[In my series on Ephesians two years ago, I found the practice of creating a targum, an extended paraphrase of the Scriptures applied to contemporary circumstances, to be a helpful way of summarizing the study. This is an ancient rabbinic practice, but has been revived in recent years by, among others, Canadian New Testament scholar … Continue reading A Targum on Genesis 1.1-2.3
Over the last couple posts, I’ve said a few times something to the effect of how the creation of humanity “can be” “in many ways” considered to be the pinnacle of the Genesis 1 creation story. One might ask why such hedging is necessary. Well, the Genesis 1 story does not end at 1.31, but … Continue reading God Rests: Genesis 2.1-3
As the Genesis 1 story nears its end, God creates humanity in the image and likeness of God. The other day, we saw that on internal and comparative grounds, this ‘image’ likely entailed an inherent dignity and honour stemming from a family resemblance with God and a vocation to act as God’s representatives here on … Continue reading Humanity among the Creatures: Genesis 1.26-31, Part II
Over the past couple weeks, we’ve been working our way slowly through Genesis 1. So far, we’ve seen that it’s a highly stylized text that plays with existing Babylonian mythology in order to present a vastly different idea of God and creation, one in which God’s authority is unchallenged by the forces of chaos and … Continue reading Humanity in God’s Image and Likeness: Genesis 1.26-31, Part 1
Over the millennia, scholars and devotional readers alike have come away from Genesis 1 awed by the grandeur of God’s vision and plan. It’s a story in which everything has its place and God systematically sorts the primordial undifferentiated mess into things that have form and purpose. This sense of orderliness is heightened by the … Continue reading According to Plan and Purpose: Genesis 1.3-25, Part II
Matthew Root 