Genesis for Normal People
A Guide to the Most Controversial, Misunderstood, and Abused Book of the Bible (Second Edition w/ Study Guide) (The Bible for Normal People)
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Narrated by:
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Peter Enns
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Jared Byas
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By:
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Peter Enns
-
Jared Byas
About this listen
Given the fever-pitched controversies about evolution, Adam and Eve, and scientific evidence for the Flood, the average person might feel intimidated by the book of Genesis. But behind the heady debates is a terrific story—one that anyone can understand, and one that has gripped people for ages. If you are not a Bible scholar but want to be able to listen to Genesis and understand its big picture, this brief, witty book is the guide you've been waiting for. Clear summaries and thought-provoking questions provide direction for personal reflection and group discussion. Peter Enns, a Biblical Studies professor, and Jared Byas, an Old Testament professor, summarize the book's key themes and help us see Genesis as an ancient story, one with continued relevance for human experience today.
Genesis for Normal People illuminates the characters that fill the book of Genesis, causing us to resonate with their choices and struggles even as we marvel at their distant world. And that's what you'll find here—not scientific proof texts or simple moral tales, but a distant world made available, and a story that is often strange, sometimes dangerous, and always filled with rich possibilities.
“This book is a welcome antidote to the mystification about the book of Genesis that goes around. It is accessible for readers who want to take the plunge into this old text. It is gentle in leading readers to a critical sense of the text in response to a 'late' trauma in Israel. It is imaginative in its articulation of a book that might otherwise be off-putting. The convergence of accessibility, gentleness, and imagination make this a very fine read.” (Walter Brueggemann, Professor Emeritus, Columbia Theological Seminary)
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Why does the Bible depict a world in which humans, with surprising regularity, encounter the divine - wrestling an angel, addressing a burning bush, issuing forth prophecy without any choice in the matter? These stories spoke very differently to their original audience than they do to us, and they reflect a radically distinct understanding of reality and the human mind. Yet over the course of the thousand-year biblical era, encounters with God changed dramatically.
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Changing Conceptions of God and the Self
- By DJ on 10-27-22
By: James L. Kugel
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The Sin of Certainty
- Why God Desires Our Trust More than Our "Correct" Beliefs
- By: Peter Enns
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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With compelling and often humorous stories from his own life, Bible scholar Peter Enns offers a fresh look at how Christian life truly works, answering questions that cannot be addressed by the idealized traditional doctrine of "once for all delivered to the saints".
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Title may mislead the actual content
- By Adam Shields on 05-26-16
By: Peter Enns
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The Kingdom
- By: Emmanuel Carrère, John Lambert - translator, Claire Bloom - director
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 16 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Gripped by the tale of a Messiah whose blood we drink and body we eat, the genre-defying author Emmanuel Carrère revisits the story of the early Church in his latest work. With an idiosyncratic and at times iconoclastic take on the charms and foibles of the Church fathers, Carrère ferries listeners through his "doors" into the biblical narrative. Once inside, he follows the ragtag group of early Christians through the tumultuous days of the faith's founding.
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The Gospel of Emmanuel
- By Mark on 12-31-17
By: Emmanuel Carrère, and others
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Don't Know Much about the Bible
- Everything You Need to Know About the Good Book but Never Learned
- By: Kenneth C. Davis
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey, Lorna Raver
- Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Bringing to life the world of the Old and New Testaments, the acclaimed creator of the bestselling Don’t Know Much About® series transforms dry, difficult reading into colorful and realistic accounts. Relying on new research and improved translations, Kenneth C. Davis uncovers some amazing questions and contradictions about what the Bible really says: Jericho’s walls may have tumbled down because the city lies on a fault line; Moses never parted the Red Sea; There was a Jesus, but he wasn’t born on Christmas and he probably wasn't an only child....
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decent survey of the topic
- By bookouri on 02-02-14
By: Kenneth C. Davis
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The Exodus
- By: Richard Elliott Friedman
- Narrated by: Richard Elliott Friedman
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Biblical scholars, Egyptologists, archaeologists, historians, literary scholars, anthropologists, and filmmakers are drawn to the mystery of the exodus. Unable to find physical evidence until now, many archaeologists and scholars claim this mass migration is just a story, not history. Others oppose this conclusion, defending the biblical account.
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It started well......
- By kboy2008 on 04-21-20
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A Little History of the World
- By: E. H. Gombrich
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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E. H. Gombrich's world history, an international best seller now available in English for the first time, is a text dominated not by dates and facts but by the sweep of experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements, and an acute witness to its frailties.
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an enlightening book; very well read
- By A.B.Oxford on 06-03-06
By: E. H. Gombrich
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Story in the Stars
- Discovering God's Design and Plan for Our Universe
- By: Joe Amaral
- Narrated by: Joe Geoffrey
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Signs are meant to point us toward something: Jesus. Story in the Stars takes an in-depth look at the Bible and all the signs God mapped out through constellations, planets, and even the way the Earth is tilted. We are uniquely designed by God, and he loves us so much that he ensured a way for all inhabitants of the Earth, through all of time, to see the messages of salvation and redemption that he painted in the stars.
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Stellar read and audio book.
- By Kim on 07-17-20
By: Joe Amaral
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Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy
- A Journey into a New Christianity Through the Doorway of Matthew's Gospel
- By: John Shelby Spong
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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A man who has consciously and deliberately walked the path of Christ, John Shelby Spong has lived his entire life inside the Christian Church. In this profound and considered work, he offers a radical new way to look at the gospels today as he shows just how deeply Jewish the Christian Gospels are and how much they reflect the Jewish scriptures, history, and patterns of worship.
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understanding the jewish thoughts in the Gospels
- By John on 08-30-18
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Malestrom
- Manhood Swept into the Currents of a Changing World
- By: Carolyn Custis James
- Narrated by: Diana Batrseh
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Malestrom builds on and expands previous books by Carolyn Custis James to explore the idea of manhood, a growing issue both in the wider culture and in the church. Until now the entire discussion has been largely reduced to Western conceptions. Instead James here shows how our culture's narrow definitions of manhood are upended when we consider the examples of men in the Bible and Jesus' gospel.
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Food for thought
- By Britt Sanderson on 06-14-22
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Abraham
- One Nomad's Amazing Journey of Faith
- By: Charles R. Swindoll
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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When we rewind history to Abraham's era, we encounter people who concocted false superstitions to explain the unexplainable. Powerful kings claimed to be gods, building massive pyramids in an attempt to achieve immortality. Out of this mass of misunderstandings, this collage of confusion, one man emerged. Why, thousands of years later, are we still discussing the faith of this desert nomad? Chuck Swindoll answers that question and many more in this compelling and insightful biography that will inspire your own faith.
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Father of Faith
- By POTSY on 01-06-17
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The Rational Bible: Genesis
- By: Dennis Prager
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 19 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Many people today think the Bible, the most influential book in world history, is not only outdated but irrelevant, irrational, and even immoral. This explanation of the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, demonstrates clearly and powerfully that the opposite is true. The Bible remains profoundly relevant - both to the great issues of our day and to each individual life. It is the greatest moral guide and source of wisdom ever written.
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So glad I bought this!
- By Alex Martinez on 06-10-19
By: Dennis Prager
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Who Is This Man?
- The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus
- By: John Ortberg
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling author John Ortberg shares how Jesus' influence has swept over history and how his vision of life continues to impact humanity today. Jesus' impact on our world is highly unlikely, widely inescapable, largely unknown, and decidedly double-edged. It is unlikely in light of the severe limitations of his earthly life; it is inescapable because of the range of impact; it is unknown because history doesn't connect dots; and it is doubled-edged because his followers have wreaked so much havoc, often in his name.
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NOT narrated by John Ortberg, sadly
- By T. Harris on 08-15-12
By: John Ortberg
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Filled with shallow identity politics
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A personal testimony
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Inspiration and Incarnation
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How can an evangelical view of Scripture be reconciled with modern biblical scholarship? In this book Peter Enns, an expert in biblical interpretation, addresses Old Testament phenomena that challenge traditional evangelical perspectives on Scripture. He then suggests a way forward, proposing an incarnational model of biblical inspiration that takes seriously both the divine and the human aspects of Scripture.
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Good Material; Painful Narration
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What listeners say about Genesis for Normal People
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jeremy
- 07-16-23
Fantastic journey through an otherwise confusing story!
Another excellent guide through a difficult to understand book by Pete and Jared. Great job, as always! Thanks for your hard work and time spent on this project.
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- Madeleine
- 01-18-24
Mind= blown
Incredible! I suggest reading/listening to each chapter twice to truly process all the insights. This was the most helpful book I’ve read so far in order to understand the Bible.
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- dth
- 01-28-24
Seeing Genesis through Ancient Eyes
Wonderful exploration of Genesis as a set of stories of Israel's beginnings to the people of God in exile.
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- Mary Jennifer Lair
- 02-06-23
Pete and Jared are so good
These fellas have a good grasp on the world of the ancient near east. There are a few instances I wish they would have uncovered a little more for us, and I would like to have seen more Jed&p type stuff but overall, like everything they do, this was great!
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- Alex
- 05-28-22
For Christians Who Don’t Want to Turn Their Brain Off
Amazing stuff from Jared and Pete. A true blessing. The topic is similar to one of the BFNP podcasts on the Genesis being about Israel, but instead of being a quick taste it’s an entire meal. Wonderful stuff.
Praise God that there are Christians like Jared and Pete out there who think and teach as Christians should.
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2 people found this helpful
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- ot in the garden
- 08-10-22
Love the book-where's the study guide?
I've read multiple books by Pete Enns and/or Jared Byas-learned from and enjoyed every single one, including this one. But after downloading on my phone and listening to it on a couple of LONG driving days, I wanted to go back and listen again with my bible open and the "study guide" mentioned in the title. So here I am in my library on Audible.com to discover there is no downloadable PDF for this book. There is NO study guide if you buy the Audible version. Would it really be that hard to include what is touted as the feature of this edition for those who, by preference or by need, do a lot of our "reading" by lilstening? Yes, there is certainly much to be learned by simply listening to the book. Yes, both Pete and Jared are easy to listen to. But I bought this book for the book AND the study guide. Very disappointed.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Eric from Missouri
- 04-09-24
A compelling story
It just makes more sense than the traditional understanding of the book of Genesis.
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- Drew Potter
- 07-16-24
Be warned - Liberal nonsense
In the first 5 minutes of the book, the author starts with God’s pronouns, prompting me to dig a little and see that he was suspended from Westminster Theological Seninary for his heretical, progressive views.
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- Mat Koenig
- 12-18-23
No study guide what the heck
There is no study guide included at all. The title is completely dishonest and deceptive, because it does not include one. When I reached out to Audible support, they were useless and asked me where, in the audio of the book, is the timestamp, promising a study guide. I told their Support person it is literally in the book title and they said they couldn’t see it and suggested that I email instead of live chat. This is really disheartening because I was excited to listen to this book and utilize the study guide.
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