Digital Logos Edition
Top Old Testament theologian R. W. L. Moberly is known for accessible and provocative writing. Old Testament Theology: Reading the Hebrew Bible as Christian Scripture questions what is necessary to understand the Hebrew Bible as a fundamental resource for Christian theology. This volume offers a creative example of theological interpretation, modeling a way of analyzing the Old Testament that considers the nature of the ancient biblical text while also questioning the difficulties that arise as believers study in a contemporary context.
Moberly offers an in-depth study of key Old Testament passages, highlighting enduring existential issues in the Hebrew Bible and discussing Jewish readings alongside Christian readings. The volume, an overview of Old Testament Scripture, discusses most of the major topics of Old Testament theology. Moberly also demonstrates a Christian approach to reading the Old Testament that combines the priorities of both scholarship and faith.
“On the one hand, God acts on His own initiative, calling people with a call that is irrevocable precisely because it depends on God and not on the one called. On the other hand, the relationship thus initiated is a real one in which there is everything to be gained or lost according to how people live within that relationship with God. It depends on God, and it depends on human response. The gift is free and unconditional; yet to respond rightly, so as to enter into the gift and appropriate it, remains crucial. This is surely, in essence, the dynamics and logic of love.” (Page 143)
“It is through having their hunger met thus that Israel is opened to learning a fundamental principle about human life: not by bread alone is human life sustained, but by responsiveness to the divine will.” (Page 97)
“‘Hear, O Israel: Yhwh our God, Yhwh is the one and only. So you should love Yhwh your God with all your thinking, with all your longing, and with all your striving.’” (Page 24)
“Suffering may be a battle-scar rather than a punishment; the price of loyalty in a world which is at war with God” (Page 236)
“The Shema still functions today as a fundamental articulation of the responsibilities of Jewish life and thought” (Page 12)
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Anthony Sims
5/6/2015
Richard Perhai
3/23/2014