October 2019

God and Man in the Book of Genesis

Genesis is a book about beginnings: the beginnings of the created order, the beginning of human life, the human family, and human culture, and the beginning of the people of Israel from the family of Abraham. And Genesis is also the beginning of the Hebrew Bible, the foundation stone of Jewish history and theology, and, in time, the beginning of the Christian Bible as well. No single text has exercised a greater influence over the moral imagination of the West as has the Book of Genesis.

The Tikvah Fund is pleased to offer this online course on the ideas of Genesis as they emerge from a close reading of its dramatic stories. Through the primeval history of mankind, the story of Abraham, God’s covenant with him, the rivalries that pit his descendants against one another as that covenant is transmitted from one generation to the next, and the story of his great-grandson Joseph, we shall consider the character of the remarkable family that grows into the nation of Israel, and the purpose that God gives it to sustain holiness in the world.

Leading this study will be Professor Jon D. Levenson, the Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies at the Harvard Divinity School. Professor Levenson’s many books include Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life, which won the National Jewish Book Award, as well as Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and, most recently, The Love of God: Divine Gift, Human Gratitude, and Mutual Faithfulness in Judaism.