Old Testament and God, The

This edition has an international rights restriction and is unavailable in Australia.

UK edition is available here.

Craig Bartholomew's The Old Testament and God is the first volume in his ambitious four-volume project, which seeks to explore the question of God and what happens to Old Testament studies if we take God and his action in the world seriously. Toward this end, he proposes a post-critical paradigm shift that recenters study around God. The intent is to do for Old Testament studies what N. T. Wright's Christian Origins and the Question of God series has done for New Testament studies.

Bartholomew proposes a much-needed holistic, narrative approach, showing how the Old Testament functions as Christian Scripture. In so doing, he integrates historical, literary, and theological methods as well as a critical realist framework. Following a rigorous analysis of how we should read the Old Testament, he goes on to examine and explain the various tools available to the interpreter. He then applies worldview analysis to both Israel and the surrounding nations of the ancient Near East. The volume concludes with a fresh exegetical exploration of YHWH, the living and active God of the Old Testament. Subsequent volumes will include Moses and the Victory of Yahweh, The Old Testament and the People of God, and The Death and Return of the Son.

608 pages.

View excerpt here.

Contents

Introduction: A Road Map for The Old Testament and God
Part 1: What Should We Do with the Old Testament?
1. Old Testament Origins
1 Introduction
2 Israel among the nations
3 Palestine: the land
4 The land of Israel: different views in the Old Testament?
5 Land and the different dimensions of the Old Testament
6 What then shall we do with the Old Testament? The case for a new paradigm
Part 2: Tools for the Task
2. Knowledge: Towards a Critical Realist Paradigm
1 Introduction
2 Knowledge
3 Verification?
4 Conclusion
3. Narrative, Literature, Reading and World View
1 Introduction
2 Stories and narrative
3 Traditions
4 Traditions and paradigms
5 Conclusion: Narrative, tradition and Old Testament studies
6 Narrative, literature and reading
7 Literature
8 World view
4. History in/and the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East
1 Introduction
2 The nature of history
3 The Old Testament and history
4 History from the perspective of the Old Testament
5 Conclusion
5. Theology, Authority and the Old Testament
1 Introduction: From literature and history to theology
2 The Old Testament and theology
3 A critical realist theology
4 Conclusion
Part 3: The World Views of the Ancient Near East
6. Ancient Near Eastern World Views
1 Introduction
2 Myth in the Ancient Near East
3 Myth in the Old Testament
4 The world view/s of Ancient Egypt
5 Mesopotamia
6 The Sumerian world view
7 The Hittite world view
8 The Assyrian world view
9 The Babylonian world view
10 The Aramean world view
11 The Phoenician world view
12 The Canaanite world view/s
13 The Persian world view
14 Evaluation
7. God and the gods of the Ancient Near East
1 The Mosaic distinction and translatability
2 Evaluation
3 Conclusion
Part 4: The God Who Approaches
8. God in/and the Old Testament: the Living God
1 Introduction
2 The living God
3 Historical narrative and the living God of the Old Testament
4 The living God and metaphor
5 yhwh as king
6 Psalm 93: yhwh as king: a world view and a view of history
7 yhwh
8 Divine action in the Old Testament
9 Conclusion
Index