Fantastic overview of how to read the Old Testament with respect for its context and intentions. Hernández gives wonderfully in-depth examples and illustrated the best practices for reading the Old Testament as Christian Scripture.

Unfortunately, I did not have time to read the whole book before it was removed from NetGalley. However, I am confident that this will be a valuable book for undergraduate Old Testament classes. I greatly enjoy Hernández's work.

Engaging the Old Testament: How to Read Biblical Narrative, Poetry, and Prophecy Well by Dominick S. Hernández is a book I can’t recommend enough!
The Old Testament is important to read and engage with but I know some who feel as though it is too difficult to understand or doesn’t hold the same relevance today as the New Testament but that could not be farther from the truth.
Hernández goes through how to read the Old Testament humbly, successively, entirely and deliberately. Going through different passages in the Old Testament to show how this would look and how we can better understand what is being communicated as a result.
There is great insight to the Old Testament that is provided from different examples and the use of storytelling by Hernández.
If you have ever wanted to read the Old Testament more but don’t know where to begin this is a great book for you! If you love the Old Testament this is still a great book for you as you may learn more about certain passages as they are broken up by Hernández humbly, successively, entirely and deliberately! There is a lot in each chapter so I would recommend taking your time as you read through this so you can fully digest the material.

There are a lot of approached to reading the Old Testament and all of them have their limits. As a collection of text within a variety of genres and translated from a different language and culture, it is fairly easy to mistake the intended message of the original scribe, especially when you break in down into small pericopes that are divorced of the surrounding context and inserted directly into today’s culture. Engaging the Old Testament goes in the other direction, suggesting a holistic reading of each text in order to recover the original context and message as interpreted by the original audience.

The book begins with instruction on How to read the Old Testament; which is to be humble and open to new interpretations as well as a commitment to reading the whole text as the original redactor intended in order to be how each part interacts with each other. “We cannot dismiss or evade any part of these texts for any reason and are compelled to engage with them as we would the New Testament.” This can be challenging when faced with particularly difficult stories involving violence et al where the temptation to gloss over or even ignore seems counter to the Christian understanding of a Loving God. In other words, there is still an important message in there and the ignored text is important to teasing that out and understanding the whole. The last 2/3rds of the book provides several solid examples of how this works; the only caveat being the presumption or mental framework (aka bias) that would help resolve the intentional tension created by the text and unlock the complete message. For me the key is my understanding of a loving Creator and an intentional plan for reconciling a fallen world to Himself (YMMV).

1. What’s the Old Testament “God” to Do with Me?
2. The Commitment to Really Reading
3. From Talking Tablets to Tabernacle to Today
4. Reading from Today Back to the Text
5. The Confessions of a Close Reader
6. How the Old Testament is Told: Narrative
7. Learning to Love the Law
8. Seeds of Remembrance
9. Redeeming Rahab the Conqueror
10. Why Is the Book of Judges So Weird?
11. Hannah and Ruth: Mothers of the Monarchy
12. King David’s True Legacy
13. Divided Allegiances to Divided Kingdom: The Tragedy of King Solomon
14. How Biblical Poets Wrote Poetry: The Importance of Parallelism
15. How Biblical Poets Wrote Poetry: The Proliferation of Metaphors
16. Metaphors and Retributive Justice in the Poetry of Job
17. How Prophets Prophesy
18. How Engage Poetic Prophecy
19. Who Is Isaiah’s Suffering Servant?

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
#EngagingtheOldTestament #NetGalley