Stephen Spector’s God and the First Fam­i­lies is an ambi­tious new work that uses mul­ti­ple mod­els of par­ent­ing to inter­pret and ana­lyze the ear­ly sto­ries of Gen­e­sis. Ulti­mate­ly Spec­tor com­bines these stud­ies into a broad­er dis­cus­sion of a moral devel­op­men­tal mod­el from cre­ation through the sto­ry of Joseph. 

Spec­tor begins by artic­u­lat­ing dif­fer­ent mod­els of par­ent­ing. Author­i­tar­i­an par­ent­ing, a style dom­i­nat­ed by order and pun­ish­ment; per­mis­sive par­ent­ing, where chil­dren aren’t giv­en lim­its or bound­aries; neglect­ful par­ent­ing, where par­ents are unin­volved and indif­fer­ent; and final­ly author­i­ta­tive par­ent­ing, where parental expec­ta­tions, lim­its, and encour­age­ments form a healthy pat­tern for children.

Using these mod­els, Spec­tor explores the book of Gen­e­sis, some­times look­ing at God in the role of par­ent and some­times exam­in­ing the char­ac­ters in their parental roles. The God of the ear­ly chap­ters of Gen­e­sis is viewed as an author­i­tar­i­an par­ent, harsh­ly pun­ish­ing with­out expla­na­tion. Addi­tion­al­ly, Spec­tor sees God as a failed par­ent in the Gar­den of Eden sto­ry, remark­ing that God gives com­mands with­out rea­son. While indi­vid­ual inter­pre­ta­tions are illu­mi­nat­ing, there is, at times, a ten­den­cy to fit bib­li­cal inci­dents into pre­set categories.

In his dis­cus­sion of the patri­archs, Spec­tor focus­es on the text, pro­vid­ing a nuanced analy­sis of Abra­ham and Sarah. The Akedah, when God asks Abra­ham to sac­ri­fice his first born before send­ing an angel to stop him, adds an inter­est­ing ele­ment to Spector’s analy­sis of God’s parenting.

Spec­tor is strong on acknowl­edg­ing the reper­cus­sions of the Akedah on the rest of Isaac’s life, his shad­owy pres­ence in the sto­ry, and his repli­ca­tion of fam­i­ly trau­ma in his own par­ent­ing. Spec­tor depicts this well in the next gen­er­a­tion with the sto­ry of Jacob and Esau and the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of this parenting .

The book ends on an uplift­ing note with Spector’s analy­sis of the Joseph sto­ry. Joseph acts as an author­i­ta­tive par­ent to his own broth­ers, allow­ing them to learn from their past mis­takes and rec­on­cile with Joseph.

God and the First Fam­i­lies suc­ceeds bril­liant­ly in ana­lyz­ing the sto­ries of Gen­e­sis from the per­spec­tive of parental cat­e­gories and trau­ma the­o­ry. Though less suc­cess­ful in argu­ing for a devel­op­men­tal view of moral behav­ior through the arc of Gen­e­sis, it offers many provoca­tive read­ings of crit­i­cal episodes. For those inter­est­ed in trau­ma the­o­ry, par­ent­ing advice, and bib­li­cal crit­i­cism this will be a stim­u­lat­ing read.