The Book of Genesis: A Biography

This book owes its birth to many hands. My thanks to Fred Appel for inviting me to contribute a volume to the Lives of Great Religious Books. Since the life of Genesis is so vast, I did what professors do—I designed a course. My thanks to the delightful and inquisitive Berkeley undergraduates who have taken this course (“The Bible in Western Culture”), which is now my favorite offering. Their questions have pushed me to explore things deeply, for which I am grateful. Thanks also to my excellent teaching assistants, Daniel Fisher, Alison Joseph, and Dale Loepp. I relied on many of my faculty colleagues to bring me up to speed on topics ancient, medieval, and modern. Several of them generously commented on drafts of chapters: Steve Justice, Niklaus Largier, Tony Long, Chessie Rochberg, and Jonathan Sheehan. Bob Alter, to whom this book is dedicated, vetted the whole manuscript (and must have noticed his influence in several parts). Yosefa Raz, my research assistant, provided invaluable comments on style and content. With these superb advisors, any flaws in conception and execution are my own stubborn fault. Jodi Beder bravely tamed my prose. Janet

-xi-