Genesis Unbound: A Provocative New Look at the Creation Account

Hello,Others have already done a fine job summarizing Sailhamer's thesis, so I won't rehash that too much here. What I want to focus on instead is the virtue of this book, **if its thesis is true.** So if you order this (which I highly recommend) and read it (yes, books that you order also have to be read and not just put in piles or on shelves), please read it carefully, but also with an awareness of the context in which we find ourselves today:1. A broad scientific consensus that some form of macro evolution is true.2. A growing number of "maverick" scientists (Christian and non-Christian) who are calling into question that consensus.3. Christian "cottage industries" with vested interest in maintaining and "selling" their views. Here I am speaking primarily of two camps: The Young-Earth Creationist Camp represented by Answers in Genesis. And Old-Earth Day-Age Creationists represented by Reasons to Believe.4. You can pretty much draw a line in the sand between these two camps. It seems to me that Ken Ham and AIG have cornered the market on home-schoolers and many others in the church who are convinced that a literal 7-day creation of the universe is so obviously the Biblical view that no other Christian hypothesis is going to get a fair hearing.5. Then there are those who just know they can't put their head in the sand and pretend that the science doesn't say what it seems to be saying. Enter the various Old-Earth readings of scripture and their attempt to turn the word "day" in Genesis 1 into entire eons.So how is Sailhamer's book a "termtium quid" worthy of our consideration? Let me list the ways:1. You no longer have to choose between science and the Bible. You can affirm that God literally created in seven calendar days while simultaneously holding for an earth that is possibly billions of years old and an even older universe.2. You can affirm with the young-earther that a "day" in Genesis 1 is just a "day," not an entire "age."3. You can affirm with the old-earther that "in the beginning" God created the entire universe and that this likely took place some 14 billion years ago according to present big-bang cosmology.4. You can be "open-but-cautious" to macro-evolutionary theory, but are probably better off rejecting it on scientific rather than biblical grounds. In other words, you can take an aposteriori approach rather than an apriori approach, which is far more satisfying. In yet other words, if the theory of evolution that is being taught in our schools is wrong, it's wrong because first and foremost it's bad science and not only bad theology. Alternatively, if the best scientific evidence suggests the probability of macro-evolution, then the Bible can still accommodate this up to a point. Sailhamer would say that it all happened in that indeterminate time called "the beginning."5. But...and this is a huge but....Genesis does affirm that man is a special creation of God that did not "evolve" organically from a biological ancestor. Happily, this accords with the scientific record as well, where homo sapiens sapiens seems to rather "suddenly" appear on the scene with no known predecessor.Finally, I want to mention AIG's critique of Genesis Unbound, which you may or not be aware of. It's called "Unbinding the Rules" and you can easily find that with a search engine.Unfortunately it is a very one-sided misrepresentation of Sailhamer's thesis which is frankly unworthy of the name "Christian." I invite you to read my personal point-by-point refutation of AIG's critique here at my blog. You can find that by searching for Fallibility and my article entitled "A Rebuttal of AIG's Critique of Genesis Unbound."Now I'm not saying everything in Genesis Unbound is Gospel. I'm just saying that Sailhamer's thesis deserves a fair hearing and that **if true** a number of contemporary problematics are easily resolved. So please read the book with an open mind and don't take AIG's take on it as Gospel. (Remember, AIG has its own self-interest in mind and that is to keep the church dependent upon its materials for its view of creation).As for me and my house (educated thinkers who are also Christian), we've found in Sailhamer's book a great talking piece with our atheist and unbelieving friends that doesn't go the way of Ken Ham as in his recent (Feb, 2014) debate with Bill Nye the Science Guy (which by most accounts went poorly for Ham).Here is my one big critique: This book is crying out for an index, which is why I'm giving 4 rather than 5 stars. Perhaps in a future edition?

Sailhamer puts forth a perspective on the opening of Genesis that fits very nicely with Gorman Gray's and John Walton's books on the subject. All three of these authors have shown that what the two polarized mainstream-church extremes are teaching about origins are both distortions of the text. Each of these three authors - Sailhamer, Gray, and Walton - solve some of the dilemmas and conflicts between the YEC and OEC camps in similar yet unique ways. I believe the truth may lie in a combination of what these three writers have said rather than in what Answers in Genesis and Reasons To Believe put forth.This is the kind of book that I wish had an index, but the contents and chapter titles are generally adequate for referring back to specifics. There are brief illustrations of important points in separately-shaded sections sporadically placed in the book that don't fit what I just said in the previous sentence, so I went through the book and added them to the contents page in my own handwriting. Now I can readily refer back to whatever I'm looking for.I also wish Sailhamer had sent more time expounding upon the specific usages of erets [Hebrew: earth] as the term is critical to his thesis, but aside from these minor complaints, Genesis Unbound is a homerun.

I really enjoyed reading this book as the author actually uses explanation based in facts by translation of Hebrew scripture. Gives a whole new outlook on Genesis 1 and 2.

Fantastic book. Easy read on a complex thought. I have read much on this topic and I believe that Hebrew scholars, and those who love the context of the land and the people of Israel, tend to be the most thorough and convincing on this discussion. Obviously there is much debate - even among Christian theologians - about this topic and I love the clear and precise way that Sailhamer presents his position. He has also presented much history to support what may appear to many as a new idea, yet in fact is not new at all.

In Genesis Unbound, Dr. John Sailhamer steps away from the seemingly endless crossfire between Young Earth Creationists and Progressive Creationists to offer an alternative scholarly view that appears equally foreign to both.He concedes based on his encyclopedic knowledge of the text, its history, and Hebrew grammar that the Genesis 1 account is composed of days. However, he points out that this account focuses almost exclusively on the creation of the land we today refer to as Palestine. The rest of creation is certainly the act of a sovereign God, but it is entirely contained in Genesis 1:1. Hence, there is no difficulty in accepting an ancient fossil record or billions of years for the age of the universe.Is Sailhamer right? He very well might be. In our English translations of Genesis, his arguments sound strained, but he makes the case that readers of the ancient Hebrew texts and possessors of the ancient worldview would not share our modern difficulties in understanding the purpose of this remarkable text.I highly recommend this book.

Taking arguments straight from the bible, not the scientific evidence is defiantly the way forward. Sailhamer does a great job, which stands up to the scrutiny.