This has to be one of the best books I have read in a long while, and it certainly stirred within me a deeper appreciation for the Old Testament. Author Ellen Davis is the associate professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke Divinity School in the United States, and this book is based on a variety of her sermons and lectures given over a period of fourteen years.
I know what you are thinking – if it is written by an Old Testament professor then surely it is at best dry and dusty, and at worst overly complex and out-of-touch. While Davis’ book certainly is marked by quality scholarship, it is at the same time highly accessible to the general reader. Each chapter is a fairly short spiritual reflection on an Old Testament story or passage, which actually lends itself very well to some form of small group study.
In a nutshell, Davis seeks to reveal the story of God’s quest to have a relationship with humankind as captured in the Old Testament (the Hebrew Scriptures). She engages the average person of faith as she challenges common misconceptions about the Old Testament and tackles some of its tougher passages such as the Binding of Isaac and the cursing Psalms.
Davis’ strength is her ability to creatively describe how the Old Testament, even with its more difficult and confusing texts can speak directly and relevantly to contemporary issues such as meaningful work, sexual expression, unconstrained consumerism, and ecology. The only weakness I picked up is that Davis sometimes seems to stop short of fully engaging the extreme ethical difficulties raised by some of these texts. For example, as much as I thoroughly enjoyed the chapter on the Binding of Isaac, I found her explanation for this story, as the urgency of God to be assured of Abraham’s love, did not adequately deal with my concerns over a God who would ask for the death of a child in order to soothe his own anxiety. I felt Davis took me on a journey she didn’t quite complete.
Ellen Davis isn’t very well known beyond students of her particular field, which is a real pity because she writes powerfully and I guarantee that reading her would be extremely helpful in terms of your own spiritual formation. This book is highly recommended.