Early Christian Readings of Genesis One: Patristic Exegesis and Literal Interpretation
Overview
Do the writings of the church fathers support a literalist interpretation of Genesis 1? Young earth creationists have maintained that they do. And it is sensible to look to the Fathers as a check against our modern biases.
But before enlisting the Fathers as ammunition in our contemporary Christian debates over creation and evolution, some cautions are in order. Are we correctly representing the Fathers and their concerns? Was Basil, for instance, advocating a literal interpretation in the modern sense? How can we avoid flattening the Fathers’ thinking into an indexed source book in our quest for establishing their significance for contemporary Christianity?
Craig Allert notes the abuses of patristic texts and introduces the Fathers within their ancient context, since the patristic writings require careful interpretation in their own setting. What can we learn from a Basil or Theophilus, an Ephrem or Augustine, as they meditate and expound on themes in Genesis 1? How were they speaking to their own culture and the questions of their day? Might they actually have something to teach us about listening carefully to Scripture as we wrestle with the great axial questions of our own day?
Allert’s study prods us to consider whether contemporary evangelicals, laudably seeking to be faithful to Scripture, may in fact be more bound to modernity in our reading of Genesis 1 than we realize. Here is a book that resets our understanding of early Christian interpretation and the contemporary conversation about Genesis 1.
Key Features
- Examines patristic views on Genesis 1
- Encourages thoughtful and deliberate study of Scripture and church history
- Explores the ways personal bias and context affect biblical interpretation
Contents
Part I: Understanding the Context
- Who Are the Church Fathers, and Why Should I Care?
- How Not to Read the Church Fathers
- What Does “Literal” Mean? Patristic Exegesis in Context
Part II: Reading the Fathers
- Basil the Literalist?
- Creation out of Nothing
- The Days of Genesis
- Augustine on “In the Beginning”
- On Being like Moses
Top Highlights
“Second, it does not accurately represent what many of the sixteenth-century Reformers believed about the ancient church and the Fathers.” (Page 15)
“Mook assumes that allegorical interpretation is wrong and literal interpretation is right” (Page 60)
“The unfolding of this creation is what Genesis actually relates” (Page 64)
“Christianity because they saw themselves in continuity with the church fathers and the historic teaching of the church.6” (Page 15)
“at the root of a gradually developing Christian theology of the beginning of the world.” (Page 63)
Praise for the Print Edition
This book is a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand the unique features of patristic exegesis. Allert provides a judicious and much-needed defense against making the early Fathers conform to various conservative versions of interpreting Scripture. Using the Genesis creation account, the reader is invited to see that the ancients were far more imaginative and biblically minded than we credit them.
—D. H. Williams, professor of patristics and historical theology, Baylor University
This is a brave and much-needed book. A church that tries to ignore the Fathers of the church deprives itself of a valuable resource. Craig Allert seeks to show how attention to how the Fathers understood Genesis 1 deepens our own understanding of creation. He cuts through a lot of misunderstanding and ignorance of the Fathers enabling us to hear them once more. Professor Allert’s proposal is not so much ‘Back to the Fathers’ as ‘Forward with the Fathers.’
—Andrew Louth, professor emeritus, Durham University
In this book Allert explains the concept of church father and their interpretations of Genesis, discusses the erroneous uses of the Fathers, and directs us to a fuller understanding of them. He treats Basil and Augustine in particular, especially Basil’s homilies on Genesis. This book is an excellent antidote to fundamentalist and creationist misreadings of Genesis 1.
—Mark Sheridan, professor and rector emeritus, Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo, Rome, Italy
Product Details
- Title: Early Christian Readings of Genesis One: Patristic Exegesis and Literal Interpretation
- Author: Craig D. Allert
- Publisher: IVP
- Series: BioLogos Books on Science and Christianity
- Publication Date: 2018
- Pages: 368
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Topic: Genesis