: John H. Walton
: Old Testament Theology for Christians From Ancient Context to Enduring Belief
: IVP Academic
: 9780830889044
: 1
: CHF 32.90
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: Religion/Theologie
: English
: 320
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: ePUB
Modern readers of the Bible often find the Old Testament difficult and even disturbing. What are we to do with obscure prophecies of long expired nations? Why should we read and study ancient laws that even the New Testament says are eclipsed by Christ? How can we reconcile Jesus' Sermon on the Mount with the Old Testament's graphic narratives of sex and violence? What does the Old Testament offer that is not surpassed and even made irrelevant by the New Testament? John Walton has spent a career engaging deeply with the Old Testament's text and ancient context. He has studied, taught, and written about the issues. His signature approach can be introduced in one sentence: The Old Testament was written for us but not to us. We must not conform it to our own understanding. We will fully grasp the Old Testament and its theology only when we are immersed in the ancient cultural current of Israel within its broader cultural river of the ancient Near East. In Old Testament Theology for Christians, John Walton invites us to leave our modern-and even inherited Christian-preconceptions at the threshold as we enter the world of the Old Testament. He challenges us to see it anew-as if for the first time-as guests in a strange and fascinating foreign land. Then we will rediscover its testimony to God's great enterprise. In this capstone to a career of studying and teaching the Old Testament, Walton unfolds a grand panorama of Yahweh and the gods, of cosmos and humanity, of covenant and kingdom, of temple and torah, of sin and evil, and of salvation and afterlife. Viewed within its ancient Near Eastern cognitive environment, the text takes unexpected turns and blossoms into fresh and challenging insights. No matter how you are accustomed to viewing the first testament of the Bible, Old Testament Theology for Christians will challenge and sharpen your perceptions.

John H. Walton (PhD, Hebrew Union College) is professor of Old Testament, emeritus, at Wheaton College and Graduate School. His many books include The Lost World of Genesis One and Wisdom for Faithful Reading.

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Yahwehand the Gods


To begin, we need to reiterate a few ideas that were addressed in the introduction. If we are correct in thinking that the Old Testament is God’s revelation of his plans and purposes, and that through that revelation we should be able to come to some basic understanding about God, it is then logical to conclude that the most important message of the Old Testament is found in what it teaches us about God. That teaching does not expire, grow obsolete, or change. It is not the sort of teaching from which we can pick and choose what parts we want to believe and what parts we want to set aside. Its truth about God should comprise our beliefs about God. Furthermore, there is much information about God revealed in the Old Testament that is never addressed in the New Testament. If we only read the Old Testament christologically or from the vantage point of the New Testament, we will miss some of what God has revealed about himself.

In important ways, then, this chapter has to be considered the most important of this book. What does the Old Testament teach us about God? What did it reveal, first to the Israelite audience of the ancient world and then to us through them? We will not find the complete revelation of God in the Old Testament, but we will find robust revelation that remains as vital today as it was when it was first revealed. It is revelation that calls the reader to respond by embracing this view of God, trusting its truth, and allowing it to transform our lives. As Richard Hays notes, God is not “aconcept subject to general philosophical elucidation but a ‘person,’ an agent known through the complex unfolding of his narrative identity—and only so.”1

The Uniqueness of Yahweh

How many gods are there? It is commonplace for modern readers to believe that the main difference between Israel and its neighbors was that Israel worshiped only one God, while the rest of the ancient world worshiped many gods. But this perception can be contested on several fronts. First and foremost, I contend that if we adopt such an unnuanced dichotomy, we will not recognize the most important difference of deity between Israel and its neighbors. The main issue was not the number(s) of god(s) but how God was understood. Nevertheless, before we address this issue, we have to explore the question of monotheism.

In order to discuss Israel’s views about the existence of multiple gods, we should inquire what it means to say that a god exists (divine ontology). Obviously, the existence of a god is not defined by a physical or material presence, because gods are inherently spirit beings (i.e., nonmaterial). In modern philosophical terms, we might imagine that whether a god exists concerns whether or not a spirit being is present in the real world or is a real presence, person, or force. This approach would be less likely, however, in the ancient world. Ancient people recognized that humans were very limited in their ability to determine whether or not a spirit being existed in the real world unless the spirit being manifested its presence in some way. In other words, they would conclude that a spirit being existed when it manifested its reality in ways considered credible by their culture. In fact, they would consider manifestation the evidence necessary to affirm a spirit being’s existence. Said another way, a god existed when it was perceived to function as a manifested god.

In the ancient Near East people believed that the gods were manifested in the forces of what we call the natural world, as well as in the celestial phenomena. Abram came out of that cognitive environment, and Israel lived in that cognitive environment all throughout its history. An