Rating: 
Summary: A standout...
Review: Karen Armstrong's "In the Beginning" came to me at the tail end of a two year study of Christianity. I looked at its dustjacket (a reproduction of Adam from the Sistine Chapel) with indifference, and decided to read it only because it was brief. To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement. For one thing, Armstrong is a lyrical writer -- as a copyeditor, I truly marveled at her sentences for both their clarity and poetry. For another, in this book she does something many clerics and scholars have failed to do: successfully apply meaning to the garbled message of Genesis. She states her case pretty early on: there is no way to get a coherant understanding of God from reading Genesis. He is utterly contradictory -- creative and all-powerful in one story; vengeful and capricious in the next. This paradox has befuddled many of reader. I, for one, had come to think of Genesis as typical of the flawed meaninglessness of the Bible. But Armstrong has me reconsidering my conclusion. It seems clear, she says, that all the characters in Genesis have to endure afflictions and unfairness. Whether they are favored in God's eyes or not, their lives are difficult. A relationship with God doesn't spare them difficulties -- instead the meaning in their lives is derived in part by making it through their difficulties with their faith intact. I really enjoyed this book. Just when I had grown tired of a subject, a new author has revived familiar terrain with a fresh perspective. I look forward to reading Armstrong's other books.
Rating:
Summary: A standout...
Review: Karen Armstrong's "In the Beginning" came to me at the tail end of a two year study of Christianity. I looked at its dustjacket (a reproduction of Adam from the Sistine Chapel) with indifference, and decided to read it only because it was brief. To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement. For one thing, Armstrong is a lyrical writer -- as a copyeditor, I truly marveled at her sentences for both their clarity and poetry. For another, in this book she does something many clerics and scholars have failed to do: successfully apply meaning to the garbled message of Genesis. She states her case pretty early on: there is no way to get a coherant understanding of God from reading Genesis. He is utterly contradictory -- creative and all-powerful in one story; vengeful and capricious in the next. This paradox has befuddled many of reader. I, for one, had come to think of Genesis as typical of the flawed meaninglessness of the Bible. But Armstrong has me reconsidering my conclusion. It seems clear, she says, that all the characters in Genesis have to endure afflictions and unfairness. Whether they are favored in God's eyes or not, their lives are difficult. A relationship with God doesn't spare them difficulties -- instead the meaning in their lives is derived in part by making it through their difficulties with their faith intact. I really enjoyed this book. Just when I had grown tired of a subject, a new author has revived familiar terrain with a fresh perspective. I look forward to reading Armstrong's other books.
Rating:
Summary: If You Have Tried to Read Genesis and Failed...Buy this Book
Review: Once again, Karen Armstrong makes a complex topic more understandable and readable. If you have ever tried to read Genesis and never got past the chapter, "so-and-so begot so-and-so, who begot so-and-so", then this book is for you. I have never understood what was going on in Genesis until now. It is like having the "Cliff" Notes.
Armstrong provides the economic, social and political context in which the text was written. Without this, it is very difficult to understand the meaning of Genesis in a vacuum. The stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, etc., as written in Genesis, are full of sensational stuff like murder, deception, rape, incest, deceit, slavery and other topics more familiar to viewers of Jerry Springer.
Rating: 
Summary: A Struggle with God
Review: The brilliant Armstrong begins her book with a description of the well known "wrestle with God". This theme pervades the book and gives the reader some hope, that our own struggles in the search for God are not in vain. She presents through a reexamination of Genesis, that the book is not what it may seem at first reading. Our reading of this first book of the bible is colored by our religious training, and this is a fresh and welcome relook. Definately worth the read. My only criticism is that there is not enough, there could have been more evaluation and footnotes. She closes her book with the first book itself, which transforms before our eyes after reading her thoughts. Highly recommended
Rating:
Summary: A Struggle with God
Review: The brilliant Armstrong begins her book with a description of the well known "wrestle with God". This theme pervades the book and gives the reader some hope, that our own struggles in the search for God are not in vain. She presents through a reexamination of Genesis, that the book is not what it may seem at first reading. Our reading of this first book of the bible is colored by our religious training, and this is a fresh and welcome relook. Definately worth the read. My only criticism is that there is not enough, there could have been more evaluation and footnotes. She closes her book with the first book itself, which transforms before our eyes after reading her thoughts. Highly recommended
Rating:
Summary: A Struggle with God
Review: The brilliant Armstrong begins her book with a description of the well known "wrestle with God". This theme pervades the book and gives the reader some hope, that our own struggles in the search for God are not in vain. She presents through a reexamination of Genesis, that the book is not what it may seem at first reading. Our reading of this first book of the bible is colored by our religious training, and this is a fresh and welcome relook. Definately worth the read. My only criticism is that there is not enough, there could have been more evaluation and footnotes. She closes her book with the first book itself, which transforms before our eyes after reading her thoughts. Highly recommended
Rating:
Summary: nice work, not up to her usual standard
Review: This book is a brief running commentary on Genesis (the entire NRSV text of Genesis is included). The main point is that Genesis does not aim so much to explain how the world and the Israelite race began, which is not a very important question from a practical point of view. It aims more to describe why we dont experience God as a tangible first-hand reality. (This _is_ an important practical question: why should a God we never directly experience be relevant to important life decisions?). The main story of Genesis, according to Armstrong, is one of a God who progressively distances himself from the human race. He walks and talks with Adam, Noah and Abraham, but Jacob only wrestles with him as a stranger in the night, and Joseph never experiences him directly, not even in his famous dreams. Armstrong is careful to point out that no adequate explanation is given for this distancing in Genesis, forcing readers to grapple with the issue on their own. One possible resolution that Armstrong seems to suggest---walking and talking with God may just be unnecessary overhead, he will take care of one as long as one plays by his rules (=Joseph). She does not seem to approve of the standard Catholic explanation of original sin. Armstrong quickly takes care of fundamentalists by pointing out that there are two different and contradictory creation stories in Genesis, so that the editors who put Genesis together were obviously not fundamentalists. (They believed that both accounts were equally inspired, in which case the inspiration obviously did not refer to the literal truth of the accounts, but to deeper meanings). She also points out briefly that the historical details of Genesis are usually wrong--it is full of anachronisms. Armstrong does not try however to reconstruct the true history of the events that Genesis describes. She spends most of the book speculating on the psychology of the protagonists (including God) as revealed in the Genesis story. In doing this, she is scathingly critical of nearly everyone. Noah is castigated as a drunkard and child abuser, Abraham as a bad father (because he rejected Ishmael and traumatized Isaac for life by nearly killing him), Isaac as an all-round loser, and Joseph as an arrogant ___. Jacob receives an especially bad press, mainly because of his bad treatment of his senior wife Leah and his cold indifference to his daughter's rape. God is not spared! Armstrong points out, with ruthless logic, that his behavior in Genesis can be judged as incompetent, unfair and even evil. Bottom-line: while Armstrong's scholarship and logic are as always superb, it is important to remember that she is presenting an openly subjective and speculative analysis, with which the reader is free to agree or disagree. However, no reader can come away from this book without a better understanding of Genesis. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to read the Bible, whether as a devout believer (Jew or Christian or Muslim) or as a curious agnostic.
Rating: 
Summary: Genesis - New Possibilities
Review: This is a worthwhile and interesting read particularly if you are interested in sorting out the stories found in Genesis. Karen Armstrong is a clear, concise writer whose prose flows smoothly across the pages. I enjoyed reading this rather short book and I found that her interpretation of Genesis can be broken down into two sections. I call them the Bible scholar section and the psychologist section. I found the first section far more interesting and consequential.
The first section is new, compelling, and academically oriented. In this first section, her explanation and interpretation of the Creation and the Garden of Eden stories offer a surprisingly fresh glimpse into each biblical tale. In general, skeptics of the Bible seem to have the most difficulty accepting the Creation and Garden of Eden stories. Her interpretation offers new possibilities for understanding these tales.
The second section is literally a retelling of the remaining Genesis stories without the sound pedagogical focus. She switches roles from a Bible scholar to pop-psychologist. In this role, she uses the remaining pages of this short book to retell the remaining Genesis stories with a generous portion of the time spent laying out the psychological angst of these early Biblical families. Unlike the first section, this is not at all new and compelling.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: Yet another logical look at the Bible from Karen Armstrong. Karen's writing is easily read, without ever being superficial. I would also recommend "Through the Narrow Gate", her autobiography.
|
