Seeing Emergent Self-Awareness and Early Psychological Development in Bible Stories : Growing Up in Genesis

This book shows how many of the behaviors, emotions, and developmental characteristics in young children are reflected in biblical narratives.

This book shows how many of the behaviors, emotions, and developmental characteristics in young children are reflected in biblical narratives. Royce Anderson examines several of the biblical stories which appear early in the Genesis primeval history, focusing on the cognitive and emotional aspects of psychological concepts such as self-awareness, theory of mind (awareness of others), empathy, moral and emotional development, and various characteristics of interpersonal relations and group dynamics. Across four chapters, this book seeks to propose and elaborate the emergence of self-awareness within three different contexts: the biblical, the psychological, and the archaeological. By illuminating these familiar biblical stories through the lens of behavioral psychology—self-awareness (the Garden of Eden), moral development (Cain and Abel), ostracism and group cohesion (drunken Noah)—Anderson contends that they gain deeper meaning and personal relevance when analyzed as both psychological variables and theological concepts.