OLD TESTAMENT READING: THE BOOK OF PSALMS

In this chapter, we will explore Israel’s book of worship – Psalms. These “songs,” collected over hundreds of years, nevertheless convey timeless expressions of Israel’s faith. This OT collection has been organized into five books, and many of the individual psalms have titles, musical notations, or historical details.

Scholarship in the discipline of form criticism has furthered our understanding of how the original materials (sources behind the present texts) may have functioned in Israel’s life situations (German, Sitz im Leben). In general, we can identify larger categories of praise and lament, and of individual and corporate psalms. Specific forms include hymns, communal and individual laments, thanksgiving songs, and royal psalms. Thus, for example, the form of lament corresponds to a crisis situation; a royal psalm form is situated in events surrounding the king. These forms, preserved and presented as the collected psalms, represent an overview of Israel’s religious worldview. We will not necessarily observe statements of strict monotheism, but we will hear Israel “sing” of Yahweh, who alone is worthy of praise.

All historiography or history writing is done with a purpose, and the purpose of Israel as expressed in the OT was clearly religious and theological. The Israelites sought to record their relationship with God in the past – to express their unique understanding of God, his universe, and his relationship to Israel. Additionally significant is the fact that Israel was among the first in the ancient world to write history.

This chapter will take us into the library of ancient Israel to get a better look at how the books of the OT narrate history and how these books have been organized. Specifically, we will investigate the sources that appear to have been interwoven to create the so-called Primary History. These sources are characterized by their distinctive ways of referring to God and by their themes and literary techniques. We will observe that the OT presents the Primary History in such a way as to provide a framework for understanding the historical contexts of all the rest of the OT books.

The significance of the Old Testament for human history and culture is undeniable. Whatever our personal convictions regarding its content, the OT contains the origins of nearly everything we think about God. Variously labeled as the Hebrew Bible, the Tanak, the First Testament, and the Old Testament, among others, this library of texts from ancient Israel has been preserved for more than two thousand years.

Emerging from the polytheistic context of the ancient world, the enduring signifi cance of the OT is to be found in the concept of monotheism . Indeed, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share in this unique religious legacy. We will discover in this chapter what lies behind the terminology we use when we speak of monotheism, and how the OT perceives and develops the understanding of a singular God. Known to ancient Israel as Yahweh, Israel’s God came to be understood as Creator, source of all, and sovereign over all. Only in time would Israel come to believe that Yahweh was not only its God, and the God Israelites were called to worship, but the one and only God.

In this chapter, we will examine the OT’s role in religious communities as an authoritative revelation from God – the concept of “scripture” common to the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam . These texts hardly began as the books that now comprise the Bible; rather, what we will discover is a lengthy, complex development of authoritative texts from oral to written to canon.

This chapter will take us inside the ancient world of the OT’s formation. Words, considered powerful, were painstakingly preserved through centuries in the hands of anonymous authors and editors, scribes and scholars. Texts were collected into books and went through a process of use and standardization by the ancient Israelites, beginning as early as the tenth century BCE and lasting through the Babylonian exile and beyond – emerging fi nally in the canonical form we know today as the OT.

OLD TESTAMENT READING: GENESIS 12–50

The three major sections of Genesis 12–50 focus on the ancestral narratives of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph. We know little of the historical details, although archaeological data suggests a plausible context for these stories in the Middle Bronze Age. We will see that the narratives themselves hint at such early traditions, suggestive of oral traditions preserved and woven into the texts. In these narratives we will also encounter the social structure of kinship-based tribal societies. The “father’s house ” and the larger clan formed the subunits of the geographically based organization of the tribe.

This portion of Genesis narrates Yahweh’s provision of hope for the divine-human relationship so tragically marred by human rebellion (Genesis 1–11 ). Moreover, God chooses an individual, Abraham , to partner in a covenant. This covenant, shaped by God’s promises of land, descendants, and worldwide blessing, is the lasting hallmark of Israelite religion. Abraham’s descendants include not only those named in the OT but those in the three monotheistic religions for which Abraham is acknowledged as the “father of faith.”

Ancient Israel existed in real time and space. In time, we will recall that ancient Israel was preceded by thousands of years of world history, including, for example, the first writing of the Sumerians (third millennium BCE), the Babylonian Empire, and the renowned history of ancient Egypt. In space, Israel was part of Syria-Palestine. Together with Egypt and Mesopotamia, Israel constituted a vast swath of arable land known as the “Fertile Crescent.” Syria-Palestine was thus a vital land bridge between three continents and, likewise, highly vulnerable to surrounding power struggles. The latter meant frequent invasions and domination by a succession of world empires.

The primary purpose of Israel’s story contained in the pages of the OT is to explore its relationship with God. Yahweh initiated an intimate relationship with a man named Abraham, which was defined by a covenant and by promises of descendants and land. The ensuing history covers an era that left its own mark on world history, in no small part due to Israel’s legacy. The age between 800 and 200 BCE (the Axial Age) witnessed the appearance of ethical religion and rational philosophy in human civilization. Israel gave the world the Old Testament and the concept of monotheism emerging in its pages.

OLD TESTAMENT READING: JOSHUA AND JUDGES

In the books of Joshua and Judges , God’s gift of land to Israel takes center stage. The first book recounts Israel’s conquest and division of the land under the leadership of Moses’ successor, Joshua. The book of Judges highlights governance in the land by a succession of twelve leaders. Connected by a recurring cycle – Israel’s disobedience to Yahweh, foreign oppression, repentance, and deliverance – the Judges stories narrate the end of one era in Israel’s history and serve as introduction to the next.

Alongside these Primary History accounts, we will consider archaeological evidence for a significant population increase in Canaan during Iron Age I and look at three theories that attempt to explain the appearance of new populations in the region at that time. In addition to observing the nature of religion during Israel’s early history in the land, we will address the diffi cult subject of the land today. Jewish, Christian, and Muslim readers all have varying responses. Joshua and Judges should not and need not be used in the debate, but they remind us how very ancient is the issue of land.