Reading Genesis without knowledge of ancient languages, ancient history, archaeology, and philosophy is like looking through a microscope without any assistance from James Pawley’s Handbook of Biological Confocal Microscopy, or anything or the sort. I might see interesting things, but they could be even more interesting if I were willing to discipline myself to use the tools at my disposal.
As it turns out, my toolkit is limited (maybe even sparse) but it is not nonexistent. On a more ambitious day, I’ll make an inventory of its contents, as well as an outline of the accompanying instruction manuals that I’ve mastered to-date.