Basic Bible Commentary: Genesis

 I started to read the Basic Bible Commentary series published by Abingdon Press. This is an older series from the late 1980’s that I have been wanting to read for a while. I started with Genesis which was wrote by Linda B. Hinton. She has a Masters of Theological Studies from Emory University. She wrote a few other commentary books in this series as well.

The first thing that caught me off guard was her explanation of Genesis 1, verses 26-27. (26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.)

On page 18 the author states, “The plural our may refer to God alone as an indication of divine majesty. Our may also refer to a heavenly council or court with which God talks over this significant part of the creation process."

Interesting. I am not sure where she is going with the heavenly council or court discussion, but all of the commentaries I have read refer to "our" as the trinity. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I understood this to be the case even before reading any commentaries.

The next thing that really stopped me in my tracks was on page 24. This is in reference to Genesis 3:1-13. (1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”).

The author states, "The serpent is not Satan or a symbol of evil or of death." Really? Let's jump ahead to Revelation 12:9,  "The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him."

So the author claims the serpent is not Satan, but in God's own word it refers to the serpent as the devil or Satan. 

Again in Revelation 20:2,  "He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years." Once again, God's word refers to the serpent as the devil or Satan.

I am not sure how valuable a commentary series will be if they can't even get the facts correct directly from the Bible. The author was clearly not comparing Scripture with Scripture in this instance.

Still reading here at Doe Valley.