Introduction to the Old Testament, set of four books (Prophetic, Poetic, Pentateuch, Historical)
1608
Introduction to the Old Testament, set of four books (Prophetic, Poetic, Pentateuch, Historical)
1608eBookNew Edition (New Edition)
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Overview
This package contains all four books of An Introduction to the Old Testament set: An Introduction to the Old Testament Historical Books, An Introduction to the Old Testament Poetic Books, An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophetic Books,and An Introduction to the Old Testament Pentateuch.
In An Introduction to the Old Testament Historical Books, incredible events, amazing love stories, larger-than-life personalities and deep theological implications and themes are just part of the treasure that awaits readers. These books tell the story of the nation of Israel and the God who loves her, punishes her, and always brings this recalcitrant people back to Himself.
In An Introduction to the Old Testament Poetic Books, C. Hassell Bullock, a noted Old Testament scholar, delves deep into the hearts of the five poetic books, offering readers helpful details such as hermeneutical considerations for each book, theological content and themes, detailed analysis of each book, and cultural perspectives.
In An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophetic Books, C. Hassell Bullock presents a clear picture of some of history's most profound spokesmen--the Old Testament prophets--and the God who shaped them. Our generational distance from the age of the prophets might seem to be a measureless chasm. Yet we dare not make the mistake of assuming that passing years have rendered irrelevant not only the Old Testament prophets, but also the God who comprehends, spans, and transcends all time.
In An Introduction to the Old Testament Pentateuch, Old Testament expert Herbert Wolf provides layreaders and scholars alike with a strong undergirding of understanding and knowledge in this introduction that reveals both the seriousness and excitement of the Pentateuch.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780802482860 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Moody Publishers |
| Publication date: | 09/01/2007 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 1608 |
| File size: | 8 MB |
About the Author
He is the author of An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophetic Books, Encountering the Book of Psalms, An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophetic Books, and An Introduction to the Old Testament Poetic Books.
Dr. Bullock resides in Wheaton, Illinois.
DAVID M. HOWARD Jr. (B.S., Geneva College; M.A., Wheaton College; A.M., Ph.D., The University of Michigan), is professor of Old Testament at Bethel Theological Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the author of four books, including An Introduction to the Old Testament Historical Books, What Makes a Missionary, and The Structure of Psalms 93-100, as well as several dozen articles in scholarly journals and Bible encyclopedias. He resides in Shoreview, Minnesota.
HERBERT M. WOLF (Wheaton College, Dallas Theological Seminary, Brandeis University) was a well loved and respected professor of Old Testament at Wheaton Graduate School in Wheaton, Illinois. A translator for the Old Testament section of the New International Version, Dr. Wolf is the author of a number of books including Haggai and Malachi, in the Everyman's Bible Commentary Series, An Introduction to the Old Testament Pentateuch, and Interpreting Isaiah as well as numerous journal, magazine, and encyclopedia articles.
Read an Excerpt
An Introduction to the Old Testament Historical Books/Poetic Books/Prophetic Books/Pentateuch Set
By David M. Howard Jr.
Moody Publishers
Copyright © 1993 David M. Howard Jr.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8024-8286-0
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION TO HISTORICAL NARRATIVE
As for the events of King David's reign, from beginning to end, they are written in the records of Samuel the seer, the records of Nathan the prophet and the records of Gad the seer. (1 Chron. 29:29)
The Levites ... instructed the people in the Law while the people were standing there. They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read. (Neh. 8:7–8)
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man [or woman] of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16–17)
A fabulously rich world of discovery awaits the readers of the OT's historical narratives. It is here that many of the Bible's most famous characters reside: Moses, Joshua, Deborah, Gideon, Samson, Ruth, Samuel, David, Esther. It is here that many of the Bible's most famous events are found: the arrival in the "Promised Land," the sun standing still, Samson killing the Philistines or David killing Goliath. It is here that God's gracious promises to His people are given, affirmed, and reaffirmed: God's covenant with Abraham, His promises to David, His faithfulness to His loyal remnants in Israel.
Readers with historical interests will naturally gravitate to the OT historical narratives for information about life in ancient Israel and the ancient Near East. Readers who delight in well-told tales will also enjoy these historical narratives, since they are richly endowed with complex and appealing literary characteristics.
This book is an invitation to read the OT historical narratives. It is intended to kindle an interest in the OT's historical books for those who have never read them seriously and to serve as a guide to their contents and messages. It also is intended to serve as a teacher of a method of reading and studying. As the contents and messages of the individual books are elucidated in the following chapters, the hope is that readers with little experience in close and careful reading of the Bible will learn to pay equal attention to microscopic details and macroscopic structures. It is in the details, as well as in the large-scale sweeps, that we learn about the messages of the biblical books and, ultimately, about God.
This book is most emphatically not intended to serve as a substitute for reading the historical narrative books themselves. If readers of this book believe that it will neatly summarize for them the biblical books so that they won't have to read for themselves—with a sort of "Masterplots" or "Cliffs Notes" mentality—they will be disappointed and will have cheated themselves. This book pales into nothingness alongside the grandeur and importance of the biblical books under consideration. They are the proper focus of study. The present book merely intends to whet the appetite for, and point the way into, the biblical books.
The biblical quotations at the beginning of this chapter point to the importance of reading, writing, and interpreting. The OT's historical books came together in many and various ways, and they stand ready for our serious scrutiny—our serious reading—as history and literature of the utmost importance. They stand ready to be read, ultimately, as life-giving and sacred Scriptures.
This chapter introduces the literary and historical genre of "historical narrative." It begins at the most general level, considering it as prose, then moves on to consider it first as history and then as literature.
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE AS PROSE: CONTRAST WITH POETRY
Definitions
A glance at any page of Psalms or Proverbs, followed by a perusal of almost any page in any of the historical books, will immediately reveal some differences in form: most modern English Bibles print Psalms and Proverbs as poetry, with relatively short, parallel lines whose text leaves wide margins; the historical books are printed as prose narratives, with full paragraphs whose text extends from margin to margin.
What is prose? In its broadest sense, it is any expression that is not poetry, which is defined as having a regular rhythmic pattern. Historical narrative is a type of literature written in prose, not poetry. Not all writings in prose are historical narrative, but all historical narratives are in prose form.
Among prose forms the distinctive of historical narrative is that it attempts to give an account of past events. In its broadest sense, historical narrative may have any number of purposes, but in the Bible, it tells its story for the purposes of edification and instruction (see 2 Tim. 3:16–17).
A more careful perusal of the historical books will reveal that they are not composed entirely of historical narrative written in prose form. One finds many other literary types embedded in them, such as poems, lists of various kinds—genealogies, census lists, materials lists, and so forth—proverbs, songs, and many others. Yet, the overall structure found in the historical books reveals their intent to be historical narratives, that is, accounts of past events with the purpose of edification and instruction. A helpful way to begin a study of historical narrative is to study it as prose in contrast to poetry. This can be done both in terms of form and of content.
Form
Many formal features help us distinguish between poetry and prose.
Line length. Fundamental to poetry is a constriction of the length of the lines: they cannot be infinitely long, nor, in most poetry, can the line length vary radically from line to line. That is the most basic distinction between prose and poetry. Many theorists speak of the presence or absence of meter, although that is not as prominent in Hebrew poetry as it is in poetry of other languages.
In Hebrew poetry, the average line length is three to four words, each having one beat (in a metrical system), consisting of eight to nine syllables. Thus, Psalm 1:1 reads as follows (author's translation):
Happy (is) the-man who
does-not-walk in-the-counsel of-wicked-ones,
and-in-the-way of-sinners does-not-stand,
and-in-the-seat of-scoffers does-not-sit.
The units connected by the dashes represent one metrical unit in Hebrew (in most cases, one word); thus, each line after the introductory phrase consists of three metrical units. The syllable count for these three lines in the MT is 9, 10, 9.
Contrast this with the following verse from a prose text:
At once the royal secretaries were summoned—on the twenty-third day of the third month, the month of Sivan. They wrote out all Mordecai's orders to the Jews, and to the satraps, governors and nobles of the 127 provinces stretching from India to Cush. These orders were written in the script of each province and the language of each people and also to the Jews in their own script and language. (Est. 8:9)
This verse—the longest in the Bible—is one long, extended sentence in Hebrew, which has been broken up in the NIV into three English sentences. The immediate point here is that the length of the sense units are in no way restricted in this prose passage.
Parallelism of members. A second feature of poetry—one that has long been considered the defining characteristic of Hebrew poetry—is called "parallelism of members" (i.e., equivalencies of parallel words, thoughts, or sense units). This can be seen easily in Psalm 1:1, where the second, third, and fourth lines of the verse all have a verb of bodily motion (walking, standing, sitting), a prepositional phrase with "in," and a word for God's enemies (wicked ones, sinners, scoffers). By contrast, the prose passage in Esther 8:9 has nothing like this.
To be sure, Hebrew prose often is characterized by repetition, such as we see in Joshua 3:6: "And Joshua said unto the priests, 'Lift up the ark of the covenant and pass before the people.' So they lifted up the ark of the covenant and walked before the people." However, in such cases—which are legion in the OT historical books—repetition is not parallelism; it is usually exact repetition of words, not the parallels of near-synonyms found in poetry. Furthermore, none of the other features of poetry is found in such prose narrative texts.
Literary devices. A third feature of Hebrew poetry is that it tends to use more literary devices than does prose. Poetry makes frequent use of such devices as alphabetic acrostics, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, paranomasia, chiasms, and more.
Psalm 1:1 features alliteration/assonance in the first three words: 'aashrê ha'îs 'asher. We also see a chiastic arrangement in the parallel elements in the second through fourth lines:
A - B - C
B' - C' - A'
B" - C" - A"
Again, no such patterns are discernible in the prose text of Esther 8:9. Hebrew prose does make rich use of literary and rhetorical devices, but they are of different types, and they are not usually packed as "densely" into prose narratives as they are into poetic texts.
Content
Selectivity. Because of the constrictions associated with short line lengths, poets tend to be more highly selective with their words than writers of prose narratives. A glance at two parallel passages, Exodus 14 and 15, confirms this. Exodus 14 is the prose account of the Israelites' coming to and crossing the Red Sea, whereas Exodus 15 contains a hymnic reflection on the same events. Exodus 14 goes to some lengths to emphasize the fact that the Israelites crossed on dry ground (see vv. 16, 21, 22, 29). However, upon close inspection, we find that dry ground is never once mentioned in the poetic text that tells of this event. The poem in 15:1–18 is much more selective in its details—it is almost "impressionistic" in terms of the way it retells the story. The reason for this, of course, is that the poem is not concerned at all to give a coherent account of how Israel crossed the Red Sea; the details of the story are only incidental to the purpose of the poetic text, which is to glorify God for His great deliverance.
Figurative language. As a generalization, figurative language finds a home more readily in poetic expression than in prose. Poetry—in any language—is more often the conveyor of deep emotions, and it breaks more easily into figurative expression. Compare the following two texts that describe situations of great distress:
David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and went into his house and spent the nights lying on the ground. (2 Sam. 12:16)
Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in the miry depths,
where there is no foothold.
I have come into deep waters;
the floods engulf me.
Psalm 69:1–2 [MT 2–3]
The prose passage is straightforward, telling of David's activity of mourning. The poetic text is emotive and impressionistic, conveying the psalmist's great emotion. However, we do not literally imagine the psalmist standing—or worse, treading water!—in floodwaters up to his neck, pen and parchment in hand, composing this psalm. Because of the nature of poetry, we instinctively understand the language in the psalm to be figurative.
The stage. The stage on which events unfold in prose is usually limited to earthly events on an earthly stage. Poetry reaches into the heavenlies more often. Compare the following two texts:
On that day God subdued Jabin, the Canaanite king, before the Israelites. And the hand of the Israelites grew stronger and stronger against Jabin, the Canaanite king, until they destroyed him. (Judg. 4:23–24)
O Lord, when you went out from Seir,
when you marched from the land of Edom,
the earth shook, the heavens poured,
the clouds poured down water.
The mountains quaked before the Lord, the One of Sinai,
before the Lord, the God of Israel....
From the heavens the stars fought,
from their courses they fought against Sisera.
Judges 5:4–5, 20
The prose text is more "prosaic," i.e., more straightforward, and it tells of the Israelites' victory in a matter-of-fact manner. The poetic text reflects upon that victory and speaks of God's involvement from the heavenly perspective.
Time frame. Prose narrative is usually written from a past time perspective. Indeed, as we have noted, that is its nature: it attempts to give an account of the past for the purposes of instruction. Poetry is not so limited. It ranges from past to present to future time frames. In the books of the prophets, for example, the large majority of prophetic texts that tell of God's future intentions and activities are written in poetic, not prose, form.
Conclusion
Poetry differs from prose narrative in both form and content. That does not mean that poetry and prose cannot be found together, however. A number of major poems are found in the historical books: in Judges 5; 1 Samuel 2; 2 Samuel 1; 2 Samuel 22; 2 Samuel 23; 2 Kings 19; and 1 Chronicles 16. Norman Gottwald has observed that only seven OT books contain no poetry: Leviticus, Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Haggai, and Malachi. Conversely, only nine OT books contain no prose: Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. Thus, at least twenty-three OT books combine the two. Actually, one-half to two-thirds of the OT is prose, but not all prose is historical narrative. (For example, outside the historical books, we find large bodies of laws that are prose.) Nevertheless, the historical narrative component of the OT is a large and important part of that portion of Scripture.
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE AS HISTORY
The term history has at least three general uses in English. First, it can refer to the "facts," i.e., the events, the happenings of history. Second, it can refer to the record or account of the facts. Third, it can refer to the study of the facts or, more precisely, the study of the accounts of the facts. In the discussion below, we will consider all three categories, but we will focus primarily on the second category (the record of the facts), and we will consider how the Bible's historical books fit into general discussions of "history" in this sense.
Definitions
Historians have offered many and various definitions of history as they have reflected upon the historian's task. Indeed, many do not even attempt a definition, or do so with only minimal precision or clarity. Following are four representative definitions that define the second meaning of history:
[History is] the science which first investigates and then records, in their causal relations and development, such past human activities as are (a) definite in time and space, (b) social in nature, and (c) socially significant.
[History is] the story of experiences of men living in civilized societies.
History is the intellectual form in which a civilization renders account to itself of the past.
History is the undertaking of rendering an account of a particular, significant, and coherent sequence of past human events.
Almost every definition here speaks of history as a societal endeavor—one that records (mainly or only) those events that are socially significant. In this sense not every event that ever occurred anywhere belongs in a "history" (even though they certainly did happen). A "history" records events that are significant to the author and to the group for or about which he or she is writing.
The fourth definition limits the genre significantly as well, since any account of the past is not "history" (such as an accounts book or a list). Rather, only that account is "history" that attempts to impose some coherence on the past. This limitation, though not expressed in the same way, is assumed in the first three definitions as well.
An important element in understanding "history" in the sense here is its intent. Written histories intend to be accurate, true accounts of the past, as well as coherent ones. As Baruch Halpern states, "Histories purport to be true, or probable, representations of events and relationships in the past." Meir Sternberg makes the point even more strongly. In distinguishing between history and fiction, he argues that the truth claims of the two are different. Both indeed have truth "value," but only history "claims" to be historically accurate. This does not mean that, if a single historical error is found in a work, it is then automatically relegated to "fiction" as a literary category. Many historians are proven wrong in one or more of their facts, but their works are still "histories." Rather, it means that we must treat histories on their own terms, in terms of what they claim to do, what their intent is.
At the same time, histories are selective: "Historiography cannot—and should not—be infinitely detailed. All history is at best an abridgement—better or worse—of an originally fuller reality.... History is always the study of one thing, or several things, and the exclusion of many others."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from An Introduction to the Old Testament Historical Books/Poetic Books/Prophetic Books/Pentateuch Set by David M. Howard Jr.. Copyright © 1993 David M. Howard Jr.. Excerpted by permission of Moody Publishers.
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Table of Contents
Contents
An Introduction to the Old Testament Historical Books,An Introduction to the Old Testament Poetic Books,
An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophetic Books,
An Introduction to the Old Testament Pentateuch,