GENESIS: A JOURNEY INWARD (BSST-2000)
(09/07/2021-12/17/2021)
Course Memo
This course will explore the book of Genesis from a Swedenborgian exegetical perspective. The book of Genesis holds a particular fascination for those in the Swedenborgian interpretive lineage, as a text in which myth and history meet. The story telling of the ancients speaks across time, filling our present world with dramas of family and fertility and of connection to and estrangement from the Divine. We will engage a close reading of some of Swedenborg’s earliest biblical commentaries, including his fictional account of the Adam and Even story, De Cultu et Amore Dei, The Worship and Love of God. We will also survey Swedenborg’s many theological volumes dedicated to interpreting Genesis, such as Arcana Coelestia and The Word Explained, and explore our own intuitive connections to and interpretations of this collection of ancient and sublime texts that we call Genesis.