Introduction to the Old Testament

 

                                                                John Barto

 

A.                The Old Testament Canon.

 

1. ‘The Old Testament’ is the term traditionally used by Christians and others to refer to the Holy Scriptures of Judaism, which the Church inherited as part of its Jewish origins and eventually came to see as a portion of its own composite Bible, whose other main section is the New Testament. The early Church recognized as Old Testament Scripture both those books which now form the Hebrew Scriptures accepted as authoritative by Jews, and a number of other books, some of them originally written in Hebrew but now (with a few exceptions) found only in Greek and other, later, translations. Since the Reformation, the Hebrew Scriptures alone are recognized as part of the Bible by Protestants, but Catholic and Orthodox Christians continue to acknowledge also these ‘Greek’ books—sometimes called the ‘deuterocanonical’ books— which are referred to as ‘The Apocrypha’ in Protestantism. In this commentary all the books recognized by any Christian church have been included, just as they are in the NRSV, but (again as in the NRSV) we have followed the Protestant and Jewish custom of separating the Apocrypha from the Hebrew Scriptures.

 

      2. The list of books considered part of the Bible is called the "canon", so there are at least two versions of the Old Testament: the so-called "Old Testament" and the Old Testament. The first church to contain the entire Hebrew Bible and the Apocryphal books. The Second Canon is taken in Lem, in a slightly different document in the Catholic and Orthodox churches, so the Orthodox canon contains many books (e.g. 3 Maccabees, Psalm 151) and one book (2 Esdras) that are not included in the Catholic Bible. ) which is mentioned several times in the Catholic Bible, but is not in Greek and is therefore not canonical in the Orthodox Church. The Protestant Apocryphas always included Catholic rather than Orthodox apocryphal books. See the table below for a comparison of Hebrew and Greek canons.

 

3. How did this situation arise? There are many theories about the origin of the various canons, but the most widely accepted are as follows. By the beginning of the Common Era, most if not all of the books now in the HB were already regarded as sacred Scripture by most Jews. Many, however, especially in Greekspeaking areas such as Egypt, also had a high regard for other books, including what are now the deuterocanonical or apocryphal books, along with others which are no longer in any Bible. The early Christian church, which was predominantly Greek-speaking, tended to accept this wider canon of books. In this context, Judaism decided to canonize only the remaining Hebrew book, but the Christian church continued to operate according to the general canon. Certain Church Fathers, notably Melito of Sardis (died c.190 CE) and Jerome (c.345–420) proposed that the church should exclude the deuterocanonical books, but this proposal was not accepted. It was not until the Reformation in the 16th century that Jerome's views were revised, and Protestants chose the shorter Jewish version, the Old Testament, as the Old Testament. The Catholic Church continued to use the longer canon, and the Orthodox churches were unaffected by the Reformation in any case. Some Protestants, notably Lutherans and Anglicans, treated what they now called the Apocrypha as having a sub-scriptural status, but Calvinists and other Protestants rejected it entirely. (See Sundberg 1964; 1968; Anderson 1970; Barton 1986; 1997a; 1997b; Beckwith 1985; Davies 1998.)

 

4. Since we have included a separate Introduction to the Apocrypha in this Commentary, little more will be said about these deuterocanonical books here. But it is important to grasp that the term ‘Old Testament’ does not identify a corpus of books so simply as does the corresponding ‘New Testament’, since different Christians include different books within it. "Hebrew Bible" or "Hebrew Bible" is correct and is now often referred to as the "Old Testament", but cannot be used to refer to the Old Testament of the ancient church.

 

B.                 Collecting the Hebrew Scriptures.

 

1.     If the Hebrew Scriptures were complete by the beginning of the Common Era, that does not mean that the collection was new at that time. Many of the OT books were recognized as authoritative long before the first century BCE. The Pentateuch, or five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), probably existed in something like its present for by the fourth century BCE, and the historical and prophetic books (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve Minor—i.e. shorter—prophets) may well have been compiled no later than the third century BCE. The Jewish arrangement of the Hebrew Scriptures recognizes these two collections, which it calls respectively ‘the Torah’ and ‘the Prophets’, as having a certain special prestige above that of ‘the Writings’, which is the Hebrew title for the third collection in the canon, consisting of other miscellaneous works (Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Daniel, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and the five scrolls read at festivals, Esther, Ruth, Song of Songs, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes). This may well be because the Writings were formed rather later, perhaps not until the first century BCE—indeed, some of the books contained in them, notably Daniel, are themselves much later than most of the books in the Torah and Prophets, and so did not exist to be collected until that later time.

 

2.     In the Greek Bible, followed by the traditional, pre-Reformation Christian canon, this division into three collections is not followed, but a roughly thematic arrangement is preferred, All “historical” books are at the beginning, “wisdom” or instructional books (like Proverbs) are in the middle, and prophetic books (like Daniel) are at the end.This produces what looks like a more rational arrangement, but it may obscure the process of canonization to which the Hebrew arrangement is a more effective witness. This commentary follows the traditional Protestant arrangement, which adopts the order of books in the Greek Bible but extracts the deuterocanonical books and groups them into the separate Apocrypha. The different arrangements can be seen in the chart at 1.

 

 

3.     The collection of scriptural texts was probably undertaken by learned scribes, the forerunners of the people described as ‘scribes’ in the NT. But it should not be thought of as a conscious process of selection. Overall, HB probably includes most of what has survived from ancient Israelite writings, as well as more recent satirical writings. The key that comes into play is growth, not choice. Specific Jewish communities, such as those who compiled the Book of the Dead, may have worked on larger texts, but the scriptures as we know them now are still agreed upon. There is no evidence of disputes about the contents of the Bible until sometime into the Common Era: in earlier times, it seems, old books were venerated and not questioned. Even if a book clearly conflicts with another book, such as Kings and Histories, two books are allowed to conflict in the same canon.

 

C.                Writing the Hebrew Scriptures.

 

1.     Most people think that every Bible has an author. This was normal in ancient times, too: Jews and Christians thought that the ‘books of Moses’ were written by Moses, the ‘books of Samuel’ by Samuel, the Psalms by David, the Proverbs by Solomon, and each of the prophetic books by the prophet whose name the book bears. This raises obvious historical questions; for example, Moses and Samuel are to be seen writing down the details of their own deaths! However, modern research has made it clear that many books in the Old Testament are not the work of a single author, but rather the work of generations of authors, each reworking the text produced by his predecessors. Furthermore, some material in the biblical books may not have originated in written form at all, but may derive from oral tradition. The final version of the book is usually the product of editors who (more or less successfully) edited the received text into the books we now have.

 

2.     Modern scholarship recognizes important collections of material in the OT that are not coterminous with the books in their present form. In the Pentateuch, for example, it is widely believed that earlier sources can be distinguished. These sources ran in parallel throughout what are now the five books, in particular an early (pre-exilic) strand called ‘J’ which is to be found throughout Genesis– Numbers, and ‘P’, a product of priestly writers after the Exile, which is now interwoven with J to form the present form of these books (see INTROD. PENT.). Scholarship has also pointed to the existence of originally longer works which have been broken up to make the books as they now stand. An example is the so-called Deuteronomistic History, supposed by many to have been compiled during the Exile and to have comprised what are now the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, The meaning of diversity lies elsewhere, beyond the present boundaries of this text. The Book of Psalms provides clear evidence for the existence of earlier, shorter collections of psalms, such as the Psalms of Asaph and the Psalms of the sons of Korah, that were fragmented to form the Psalms we have today. Originally there were at least three long verses like Isaiah: 1-39, 40-55, and 56-66, all grouped together with the prophet's name.

 

3.     At the center of these lengthy works are stories, legends, prophetic prophecies, wisdom, and other traditions that were once contextless, larger, and passed on by word of mouth in parts of Israel. For example, the origins of the ancestral stories in Genesis may be traced back to a heroic tale that initially had only local significance, but later folk writers placed them in story cycles intended to provide information about the ancestors of the entire nation. Israel. Some proverbs may appear in the life of one Israelite people or another and are not written together in the Book of Proverbs until much later. The prophets explained immediate concerns to a small group of students, but then their words were put together and applied to the history of the entire nation and to the future.

 

 

4. Therefore the process of giving us OT is almost extremely complex. Recently, however, literary critics have begun to argue that alongside much anonymous, reworked material, there are also books and sections of books which do betray the presence of genuinely creative writers: the popular idea of biblical ‘authors’, that is, is not always wide of the mark. The story of David’s court in 2 Samuel and 1 Kings, for example, is now widely regarded as the work of a literary genius,and Similar phrases appear in other narratives of the Old Testament, including passages from the Pentateuch. This review attempts to balance the enduring view that most Old Testament books are the result of various processes and a willingness to acknowledge writing and writing skills. The general trend in OT study at present is towards a greater interest in the present form of the text and away from an exclusive concentration on the raw materials from which it may have been assembled. Although evidence of recycling of original material is often still evident, the current form is often more complete than earlier critics were willing to admit. (See Rendtorff 1985; Smend 1981.)

 

D. Language.

1. The original language of the OT is predominantly Hebrew, though there are a few sections in Aramaic (Ezra 4:8–6:18, 7:12– 26; Dan 2:4–7:28). Aramaic and Hebrew are related, but not mutually comprehensible, languages belonging to the Semitic family, which also includes Arabic, Ethiopic, and the ancient language Akkadian. Aramaic was more important historically, since it was the lingua franca of the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian empires, whereas Hebrew is simply the language of Palestine, it is related to the language of Israel's neighbors, Moab, Edom, and Ammon.

 

2. Hebrew and Aramaic, like other Semitic languages, originally had no vowels. In any language written with an alphabet more information is provided in the writing-system than is actually needed to make sense of most words: for example, if we write "Th Hbrw lngg" no one will easily understand it as "Hebrew", especially with the help of context. That doesn't matter as long as Hebrew is a living language. Although some words might be ambiguous, the context would usually determine which was meant. Vowels are also often missing in Modern Hebrew, making it less of a problem for readers. However, as Biblical Hebrew became a "learned" language and fell out of everyday use, consonants (dots and dashes above and below the consonants) were created to aid readers and are now used in the Bible. Masorites (see E.2). The unpointed text continues in use today in the scrolls of the Torah read in synagogue worship.

 

4.     Most scholars think that two phases in the development of Hebrew can be found in the pages of the OT: a classical Hebrew which prevailed until some time after the Exile, and a later Hebrew, first attested in Ezekiel and P, which develops through Ecclesiastes and Chronicles in the direction of later Mishnaic Hebrew—the learned language of Jews from about the first century CE onwards, by which time Aramaic had become the everyday tongue. However, this is debatable, and anyone learning Classical Hebrew can read the Bible without difficulty. As in many languages, there are wide differences between the Hebrew of prose narrative and that used in verse, where there is often a special vocabulary and many grammatical variations. In some cases these may be due to the use of dialect forms, though this is not certain. Some scholars believe that the oldest portion of the Old Testament, such as the Song of Deborah in Judges 5, preserves the original language. (See Saenz-Badillos 1993.)

 

E. The Text.

1. Until the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls, which include at least portions of every biblical book except Esther, scholars were dependent on Hebrew MSS no earlier than the ninth century CE. The three most important are the Cairo Codex (of the Prophets only), written in 896 CE; the Aleppo Codex (c.930 CE), unfortunately damaged by fire in 1947; and the Leningrad Codex, dated 1009 CE. The latter is a complete text of the whole HB, and has become the standard text which modern printed Bibles take as their basis.

 

2. In general terms the Dead Sea discoveries have confirmed the accuracy with which the Leningrad Codex has transmitted the Hebrew text. Although there are innumerable differences in detail, the Dead Sea MSS, though one thousand years older, do not show major deviations from the text as we know it. The HB was transmitted from the beginning of the Common Era by schools of scribes, the most important of whom are the Masoretes, who worked from 500 to 1000 CE; and their claims to have transmitted the Hebrew text with great faithfulness is on the whole confirmed by the evidence from the Dead Sea. One of their tasks was to record the traditional pronunciation of biblical Hebrew, by then a dead language, by adding pointing, that is, signs indicating vowels, to the basic Hebrew text (see D. 2).

 

Masoretes took on the task of writing all kinds of texts, which was almost unthinkable in the pre-computer age: they wrote down the names of strange inscriptions, how often certain words or phrases appeared, and even errors in the text. Their aim was not to improve or change the text they received, but to keep everything correct, and they were surprisingly successful. The student of the Bible can have confidence that the text translated by modern versions such as the NRSV rests on a faithful tradition going back to NT times.

 

4.     Of course, this does not mean that the texts of the time of the New Testament are preserved in the same fidelity as the texts of the time of the original authors. The work of the Masorites, together with evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls, gives us confidence in our general understanding of the text of Isaiah that was popular in Jesus' time. That does not mean that we can know what version of Isaiah was current in the days of the prophet Isaiah himself. Here we are dependent on conjecture, and the reconstruction of the original text, in the literal sense of ‘original’, is beyond our powers. We can say that the HB we have today is the HB we have today, as it was known by Jews and Christians in the first centuries of our time and was carefully preserved, although not necessarily (This sometimes happens)! (See Weingreen 1982; Wu¨rthwein 1979; Talmon 1970.)

 

F. Ancient Translations of the Old Testament.

1. By the end of the Second Temple period (4th–2nd cents. BCE) there were substantial communities of Jews who no longer had Hebrew as their first language, certainly outside the land of Palestine and perhaps even inside it. For many, Aramaic had become the everyday tongue, and all around the Mediterranean Greek became the lingua franca in the aftermath of the conquests of Alexander the Great (d. 323 BCE). Aramaic paraphrases of the HB began to be compiled, for use in the liturgy, where readings in Hebrew would be followed by an Aramaic translation, or Targum. Originally the Targums were apparently improvised, and people did not like to write them for fear that they might resemble the Bible. But then they were written down and some of them have survived to this day.

 

2. Various Greek versions of the Bible were also produced. A legend says that the initiator of Greek translations was Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt (285–247 BCE), who ordered that a translation of the Torah should be made so that he could know under what laws his Jewish subjects lived. According to the legend, seventy-two scholars worked on the project for seventytwo days: hence their work came to be known as the Septuagint (meaning ‘seventy’, traditionally abbreviated LXX). The truth is probably more prosaic, but the third century remains the period when Greek translations of the Torah began to be made, followed by versions of other books too. Later translators began editing the Septuagint version, including Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion (see Salvesen 1991). About six different translators can be detected in the LXX itself.

The version is in general faithful to the Hebrew, and far less of a paraphrase than the Aramaic Targums. Often the Septuagint appears to be a translation of the original Hebrew text other than the text given to us, and in some books, especially Jeremiah, it is obvious that the translators were introduction to the old testament 10 dealing with a quite different (in this case, shorter) version of the book. Any quest for an ‘original’ text of Jeremiah underlying the MT therefore has to treat the evidence of the LXX very seriously. 3. In the early church Greek was at first the commonest language, and the LXX has come down to us largely because it was preserved in Christian hands. Its divergent ordering of the books, as well as its inclusion of more books than the Hebrew Scriptures, came to be regarded as distinctively Christian features, even though in origin it is plainly a Jewish work. Once Latin displaced Greek as the language of the Western church the need was felt for a further translation into Latin, and various Old Latin MSS have survived, alongside the evidence of biblical quotations in Christian writers who used Latin. The Old Latin versions are translations from the Greek and thus stand at two removes from the Hebrew text. In the fifth century AD Jerome produced a complete Latin version of the entire Bible in its original language. This translation, later known as the Demotic Bible, became the Bible of the Western Church until the Reformation and is still popular in the Catholic Church. Naturally both the Greek and Latin Bibles, like the Hebrew, have come down to us in a range of different MSS, and the quest for ‘the original LXX’ is no easier than that for the original HB. (See Roberts 1951.)

 

G. Contents of the Old Testament.

1. The Old Testament has much broader material than the New Testament and covers all aspects of the social and political life of the Jews in ancient Israel and after the exile. The variety can be suggested by looking briefly at some of the genres of literature to be found there.

 

2. Narrative. More than half the OT consists of narrative, that is, the consecutive description of events set in the past. It is difficult to know the difference between what we call history, myth, story, story, myth or legend. Some scriptures appear to have been removed from official records and are therefore closer to what we accept as historical. At the other end of the spectrum there are at least three stories—Jonah, Ruth, and Esther—which from our perspective are probably fiction, since they rest on no historically true data at all. There are many stories that seem to fall somewhere between two hearts: the story in Genesis, the first people and ancestors of the people of Israel, the history of the people of Israel from the Exodus to Samuel, stories about the early prophets like the story of Elijah and Elisha , The story of David's palace is almost novelistic, and the retellings of older stories in the books of Chronicles, as well as a very small amount of first-person narration in Ezra and Nehemiah. But the OT itself shows no awareness of any differences or gradations within this range of material, but records it all in the same steady and neutral style as if it were all much on a level. Sometimes God or an angel makes regular appearances in the narrative, as in Genesis and Judges, sometimes events are recorded without overt reference to divine causation, as in 2 Samuel 2; but the Bible itself does not require this distinction, and we cannot assume that the authors saw a difference between "sacred" and "secular" history. (See Barr 1980.)

 

3. Law. Within the narrative framework of the Pentateuch we find several collections of laws, such as the so-called Book of the Covenant (Ex 21–4), the Holiness Code (Lev 17–26), and the Deuteronomic legislation (Deut 12–26). In fact the whole of Leviticus and large parts of Exodus and Numbers contain legal material, and from the perspective of the redactors of the Pentateuch the giving of the law is the main purpose of Israel’s sojourn at Sinai. At the heart of the law lie the Ten Commandments (Ex 20, Deut 5), and the rest of the legislation is presented as a detailed exposition of the principles the Commandments enshrine.

 

4. From a historical perspective, the laws in the Pentateuch have much in common with the laws of other cultures in the Near East, such as the famous Code of Hammurabi. But they also differ from them in striking ways—e.g. in a higher valuation of human life, much more interest in regulations concerning worship, and a greater tendency to lay down general principles. As presented in the Pentateuch, however, the laws are understood as the foundation of the highly distinctive relationship of Israel with its god, YHWH. They are the terms of the solemn agreement, or ‘covenant’, made between YHWH and the people through the mediation of Moses. The understanding of law regulating the relationship between gods and their people was different from the ancient world. It led in post-biblical times to the idea of Torah, a complete ethical code covering all aspects of life as lived before God, which would become the foundation-stone of later Judaism. It is possible to see this tendency in the Constitution, where the rules are not only created and followed by law, but also where there is constant thought and interest. (See Noth 1966.)

 

5.     Hymns and Psalms. The Psalms have sometimes been described as the hymnbook of the temple, though since they are hard to date there is no agreement as to whether they are best seen as the hymnbook of Solomon’s Temple or of the Second Temple, built after the Exile. We do not know which psalms were intended for public liturgical and which for private prayer—indeed, that distinction may be a false one in ancient Israel. There are many ways to think about using the Psalms in worship, but they all have very strong views. What can be said is that Israel clearly had a tradition of writing sophisticated religious poems, and that this continued over a long period: Ps 29, for example, seems to be modelled on a Canaanite psalm and must therefore have originated in early pre-exilic times, while Ps 119 reflects a piety based on meditation on the Torah, and is generally dated in the late postexilic period. Psalms can also be found outside the Psalter itself, for example in Ex 15, 1 Sam 2, and Jon 2. (See Gillingham 1994.)

 

6.     Wisdom. There are at least three kinds of wisdom literature in the OT. The book of Proverbs preserves many sayings and aphorisms which draw moral and practical conclusions from aspects of daily life. These may in some cases have originated in the life of the Israelite village, in others in the royal court, but all have been gathered together to form the great collection of sayings that runs from Prov 10 to 30. The second type of knowledge is more speculative in nature and, as will be seen, deals with theological and cosmological issues. Proverbs 8:22-36. Frequently in such passages Wisdom is itself personified as a kind of goddess, and the writer speculates on the involvement of this being in the creation of the world and on its/her relationship to YHWH. Thirdly, we find what is sometimes called mantic wisdom, which draws on ancient Near-Eastern traditions about the interpretation of dreams and portents to gain insight into the future, and this is manifested by Joseph in Genesis, and in the book of Daniel. Two books, Job and Ecclesiastes, seem to reflect on deficiencies within the traditions of wisdom, and argue for a generally skeptical and non-committal attitude towards the mysteries of life. They are part of a general tendency towards greater pessimism about human capabilities of reason and understanding, characteristic of post-exilic Jewish thought. (See Crenshaw 1981.)

 

7.     Prophecy. "Prophecy", like "wisdom", is a term with many uses. Its basic form is the oracle: a (usually) short, pithy saying in which the prophet either denounces some current evil, or predicts what YHWH will do in the immediate future as a response to human conduct. One of the difficulties of studying the prophetic books is that these oracles are often arranged in an order which reflects the interests of the editors, rather than registering the chronological sequence of what the prophet himself said. The matter is complicated further by the insertion of many non-authentic oracles, representing perhaps what later writers thought the prophet might or would have said in later historical situations, had he still been alive and able to do so. It is probably in the prophetic books that the concept of authorship breaks down most completely. Many prophetic books also contain brief descriptions and historical details about the prophets whose names they bear. Sometimes these are indistinguishable in style and approach from narratives in the ‘historical’ books—e.g. Jeremiah contains many stories about the prophet that would not be out of place in Kings, and perhaps comes from the same school of writers.

 

8. Sometimes prophets associated visions with their own divine interpretations, and by the end of Old Testament time this became a means of communication from God in a form often called "revelation." Daniel is the only book in the HB generally called apocalyptic, but later portions of the prophetic books show developments in this direction and are sometimes referred to as proto-apocalyptic. Prime candidates for this description are Isa 24–7, Joel, and Zech 9–14. (See Blenkinsopp 1984.)

 

H. Themes of the Old Testament.

1. Despite its variety, the OT is a document from a religious tradition that retained, over time, certain characteristic features. These can be introduced here only in the most sketchy outline, but it may be helpful to the reader to be aware of four interlocking themes.

 

2. Creation and Monotheism. YHWH is consistently presented throughout the OT as the God who created the world, and as the only God with whom Israel is to be concerned. Older strands of thought do not yet treat him as the only God there is (strict monotheism), a development generally thought to have taken place around the time of the Exile. But it is never envisaged that any other god is a proper object of worship for Israelites. There are occasional survivals of a polytheistic system—e.g. in Ps 82—but no extended text in the OT speaks of the actions of gods other than YHWH as real or other than purported. The OT presents much of the life of the pre-exilic period as one of warfare between YHWH and the gods of Canaan for Israel’s allegiance. We know as a historical fact that the religion of many people during this period was far from monotheism. But all our texts ultimately show or confirm that there is only Jehovah for the people of Israel.

 

3. In addition to God creating by numerous commandments in Genesis 1, the Old Testament also knows the ancient creation story that took place when the Lord God slew a dragon and used its body to create the world. It is over (cf. Psalm 74, Job 3) – pattern of thought in the ancient Near East. But the term seems to have been used in the writing rather than reflecting the author's actual belief – just as earlier English writers adopted the term to name the Muses, even if they did not believe these animals existed. Jews and Christians see the Hebrew Bible as important because, among other reasons, they recognize the unity of God and His literal power in creation, and so they get stuck on the Bible's own highlights. He found his best speech in the speech in the Canon of Isaiah, which the author, Isaiah 40-55, knew so well: see especially Isaiah 40:12-26. (See Theissen 1984; Whybray 1983.)

 

5.     Covenant and Redemption. It is a central point in many OT texts that the creator God YHWH is also in some sense Israel’s special god, who at some point in history entered into a relationship with his people that had something of the nature of a contract. Classically this contract or covenant was entered into at Sinai, and Moses was its mediator. As we saw above, the laws in the Torah are presented as promises between Jehovah and his servant. According to his special promise to the people of Israel, Yahweh was always rewarded by taking their history, specifically by bringing them out of Egypt and giving them the land promised to them. Later prophets hoped for a restoration to this land after the Jews had lost political control of it to a succession of great powers: Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia.

 

6.     In the prophetic version of covenant theory, the promise of this arrangement points to the potential for destruction if Israel does not obey. It is no exaggeration to say that the prophets' primary concern was that Jehovah would tightly "control" the interpretation by punishing his people, but he provided some assurance through his promises, especially regarding relationships. But in other Old Testament schools of thought, what matters most are Jehovah's promises to his people, and the idea of a covenant is less obvious. For this reason, the covenant made with Abraham, David, and his descendants is often considered almost void. Either the obedience required from the human partner is seen as minimal, or else disobedience (though it will be punished) does not have the power to lead to a complete breakdown in the relationship with YHWH. After the Exile the covenant between YHWH and Israel was often seen as unbreakable on the national scale, but individuals had a duty to remain within the covenant community by faithful adherence to Torah.

 

 

The God who makes a covenant with Israel is a God of redemption as well as of creation. He rescued his people from Egypt and then continued to intervene in their history to save them from their enemies, only to be able to use those enemies as his representatives. In every country in crisis, the people of Israel can turn to Jehovah for help, and although his mercies are innumerable, it is a support that can be relied on for a long time. (See Nicholson 1986; Spriggs 1974.)

 

7. Ethics. In some OT traditions, such as that of the law, ethical obligation is tightly bound up with Israel’s contractual obligations to YHWH, whereas in others (notably wisdom) there is more appeal to universally applicable standards of justice and uprightness. Everywhere in the OT, however, it is taken as given that God makes moral demands on both Israel and all human beings. These traditions often include two things that are not always relatable to the non-Jewish reader: a deep commitment to social justice and a deep concern for purity. Ritual and ethical punctiliousness are seen as points on a single spectrum, so that some texts can speak of gross moral outrages such as murder as polluting the sanctuary of YHWH just as do ritual infringements (see Ezek 18). Pagan writers in the ancient world often drew attention to the high moral standards of Jews, while simultaneously being puzzled that they were so concerned about matters of diet and ritual purity. At the same time there are prophetic books, such as Amos and Hosea, which seem to distinguish the two types of ethical concern, and he may not care about ritual purity at all, arguing that the Lord desires social justice more than ritual purity: the latter can also be seen in some texts.

 

7.     The moral principles of the Old Testament were much the same throughout the recorded period. It stresses justice, both in the sense of fairness to everyone, rich and poor alike, and in the sense of intervention on behalf of those who cannot help themselves. It forbids murder, theft, bribery and corruption, deceitful trading standards (e.g. false weights and measures), and many sexual misdemeanours, including adultery, incest, bestiality, and homosexual acts. It supports the role of the authorities in upholding justice and stopping violence against the poor and helpless, especially widows and orphans. All moral obligation is traced back to an origin in God, either by way of ‘positive’ law—YHWH’s explicit commands—or else through the way the divine character is expressed in the orders of nature. Some moral obligations at least are assumed to be known outside Israel (as was of course the case), and especially in the wisdom literature appeal is made to the consensus of right-minded people and not only to the declared will of YHWH. (See Wright 1983; Barton 1998; Otto 1994.)

 

8.     Theodicy. In a polytheistic system it is easy to explain the disasters that overtake human societies: they result from disagreements among the gods, People are caught by fire or a special God's evil spirit against people. This explanation is not available in monotheistic culture, so philosophers solve the problem under the heading of "theodicy" - how can we show that God faces poverty in the world - there are numerous explanations on a global scale. The writings of the Old Testament.

 

 

9.     At the institutional level, displacement seems to be an issue that focuses primarily on the Israeli public's reflection on the question of how to understand poverty as unjust. Lamentations is an extended expression of grief at the rough treatment that YHWH has apparently handed out to the people he had chosen himself; Jeremiah also reflects on the problem. Ezekiel tries to show that God is utterly just, and that those who complain of his injustice are in fact themselves to blame for what has befallen them. Second Isaiah combines a conviction that God has been just to punish Israel with an assurance that destruction is not his last word, and that he will remain true to his ancient promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Through reflection on the disaster that has befallen Israel all these thinkers come to an affirmation of the superior justice of God—greater, not less, than that of any human power.

 

10.                        Problems of personal theodicy are discussed in the Book of Acts and to some extent in the Sermons. Here explanations in terms of human guilt are for the most part rejected, since we are told at the outset that Job is a righteous man, who manifestly does not deserve to suffer as he does. The book concludes that God cannot be held to account, and that his ways are imponderable, though perhaps also that there are forms of fellowship with him in which understanding why one suffers is not a first priority. For Ecclesiastes, the world manifests no moral order such that the righteous can expect to be rewarded and the wicked punished, but ‘time and chance happen to all’.

 

11.                        The subject of personal theodicy is discussed in Acts and to some extent in sermons. Kings sees this as manifested in the fact that sin is always avenged, even if it takes many generations for God’s justice to be implemented; while Chronicles believes instead in immediate retribution. The Psalms also contain many reflections on the fate of the righteous and the wicked, and have some profound insights on the subject - see Psalms 37, 49, and 73. In fact, there are several books on this subject in the Old Testament. There is no theodicy. (See Crenshaw 1983.

 

I. Arrangement of Books in Hebrew and Greek Bibles The Hebrew Bible The Greek Bible Torah: Historical Books: Genesis Genesis Exodus Exodus Leviticus Leviticus Numbers Numbers Deuteronomy Deuteronomy Prophets: Joshua Joshua Judges Judges Samuel Ruth Kings 1 Samuel Isaiah 2 Samuel Jeremiah 1 Kings Ezekiel 2 Kings The Twelve: 1 Chronicles Hosea 2 Chronicles Joel 1 Esdras Amos Ezra Obadiah Nehemiah Jonah Esther (with additions) Micah Judith Nahum Tobit Habakkuk 1 Maccabees Zephaniah 2 Maccabees Haggai 3 Maccabees Zechariah 4 Maccabees Malachi Writings: Didactic Books: Psalms Psalms Job Proverbs Proverbs Ecclesiastes Ruth Song of Songs Song of Songs Job Ecclesiastes Wisdom of Solomon Lamentations Ecclesiasticus Esther Daniel Ezra-Nehemiah Prophetic Books: Chronicles Twelve Minor Prophets: Hosea Amos Micah Joel Obadiah Jonah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi Isaiah Jeremiah Baruch 1–5 Lamentations Letter of Jeremiah (¼ Baruch 6) Ezekiel Susanna (¼ Daniel 13) The Hebrew Bible The Greek Bible Daniel 1–12 (with additions Song of Azariah and Song of the Three Jews) Bel and the Dragon (¼ Daniel 14) Notes: Books additional to the HB are in italics. Books are given the names familiar to English readers: Samuel and Kings are in Greek the ‘Four Books of Kingdoms’, and Ezra-Nehemiah is ‘2 Esdras’.