Reflections Of An Honest Skeptic: An Unorthodox Approach to Genesis

With his personal and somewhat idiosyncratic approach to the Torah text, Michael Malina comments on the familiar Genesis stories with an eye to asking the questions that the text invites, but that the traditional commentaries rarely attempt to answer. This analysis reveals a deep respect for the ancient tradition, yet a fresh skepticism and twenty-first century sensibility concerning the rabbis’ efforts to square the Torah’s words with the doctrines of rabbinic Judaism as they evolved over time.

About the author:

Michael Malina is a retired attorney who practiced antitrust law in New York City for forty years. A graduate with honors from Harvard College and Harvard Law School, he has spent a lifetime studying and trying to understand the principal texts of the Jewish tradition and applying their teachings to modern life. Michael lives with his wife of fifty-two years in Scarsdale, New York.

Praise for Reflections of an Honest Skeptic:

"Michael Malina's Reflections of an Honest Skeptic is a new, eclectic commentary on the book of Genesis. Acknowledging the sanctity, if not the Divine authorship, of the Torah, Malina gives us a close and highly personal reading of Genesis with a unique mixture of sensitivity and occasional chutzpah."
-Michael J. Bohnen

"That a layman with little formal advanced Jewish education could yet compose this incredibly rich commentary on the biblical text is both a source of wonderment and a testimony to what can be accomplished with serious effort and imaginative reading."
-Professor Neil Gillman

"Michael Malina skillfully weaves together his astute observations on Genesis from a literary, psychological, rhetorical, and theological perspective. The ample and well-considered references to prior commentators set the stage for questioning received wisdom while maintaining the sacred and central role of the Bible in Jewish tradition."
-Rabbi Lewis Warshauer