Thus began what has become Jim’s two-decade long adventure, understanding why the stories in Genesis are written like screenplays and how a knowledge of screenplays can unlock new meaning, meaning that has escaped modern Biblical commentaries.
“One of the most interesting findings,” Jim told an audience in Richmond, Virginia, “is that when you use setup and resolution lines to identify the major stories in Genesis, you discover Genesis contains ten major stories or screenplays. The thematic arcs of the first seven stories answer fundamental questions of human existence (where did the universe come from, what is the nature of the world, and so on), and the last three stories, the patriarchal sagas, tell you what to do about our existential condition. No other text from early antiquity is organized so logically or is so relevant to modern life.”
