Creation and the Patriarchal Histories

Description

 * Archpriest Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon. Creation and the Patriarchal Histories: Orthodox Christian Reflections on the Book of Genesis. Conciliar Press Ministries, Ben Lomond, California. 2008.
 * 157 pages, paperback.
 * ISBN 978-1-888212-96-9

The Book of Genesis is foundational reading for the Christian, concerned as it is with the origins of our race and the beginnings of salvation history. Its opening pages provide the theological suppositions of the entire biblical story: Creation, especially that of man in God’s image, the structure of time, man’s relationship to God, the entrance of sin into the world, and God’s selection of a specific line of revelation that will give structure to history. Early Christian writers such as St. Paul saw no dichotomy between the writings of the Law, of which Genesis is the beginning, and the Gospel. Rather, the Gospel is the key to understanding the Law.

In Creation and the Patriarchal Histories, Fr. Reardon shows clearly how the proper understanding of Creation and the Fall informs all of Christian doctrine, and how the narratives of the patriarchs from Noah to Joseph pave the way for the salvation history that continues in Exodus.

About the Author
Patrick Henry Reardon is the pastor of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, and a senior editor at Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity. He was educated at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (KY), St. Anselm's College (Rome), The Pontifical Biblical Institute (Rome), the University of Liverpool (England), and St. Tikhon's Orthodox Seminary (PA).

Review

 * Fr. Hans Jacobse, President of the American Orthodox Institute and editor of Orthodoxy Today has given this review:


 * "Genesis needs to be freed from some broad cultural assumptions that color our reading of it, argues Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon in Creation and the Patriarchal Histories. We must unshackle Genesis from the structures of philosophical materialism (evolutionary theory and its flip-side: scientific creationism), and rediscover its literary character to discern its deep theological penetration into the nature of the creation. All too often Genesis is dismissed as 'unscientific.' Both conclusions miss the point. Genesis, Fr. Reardon teaches, reveals that the creation is logo-centric -- it was created by the Word of God, and it is held together by the Word of God's power. The word of Scripture, then, is primarily a literary text, not history (itself a narrative) or a scientific tract. Only by first approaching Genesis as literature can the theological content of the book (which Fr. Reardon provides in this commentary) be properly discerned, and only then will Genesis' rightful place as the foundational narrative of Christian culture and civilization be restored. Any serious student of scripture and culture will benefit from reading the book."

Source

 * All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church (AOC). Books by Father Patrick Henry Reardon. 2008.