Happy Lutheran

I want to share some thoughts about Reading Genesis, by Marilynne Robinson. I can’t remember who first told me about this literary commentary on Genesis, written by one of my favorite authors, but I do know that as soon as I heard about it, I went online and bought it right away. I know something about her and her faith, from her well-known “Gilead novels,” which include Gilead, Home, Lila, and Jack, all of which are about the families of Rev. John Ames and Rev. Robert Boughton. 

Robinson is a Calvinist, and that perspective definitely comes through in her interpretation of Genesis. Over and over again, she is insistent on God’s good providence, God’s steady and grace-filled hand behind it all, and God’s irrepressible desire to maintain a covenant with humans who are fickle, capricious, cruel and unfaithful—to God and to each other. 

The main part of the book is her commentary, as you might expect. It is followed by the King James version of the book of Genesis itself–an interesting choice. There are no chapters or breaks in her reflections, which, for me, made it feel a little tedious. I think it would have been helpful if she had grouped her reflections parallel with the chapters in Genesis itself, or even just with the main stories and figures. It reads as though she just picked up her figurative pen one day and started writing, turning the pages of Scripture and periodically stopping to make some notes until she had methodically worked through the whole book of Genesis.

I wouldn’t say that I necessarily learned anything new per se, but what is such a delight in the book is Robinson’s voice. Her writing is so beautiful, and throughout, she has the most wonderful turns of phrase. Her own strong and sophisticated faith comes through palpably, and while I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the book is a work of apologetics, there are certainly elements of that perspective. 

Here is how she begins the book: “The Bible is a theodicy, a meditation on the problem of evil. This being true, it must take account of things as they are. It must acknowledge in a meaningful way the darkest aspects of the reality we experience, and it must reconcile them with the goodness of God and of Being itself against which this darkness stands out so sharply. This is to say that the Bible is a work of theology, not simply a primary text upon which theology is based” (3).

After reading the book, I would argue that this too, is the point of her commentary: to acknowledge these terrible aspects of human reality, and reconcile them with the goodness of God, which, for Robinson, is unshakable.

Let me offer some of my favorite phrases.

“God’s great constancy lies not in any one covenant but in the unshakable will to be in covenant with willful, small-minded, homicidal humankind” (53).

“The covenant would be in continuous peril if it depended for its survival on human loyalty rather than on God’s steadfastness. From a scriptural point of view, this could be said of everything that matters” (90).

“We are being told a story different from epic or fable, and different from conventional history. The mind of the text hovers over a very long span of time, during which an absolutely singular providence works itself out through and among human beings who are fallible in various ways and degrees and who can have no understanding of the part their lives will play in the long course of sacred history” (177).

Periodically, she steps outside the particular story that is under consideration and offers a more birds-eye view of Scripture in general. Here is one of these examples:

“In any case, granting that this narrative concerns itself with the singular history of a chosen people, one not primarily meant to offer examples of virtue or heroism or to support generalizations about ethical conduct but meant to trace the workings of God’s loyalty to humankind through disgrace and failure and crime. Again, my old rabbis practice a generous rigor in not having obscured this essential meaning by editing or eliding the tales on which it depends. They have preserved the world’s best hope” (178).

On page 175, she mentions “God’s great constancy,” and I would argue that, in some ways, this is the main theme of her commentary as a whole.

Complementary to that theme is her insistence on the frailties of the people being described. She writes: “The creators of Genesis are not interested in others’ vices or crimes, only their own. This is again remarkable” (171).

As might be expected, she spends a great deal of time on the narrative of Abraham and his family. [Jacob, too, and Joseph]. I especially appreciated the way she compared similar themes that occurred in the stories of Abraham and Hagar, including the way God revealed Godself to each of them, and the fates of their sons. Her handling there was especially deft and insightful. For example, at one point, she notes: “Hagar sees a wall of water, Abraham sees a ram caught in a thicket. The parallel is very close” (121).

Language matters to her, of course. (I assume that is why she chose the King James version, with its singular poetic phrasing.) Early in the book, she mentions some of the words that have been chosen in the English translation, and she reflects a bit on the word vengeance, and the word wrath. She writes: “…in the special environment of scriptural language, words take on exceptional qualities. Wrath is singularly terrifying. Extraneous to the text as these words are, they characterize God in the minds of serious, even reverent readers. It seems we may, so to speak, impute to the Lord words that are not in His lexicon. The thought should give us pause” (55-56).

If you like her works of fiction, you probably will like this book as well. It has the same quiet beauty, the same subtle wisdom, and the same stop-you-in-your-tracks eloquence. It is a unique invitation to the book of Genesis, one that is worth accepting.