Matthew Henry John Bartlett

There’s Abraham right. He’s the key. It’s Israel’s history. It’s all about Israel, what’s it here for? That first stuff in Genesis is the prolog, setting the scene, who is this god who calls? It’s working over stuff that maybe everyone knew, shaping it to make a point, to make some amazing points: the heavens are empty of deities save one, and humanity is not his slave or accidental effluvium but his deputy and a high point, and ordinary men and women all share in that, an identity independant of membership in a mighty human king; and the world is not the chaotic product of war, but good.