The Old Testament Story

In This Section:

I. Author Bio

II. Author Letter

Dr. Mark McEntire began teaching at Belmont in the Fall of 2000. He teaches introductory and advanced courses in Old Testament, as well as Hebrew language courses.  In the summer of 2009, he led the Belmont Study Abroad program in South Africa and Botswana and just returned from leading a study abroad trip to Israel, Turkey, and Greece. 

"I have lived in Africa twice, having left the second time in 1998.  My return to the continent of Africa in 2009 taught me many things, including how much I have changed.  I have become more and more aware of how our cultural and social experiences shape the way we understand the world and the way we read our sacred texts.  Belmont is a great place for me to explore this idea, and to help introduce students the wide variety of ways of reading the Bible.

In the early part of my career, my research and writing was focused on the issue of violence and death in the Bible.  This work produced a number of articles and presentations and two books.

Teaching at Belmont raised my interest in the intersection between the Bible and contemporary culture, and has given me great opportunities to explore this area of interest with the brilliantly creative students I work with here.  One result of this exploration was a book I wrote along with Joel Emerson, a Belmont alumnus, pastor and musician.

Additionally, the exciting world of undergraduate teaching has energized me to work on classroom resources to help students as they learn about the Bible.  It has been a great privilege to work with Dr. John Tullock, who was Professor Emeritus of Religion at Belmont until his recent death, on three previous editions of the introductory textbook, The Old Testament Story. This important part of Dr. Tullock's legacy now continues in its ninth edition. 

I have also produced an introduction to the Pentateuch, designed specifically for use by undergraduate students.  One of the greatest teaching opportunities I have ever had was using the manuscript of this book as a textbook in my course on the Pentateuch while it was still in progress!

My current work brings me back to the primary concentration of my work as a graduate student, the field of Old Testament Theology, but it also gathers together all of these other paths that my teaching, research, and writing have followed over the past two decades. 

I am specifically interested in the way that God is presented as a narrative character in the story that the Old Testament tells.  I have just published an article called ‘The God at the End of the Story:  Are Biblical Theology and Narrative Character Development Compatible?’ 

In fact, I presented this idea in early form to my Old Testament Theology class at Belmont in the Spring 2009 semester and enjoyed the productive interaction with the students in the class.  This experience exemplifies the way that my roles as teacher and scholar are able to nourish each other in the great learning environment that Belmont offers."

Website: http://belmont.academia.edu/MarkMcEntire

 II. Author Letter

Dear Colleague,

2011 is a momentous year for The Old Testament Story. Within days after the completion of the 9th edition, the original author, Dr. John Tullock, passed away. This textbook is an important part of his legacy, and I am proud to guide the project into its fourth decade. John began this project over thirty years ago because, at that time, there was not an introductory textbook on the Old Testament written specifically for undergraduate students. The field has become more crowded in recent years, but The Old Testament Story continues to occupy important territory because of its focus on undergraduate instruction and the careful balance it maintains between a commitment to the Old Testament as scripture for the church and a determination to bring the best of rigorous, critical scholarship to the study of this ancient and beautiful text.

My work on the revisions which produced the 6th, 7th, and 8th editions sought to add new material and perspectives to keep the book up to date with current scholarship, to revise existing material in order to maintain and improve its usefulness, and to adapt the voice of the book so that it could speak most effectively to each new generation of students. While all of these efforts still went into the 9th edition, this is also the first time the book has undergone a major reorganization.

A seismic shift has taken place in the field of biblical studies over the past four decades. New material has been added to The Old Testament Story all along to give proper attention to these sweeping changes, but the book has retained its basic shape throughout these years. At this point, though, the new perspectives of our field have reached a level of maturity such that it is appropriate for them not simply to add onto, but to reorient undergraduate pedagogy.

Perhaps the most important part of this shift for us is the new emphasis on the reading of whole biblical books as carefully crafted works of literature. While it was possible to revise the first six chapters of The Old Testament Story to match this new direction, it was necessary to reorganize chapters seven through twelve to meet this need. The primary change this brought about was the extraction of the material on the prophetic literature from the chapters which treat the narrative of the monarchy, so that it can stand on its own, giving adequate attention to the four great scrolls of the Latter Prophets in their canonical form.

I am delighted that in the fall semester of 2011 I will once again be teaching two sections of "Introduction to the Old Testament" at Belmont University. My interaction with students who are reading this book every day is the most valuable resource in my continuing effort to make it better. I hope that you and your students find this book useful, and if you have any questions about it or ideas about how to improve it, please do not hesitate to contact me at mark.mcentire@belmont.edu .

Sincerely,

Mark McEntire

Belmont University

Chapter 1: The Book and Those Who Study It
Chapter 2: The Geographical and Historical Settings for the Old Testament
Chapter 3: Israel Looks at the Beginnings
Chapter 4: Israel Becomes a People
Chapter 5: Israel Gains a Home:  Joshua and Judges
Chapter 6: The Beginning of the Monarchy:  Samuel, Saul, and David
Chapter 7: The Division of the Monarchy I:  The Reign of Solomon and the Story of the Northern Kingdom
Chapter 8: The Division of the Monarchy II:  The Story of the Southern Kingdom
Chapter 9: The Exile and Restoration
Chapter 10: The Prophetic Literature I:  An Introduction to Prophetic Literature and the Book of Isaiah
Chapter 11: The Prophetic Literature II:  The Scrolls of Jeremiah and Ezekiel
Chapter 12: The Prophetic Literature III:  The Book of the Twelve and the Continuation of the Prophetic Tradition
Chapter 13: A Legacy of Israel:  Teachers of Wisdom and Singers of Songs
Chapter 14: The Time of Silence:  Judah in Eclipse
Chapter 15: Epilogue:  The Continuing Story

 
Chapter 1: The Book and Those Who Study It
The Old Testament:  What Is It?
How it Began
How It Developed
The Work of Scholars
Archaeology as a Tool for Understanding
Why Study the Old Testament?
Study Questions
Endnotes
 
Chapter 2: The Geographical and Historical Settings for the Old Testament
Prior to 1200 B. C. E.
The Ancient Near East
Mesopotamia           
Asia Minor
Africa           
Syria- Phoenicia           
Palestine
Study Questions
Endnotes
 
Chapter 3: Israel Looks at the Beginnings
The Primeval Complex           
The Ancestral Complex           
Genesis in Retrospect
Study Questions
Endnotes
 
Chapter 4: Israel Becomes a People
The Book of Israel’s Beginnings           
Moses:  Birth and Wilderness Years           
Moses:  The Struggle with Pharaoh           
The Exodus Event           
Sinai and the Giving of the Law          
After Mount Sinai           
Themes in the Pentateuch
Study Questions
Endnotes
 
Chapter 5: Israel Gains a Home: Joshua and Judges
Moving into the Promised Land
Continuing the Story of Occupation
Proposed Models for the Israelite Occupation of Canaan
Study Questions
Endnotes
 
Chapter 6: The Beginning of the Monarchy:  Samuel, Saul, and David
The Sources for the History of the Israelite Kingdoms           
The Story of Samuel 
The Establishment of Saul’s Kingship
The Appearance of David
Samuel, Saul, and David:  A Summary
David: King Over Judah
David: King Over All Israel
The Court History of David
Study Questions
Endnotes
 
Chapter 7: The Division of the Monarchy I:  The Reign of Solomon and the Story of the Northern Kingdom
Reign of Solomon
Approaching the Divided-Kingdom Story
The Division of the Kingdom
The Dynasty of Omri
Elijah’s Confrontation with Ahab and Jezebel
Jehu to Jereboam II (842—746 B. C. E.)
The Destruction of the Northern Kingdom
Study Questions
Endnotes
 
Chapter 8: The Division of the Monarchy II:  The Story of the Southern Kingdom
Judah after the Division
Judah after the Destruction of Israel
Study Questions
Endnotes
 
Chapter 9: The Exile and Restoration
After the Fall of Jerusalem
The Lives of the Survivors
The Collapse of the Babylonian Empire
The Changing International Situation
The Restored Community
Ezra and Nehemiah
Study Questions
Endnotes
 
Chapter 10: The Prophetic Literature I:  An Introduction to Prophetic Literature and the Book of Isaiah
An Introduction to Prophetic Literature
Introduction to the Book of Isaiah
A Survey of the Contents of the Book of Isaiah
Summary of Isaiah
Study Questions
Endnotes
 
Chapter 11: The Prophetic Literature II:  The Scrolls of Jeremiah and Ezekiel
Introduction to the Book of Jeremiah
Survey of the Contents of the Book of Jeremiah
Introduction to the Book of Ezekiel
Survey of the Contents of the Book of Ezekiel
Study Questions
Endnotes 
 
Chapter 12: The Prophetic Literature III:  The Book of the Twelve and the Continuation of the Prophetic Tradition
Introduction to the Book of the Twelve
The Opening Sequence:  Hosea, Joel, and Amos
Jerusalem and Nineveh:  Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, and Nahum
Shifting the Focus to Babylon:  Habakkuk and Zephaniah
The Prophets of the Restoration:  Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi
The End of Prophecy?           
Study Questions
Endnotes
 
Chapter 13: A Legacy of Israel:  Teachers of Wisdom and Singers of Songs
The Wisdom Literature                       
The Psalms:  Israel Sings Its Faith           
Study Questions
Endnotes
 
Chapter 14: The Time of Silence:  Judah in Eclipse
The Historical Situation
The Festival Scrolls
Defining and Establishing a Place in the World</tocentry>
The Maccabean Revolt
Geographical and Canonical Boundaries and the Book of Daniel
Study Questions
Endnotes
 
Chapter 15: Epilogue:  The Continuing Story
Life in Jewish Communities
The Development of Sectarian Judaism
Literary Activity
Judaism’s Oral Tradition
A Closing Statement
Study Questions
Endnotes
 
Glossary
For Further Study
Comprehensive Chronological Chart
Index

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