An Introduction to the Old Testament: Second Edition

This is a thorough treatment for an overview of the Old Testement. If one hod no other introductory book to the Old Testement, one would nevertheless be well equiped with this one.

arrived quickly and as described

I just received my copy today and plunged into it immediately! I thought I would take a few minutes to break the book in properly by opening a small section of pages at a time, but I did not need to do so as the binding is so superb that i can open it to any section, lay it on my desk, and it will STAY open. There is no dust jacket, but again, it does not need one as the texture of the hard cover appears to be a glossy, tough material that could repel even red grape juice. It is more than five hundred pages with a great introduction covering history, archeology, the supernatural, literary structure, and many other topics. Each book of the Old Testament has a good introduction and analysis. The authors give us the goods in fluid, clear language that is easy to read and yet one can see a great depth of thought without impressing us with seventy-five cent technical words. This introduction is conservative, yet balanced. Liberal perspectives are not mocked or ridiculed, but rather they are examined to probe for reasons why such perspectives exist and to find, if any, common ground. I like that the book has a high view of the toledoth theory of structure, which answers the many questions of unity and authorship of Genesis. However, it is my opinion that the authors could have a loftier view of scripture and its transmission. On the one hand, the authors deem it necessary to approach scripture with the correct presupposition to arrive at the correct conclusion, namely, the presupposition that God exists, he is the creator of the universe, he is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, eternal, and imminently active in human affairs. So that parting the Red Sea is no problem, stopping earth's rotation is no problem, and confounding human language is easy for him. Yet on the other hand, for them, this same God seems to have a lesser role in the recording and transmission of his holy scripture which was written by holy men of God under the inspiration of his Holy Spirit, and that he, the all powerful one, is fully capable of recording his word and transmitting it to us EXACTLY as he intended. An example of this is the authors' reference to the authorship and dating of the book of Job. They rightly point out that the date of writing is unknown, and the authorship is unknown, however, they wrongly suggest that the so-called "Babylonian Job", "I will praise the Lord of wisdom", is older than the biblical book (middle second millennium B.C.) and one is left with a feeling that perhaps the Job author was inspired by that Babylonian work. But not so, for just as the Babylonian creation story is an obvious corruption of the true Genesis record, so it is highly likely that the "Babylonian Job" was inspired by an older story, namely the Book Of Job. Given that Job seemed fairly advanced in age at the time of his trials and that he lived one-hundred and forty years more after his healing, we can place him as early as Eber and Peleg. That aside, I highly recommend this Introduction to the New Testament!

Clear, organized, and with lots of references for further reading

One of the most significant contemporary introductions to the Old Testament. This book provides a solid grounding in the cultural, political, religious, and historical world of the Bible narratives and literature. Written in an updated style, it does not suffer from the overly expressive and redundant approaches of older biblical literature and commentaries that require you mine and sift through pounds and pounds of material to mind a small amount of ore.

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