A Survey of the Old Testament

Teachers of seminary level Old Testament introduction face two challenges. One involves deciding what to teach. The other is choosing the textbook(s) to cover the appropriate material. Responding to these challenges, a teacher first must identify the intended scope of topics to be covered in the course. Short curriculums include the following topics: canonicity, textual criticism, higher-critical methodologies, and archaeology. Longer curriculums add inspiration and inerrancy, ancient Near Eastern history and culture, and ancient Near Eastern and Palestinian geography. Choosing the shorter or longer curriculum depends on the presence or absence of the topics as separate required courses in the students’ curriculum. Absence of any of these seven topics in the required curriculum for the basic seminary degree (the Master of Divinity, for example) creates pressure on Old Testament introduction to fill the vacuum and to round out the student’s exposure to the breadth of Old Testament studies. Old Testament introduction must be distinguished from Old Testament survey (a problem further aggravated by the title of Hill and Walton’s volume), which includes more special introduction topics such as authorship, date, background, structure, and theme for individual Old Testament books. Overlapping topics between Old Testament survey and Old Testament introduction provides yet another test for Old Testament introduction teachers—how to avoid unnecessary repetition. Second, the professor must find the textbook(s) that cover the chosen range of topics for Old Testament introduction. [Full Review]