 | Onslaught against Innocence: Cain, Abel, and the Yahwist
LaCocque, André
Eugene, Ore.: Cascade, 2008 pp. viii + 177. $22.00
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Description: Never before has the problem of evil been a more urgent subject for our reflection. The Yahwist confronts the issue through a sequence of stories on the progressive deterioration of the divine-human relationship in Genesis 2-11. In Genesis 4 he narrates the initial slaughter of one human being by another, and strikingly, it is described as fratricidal.
Onslaught Against Innocence: Cain, Abel, and the Yahwist provides a close reading of J's story by using literary criticism and psychological criticism. It shows that the biblical author has more than an "archaeological" design. His characters—including God, Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel, plus minor characters—are paradigmatic. They allow J to proceed with a fine analytical feel for the nature of evil as performed by "homo" as "homini lupus." No imaginative "mimesis" of evil has ever been recounted with such an economy of means and such depth of psychological insight.
Subjects: Bible, Hebrew Bible / Old Testament, Pentateuch, Genesis, Literature
Review by Mark McEntire
Read the Review
Published 11/27/2009
Citation: Mark McEntire, review of André Lacocque, Onslaught against Innocence: Cain, Abel, and the Yahwist, Review of Biblical Literature [http://www.bookreviews.org] (2009).
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