Old Testament Theology: Israel's Gospel

by John E. Goldingay

Winner of a 2004 ECPA Gold Medallion Award! In this first volume of a three-volume Old Testament theology, John Goldingay focuses on narrative. Examining the biblical order of God's creation of and interactions with the world and Israel, he tells the story of Israel's gospel as a series of divine This is an Old Testament theology like no other. Whether applying magnifying or wide-angle lenses, Goldingay is closely attentive to the First Testament's narrative, plot, motifs, tensions and subtleties. Brimming with insight and energy, and postmodern in its ethos, this book will repeatedly reward readers with fresh and challenging perspectives on God and God's ways with Israel and the world—as well as Israel's ways with God. Goldingay's Old Testament Theology is not only a scholarly contribution to the ongoing quest of understanding the theological dimensions of the First Testament. Preachers and teachers will prize it as a smart, informed and engaging companion as they read and re-present the First Testament story to postmodern pilgrims on the way. This is Old Testament theology that preaches. Volume two focuses on Israel's faith, or Old Testament theology as belief. It explores the person and nature of God, the nature of the world and humanity, the character of sin and the significance of Israel. Volume three's focus is Israel's life, or Old Testament theology as ethos, exploring its worship, spirituality, ideals and vision for living.

Genres: Theology, Old Testament, Biblical Studies, Biblical, Nonfiction, Reference, History

940 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2003

About the author

John Goldingay is David Allan Hubbard Professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. An internationally respected Old Testament scholar, Goldingay is the author of many commentaries and books.

Reviews

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I took a Pentateuch course from Professor Goldingay. This affected the way I read the book. As much as I tried to remain neutral, it was nearly impossible to ignore that fact.

With that in mind, OTT was a delight. Along with Bruggemann, this will be a volume I grab over and over and over again. Unlike Bruggemann's work which requires a more experienced reader who is familiar with the various arguments of modern OT scholarship, Goldingay's contribution will appeal to readers of all levels. He does not ignore modern scholarship but writes in a narrative style that subtly diverts your attention from the fine print. The final product is a midrashic chronicling of the Old (or as he calls it "First") Testament.

Goldingay divided the book into a series of chapters based on God's actions (God Began--Creation, God Started Over--From Eden to Babel, God Promised--Israel's Ancestors, etc.). This has it's benefits. It allows the reader to grasp a main theme or image controlling major portions of scripture. This structure also makes it easier to use the book as a reference volume. If you're preaching on 1 Samuel, you would turn to chapter 8 "God Accommodated--From Joshua to Solomon". If you're leading a small group on the Law, you would turn to Chapter 6 "God Sealed--Sinai". On the other hand some readers might be frustrated by the lack of granularity. You're not going to get a handy cheat sheet on Judges. What you do get is the way the book of Judges interacts and intersects with other Biblical literature of that era. What you get is a canonical reading of scripture that places a high priority on inter-textuality. My hunch is that this is what most of us do anyway. It's nice to have a book that helps us do it better.

Keeping in mind my opening paragraph, John Goldingay is a gift. He's a good writer who provides no easy answers. He exposes shades of grey that color our life. He exposes the shades of grey that color the First Testament. But he does more than just expose it. He's a helpful and reliable guide in living faithful amidst the ambiguity of life.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing! This book illustrates the beauty of the Old Testament story with profound insights and depth. It is LONG and takes a while to read, but is worth it for serious students of the Old Testament.

[Joe Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some people, their initial reading forays into the Old Testament go something like my first attempt at reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship. It was one of the first real works of theology that I ever read, and I began with much enthusiasm. However, due to a combination of inexperience with studying theology and the fact that I was reading a work translated from German, my progress slowed the farther I got into the book. I completed The Cost of Discipleship—a challenging and truly worthwhile read—fully aware of the tenuous nature of my understanding of Bonhoeffer’s words.

I think the Old Testament can sometimes seem similarly foreign and intimidating, and some Christians get discouraged when they immerse themselves in it for the first time. For readers in this situation, a wise guide is helpful. I found John Goldingay’s Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Gospel, the first book in his sprawling three volume series on the Old Testament (which he prefers to call the First Testament), to be a helpful resource for becoming better acquainted with shape and nature of the Old Testament’s story.

The Shape of Goldingay’s Theological Project

Since Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Gospel is the first part of a larger whole, it might be helpful to point out how it relates to the other two volumes in the series. This first volume reflects on the Old Testament’s narrative account of “Israel’s story and of God’s involvement with it” (p.28). In this book, Goldingay traces the story of God’s people from creation all the way through their return from geographic exile, ending with a final chapter looking at the New Testament’s story in light of the Old Testament narrative.

Goldingay explains that in the second volume of the series, Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Faith, he focuses on the contemplative writings of the Wisdom literature and the Psalms, looking more explicitly at “the Old Testament’s faith and hope,” and addressing subjects like Israel, God, and the nations (p.28). In the final volume, Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Life, he uses the instructions of the Torah and material from the Psalms to explore the “vision of life” found in the Old Testament, including things like worship, spirituality, and communal ethics (p.28).

Now of course, in a book longer than 800 pages, it’s impossible to bring up all of the interesting themes and features that one might like to discuss. Nevertheless, I do want to look at a few aspects of Goldingay’s work that I found to be noteworthy. He argues that, “The fact that the Old Testament opens with narrative and is dominated by narrative makes narrative form the appropriate starting point for Old Testament theology” (p.32). Broadly speaking, Goldingay avoids extended speculation regarding the sources and traditions that may or may not have made up the “world behind the text,” focusing instead on “the world of the text,” the final canonical form of the Old Testament books, for his theological commentary. He explains:

I have generally not based theological inferences on scholarly theories concerning where, how and why biblical documents came into existence. I try to infer the theological significance of the Old Testament narrative itself, to analyze its discussions of complex theological questionings, and to see what the stories tell us of who God is and who we are. (p.41)

The book as a whole is organized in a theocentric fashion and is structured in a manner that seeks to stick close to the shape of Israel’s story in the Old Testament itself. I appreciate how this can help readers become more familiar with the overarching flow of the Old Testament narrative and avoid getting lost in the weeds of genealogies and other more difficult passages. Goldingay’s prose is for the most part accessible, though the sheer length of this work does mean that some readers may need some extra stamina to successfully reach the end of the book.

Listening to the Old Testament’s Distinctive Voice

In addition to Goldingay’s defense of narrative theology in the Old Testament, I also think it’s worth bringing up the polemical nature of his work. Now by polemical, I’m not talking so much about his treatment of the Old Testament as his conviction regarding the neglect of the Old Testament by the Church (p.23). Rather than listening to the distinctive canonical voice of the Old Testament’s witness regarding faith, he charges that many readers have restricted the Old testament, in practice if not in theory, to providing a backdrop for the writings of the New Testament.

Goldingay is far from alone in making this critique. Joel Green, for example, echoes this concern in Seized by Truth when he notes that “the disestablishment of the place of the Old Testament in the two-testament Christian canon prompts a theological crisis often overlooked” (p.36). Craig Bartholomew similarly asserts that “it is vital that we attend to the discrete witness of each Testament in its own right” in Introducing Biblical Hermeneutics (p.100). Like these other scholars, Goldingay judges that many, if not most, Christians have not truly listened to the distinctive voice of the Old Testament, and this is a pendulum shift that he seeks to correct in this book, which gives his introductory section a distinctively polemical slant.

Because of these concerns, Goldingay tells readers that he won’t be focusing on a number of major interpretative lenses through which many Christians traditionally read the Old Testament. He doesn’t focus on the Old Testament as a “witness to Christ,” or on how “what is concealed in the Old is revealed in the New” (pp.26-27). On this matter, he notes that, “What is concealed from the Old is revealed in the New. What is revealed in the Old is taken for granted in the New” (p.27). Similarly, he avoids spending time on the ways in which events in the Old Testament like the Exodus foreshadow parts of the New Testament. He argues that these events:

[C]ame to be seen as “types” in light of their proving to have that capacity. [However] In the Old Testament events such as the exodus and practices such as sacrifice have significance in themselves, and I want to focus on what we can learn from that. (p.27)

It is natural for Christian readers to shift uncomfortably in reaction to someone resisting Christological readings of the Old Testament, but I think it’s worth reemphasizing that Goldingay is reacting to what he sees as an interpretative overemphasis, not a practice that he wants to rule out completely (at least that’s how I read him). Goldingay’s words here seem to support this:

I am prepared to say that the Old Testament’s insights must be seen in light of those of the New, but only as long as we immediately add that it is just as essential to see the New Testament’s insights in light of those of the Old. (p.21)

There is a difference between saying “I don’t want to focus on this” and “one should not focus on this.” I may be reading Goldingay too charitably, but my intuition is that he is asserting the first statement, rather than the second one. Goldingay’s passion for revitalizing the role of the Old Testament in the conversations and practices of Christian churches leads readers into a number of interesting hermeneutical questions, but the overall point seems to be that he wants to both introduce people to Old Testament theology and correct what he judges to be the harmful neglect of the Old Testament in the rhythms of most Christian churches. He wants them to grapple with the Old Testament text itself. While there area few parts where I worry that his efforts lead to overcorrections, Goldingay nevertheless raises an important point here that I hope isn’t too easily dismissed by critics.

Conclusion

In the writings of the New Testament, we find passages describing the Old Testament as speaking directly of Christ (for example, John 5:46 and Luke 24:27) as well as other passages affirming the ongoing value and significance of the Old Testament in more general terms (I think especially of 2 Timothy 3:16-17 in this regard). It seems to me that Christian readings of the Old Testament are necessarily retrospective: in the light of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, Christians encounter the Old Testament with fresh eyes, discerning meanings and patterns that are brought out by the illuminating light of the Word made flesh. However, such figural readings shouldn’t entail the annihilation of the Old Testament passage’s reality and significance in its own right, as Richard Hays argues in Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (p.14).

For Goldingay, the Old Testament is a forgotten voice that needs, and deserves, to be given more attention. As he puts it, “I want to give the Old Testament its own say in the conviction that it will tell us something that is in the spirit of Christ” (p.24). For the most part Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Gospel accomplishes these goals. Even in the portions that are especially stretching and challenging, wrestling with the text alongside Goldingay makes for a good initiation into the rich world of the Old Testament narrative.

*Disclosure: I received this book free from IVP Academic for review purposes. The opinions I have expressed are my own, and I was not required to write a positive review.

[Trevor]

The title “Old Testament Theology” is somewhat enigmatic because defining exactly what is the task of Old Testament theology and how best to go about doing it, is a question which Old Testament scholars have attempted to flesh out since the beginning of the 20th century. Since scholars have differing conceptions of what an Old Testament theology should look like, a variety of approaches are reflected in previous works. John Goldingay has divided his study into three parts: Israel’s Gospel, Israel’s Faith, and Israel’s Life (forthcoming)

Goldingay has published a plethora of articles, monographs, and commentaries on the Old Testament, and thus his two (massive) volumes are backed by more than 30 years of thoughtful contemplation and interaction with the Old Testament. They are a valuable contribution to Old Testament studies.

Volume one focuses on what he calls “Israel’s gospel story.” His central purpose is to explore what Israel’s own history has to teach us about God. Israel’s story is about what God has done, and since this is recounted in narrative form, the book follows the lead of the Old Testament and thus “amounts to a theological commentary on the Old Testament story” (p. 13). This is what Goldingay calls the “Old Testament’s gospel,” by which he means, how things were, or what God and Israel have done. The book reads much like a story where the author is the narrator, and I felt as if I was on a tour of the Old Testament, stopping at various sites (texts) where my tour guide (the author) would interpolate helpful comments at each site explaining what was before my eyes and the significance it had on my journey through the Old Testament.

Goldingay’s agenda is to “discuss the Old Testament’s own theological content and implications, working with the assumption that the Old Testament is Act I to the New Testament’s Act II…” (pp. 25-26). He does not focus on how the Old Testament is a witness to Christ, points to Christ, or the way what is concealed in the Old is revealed in the New, but aspires to take the Old Testament on its own terms and allow it to speak for itself. By giving the Old Testament its own voice, one is forced to set one’s own theological preferences aside and therefore avoid the temptation to smooth out passages that don’t fit a preconceived theological notion.

The book is divided into 11 chapters which address large portions of the Old Testament story, beginning with creation and ending with the coming of Jesus. Since it is a theology of the Old Testament, Goldingay rightly organizes the chapters so as to keep the focus on God and on his relationship with mankind. Broad chapter headings which emphasize Yhwh’s actions help to structure large sections of the narrative which might otherwise be quite diverse. So for example, chapter 9, which deals with the narrative from Solomon to the exile, is called “God Preserved.” These titles assist the reader in seeing where the author is headed, something I found helpful since each chapter is so long (on average about 90 pages each).

While volume 1 follows the general story line of Genesis-Kings, none of the texts are examined in isolation. For instance, while Genesis 1-2 is the focus of the discussion in chapter two, a variety of texts that allude to creation are examined (e.g. Job 28; Prov 8; Isa 45; Ps 33) alongside the Genesis account. Concerning the ancient Mesopotamian creation tales, Goldingay notes that whereas these ancient myths depict a chaotic commencement of the world, in Genesis the emphasis is on sovereign authority and order.

Goldingay aspires to allow the text to speak for itself. Israel’s history is presented as a narrative and so we should be sensitive to the text’s own dynamic. This is the way it was written and was intended to be read, and thus Goldingay argues for the importance of narrative as a way of doing theology. This method can shed light on some of the more obscure passages. So for example, when the mysterious story of Jephthah and his vow is read within the wider framework of the book of Judges, which repeatedly underscores Israel’s apostasy, the story is “illustrating the way people were doing what was right in their own eyes. Sacrificing a daughter and being unable to see that one might reconsider a stupid promise illustrates that point more powerfully” (p. 580). Therefore, while the individual story may in and of itself be quite puzzling, the wider narrative (i.e. the flow of the book of Judges) helps to dictate the meaning. An approach which takes the mega-narrative of Israel’s history seriously, therefore, can be quite fruitful to the study of Old Testament theology.

In volume two, Goldingay turns to examine what the Scriptures say about the nature and character of God and Israel, rather than focusing on their history and what they have done. He is careful to make the distinction that while the book concentrates on Israel’s faith, it is not concerned with what Israel actually believed, but with what the Old Testament says they should have believed. Thus, the title “Israel’s Faith” may be misleading because in practice, Israel often behaved quite contrary to the teaching of her Scriptures. I anticipate that volume three (“Israel’s Life”) will have much more to say about how Israel actually lived.

In contradistinction to volume one, volume two is arranged topically. Seven main themes are addressed in the book, each of which comprises its own chapter. Chapters 2-3 examine what the Old Testament has to teach us about who God is and who Israel is. The threat of coming disaster is discussed in chapter 4, and the promise of restoration is the topic of chapter 5. In chapter 6 Goldingay explores what the Old Testament has to say about humanity, and then widens the scope of the inquiry by looking at the created world, and then the nations, in the final two chapters. By structuring the book in this way, he avoids the pull to flatten out the text by overly systematizing it and seeks to allow the “categories of thinking be ones that emerge from the First Testament itself” (p. 18). The bulk of the work concentrates on the material found in the Wisdom Books, the Psalms, and the Prophets, since these books make the most explicit statements about God’s and Israel’s character.

He believes current Christians have largely ignored the Old Testament and he repeatedly remarks that they “often treat the New Testament as if it were the Bible” (p. 730). He strongly objects to this and attempts to counter this mistaken notion by taking the Old Testament seriously and by studying it in its own right. Such a minimalist approach to the Old Testament can result in mistaken thinking. For example, since the New Testament has much less to say about the nations than does the Old Testament, Christians could have the tendency to focus on themselves and may not be overly concerned with the nations. Goldingay asserts, however, that “the far more vivid universalism of the First Testament needs close attention,” and the dormancy of missionary thinking in older Protestantism may have been the result of a lack of this (p. 832). He makes the same point about the created world. This theme is far less prominent in the Old Testament than in the New Testament, but this is simply because the latter takes the former for granted and “does not need to repeat everything the First Testament says” (p. 730). For this reason, Goldingay devotes nearly 100 pages to explicating what the Old Testament has to say about the nations. Thus, erroneous theology can be curtailed when both the “First Testament” (the term he uses so as to avoid the implication that the Old Testament is old, outdated, and replaced by the New Testament) and the New Testament are given an equal voice. The Old Testament has very little to say about life after death, but according to Goldingay, this need not be too disturbing. He remarks that the Old Testament is less “me-focused” than modernity and states that, “For the individual Israelite, it is God’s purpose and then Israel’s destiny that matter. One dies, but that does not mean the end of the family to which one belongs, or the community or the people or the purpose of God” (p. 633). There is therefore something valuable for us to learn from this: “Christians’ frequent failure to take this life seriously shows God’s wisdom in delaying the revealing of the resurrection, and it points to the necessity to keep living by the First Testament’s emphasis on this life as well as by the New Testament’s evidence for the resurrection” (p. 646)

Reviewed for The Biblical Theology Briefings by Benjamin A. Foreman. Ben is a Ph.D candidate at the University of Aberdeen.
http://www.beginningwithmoses.org/lib...

[Trevor Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a massive disappointment! And I do mean massive, as this is the first installment in a trio loft where each book is nearly 1,000 pages.

Where to begin with this one? I encountered Goldingay via Christopher Wright, whom I am very fond of. Every quote that Wright used by Goldingay was, well, gold. I had a serious shut up and take my money moment with Amazon and purchased the whole trilogy based on the quotes used in Wright’s works. I should have stuck with the quotes.

First, if I may be so bold and vulgar, Goldingay is a flirt. He flirts with orthodoxy; he flirts with heterodoxy; one never quite knows where Goldingay stands, and when he makes a concrete statement, he is quick to qualify it into oblivion. He seems to reject the sovereignty of God, while at the same time trying to say God is sovereign. He seems to claim that God is in process, figuring things out as they go, yet claims that God is omnipotent. Goldingay’s inability to make a definite statement without heavy qualification leads to some of the most annoying paragraphs in the work, and a possible drinking game. Every time he uses the word perhaps or maybe in a long string of sentences which form a paragraph, take a shot. Perhaps x, perhaps y, perhaps z. Abraham might have thought xx. Buy your booze at Costco, you’ll need that size bottle.

Second, this is a chronological walk through the Old Testament…or is it thematic. At times we are clearly in the stream of OT chronology, but Goldingay makes thematic pit stops along the way that make you lose sight of where you are in the story. He also spends a ton of time in some stories, and not much at all in others. Sure, editing has to happen but his treatment of the Exodus was huge, yet Leviticus was comparatively minuscule (though in a work this size, it was still large).

Finally, I’m disappointed that those gems that I found in Wright’s work are so buried under a mishmash of heresy and prevarication that they are hardly recognizable. They also take on a different character when Big G (as his friends call him) surrounds the good quotes with “but perhaps” statements.

Perhaps I should have bought one book at a time. Perhaps I should have asked around first. Perhaps I should have read some articles of Goldingay’s first to get a feel for the man I would sink 3,000 pages worth of reading into. (Take 3 shots off-screen). But I will continue the series, grudgingly, with a healthy break in between each installment. I’m not looking forward to it though.

[Vanjr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This long theology of the first testament comes from a different theological tradition than my own-which in part is good. There is little reason to read only stuff you agree with or already know. It is LONG but well written. Not a book for a beginner. Indeed the more one knows the Old Testament, the more one will get from reading this text.
I do not agree with everything here, but then who agrees with everything they think themselves? I do hear a man with a like minded perspective and vision. I look forward to reading the other 2 volumes in this 3 volume set. After taking a break to read a few other things.

[Daniel Pearson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a heady book, best read slowly. Probably good to reference sections when studying various passage of the First Testament. It kind of rattles modern readings of the Bible and can be difficult to get through if you're looking for "answers". It does a good job exploring various ideas, but leaves you with more questions than answers, more uneasiness than comfort. For me it's one of those texts that cause you to pause and wrestle with your beliefs and live in the tension of fact and truth.

[Rieneke K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great and in depth commentary to Israel's Gospel. John Goldingay takes you on a journey looking at the good news about God in the Old Testament and who God shows himself to be already in the Old Testament.
Not an easy book to read, but worth making your way through for the great insights and perspectives shared.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

See my full review here: http://wheatonblog.wordpress.com/2013...

In short, Goldingay plays with orthodoxy the way a cat plays with a mouse and defends it under the guise of just following the text. He subscribes to a form of "process theology" that sees God as not omniscient, not omnipotent, and not immutable, or perhaps God is those things in theory but chooses to limit his knowledge and power, and consequently need to change in response to over events. He employs a bizarrely literal hermeneutic when defending these views but eschews literalism for passages that would be problematic for him.

There is very little interaction with other evangelical scholars. Mostly Goldingay rehashes secular and critical scholarly debates often agreeing with the critical "consensus" which is at variance with traditional Christian and evangelical interpretations (e.g., he rejects a "Fall" for Adam and Eve).

He does not hold to inerrancy so so he freely adopts positions that evangelicals would (should) be uncomfortable with.

I do not recommend this book.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly the most outstanding work of Old Testament Theology I have read. Goldingay writes not i9nly with phenomenal erudition but delightful humor. What's not to like?

Sadly at the moment I can't afford his second volume (or perhaps the two years I'd need top tead it!).

[Susie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Partially read. Good OT commentary.

[Maer]

Reading

[Andrew Franklin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goldingay knocked this one out of the park. The Gospel is often not associated with Israel, but this book shows God's redeeming love is present throughout time.

[Stephen J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

review published in Toronto Journal of Theology, 28/2 (Fall, 2012).

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very thick account of the narrative of the Old Testament. Really interesting, fleshing out the details. Perhaps close to open theology as it portrays the story unfolding.