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What is the Old Testament?

The Bible in the Christian tradition consists of both the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT). In the Jewish tradition the OT is called the Hebrew Bible (HB). In the Christian Protestant churches the OT and HB consist of the same books. The Catholic Bible includes other books in the Apocrypha (e.g., 1-2 Maccabees, Sirach). The ordering and arrangement of the books differ between the OT and the HB. The details will be presented in a later chapter. This course will focus on the 39 books shared by the Protestant OT and the Jewish HB.

The Aim of this Site Lab

The chief aim of this Site Lab is to introduce university students to the writings of the OT within their historical and literary contexts. In the process, students will be introduced to the field of modern biblical studies, which has thrived as an academic discipline since the end of the European Enlightenment. In the last two centuries we have learned a great deal about the world in which the OT was created, and the long road of modification and preservation that it has traveled since its authorship. Great insights from archaeology, philology, literary studies, social sciences, history, and religious studies have informed and continue to inform our understanding of the Bible.

In contrast to other introductions to the OT, many of which are excellent educational resources, the uniqueness of this book largely lies in its digital presentation. Alongside written information that is standard for most introductions, the student has access to:

HD photography of artifacts, sites, inscriptions, scrolls, manuscripts, architecture and artwork
Digital videos of interviews with and comments by scholars
Digital and interactive maps, diagrams, charts, timelines and primary source texts
Hyperlinks to related resources and sites for foundational and advanced information
Extensive bibliography for further research
Self-assessments for each chapter, section, and the course as a whole, with comprehensive reports and analytics sent to instructors

Why is a Historical Study of the Old Testament Important?

There is no question that these writings have brought peace, freedom, happiness, healing, meaning and identity to millions for millennia, but the OT has also seen the negative side of religion.

With so much variation among believers and their friends and enemies, there is an urgent need to step back and try to understand these ancient writings in their own contexts. This is not to discredit cherished interpretations or beliefs, or even some of the fears. The aim, instead, is to treat these writings with deep respect.

This means that since they are writings, attention needs to paid to their literary character, such as genre, plot, rhetoric, themes, just to mention a few. Since they are ancient writings, written thousands of years ago, they need to be considered along with their original historical contexts, with all the cultural, social, and political dimensions that characterize the world around them. And since they are religious writings, they need to be interpreted within the religious dynamic of the times in which they developed.

A historical reading allows each of the OT writings to stand on its own. This means that in this book they are not interpreted as a collection, but as individual writings. Reading the writings as a collection is a "theological" or "canonical" approach and is often aimed at achieving theological cohesion. In a historical approach, differing points of view, no matter how controversial and difficult, emerge on occasion. For example, we will see that the issue of monotheism is not as clear cut as many modern believers have been told. This is a concept that seems to have developed in stages from within a polytheistic world and initial outlook.

In a historical approach, this difference is allowed to stand, whereas in a canonical approach, there tends to be a concerted effort to reconcile these into a single meaning. The first approach does not necessarily negate the second (that is a faith decision), but it can often increase the richness and depth of biblical understanding both for Christians and for those interested in the Old Testament for other reasons.

The Tension between Scholarship and Faith

The historical approach to the OT is not regarded as the final or the only kind of reading for most Christians. A historical approach has tremendous benefits, but it is limited. While it can open up the world of the writer to the modern reader and reveal valuable information about the writings, it cannot theologically unify the ideas in the writings or explain how these writings are spiritually relevant to the modern Christian. Relying on a historical reading alone can result in fragmentation, potentially turning “the Bible” into a set of individual texts - and that is not how Christianity views the Bible.

However, a historical approach should be appropriated as the initial step in the development of a foundational knowledge of the OT. The search for what the writings meant should be an indispensable part in the spiritual search for what they are taken to mean today.

The tension between historical knowledge and belief is a conflicting issue for many Christian university students who encounter biblical scholarship for the first time in their lives. The main reason that the writings of the Bible have been subjected to so much investigation is because they are believed to be religiously authoritative; yet it is often this characteristic that is suspended in historical investigation. We can be assured that if these writings were not regarded as sacred scripture today (as is the case with other early writings like the Hammurabi Code), introductions like this one would probably not be written, at least not as often. Likewise, most universities would not offer introductory courses on the OT.

The study of the Bible in scholarship has traditionally differed from its use within the context of Christian devotion and worship (the same can be said about the Torah in Judaism). Rarely do the two merge; and when they do, conflict tends to erupt, because in each case the Bible is approached from an entirely different set of assumptions. In scholarship, the books of the Bible are studied like other ancient books. Each book is read within its historical and literary context. Historians collect and evaluate sources that are publicly attainable and available to anyone, not just a particular group. On the basis of those records, they try to reconstruct the past. Reconstructions, however, are only probable and thus they are called theories. These theories or scenarios are presented publicly and are open to scrutiny. Thus, they are what scholars call “falsifiable” or “testable” conclusions. As a result, theories can be altered as new evidence is presented. Nothing is hidden.

For example, a historian can demonstrate how one religion differs from another, but he or she cannot prove or disprove which religion is true or false, if either. Nor can a historian prove or disprove whether God inspired the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas, or any other sacred writing. Similarly, historical knowledge can be used to explain why Jesus was arrested and executed, but it cannot tell us whether his death atoned for the sins of the world. Finally, Isaiah’s prophecies are interpreted within political, cultural, linguistic, and religious contexts, and so the prophecies are understood to be referring to events in the prophet’s day – context determines the meaning.

This is quite different from the way that most devout Christians read their Bibles. Putting it simply in order to clarify the difference, when the Bible is read in Christian devotion, the assumption is that it is eternally true in what it says because it records the words of God. The writing is perfect, containing no contradictions – and anything that looks like a contradiction can be explained with the right inspiration, revelation or interpretation. The task of the reader (or reading community) is to decode the Bible to see how God is speaking to us in our time. Historical or literary contexts do not affect the meaning because the meaning is believed to be eternal. In a devotional reading, the prophecy of Isaiah, for example, is inevitably pointing to Christ – even though there is no explicit mention of this anywhere in Isaiah.

This kind of reading is not new. It has, in fact, been the standard practice of reading sacred texts in both Judaism and Christianity since their inception. It is the kind of reading that we see practiced among the New Testament writers. The practice is pervasive, but it is explicitly described only in a handful of passages (e.g. Luke 24:17; John 5:39, 46; 2 Tim 3:15). What we see is a complete disinterest for the original context of the scriptures (the OT for today’s Christians) because the underlying assumption was that all scripture points to Christ, who is the fulfillment of the hopes expressed in the OT. The “sacredness” of the writings lies within the realm of faith, which has its own tools of evaluation, but these are not the tools of the historian. Claims and beliefs about the Bible being the “word of God” or “inspired by God,” are neither theories nor are they falsifiable. They can be neither proven nor dis-proven using the tools and methods available to the historian.

Both the historian and theologian have valuable information and perspectives, and neither should be discarded. They can be mutually beneficial and their areas of study can overlap, but the student should be aware of their distinctive quests. Moreover, maintaining a distinction (not a separation) between history and theology does not mean that the historian cannot have religious faith, or that the person of faith cannot be a good historian. Contemporary biblical studies is replete with historians who are either Jewish or Christian (and sometimes another religion altogether - or none). Even so, most recognize that the collection and evaluation of data must be accessible to all peoples, no matter what their religious presuppositions.

How is Our Culture Different?

Perhaps the most important point that needs to be communicated to many modern readers of the OT is that these writings emerged in a vastly different world from that in the West. At the root of these differences lies a cultural divide. Modern Christians in the West live in a secular age, whereas the Hebrews and earliest Christians lived in ages that seamlessly fused the supernatural with the natural. In his valuable book A Secular Age, Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor is guided by the question “why was it virtually impossible not to believe in God in, say, 1500 in our Western society, while in 2000 many of us find this not only easy, but even inescapable?”

The question can easily incorporate the centuries and millennia prior to the 16th century. Taylor, like the well-known sociologist Max Weber before him, argues that over the span of five hundred years we have passed from a view of the world that was “enchanted” to one that is “disenchanted.” What he means by this is that the enchanted world of our predecessors fused the natural world with divine purpose and action to the extent that natural and personal disasters as well as prosperity and progress (e.g. agricultural success or degree of personal health) were viewed as acts of God. Storms and other natural occurrences were commonly anthropomorphized as gods, because there was no other explanation at hand.

The fusion also extends to the social sphere whose authority structure (e.g. law, morality, and political structure) was viewed as divinely sanctioned. In the enchanted world, meaning was understood as being present in objects and/or agents independent of us. The individual was “porous” in the sense that she or he was vulnerable to agents (e.g. spirits) and/or objects (e.g. relics) by virtue of the intrinsic causal power of these beings. The distinctions between sin and sickness, and health and holiness, were often blurred. In other words, that which made one holy was often the same force that made one physically well. People often viewed gods as something like feudal lords, ruling over cities or territories as far as their power could reach and control the inhabitants of these lands. Some areas were under dispute, such as coastal areas where storm and sea gods fought with those overseeing the land.

By contrast, today we make distinctions that were unthinkable prior to 1500 CE. Most people today do not view natural events as direct acts of gods. Our societal structures are democratic with many more built-in accountability and human rights variables that have emerged out of past human struggle against traditional authoritative structures. The sciences and social sciences have completely altered the way we view the universe, the earth, our societies, and each other.

Today, meaning is viewed as stemming from the mind in the sense that events and objects awaken a variety of responses in us, often based on past experiences. Nonetheless, religious belief today is still situated within a plurality of options that are constantly bumping up against one another. As a result, doubt, argumentation for or against faith, and even mediating explanations are part of the contemporary life of faith. Just as some of today’s alternatives were unthinkable prior to 1500, so it is unthinkable that the secularism of Western culture might return to its enchanted roots.

As a result, this text is aimed at a wide audience. Students who profess religious faith will find this text to be a helpful resource that supplements their devotional reading of the OT by bringing the biblical text into another contextual sphere; and students who do not profess religious faith will find that the writings will come to life as they are placed back into the time and culture from which they emerged. For everyone who is new to modern OT studies, this Site Lab will hopefully deepen and enrich your understanding of these ancient sacred writings that have not only influenced countless lives spiritually, but have also shaped the ideas, culture, ethics and laws of the Western world.