Journal: Interdisciplinary Journal on Biblical Authority
Volume: IJOBA 02:3 (Spring 2021)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

IJOBA 2:3 (Spring 2021) p. 80

Book Reviews

By the Faculty and Students of Calvary University

Halton, Charles, gen. ed. Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither? Three Views on the Bible’s Earliest Chapters. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. 2015. Pp. 175, paper $16.99. [The Bible’s earliest chapters are understood to be chapters 1–11.]

This book is part of the Counterpoints Series by Zondervan. The series editor is Stanley N. Gundry. General editor of this book is Charles Halton, PhD from Hebrew Union College. He is an assistant professor in theology at Houston Baptist University. The three contributors to this volume are Drs. James K. Hoffmeier, professor of Old Testament at Trinity International University Divinity School; Gordon J. Wenham, professor emeritus of Old Testament at the University of Gloucestershire, England; and Kenton L. Sparks, professor of biblical studies at Eastern University. As is the pattern for this series, each contributor submits an essay explaining their position; the other contributors respond to that position.

The contributors to this volume represent a wide range of views within contemporary ‘evangelicalism’. The three views represented in this work are:

1. Genesis 1–11 as history and theology (James K. Hoffmeier).
2. Genesis 1–11 as protohistory (Gordon J. Wenham).
3. Genesis 1–11 as ancient historiography (Kenton L. Sparks).

James Hoffmeier basically argues that the Genesis narrative relates historical facts, real events that happened in space and time (shades of Francis A. Schaeffer). He points to features within Genesis, geographical clues, etc. that signaled to ancient readers that these stories were to be understood as historical. If the ancient audience read it that way, so should we.

Gordon Wenham agrees with Hoffmeier to a point. He sees an undercurrent of history in the Genesis account, but the details are fuzzy, somewhat like an abstract painting. Thus, Wenham believes that Genesis is ‘protohistory’

IJOBA 2:3 (Spring 2021) p. 81

which he defines as a form of writing that has links to the past but interprets history for the sake of the present. For him, the meaning is more important than the specific facts.

Kenton Sparks takes the position that the authors of Genesis wrote in ancient ways and did not intend to produce history as we know it. Sparks argues that many of the events recounted in Genesis did not happen as the narrative states. That means that there was no Eden, no talking serpent, no global flood, and no tower of Babel.

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