Old Testament Theology: Reading the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. By R. W. L. MOBERLY.

Abstract

T he plurality of questions about how the subject of Old Testament theology should be structured and how it can relate to other branches of theological study has dominated the subject since Walther Eichrodt initiated a new direction in 1933. I recall the eagerness with which I greeted the translation of that work in the 1950s, followed and overtaken later by the work of Gerhard von Rad and subsequently many others. In each case, my initial enthusiasm rapidly evaporated into disappointment and disillusion. I fear that many other readers have felt similar disappointments, wondering why Old Testament theology is subject to rules and problems that other branches of theology dispense with. The reason for this disenchantment was basically that the subject of Old Testament theology bore all the marks of being an artificial twentieth-century construction. This applied rather more to Eichrodt’s work than that of von Rad, but nevertheless the sense of distance between how Christians have actually read the Old Testament and how they should have done, had they been informed as modern scholars are, is strong. I very much hope that such a feeling of disillusion will not discourage students and scholars from purchasing and reading Walter Moberly’s volume. It is not the first from him on the subject and follows earlier books on the Genesis creation stories (2009) and biblical prophecy (2006). It falls into what I personally classify as a ‘less and more’ category. It is much less than a comprehensive all-embracing theology of the religious themes and literary forms that abound in the Old Testament. Whether or not this is possible or even desirable has remained subject to question. Moberly’s work is, however, more than another rearrangement of the basic religious ideas to be found in the Old Testament with the intention of linking them together into a comprehensive presentation. Awareness of the three-dimensional shape of the Old Testament canon, occasioned by the tensions which exist between its historical depth and present literary character, strongly militates against too bold a systematizing of its leading ideas.