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"As a work of scholarship it is difficult to greet this commentary with anything but enthusiasm. It is certaily the most exhaustive and the very best treatment of these chapters available to us today. One can have little but praise for the breadth of Westermann's scholarship, and for the thoroughness, the clarity, and the fairness with which his discussion is presented. This is a commentary of outstanding usefulness which may be commended without reservation to all serious students of the Old Testament. It will stand as the definitive commentary on Genesis for years to come." -- John Bright in Interpretation "Westermann's commentary has the merit of taking a definite stand in the hermeneutical debate. In the tradition of Gunkel, it takes full advantage of the methods of form criticism and of the phenomenological study of religion. Again and again Westermann opens up dimensions of meaning which are not only relevant for theology but for human existence in the modern world." -- Bernhard W. Anderson Journal of Biblical Literature