Before Abraham Was

Rebelling against a century of Old Testament scholarship, Isaac M. Kikawada and Arthur Quinn persuasively argue that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are not a literary patchwork by different editors as widely supposed, but are the work of one author of extraordinary subtlety and skill. Comparing Genesis 1-11 with primeval histories from the ancient Near East, Kikawada and Quinn urge their readers to appreciate the ingenuity of Genesis's author: "When we think we find this author nappin...