After reading the author's book on Genesis One, I was eagerly hoping he would continue on, as I feel the real problem people have lies with the whole Eden story. I was looking forward to seeing what he would say about human evolution. Turns out- nothing! I was surprised but not disappointed. Following his reasoning from the first book that as an ancient text Genesis must be understood in its original Hebrew language (real literary fundamentalism!) and in the context of the people of that time. I found this book even richer than the first one. Adam and Eve were not meant to represent the first man and woman, but the first spiritual important ones. The author views Genesis 2 and following as a sequel to the Genesis 1 story, not as an expansion of Day Six. Humanity, in general was made on Day Six- Adam and Eve are special members of a larger humanity. The Serpent was not originally meant to be Satan, was not specifically in the Garden or in the Tree! I found a lot of "ideas" I had picked up over the years being dispelled- the snake did not tell the truth while God lied, sin did not originally mean "missing the mark", and the Eden story is VERY different from any near-contemporary Creation stories. The imagery of the Garden is explored in depth. It is interesting that the author confirms he believes in a historical Adam (whose name certainly wasn't Adam!) but he avoids getting sidetracked with this and sticks to his "propositions". He delves more into the following chapters of Genesis and even the New Testament treatment of the story, with a contributed chapter by N. T. Wright. Once again, those at either of the extremes of science/religion will not like this book, but those who minds are not already made up will enjoy his rich scholarship as he restores this story to life and relevancy.
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