Content area
Full Text
ROLE RENDTORFF, Theologie des Alten Testaments: Ein kanonischer Entwurf. Band 1, Kanonische Grundlegung (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1999). Pp. x + 406. Paper DM 58.
In this first volume of a proposed two-volume work Rendtorff sets forth to generate a theology of the Hebrew Bible using the canonical-critical method which he has lauded and used in his past writings. He seeks to allow each of the various voices in the biblical text-narrative, prophetic, psalmic, sapiential, and novellistic-to speak to us, and he heeds the testimony of each particular book in its final unified form. In this first volume R. summarizes the biblical books by their order in the Hebrew canon, and in the proposed second volume he intends to address eighteen specific themes in detail (creation, covenant, the patriarchs, Moses, David, etc.).
This volume does not look like traditional "Old Testament theologies" of yore whose authors either evaluated themes systematically or reviewed the history of religious development. Instead, it appears to be a popular, though detailed, commentary on the Hebrew Bible, or better stated: an introductory textbook whose author summarizes various books and avoids historical-critical...