Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 87:2 (Fall 2025)
Article: Reviews Of Books
Author: Anonymous

WTJ 87:1 (Spring 2025) p. 285

Reviews Of Books

Tremper Longman III, The Old Testament as Literature: Foundations for Christian Interpretation. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2024. Pp. xii + 292. $34.99, cloth.

With this book, Tremper Longman launches a three-volume series that will address the literary, historical, and theological dimensions of OT interpretation. While acknowledging that “these three features deeply intertwine with one another” (p. 2), this volume focuses on the literary dimension. Longman hopes to “not only inform but also encourage us to be mindful of the literary nature and quality of the OT” (p. 266). The book has three parts.

Part 1 (chs. 1–6) explores literary theory. The first chapter discusses how the OT generates meaning. Longman advocates for “a nuanced authorial-intention approach” (p. 7) in which “the goal of interpretation is to discover, through analysis of the text, the meaning intended by the author, while remaining mindful that readers interpret through lenses that are shaped by their gender, ethnicity, social position, and more” (p. 5).

Chapter 2 traces the history of literary approaches to the OT. Longman identifies James Muilenberg and Robert Alter as key catalysts for “the literary turn in biblical studies” (p. 22).

Chapter 3 introduces genre theory. The concept of genre is central to Longman’s literary approach. He explains that genres are “modes of classification to identify types of literature that share common traits” (p. 57). Genres are not rigid categories but rather “classifications with fuzzy edges” (p. 52). Drawing on the work of Will Kynes, Longman says that a text may participate in multiple genres since genres are both broad and narrow. For example, he shows how Ps 98 can be classified broadly as a poem, but also more narrowly as a lyric poem, a hymn, a hymn celebrating the divine warrior, and a kingship psalm. Rightly identifying a text’s genre allows the reader to form proper expectations about how that text will convey meaning. Understanding various genres of biblical literature and correctly identifying a text’s genre is the heart of Longman’s literary approach.

After discussing genre theory more generally, chapters 4 and 5 describe some of the main conventions of prose and poetry. Chapter 4 presents key genre features of prose such as focalization, plot, and characterization. Chapter 5 presents key genre features of poetry including terseness, parallelism, imagery, refrain, and chiasm.

In chapter 6, the book shifts from discussing features of individual texts to discussing “the relationships between biblical texts” (p. 157). Here, Longman introduces the topic of intertextuality “as ...