Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary

THE EPIC OF EDEN BY SANDRA L. RICHTER

– A CRITICAL INTERACTION

Submitted to Dr. Gary E. Yates

in partial fulfillment of requirements for THEO 695

by

Elke B. Speliopoulos

Downingtown, PA

January 24, 2010

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1

APPROACH TO ORGANIZATION..............................................................................................1

STYLE AND IMPACT...................................................................................................................3

CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5

BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................................7

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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INTRODUCTION

The title page of Sandra L. Richter’s book The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the

Old Testament features an open doorway leading out to a pristine landscape beyond the

cobblestone walkway. This is an exceedingly appropriate image for the motivation behind

Richter’s writing of this book: her desire to lead believers out of the unknown of the Old

Testament and into the light of God bringing Adam back into the garden. As she observes, most

lay readers of the Bible “have not been involved in any sort of intentional study of the Old

Testament since…well, since they can’t remember when.”1 Richter seeks to give her readers a

tool that will allow them to address their “dysfunctional closet syndrome”2 and put a “mortal

blow”3 to it by offering metaphorical pole, hooks and hangers to organize the information.

Richter’s approach in doing so involves an overcoming of barriers “from millennia of linguistic,

cultural and historical changes”4 and then organizing the information; her end desire is that her

readers understand that the Bible is the story of redemption.

APPROACH TO ORGANIZATION

Richter seeks to organize the truly massive amount of data (to use a clearly more modern

term) of the Old Testament into a system that allows the not-so-Bible literate reader to follow. In

order to bring a level of organization to the “OT closet”, she hangs the information on to one

major theme, redemption, and focuses on three aspects along the way: people, place and

presence. This will ultimately allow the reader to understand God’s plan to lead fallen ʾĀdām

(representing both the literal Adam and fallen humanity in Richter’s book) back to Eden.

1. Sandra L. Richter, The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2008), 16.

2. Ibid., 17-18.

3. Ibid., 19.

4. Ibid., 20.
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To explain redemption, she begins by taking her readers back in time into a society rather

unfamiliar to them in the 21st century: the father’s house(hold), or bêt ʾāb, a patriarchal,

patrilineal and patrilocal construct of Israelite society5. This travel back to show how an extended

family was located around the patriarch and how this arrangement played out in everyday living,

including “legal and economic responsibility for the household”6, where the patriarch might even

decided “who lived and who died”7 allows the reader a clearer understanding of many biblical

writings. This construct also helps explain the story of Boaz and Ruth, one of the examples

Richter provides, in which Boaz acts as a kinsman-redeemer to uphold the line of Naomi’s son,

by fathering a son that would inherit Mahlon’s name and inheritance, thereby securing both the

fate of Ruth and Naomi.8

This discussion of the bêt ʾāb seamlessly leads to the topic and concept of covenant,

which centers most of the remaining depiction of God’s plan to redeem mankind. Richter allows

the reader to continue organizing the Old Testament closet through the means of five Old

Testament names, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David. While she does not discuss an “Edenic

Covenant”, she discusses the role of Adam at length. However, in the organizational flow, she

focuses on five covenants: the Adamic, Noahic, Mosaic, Davidic and New Covenants.

Along the way, Richter takes excursions to explain topics, which are critical to the Old

Testament, such as the real time and space of the Old Testament, creation, and thereby God’s

original intent, and New Jerusalem, or God’s final intent. This is the framework within which

Richter develops the redemption story of the Old Testament that ultimately leads us into the New

Testament and to ʾĀdām returning to the restored Eden and into the presence of God.

5. Ibid., 25.

6. Ibid., 26.

7. Ibid., 27.

8. Ibid., 40-42.
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STYLE AND IMPACT

Richter’s book is very readable – for a Bible college or seminary student. Yet, upon

completion of the book, I was left wondering just how much a real lay person would be able to

work their way through this book without some level of frustration. Not because she does not do

an excellent job explaining concepts of the Old Testament depiction of redemption through

God’s covenants with His people, but rather because this book does not read the Bible for them.

To a person with general Old Testament familiarity, this would not pose a problem, but it most

certainly would hinder the understanding of a reader not terribly knowledgeable of the Old

Testament. There are large portions left untouched (the Prophets, the Psalms, etc.), and it might

lead to remaining uncertainty in the reader’s mind about where they fit in. In a manner, this is

answered when Richter discusses blessings and curses as associated with covenant making in the

Ancient Near East9. Certainly, many of the passages in the prophets fit exactly into this depiction

of curses and blessings. This is clear to a person who has read through the Old Testament, but

again, may pose a difficulty to the understanding of a less Bible-literate reader.

Richter uses graphics liberally throughout the book, which is a refreshing departure from

typical reading on this topic. It allows her to keep a red thread throughout the book (example: the

oft-repeated graphic of the fall from Eden and God’s relentless work through various covenants

to bring ʾĀdām back into fellowship with Him)10. Another example is the timeline graphic,

which is repeated several times, allowing the reader to keep up with where Richter is in history.11

This is an excellent technique to allow a not so deeply biblically aware reader to keep up with

where she is taking him.

9. Ibid., 81.

10. The graphic is first encountered in its root form on page 131.

11. The timeline graphic is initially found on page 48.

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While her excursions into particular topics are exciting and interesting12, they sometimes

seem to lead the reader away from the red thread of redemption running through the book.

Richter approaches this in three manners: built into the text as the example of the creation

theories highlights, highlighted in a gray box13, or addressed in an FAQ section (and extensive

endnotes). For the reader, the flow might have been easier if these – often lengthy – passages

were kept together. Her FAQ section is a perfect place to dive into such “specialized” questions

further, but she makes rather limited use of this section with only two questions. Her rather

extensive endnotes section gives her book a much more scholarly appearance, yet one is left to

wonder exactly who her targeted readership is, as most lay people will not be terribly interested

in the endnotes. Again, it might have been more beneficial to offer some of this information in

the FAQ section.

What is immensely beneficial to readers is the wonderfully educational attempt to rid

them of their ethnocentric filter with which all approach a book written in a time and place so far

removed from them. Her explanation of people, place and presence allows the reader to start

from the same starting point as the writers of the Old Testament. Here again, Richter is to be

commended for guiding her readers, as this concept of people, place and presence threads

throughout the book.

Despite some of the issues addressed above, Richter achieves what she set out to do: she

paints a picture of redemption as she provides her readers a framework in which they can

organize material, or their – now formerly – “dysfunctional closet”. She concludes the book with

a brief FAQ section, which actually provides some rather thought-provoking discussions around

12. An example here is the discussion of the theories around the “week” of Genesis 1, beginning on page
95, which, while very interesting, does not contribute to the overall discussion of creation at this point.

13. The discussion of the “Image on page 107 is such a gray highlighted section.
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the meaning of the Law for today’s believers14 and the role of Israel today15. These sections

alone, if read stand-alone, would be utterly stimulating. Richter may even want to think to spend

some more time expanding on these two questions in follow-up works. There is a lot of

confusion today with a renewed interest in Christian Zionism and Israel, and the many who may

have gotten a bit carried away in their fervor of unquestioningly supporting Israel (and pointing

to the blessings and curses announced in Genesis 12:3) might just be a bit surprised and

stimulated sufficiently that they may want to think this through a bit further. One understanding

the readers will clearly walk away with is that the casual image of Heaven is far from the picture

God is painting in the pages of the Scriptures. As Richter points out, the believer’s ultimate

destination is the return to the Father’s household in the restored garden delighting in His

presence.

CONCLUSION

Richter approaches the Old Testament in a way that ultimately allows her readers to

understand that the Word of God is a consistent redemption story, one which does not stop at the

last page of Malachi, but rather continues into the New Testament, as only there the final

destination of ʾĀdām is found in the New Jerusalem.

Richter describes her emotions on her first trip to Israel with a line from a John Denver

song in that she felt that she was “coming home to a place I’d never been before”16. Ultimately,

this book is a perfect description of why all believers just might have that feeling: the land’s

history is their history, too. The people who lived here and were the apple of God’s eye have

now become the believer’s family through his adoption into Abraham’s family line and through

it into the bêt ʾāb of God Most High. God’s redemption plan of ʾĀdām gives us all a common

14. Richter, The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament, 225.

15. Ibid., 229.

16. The graphic is first encountered in its root form on page 131.
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standing and a common experience. With the Israelites, we can be assured of God’s fighting for

his redeemed people, for as Zechariah 2:8 tells “for he who touches you touches the apple of his

eye”.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Richter, Sandra L. The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament. Downers Grove,
IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008.