This book makes studying the Old Testament relevant to the times we are living in now and offers a way to study it that can enrich our very modern lives. It gives us some important context as well as ideas about understanding The Bible as a whole.

This one took me a while to get through. I’d read a little bit here and there before bedtime. Some of it went over my head, if I’m honest, not because it’s difficult to understand, but it’s dense. Anytime we talk about the Old Testament, it’s not going to be a light and fun read, but it’s interesting, and I learned a lot. My favorite part was when Howard studies Daniel through the lens of the apocalypse as literature. I learned a lot about apocalypses throughout literature and more specifically in The Bible, and how it’s not a ending of all things, but a period of great change, and it helped me frame some Bible stories that I didn’t 100% get in the past.

It’s definitely worth adding to your Bible study if you want to spend some time in the Old Testament and go on a deeper dive than just surface level passage reading.

Finally, a more accessible discussion of how to make contemporary sense of the Old Testament's many genres and histories! Seminarians, clergy, and biblical scholars haven't always been effective at arguing for a dynamic understanding of scripture that allows for ambiguity and nuanced interpretations. Howard does that clearly and well in this book.

In some streams of Christianity, we've all but ignored the riches of the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures, leaving lay people to make their own sense of the readings we hear every week. Dr. Cameron Howard's work would be a great reference for a study on how to read and be shaped by *all* of the Bible, including the Old Testament.