Echoes of Exodus: Tracing a Biblical Motif by Bryan D. Estelle

Abstract

Reviewed by: Echoes of Exodus: Tracing a Biblical Motif by Bryan D. Estelle Matthew Seufert bryan d. estelle, Echoes of Exodus: Tracing a Biblical Motif (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2018). Pp. xiv + 392. Paper $40. "This book is about the continuing thread of the exodus motif in the Old Testament and New Testament" (p. 2). It has an introduction, eleven chapters, and a conclusion; its appendix (25 pp.) sketches the views of Julia Kristeva, Mikhail Bakhtin, Umberto Eco, and Ferdinand de Saussure and means "to introduce the reader to some of the significant hermeneutical issues to be faced in intertextuality" (p. 351). Estelle espouses his own hermeneutical position in chap. 1: "The centrality of Scripture is Christ." "The exodus motif is one important way that the Bible tells us about Christ. … [It] offers a way of explaining God's grand narrative … of redemption for sullied, sinful men, women, and children" (p. 5). For E., the Bible (consisting of the Old and New Testaments) is God's inspired, unified word with Christ at the center; chaps. 4–11 track the language, themes, and theology of the exodus as they recur throughout the Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Ezra-Nehemiah (exile and postexile), Mark and Matthew, Luke-Acts, Paul, 1 Peter, and Revelation. The motif climaxes in the NT with the spiritual reality of God's delivering the people from their spiritual slavery through the work of Christ and bringing them through the wilderness of this world into the divine presence to worship God forever in the world-to-come. "The exodus motif is much bigger than … liberation of the Hebrews from the iron furnace of the Egyptians" (p. 93). "It includes in story format, and with broad brush strokes, the whole matrix of Christian salvation" (p. 104). The second chapter contextualizes all of this by starting with the biblical account of creation. E. interprets Adam as a priest-king in the sanctuary of God who was banished because of disobedience; "all the subsequent covenantal eras or epochs, including the role of the exodus within those patterns of interim structures, serve the unfolding development and plan of God's salvation of a people for himself" (pp. 69-70), returning humanity to and establishing them in their original dwelling with God. "Creation is therefore the foundation for salvation and election, the creation of a royal priesthood people of God" (p. 69). [End Page 309] In the third chapter, E. examines the exodus material itself and identifies the main elements of the event: liberation/deliverance, the divine warrior, the sea crossing, which "may be seen as a new creation or rebirth" (p. 109), wilderness wanderings, Sinai, the mountain of God, "representing God's presence to these liberated Hebrew slaves" (p. 103), the land, and union and communion with God, "the ultimate bliss envisioned by the story" (p. 104). On E.'s reading, the exodus echoes creation and is typological of Christian salvation. At creation, God subdued the waters of chaos to bring forth order and created humanity to dwell in God's presence. In the exodus, he subdued Pharaoh and his army, "an incarnation of the chaos dragon" (p. 117), to bring forth a people to dwell with God and sing God's praises, typical of the final redemption, "the original redemption writ large" (p. 208), "liberation from the bondage of Satan and sin and release from the curse of death so that Christians could receive their inheritance" (p. 250). The value of this book is in its view and presentation of the unified whole. For those committed to or interested in the developing story line of the OT into the NT, from creation to new creation, the book is worth the read. E. also brings together, engages, and builds upon previous exodus studies; much of the book interacts with secondary literature. I found this to be helpful when dealing with the exodus theme itself, as these other studies confirmed a lot of what constituted the foundational material for E.'s study—seeing the exodus motif in a particular book. But E. also touches on many significant issues that are not directly concerned with how the exodus is used by the biblical writers (e...