Examining the Old Testament as literature, Dick's interactive resource helps readers understand its development and interpret its diverse texts. Extra biblical writings offer added insight into Scripture---a Mesopotamian creation myth alongside the Genesis account of Noah, Swift's A Modest Proposal illuminating the Book of Jonah, and more. Features charts, tables, discussion questions, and a companion CD-ROM. 350 Pages. Hardcover from Hendrickson.

Michael B. Dick is Professor of Biblical Studies at Siena College. He is the author of Born in Heaven, Made on Earth and numerous scholarly articles.

“Michael Dick’s Reading the Old Testament is an excellent interactive approach to reading the Hebrew Bible that takes the reader’s constitutive role in determining meaning seriously, demonstrating that meaning arises out of the interaction between reader and text. Dick accomplishes this interaction by including copious exercises (along with well placed plates, diagrams, and charts) that encourage the reader to apply the concepts in the narrative to his or her own social location. As the title suggests, Dick’s work is as much a course on the dynamics of reading as it is a text on the Hebrew Bible. It is a refreshing poetics of hermeneutics that navigates the reader through the methodological maze of genetic, formalist, socio-historical, intertextual, and reader-response criticisms with an easy, inviting and often humorous style. It is rare, I think, that a scholarly text is as enjoyable to read as a piece of literary fiction, but this book is an exception. It is a book that I would read for both for its intellectual and aesthetic magnitude.” —W. Randolph Tate, Associate Professor, Humanities, Evangel University

The Old Testament did not appear overnight in its present English translations. It developed into its present canonical form over close to a millennium (and has been translated for another two millennia since) and the reader who is sensitive to that development will be a better interpreter of its diverse texts.

Michael Dick leads the student-reader on a path of discovery, providing insightful questions and powerful explanations necessary for the effective exploration of this marvelous work.

It is the author’s intention to help students understand the Old Testament as a piece of literature (and not helping them to use it in any devotional way). In order to do this he uses examples from ancient literature to shed light on certain texts. For example, he uses an ancient creation myth from Mesopotamia, Atrahasis, to show the relation of ancient myths to the biblical account of the universal flood, as well as Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal to help students understand that the biblical book of Jonah is not to be read as history, and excerpts from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass to provide insight on how better to understand other texts.

Reading the Old Testament is a highly interactive text, with charts, tables, and many questions per chapter appearing both in the text and on an accompanying CD.

This text is designed for the professor who is interested in teaching the Old Testament as literature and who enjoys class discussion.

http://www.christianbook.com/reading-old-testament-inductive-introduction-with/michael-dick/9781565639539/pd/39537

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