‘Questioning the Questions on the Heptateuch’

‘Genre’ often seems too general a category to apply to whole books of the bible, for each biblical book itself may in fact contain several genres: for example, Exodus includes narrative, song-poetry, law, etc. Furthermore, it is perhaps a recognition of the fragmentary nature of books in their origins that even the most continuous of commentaries, or set of homilies, tend to focus on inspirational verses or even problematic ones rather than on the meaning of larger units. To a possible category of ‘inspirational in their being problematic’ belong verses like Psalm 36:9 (In Lumine Tuo Videbimus Lumen). The task...