Now I'm going to look at ten themes which pervade the book of Genesis and will indicate where, within the book, these themes appear. This is a purely literary exercise with no philosophical or theological ambitions; I am simply following the oft-repeated motto of this blog and letting the text speak for itself. From this viewpoint, a major theme is a major theme if it shows up repeatedly and if (according to my analysis) it is not merely there as a background assumption, part of the landscape or setting, in which case it was listed in last week's post.
My list of the top ten themes of Genesis, then, is as follows: migration, name games, sibling rivalry, God's covenants, deception, neighbourly relations, sterility and continuity, dreams, not messing with the locals and God's names. Some of these may seem closely related, and undoubtedly they are, but in the discussion below I shall try to establish a definition of each "theme" that is clearcut enough to warrant treating these as separate items. I actually found more than these ten themes, so I will add some further ones at the end, calling them secondary themes: all that means is that they are not brought up quite so often, but still often enough to be noticed. The five runner-up themes I have identified are name changes, crimes, sin-and-destruction stories, sins against God generally and tests.
Showing posts with label laughter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label laughter. Show all posts
Friday, January 23, 2015
Friday, January 2, 2015
Leaves from the author's notebook: character sketches
The conceit behind the first part of this week's post's title is that the hypothetical author of Genesis (or was it Moses?), in the persona of a modern novelist, set apart a couple of pages in a notebook to sketch out the main features of each of the important characters in this saga: God, Adam, Eve and their sons, Noah and his sons, Abram, Sarai, Lot, Hagar and her son Ishmael, Isaac, Laban, Rebecca, Esau, Jacob, Leah, Rachel and Joseph.
Whether we choose to think of the book of Genesis (the literary entity) as if it were a novel, a TV series or just an ancient saga, it has a cast of important characters which are an essential part of the story. Today, I thought it would be interesting to review the cast. I will try to state in a simple and straightforward manner what we all know about each character as presented in the book, basing my information on what the text itself tells us about them, how they are portrayed or what their actions appear to intend to suggest about them. Many if not all of these characters have entered into world culture and practically become entities in their own right; consider, for example, the fact that they each have a whole Wikipedia article devoted to them (below I have given links to those articles for anyone interested in comparing notes)! However, here what most interests me is not the place they occupy in world culture but their place in the story that unfolds in the book of Genesis.
Whether we choose to think of the book of Genesis (the literary entity) as if it were a novel, a TV series or just an ancient saga, it has a cast of important characters which are an essential part of the story. Today, I thought it would be interesting to review the cast. I will try to state in a simple and straightforward manner what we all know about each character as presented in the book, basing my information on what the text itself tells us about them, how they are portrayed or what their actions appear to intend to suggest about them. Many if not all of these characters have entered into world culture and practically become entities in their own right; consider, for example, the fact that they each have a whole Wikipedia article devoted to them (below I have given links to those articles for anyone interested in comparing notes)! However, here what most interests me is not the place they occupy in world culture but their place in the story that unfolds in the book of Genesis.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)