Book Review: Genesis: A Beginner's Guide to the Beginning

Information about the book

Genesis: A Beginner's Guide to the Beginning by Amy-Jill Levine.  Published by Abingdon Press, Nashville, 2026.  (Amazon / Cokesbury).

Summary

From Amazon: Genesis: A Beginner’s Guide to the Beginning invites readers into the foundational stories of the Old Testament with clarity, depth, and imagination. Amy-Jill Levine presents Genesis as a living text, one that continues to shape faith, identity, and our understanding of what it means to be human. These familiar stories are often heard in fragments; here, they are explored with care, curiosity, and theological insight.

With her signature blend of historical context and engaging storytelling, Levine opens up the book of beginnings, attending to its beauty, tensions, and enduring questions. She invites readers to linger with stories of creation and responsibility, rivalry and loss, judgment and mercy, promise and perseverance, revealing how these ancient narratives still speak with power today.

The book purchase includes access to 6 video sessions of 10-12 minutes each and access to other leader resources.

Impressions

This book examines key stories from Genesis, including The Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, the Near Sacrifice of Isaac, Jacob's Stairway, and Joseph's story. (I think she needs to write a volume 2 with more stories!). 

Levine is a professor of New Testament and Jewish studies at Vanderbilt University. I'm not sure how many books of hers I have read - looking at my bookshelf, I see five, but there may be more. I can't recommend this book (or the others I have read) enough. They are inspiring, educational, and enlightening. Any of them are excellent for personal study or group work. 

Posts about book

Levine Genesis

 

Serve and Guard

Chapter One of Amy-Jill Levine's book, Genesis, was full of interesting and eye opening information. I'm going to focus this post on one aspect of the chapter, but the whole exploration of the Creation stories is rich.

Take a look at Genesis 2:15:  "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it."  Levine focuses on the word "till."  To me, to till is to dig in the ground, clear out the weeds and rocks, and plant seeds. I'm not a gardener or a farmer, but that's my impression.  Levine says, "The term translated 'til' in in Hebrew eved, a term that appear over one thousand times; it connotes not so much technical gardening...but 'serving'; its noun form gives us both 'servant' and 'slave' as well as 'worker' and, amazingly, the Hebrew term for 'worship."

What does it mean to think that God put people in the garden to till it? If tilling is serving, then what does it mean to serve the earth? It's not just taking advantage of the benefits of soil to grow food, but it means that we are tasked with caring for the earth itself - providing what it needs - serving it.

She goes on to say, "The connection between the land and the connotations of 'work,' 'service,' and 'worship' shared by the same Hebrew root is supported by the Hebrew term in 2:15 for 'keep,' shamar, which conveys 'guard or 'protect."

How does it change our understanding of being in the Garden (and in the world) to till and keep it if it connotes serve and guard?

 

Logos: Listen

Inspired by Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16

Listen.
Pay attention to what I will tell you.
I will tell you about your history, your faith.
Listen.
Tell your children, tell your grandchildren,
tell those in your neighborhood
who don't know about God.
Listen and speak.

God, the creator of us all,

worked miracles for the slaves in Egypt.

God opened the sea and made a way,

Opened a way to freedom.

God provided guidance in fiery light,

Water from rocks

Abundant life.

From dry nothingness,

God created waters to flow,

streams to answer thirst.

Remember what God has done.

Tell about what God will do.

God will bring freedom from what traps us.

God will bring life from wilderness.

God will prepare a path through obstacles.

God will be present.

How do we know?

Because God is.

Look Now

Amy-Jill Levine, in the book Genesis: A Beginner's Guide to the Beginning, quotes Isaiah in her introduction:

How you are fallen from heaven,

O Morning Star, son of Dawn?

How you are cut down to the ground,

you who laid the nations low!

You said to yourself,

'I will ascend to heave;

I will raise my throne above the stars of God...

I will ascend to the tops of the clouds;

I will make myself like the Most High.'

But you are brought down to Shel,

to the depths of the Pit.

Those who see you will stare at you

and ponder over you:

'Is this the man who made the earth tremble...'

(Isaiah 14:12-16)

She shares that this passage satirizes the Babylonian imperial goals. 

It's a timeless passage, though, isn't it? It is (to me) a portrait of a person or a nation that strives to rise to the level of god, and then is brought down, so that others stare and ponder.

I can think of nations that step on others to rise high. I can think of leaders who neglect their duties to care for those they lead in order to rise up. I can think of ourselves, who try to lift ourselves up as god-like instead of following God.

And I can picture, at the end, someone looking, and saying, "Is this the one who made the earth tremble? Look at him now. 

Logos: Let me Hear

Inspired by Psalm 85:8-13

It is my prayer, by God's grace 

I will hear what the Lord speaks. 

I believe God will speak words of peace to me, 

If not to me, then to those who are faithful. 

May I be faithful, and turn to God 

in my heart.

Let me not doubt that salvation, 

God's presence, and abiding spirit, 

is here for those who have faith. 

May God's glory dwell among us.

I stand at the crux of God's steadfast love 

and God's faithfulness. 

I anticipate that God's righteousness 

and God's peace will meet.

Faithfulness will be so abundant 

 that it will spring up from the ground, 

Fresh and new like spring, 

and righteousness will shine from the sky, 

bringing light brighter than the sun.

I pray the Lord will provide what is good, 

and I have faith this is true. 

God will give gifts that will prosper us, 

Prosper all of us, 

So that the fruit of the kingdom will be abundant.

Righteousness goes forth from God, 

and creates a path for God's steps.

What does the Lord require?

Loosely inspired by Psalm 15 and Micah 6:8

O Lord, 

who can live with you?

Who can approach - be close - 

Who can stand with you?

Give us the strength to obey 

To live a life you require of us. 

To do what is right. 

To speak the truth from a 

 new heart.

What does the Lord require? 

To do justice 

To love kindness 

To walk humbly.

Help us to not lie about others 

Guide us as we seek to do no evil 

 to friends, to enemies. 

Shame us if we embarrass others.

What does the Lord require? 

To do justice 

To love kindness 

To walk humbly.

Give us eyes like yours, 

Eyes that see beyond the sin of others 

Even through our own sin, 

May we honor our neighbors 

May we stand for the truth, 

even when it has consequences.

What does the Lord require? 

To do justice 

To love kindness 

To walk humbly.

You desire that we do not 

take advantage of others, 

that we lift up the oppressed, 

that we do not deal with others with dishonesty. 

Give us this strength.

What does the Lord require? 

To do justice 

To love kindness 

To walk humbly.

And, o Lord, grant us grace when we fail. 

Give us courage to try again.

 

God's Love in Isaiah

Read Isaiah 65:17-25. Here are verses 17-19:

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating, for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it or the cry of distress.

This passage is part of the lectionary readings for next Sunday. I haven't done any research on the passage, but I imagine it was directed to the exiled kingdom of Judah to offer them hope. As I read it, what struck me is the excitement of the vision. I read it as if hearing it from what God might say. The passage is full of this wonderful vision of a time without mourning or death, a time without war or tears.

Verse 25:

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, but the serpent--its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.

As I read it, I could hear God's hope and excitement in a new heaven and a new earth for his creation. How wonderful it would be for God if we were able to live into that vision?

Imagine when you are thinking about your children and the future of goodness and hope you wish for them - how you yearn for it. You love them so much, and you want the best for them. You want happiness and peace for them. I was struck with how in this vision that God is sharing with Isaiah, I can hear how much God wants this to be true for his people.

Don't you think seeing it like that makes you feel loved?

 

Sermon - The Way, Part 3

This is an image to help Jeremiah understand that Israel is in God’s hands. This is a communal passage, not an individual one.  I don’t think this is about God, the potter, reshaping you and me as individuals, but God the potter in action in the community – and for us, I would say, God will be acting within our church communities.

If we think about Wellspring United Methodist Church again, I think the action of the Annual Conference in turning the assets of the closed church into something redemptive is evidence of God at work in this community. From 1927 until 2020, the church in New England had been remolded and transformed so that they felt a need to correct what the 1927 church had done. God’s reshaping work.

Sally Brown, in Feasting on the Word, says, “Jeremiah here is addressing primarily the life of the community, not the individual.  God means to shape the community of faith in its collective social, religious and political life to serve divine purposes.”  She goes on to describe three characteristics of God the potter.  First, God is invested in all common life – the potter has a purpose in what he is doing.  Secondly, the relationship between the potter and the community is robustly dynamic. The clay can resist the hand of the potter. The clay – the community – does not have to be reshaped. Thirdly, there are moments when the pot is removed from the wheel because the future shape is set – in other words, there are watershed moments when the community faces choices that have a profound impact on its future life.  We’re going to come back to that thought.

Have you ever held a piece of clay or even playdough and just shaped and reshaped it randomly? Just for the feel of it or out of boredom? That’s not what this is. This is God working within the community to shape it into the potential it has. As Wesleyan Christians, we often talk about “moving onto perfection” as an individual – being sanctified by God’s grace into who we were meant to be. That’s what this is – but it is sanctification for the community – for the church.  It’s God molding the church into what it was meant to be.

And what is that?  What image can we use to understand that? And how can we prepare for God’s work rather than resist it?

The Way - Part 2

Let’s start with the passage Jeremiah 18-1-11.

18 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ² “Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” ³ So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. ⁴ The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.

 

⁵ Then the word of the Lord came to me: ⁶ Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. ⁷ At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, ⁸ but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. ⁹ And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, ¹⁰ but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. ¹¹ Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you, from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

I think in order to explore it best, it’s good to understand the background against which it was written.  The writings we call Jeremiah were written during a time of political unrest. The book strives to come to terms with the destruction and exile of Judah in 597-582 BCE. In 597, Judah revolted against Babylon and provoked the first of three invasions and deportations.  Jerusalem, the city walls, the king’s palace, and the temple were all destroyed, as were the lives of many. 

It was turmoil. Imagine the questions that haunted the people who were exiled or who remained.  Had God forgotten his people? How could God allow this devastation? Had God turned away from the covenant? Was God less powerful than the gods of Babylon? How could the community survive?

In Chapter 18 God calls Jeremiah to the Potter’s House to watch the potter work.  I think when we hear or read this passage, we often think of how God shapes our lives. We hear about the potter being displeased with his work, reworking it into something that is pleasing to him, and we think about ourselves.  Is God pleased with us? Is God going to act as a potter in our lives, mashing the clay together and reshaping something more pleasing?

Can we set that interpretation aside for a bit?  Pay attention to verses 5 and 6: “Then the word of the Lord came to me: “Can I not do with you, O House of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.”

This is an image to help Jeremiah understand that Israel is in God’s hands. This is a communal passage, not an individual one.  I don’t think this is about God, the potter, reshaping you and me as individuals, but God the potter in action in the community – and for us, I would say, God will be acting within our church communities.

The Way - Part 1

The next few posts will be a sermon I preached late this summer.

On January 16, 1927 – less than 100 years ago – a church in Shrewsberry, Massachusetts, named Fairlawn Community Methodist Episcopal Church, laid a cornerstone.  In it, they stored items that were important to their church’s story.

Decades later, after the church had become Wellspring Community UMC, they were preparing to move to a new building. They dug up the cornerstone to move it to the new location, and they discovered what was inside the “time capsule” of the cornerstone.  Most of the contents was what you might expect: Conference Journals, some 1926 change, including a buffalo nickel, newspaper articles, bulletins, and list of the founding members.  Along with these expected items were multiple pamphlets and magazine published by the Ku Klux Klan.

The church decided to keep the information about their discovery to themselves.

In 2020, the Wellspring Community UMC members voted to close the church. In July of that year, their District Superintendent was gathering information from the church for the Conference Archives and found the contents of the cornerstone. She told Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar, who later said, “Fighting racism requires truth telling, confession, and repentance from us all.  We lift up this church’s history not to shame them, but as a lesson for all of us in the importance of facing the past and reconciling with it. We must start by understanding our past; that is the only way we can hope to create a present where there is true racial justice.”

A resolution was passed at the 2020 New England Annual Conference to close the church and to place the assets of the church in a fund at the United Methodist Foundation of New England called the In Our Time Fund.  The purpose of the fund is to support and sustain anti-racism work.  In addition, a project called “Cornerstone: Claiming our past, building a better future” was established and led by the former church’s district to focus on racial justice and repentance.

I tell you this story because today I want to focus on how God works with and through churches like Wellspring United Methodist Church, the New England Annual Conference, and our church to bring about transformation in the world.

Sarah Laughed

In the CLM class I taught last night, the person who shared a devotional read Genesis 18:1-15. He compared the trust in God's word exhibited by Abraham to Sarah laughing, saying that she was laughing because she didn't trust or believe God would do what God had promised.

How do you view the idea that Sarah laughed?  Is it distrust? Or is it something else?

For me, I've always loved that Sarah laughed. I imagine, if I live to be as old as Sarah was, and God said to me that I would have a child, I would laugh.  Or cry. It's ridiculous. It's laughable. It's unbelievable. And maybe, for Sarah, who had no children, it would be joyous, too, 

I don't think she is a model of distrust we should avoid emulating.  I think she is a slice of humanity.  Disbelieving. Smart enough to know what she's been told is impossible. Afraid, and a little bit joyous, too. And God respected her enough to have a conversation with her. 

Sovereign of the Universe

Inspired by Psalm 90:1-4

O God, our God,

Melek Ha'Olam

You are king. You are sovereign.

You reign over all that is.

Help us to understand this.

May our bones tremble with the reality.

You sit among the angels.

May the earth know this to its core.

O God, our God

Melek Ha'Olam

You are great in Zion.

You are great in all places,

over all of us.

May we lift you high.

Exalted.

O God, our God,

Melek Ha'Olam

We praise your name.

We praise you.

Awesome are you.

Holy are you.

O God, our God,

Melek Ha'Olam

You love and value justice,

Equity springs from your nature.

You brought justice and righteousness

through Jacob,

through your kingdom among us.

You have created righteousness in us.

Holy are is your name.

Holy are you.

Note: Melek Ha'Olam means King of the Universe or Sovereign of the Universe (as I understand it).

 

Have you Heard the Good News?

 

Inspired by Zephaniah 3:14-20

Why do you lower your head in the shame of your sin? 

Why do you hide? 

Have you heard the good news?

Shout to the heavens; 

Share the joy! 

God has taken away the judgements against you, 

God has turned away your enemies, 

God is here.

Why are you afraid? 

Why do you feel weak in your sin? 

Have you heard the good news?

God is here, and God brings you victory. 

God will rejoice over you with gladness; 

God will make you new in love!

God is singing over you!

Why do you worry about the disaster of your sin? 

Why do you suffer about what others will say about you? 

Have you heard the good news?

God is here. 

God is stronger than what presses you down. 

God is turning your shame into praise.

God will bring you home. 

God will gather you, 

God will restore you. 

God will forgive your sin, 

God loved you yesterday, today, 

And God will love you forever.

Look What I Did

The lectionary reading for this week contains Scripture from 1 Kings 8 - the dedication of the temple.  As I was reading it this morning, I noticed that it is somewhat "Solomon-centric."  Solomon has the ark brought to the temple and then says a prayer to dedicate the new structure. 

In this prayer, he prays that God will keep God's promises to David, including that there will be a successor to David (Solomon).  Twice Solomon refers to the new temple as "the house that I have built."

Do we echo Solomon's prayers? Do we dwell on the work we have done ourselves rather than the work God has done? Solomon has completed something spectacular, no doubt, but I wonder if God's promise of a successor being connected to "if only your (David's) children look to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me" has anything to do with looking toward God rather than focusing on what we have done - what Solomon has done.

Maybe I've missed it, but does Solomon praise God for God's work in creating a temple?  I might have missed it, or it might be in verses that aren't included, but it does feel like this acknowledgement of God's work is missing.

Do we do that?

The Author Issue

I mentioned earlier that I taught Annual Conference Sunday School.  The lesson was on various verses of Ecclesiastes. 

We talked in the class about who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes.  The text itself says, “The words of the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.”  Reading this, we might assume the author is Solomon, but he lived in 10^th Century BCE.  The earlest date of the book is probably 3rd century BCE.  Scholars can tell just by the Hebrew that was used that it doesn’t date any earlier than that.

There were a few people in the class who were very bothered by that.  They tried to find ways to confirm that Solomon wrote the book.  That led me to wonder why it mattered so much to them.  Is it Solomon's authority as a person of wisdom that he might lend to the book? Is it just that they can't get past the first verse where the author hints that he is Solomon?

And why does it matter so much to them?

Retribution Theory

In Sunday school a few weeks ago, our teacher last read some of the proverbs from the lesson:

• Proverbs 12:11, 14, 24: Those who work their land will have plenty to eat, but those who engage in empty pursuits have no sense. . . .From the fruit of their speech, people are well satisfied; their work results in reward. . . .A hard worker is in charge, while a lazy one will be sentenced to hard labor.
• Proverbs 13:11: Riches gotten quickly will dwindle, but those who acquire them gradually become wealthy.

 As she read them, I kept objecting. For example, “a hard worker is in charge, while a lazy one will be sentence to hard labor.”  Sometimes things sound like they should be right, but we can all think of instances when they are not reality.  Proverbs can be read as a list of advice from a father to a son, and when you realize this, the proverbs make the most sense, I think. 
When I was preparing for the Sunday school lesson I taught at Annual Conference, I read in the student book that scholars call this “Retribution Theology.”  It’s the belief that we get what we deserve.  If we are righteous and obey God, good things will happen to us, but if we’re evil, we’ll suffer.
 
Do you think we teach this to our children? We teach them to take turns, play fair, stand in line, obey the rules.  We reward “good” behavior with recognition. 
 
Is this how life always is? I know I can think of examples when life did not live up to retribution theology?
 
We know that what happens in life doesn't always correspond to what is fair.  We don't always get what we deserve - actually, sometimes that is good! 
 
This is where the writer of Ecclesiastes starts, I think.  He isn’t the father teaching the son the way Proverbs is.  He is the older teacher who has seen all of life, and is going to tell us about it.  To quote the teacher book again, “He begins his book with “Perfectly pointless…everything is pointless.”  He questioned the wisdom of hard work and prudent living because he had seen so many times when it hadn’t paid off.  Even if one’s hard work did result is wealth, he complained, everyone dies in the end anyway.  Why even try?

 

Have you met Nehemiah?

I mentioned last week that I have started a new online course from Be A Disciple called Leading Like Nehemiah. 

The first question we were asked to answer was if we had read the book and were familiar with it, and what it has meant to us.  I have read the book of Nehemiah before; I can’t remember exactly when – it was either part of a Disciple Bible Study or a Bethel Bible Study. I remember when I read it that I found it to be a hopeful book. After you read from prophets whose ministry was right before or during the exile, reading scripture about a person who was returning to Jerusalem to rebuild it felt hopeful – as if there was to be a future for God’s people.

In addition, I’ve been troubled by the commands from Ezra and Nehemiah that the Israelites divorce their foreign wives. What happened to them? I compare that to the book of Ruth; she was a foreigner who became the ancestor of Jesus.

I’m sure I’ll post about the class again, but this is where I started.

 

Nehemiah

Today, I'm starting a new online class from Be A Disciple as part of my goal to complete the Certification in Advanced Christian Studies - Wesleyan Emphasis.  The course is Leading like Nehemiah.

In order to prepare for the class, I decided to read the book of Nehemiah and list some of the leadership characteristics I see.  I made the list from the chapters in the book that part of the Nehemiah Memoir (the first person sections). Here they are followed by the chapter number in which I found them:

• Determines current conditions (ch 1)
• Prays (ch 1)
• Asks for the help he needs (ch 2)
• Evaluates current conditions again, inspecting the wall (ch 2)
• Invites others to join in ministry - invitation through expressing God's will - no guilt.  It is an expression of Henri Nouwen's invitation to the ministry of generosity. (ch 2)
• As he speaks of repairs, he is aware of and lists those who were involved (gratitude to volunteers) (ch 3)
• Aware of the threat against what they are doing.  Responds (does not react). More prayer (ch 4)
• Responds also to the attitude of those involved in the work. (ch 4)
• Once again responds rather than reacts ("After thinking it over") (ch 5)
• Aware of the poor and helps them (ch 5)
• Aware of threats (ch 6)
• Delegates and provides instruction (ch 7)
• Dedication of the wall demonstrates thanksgiving to God (ch 12)
• Leads people in thanksgiving (ch 12)
• Provides administration, correction and leadership (ch 13)
• Not afraid of conflict (sometimes too extreme) (ch 13)

Waiting Upon the Lord

 

But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,

they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint

-Isaiah 40:31

Walter Breuggemann wrote, "It is such an intellectual travesty, such an act of chutzpah, such a subversive poetic utterance that dumps a poem in the midst of resignation." 

How does this poem fit into our world? Into our lives? Is it an intellectual travesty - a misplacement of hope - a strange optimism when compared to what surrounds us? War, political unrest, religious division, addiction, hate, horror?  In other words, can we even imagine mounting up with wings like eagles?

It is a beautiful image, a lovely poem, but is the hope real? I'm not asking you if God is real; I'm asking if the hope is imaginable?

I think when you experience it, when you are in the midst of grief or pain, and you call upon the Lord, and find God, then the hope is real. The experience reminds us of the truth of the hope.

I live in a world where political candidates are literally declaring in television ads that it is our "God-given right to own a gun."  It's the worst kind of religious nationalism.  I can't imagine how people or beliefs can be reconciled. And yet, there is this hope that when we wait upon the Lord, unimagined things happen.

Covenant

One of the lectionary readings during Lent is Jeremiah 31:31-34.  I don't usually include a whole scripture passage in a post, but this one is beautiful, so take a moment to read it:

The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.  It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt--a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.  But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:31-34, NRSV)

As I read this, and think about covenant, a list of what is promised and described in the scripture formed in my mind:

• "The days are surely coming" - This covenant, while it is a hope for the future, isn't a wish.  It is surely coming.
• It is a new covenant - not an old one, not something remade - something new is spring forth.
• It is a different covenant - we're leaving the old behind.
• This covenant isn't something external - it is placed in our hearts by God.
• God will be our God, and we will be God's people. 
• When this covenant is fulfilled, we will ALL know God.  We won't have to tell each other about God, because all of us will be part of this covenant.
• Part of this covenant is that God will forgive our sins - and will remember them no more.