The Old Testament_A Very Short Introduction

Home > Other > The Old Testament_A Very Short Introduction > Page 1
The Old Testament_A Very Short Introduction Page 1

by Michael D. Coogan




  The Old Testament: A Very Short Introduction

  VERY SHORT INTRODUCTIONS are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in more than 25 languages worldwide.

  The series began in 1995, and now represents a wide variety of topics in history, philosophy, religion, science, and the humanities. Over the next few years it will grow to a library of around 200 volumes — a Very Short Introduction to everything from ancient Egypt and Indian philosophy to conceptual art and cosmology.

  Very Short Introductions available now:

  AFRICAN HISTORY John Parker and

  Richard Rathbone

  AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTIES

  AND ELECTIONS L. Sandy Maisel

  THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY

  Charles O. Jones

  ANARCHISM Colin Ward

  ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw

  ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Julia Annas

  ANCIENT WARFARE

  Harry Sidebottom

  ANGLICANISM Mark Chapman

  THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE John Blair

  ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia

  ANTISEMITISM Steven Beller

  ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn

  ARCHITECTURE Andrew Ballantyne

  ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes

  ART HISTORY Dana Arnold

  ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland

  THE HISTORY OF

  ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin

  ATHEISM Julian Baggini

  AUGUSTINE Henry Chadwick

  BARTHES Jonathan Culler

  BESTSELLERS John Sutherland

  THE BIBLE John Riches

  THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea

  BRITISH POLITICS Anthony Wright

  BUDDHA Michael Carrithers

  BUDDHISM Damien Keown

  BUDDHIST ETHICS Damien Keown

  CAPITALISM James Fulcher

  THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe

  CHAOS Leonard Smith

  CHOICE THEORY Michael Allingham

  CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson

  CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead

  CLASSICS

  Mary Beard and John Henderson

  CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY

  Helen Morales

  CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard

  THE COLD WAR Robert McMahon

  CONSCIOUSNESS Susan Blackmore

  CONTEMPORARY ART

  Julian Stallabrass

  CONTINENTAL

  PHILOSOPHY Simon Critchley

  COSMOLOGY Peter Coles

  THE CRUSADES Christopher Tyerman

  CRYPTOGRAPHY

  Fred Piper and Sean Murphy

  DADA AND SURREALISM

  David Hopkins

  DARWIN Jonathan Howard

  THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS Timothy Lim

  DEMOCRACY Bernard Crick

  DESCARTES Tom Sorell

  DESIGN John Heskett

  DINOSAURS David Norman

  DOCUMENTARY FILM

  Patricia Aufderheide

  DREAMING J. Allan Hobson

  DRUGS Leslie Iversen

  THE EARTH Martin Redfern

  ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta

  EGYPTIAN MYTH Geraldine Pinch

  EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY

  BRITAIN Paul Langford

  THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball

  EMOTION Dylan Evans

  EMPIRE Stephen Howe

  ENGELS Terrell Carver

  ETHICS Simon Blackburn

  THE EUROPEAN UNION

  John Pinder and Simon Usherwood

  EVOLUTION

  Brian and Deborah Charlesworth

  EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn

  FASCISM Kevin Passmore

  FEMINISM Margaret Walters

  THE FIRST WORLD WAR

  Michael Howard

  FOSSILS Keith Thomson

  FOUCAULT Gary Gutting

  FREE WILL Thomas Pink

  THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

  William Doyle

  FREUD Anthony Storr

  FUNDAMENTALISM Malise Ruthven

  GALILEO Stillman Drake

  GAME THEORY Ken Binmore

  GANDHI Bhikhu Parekh

  GEOPOLITICS Klaus Dodds

  GERMAN LITERATURE Nicholas Boyle

  GLOBAL CATASTROPHES Bill McGuire

  GLOBALIZATION Manfred Steger

  GLOBAL WARMING Mark Maslin

  THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE

  NEW DEAL Eric Rauchway

  HABERMAS James Gordon Finlayson

  HEGEL Peter Singer

  HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood

  HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson

  HINDUISM Kim Knott

  HISTORY John H. Arnold

  HIV/AIDS Alan Whiteside

  HOBBES Richard Tuck

  HUMAN EVOLUTION Bernard Wood

  HUMAN RIGHTS Andrew Clapham

  HUME A. J. Ayer

  IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden

  INDIAN PHILOSOPHY Sue Hamilton

  INTELLIGENCE Ian J. Deary

  INTERNATIONAL

  MIGRATION Khalid Koser

  INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

  Paul Wilkinson

  ISLAM Malise Ruthven

  JOURNALISM Ian Hargreaves

  JUDAISM Norman Solomon

  JUNG Anthony Stevens

  KABBALAH Joseph Dan

  KAFKA Ritchie Robertson

  KANT Roger Scruton

  KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner

  THE KORAN Michael Cook

  LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews

  LITERARY THEORY Jonathan Culler

  LOCKE John Dunn

  LOGIC Graham Priest

  MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner

  THE MARQUIS DE SADE John Phillips

  MARX Peter Singer

  MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers

  MEDICAL ETHICS Tony Hope

  MEDIEVAL BRITAIN

  John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths

  MODERN ART David Cottington

  MODERN CHINA Rana Mitter

  MODERN IRELAND Senia Pašeta

  MOLECULES Philip Ball

  MUSIC Nicholas Cook

  MYTH Robert A. Segal

  NATIONALISM Steven Grosby

  THE NEW TESTAMENT AS

  LITERATURE Kyle Keefer

  NEWTON Robert Iliffe

  NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner

  NINETEENTH-CENTURY

  BRITAIN Christopher Harvie

  and H. C. G. Matthew

  NORTHERN IRELAND

  Marc Mulholland

  THE OLD TESTAMENT

  Michael Coogan

  PARTICLE PHYSICS Frank Close

  PAUL E. P. Sanders

  PHILOSOPHY Edward Craig

  PHILOSOPHY OF LAW Raymond Wacks

  PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

  Samir Okasha

  PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards

  PLATO Julia Annas

  POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY David Miller

  POLITICS Kenneth Minogue

  POSTCOLONIALISM Robert Young

  POSTMODERNISM Christopher Butler

  POSTSTRUCTURALISM

  Catherine Belsey

  PREHISTORY Chris Gosden

  PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY

  Catherine Osborne

  PSYCHIATRY Tom Burns

  PSYCHOLOGY

  Gillian Butler and Freda McManus

  THE QUAKERS Pink Dandelion

  QUANTUM THEORY

  John Polkinghorne

  RACISM Ali Rattansi

  THE RENAISSANCE Jerry Brotton

  RENAISSANCE ART

  Geraldine A. Johnson

  ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway

  THE ROMAN EMPIRE

  Christopher Kelly
r />   ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler

  RUSSELL A. C. Grayling

  RUSSIAN LITERATURE Catriona Kelly

  THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

  S. A. Smith

  SCHIZOPHRENIA

  Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone

  SCHOPENHAUER

  Christopher Janaway

  SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer

  SIKHISM Eleanor Nesbitt

  SOCIAL AND CULTURAL

  ANTHROPOLOGY

  John Monaghan and Peter Just

  SOCIALISM Michael Newman

  SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce

  SOCRATES C. C. W. Taylor

  THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

  Helen Graham

  SPINOZA Roger Scruton

  STUART BRITAIN John Morrill

  TERRORISM Charles Townshend

  THEOLOGY David F. Ford

  THE HISTORY OF TIME

  Leofranc Holford-Strevens

  TRAGEDY Adrian Poole

  THE TUDORS John Guy

  TWENTIETH-CENTURY

  BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan

  THE VIKINGS Julian Richards

  WITTGENSTEIN A. C. Grayling

  WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman

  THE WORLD TRADE

  ORGANIZATION

  Amrita Narlikar

  Available soon:

  1066

  George Garnett

  EXPRESSIONISM

  Katerina Reed-Tsocha

  GALAXIES

  John Gribbin

  GEOGRAPHY

  John Matthews and David Herbert

  HISTORY OF LIFE

  Michael Benton

  HISTORY OF MEDICINE

  William Bynum

  LAW

  Raymond Wacks

  THE MEANING OF LIFE

  Terry Eagleton

  MEMORY

  Jonathan Foster

  MORMONISM

  Richard Lyman Bushman

  NELSON MANDELA

  Elleke Boehmer

  NUCLEAR WEAPONS

  Joseph M. Siracusa

  SCIENCE AND RELIGION

  Thomas Dixon

  SEXUALITY

  Véronique Mottier

  THE UNITED NATIONS

  Jussi M. Hanhimäki

  THE VIETNAM WAR

  Mark Atwood Lawrence

  For more information visit our websites

  www.oup.com/uk/vsi

  www.oup.com/us

  THE OLD TESTAMENT

  A Very Short Introduction

  Michael Coogan

  Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further

  Oxford University’s objective of excellence

  in research, scholarship, and education.

  Oxford New York

  Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi

  Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi

  New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto

  With offices in

  Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece

  Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore

  South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam

  Copyright © 2008 by Michael Coogan

  Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.

  198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

  www.oup.com

  Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,

  electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,

  without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Coogan, Michael David.

  The Old Testament: a very short introduction / Michael Coogan.

  p. cm. — (Very short introductions)

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978–0–19–530505–0 (pbk.)

  1. Bible. O. T.—Introductions. I. Title.

  BS1140.3.C66 2008

  221.6’1—dc22

  2007041097

  The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to quote from the

  New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of

  Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the

  U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

  Printed in the United States of America

  on acid-free paper

  For Dan, Elizabeth, and Matt

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks are happily given to many who have helped with this book, including the anonymous reviewers for Oxford University Press; Donald Kraus, Executive Editor for Bibles at Oxford University Press; my supportive and insightful editor, Nancy Toff; and my constant readers, Elizabeth Hill, and my wife, Pamela Hill.

  Contents

  List of Illustrations

  1 What is the Old Testament?

  2 Interpretive strategies

  3 The Old Testament and history

  4 The Old Testament and myth

  5 The Exodus from Egypt: a deep probe

  6 “Keep my commandments”: biblical law

  7 “Festivals of the Lord”: ritual in ancient Israel

  8 Prophets and prophecies

  9 Hezekiah and Sennacherib: another deep probe

  10 Poetry and dissent

  11 “Let us now praise famous men”—and women

  12 The enduring significance of the Old Testament

  Chronology

  Appendix: The Canons of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

  References

  Further Reading

  Index

  List of Illustrations

  1 A column of the book of Isaiah from one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Snark/Art Resource, NY.

  2 Amulet with the Priestly Blessing. Zev Radovan/Jerusalem.

  3 Aerial view of Megiddo. Zev Radovan/Jerusalem.

  4 Marduk standing on the sea dragon. F. H. Weissbach, Babylonische Miscellen (Wissenchaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, 4; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1903), p. 16.

  5 Map of northern Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula.

  6 The upper part of the stela containing the Code of Hammurapi. (Code of Hammurapi 195, translation adapted from Martha Roth, Law Collection from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997], 76.) Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

  7 An eighth-century bce figurine of a woman playing a drum. Semitic Musem, Harvard University.

  8 Map of the ancient Near East.

  9 Map of Jerusalem in the late eighth century bce.

  Chapter 1

  What is the Old Testament?

  Visitors to any of the great museums of the world will notice the contrast between the extensive displays of magnificent objects from ancient Egypt, ancient Syria, and ancient Mesopotamia, and those from ancient Israel, which are generally unimpressive and often difficult to find. Artistically, at least for museum curators, ancient Israel was a cultural backwater. Nothing from it is comparable to the tombs and temples of Egypt, the libraries and ziggurats of Babylon, or the glazed tiles and palaces of Persepolis.

 

‹ Prev