These 5 insights\u00a0overlap a bit, but here\u00a0they are.<\/p>\n
1. The Old Testament is an ancient Near Eastern phenomenon.<\/h2>\n
Perhaps an obvious point, but worth putting at the top of the list.<\/p>\n
Nothing has changed our understanding of the Old Testament more dramatically than what we have learned over the past 150 years or so about what Israel\u2019s ancient neighbors thought and how they lived\u2014and how much the Israelites not only resembled their neighbors but how indebted they were to modes of thinking that were well in place long before the Israelites ever existed.<\/p>\n
No corner of the Old Testament has remained unaffected: stories of origins, cosmology, theology, cult (worship), psalmody, wisdom, prophecy, and more.<\/p>\n
The Old Testament cannot be treated in isolation from its environment.<\/p>\n
2. \u201cMyth\u201d is an inescapable category for describing portions of the Old Testament.<\/h2>\n
Sidestepping\u00a0the various definitions of myth people like to argue about, ancient mythic categories are self-evidently present in the Old Testament.<\/p>\n
At times the Israelites applied<\/em> these myths to their own worship (e.g., applying to Yahweh in Psalm 18 descriptions of west Semitic storm deities; Yahweh presiding over a pantheon in Psalm 82). At other times mythic categories were used to distinguish<\/em> Israelite belief from that of other peoples (e.g., Genesis 1 vis-a-vis the Babylonian Enuma Elish<\/em>).<\/p>\n Regardless of how they were used, ancient\u00a0myths serve as a\u00a0\u201cconceptual structure\u201d for how the Israelites understood their God, at least in\u00a0various places in the Old Testament.<\/p>\n No writing of history is objective anyway, which is an idea few have trouble accepting\u2014and the Old Testament does not escape that truth.<\/p>\n The Israelites wrote\u00a0the story of their past not to talk about the past for its own sake, but to see their present in light of their past and their past in light of their present.\u00a0The Israelites were storytellers.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean the Old Testament is \u201cdevoid of history\u201d or some such thing. But it does mean that the Old Testament gives\u00a0us something very different than what we might\u00a0call \u201chistory\u201d today.<\/p>\n Put another way, #3 follows on #1 and #2.<\/p>\n We see this at work, for example, when we compare Israel\u2019s two histories (the one contained in Samuel and Kings and the other contained in Chronicles); laws in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy that conflict; portraits of God\u2019s actions that differ among the Psalms and wisdom literature (Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes).<\/p>\n The Old Testament\u00a0does not allow itself to be\u00a0systemized into one smoothly consistent \u201cbody of teaching.\u201d The reason is that its various writings reflect vastly different times and circumstances\u2014which brings us to #5.<\/p>\n The Old Testament, technically speaking, is a product of the Judahites in the centuries following their return from Babylonian captivity (539 BCE).<\/p>\n That does not mean the Old Testament was written out of whole cloth at the time. Much older writings and traditions were brought together and also combined with new literary creations. All of it was then edited together to form what would eventually become the Old Testament we know.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s Scripture came to be over time. David did not\u00a0read the book of Genesis. The prophets do not say, \u201cAs we read in the book of Leviticus.\u201d Whether or not the traditions contained\u00a0in these books were known is an interesting and fruitful discussion, but that is not the same thing as whether the literary productions\u00a0were in existence.<\/p>\n **********<\/p>\n There is much more to the Old Testament than these 5 points, of course. And accepting the Old Testament as scripture doesn\u2019t depend on fully working out these 5 points.\u00a0In fact, whosoever wishes can safely ignore all of this and move on with their lives of faith. I mean that.<\/p>\n But when we want to dig into why the Bible \u201cbehaves\u201d as it does, and especially if we are curious\u00a0about engaging the Bible on a historical level, these 5 factors simply can\u2019t be brushed aside.<\/p>\n Any notion of, say, inspiration or revelation that\u00a0seeks to gain traction cannot be formulated in blissful isolation from or in antagonism toward these 5 points. The ship has sailed, the horse is out of the barn, cats are beyond herding, worms are out of the can\u2014pick your metaphor.<\/p>\n Any \u201cdoctrine of Scripture\u201d that does not address these issues synthetically\u2014working with them rather than against them\u2014will at the end of the day be of little help and even produce harm for Christians navigating the sometimes rough terrain of an ancient faith in a modern world.<\/p>\n [If you\u2019re interested, I\u2019ve written about some of these issues in more detail, especially\u00a0here<\/a>3.\u00a0Israelites did not write their history \u201cobjectively.\u201d<\/h2>\n
4.\u00a0The Old Testament does not contain one systematic and consistent body of \u201ctruth\u201d but various, and even\u00a0conflicting,\u00a0perspectives.<\/h2>\n
5. The Old Testament \u201cevolved\u201d over time until it came to its final expression.<\/h2>\n
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