The living world of the Old Testament/ Bernhard W. Anderson

Table of contents


Introduction: The old Testament as the story of people 1
PART 1 THE CREATION OF PEOPLE 17
1 THE BEGINNINGS OF ISREAL 18
The nature of the tradition19
The oral tradition 23
The prologue to the exodus 27
Population unrest in the fertile crescent 30
The God of Israel’s ancestors 41
The descent into Egypt 45
The oppressing in Egypt 48
2 LIBERATION FROM BODAGE 53
The role of Moses 55
The disclosure of God’s name 60
The contest with pharaoh 66
The victory at the sea 75
3 COVENANT IN THE WILDERNESS 84
Guidance in the wilderness 85
The covenant and the law 95
The breaking of the covenant 103
The mosaic faith 106
4 THE PROMISED LAND 110
A land flowing with milk and honey 111
Forty years of wandering 113
Detour via Transjordan 119
The invasion of Canaan 122
Israel’s conquest of Canaan: The Deuteronomist view 131
An alternative view of the conquest in Joshua and Judges I 134
The nature of the Israelite occupation 137
The formation of the tribal confederacy 142
5 THE FORMATION OF AN ALL-ISRAELITE EPIC 151
From tradition to literature 153
The scope of the old Epic narrative 156
Overview of Israel’s Epic narrative 158
The primeval history 159
The ancestral history 167
The people’s history 177
6 THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN FAITH AND CULTURE 181
Temptations of Canaanite culture 182
Leaders in crises 193
The decline of the confederacy 201
The last judge of Israel 206

PART II ISRAEL BECOMES LIKE THE NATIONS 211
7 THE THRONE OF DAVID 212
A time of international favor 213
Israel’s Rustic king 214
David architect of the Israelite state 221
Solomon in all his glory 243
New horizons of faith 243
8 PROPHETIC TROUBLERS OF ISRAEL 247
The background of prophecy 249
A historian’s view of the times 253
The divided kingdom 256
One prophet against four hundred 268
Elijah, the Tishbite 271
Elisha and the closing years of the Omri dynasty 278
9 FALLEN IS THE VIRGIN ISRAEL 280
The revolution of Jehu 281
The Age of Jeroboam II 286
The herdsman from Tekoa 291
The prophecy of Hosea 301
The fall of Samaria 315
10 JUDA’S COVENANT WITH DEATH 317
The reign of uzziah 318
The book of Isaiah 321
Micah, Rural prophet 337
Isaiah’s later career 341
11 THE REDISCOVERY OF MOSAIC TORAH 356
Differing views of thwe covenant 357
Manasseh, the villain of Judah 358
New Deuteronomic reformation 373
The book of Deuteronomy 376
The renewal of the Covenant 379
Inadequacies of the reform 384
Habakkuk’s watchtower of faith 388
Faith and nationalism 390
12 THE DOOOM OF NATION 391
The suffering prophet 392
The book of Jeremiah 392
In the reign of Jehoiakim 396
Jeremiah’s confessions 405
In the reign of Zedekiah 410
Beyond the day of doom 419
PART III THE COVENANT COMMUNITY IS RENEWED 425
13 BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON 427
The Jewish dispersion 428
Ezekiel the priest 428
Lamentation, Mourning and woe 435
The promise of a new beginning 442
Life under captivity 446
Preservation of the tradition 449
The priestly point of view 454
14 THE DAWN OF A NEW AGE 467
New world horizons 467
The poems of second Isaiah 472
A herald of good tidings 475
The creator and redeemer 479
A light to the nations 485
The servant of Yaweh 488
Victory through suffering 495
The servant and the Messiah 500
The continuing Isaiah tradition 502
The book of Isaiah as a whole 504
15 A KINGDOM OF PRIESTS 507
Cyrus’ edict of liberation 508
The work of the chronicler 510
Zerubbabel, the branch 515
Reconstruction and reform 521
Ezra, the architect of Judaism 527
Nehemiah’s terms as governor 531
The law and the prophets 533
16 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL 540
The book of Palms 541
Israel at worship 547
Israel’s pilgrimage festivals 558
Meditating on the Torah 566
17 THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM 568
The wisdom of the east 568
Israel’s wisdom literature 570
An anthology of proverbs 575
The skepticism of Ecclesiates 582
The book of Job 588
From despair to faith 594
Later reflections on wisdom 602
18 THE UNFLFILLED DRAMA 604
Tensions within Judaism 605
The Hellenistic Ezra 610
The apocalypse of Daniel 618
The Kingdom that is God’s 622
Beyond the old Testament 633
Israel’s pilgrimage 643

Comprehensive Chronological chart 646-651
Selected bibliography 652
Author index 677
Subject index 680
















includes bibliographical references and indexes