Can anyone recommend a book, or else an article, about the two creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2 for those brought up to believe in the literal truth of both of these, but now “having doubts” — i.e. . . . what we can gain from studying them critically?

Your answers: I have found two books helpful and illuminating: The Lost World of Genesis One, and The Lost World of Adam and Eve, both by Professor John H. Walton, an American scholar who is an expert on ancient Near Eastern culture and literature. Both are scholarly but readable, and reasonably short.

(The Revd) Shaun Atkins
Bedford
 

Two very readable and well-written books that I have found extremely helpful are Genesis for Normal People and The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible does and doesn’t say about human origins, both by Peter Enns (Kindle and paperback).

Philip Nicholson
Bampton, Cumbria
 

I would suggest Alan Dale’s The Winding Quest, which recounts the Old Testament in linear time. Together with New World (the New Testament), it is now published as The Alan Dale Bible (Kevin Mayhew). Both books were first published in the 1960s and are based on biblical scholarship of the time.

Isobel Platings
London W13
 

The questioner may find additional help in Canon Anthony Phillips: Lower than the Angels: Questions raised by Genesis 1-11 (Canterbury Press, 1996, now print-on-demand). Editor
 

Your question: When did the non-liturgical worship that we often see in parish churches now enter the Church of England, on whose authority, and where did it originate?

A. M.

Address for answers and more questions: Out of the Question, Church Times, 3rd floor, Invicta House, 108-114 Golden Lane, London EC1Y 0TG.

questions@churchtimes.co.uk

We ask readers not to send us letters for forwarding, and those giving answers to provide full name, address, and, if possible, telephone number.