A Theology of the Old Testament: Cultural Memory, Communication, and Being Human
Overview
“The remarkable thing about the Old Testament is the persistence of its visions of a better humanity and a better world.” Rather than seek to establish “what people may or may not once have believed in ancient Israel,” John W. Rogerson addresses “the human condition in today’s world,” asking what interpreters are doing today when they invoke the biblical texts. He draws on the insights of modern thinkers, including Benjamin and Bloch, Adorno and Horkheimer, Assmann and Habermas, to explore the dynamics of cultural memory in human communication.
In the texts of ancient Israel, Rogerson distinguishes “hot” cultural situations, alive to the remarkable potential of narratives that describe unfulfilled human aspirations to open up horizons of change, from “cold” cultural situations, where those potentialities are closed down to reinforce the institutional structures of the status quo. Moving throughout narrative, legal, wisdom, and prophetic corpora and offering fresh and compelling insights at every step, A Theology of the Old Testament draws out powerful visions of human nature and of the world’s future. Throughout Rogerson poses the challenge: Do these visions require a theological basis to be compelling in today’s world, or can they speak as powerfully beyond the confines of religious belief?
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If you like this resource be sure to check out Augsburg Fortress Old Testament Studies Collection (8 vols.).
- Title: A Theology of the Old Testament: Cultural Memory, Communication, and Being Human
- Author: John Rogerson
- Publisher: Fortress Press
- Print Publication Date: 2010
- Logos Release Date: 2013
- Pages: 224
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Bible. O.T. › Theology; Communication › Biblical teaching
- Resource ID: LLS:THEOOTROGERSON
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-14T02:16:14Z
Reviews
1 rating
Nathaniel Moore
9/29/2022
John W. Rogerson's theology of the Old Testament represents an anthropological (174) exploration of the Old Testament themes of communication for a modern audience (1). Although he presents several novel and useful observations (e.g. the observation that the Noetic creation account is realistic and the Edenic creation account is idyllic) and the provided original translations are fresh and adequately sourced, the work's identification as a theology, a study of God, is misapplied. The work more closely serves as a literary anthropology (and an inadequate and historically convoluted one at that). The work, while original, fails to engage adequately with related scholarly material (e.g. his overdependence on Westermann's Genesis commentary). This is especially so regarding biblical matters, though this is likely due in part to the redirection and shortening of the final work from it's original intention as confessed in the introduction. He also convolutes his goals and approach at several points. He claims a historical approach is unpursuable, yet proposes hypothetical historical situations later in the same chapter (98–99). Elsewhere he lays out his approach as taking the final form of a text to examine how it functions as it is read, yet he frequently prefers underlying sources in his interpretation (cf. 77–78). Rogerson sets out to create an Old Testament theology for the modern world, but then concludes with apologetic intent. It seems that this apologetic intent is a later importation that complicates his contemporary theology by prioritizing modern rather than theological values and conflating his perceived audience. Brueggemann shares many of Rogerson's convictions, but I find Brueggemann's works to be superior implementations of their shared perspective to the fields of Scripture and theology. Thus I can only recommend this work to those who are dedicated to the application of modern anthropology to the Old Testament and wish to add this to other voices within the conversation with which they are already engaged.Lee Weissel
8/30/2022