sv podcast – Reading Genesis (and beyond)

The one where we do a Bible study … well, sort of!

For April’s podcast, Darren & Holly review Marilynne Robinson’s latest book, Reading Genesis. As our erudite listeners may know, Marilynne Robinson is a much-admired American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and essayist.

How can Holly and Darren match the AMAZING quotes about Robinson and about her book? For example:

“Her work defines universal truths about what it means to be human.” Barack Obama
“A work of exceptional wisdom and imagination.” Rowan Williams
“A brilliant and dramatic close reading of the first book of the Bible focussing on the complex relationship with humankind.” Virago

OK, that last quote was from Marilynne Robinson’s publishers, but even so, it’s been getting raves!

Listen to what Holly & Darren make of it … and let us know if you’ve read it too. And join in the wider conversation about our relationships with the Bible. Find out why you might want to take your Bible out for a coffee ….

This podcast was recorded on Thursday 4 April 2024. Available from Apple Podcasts , TuneIn Radio, and via your favourite podcast App. Duration: 48’57 minutes. Theme music and stings by Nicolai Heidlas.

Links
Reading Genesis by Marilynne Robinson
New Yorker Review
Marilynne Robinson on the Conversations with Tyler Podcast (on Calvinism)
The God Bless the USA Bible
The Book of the People by A.N. Wilson (Atlantic Books)
A History of the Bible by John Barton (Penguin paperback)
Inspired by Rachel Held Evans
Faith Adjacent podcast
Seen and Unseen website
Extra coffee & Bible content on our smallVOICE Substack

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Geraldine Rooney says:

April 15, 2024 at 5:13 pm

Interesting, as ever. Marilyn Robinson sounds way too scary and daunting for me.
I think Holly put her finger on part of the reason for our complicated relationship with the Bible: the Bible has been weaponised, for many reasons and against different groups, down the centuries. At my church, members of the congregation read several (prescribed) pieces for the Mass, and there are some passages that my female friends and I react to with “ah’m nae reading that” (looking at you, St Paul). You’re right about all the elements, cultural and religious too. Back to my memories of my Irish Cistercian cousin monk: to sit and hear the divine office e.g. Compline made the hairs on my neck stand up – that magic that music can make, some of it purely aesthetic. Yes, lectio divina! And such poetry: I love the psalms – the verses thrown from one side of the abbey stalls to the other. Like Shakespeare, some phrases are in the bricks of our cultural life. Don’t you love “the wine of astonishment”, and keeping someone as the apple of your eye. Thanks.

Darren McKinnon says:

April 16, 2024 at 5:09 pm

Thanks Geraldine, glad you enjoyed the podcast. I’ll have to look up lectio divina, I thought she presented Big Brother. Agree completely re poetry in the bible, though fascinating that it comes to us via translation, yet somehow remains, um, poetic. I shall keep looking for the wine of astonishment, that’s for sure!

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