Customer Reviews

An Introduction to the Old Testament: Second Edition

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`An Introduction to the Old Testament' by Longman and Dillard is an outstanding survey of the Old Testament from a moderate conservative perspective. The following comments are offered for potential purchasers.

Structure - The text provides a book-by-book analysis of the Protestant Old Testament, including a bibliography, discussion of authorship, literary analysis and theological analysis for each individual book. At a little over 500 pages it has the right detail for an introduction, comprehensive yet not overly detailed. At the same time, for readers seeking more, the authors do a nice job of surfacing key issues that warrant further study. Approaching the text from a non-reformed perspective I would have appreciated inclusion of the Deuterocanonical or apocryphal books.

Bibliographies - Though it is always a challenge to strike the right balance between the competing desires to be both comprehensive and detailed, I would have preferred a smaller more detailed list of recommendations.

Theology - The authors represent a moderate reformed position, advocating divine inspiration, while also engaging with relevant aspects of critical scholarship. As most readers are likely aware, in this field `critical scholarship' is a rather technical term - critical in the narrow sense of opposing traditional views - not critical in a broader more neutral sense. Indeed, critical biblical scholarship is quite dogmatic, often, ironically, more so than its non-critical counterpart.

Overall, this text is highly recommended for readers seeking a scholarly introduction to the Old Testament. Additionally, there are a plethora of outstanding MP3 lectures available from itunes (Reformed Theological Seminary, Concordia Seminary, Covenant Theological Seminary, Yale, etc.), that readers may find helpful.

An Introduction to the Old Testament, Second Edition

The target audience for this book is seminary students. I am not a seminary student or a Bible College graduate, but after reading many reviews I thought this book would be helpful to me, and it is. I use it as a supplement to my study Bible.

An Introduction to the Old Testament has an introduction chapter followed by one chapter for each book of the Old Testament. The Introduction chapter lets you know the perspective of the authors (Protestant and evangelical), what they are trying to accomplish, and how the subsequent chapters are organized. Some other authors deny the existence of any supernatural divine activity, but these authors recognize and respect the supernatural and the divine. The introduction presents some information related to hermeneutics, regarding the culture and context of the Old Testament.

Each chapter following the introduction reads much like the notes at the beginning of a Study Bible, but with a little more breadth and depth. The major divisions that are included in every chapter are Historical Background, Literary Analysis, Theological Message, and Approaching the New Testament. Some chapters have additional major divisions for Alternative Critical Views (Genesis), Evaluation of the Critical Reviews (Genesis), Ancient Near Eastern Background (Genesis), and Text-Critical Issues (Samuel). The Historical Background section is usually the longest and includes a discussion of various theories about who was the author. Longman and Dillard present the critical scholarship and other views in a distant, third-person tone that is almost void of emotion. They very gently put forward their own view. The discussion of the authorship of Genesis reveals their tone and their view. "It is difficult to say when the new consensus will be or even if a consensus will emerge, but it is certain that the alternative will not be a return to a precritical acceptance of Mosaic authorship with only minute exceptions (the so-called a- and post- Mosaica) or to anything like a classic documentary approach. .... Evangelical scholars recognize that the Pentateuch contains pre-Mosaic sources as well as post-Mosaic glosses. ... In the final analysis, it is possible to affirm the substantial Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch in line with the occasional internal evidence and the strong external testimony, while allowing for earlier sources as well as later glosses and elaboration. ... In any case, our concern is the final form of the text, since that is what God has given the church as canon for its edification." So they are willing to look at various authorship theories, but they believe that God inspired the authoring process and the Bible we now have is from Him and is in the form that He intended.

The book has a lengthy bibliography for each division of the introduction chapter, plus another bibliography for each of the subsequent chapters that deal with one book of the Old Testament. These bibliographies are not annotated, so I can only guess, based on the title, what is in each reference and what its perspective is. Some books are listed in many chapter bibliographies. An annotated bibliography for the whole book would be helpful.

There is not much discussion of the Old Testament as a whole. It does not have a table to identify the Books of the Law (Pentateuch), Books of History, Books of Wisdom, Books of the Major Prophets, and Books of the Minor Prophets. It is assumed that the reader knows this. It does not give an overview of how the history books and prophecy books line up chronologically. Each chapter discusses the date of authorship and the dates of the events in view, but there is not a global view of the chronology.

I read a lot of Amazon reviews of books about the Old Testament before selecting this one. I am satisfied with it, and I don't know of a better book for me. I am considering a future purchase of A Biblical History of Israel by Provan, Long, and Longman, to get a consolidated view of the history of the Old Testament era.

Professor's Dillard and Longman's Introduction to the Old Testament is an outstanding resource for understanding the literary, theological, and historical background of every Old Testament book. It is evangelical in its perspective, yet interacts with historical - cricial methods of interpretation that have been prominent over the past 100 + years or so.

A typical overview of each Old Testament book will start with an overview, useful commentaries and articles for each book, the historical background (date, author, and purpose), a literary analysis of the structure of the book, its theological message and how it applies to the New Testament.

The reader of the book will find an outstanding reference book for understanding and studying the individual books of the Old Testament. A real strength of this book is its description of the literary style of a book and what that means for the reader. Yet, the authors warn wisely that while it is important to take into account the book's literary context for the reader, the importance of understanding a particular Old Testament book, the importance of placing literary context within the historical context is paramount.

The authors make solid use of previous scholarship in their introductions for each book, even wisely dividing what is useful from the neo-orthodox and critical scholars and what is not.

This reference book will be of great use to ministers, lay teachers and the general student of the Bible.

I read Longman and Dillard's "Introduction to the Old Testament" as an assigned text for three Old Testament seminary courses. Overall, it was a helpful book to provide some introductory information about all of the Old Testament books. To their credit, Longman and Dillard are able to engage with the critical scholarship while maintaining a truly evangelical voice. I appreciated that they were willing to question and rethink some particular evangelical positions when the evidence did not support them, but they were also unwilling to blindly subscribe to the critical scholarly consensus when it blatantly conflicted with the biblical witness. Though some would surely be suspicious of this approach, I think it's particularly helpful to take both the biblical text and the scholarly analysis seriously, and Longman and Dillard do this well.

My primary critique of the book is the balance of the time the authors spend in those two worlds of the biblical text and the critical scholarship. Frankly, I do not think an introductory textbook should be focused primarily on pointing out the various positions of critical scholarship. I wanted to read about the Old Testament. It just seemed to me that many of the chapters in this book leaned far too heavily in the direction of the scholarship and skimmed through the actual biblical text. I would have preferred a summary of the scholarship and more analysis of the biblical text, whereas their approach often felt like in-depth analysis of the scholarship and a summary of the biblical text.

As a point of comparison, I found Norman Geisler's "A Popular Survey of the Old Testament" to deal much more significantly with the biblical text, and I wish that Longman and Dillard had leaned more in that direction. But Geisler also ignores the critical scholarly too readily, so he would have benefited from Longman and Dillard's engagement with those disparate voices. Ultimately, I suppose I'd like an approach somewhere between that of Geisler and Longman/Dillard. The best balance that I've ever found is David Howard's "An Introduction to the Old Testament Historical Books," though this only covers one section of the OT.

In conclusion, Longman and Dillard's book is relatively accessible, intellectually honest, and biblically faithful. It's certainly a helpful resource. I just wish that they had shifted some of their emphases to more significantly unpack the OT text, as they surely would have had some more helpful stuff to offer.

This introduction is a necessary tool for OT studies. It helps to lay a solid foundation to the understanding of the OT, especially a conservative perspective. The authors provided a bridge to the NT which is helpful to the Christian community in understanding the significance of OT messages actualized in NT, of course in Jesus. This is biblical theology in action. The entire presentation is in unity and a strongly related to NT. The concept of actualization is skillfully displayed in the scholarship. The only dissatisfaction is that the scholarship is vividly conservative. It would be a perfect mastepiece if discussion of critical scholarship is included in commensurable extend. Of course, this is pushing it.

It is after all, a good introduction to OT studies with a theological perspective. That is why, it is given a 5 stars.

This is a pretty good book. It tends to be more liberal in its theology and interpretation, but presents various views in a mostly unbiased manner.

I had a great experience with this purchase. I received it on-time and at a great price! Thank you for your service!

One feature that immediately sets this book apart from other introductions to the Old Testament is the careful attention to even-handedness with which the authors present the background information for each of the books found within. While many studies are typically plagued by what some would call a liberal or conservative bent, the authors are clearly sensitive to all opinions and present them without disdain or condescending language. The bibliographies that open each chapter are relevant and allow the interested student to explore other groundbreaking and relevant work on specific books. Perhaps the only feature that seemed nonessential was a section that repeats in each chapter highlighting the Old Testament book's application to New Testament scripture. This may be a welcome edition for the Christian reader, but for someone who is approaching the book from a different perspective or religious commitment, these sections may not meet with the same enthusiasm.

Remembering that this is an introduction, it doesn't broach every detail. However, the student will find himself going back to this book again and again as a solid point of reference.

This book is a great resource for starting your studies. The authors give a great overview and guideline to the Bible. Many cross references lead you to further detail as you require.

the book arrived on time and in great condition. I would buy from this seller again.