SOURCE: “What Happens in Genesis?” in What Does Eve Do to Help? and Other Readerly Questions to the Old Testament, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series, 94, 1990, pp. 49-66.

In the following essay, Clines examines the plot of Genesis, and argues that the book, by way of the announcements made by God in it, foretells the direction in which the narrative of later books of the Bible, extending through 2 Kings 25, will follow.

What happens in Genesis? Genesis looks like a narrative book, with events being told in roughly chronological order and characters remaining reasonably recognizable throughout their appearances. So it is a proper question, when opening the book, to ask, What happens in this narrative? That is to say, plot is the subject of this enquiry. Of the author or sources of Genesis I confess (or allege, it is the same thing) that I know...