In my last post, I shared my favorite books on New Testament backgrounds. This week, I want to highlight books that can help you navigate the sticky mess known as the Old Testament to Christians. The Hebrew culture and the cultures of the Ancient Near East are VASTLY different than today. With those cultures and some truly hard to read books, you can really benefit from the help of a trusty resource.
Here are some of my favorite resources on the Old Testament to help you make sense of the holy texts of Isreal that Christianity has adopted in our canon. If you have a person in your life who doesn’t understand anything that is going on before the book of Matthew (or if you are that person), consider picking up these books on the background of the Old Testament.
TERMINOLOGY
Real quick, I want to break down what I mean by “reading level.” Some of these books are written at a more POPULAR level, this book is going to be accessible to anyone and isn’t written just for scholars. Then I have a category called ADVANCED POPULAR because it’s a work I think is accessible to most people but might be a little more technical in some of its content and language. Finally, I have the category ACADEMIC to denote a work that is aimed toward scholars and researchers, usually citing lots of quality sources, and it might contain the original languages.
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The Epic of Eden
Subtitle: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament
Author(s): Sandra L. Richter
Reading Level: Popular
This book served as my first college-level introduction to the Old Testament. In The Epic of Eden, Sandra Richter does an amazing job of organizing the whole Old Testament in a way that makes sense. She tracks the story and themes, and along the ride gives you helpful facts about the Ancient Near East. Unlike many of the books on this list, Richter’s work is very honest, engaging, and conversational. Yet she’s definitely a scholar, having gotten here Ph.D. from Harvard and having a hand in many Old Testament handbooks.
The Epic of Eden is not just a factbook but provides context for the whole story of Scripture. Richter traces God’s grace from Eden and even into the New Testament, showing the reader how God works from the beginning to bring about salvation. For any Christian nervous about approaching the strange terrain of the Old Testament, this is the right book to put you at ease.
The Meaning of the Bible
Subtitle: What the Jewish Scriptures and Christian Old Testament Can Teach Us
Author(s): Douglas A. Knight & Amy-Jill Levine
Reading Level: Popular
Knight and Levine’s The Meaning of the Bible is a good introduction to the Hebrew Bible (what Christians typically call the Old Testament). It essentially tracks major themes and stories in Scripture and describes what modern people may have missed. These two professors from Vanderbilt do not interpret the Hebrew Bible in terms of Christian theology, but try to get out how the stories, law, and poems would be understood in their original contexts.
A lot of what they say might be radical or at least new information. Yet there is certainly value in being challenged! What I got most out of it is its exploration of themes that go throughout the collection, themes like creation and chaos, sexuality, and the nature of God. But it’s also a good introduction to the story of Scripture for those that aren’t as familiar with the major narratives (but they do deviate from strict chronology in many places). Also, it gets points for including helpful maps and discussion on the geography so I can realize where the narratives take place!
A Rabbi Reads the Bible
Subtitle: NA
Author(s): Jonathan Magonet
Reading Level: Popular
Unfortunately, Christians too often forget to consult Jews in their reading of the Old Testament (which is just a regular testament for them!). In A Rabbi Reads the Bible, just want the title says happens: a Rabbi reads and interprets Scripture! The beauty of this work isn’t just the Jewish insight from Rabbi Jonathan Magonet, but that he breaks down familiar passages in new ways and even brings in modern cultural examples (some a little dated now) to the discussion. I love his wit, passion, and playful attitude toward this sacred Scripture while drawing in theology, literary criticism, and psychoanalysis.
A Rabbi Reads the Bible isn’t an encyclopedic volume that goes through every book, but instead focuses on interpretative methods and ethical highlights. For some reason Christians label the Old Testament as violent and archaic–maybe even painting God as “evil.” But Magonet finds the ethical threads embroidered in the fabric of Judaism, and postures the whole of the Hebrew Bible in a new light. I especially love how in his chapter on the Ten Commandments (what Jews often call the Ten Words), he explains what they mean by looking at the inherent logic in the ten rules, showing that the Sabbath and Honoring our parents fall at the center for a very good reason. You’ll never read the OT the same again–and you might learn to like Leviticus!
A History of Ancient Israel and Judah
Subtitle: NA
Author: J. Maxwell Miller & John H. Hayes
Reading Level: Academic
If you want to know just about everything about the history of the people who brought us the Hebrew Bible, here’s your book. A History of Ancient Isreal and Judah is almost a Bible of its own for a textual, archeological, and epigraphical study of the ancient Israelite people. The monster book asks critical questions about the texts, especially their historicity. For those unfamiliar with an academic study of the Old Testament, a lot of what Miller and Hayes say might scare you. While they are Christians, their primary concern is trying to figure out what really happened, irrespective of any kind of theory of inspiration for Scripture.
The main value in the work is for answering those pressing questions like: “What do we know, outside of Scripture, about the formation of Israel?” “What do we know about Israelite religious practices?” “What was ancient Israel and Judah really like?” Along with a plethora of very useful information about the geography, culture, and even how ancient people viewed history, Miller and Hayes attempt to answer these questions. You might not like their answers, but I think there is value in listening to their case. I especially wish more people realized that the modern notions of history as “a factual record of what really happened” is not how most people throughout the ages viewed history. Though it’s meaty, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah delivers great background information on the Old Testament.
The Social Visions of the Hebrew Bible
Subtitle: A Theological Introduction
Author(s): J. David Pleins
Reading Level: Academic
Pleins’ study of the Hebrew Bible in The Social Visions of the Hebrew Bible focuses on social ethics present in the diverse books in the canon. He is not concerned with creating some sort of unified theory about what the whole corpus says about people, our obligation to them, and humans’ role in life. Instead, he investigates the major sections of Hebrew Scriptures and offers comments on the key representative literature within those sections.
It’s a large, dense book for an introduction to the subject—but it’s certainly helpful, especially for those interested in learning about some of the ways the Old Testament describes ethics and morality. What Pleins concludes is that there is a lot of diversity between different texts. These authors are wrestling with moral and ethical questions in their own societies—not unlike how we try to apply Biblical values to our culture today. Overall, The Social Visions of the Hebrew Bible offers a helpful academic primer to Hebrew social visions.
Conclusion
Throw a few of those in your cart or pick them up at your local library, and you’ll surely have your eyes opened to the strange, foreign world of the Hebrew Bible. We are so far removed from that culture that we need resources like these to understand what they are truly saying. Whether you pick up these great books on Old Testament backgrounds or other books, add some to your collection so you can be an informed reader and interpreter of Scripture.
Bonus Books!
I haven’t read all of these, but I can confidently recommend:
- Social World of Ancient Israel: 1250-587 BCE by Don C. Benjamin & Victor H. Matthews
- Old Testament Theology for Christians: From Ancient Context to Enduring Belief by John H. Walton
- The IVP Bible Background Commentary by John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, & Mark W. Chavalas
- Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible by John H. Walton
- An Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon and Christian Imagination by Walter Brueggemann & Tod Linafelt
