This Strange and Sacred Scripture: Wrestling with the Old Testament and Its Oddities
Overview
The Old Testament can seem strange and disturbing to contemporary readers. What should Christians make of Genesis 1–3, seemingly at odds with modern scientific accounts? Why does the Old Testament contain so much violence? How should Christians handle texts that give women second-class status? Does the Old Testament contradict itself? Why are so many Psalms filled with anger and sorrow? What should we make of texts that portray a wrathful God?
Combining pastoral insight, biblical scholarship, and a healthy dose of humility, gifted teacher and communicator Matthew Schlimm explores perennial theological questions raised by the Old Testament. He provides strategies for reading and appropriating these sacred texts, showing how the Old Testament can shape the lives of Christians today and helping them appreciate the Old Testament as a friend in faith.
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Find answers to tough questions raised by the Old Testament in Is God a Moral Monster?
- Answers questions raised by the Old Testament
- Addresses violence in the Old Testament, the Bible’s teaching on women, science and faith, and more
- Provides strategies for reading and applying the Old Testament today
- Is the Old Testament an Enemy, Stranger, or Friend to the Christian Faith?
- Our Fleeting Moments in Paradise
- Darkness over the Face of the Deep
- The R-Rated Bible
- Killing All That Breathes: Violence in the Old Testament
- Male and Female God Created Them: Gender and the Old Testament
- God Commands Us to Do What?! The Strange Laws of the Bible
- Is the Law Engraved in Stone? The Dynamic Nature of God’s Law
- Truth Is Many Sided
- Drowning in Tears and Raging at God
- Great and Terrible Is the Wrath of the Lord
- The Old Testament’s Authority
Immerse yourself deeply in this book and you will find much food for thought from an author who has addressed intelligently and provocatively the questions that linger in your mind.
—Victor P. Hamilton, professor emeritus of Old Testament, Asbury University
Schlimm shows why Christianity needs the Old Testament in order to address the complexities and real difficulties of life.
—Ellen Davis, Amos Ragan Kearns Professor of Bible and Practical Theology, Duke Divinity School
- Title: This Strange and Sacred Scripture: Wrestling with the Old Testament and Its Oddities
- Author: Matthew Richard Schlimm
- Publisher: Baker Academic
- Publication Date: 2015
- Pages: 272
- Christian Group: Evangelical
- Resource Type: Monographs
- Topic: Old Testament
Reviews
2 ratings
Brandon Beau Dansizen
1/24/2019
An excellent book that does exactly what it is supposed to - it asks the questions that the world is asking and attempts to help us at least understand the answers or where the authors were coming from. I have read and studied with this text, and I find it both refreshing and invigorating. As a pastor, it has tremendous value both in sermon preparation and as a bible study aid.
Mark Cannon
7/13/2015
Let's see if we can avoid unhelpful labels here. The author is a "assistant professor of Old Testament at University of Dubuque Theological Seminary". I'm looking forward to the resource becoming available to Logos. I'll provide my review of Dr. Schlimm's work after I read it.
J. Remington Bowling
7/13/2015
Buyers should know that this is not an apologetics book. Schlimm is a teacher at PCUSA school, that's a liberal denomination which has embraced same-sex marriages as legitimate. So you can expect this book to be coming at the "strangeness" of the OT from someone who, for the most part, embraces modern 21st century Western values (something the Bible obviously doesn't overlap much with). For instance, from what I read through other reviews, Schlimm sees a contradiction or tension between the view of women implied in Gen. 1:26-27 and Lev. 27:1-8.
