Knock at the Sky: Seeking God in Genesis After Losing Faith in the Bible

In the beginning was a work of art.

What does Bible study look like after inerrancy? Do you have to give up studying Scripture when you no longer believe in its literal interpretation? Can you still believe this book is sacred even while renegotiating your relationship to the church? In Knock at the Sky, Liz Charlotte Grant offers compelling answers to these questions and more in this deeply personal commentary on the book of Genesis.

Braiding together encounters with the natural world, Jewish midrash, and art criticism, Grant makes familiar Sunday school stories strange and offers a fresh vision for reading Scripture after deconstruction. For those who have known the book of Genesis as a weapon in the culture wars, Grant interprets the Bible’s inspired book of beginnings as a work of art. Lyrical, insightful, and highly original, Knock at the Sky offers readers a capacious model for seeking God through Scripture even as one’s faith continues to evolve.

＂In this book, you too have permission to question the sacred without fearing . . . unbelief. Knock loudly. . . . Reject answers that do not admit complication. Seek the resonance at the base of the story. The seeking is the point. Because there, in your wandering, God is.＂

Liz Charlotte Grant is an award-winning essayist whose work has been published in The Revealer, Sojourners, Brevity, Christian Century, Christianity Today, Hippocampus, and elsewhere. She also writes The Empathy List, a popular newsletter that has been nominated for a Webby two years running. She lives in Colorado.