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Tradition and testament: Essays in honor of Charles Lee Feinberg

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Dr. Charles Feinburg is a scholar and the people that have contributed articles compiled in this book are outstanding. The book essentially deals with a lot of Old Testament materials. I happen to take interest at John Feinburg's article on "Old Testament Salvation". This book was truly helpful as I was working on a paper for Adavenced Biblical Studies, on the very same topic.

Old Testament studies are not on the forefront of many people's minds today, particularly given the "hot action" is over in Pauline studies. Regardless, studying the Tanach provides a foundation for any Christians, particularly for the Christian scholar, and Charles Feinberg is one of the best known, and widely respected among Old Testament scholars.

This particular book, Tradition & Testament, is a festschrift, a collection of essays in honor of Charles Feinberg. As such, not every student is going to find every essay of equal value or worth in their studies, regardless of the overall quality and tenor of the essays themselves. The nice thing about a collection of essays, however, is that you can take the pieces that make sense to you now, and leave the rest for later, when you're studying a particular topic. Now if they only had this collection in Logos --but alas, they don't.

The book is organized into four parts, hermeneutical and theological issues, exegetical issues, textual and linguistic issues, and finally a set of integrative essays. The first and second sections will be the most useful to the layman or moderately involved student; the third is really best left to deep students of Hebrew. The final section provides a solid wrap up, though it tends to remain on the rather technical plane of the third section. A few of these essays are highlighted below to give the reader a sense of the collection.

Salvation in the Old Testament argues that dispensationalists do not believe in two ways of salvation, but rather that salvation is, and always has been, through faith in the word of God. The content of faith has changed over the years, but not the object of faith. This has a direct bearing on our understanding of the Mosaic Law, and the sacrifices performed under it, as well the interaction between Christ and the Mosaic Law.

The Theology of the Balaam Oracles is a very interesting look at the greatness of God in Numbers 22-24. The talking donkey is placed within the larger context of the oracles themselves, and the use of the oracles within the writings of the Apostles, to show that the primary focus of Balaam's oracles is the glory and faithfulness of God to Israel, particularly in the midst of their rebellions.

An Exegetical and Theological Study of Daniel 9:24-27 lays out a number of possible interpretations of the 70 weeks of Daniels' prophecy, and finally showing how only a futuristic eschatological fulfillment will fit the actual context.

Overall, this is a well written set of essays, if a bit technical for the lay reader. Well worth reading.