Introducing Old Testament Theology: Creation, Covenant, and Prophecy in the Divine-Human Relationship
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Overview
A senior scholar and teacher with four decades of classroom experience offers a concise, student-level theology of the entire Old Testament. W. H. Bellinger Jr. uses ancient Israel’s confession of faith, the Psalms, to introduce the sweep of Old Testament theology: creation, covenant, and prophecy. He shows how these three theological dimensions each entail a portrayal of God and invite a human response to God. Bellinger also discusses how to appropriate Old Testament theology for contemporary life.
- Offers a concise, student-level theology of the entire Old Testament
- Uses ancient Israel’s confession of faith, the Psalms, to introduce the sweep of Old Testament theology
- Focuses on themes of creation, covenant, and prophecy
- Introduction
- Beginnings
- A Shape for Old Testament Theology
- Pentateuch
- Historical Books
- Psalms
- Wisdom
- Prophecy
- Conclusion
For a generation, Bill Bellinger has been at the forefront of our shared scholarship on the book of Psalms. Now, near the end of his teaching-scholarly career, he has moved out to a most ambitious undertaking in this book. The hard work of Old Testament theology is elementally to find a model or paradigm that can account for most of the textual material. Bellinger proposes a model that is not unlike a three-legged stool, offered in the parts of creation, covenant, and prophetic proclamation. It is of special interest that Bellinger finds his three accents in the book of Psalms, the text he knows best. In articulating this three-pronged model, Bellinger brings the wisdom of his many years of study. It is clear from this work that the enterprise of Old Testament theology is well, healthy, and demanding. Bellinger's discussion is sure to evoke new explorations and focus attention on canonical matters and the mystery of divine-human interaction that is definitional for the scriptural tradition."
—Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary
Bill Bellinger (who knows his way around the Bible) here presents a shape for Old Testament theology that is founded on, if not centered in, the book of Psalms. ‘The key,’ Bellinger suggests, ‘is to stay as close as is humanly possible to the perspective the Hebrew text articulates about God and divine-human engagement.’ He then proceeds to do exactly that by working through the main units and books of the Old Testament, assessing the parts in light of the whole and its larger structure. In the end, Bellinger identifies a kind of three-legged stool, with creation theology, covenant theology, and prophetic theology all supporting a seat that is nothing less than salvation itself. I am confident that this book will prove eminently useful in a wide range of courses on the Old Testament and its theology.
—Brent A. Strawn, professor of Old Testament and professor of law, Duke University
This offering on Old Testament theology is a gift of tradition, of scholarly history, and of current creativity. Dr. Bellinger mines the historic conversation on what the words 'Old Testament' and ‘theology’ mean when they are connected by reminding us of the field of study and the way Scripture leads us into a view of God that illuminates faith. His definitions and examples make the book worth the read, even if one believes they already ‘know’ Old Testament theology. Let this book, then, be a reintroduction from different vantage points. I hope professors will take it up, offer it to their students, and lean into his creative thinking and expansive grace as he leads us through the text with a paradigm for how to engage the First Testament’s words about its God. The book is a gift worth exploring.
—Valerie Bridgeman, dean and associate professor of homiletics and Hebrew Bible, Methodist Theological School in Ohio
- Title: Introducing Old Testament Theology: Creation, Covenant and Prophecy in the Divine-Human Relationship
- Author: W. H. Bellinger
- Publisher: Baker Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2022
- Logos Release Date: 2022
- Pages: 200
- Era: era:contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Bible. O.T. › Theology; Bible. O.T. › Criticism, interpretation, etc
- ISBNs: 9781540961471, 9781540965523, 9781493420551, 9781493420568, 1540961478, 154096552X, 1493420550, 1493420569
- Resource ID: LLS:INTRDCNGLDTSTMTH
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T00:45:17Z