Amazon Limited Time Offer! CreateSpace Category:  Religion Publisher: Christian Era Publishing ISBN-10:  0985031506 Pages: 686 Copyright: June 11, 2012 ISBN-13: 9780985031503 Return to Genesis: What Ancient Poetry Reveals About Christ, the Church, and the Kingdom is essential reading for anyone who wants to learn more about the Book of Genesis, the Kingdom of God, or Bible poetry. Genesis conveys the message of the entire Bible in a microcosm. It presents God’s plan for victory in the language of symbolism.  As mankind's earliest inspired literary work, the Book of Genesis provides God's answers to the most important questions in life. Genesis tells us about the God, the promised Messiah, mankind, sin, judgment, salvation, faith, marriage, dominion, and much more. Unfortunately, Genesis is one of the least understood books of the Bible. We've mistakenly assumed that the historical narratives in Genesis are presented in a dull, linear format, the way modern history books are written. In fact, the stories in Genesis are structured poetically, in parallelisms. Return to Genesis demonstrates that Genesis is filled with poetic allusions and symbolic meanings, particularly in the narratives of the Creation and Eden. The poetry of Genesis not only foretells the coming of God's Messiah, it also enhances our understanding of the Church, the Kingdom of God, and even "end times" prophecy. Return to Genesis reveals what Genesis and the rest of Scripture tells us about:   * The age of the Universe   * The meaning of the creation days   * How Genesis 1 and 2 are interlinked.   * Adam and Eve's time and place in history   * Whether Noah's flood was regional or global   * The Old-New Covenant transition   * God's glorious plans for this world Return to Genesis goes beyond Genesis to present a complete program for victory. It explains how Christians can:   * Reconcile the Genesis creation account with science   * Understand the primary source of divisions in the Church today   * Each do our part to fulfill Jesus' prayer for unity   * Rediscover the Bible's lost literary treasures   * Powerfully and positively influence politics and the culture   * Adopt a more biblical and optimistic view of the End Times   * Recognize that freedom is a biblical mandate   * Strengthen our marriages and families Mr. Pierce's poetry-based interpretations are rooted in an objective analysis of the Scriptures, not in a subjective understanding. The Bible routinely assigns symbolic meanings to words. In fact, most of the Old Testament is rich in poetry, but that doesn't make it any less historic. Mr. Pierce takes a firm stand against false teachings, but he's mostly positive and optimistic. He believes the Kingdom of God is a present reality, and offers practical advice on how Christians can further advance the Kingdom on the earth, as it is in heaven. Do Christians have reason to be optimistic in this world? Can biblical visions concerning the kingdom of God and Christian unity one day be fulfilled? Don't answer "no" before you've read this book!

Another Step Forward for the Evangelical Mind
It’s been nearly 20 years since historian Mark Noll published his book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Famous for its opening line, “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind,” Noll criticized Evangelicalism for its excessive pragmatism and the scholarly embarrassment of several of its most cherished beliefs. In particular, Noll named Dispensationalism and young earth creationism as especially worthy of criticism.

Noll would likely be pleased by the direction of the work of Martin Pierce. In his ambitious new volume Return to Genesis. Pierce, an independent scholar, takes on Dispensationalism, young earth creationism, and a host of other evangelical foibles while attempting positively to construct a more nuanced and consistently faithful reading of the Bible and Christian theology, and applying both to contemporary culture.

Return to Genesis is a sprawling work of over 600 pages, but it is written for the thoughtful lay reader. Perhaps the strongest and most original parts of the book are its sections on the nature of poetic language in Genesis and Pierce’s far-reaching view of the Kingdom of God as a holistic reality that encompasses all of creation and history.

The Book of Genesis, says Pierce, is divinely inspired in such a way that it conveys historical narrative within the contours of Hebrew parallelisms. The poetry and metaphors provide insights which help us understand that Genesis never depicted a six-day creation, a 10,000 year old earth, or a global flood. There can be compatibility in the deepest sense between science and Scripture. Moreover, the lens of poetry brings a depth to the reading of Genesis that engages the reader at the level of heart and emotion as well as mind.

Regarding the Kingdom of God in Scripture, Pierce thoroughly critiques Dispensationalism’s escapism, its negative and fatalistic view of history, and its uncritical Zionism. In its place, Pierce leans toward a positive, postmillennial view of history in which the Kingdom of God will be fully established on earth with the faithful acting as God’s servants in its establishment. In one place, Pierce explores the virtues of the Reconstructionist version of postmillennial thinking, but he does not buy into it fully. Indeed, a strength of Pierce’s writing is his persistent independence from theological labels. He explores, praises and critiques a variety of perspectives, but will not be subsumed completely under any label (except perhaps that of “biblical Christian”).

Return is more than just a book of theology. Throughout, Pierce makes practical application of his major insights to Christian living in contemporary culture. There are applicatory sections on the family, on relating faith to culture, on political involvement, on pursuing justice, and on the quest to find unity among Christians. One finds strong echoes here of the famed quote of the Dutch Reformed theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper, who said “There is not one square inch of the entire creation over which Jesus Christ does not cry out, ‘This is mine!’”

As one who frequently teaches in seminaries, it has been fascinating for me to observe the many scholars and leaders who have taken up Mark Noll’s call for the re-development of the evangelical mind. Return to Genesis is one man’s labor of love not only to further that quest, but to renew Christians in the process.

David Greiser is a pastor and part time seminary professor. He lives in Baltimore.