What bearing has the Old Testament on our lives today? How well are its once famous stories known, and what is the point of them? Is there a consistent pattern throughout its many books? Is the Old Testament as important for Christians as for Jews? What does it tell us about Gods plans for the human race?

Canon Trevor Shannon has gone a long way to answering some of those questions and to clarifying some of the difficulties and obscurities. He approaches the books historically, so that we have a continuum against which the major themes can be played: the establishment of monotheism and the...