What do the grand stories of Israel and her heroes, as well as the many seemingly mundane incidents found in these narrative stories, contribute to guiding contemporary readers in their daily behavior?

Renowned scholar Gordon J. Wenham offers Story as Torah, a succinct monograph demonstrating how Old Testament narratives can indeed function as “Torah,” informing one’s ethical choices. Wenham examines how certain narrative phenomena—such as the repetition of key words or themes, the overall rhetorical purpose of a book, intertextual correspondence and key contextual indictors of mood—provide clues to the ethical message of the implied author. He uses the books of Genesis and Judges as test cases, examining texts that offer clear moral guidance as well as those in which ethical lesson is dubious. The end result is an accessible book which will help seminarians, pastors and other students and scholars of the Bible use Old Testament narratives more responsibly.