Journal: Pneumatikos
Volume: PNEUMATIKOS 16:2 (Fall 2025)
Article: Reviews
Author: Anonymous

Pneumatikos 16:2 (Fall 2025) p. 99

Reviews

Genesis 1–11: A Narrative-Theological Commentary. Second Edition. James Chukwuma Okoye. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2025. xv + 199 pp. Paperback. $23.91. ISBN: 978–1–6667–6459–8.

Reviewed by:
Dustin G. Burlet

Winnipeg, MB Canada
Millar College of the Bible

The first edition of Genesis 1–11: A Narrative-Theological Commentary by James Chukwuma Okoye was largely well received.1 Okoye notes that while the first edition (also by Cascade Books) appeared only in 2018, “in biblical studies, where hundreds of books and articles appear each year, six years is a century!” (p. xi). Might the celebration of Okoye’s eightieth birthday have also influenced the timing of this edition (see p. xi)? The following is a brief overview of the book’s contents.

The first chapter, “A Narrative Theology of the Book of Genesis” (pp. 1–27), is mostly dedicated to methodology. Okoye explains that a “narrative approach” means engaging the “final form” of the text. However, when clarification or the filling in of “gaps” is needed, he does not hesitate to draw on the so-called “sources,” i.e., JEDP (cf. p. 123). The work is “theological” in the sense that the question of meaning of life and one’s relationship with God and fellow humans is foremost. Ecumenically minded, Okoye distinguishes between two movements: (1) the “Literal Meaning” and (2) the “Spiritual” sense as handed down

Pneumatikos 16:2 (Fall 2025) p. 100

in both Christianity and Judaism. Though Okoye distinctly writes from the Catholic tradition, Commentary is kept distinct from Tradition.2

To be clear, each chapter of the actual exegesis (more on this later) has two sections, which Okoye terms “ ‘two-stage’ hermeneutics” (p. 25). That is, ‘Commentary’ is “normal exegesis according to the ‘literal sense’ (not to be confused with [the] literalistic sense),” while ‘Tradition’ is the “Jewish and Christian exegesis that factors in their traditions of faith or responds to difficulties” (p. 25). For Patristic exegesis, Okoye tends to put the Alexandrian type first, who generally approach the text from a Greek and Christian and sometimes philosophical point of view, then he proceeds to the more “literal” Antiochene type. See, for instance, the somewhat unique phrase within Genesis 1:2: ruaḥ Elohim as being either “wind” or the “Holy Spiri...