002 – The Genesis 2,4–3,24 project

Just some ideas for the back cover of the popular version of the thesis on Genesis 2,4–3,24…

Here’s the text of that graphic:

From a letter of Father George David Byers sent from Lourdes to His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, on the feast of Saint Jerome, 30 September 2008:

Your Holiness, [the pages in the thesis discussing your past views of original sin] were a disputatio favoring diffusion of the truth, not a critique of the successor of Peter, nor of your Magisterium, nor of your person. The Angelus address of your Holiness here in Lourdes [14 September 2008] permits the removal of these pages from the thesis. Yet, with your permission, I would now like to retain them in a more widely published version of Genesis 2,4–3,24 – Two Generations in One Day (and its popular version) – with the inclusion of your Angelus message – so that “culture and its proponents” (especially found in a reinvigorated scientific exegesis) may be more easily considered “to be the privileged vehicles of dialogue between faith and reason, between God and man.” This, I believe, would promote Judeo-Christian relations and offer a further motivation for many to know the Living Word of God.

From the response received on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, 7 October 2008, from Pope Benedict XVI through the Secretariat of State mentioning the contents of that letter:

The Holy Father wishes me to express his gratitude for your kind letter and the gift of the copy of your recent book. He appreciates the sentiments which prompted you to share your research with him. His Holiness will remember you in his prayers. Invoking upon you joy and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ, he cordially imparts his Apostolic Blessing.

“Je vous remercie de tout cœur…” – from a note sent by the Emeritus Secretary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and Emeritus Rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute:

It is a profound study and I warmly congratulate you for it. I wish it great success.

✠ Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, S.J.

The present volume is is a greatly expanded edition of the original literary, historical critical exegesis that constituted a doctoral thesis brought about with a relentless, sometimes groundbreaking analysis of the grammar, syntax and philology of the Hebrew text of Genesis 2,4–3,24. Only in this way was the Hebrew text’s brilliant, apologetic and missionary usage of Enūma eliš to be seen, all unexpected. Only in this way was a Judeo-Catholic compendium of the spiritual life made evident, again, all unexpected.

The simple method – a bit of common sense as suggested by the text – has been fruitful beyond measure for advancing truly scientific studies of the Sacred Scriptures, studies which, because of that, bring about an understanding of the life of faith lived out before God and one’s fellow man.

The Hebrew text offers its own premises and conclusions, which, in turn, should help shape today’s discussion on creation, evolution, polygenism, original sin, marriage, the Immaculate Conception, the extent of the redemption offered to us by God, and, indeed, the hope one may have in the face of suffering. Genesis 2,4–3,24 is, in its entirety, a Proto-Evangelium best described as two generations in one day, the Body of the Old Adam and the Body of the New Adam.

George David Byers,  s.s.l., s.t.d., was born in 1960 and ordained a Catholic priest in 1992. He taught Theology, Scripture and biblical languages in the major seminaries of Wagga Wagga, Sydney, Suva, and the Pontifical Seminary Josephinum in Columbus, where he also had responsibilities for the external and internal forum formation of the seminarians. He has been a parish priest and given many retreats and conferences to priests, religious and laity in Australia, Oceania, Eastern and Western Europe and the Americas. He is presently fulfilling a lifelong dream of being a hermit to pray for his fellow priests and bishops and to write on Scripture, Theology and the Spiritual Life.