THE GENESIS OF PERFECTION: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination, by Gary A. Anderson, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001, 257pp. (Call no. BS580.A4.A57).

Gary Anderson as a Protestant studied theology at Duke and became a Roman Catholic "with the deepest and most abiding love for Judaism and the Jews." Now a professor of Old Testament at Harvard he confesses a deep respect for the traditional Jewish and Christian learning about the Biblical text.

Anderson's interpretation of the Adam and Eve story will hold your interest for sure. He integrates contributions of rabbis, St. Augustine, Milton and Michelangelo in a fascinating style. The author addresses the snake and the nakedness of the pair in the Garden.

Harvey Cox, Harvard Divinity School, comments on THE GENESIS OF PERFECTION: "They were expelled from Eden; so why are Adam and Eve still so much with us--in our great literature, our cartoons, and our cultural imagination?

Gary Anderson engagingly traces how their continuing story unfolds in all of us, not just as a symbol of the Fall, but as a vital step toward human fulfillment. Engrossing, intelligent, and witty, this book is definitely not just for scholars." (Book jacket).