Reader’s Hebrew Bible

Just over a decade ago Zondervan produced one of the first Reader’s Hebrew Bibles. At the time I wrote a review of the volume. I thought the volume would be helpful for students who wanted to focus on grammar without having to spend a great deal of time looking up vocabulary. In this way the volume proved to have advantages over traditional interlinear Bibles and Bible software because it requires a good bit more of the reader’s understanding of grammar and syntax. In other words it engages the reader to a greater degree, thereby solidifying the language more. I published the review (here) in the Fall 2010 issue of the Southwestern Journal of Theology.

Review of Nahum commentary

Several years ago, I wrote a review of Duane Christensen’s Nahum commentary in the Anchor Yale Bible Commentary series. I found his commentary to be interesting and almost bewildering. As I put it in the review: “I fear that those who come to the commentary in order to find clear explanations of a complex biblical book will find a mysterious, though meticulous, analysis that will itself feel hidden and obscure.” I published the review (here) in the Spring 2012 issue of the Southwestern Journal of Theology.

Proverbs 10-31

Several years ago, I wrote a review of Michael Fox’s Proverbs 10-31 commentary in the Anchor Yale Bible Commentary series. I have found his commentary to be reasonable and insightful. The essays included the volume have provided food for thought and important information that I include in my Old Testament and Hermeneutics courses. I published the review (here) in the Fall 2012 issue of the Southwestern Journal of Theology.

The Deuteronomic History and the Book of Chronicles

Several years ago, I wrote a review of Raymond Person’s The Deuteronomic History and the Book of Chronicles. Since that time I have revisited his volume on numerous occasions. Although the volume leaves several questions unanswered, I continue to think through the function of a literary work like Chronicles within its first, primarily oral context. I published the review (here) in the Spring 2013 issue of the Southwestern Journal of Theology.

Scott Hahn’s The Kingdom of God as Liturgical Empire

Here is a link to a book review I wrote on a theological commentary on 1 & 2 Chronicles. I published the review in the Southwestern Journal of Theology in Spring 2014.

Temple Administration in Chronicles and a Lexicon of Late Biblical Hebrew

A couple of years back, I wrote a couple of reviews related to research I was doing on Chronicles. The first volume was Yeong Seon Kim’s The Temple Administration and the Levites in Chronicles. The second volume was Avi Hurvitz’s A Concise Lexicon of Late Biblical Hebrew. Both reviews were published in the spring 2016 issue of the Southwestern Journal of Theology. You may access them here.

Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings

Here is another link to a book review I have previously published. I published the review in the Southwestern Journal of Theology in Fall 2017. The volume is a collection of essays edited by Brian Schmidt entitled Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings.

Worlds That Could Not Be

In an effort to allow somewhat easy access to some things I have written, I am trying to provide links for publications online. I link to the most recently published review below.

A while back, I wrote a review of a volume edited by Frauke Uhlenbruch and Steven J. Schweitzer entitled Worlds That Could Not Be: Utopia in Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah. It was published in the spring 2019 issue of the Southwestern Journal of Theology. Hopefully, it proves to be helpful.

Life as a Moral Struggle

Sometime ago, I read David Brooks‘s Road to Character. I found the book fascinating and affirming. Let me point out two points that particularly struck me. First, he addresses the culture of the “Big Me.” The Big Me sees the world as a place for me to be famous, pursue my passions, fulfill my dreams, satisfy my desires, and be true to myself because I am a very important person. It leads to a view of life in which the world is mine for the taking, where I spend my energy accomplishing goals, mining my own personal resources to move ahead with whatever dreams or goals I have for my personal enjoyment. Although personal productivity and enjoyment are worthy goals, the problem arises when these become ends in themselves. When the other aspects of the human being, the intangible aspects, are neglected, the human person can be a consuming machine.

I personally found his description of the “Big Me” to hit home when he speaks about the downsides of a meritocracy in which the focus of one’s life can become accomplishing goals. Over the past few years, I have spent quite a bit of time focusing on developing personal systems to help me be more productive. The question I had to ask myself, and am still asking myself, is whether or not I am focusing on getting things done to my own detriment.

Second, Brooks talks about life as a moral struggle. As he looks at various individuals through history, he comes back to this notion of life as a moral struggle. He shows how people of the past viewed themselves as somehow inadequate, broken, or just plain sinful. A focus for each was to overcome this condition a little bit at a time as they were able. Based on this point of view, they were not hoping to follow their dreams or live an authentic life based upon their desires. Their desires were bent; therefore, their aim in life was to straighten what was bent, to form their habits in order to curb their bent attitudes, feelings, or desires.

This discussion of the moral struggle made me look at my own life. Do I see my life as a struggle against sin? What steps am I taking routinely to fight against sin better each day? Can I measure any progress? In what areas am I letting my desires or appetites dictate the course of my day without even considering whether those desires are bent or not? I have found these questions to help feed my soul. It has helped me focus on those disciplines that remind me of what is broken and sinful: habits like private and public confession of sin and prayers of gratitude for what God continues to do in me.

A Look at Sinai and the Saints

I recently read James Todd’s book entitled Sinai and the Saints: Reading Old Covenant Laws for the New Covenant Community. The author and I were students together at Southeastern Seminary. John Sailhamer served as doctoral supervisor for both of us. As a fellow student and fellow Sailhamer supervisee, I was interested to see how Todd has taken up an interest important to Sailhamer and developed it further. Those familiar with Sailhamer’s works on the Pentateuch (in particular, The Pentateuch as Narrative and The Meaning of the Pentateuch) will hear echoes of Sailhamer both in the way that the book develops the argument as well as the points of the argument itself.

(If you are not familiar with Sailhamer’s work, I would suggest reading his article “The Mosaic Law and the Theology of the Pentateuch,” published originally in the Westminster Theological Journal (1991) and again as an appendix in Introduction to Old Testament Theology by Zondervan. The article provides a nice introduction to his framework for understanding the Mosaic Law and its possible applicability to Christians. Much of what I say in the following will make more sense for those familiar with Sailhamer’s work.)

Let me begin with a description of the book. As the title suggests, Todd’s book addresses Christian ethics in light of the laws recorded in the Old Testament. To summarize and probably oversimplify, Todd’s main thesis is that the laws of the old covenant do not apply as laws to new covenant believers. At first, such a claim may sound surprising, even bold; however, this thesis falls in line with arguments that Sailhamer has made. Todd supplements Sailhamer’s discussion by using the analogy of modern jurisdiction. Even though old covenant laws are good, upright, and even wise (cf. Deuteronomy 4:6), they were intended for old covenant Israel. For this reason, their jurisdiction does not extend beyond old covenant Israel. Just as Americans living in Texas are not obligated to follow (let’s say) Swiss law, neither are new covenant Christians legally obligated to follow old covenant law. Although a number of American laws and Swiss laws overlap (I assume), the latter has no authority of its own outside its own jurisdiction.

Todd spends a majority of the volume clarifying his claim, setting it in the context of other views of how Old Testament law relates to Christians, examining how the Pentateuch presents these laws (following Sailhamer to a large degree), and marshaling textual evidence for his claim, first from the Old Testament and then the New. For many readers, Todd’s thesis will raise the question why any Christian should even read the Old Testament laws. I appreciate the way Todd addresses this question. Not only does he address the question theoretically (such as the laws provide windows into God’s moral nature), but he also works through the particular shape of the various law codes to uncover literary and theological points.

The book also provides an overview of the Pentateuch as a whole. Here Todd intends to show how the Pentateuch points beyond the old covenant to good news culminating in God’s future work. Todd brings together the Pentateuch by focusing on its hope: the restoration of Israel. The Pentateuch characterizes this restoration in three ways: 1) heart change, 2) a coming king, and 3) return to the land. I appreciate how Todd synthesizes various elements of the Pentateuch to uncover elements that hold it together. This section should prove especially helpful to direct readers how the Pentateuch, and much of the Old Testament story, fits together. (To see my own attempt to synthesize the message of the Pentateuch as a whole, see “The Message of the Pentateuch,” Southwestern Journal of Theology 52.1 (Fall 2009): 2-16.)

As I read the book, I repeatedly appreciated Todd’s ability to draw clarifying illustrations and analogies. In the book, he comes across as a great teacher. Not only does he bring academic discussions down to real-world issues, he also explains and illustrates his point well. Most chapters have some type of introductory analogy to orient the reader to the topic and to help clarify an important point in the chapter. This approach makes the book quite accessible to wide range of readers interested in how Old Testament laws relate to Christians.

For more information about the book, visit IVP’s website.