Anlezark, Daniel, ed. Old Testament Narratives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2011. Print.

The book that I found in Skillman is called Old Testament Narratives edited and translated by Daniel Anlezark. I found this book by searching the term “Old Testament” in the catalog search box on the Lafayette College Library website. There were over 400 hits, but I found this book to be most intriguing. The other books around it were not of the same subject matter, so I did not find any other relevant books in the area.

When I flipped through the book, I was surprised to see that a lot of it was in another language. There are 5 Old English poems within the book that have been edited and translated (Genesis A, Genesis B, Exodus, Daniel, and Azarias). They were originally copied at a time when the Anglo-Saxons took an interest in their culture’s poetic tradition in the 10^th century. An Anglo-Saxon cowherd named, Cædmon, composed these poems. Each poem is composed as a narrative that gives a different insight to some of the classic Biblical stories and even discusses stories that are not in the Bible (Lucifer’s envy and God’s punishment for him). Creation, Noah, Abraham, the Exodus of the Israelites, and the story of Daniel are some of the narratives throughout the book. The text of Azarias reveals a different perspective to the story of Daniel.

Schearing, Linda S., and Valarie H. Ziegler. Enticed by Eden: How American Culture Uses, Confuses, (and Sometimes Abuses) Adam and Eve. Waco, TX: Baylor UP, 2013.

Finding a book can be difficult, but if you use the online catalog you can easily find related books to what you are looking. In my case, I wanted to find a book related to the Bible and interpretation. While doing so, the first book that got my attention was Enticed by Eden: How American Culture Uses, Confuses, (and Sometimes Abuses) Adam and Eve. I decided to search for it and reading the back, I found it very interesting. The back reads: “Sex, seduction, and perfect marriage. Though it may not have been the intent of Genesis 1-3, the biblical first couple has been used for generations to sell consumable goods and strange ideologies –both salacious and holy—to willing western buyers.” This got my attention and I wanted to know what the books purpose was. As I kept reading, the authors mention how both religious and secular groups have recast the archetypal image of Adam, Eve, and the Garden of Eden. To do this, they have consulted cultural artifacts and demonstrate how the ancient family has been born again in the image of man, woman, and marketplace. I think this book is a great example of interpreting the story of Adam and Eve and this book shows us that interpretations can change over time.

While I was checking out Enticed by Eden,I came across multiple books that talked about Evolution and Creation. This didn’t really surprise me as there is a lot of controversy on which one is correct. What really got my attention was the fact that a night before I saw a video that talked about creation and that discredited evolution. The speaker in the video had many interesting point like, how much faith does it take an atheist to believe that creation occurred due to an accident that started with one cell? How can chaos create order? And he said that how can intelligence of human beings be an accident, this required a creator, an intelligent creator. To further this, he says, the word universe means “one single spoken statement”. That is exactly what took God to create, we see this in Genesis where He said “let there be” and it was created.