The Old Testament Is Dying: A Diagnosis and Recommended Treatment. By Brent A. Strawn
Brent Strawn is an Old Testament scholar and well-known apologist for the Old Testament (OT). This book continues his previous work, but frames the OT in a fresh way in terms of a language. He brings in interesting and detailed information about language birth, shaping, change, death, learning, vari...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Review |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2021
|
| In: |
The journal of theological studies
Year: 2021, Volume: 72, Issue: 2, Pages: 886-892 |
| Further subjects: | B
Book review
|
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Brent Strawn is an Old Testament scholar and well-known apologist for the Old Testament (OT). This book continues his previous work, but frames the OT in a fresh way in terms of a language. He brings in interesting and detailed information about language birth, shaping, change, death, learning, variety, reductions (pidgins), and expansions (creoles)—indeed there is a veritable new vocabulary to be learnt from this analogy which is the main edifice on which this book is built. In some ways one learns more about the workings of languages, dead or alive, in this book than one does about the OT, not about the fact of its existence as a corporate body of texts which is a given, but of its actual contents which is essentially limited to a study of Deuteronomy and its influence across the canon. The title of the book is a gripping one, and Strawn certainly demonstrates the death of OT literacy and use within school education, the church, the community, within clergy training, and even within the academy. Indeed, in my view, the balance of the book is too much in the direction of telling us what we already suspected or knew—that its popularity and perceived relevance is on the wane—than in actually providing the diagnosis and recommended treatment that is promised. Even when one arrives at chapter 7 hoping for this news, one is still presented with a largely negative picture—this mood dominates the book to an unhelpful extent. It is important that these kinds of books are written as a wake-up call to Christians to re-engage with this crucial part of the canon. However I found some worrying problems in this way of handling that call in this book, as I shall go on to mention. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1477-4607 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The journal of theological studies
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jts/flab087 |