Old Words New Life: Reflections on 40 Key Old Testament Words
By David WinterBRF £6.99 (1-84101-391-9)
Connected Christianity: Discovering the riches of the Old Testament
By David SpriggsBRF £8.99 (1-84101-420-6)
Standing Up to God
By Anthony PhillipsSPCK £9.99 (0-281-05699-4)
The Old Testament Lectionary readings often leave the congregation baffled at best, or convinced that God must have written it before he became a Christian! And preachers often, understandably, choose the Gospel or Epistle to expound. So it’s good to have these books, which are both accessible and readable for the intelligent layperson as well as providing pithy background for those preachers who dare to venture into the OT. David Winter’s list of 40 key words, from Atonement to Yahweh, can be used as a reference book or a source for daily meditation – each brief chapter ends with a reflection. Some words not listed in the 40 are touched on under other another label. So ‘Sin’ also contains a paragraph or two on ‘wrath’. There is a devotional undercurrent always in Winter’s writings and at times, the brevity may frustrate but will whet the appetite for some more serious study of the Hebrew Scriptures.
David Spriggs has provided just this with a thoughtful OT background, touching on much recent scholarship, but without a German word in sight! The book has questions for group study and a useful annotated yet brief bibliography. Spriggs gently opens up the contextual issues of Ancient Near Eastern history, cultic religion and textual genre, but without getting bogged down in them. The final chapters segue from monotheism, messiah and mission into the connection with the New Testament.
Yet still those puzzling Old Testament passages, like the testing of Abraham and of Job, the angel wrestling with Jacob, Isaiah’s suffering servant – point uncomfortably to the ‘shadow side of God’ as Anthony Phillips calls it. He engages with these texts, and others, drawing them into the mystery of Christ’s passion. There are certainly no trite answers here to the problem of theodicy, or to why bad things happen to good people. With integrity and some bold theological assertions (that God occasionally ‘loses the plot’), Phillips believes that through faith and love, the light of hope can eventually pierce the darkest shadows.
Church Times
