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      The Beginning and the End

      Rereading Genesis’s Stories

      and Revelation’s Visions

      Michael W. Pahl

      CASCADE Books - Eugene, Oregon

      THE BEGINNING AND THE END

      Rereading Genesis’s Stories and Revelation’s Visions

      Copyright © 2011 Michael W. Pahl. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, Today’s New International Version®. TNIV®. Copyright© 2001, 2005 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www. zondervan.com

      Cascade Books

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      isbn 13: 978-1-60899-927-9

      Cataloging-in-Publication data:

      Pahl, Michael W.

      The beginning and the end : rereading Genesis’s stories and Revelation’s visions / Michael W. Pahl

      xii + 106 p. ; 23 cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

      isbn 13: 978-1-60899-927-9

      1. Bible. O.T. Genesis I–III—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Bible. N.T. Revelation XII—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 3. Bible. N.T. Revelation XIX–XXII—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 4. Bible—Study and teaching. I. Title.

      bs600 p2 2011

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      To my students,

      past, present, and future:

      you are also my teachers

      Preface

      If you have ever wondered if there might be more to Genesis than fuel for anti-evolutionism, then this book might be for you. Or if you have ever thought, “Revelation has to be more than simply a roadmap for the future of the Middle East,” then perhaps you will find this book to be just what you are looking for.

      Genesis and Revelation tend to provoke strong reactions. Many who read the first chapter of Genesis insist the most crucial message is that the earth was created in six, twenty-four-hour days only a few thousand years ago. Some respond by maintaining that these stories of Genesis are merely ancient myths with nothing to offer us in the twenty-first century beyond a glimpse of the strange beliefs of a people long past. Likewise, many who read Revelation claim it describes God’s detailed plan for particular nations and peoples of the world—focused on Israel—in a specific period of time that is just around the corner of human history. Some respond by asserting that these strange visions of Revelation are merely the results of an unstable mind or an antiquated worldview, about as useful to us today as those early stories of Genesis.

      Meanwhile, as these Scripture wars heat up, many Christians are left on the sidelines, not wanting to engage in a battle they see as unproductive or misguided; still wanting to read these important texts of Scripture, but not sure how one should approach these texts after all. It can all be very confusing, and can even turn people off from reading Genesis and Revelation.

      If this in any way describes where you are, then maybe this book is for you.

      One purpose for this book, then, is quite simple: I hope to demonstrate that Christians can read Genesis and Revelation in a way that is both intellectually responsible (with due historical and literary sensitivity) and faith-building (with significant theological and practical implications). In reading the stories of Genesis and the visions of Revelation we do not need to choose between “ancient human writings” and “divinely inspired Scripture,” or between “history” and “theology,” or even between “science” and “faith.” Such dichotomies may indeed have an appearance of wisdom, but they lack any value in making real or full sense of either the biblical texts or the world around us. This could be put another way, rather more directly: on the one hand, acknowledging and even fully embracing the very human dimensions of Genesis and Revelation—their ancient historical and literary features—need not compel us to become agnostics or atheists or secular humanists or theological liberals or whatnot; on the other hand, we do not need to be aggressive fundamentalists or fanatical zealots to take Genesis and Revelation seriously as divinely inspired Scripture.

      Another purpose is equally straightforward, reflecting the “faith-building” dimension just noted. I hope to provide a reading of some stories of Genesis and some visions of Revelation that is helpful for Christians in thinking about who God is, what God has done and will yet do, what it means to be human in the world, what it means to be the people of God in the world, what exactly has gone wrong with the world and how God intends to fix it, and so on. I truly do believe that beginnings and endings are crucial for us as humans in how we tell our story, how we understand our place in that story, and how we then live in the world in light of that story we tell. I truly do believe that Genesis and Revelation describe “the beginning and the end,” and that in doing so they have much to say to human beings living between that beginning and end, in any era, including our own.

      So I invite you to read Genesis and Revelation along with me, to try on my reading of these texts to see how it fits, to reread Genesis’s stories and Revelation’s visions as if for the first time, and to hear anew what these inspired ancient texts have to say about the beginning and the end. While I have no illusions that the reading of Scripture I present in this book is some kind of perfect or complete interpretation, I do hope it will prompt Christians of any theological persuasion to pick up and read these sacred texts in a fresh yet faithful way.

      Acknowledgments

      My family deserves my never-ending gratitude for their role in my writing. It is, to be sure, mostly a passive role—putting up with my tinkering on the computer in the evenings or on the weekends—but the support of my wife, Larissa, and our children, Amelia, Michael, Matthew, and Adalynne, is very real, and always encouraging.

      Thank you to Lendrum Mennonite Brethren Church—my employers, my ministry partners, and my community of faith over these past two years. Your encouragement and enthusiasm for my preaching and teaching is a much-valued impetus for me in seeking to express my ideas more widely through my writing. David Williams, Wayne Wicks, and all the good folks at Taylor Seminary and the Schalm Memorial Library likewise deserve many thanks for their hospitality during a study week that Lendrum provided, allowing me to track down references and (more importantly) to take a deep breath in the midst of the demands of pastoral ministry.

      Thanks are due also to Chris Spinks and the rest of the crew at Wipf and Stock for once again taking on one of my writing projects. Your expertise and professionalism are second to none, yet this takes nothing away from your ability to make authors feel genuinely valued at a personal level.

      I am grateful also to those who have read even some part of some version of the manuscript for this book along the way. My wife Larissa, my brother Steven, my colleague Chris Friesen—thank you all for your input into this project. The book is certainly the better for it.

      Finally, I must thank all those who first endured the ideas of this book in their rawest form: my “Revelation” classes at Prairie Bible College and in the adult Sunday school at Mount Olive Evangelical Free Church; my “Theology of Creation” class at The King’s University College; my “Digging Deep” adult Sunday school sessions at Lendrum; and most recently my art retreat sessions on “A Theology of Creating” at King’s Fold Retreat and Renewal Centre. Many of the ideas presented

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