Tanakh English

The Old Testament is a fierce battleground for atheists and Christian apologists, with each side accusing the other of taking challenging and troubling passages out of context. In this handbook, Joshua Bowen not only provides the background to the Old Testament and the ancient Near East, but engages with hotly contested topics like slavery, failed prophecy, and the authorship of debated Old Testament books.

The purpose of studying the Old Testament is to understand God and his redemptive work more fully. However, this goal is complicated by the fact that it was transmitted through a very different language and culture from our own. A Survey of the Old Testament addresses background information, purpose, message, structure, and major themes of the Old Testament to help readers understand its message and relevance.

Esteemed Bible scholars and teachers Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Z. Brettler take readers on a guided tour of the most popular Hebrew Bible passages quoted in the New Testament to show what the texts meant in their original contexts and then how Jews and Christians, over time, understood those same texts. By understanding the depth and variety by which these passages have been, and can be, understood, The Bible With and Without Jesus does more than enhance our religious understandings, it helps us to see the Bible as a source of inspiration for any and all listeners.

Life throws us “curve balls”—from devastating personal losses to world tragedies. These events often leave us doubting God, the Bible, and our faith. But instead of pushing away our reservations, we should embrace them, Peter Enns argues. A leading biblical scholar and Christian mentor, Enns has never been afraid to question the Bible or Christian beliefs. Such thoughtful inquisitiveness, he argues, is part of God’s plan. He wants us to question, because doing so actually leads to a stronger, lasting faith.

Violence in the Old Testament has long been a stumbling block for Christians and skeptics alike. God Is a Man of War offers a fresh interpretation of Old Testament accounts of violence, by exploring them through the twofold lens of Orthodox tradition and historical context. Father Stephen De Young examines what these difficult passages reveal about the nature of Christ and His creation, bearing witness to a world filled not only with pain and suffering - often of human making - but also with the love of God.

For thousands of years, the prophet Moses was regarded as the sole author of the first five books of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch. According to tradition, Moses was divinely directed to write down foundational events in the history of the world: the creation of humans, the worldwide flood, the laws as they were handed down at Mt. Sinai, and the cycle of Israel’s enslavement and liberation from Egypt. However, these stories—and their frequent discrepancies—provoke questions.

David, King of the Jews, possessed every flaw and failing of which a mortal is capable, yet men and women adored him, and God showered him with many blessings. A charismatic leader, exalted as "a man after God's own heart", he was also capable of deep cunning and bloodthirsty violence.

If you're not daring to believe God for the impossible, you may be sleeping through some of the best parts of your Christian life. This book is not a Snuggie. The words on these pages will not go down like Ambien. I’m not writing to calm or coddle you. With God’s help, I intend to incite a riot in your mind.

Biblical scholars, Egyptologists, archaeologists, historians, literary scholars, anthropologists, and filmmakers are drawn to the mystery of the exodus. Unable to find physical evidence until now, many archaeologists and scholars claim this mass migration is just a story, not history. Others oppose this conclusion, defending the biblical account.

In our modern age the biblical Genesis flood account has been probed and analyzed for answers to scientific, apologetic, and historical questions. It is a text that has called forth flood geology, fueled searches for remnants of the ark on Mount Ararat, and inspired a full-size replica of Noah's ark in a biblical theme park. Some claim that the very veracity of Scripture hinges on a particular reading of the flood narrative. But do we understand what we are reading? Longman and Walton urge us to ask, what might the biblical author have been saying to his ancient audience?

The books of Ezekiel and Daniel relate dramatic visions of glory, apocalypse, and ultimate restoration. These revelations comforted the prophets’ fellow Babylonian exiles amid devastating chaos and upheaval.

Hahn explores the "covenant love" God reveals to us through the Scriptures and explains how God patiently reaches out to us—despite our faults and shortcomings—to restore us into relationship with his divine family. Join Hahn as he follows the high adventure of God's plan for the ages, beginning with Adam and Eve and continuing down through the generations to the coming of Christ and the birth of the Church. You'll discover how the patient love of the Father revealed in the Bible is the same persistent love he has for you.

Life-Study of Genesis presents the book of Genesis in a completely new light. Strictly speaking, Genesis is neither a book of creation nor a book of biographies. It is a book of life. God uses the record of creation to show the matter of life. God uses the biographies of eight persons to show how he needs a life to fulfill his purpose.

In How to Read the Bible, Harvard professor James Kugel leads the listener chapter by chapter through the "quiet revolution" of recent biblical scholarship, showing time and again how radically the interpretations of today''s researchers differ from what people have always thought.

Following up on the first volume, The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament: Volume 2 takes up the challenge of providing a clear and useful guide to those wanting a better understanding of the Old Testament, including its cultural and historical background, as well as discussions on contentious topics like violence and genocide, and whether the Exodus was a real historical event. Volume two also covers the narrative of the Old Testament, from the conquest to the divided monarchy, and a brief history of Egypt to help situate the biblical text within agreed historical events.

Walton and Walton offer in The Lost World of the Torah a restorative vision of the ancient genre of instruction for wisdom that makes up a significant portion of the Old Testament. In the ancient Near East, order was achieved through the wisdom of those who governed society. The objective of torah was to teach the Israelites to be wise about the kind of order needed to receive the blessings of God's favor and presence within the context of the covenant. Here listeners will find fresh insight on this fundamental genre of the Old Testament canon.

In Typology—Understanding the Bible's Promise-Shaped Patterns, author James M. Hamilton Jr. shows that the similarities we find in the Bible are based on genuine historical correspondence and demonstrates how we recognize them in the repetition of words and phrases, the parallels between patterns of events, and key thematic equivalences. When understood in light of God's promises, these historical correspondences spotlight further repetitions that snowball on one another to build escalating significance.

When you think of a son trudging uphill, carrying wood for his own sacrifice because his father has decided to give him up to death, what biblical event does this bring to mind? Is it Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22, or is it Christ's passion in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? The kinship between these two stories is deeper than mere coincidence, and the similarities don't end there. In fact, Murray argues that Christ isn't just present in the story of Abraham and Isaac - he's present on every page of the Old Testament.

Throughout the New Testament, the apostles draw on the book of Exodus as a book of types concerning the believers' corporate experience of God's salvation. Paul speaks of "our Passover, Christ" (1 Cor. 5:7). He says that Israel was "baptized...in the sea", that Israel ate the "same spiritual food", and that Israel "drank of a spiritual rock which followed them", which rock "was Christ" (1 Cor. 5:7; 10:2-4). The Lord Jesus similarly says that He is "the living bread which came down out of heaven", the fulfillment of the manna in the wilderness (John 6:51).

The best stories subtly weave themes and characters and symbols into a stunning final tapestry. For many Christians, sadly, the Old Testament is merely a jumble of moralistic stories and weird rituals, genealogies, and historical chronicles. What is the point of it all, and what does it have to do with Jesus? In this short and easy to listen audiobook, Leithart gives a sweeping overview of the Bible, its stories, and the patterns and symbols that recur throughout it, highlighting the ways many of the little stories look forward to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus himself.