What do you think?
Rate this book
Reading the Old Testament: Introduction to the Hebrew Bible
READING THE OLD TESTAMENT, now in its third edition, has proven itself as a guide that successfully teaches students how to read the Hebrew Bible and how to go about mining the Biblical text for literary, historical, and thematic meaning. The book actively applies recent literary, rhetorical, and structural studies that shed light on art, design, coherence, characterization, theme, and other literary features of the Hebrew Bible. An engaging and instructive CD-ROM also comes packaged free with the text. This innovative and much acclaimed resource--developed by the author himself--includes the entire text of the Bible, the entire text of the book, and an interactive Study Guide. In both the book and on the CD-ROM, Bandstra demonstrates how knowledge of ancient culture, religion, and history is essential for interpreting Biblical texts. While history, archaeology, and extra-biblical documents are heavily utilized, they are presented only as they apply directly to specific Biblical texts.
- GenresReligion
600 pages, Paperback
First published July 31, 2003
2 people are currently reading
30 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 18, 2017
I found this book in podcast form and listened to it as I slowly slogged through the Christian Old Testament. It's not really structured in the same order as the Bible. But whatevs.
What I liked about it is the objectivity. It's not preachy or full of Jesus loves you. I guess that's partially because it's a Jewish perspective, not Christian. At times I wondered if some more hardline religious types my get offended at the objectivity. Like how Bandstra writes that certain aspects of the religion probably came from nearby pagan religions. He may have even said that God is an adaption of one of the God's from the heathen Canaanite religion. Anyway refreshing to read about the Bible without getting preached at.
It is a bit of a tough read. A bit scholarly and technical. It kind of feels like it might be a text book used in some kind of Bible school. But it is very interesting, if you can get through some of the hard parts where your eyes glaze over.
There is a lot of talk of authorship and how certain books and chapters may have been put together. Talk about why certain books are placed in certain order. Hebrew laws and traditions at the time. Ancient politics and state of the world at the time. All these I found very interesting.
Basically, a very interesting and objective read, but just too dry and boring. Not a page turner. But still worth it. Read it for the knowledge, not entertainment.
What I liked about it is the objectivity. It's not preachy or full of Jesus loves you. I guess that's partially because it's a Jewish perspective, not Christian. At times I wondered if some more hardline religious types my get offended at the objectivity. Like how Bandstra writes that certain aspects of the religion probably came from nearby pagan religions. He may have even said that God is an adaption of one of the God's from the heathen Canaanite religion. Anyway refreshing to read about the Bible without getting preached at.
It is a bit of a tough read. A bit scholarly and technical. It kind of feels like it might be a text book used in some kind of Bible school. But it is very interesting, if you can get through some of the hard parts where your eyes glaze over.
There is a lot of talk of authorship and how certain books and chapters may have been put together. Talk about why certain books are placed in certain order. Hebrew laws and traditions at the time. Ancient politics and state of the world at the time. All these I found very interesting.
Basically, a very interesting and objective read, but just too dry and boring. Not a page turner. But still worth it. Read it for the knowledge, not entertainment.
Displaying 1 of 1 review