This book offers the best current handling of Pentateuchal traditions as they operated in the past and as they help the church now. Hans Walter Wolff sees Israel’s faith tradition as a continuous kerygmatic response to a variety of cultural challenges. Walter Brueggemann introduces this dynamic view of tradition. Both authors approach the Pentateuch as a treasury of new expressions of faith resulting from conflicts between traditional formulas and changing social conditions. Today’s church can remain spiritually alive only if its traditions continue to be as resilient as they were in the Old Testament community. Wolff and Brueggemann affirm that modern crises of faith should be met with fresh articulations in the manner of ancient Israel– innovative and pertinent if they are strengthened by the relevance of the past.
Hans Walter Wolff is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. He has written several commentaries on the Old Testament and is a pastor of the Evangelical church in Germany.
Walter Brueggemann was a beloved and prolific writer, astute biblical theologian and Old Testament scholar, and an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. He was the author of dozens of books, including Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now, Interrupting Silence: God’s Command to Speak Out, and Truth and Hope: Essays for a Perilous Age. Often heralded as a prophetic voice in our time, Brueggemann constantly reminded readers of God’s covenantal love and God’s call to speak truth to power, to remember that grace abounds, and to loosen the bonds of injustice.
