Got bitten by the Old Testament bug today. Stephen Dempster is one of the OT guys I deeply admire. Dempster and Sailhamer are two the very few OT scholars that truly appreciates the OT text as it is given to us, and try to understand just as it is. Dempster’s book, Dominion and Dynasty, is a great introductory text to this task (Here’s the first chapter).
Gospel Coalition interviewed him when the book came out. The following answer to the question “How would you summarize your book’s argument in one paragraph?”
The Crown of God’s creation is clearly humanity, which is made in God’s very own image and invested with regal authority to rule all of his creation on planet earth. In the beginning there was perfect harmony between God, humanity, and the world. Adam and Eve fell from this regal position when they rebelled against God by listening to the Serpent. The world was plunged into death and chaos under the Serpent’s rule. God promised to restore the lost glory of humanity and creation by sending a human descendant to dethrone and defeat the Serpent, thus reinstalling humanity to its rightful regal role over creation. Consequently, two important themes that dominate the Old Testament stories are land and lineage, and are thus inextricably interconnected. Thus the concern for both in the early chapters of Genesis. Adam and Eve are exiled from Eden, and their hopes focus on a child. Genealogies become extremely important. At the end of the first major genealogy of the Bible, there is a hope expressed in the birth of a child for salvation from the curse upon the creation (Gen. 5:29). When Abram and Sarai appear on the scene, they are chosen by God to be the agents through which the lost glory of creation will be restored, and thus two of the major promises to them are land and descendants. In fact in the ensuing narrative, which focuses on the nation of Israel, the ultimate threats will become exile and barrenness. Eventually the hopes crystallize on the promise of a royal descendant through whom the lost glory of humanity and creation will be restored. Thus the storyline points to David and his line. The lengthy genealogies in the first book of the Bible that point in this Davidic direction are resumed in the last book of the Hebrew Bible, showing that every hope is pinned on David. This last book, Chronicles, begins with nine chapters of genealogies. The genealogies essentially summarize history from Adam to David. With David, the story begins!
How many Bible-reading persons do you know that can tell you the significance of “land” and “genealogies” in the Bible? These are the things that are skipped. Therein lies one of the most useful things about this book.
What came up when I googled “Old Testament.” I was expecting a smart phone instead of a scroll.
There’s peril in this kind of approach in general, though. Thinking about OT from a compositional perspective necessarily involves decisions on its order; and the typical charge is that it is hard to avoid some level of arbitrariness in this process. M. Daniel Carroll R. of Denver seminary writes that
Why TchoTose a sequence from the Talmud without entertaining the Hebrew canon that students will have in their possession? It would be an interesting exercise to see how this book might look if that were the basis of this theology. Nevertheless, at least he raises the issue of a different Jewish canon, something most students are not aware of. In addition, one wonders if the claim that the Major Prophets, the Twelve, and a good portion of the Writings were designed to serve as a ‘commentary’ on the historical material is not also arbitrary.
Nevertheless, a worthwhile volume to pick up indeed.
reformed notebook 