Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 66:4 (Dec 2023)
Article: Narrative Analogy As An Apologetic For The Synchronic AND Unified Reading Of Genesis 1–3
Author: Seth D. Postell

JETS 65:4 (December 2023) p. 631

Narrative Analogy As An Apologetic For The Synchronic AND Unified Reading Of Genesis 1–3

Seth D. Postell

and

Jonathan L. Shelton*

^* Seth D. Postell is Academic Dean and Professor of Old Testament at Israel College of the Bible, in Netanya, Israel. He may be contacted at [email protected]. Jonathan L. Shelton is a PhD student in Hebrew Bible at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. He may be contacted at [email protected].

Abstract: Based on a synchronic literary reading, Jonathan Grossman concludes that Genesis 1–3 represents two autonomous creation stories that must be interpreted independently of one another. Grossman’s conclusions, therefore, share much in common with classic diachronic scholarship. This article shows how the narrative analogy in Genesis 5–9 is the best defense for a synchronic, cohesive, and unified reading of Genesis 1–3, and consequently affirms an interpretation that is theologically consistent with the perspective of the New Testament.

Key words: narrative analogy, close reading, synchronic, diachronic, literary approach, inner-biblical allusion

Being a Jewish Israeli follower of Jesus means living in two faith communities that love the Hebrew Bible yet insist on vastly different interpretations of it. Defending the New Testament’s interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Israel, therefore, requires believers to forgo appeals to the New Testament’s divine authority, since this would understandably be rejected as circular reasoning. Although Israeli believers accept the New Testament as God’s Word, their responses to the polemical exegesis of Rashi1 are considered valid only when they base their claims upon the authority and authorial intent of the Hebrew Bible alone. For this reason, the literary approach2 has proven to be an invaluable apologetic resource to them, since it not only refutes polemical eisegesis, but often results in text-centered exegesis of the Hebrew Bible that affirms the New Testament’s claims about the identity of Jesus. Ironically, much of the literature on the literary approach most often cited comes from the pens of perceptive Jewish scholars.3

JETS 65:4 (December 2023) p. 632

Jonathan Grossman, the current head of the Bible department at Bar-Ilan University, is one of the leading scholars in the field and h...