Review: The World and the Word: An Introduction to the Old Testament

Eugene H. Merrill, Mark Rooker and Michael A. Grisanti.  The World and the Word: An Introduction to the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, June 15th 2011. 560 pp.

5 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

How well do you know the Old Testament?  If you are like most Christians you can improve on your knowledge of the Old Testament.  In this book The World and the Word: An Introduction to the Old Testament three Old Testament scholars collaborated to write a helpful textbook on the Old Testament.  Together these scholars have a combined experience of decades if not even a century worth of research, teaching and writing on the subject of Old Testament.  Readers will greatly benefit from reading this title.

Personally I think this book is the most ideal textbook for an Old Testament introduction.  In the future when I teach on the Old Testament again I want to assign this for my students.  For those who might not be as well informed about biblical scholarship the term “Introduction” does not mean “basic” (though the writers were able to write with the awareness that general readers will be reading this and therefore things must be explained and accessible for the general Christian public) but introduction here means a survey of Old Testament books but also each Bible book’s background information such as author, purpose, themes, structure and place in the canon, etc.  Introduction also include discussion of background materials of the Old Testament as a whole as well (what is called General Introduction).

The book was written in a way that show awareness of the latest and best scholarship while being critical of it in a healthy way that is balanced, conservative and biblical.  While the bulk of the book looks at the thirty nine books that make up the Old Testament there are also nine chapters on prolegomena matters such as discussions on the historical and cultural world of the Old Testament, ancient Near Eastern literature compared and contrast with the Old Testament, the transmission and textual criticism of the Old Testament and the past and present state of Old Testament scholarship.

I learned a lot from this book.  There’s a lot of information in 590 pages!  My knowledge and grasp of the Old Testament was dramatically improved after reading it.  If I have one criticism of the book is that the book written by three authors meant that each author had slightly different format at times with regards to the chapters that covered individual books of the OT.  Yet I also appreciated the fact that there’s more than one author for this book.

I highly recommend it.