Part of the Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentaries (EBTC) series, T. Desmond Alexander’s Genesis is a consolidation of over four decades of research on the Bible’s first book. Alexander is Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies at Union Theological College in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He also serves as one of the EBTC general editors, who state that their aim is to “relate biblical theology to our own lives and to the life of the Church” (p. xiv).

Within this framework, biblical theology is defined as the theology of the entire Bible, an exercise in “whole-Bible theology,” and, more broadly, an attempt to understand and embrace the perspectives of the biblical authors (p. xi; italics original). In this way, biblical theology involves a close study of the use of the Old Testament in the Old Testament and its use in the New Testament, both at the level of individual texts and at the level of broader christological and soteriological themes (pp. xi–xii). On this basis, the commentary does not disappoint.

Genesis is divided into two main parts: (1) Introduction (pp. 1–56) and (2) Exposition (pp. 57–476). The biblical text is broken into eleven sections: (I) The Creation of the Heavens and the Earth (1:1–2:3), (II) The Offspring of the Heavens and the Earth (2:4–4:26), (III) The Offspring of Adam (5:1–6:8), (IV) The Offspring of Noah (6:9–9:29), (V) The Offspring of Noah’s Sons (10:1–11:9), (VI) The Offspring of Shem (11:10–26), (VII) The Offspring of Terah (11:27–25:11), (VIII) The Offspring of Ishmael (25:12–18), (IX) The Offspring of Isaac (25:19–35:29), (X) The Offspring of Esau (36:1–37:1), and (XI) The Offspring of Jacob (37:2–50:26). An extensive bibliography rounds things out (pp. 477–501). There is also a Scripture index.

In the Introduction, concerning JEDP sources, although Alexander considers Genesis to be a “literary collage, created through combining preexisting materials,” he also maintains that this “does not justify ignoring the present coherence of the book” (pp. 2–3). Regarding the ancient Near East, the author argues that because we know “so little about the process by which Genesis was composed, it is easy to speculate regarding all kinds of influences…. For this reason, priority should be given to interpreting passages in Genesis in the light of their own literary and canonical context” (p. 21). Each section of the commentary follows a consistent fourfold pattern: “Exposition,” “Context,” “Comments,” and “Bridge.”

Typographically, the commentary displays an attractive use of white space, bold, shading, and the like, with ample tables and charts, often displaying the chiastic structure of the text. That said, the image quality of some figures can vary (cf. p. 315). The font size of the Hebrew makes both the vowels themselves and the Masoretic pointing and accentuation quite readable, albeit these rarely play a sustained role within the commentary (see pp. 170 and 454).

Lexically, Alexander deftly differentiates between Hebrew stems and utilizes precise nomenclature for verbal forms, such as wayyiqtol. A variety of dictionaries, such as BDB, TDOT, TWOT, and NIDOTTE are cited alongside GKC, IBHS, Arnold-Choi, and Muraoka for Hebrew grammars.

To critique, although Alexander is an exceptionally adept scholar, I was at times rather surprised by some of his comments. For instance, given the longstanding consensus that Ham’s actions in Genesis 9 seem to reflect a serious breach of filial respect, Alexander maintains that there is no reason to believe Ham’s behavior in verse 22 is malevolent and that Noah’s testimony points instead to Canaan as the perpetrator (p. 177).

This assessment, however, appears to conflate Ham’s reporting of the matter with rectifying it. The narrative subtly contrasts Ham with Shem and Japheth’s deliberate attempt to honour their father, something Ham himself does not do. It is also written that Noah “learned” (yada‘) that Ham, Noah’s youngest son, “did” (ʿasah) something warranting censure (Gen 9:24).

I also quibble with the author’s reticence to associate reeds with the ark’s construction. Alexander states that qinnim is “never associated with reeds used in the construction of boats” within the Bible and that it is a “mistake” to assume the supposed reference to reeds in 6:14 provides evidence that the biblical account is closely related to Mesopotamian traditions regarding the construction of an ark (p. 158). An alternative possibility, argued elsewhere, is that revocalization permits reading the term as an accusative of material, that is, “out of reeds.”

Readers will need to adjudicate for themselves the merits and drawbacks of the Christian Standard Bible being used as a base translation. One also wonders if Kenneth A. Mathews’s Christian Standard Commentary Genesis 1—11:26 (Holman Reference, 2023) simply appeared too late in the publishing process to incorporate, since Alexander’s citations refer to Mathews’s 1996 NAC Genesis volume.

Lastly, since Alexander delineates various schematics of the “chiasms” or “ring structure” of the flood (pp. 151–55), the recent comments of Douglas K. Smith in “A Comparative Discourse Analysis of the Genesis Flood Account in the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Septuagint” (PhD diss., Columbia Biblical Seminary, 2023) would have proved valuable.

To close, the book of Genesis is one of the most important, yet also one of the most misunderstood and misused, books in the canon. Fortunately, this volume in the Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentaries series offers a handy yet thorough commentary that provides a holistic reading of the book, taking seriously the literary structure and central themes of Genesis within a canonical focus. Its primary users will likely be students in Bible college, university, and seminary contexts alongside preachers, pastors, Bible study leaders, and invested lay people.