Reading Genesis

by Marilynne Robinson

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

A one-of-a-kind lens into one of the most profound works of writing — the book of Genesis. Here, Marilynne Robinson focuses on the sheer literary quality of the seminal Christian text, while exploring how this book resonates with the rest of the Bible.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

One of our greatest novelists and thinkers presents a radiant, thrilling interpretation of the book of Genesis.

For generations, the book of Genesis has been treated by scholars as a collection of documents by various hands, expressing different factional interests, with borrowings from other ancient literatures that mark the text as derivative. In other words, academic interpretation of Genesis has centered on the question of its basic coherency, just as fundamentalist interpretation has centered on the question of the appropriateness of reading it as literally true.

Both of these approaches preclude an appreciation of its greatness as literature, its rich articulation and exploration of themes that resonate through the whole of Scripture. Marilynne Robinson’s Reading Genesis, which includes the full text of the King James Version of the book, is a powerful consideration of the profound meanings and promise of God’s enduring covenant with humanity. This magisterial book radiates gratitude for the constancy and benevolence of God’s abiding faith in Creation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374299408
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	03/12/2024
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	8,537
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Marilynne Robinson is the author of Gilead, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award; Home, winner of the Orange Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Lila, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Jack, a New York Times bestseller. Her first novel, Housekeeping, won the PEN/Hemingway Award. Robinson’s nonfiction books include The Givenness of Things, When I Was a Child I Read Books, Absence of Mind, The Death of Adam, and Mother Country. She is the recipient of a 2012 National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama, for “her grace and intelligence in writing.” Robinson lives in California.

Hometown:

Iowa City, Iowa

Date of Birth:

November 26, 1943

Place of Birth:

Sandpoint, Idaho

Education:

B.A., Brown University, 1966

Editorial Reviews

11/06/2023

Novelist Robinson (The Death of Adam) offers a dense yet immersive close reading of the book of Genesis. Employing literary and theological lenses, the author frames the biblical book as an exemplary narrative and the figures within it as characters with agency, motive, and backstory. For example, Jacob is a trickster who schemes with his mother to steal his brother’s blessing, while his “young, bright, and self-infatuated” son, Joseph, proves “blind or indifferent to the resentment that is stirring around him... in literary terms, a great character.” Writing that “the text perfected very early the art of showing rather than telling,” Robinson skillfully melds her literary interpretation with her theological one, offering a Christian Calvinist reading that centers God’s goodness and grace (“Grace modifies law. Law cannot limit grace”). From that theological stance, she explores God’s willingness to form a covenant—and generally put up—with imperfect humans, his “too-brilliant creatures.” Like the biblical book it explicates, Robinson’s offering is demanding, intense, and best read slowly. Patient readers will be rewarded. Agent: Ellen Levine, Trident Media Group. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2023-10-14
A deeply thoughtful exploration of the first book of the Bible.

In this illuminating work of biblical analysis, Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Robinson, whose Gilead series contains a variety of Christian themes, takes readers on a dedicated layperson’s journey through the Book of Genesis. The author meanders delightfully through the text, ruminating on one tale after another while searching for themes and mining for universal truths. Robinson approaches Genesis with a reverence and level of faith uncommon to modern mainstream writers, yet she’s also equipped with the appropriate tools for cogent criticism. Throughout this luminous exegesis, which will appeal to all practicing Christians, the author discusses overarching themes in Genesis. First is the benevolence of God. Robinson points out that “to say that God is the good creator of a good creation” sets the God of Genesis in opposition to the gods of other ancient creation stories, who range from indifferent to evil. This goodness carries through the entirety of Genesis, demonstrated through grace. “Grace tempers judgment,” writes the author, noting that despite well-deserved instances of wrath or punishment, God relents time after time. Another overarching theme is the interplay between God’s providence and humanity’s independence. Across the Book of Genesis, otherwise ordinary people make decisions that will affect the future in significant ways, yet events are consistently steered by God’s omnipotence. For instance, Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, and that action has reverberated throughout the history of all Jewish people. Robinson indirectly asks readers to consider where the line is between the actions of God and the actions of creation. “He chose to let us be,” she concludes, “to let time yield what it will—within the vast latitude granted by providence.”

In this highly learned yet accessible book, Robinson offers believers fresh insight into a well-studied text.

Kirkus Reviews

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"Extraordinary . . . a writer’s book, not a scholar’s; it has no footnotes. Its power lies in the particular reading it gives us of one of the world’s foundational texts, which is also one of the foundations of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s mind and faith. We want to know what Robinson thinks of Genesis for the same reason we’d want to know what Tolstoy thought of it.” —Francis Spufford, The New York Times Book Review

“Alluring, contemplative . . . Robinson considers the weighty issues in clear-eyed prose; her close readings compel us to imagine these characters anew . . . The selling of Joseph into Egyptian bondage is an artful essay unto itself, gleaming like a Fabergé egg amid cerebral analysis.” —Hamilton Cain, Boston Globe

“Like so much of Robinson’s writing, [Reading Genesis] is alive with questions of kindness, community and how to express what we so often struggle to put into words.” —David Marchese, New York Times Magazine

"The genius of Reading Genesis lies in its collapse of the space between the holy and the mundane, the metaphysical and the physical." —Judith Shulevitz, The Atlantic

“[Robinson] occupies a unique place in American culture today . . . readers look to [her] for a certain kind of book that no one else provides—gracious, grave, radiant, and revelatory, with a distinctly anachronistic tinge . . . As a work of biblical commentary, Reading Genesis might be a departure from the historical novels and collections of essays that she is known for, but it is also a natural next step.” —Briallen Hopper, New Republic

“A brilliantly fresh reading of familiar stories, highlighting both the small details we might miss and the large-scale shifts in understanding that the storytelling represents . . . [Reading Genesis] invites us to take time in reading the stories again, in the company of an exceptionally wise and perceptive storyteller, one of the foremost novelists today in the English language . . . a work of exceptional wisdom and imagination, a real model of how to read the biblical text with the eyes of an adult faith.” —Archbishop Rowan Williams, The Telegraph (UK)

“Marilynne Robinson has managed to thread the theme of goodness into her entire body of work . . .[In] Reading Genesis, she does it once again, unfolding a tapestry of ideas drawn from her keen exploration of the first book of the Bible . . . [Robinson] seeks a deeper understanding of goodness that transcends any particular faith tradition.” —Joan Taylor, Christian Science Monitor


“[A] rich and provoking study . . . Robinson finds a way to produce a powerful meditation on hope at a time when that virtue is generally in short supply . . . In luminous prose she challenges a modern reader to understand just how unusual a book Genesis is, pregnant with meaning that stretches to our own day.” —Julian Coman, The Guardian (UK)

“Robinson’s sharp literary eye and clear, lyrical prose shine new light on some of our oldest stories . . . Readers will find astute insights on the power and gravity of human agency, and even some hope.” —Delaney Coyne, America

"In this illuminating work of biblical analysis, Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Robinson, whose Gilead series contains a variety of Christian themes, takes readers on a dedicated layperson’s journey through the Book of Genesis. The author meanders delightfully through the text, ruminating on one tale after another while searching for themes and mining for universal truths . . . [A] luminous exegesis." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Robinson skillfully melds her literary interpretation with her theological one . . . Like the biblical book it explicates, Robinson’s offering is demanding, intense, and best read slowly." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A literary, scholarly, and personal reading of Genesis . . . Throughout this deeply involving and enlightening exegesis, Robinson links Genesis to the profound dilemmas of our time." —Donna Seaman, Booklist

From the Publisher