The style of the Hebrew Bible has long been of significant interest to scholars and exegetes alike. Early Jewish and later Christian commentaries point out the importance of the exact wording in interpreting the text, and many an article has been written on features such as repetition and inclusio. With the rise of literary and narrative criticism in biblical studies, these features have received even more attention. The current book stands in the tradition of Robert Alter in that it focuses on how the text of Genesis is written and phrased. More explicitly, it is interested in why Genesis is formulated the way it is and how this affects the reader in his/her encounter with the text. Doubling and Duplicating is not only concerned with a style-as-analysis frame for interpreters but also with its role as a guide for any audience and its gateway to the ancient mind-set (ideological, ontological, and so on). All of the contributors to this collected volume focus on the form of the book of Genesis—that is, on its use of language and formulation. Yet, each author does this in his/her own way, depending on the most fitting tool for the specific research question or based on the researcher’s methodological background. Thus, the essays represent the various approaches in current literary and stylistic criticism as applied to the biblical corpus. Furthermore, the recurring duality of the features discussed in each of the contributions adds to the overall unity of the volume. This recurrence suggests the presence of a stylistic feature in the book of Genesis, the feature of doubling and duplicating, that surpasses the other features of the individual units or stories. This book offers insights about meaning-making on both the micro- and the macro-text levels.

Karalina Matskevich examines the structures that map out the construction of gendered and national identities in Genesis 2–3 and 12–36. Matskevich shows how the dominant 'Subject' – the androcentric ha'adam and the ethnocentric Israel – is perceived in relation to and over against the 'Other', represented respectively as female and foreign. Using the tools of narratology, semiotics and psychoanalysis, Matskevich highlights the contradiction inherent in the project of dominance, through which the Subject seeks to suppress the transforming power of difference it relies on for its signification. Thus, in Genesis 2-3 ha'adam can only emerge as a complex Subject in possession of knowledge with the help of woman, the transforming Other to whom the narrator (and Yahweh) attributes both the agency and the blame. Similarly, the narratives of Genesis 12–36 show a conflicted attitude to places of alterity: Egypt, the fertile and seductive space that threatens annihilation, and Haran, the 'mother's land', a complex metaphor for the feminine. The construction of identity in these narratives largely relies on the symbolic fecundity of the Other.

This book contends the text of the Noachian deluge narrative categorically underscores all God did to preserve life in spite of the disaster. Despite the picture of devastation that the narrative depicts, the prominent emphasis of the text is on deliverance and redemption, i.e., salvation, not judgment. The focus of the Genesis flood is acutely bent towards God's salvific rather than punitive purposes. The arc of salvation within the flood narrative can be broken down into two main ideas. Firstly, God's intention for creation is not thwarted, and, secondly, God commits himself to his intentions of creation. God's intention for creation can be stated thus: the establishment of order via covenant showing the sanctity of human life and the upholding of all life. This involves, in particular, humanity as his image bearers, including the lex talionis (life-for-life) principle.

In Engraven Upon Plates, Printed Upon Paper: Textual and Narrative Structures of the Book of Mormon, author Brant A Gardner delves into the intriguing layers of composition and historical context of the Book of Mormon. While taking seriously the implications for what it means for this book of scripture to be a translation of an ancient record written by historical persons, Gardner explores the translation process of the Book of Mormon, analyzing three compositional layers: the nineteenth-century text, the Nephite Book of Mormon, and the Nephite writers and their sources. This work contributes to a deeper understanding of the origins and compositional history of the Book of Mormon, without aiming to serve as an apologetic defense. Praise for Engraven Upon Plates, Printed Upon Paper: “Brant Gardner has long been at the head of Book of Mormon studies. With his new book, Engraven Upon Plates, Printed Upon Paper, he adds to his lengthy resume by deconstructing one of the more vexing issues in Book of Mormon studies, namely how to understand the complicated relationship between the Nephite Gold Plates and the nineteenth-century English Book of Mormon. Gardner provides careful analysis of by what means Joseph Smith may have translated the plates, how the Nephite authors may have conceived their project, and in what way those Nephite authors may have integrated their own sources into their record. Any reader seeking a deeper insight into construction and realization of the Book of Mormon text will find much to admire in this project.” — Nicholas J. Frederick, Associate Professor of Ancient Scripture, Brigham Young University, and author of The Bible, Mormon Scripture, and the “Rhetoric of Allusivity” “Written as a companion to The Plates of Mormon: A Book of Mormon Study Edition Based on Textual and Narrative Structures in the English Translation, this volume bristles with insights gained through a detailed reading of the text. It represents one of the most thorough and substantive treatments of the nature of the translation, transmission, and organizational design of the Book of Mormon text to-date. This expansive study immediately rises to top of must-read resources relative to the Book of Mormon.” — Kerry Hull, co-editor, A Hundredth Part: Exploring the History and Teachings of the Book of Mormon

This groundbreaking volume presents a new translation of the text and detailed interpretation of almost every word or phrase in the book of Judges, drawing from archaeology and iconography, textual versions, biblical parallels, and extrabiblical texts, many never noted before. Archaeology also serves to show how a story of the Iron II period employed visible ruins to narrate supposedly early events from the so-called "period of the Judges." The synchronic analysis for each unit sketches its characters and main themes, as well as other literary dynamics. The diachronic, redactional analysis shows the shifting settings of units as well as their development, commonly due to their inner-textual reception and reinterpretation. The result is a remarkably fresh historical-critical treatment of 1:1-10:5.

The first volume of a groundbreaking two-part commentary on the book of Genesis by leading biblical scholar Ronald Hendel The first eleven chapters of Genesis narrate the origin of the universe; the creation of the first human beings; the beginnings of moral reasoning, society, and culture; and the cataclysmic global flood. By showing how life and civilization came into being, Genesis 1-11 offers a richly drawn map for understanding the world as a meaningful cosmos and an ethical guide for human purpose and responsibility within it. The culmination of over thirty years of research, this long-awaited study by leading Genesis scholar Ronald Hendel is the first comprehensive scholarly commentary on Genesis 1-11 in a generation. Drawing on archaeological discoveries from Israel and the ancient Near East as well as contemporary methods of scholarship, it presents a multilayered view of the classic text. The extensive introduction, notes, and comments explore ancient textual versions and editions, historical contexts, literary style and design, compositional history, cosmology, ethics, and the book's interpretive life in Judaism and Christianity. Featuring numerous illustrations, this engagingly written commentary is an indispensable, field-defining guide to the first eleven chapters of the Bible.

What can explain the persistence of gender inequality throughout history? Do narratives such as the Eden story explain that dissymmetry or contribute to it? This book suggests that the Hebrew Bible began and has sustained a rich conversation about sex and gender throughout its life. A literary study of the Garden of Eden story reveals a focus on the human partnership as integral to the divine creation project. Texts from other Hebrew Bible genres build a picture of robust and flexible partnerships within a patriarchal framework. In popular culture, Eve still carries the stench of guilt while Adam, seemingly unscathed by Eden events, remains a positive symbol of manhood. This book helps explain why they have had such different histories. The book also charts the subversive alternate streams of interpretation of women's writings and rabbinic texts. The story of Adam and Eve demonstrates how conceptions of gender in both ancient and modern worlds reflect larger philosophical schemes. Far from existing as timeless verities, female and male relations are constructed according to cultural imperatives of the day. Understanding the different ways that Adam and Eve have been conceived gives us perspective on our own twenty-first century gender architecture.

What if everything in the Bible has a larger outer context than is usually accounted for? Missional and biblical theologies suggest that the Bible presents a grand story like a play with multiple acts. The acts typically include creation, fall, redemption, and finally restoration. But what if the whole story itself occurs in another larger setting, occurring within a mission running in the background throughout the whole Bible? How might this aid our research, reading, and application? And why is this being proposed now? This book explores these questions. The larger context is the production of the place of God—a home and homeland wherein God, with his people, dwell on earth. Since place is underdeveloped in biblical studies, the book presents a new method for interpreting place. Then the book lays out the case that a grand mission to produce the place of God becomes the outer context for the whole Bible. Finally, the book defends this proposal with an in-depth placial commentary of the bookends of the Bible, since these bookends provide keys to unlock this message, thereby inviting further study on the rest of the Bible and on the implications for this transformative perspective.

The book of Genesis introduces three similar wife/sister narratives, commonly thought to be originating from different sources because of their repetitive entries. This research explores the wife/sister narratives in Genesis (Gen 12:10–13:1, 20:1–18, and 26:1–11), and it aims to provide an understanding of the three stories as a whole by uncovering its context by textlinguistic and literary type-scene analysis. Textlinguistic analysis helps us to see how each wife/sister narrative functions in its context, while type-scene analysis emphasizes how the three narratives develop and contribute to the patriarchal narratives through their similarities and variations. Although the traditional type-scene analysis studies recurrent fixed motives in texts, this study focuses much more on literary aspects such as characterization, theme, and plot. Through this study, the three wife/sister stories will elaborate that the patriarchal narratives are not results of different authors, but the well-developed products of a single author. The three wife/sister stories work together to highlight God’s faithfulness to his promises (Gen 12:1–3).