Classical Evangelical Essays in Old Testament Interpretation
Overview
According to Walter Kaiser, much of the current Old Testament scholarship is unaware of the best scholarship of the past. In this collection of evangelical theological essays, he remedies that problem by curating fourteen of the most influential scholarly treatments of the past—ones that have been overlooked by scholarly endeavors of the present.
"It is truly amazing to notice how many Old Testament issues currently being raised by Biblical scholarship, whether it be evangelical or not, are stated as if they were totally unaware of some of the finest moments in Old Testament scholarship. This collection of readings attempts to recapture a few samples of these classical essays. They all share in common an evangelical theological stance, a feature which enhanced their ability to probe more deeply and openly into the issues contained herein. Insofar as they were able to penetrate to the truth of the matter, their essays remain permanently useful and instructive.
"With the publication of these essays, we lay down two challenges. The first is a challenge for all non-evangelicals and teachers of religion to renew their dialog with evangelical literature. Evangelical voices and positions ought to be represented in at least some of the collateral readings of the religion courses in all true liberally educated men, otherwise the risk of provincialism and indoctrination of students to those views favored by the teacher is extremely high. For decades on end, evangelicals have been requiring their students and readers to consult and digest a wide spectrum of theological positions only to be disappointed by the all too frequent provincialism of non-evangelicals. No other field of study has demonstrated this point more dramatically than the field of Biblical studies. May this convenient assembly of the fourteen best evangelical essays in the field of Old Testament studies prove helpful in remedying that situation. Even though these essays do not form a consolidated case or a single hypothesis, they do allow fair-minded men to examine a methodology and assess the results on some selected key issues.
"Our second challenge is to the emerging group of young evangelical laymen and scholars. While there has been a truly revolutionary assault of entrenched positions founded on less than assured results and shattered philosophical bases, nevertheless it is extremely profitable to retrace the methods and results of that evangelical heritage. If evangelicals continue to work in isolation or ignorance of this heritage, they shall waste much of their time solving problems already completed by another generation and a situation will obtain which will be similar to that of the days of the last world war when scholars working on opposite sides of the battle lines often reduplicated each other’s efforts in total ignorance of what other men were doing because of the conditions of those days."
PART I: PENTATEUCH
- I. "Primeval Chronology", by William Henry Green
- II. "Yahweh (Jehovah) and Exodus 6:3", by Robert Dick Wilson
- III. "Understanding the Ten Commandments", by Ezekiel Hopkins
PART II: HISTORICAL BOOKS
- IV. "Understanding 'The Sun Stood Still'", by Robert Dick Wilson
- V. "The Historical Element in God’s Revelation", by Patrick Fairbairn
- III. "Understanding the Ten Commandments", by Ezekiel Hopkins
PART III: POETICAL BOOKS
- VI. "Interpreting the Book of Job", by E. W. Hengstenberg
- VII. "Imprecations in the Psalms", by Chalmers Martin
- VIII. "The Interpretation of Ecclesiastes", by J. Stafford Wright
- IX. "The Interpretation of the Song of Songs", by F. Godet
PART IV: PROPHETICAL BOOKS
- X. "The Prophecy of the Virgin Mother", by Willis J. Beecher
- XI. "The Servant", by Willis J. Beecher
PART V: ETHICS AND OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY
- XII. "The Ethics of the Old Testament", by William Brenton Greene
- XIII. "The New Covenant", by E. W. Hengstenberg
- XIV. "Immortality in the Old Testament", by James Orr
Top Highlights
“All life is vanity in this sense, that it is unable to give us the key to itself” (Page 140)
“the idioms of language, and the characteristics of the oriental mind” (Page 208)
“Especially do we find personal terms denoting the ‘seed’ through whom the promise and its benefits are transmitted, for example, Servant, Son, Chosen one, Branch, Holy one, Messiah; and other terms denoting his relations to human history, for example, the kingdom, the last days, the day of Yahaweh.” (Pages 187–188)
“ought, as it seems and as Job himself thought, to be sheltered from all the strokes of fate. But it happened otherwise” (Page 93)
“The law, which God delivered by Moses, was of three kinds: Ceremonial, Judicial, and Moral.” (Page 43)
- Title: Classical Evangelical Essays in Old Testament Interpretation
- Author: Walter C. Kaiser Jr.
- Publisher: Wipf and Stock
- Print Publication Date: 2008
- Logos Release Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Bible. O.T. › Criticism, interpretation, etc; Bible. O.T
- ISBNs: 9781606080252, 1606080253
- Resource ID: LLS:CLSSCLVNTRPRTTN
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T22:46:06Z
Walter C. Kaiser (1933–) is an evangelical Old Testament scholar, writer, speaker, and educator. He earned degrees from Wheaton College and Brandeis University.
Kaiser taught Bible and archaeology at Wheaton College and taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in several capacities. He currently serves as the Colman M. Mockler Distinguished Professor of Old Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in 2006 retired as their President.
Kaiser has contributed to numerous publications like Journal for the Study of Old Testament and Westminster Theological Journal. He has also written over 30 books including Toward an Exegetical Theology and A History of Israel: From the Bronze Age through the Jewish Wars.