The Old Testament and God - Print

The Old Testament and God
(Old Testament Origins and the Question of God series).

Craig G. Bartholomew.

Soft cover 577pp.
ISBN 9781540964014.
Baker Academic (2022).
[Allow 4 weeks].

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.

The first volume in Bartholomew’s 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 re-centres 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.

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.