The Old Testament as Literature: Foundations for Christian Interpretation

Tremper Longman has studied and taught the Old Testament and its interpretation for four decades. Now, in a planned three-book project, he presents his mature thoughts on three ways of approaching the Old Testament text: as literature, as history, and as a source of theology.

This first volume explores the importance of reading the Old Testament as literature. Each culture tells its stories and writes its poems in different ways. To read and understand the Old Testament texts the way the ancient authors intended, we need to be aware of the conventions of Hebrew storytelling and poetry that they used. In part 1, dealing with literary theory, Longman investigates how texts create meaning, the history of the study of the Old Testament as literature, and how genre dictates reading strategy. He explores the Hebrew conventions for both narrative and poetry in conversation with contemporary literary approaches. Parts 2 and 3 delve into practice, using the tools gained in part 1 to analyze and interpret a variety of Old Testament narratives and poetry.

Longman’s accessible writing and balanced judgments make this book suitable for the classroom and the church.

Tremper Longman III (PhD, Yale University) is Distinguished Scholar and Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at Westmont College. He has served in leadership of the Institute for Biblical Research for many years. Longman is the author of more than 30 books, including biblical commentaries, scholarly works, and popular books on how to interpret the Bible. He is also one of the senior translators and a member of the Bible Translation Committee for the New Living Translation. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.