Whether or not
you read the Bible, Genesis is a fascinating part of
ancient writings. Especially the chapters prior to
Abraham as these seem to reach back into prehistory.
The style and content indicates that we’re not getting
a year-by-year history, but major highlights of a vast
and largely undocumented period in man’s history.
Hebrew scholars will confirm that the the genealogies
in these chapters are unlikely to be complete. Genesis
6-8′s talk of Nephilim, sons of God and a massive
flood barely outline what was going on in this lost
world. Wouldn’t it be interesting if someone went back
and filled in the details?
Now someone
has.
In Brian
Godawa’s Noah Primeval we
find an epic retelling of the story of Noah. Yes, the
biblical elements are all there, but in this imagining
we find out what would cause God to wipe out man. Some
people object to anyone trying to conjecture a story
like this and fit it into the Bible. As Godawa writes,
this is a fantasy. Sure, rooted in biblical details,
but a fictional adventure that may not resemble
anything in history.
Then again,
this book will leave you wishing the Bible did tell
more.
Besides
getting readers to consider Noah and his story beyond
the Sunday School highlights, Godawa has produced a
fast-paced adventure that fantasy lovers will enjoy.
This will appeal beyond the traditional “Christian
fiction” market that is surprisingly light in the
fantasy genre (in spite of the legacies of Tolkien,
Lewis andMacDonald).
For those who
want to dig further, Godawa does provide some appendix
material discussing the biblical themes he builds on.
You will find detailed essays on the often debated
nature and identity of the Nephlim and sons of God.
Often referred to in passing in novels, or the subject
of pseudohistorical New Age books, here you can find a
serious study. He also studies the cultural
touchstones the Hebrews shared with nearby cultures.
Skeptics like to claim this makes the Hebrews nothing
special (or that they stole all their ideas). On the
other side, some think the Hebrews lived in a vacuum.
In reality, no one does. Nor did the Hebrews get their
cosmography wrong, as skeptics claim, they were
describing it from their perspective. Along with some
of the other nearby cultures, they weren’t necessarily
attempting to be a scientific people. There can be a
modern tendency to read our science or theories into
the Bible. Godawa cuts a trail between all these
extremes.
Being a
product of their times, doesn’t mean that nothing
unique can be found, after all these are inspired
texts. So when Godawa writes that verses like Isaiah
45:12 are not references to “an expanding Einsteinian
time-space atmosphere” I would disagree and posit that
these are references to the nature of the universe (as
would others, The Creator and the
Cosmos). In fact, modern physics tells us
spacetime is fairly flat and has been expanding and
Genesis (surprising to some) is in sequence to modern
science (see The Genesis Question).
From the
perspective of the Hebrews, they weren’t writing about
science. That which divinely inspired them, however,
provided knowledge of what was unknown to
them.
Noah Primeval is
the first in a series and readers will definitely want
more. This is also one of a current crop of books that
will change perceptions (or misconceptions) about
Christian fiction.