The historical books, from Joshua to Ezra and Nehemiah, form the narrative backbone of the Old Testament. Without them the Pentateuch would stop cold and the Prophets would hang in suspension. Even the Psalms and Wisdom literature would lose some of their luster for lack of a setting. Without these historical books the New Testament would be resolving an incomplete narrative, answering a question only half and hesitantly posed. For all these reasons and more, it is a tragic fact that many of us today cannot give a brief and coherent account of this story. We fear that books with names like...

Exploring the Old Testament: A Guide to the Prophets considers the often misunderstood prophetic books of the Old Testament, including an exploration of their historical context, their artful use of language and their place within the chorus of Old Testament voices. This critically informed and theologically sensitive introduction to the Prophets introduces students to

• issues in critical interpretation
• the place of the prophetic books in the Old Testament canon
• the social location of biblical prophets
• contemporary applications of the prophetic...

Exploring the Old Testament: A Guide to the Pentateuch offers a clear overview of the "five books of Moses," as well as an introduction to the historical and textual questions that modern scholarship has posed and the answers it has proposed. This critically informed, textually sensitive introduction to the Pentateuch introduces students to

• the basic features of the Pentateuch
• the social world of the Bible
• the latest scholarship on the composition of the Pentateuch
• literary techniques and forms
• theme, composition and rhetorical function of the...