The great American writer Marilynne Robinson’s novels and essays are deeply informed by her Christian faith, so it is perhaps no surprise that she has written a commentary on Genesis. In his review, Philip Bunn notes Robinson’s unapologetic embrace of a traditional approach to the Bible, which one might not expect in a work aimed at a broad audience that does not share her religious commitments or her particular brand of Calvinism:

Robinson unabashedly takes stances that will draw ire from some serious historical-critical scholars. For one, she believes Genesis to be scripture, inspired by God and delivered through Moses’ authorship. At the same time, she takes stances that might offend some fundamentalist readers.

She agrees with certain critical scholars who see in Genesis the explicit influence of other Ancient Near East creation myths and flood stories. She herself sees no problem with this influence; it is no mark against Genesis that it bears the influence of the culture in which it was written. In fact, she sees in Genesis the marks of an author, Moses, who is steeped in both Hebrew and Egyptian learning, aware of these other traditions, and willing to provide a divinely inspired counterpoint to them.

“The gods of the Enuma Elish”—a Babylonian creation myth—“suffer hunger, terror, and loss of sleep,” Robinson writes, and they create through acts of cosmic violence, constructing earth and sky and rivers and seas out of corpses and carnage. The contrast to the God of Scripture could not be more poignant: “Against this background of ambient myth, to say that God is the good creator of a good creation is not a trivial statement. The insistence of Genesis on this point, even the mention of goodness as an attribute of the creation, is unique to Genesis.”

It is God’s care for his creation, but particularly the humans made in his image, that is central to both Genesis and Robinson’s interpretation of it.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.