This is the sequel to the author's iconoclastic Toward a Grammar of Biblical Poetics (Oxford, 1992), in which Brichto argues for the aesthetic wholeness of the Hebrew Bible, and the consistency of Scripture's preachment on God, nature, and the human condition--in direct opposition to current source criticism, which maintains that inconsistencies within the text support an atomistic reading of multiple authors.

In The Names of God, Brichto brings us his "poetic" reading of Scripture to the Book of Genesis. Using contemporary methods and insights of literary criticism, he...