Genesis (Yale) Anchor Bible – E.A. Speiser – 3 Stars
Title: (Yale)
Anchor Bible: Genesis (1963)
Author: E.A.
Speiser
Publisher: 1963
Anchor Bible, 2002 Yale University Press
Year: Hardcover
1963, Softcover 2002
Rating: 2 STARS
Price and
Purchasing Options: As part of the Yale Anchor Bible Series, it is commonly
used as a text book for Divinity Schools and Religious Study courses through academia. This means that for the most part you are
going to get TEXT BOOK prices! The book
retails for about $85.00 – so if you want a new copy the best place is going to
be through Amazon for about $75.00.
However, this is a unique volume of the Anchor Bible Series, in that it
was the first, and the most popular.
This means that it not only got better distribution, but has also been
used for 50+ years and there is 50 years of used books on the second hand
market. Although this is not true for
most volumes in this series – I would recommend going to eBay (here) and buying it for
$5 or $6 used. That is what I did!
Review: The concept of this volume of the Yale Anchor
Bible Series, is to be an extremely comprehensive and focused study on a single
book of the Bible: Genesis. The concept
of this book in the 1960’s was to get one scholar who has focused on Genesis for
his career and to do a comprehensive analysis on the book.
This means that in the format of this book – you will
have a 100-page introduction to the book of Genesis, explaining the theories of
the origin and concept. Then you will go
into the text, where there will be a new modern translation pulling from all of
the available versions of the text to come up with a more cohesive and
inclusive narrative. From that more
modern translation focusing on the most up to date research (at the time), they
will break down word for word the nuances in the translation and the deeper
meaning. Then there will be a literary
commentary, as well as notes about the structure of the words and chapters –
and finally a section on commentary, which will point out all of the underlying
messages in the text.
This series, and this book does a great job of being
agnostic to faiths. It is about the text
and not necessarily about religion. It
doesn’t focus on a Jewish tradition, nor a Christian one – but just on the text
and the book, and allows the reader and scholar to apply or project their own
beliefs onto the book.
For the student of the Bible, who wants the resource to
go to in order to get that translation meaning, or that unique element – this
is a critical series and book. I
particularly recommend the book of Genesis, because Genesis itself is a more
popular and studied book – and contains more core and foundational information
for every western religion than anything else.
In an LDS perspective this should be a unique and fun
read (with some recommendations on how to read it below).
One unique element – and SPOILER ALERT – is going to be
the very clear concept within the introduction of the multiple authors within
the book of Genesis (and the five books of Moses). This book and this theory (even though it is
a fairly proven and prevalent theory in academia), is usually challenged by
more traditional protestant faiths – that focus on the sealed word of GOD. This theory would be challenging to anyone
who believes that the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses are the Law which
was handed down directly to Moses, or directly written by the hand of Moses
word for word.
In a nutshell the concept is that somewhere around the
Davidic reign the five books of Moses was compiled from multiple sources to
complete one narrative. In this there is
an author J that focuses on Jehovah’s engagement with Israel, and author E that
calls god Elohim yet stands back and witnesses the world rather than engages,
an author P that seems to be hyper focuses on the priestly responsibility of
the Aaronic duties and power, and the author R which is a redactor of the text
and tries to clean things up or bridge narratives together. (I am not doing it justice here.) Through the
body of this work, that theory is highlighted and outlined within the
translations – and it become apparent.
The funny things is from a Christian perspective, this
isn’t anything we should be concerned with, in fact a concept we could fully
embrace. On the New Testament side, we
acknowledge four Gospels written by four authors all telling he same narrative,
yet all having or sharing a different perspective or telling the story with a
different agenda. We can imagine that if
in the 5th century the church wanted to create a universal
narrative, they might take all four gospels and weave them together to try and
make one book with one story – and in that we would see four different voices
and agendas.
In an LDS perspective, the idea of someone taking a
thousand years of history and abridging them into a single narrative is not
new… if fact the fact that it may have happened in the five books of Moses,
might highlight that the idea of abridging a large collection of text might be
more traditional than unique. Ultimately,
this is the foundation of the Book of Mormon abridgement.
In an effort not to make this too long – I give this 3
Stars. It is good, but not something
everyone should read. In fact most would
probably find it boring. However, if you
want to get into Genesis more intently, or have a great resource for reference
than this is an awesome book.
Suggestions: I would recommend this book – however, it is
how you read it that will make a different.
If you went on eBay and got one for a few bucks you could put it on your
shelf, and then reference to it periodically as you go through your personal
study or have questions. If you are
curious – I would get this, read through the introduction, then go through the
text and “commentary” section – skipping all the literary and word analysis (as
it can be a little dragging). If you are
hard-core – then go cover to cover.
Either way I don’t think you can lose if this is something that peaks
your interest.
I hope you have enjoyed this review, and I encourage your
to follow this blog as I update more reviews in the coming days, weeks, months,
etc. Please feel free to also follow my
YouTube page – however, I enjoy writing more than being on camera!
Review #11
Tags: 3 Stars,
Old Testament Commentary, (Yale) Anchor Bible, E.A. Speiser, Genesis (Yale)
Anchor Bible
No comments:
Post a Comment