Old Testament Turning Points: The Narratives That Shaped A Nation

Trinity Journal, Spring 2007 by Graves, David G

Victor H. Matthews. Old Testament Turning Points: The Narratives That Shaped A Nation. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005. 208 pp. $18.99.

Victor H. Matthews wrote this book to "make an initial reading [of the OT] more fruitful" by taking certain "social signposts" into account (p. 8). He posits that the OT dates to the first millennium before Christ; therefore contemporary readers miss out on many undercurrents and motifs in Scripture. To bridge the gap for contemporary understanding, Matthews selected eight turning points in the OT: Adam and Eve (pp. 17-36), Covenant with Abraham (pp. 37-60), Exodus (pp. 61-80), David's Reign in Jerusalem (pp. 81-102), Jeroboam's Revolt (pp. 103-24), Samaria's Fall (pp. 125-42), Judah's Fall (pp. 143-62), and The Exiles' Return (pp. 163-80). Each chapter is a self-contained study; successive chapters do not build on previous ones but share the same "theme of identifying later echoes of biblical tradition" (p. 9).

Because the initial chapter on Adam and Eve presents Matthews's methodology, this review focuses on this chapter. Matthews's methodology begins with an outline of the passage in question; then he draws out several of the themes he finds particularly trenchant within later biblical developments. In ch. 1 Matthews identifies and examines five themes: Utopia, Etiology, Wisdom, Gift-giving, and Return. For the sake of brevity, I will only comment on the Etiology theme.

Matthews defines an etiology as "a story designed to explain the origin of an event, the background of a place name, or the basis for a tradition" (p. 183). His assumptions regarding etiology have unintended consequences on the exegesis and theology of these chapters. For instance, he identifies "direct revelation from a deity" (p. 24) as merely an etiological device. At many junctures in this discussion Matthews betrays the distrust among critical scholars for oral tradition, while at the same time he seems to discount the existence of writing among the Israelites until "late" in the stories' existence (p. 8).

Matthews's apparent aversion to footnotes leads to an oversight of controversial issues and gives the impression that his pronouncements are without debate by scholars. For example, his glossary dates the Holiness Code (H) (Leviticus 17-26) to the fifth century (p. 184). A reader comes away with the (false) impression that this is a settled issue. In order to see the unstable nature of the source critical debate in contemporary scholarship, one only has to look at the debate between Israel Knohl and Jacob Milgrom over the precedence of H vis-à-vis the Priestly Code (P), to Rolf Rendtorff's doubt whether H ever existed as an independent tradition outside of P, or to scholars, evangelicals and otherwise, who openly doubt the credibility of the Documentary Hypothesis.

This book is targeted at a popular audience, which is commendable as too often the works of biblical scholarship remain sequestered in academia while the church languishes. Matthews did set out to help the lay reader (p. 8). However, since Matthews glosses over several controversial issues, this book could have done more to fulfill its aim.

David G. Graves

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School