Genesis for Normal People Quotes

“The story of Adam and Eve is a preview of Israel’s long journey in the Old Testament as a whole.”
― Peter Enns, Genesis for Normal People: A Guide to the Most Controversial, Misunderstood, and Abused Book of the Bible

“This is the point of the story: the choice put before Adam and Eve is the same choice put before Israel every day: learn to listen to God and follow in his ways and then—only then—you will live. The story of Adam and Eve makes this point in the form of a myth. Proverbs makes it in the form of wisdom literature. Israel’s long story in the Old Testament makes it in the form of historical narrative.”
― Peter Enns, Genesis for Normal People: A Guide to the Most Controversial, Misunderstood, and Abused Book of the Bible

“God didn’t command Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because such knowledge is wrong. It’s not that God didn’t ever want Adam and Eve to know good and evil. That is precisely what he did want for them. But they have to go about gaining such knowledge God’s way. Obedience to God is the prerequisite for knowing good and evil. Proverbs 1:7 puts it this way: The fear the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
― Peter Enns, Genesis for Normal People: A Guide to the Most Controversial, Misunderstood, and Abused Book of the Bible

“Another angle, one often taken by Christians in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, is to read the Adam story as being not about a fall down from perfection, but a failure to grow up to godly wisdom and maturity.”
― Peter Enns, Genesis for Normal People: A Guide to the Most Controversial, Misunderstood, and Abused Book of the Bible

“Here’s a simpler explanation: there were other people living outside of the Garden of Eden all along, even if the story doesn’t explain it. Which leads to this: maybe the story of Adam and Eve isn’t about the first human beings. Maybe it’s about something else. And that something else is this: The Adam story is a story of Israel in miniature, a preview of coming attractions.”
― Peter Enns, Genesis for Normal People: A Guide to the Most Controversial, Misunderstood, and Abused Book of the Bible

“Rather, it was written to tell the Israelites that their God, and not the gods of the other nations, was the chaos tamer, and therefore, this God and this God alone was worthy of worship. And they made this point in ancient terms, using ancient ways of thinking.”
― Peter Enns, Genesis for Normal People: A Guide to the Most Controversial, Misunderstood, and Abused Book of the Bible

“They were writing and reading these stories to understand their own relationship with God.”
― Peter Enns, Genesis for Normal People: A Guide to the Most Controversial, Misunderstood, and Abused Book of the Bible