Garrett Duane A. - The Problem of the Old Testament

IN THIS BOOK, I argue that the Old Testament is fulfilled in Jesus Christ and that it is authoritative and edifying for Christians. As a matter of dogma, this is hardly revolutionary, but it is widely debated and frequently denied. Many argue that the religion of the Old Testament has little in common with the religion of the New and that alleged prophecies about Jesus have been wrenched from their Old Testament contexts and misapplied by Christians. And in fact, many Christians find much of the Old Testament to be bewildering, inapplicable, morally troubling, or simply unhelpful.

To the best of my ability, I have made the discussions simple and accessible. Books dealing with hermeneutics and Old Testament theology can be dense and jargon-filled, with the learnedness of the author sometimes in inverse proportion to the clarity of the book. Given the choice, I would rather imitate Jane Austens innocent heroine in Northanger Abbey, Catherine Morland, who says, I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible. To that end, I sometimes present information with bullet points. I believe this will make the material easier to digest, but I apologize to readers for whom this is embarrassingly dclass. Also, this book does not require that the reader understand Hebrew. For those who do, arguments that appeal to the Hebrew text are in footnotes.

There are a few conventions in this book you should know about:

• The name of Israels God contained four consonants, YHWH (in Hebrew, ). This is traditionally translated as The LORD, and it is commonly pronounced as Yahweh, although Jewish readers typically say The Name or Adonai (My Lord) instead of pronouncing it. In biblical studies, it is becoming more common to simply use the four letters YHWH, and I have followed this convention. When you come across YHWH, you can pronounce it as The Lord, Adonai, Yahweh, or The Name, as you wish.

• In citing Scripture, I give the chapter and verse according to English Bibles followed by, if different, how they are numbered in the Hebrew Bible (for example, Ps 3:2 [MT 3]). MT stands for Masoretic Text, the standard, received edition of the Hebrew Bible. The citation points the reader to Psalm 3:2 in the English and to the same verse in the Hebrew, where it is numbered as Psalm 3:3.

• When citing poetry within a paragraph, I mark line breaks with the slash, as in YHWH is my shepherd, / I shall not want.

• Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own.

• When citing scholars in the main text, I only give the full first name if the person in question is a pivotal figure in the history of scholarship (e.g., Karl Barth). Otherwise, I give only the first initial(s) and the last name.

I am deeply grateful to the many people who have made this project possible. First, I owe my thanks to R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and to the trustees for their generous sabbatical policy. Special thanks also go to Greg Wills, my former dean, and to Hershael York, my current dean, for their support of the project. Second, I am very grateful to all who have read parts or all of the manuscript and have made valuable corrections and suggestions, above all Andrew King, Kim Sungjin, and my wife, Patty Garrett. I have also received helpful comments from Tom Schreiner, Stephen Wellum, Amy Crider, Calvin Pearson, Micah Wu, and Martin Zhang.