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?

 

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. 

Perspectives: Stairway

 

I just read in Amy-Jill Levine's book, Genesis: A Beginner's Guide to the Beginning, that Jacob's ladder wasn't a ladder, it was a stairway.