s message.
Here is another example. God tells Abraham to take Isaac and offer him as a holocaust. This is outrageous. However, in Abraham's time, human sacrifice was part of everyday life in Ur (near Nazaria, Iraq). Archaeologists have discovered large grave sites called Death Pits. When the king died, the people of Ur would bury him and along with everybody that worked for him: his whole retinue of servants, horsemen, and generals. They would be laid in order around the buried king so that they could travel with him in the afterlife.
Back then, human sacrifice was common. God’s command would not have sounded as outrageous as it does today.
I have to say that we still practice human sacrifice. I do not know how many million babies are aborted in the United States in a year. That is human sacrifice if I have ever heard of it.
"Genesis and John are the two most important books of the Bible."
What led you to write your own study guide on Genesis?
As I said, I have always loved the Bible and I knew how important Genesis was.
I have also written a commentary on John. Interestingly, I believe Genesis and John are the two most important books of the Bible. Genesis lays the whole foundation for everything, whereas John builds on Genesis. You cannot understand John, in all its richness, unless you understand Genesis first. Each begins with the words, “In the beginning…” “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
When I became a Catholic, people knew that I had studied the Bible as a Protestant. They asked me if I would teach Bible studies at our parish. It started out as simple as that.
I agreed and went to the Catholic bookstore. I thought that there would be racks and racks of Bible study material but there was nothing.
If you go to an Evangelical bookstore, there is a whole wall of Bible studies. There will be a bible study on Genesis and each book of the bible. There are all kinds of Bible studies you can use. In the Catholic bookstore, there were rosaries and confirmation dresses, but not bible studies. So, I decided that I was going to have to write my own. So, my books on John and Genesis both started out as the bible study guides that I was writing for my classes. As time went on, I decided to submit them to Ignatius Press, with whom I had already published some books with Ignatius Press. They accepted my proposal. I wrote the book on John first. It was quite well received. The book on Genesis has been many years in the making. However, that helped the end result. It gave me more time to think it through and travel to all the places mentioned.
Now Ignatius Press has asked me to write the next one on the Acts of the Apostles and the birth of the Church.
What are the key features of your own study guide on Genesis?
I am not a theologian nor a philosopher. I am more of a populariser.
My dad would not buy me a television when I was a kid. He told me that we were going to read books and he gave me an insatiable curiosity as a kid and a desire to learn.
My book is not meant to be a boring, pedantic, scholarly one that only college professors will read. I wrote it so that people could read as if it were a novel or a story. People have told me that they cannot set it down once they start reading it. Someone even told me that he is reading it aloud to his wife and they cannot stop.
I wanted to make Genesis accessible. Some people are intimidated by it. They see the Bible, covered with dust, on their coffee table. They open it at Genesis, see all these strange names, such as Melchizedek, and say to themselves, “Maybe I shall just read this next year.” I wanted to make Genesis accessible and even fun to read.
In Genesis, Moses wrote an exquisite piece of literature. The description of Abraham ascending Mount Moriah is an elegant piece of writing. The language used is sparse and austere. The words are chosen carefully. Read it slowly and it draws you into the heartbreak and the emotion of a man walking his son to his death. Twice it says, “and the two of them walked on together.” This this is a. And I wanted to bring all of that out. I wanted people to see that this is fabulous piece of literature. It is a wonderful story and a novel.
Then you get to the story of Joseph at the end and cannot quit. At the end, the brothers who had sold him into slavery and who had lied to their father, making him believe that his son had been killed by showing him the blood-soaked coat of many colours, finally come to Joseph in Egypt. However, they do not realise that the vizier of Egypt is their older brother. Joseph is not vindictive but redeems them. He acts like Christ and is a figure of Christ. Very gently, he corrects his brothers, makes them regret what they had done and repent of it. The whole story is elegant. I wanted to show the elegance of Genesis and help people enter into it.
There are many theological terms. There is the whole idea of how Abraham, through his faith, becomes the source of salvation for all of us.
I also discuss some of the important words. When, for example, is the word ‘love’ first used in the Bible? I had never heard anyone ask that question before. However, its first and second placements are strategic. It is going to be fun and interesting for people to discover that it is first used in Genesis 22:2: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Mori′ah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” It is used for the first time to refer to a father’s love for his only-begotten son. Does that ring a bell? It reminds us of God the Father and his only-begotten Son. The next time it appears is in Genesis 24:67: “Then Isaac brought her into the tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her.” What other only begotten son falls in love with the bride? Jesus loves his bride, the Church. Pulling all these things out of the text, makes it thrilling to read and study Genesis.
So, I did not want my book on Genesis to be pedantic and slow, but an exciting read that shows the heart of God. In the book, I am revealing God's heart because he reveals it in Genesis.
"I view my library as like a spice rack, where you pull this book off the shelf and you use a little here, little there."
With the odd exception, the books that you have recommended seem to be reference books. They are not meant to be read in a single sitting but consulted, as need be. Is this what you have in mind?
Yes, when you asked me which five books I would recommend, it threw me a curveball.
I have not read the books I recommend from cover to cover. I use them as resource material. When there I am at a passage of Genesis, I ask, “How have people thought about this throughout history?” I do not care only about what I think, though many Bible studies are conducted that way today. They are you sit down in a group and ask, “What do you think about this passage? What did this passage mean to you?” It becomes very personal and subjective. In my book, I want to focus more on what the author wants us to understand.
Many of the books that I use are on a Catholic Bible study software called Verbum. I have over 16,000 volumes on that program. I use physical books less and the digital books. Certainly, I love the smell and feel of a real book, but the digital books become more useful because you can do searches on them. and things so.
People have asked me if I have read all the books that I have on Genesis. I ask them if they have a spice rack in their kitchen, with nutmeg, cayenne pepper, and so forth.
“Yes,” they say.
“Do you eat all of them?”
“No. I use them, just a little here and there, to spice foods.”
Well, that is how do I use a library. I view my library as like a spice rack, where you pull this book off the shelf and you use a little here, little there. I have all these books on the shelves and in my software, but I do not necessarily read them from cover to cover. Many of the ones that I use are more research books.
Now there are some books that you do read from cover to cover. I would recommend my own book on Genesis as one you can read from cover to cover.
I have recommended five books on Genesis. One of the unusual things about my book on Genesis is that I use a lot of Jewish sources. Church Fathers, and papal documents. I like to use the early fathers of the Church especially because they convey what the early Church thought. I also use evangelical Protestant scholars because many of them have quite good insights.
I use Jewish sources a lot, especially the pre-Christian ones. For example, the Book of Jubilees is a rewriting of Genesis and Exodus, originating just before the time of Christ. Though it embellishes, Jesus would have been familiar with it when he heard Genesis. He would have had these books and the first. The first/century Jewish authors, Josephus and Philo mentioned Genesis over and over again. Philo even writes a commentary on it. The rabbis from the Middle Ages, such as Ramban, embellish things a lot and weave Jewish traditions into it.
1.
Then there are the modern Jewish commentaries. The first one I have recommended is my favourite: Nahum Sarna’s. It is fun to read, though it struggles with passages that are clearly messianic and about Jesus. Moreover, the footnotes of the Jewish study Bible are extremely helpful.
This is an overview of the books that I use and how I use them. I want to give people a wide spectrum of books. Genesis was obviously a book of the Jewish people before it was ours. It is helpful to know how they understood it, before the full Revelation of Christ. Then it is helpful to know how the early Christians interpreted it.
Do these Jewish commentaries pick up things that escape the notice of Christian commentators?
Yes. For example, Nahum Sarna is a brilliant wordsmith who understands Hebrew in a way a Catholic scholar does not. He has also immersed himself in all the ancient literature of the surrounding cultures. He understands the theological nuances of the Hebrew words. He was my favourite author as I was studying Genesis. Were he still alive, I would have flown out to meet him and thank him.
2.
With that, we have already covered the first book on your list. Next is the commentary of another Jewish scholar, Michael Carasik. What do you admire in it?
He goes back to ancient and medieval Jewish writers. Say I want to learn how Jewish thinkers and rabbis understood Abraham’s offering of his son, Isaac. I can go to this book. Carasik brings out what the ancient and medieval Jewish writers thought. He gives you an idea, a taste of the expanse of Jewish thought on a certain passage. Their thoughts are really fascinating and there is a progression of thought. I have found it fascinating. I drew some real nuggets from Carasik in my book.
3.
Third is a resource for users of the Verbum biblical software: The Lexham Research Commentary on Genesis. It is in two volumes: one for Genesis 1-11, another on Genesis 12- 50. Have you recommended it because it facilitates cross-textual research on any passage from Genesis?
Yes, I found this a fascinating resource. It refers mainly to Protestant scholars and commentators. I love to use their work. Though it may lack some of the Catholic, sacramental nuances, it contains great scholarship. This book breaks a passage down, such as the story of Noah's Ark, and considers how it fits into the canon of Scripture as a whole. Where is it referred to? Where can you? Is it anticipated before the actual story? How is it used later? Then, it takes a couple of verses and compares how maybe fifteen other scholars interpret them and disagree with each other. It assesses their arguments and gives a concise study of a passage and how it fits within Scripture as a whole picture.
For example, Genesis 6 talks about how the sons of God had children with the daughters of men. There is a lot of controversy over who the sons of God are. Some say that they are the sons of Seth, the righteous line of Noah. Others, that they are angelic beings. Their union with the daughters of men brought about giants, called the Nephilim, who are part of the reason that God destroys the earth with the flood. This is a very unusual, obscure, and much-disputed passage of Scripture. Using the Lexham Research Commentary, where you have so many different authors debating one another, helps you distil it down to a conclusion.
4.
Out of all the patristic commentaries on Genesis, why have you chosen St. Augustine’s On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis?
This book contains two of his books on Genesis: On Genesis and On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis.
Augustine is a giant among the Church Fathers when it comes to theology and biblical studies. When you quote Augustine, not many people are going to argue with you.
In my book on Genesis, I used Augustine in various ways. For example, how did God create the world? The Church has left this open for us. In six days, literally? Some believe so. Most fundamentalist Protestants hold that view. Was there an evolutionary process? One of the fun things about Augustine is that he presented more than one view. At one point, he says that God just created the world in an instant. He did not need six days. He did not need evolution. Bang, he just created it. Then, in story form, Augustine explains how he did it. So,
Augustine has unique points of view on other things. I found him helpful because I wanted to emphasise the tradition of the Church, not just the Jewish tradition or Protestant commentaries. Hence, I also quote John Paul II and Benedict XVI, especially in the early chapters, which deal with man and woman, created in the image of God.
One lady told me that when she read Chapter Two of my book with tears in her eyes. That chapter is about God making man and woman in his image and his purpose for them. She said it was so moving to read this and the quotes from Ratzinger and Augustine.
Other Church Fathers whose brilliant analyses I bring in, to establish the tradition of the Church about Genesis and the creation story, are John Chrysostom, Irenaeus, and Origen. They are geniuses.
5.
Fifth is a modern Catholic commentary on Genesis that is written for the general reader than specialists: the one written by Curtis Mitch and Scott Hahn for the Ignatius Study Bible. Is the best place for the general reader to start?
This is part of a series that is in progress. Soon they are going to publish the individual volumes into a single Bible, edited by Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch.
I like their commentary because they are modern scholars. They interact with what I would the liberal scholarship of the day, understand it, but tend towards more of a conservative view. They bring out the modern scholarship of the conservative wing of Catholicism. They debate both views and show why they think their perspective is correct.
They provide good insights into biblical words and institutions from a Catholic perspective. They bring out the sacramental aspects that Genesis is full of. For example, Noah's Ark is a figure of baptism; Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac is a type of God the Father offering his Son This beauty of this book is that Mitch and Hahn bring out the Catholic, sacramental, and Incarnational aspects of Genesis.
I have recommended five very different books that you can weave together and from which you can pull out nuggets whenever you read a passage. They are like a spice rack. As I study a certain passage, I will pull some nuggets from the Jewish commentators, the Catholic ones, and the Fathers of the Church.
6.
The Ignatius Study Bible uses the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (RSVCE). Is this your recommended translation of the Bible or do you prefer another one?
I use that translation because it is one that Ignatius Press uses. All my books use it because it is the one that I have permission to use.
However, I also like the English Standard Version, Catholic Edition (ESVCE). You should never just one translation. Translating the Bible is fraught with danger.
Say, for example, you are Russian whose second language is English. If I tell you, “I shot myself in the foot the other day,” what are you going to think? You will think that I put an actual bullet into my foot. However, if English is your first language, you know what I mean: that I made a fool of myself or did something stupid. Translating the Bible is difficult because readers often have no idea what the expressions mean. So, do you translate the Bible literally, using the exact words of the sacred author, or do you try to relay what they mean? In your translation, do you say, “I shot myself in the foot”, or “I made a fool of myself”? Both are correct. The former is a literal translation; the latter, a dynamic one. However, with a dynamic translation, bias, denominational or otherwise, can creep in. So, it is good to have several translations of the Bible and use them side by side. Say you have the RSVCE, the ESVCE, and the one used at Mass, the New American Bible (NAB). The beauty of Verbum or Bible study software is that you can compare five or six, side by side. That way, you have a much better chance of eliciting from the text what the author actually said and what he meant to say.
If I had to choose one, I would use the RSVCE. It is a good translation, although there are things with which I disagree.
