CASKET EMPTY: God's Plan of Redemption through History. Old Testament Reader

by Carol Kaminski

This book will help you understand the redemptive story of the Old Testament through six major Creation, Abraham, Sinai, Kings, Exile and Temple, with the first letter of each heading making up the word CASKET. This acronym will enable you to memorize the storyline of the Old Testament and place key events, people and biblical books in their correct time period. The author takes you through each period step by step, explaining the major covenants and highlighting the most important people, events, and biblical themes. As you become familiar with storyline of the Old Testament you will learn that God’s redemptive plan is climactically fulfilled in the New Testament with the coming Messiah. The acronym for the entire Bible is CASKET EMPTY, therefore, which points to the empty tomb of Jesus as the beginning of God’s new creation, the assurance that death has been defeated, and the guarantee of our resurrection yet to come. Through the acronym CASKET EMPTY you will have a framework for remembering the entire sweep of the Bible with the person and work of Christ at the center.

294 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 26, 2012

Reviews

[Jeanne Higgins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent OT resource.

[Nzcgzmt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kaminski is an OT/Hebrew professor at Gordon Conwell, an evangelical seminary. The book has been used as a textbook for an entry level OT class for many years. It largely serves its purpose - a quick summary of the major events in OT, arranged sequentially in time. While other survey books focus on one OT book at a time, Kaminski's book rearranged the OT materials and made the timeline more accessible for entry level readers. The prophetic materials are also integrated into the reign of each monarchy - which makes the context of these materials much clearer.

However, the book does have important shortcomings. Kaminski focuses more on rote memory and less on theology. This is probably due to GC's academic inclination for a high level of Biblical familiarity - a common focus among evangelical institutions. While GC itself is less strict on key evangelical doctrines such as Biblical inerrancy, the tendency to interpret timelines and events literally was still evident. Then there was repeated "plug-ins" for protestant theology such as "justification by faith alone - not by work" without actually laying out the case for it - which makes the book more suitable for popular consumption than academic formation. I am not contending justification by faith is right or wrong - but I think it's a good academic practice to point out controversial opinions in a balanced way so that students will have the right context to understand the materials.

Overall, I think the book provides good background information on OT. It is advisable that a companion book is read on the side just so that one is at least familiar with the contemporary academic debates on critical OT issues. Also, readers should be aware of the author's theological limitations while reading this book. Thus it's not a perfect book for absolute beginners.

[Chockletter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent study guide for the training.