The Contemporary Use of Narrative Theology: Comparison of the Prolegomena of Brueggemann, Waltke and Goldingay 

Steven PahlMA BTS Student: Ambrose SeminaryTH 704 Research PaperNovember 28, 2011

Narrative Theology has travelled a long road from its

earliest days. In 1941, when H. Richard Niebuhr published The

Meaning of Revelation, there was little or no discussion of concepts

such as intertextuality, or poetics, or narrative mode. The bible

was generally recognized as a ‘story,’ yet in the bible colleges

and churches of North America, theological categories and linear,

systematic thought dominated the landscape. And, in the world of

higher education, the deconstruction of the biblical text, begun

in the source critical work of scholars such as Graf and

Wellhausen, reached the full measure of its influence. Into this

context, Niebuhr wrote the following words.

We must read the law with the mind of the prophets, and the prophets with the eyes of Jesus; we must immerse ourselves with Paul in the story of the crucifixion, and read Paul with the aid of the spirit in the church if we would find revelation in the Scriptures. A history that was recorded forward, as it

2

were, must be read backward through our history if it is to be understood as revelation.1

That sphere is internal history, the story of what happened to us, the living memory of the community.2

In Niebuhr’s work, we can trace the crude beginnings of Narrative

Theology. In the preceding quotations, we can discern the first

hints of concepts such as intertextuality and the ‘sacred text’

of the community. We can also discern a hint of the tension that

would develop between imagination and historicity.

Seventy years later, concepts such as poetics and narrative

mode are routinely discussed at the higher levels of education,

and fleshed out in a practical way through the story-based

preaching common in the modern pulpit. The changing theological

landscape opened the door for a new kind of theological

presentation: theology as narrative. The major works of Old

Testament Theology written over the last fifteen years all

contain a prolegomena about narrative, and all of these works use

narrative as the first part, or the only part, of their approach

to the Old Testament text. In these major works, I include Walter

1 H. Richard Niebuhr, “The Story of Our Life,” in Why Narrative? Readings in Narrative Theology, ed. Stanley Hauerwas and L. Gregory Jones (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1997), 25.2 Ibid., 44.

3

Bruggemann (1997)3, John Goldingay (2003)4, Rolf Rentdorff (2005)5

and Bruce Waltke (2007)6. My goal for this paper is to analyze

the prolegomena of three of these works; the works of

Brueggemann, Goldingay and Waltke. Specifically, I will focus on

how these three theologians describe the role of imagination and

historicity, and how they apply the concepts of intertextuality

and the ‘sacred text’ of the community.

The role of imagination in narrative theology is a

critical and somewhat divisive issue. The question that commonly

arises is; how much freedom of expression did the biblical

writers use when they completed the final form of the text?

Imagination is divisive because it seems to live on a spectrum

opposite to historicity. We might assume that if the writer

creatively imagined three quarters of a text, then only one

quarter of the text is based on historic events. From this

assumption, we might conclude that imagination is a threat to

3 Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 61–89.4 John Goldingay, Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Gospel (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2003), 15–41.5 Rolf Rendtorff, The Canonical Hebrew Bible: A Theology of the Old Testament (Leiden, the Netherlands: Deo Publishing, 2005), 717–56.6 Bruce Waltke, An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach, 1sted. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 93–142.

4

historicity. This is not necessarily true. As we will see, the

relationship between imagination and historicity is far more

nuanced.

In his Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy,

Walter Brueggemann is primarily concerned with the interpretation

of the text in the new pluralistic and postmodern situation.7 In

a postmodern world, Brueggemann argues, the common, universal

assumptions which once governed our reading of the text have

disappeared and, in their place, rival readings exist which

inevitably conflict with one another. He writes, “we now

recognize that there is no interest-free interpretation, no

interpretation that is not in the service of some interest and in

some sense advocacy.”8 And, what is more, these rival readings

exist in a postmodern world because they also exist within the

text itself. Yahweh is “pulled this way and that by the

adjudicating rhetoric of Israel.”9 And so, the dispute and

advocacy within the text precedes the dispute and advocacy in our

postmodern situation.

7 Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament, 61.8 Ibid., 63.9 Ibid., 64.

5

At the center of the process of dispute and advocacy within

the text is the concept of imagination. For Brueggemann, “speech

constitutes reality, and who God turns out to be in Israel

depends on the utterance of the Israelites.”10 The narrative

generates a ‘story world’ in which “Yahweh is featured as actor

and agent.”11 And, the biblical writers have “the freedom to

plot, shape, construct and construe.”12 Over the course of

Israel’s history, conflicting imaginations of Yahweh emerged and

tension arose within Israel over which view would survive and

dominate. Had Yahweh created Israel to be a nation of priests or

had Yahweh appointed one tribe to be priests for all? Had Yahweh

announced one covenant with Israel through Moses in which each

tribe was able to lead itself or had Yahweh announced a covenant

to David in which a king would lead all of the tribes? In the

‘story world’ of Israel, such competing views would eventually

coalesce as creative writers merged the story of Israel into one

story, again exhibiting the freedom to plot and shape the story

in a fresh way.

10 Ibid., 65.11 Ibid., 67.12 Ibid.

6

Yahweh exists, for Brueggemann, at the center of the

imagination of Israel. The biblical writers “employed a rich

strategy in order to find speech to match the continuing

Character whom it rendered at the center of its life.”13 This

imagination focuses on what Brueggemann calls “Yahweh’s

impossibilities.”14 Yahweh’s nature and characteristics are

difficult to describe and the biblical writers predominantly used

metaphor to illustrate them. One example Brueggemann gives is the

concept of Yahweh as a shepherd. The power of metaphor is the

fact that the noun is and is not equal to the metaphor. In other

words, Yahweh is a shepherd, yet at the same time, Yahweh is not a

shepherd. The use of metaphor allowed Israel to elevate Yahweh in

its language without reducing him to the level of his created

works.

The end result, after all of Israel’s writers have imagined

Yahweh, and after the process of dispute and advocacy is

completed, is that,

Yahweh is to be understood in Israel's text as a rhetorical articulation. No doubt this rhetoric is proposed as realistic, is intended to be taken as

13 Ibid., 71.14 Ibid., 69.

7

real, and is indeed so taken characteristically in Israel. But such realism is of an innocent, precritical kind that entertains no dualism; the rhetoric is taken at face value, not at all with the denial of the ontological, but with no felt necessity to claim it.15

When Brueggemann uses the phrase ‘rhetorical articulation’ to

describe Yahweh, it appears as if Yahweh is simply a product of

Israel’s imagination. It appears that Brueggemann is assigning to

imagination a role that allows it to supersede historicity and

that Yahweh does not exist outside of the text. Yet this may not

be the case. Later, Brueggemann describes the process by which

history intersects with Israel’s imagination. He believes that

the final form of the Torah was completed during, or out of

response to, the exile. He believes that Israel “used materials

that had been treasured in earlier times”16 in order to construct

its canon. And that this reuse of materials respected the essence

of the previous story. Thus there is continuity between the older

materials and the final form they obtained in exile. Yet in the

second creation of the exilic period, the writer(s) imagined a

‘new work’ that was a confluence of the process of dispute and

15 Ibid.16 Ibid., 75.

8

advocacy from Israel’s previous history. By the end of this

period of second creation, Yahweh became, not what one competing

version of Israel’s history thought him to be, but a

conglomeration of what all of the competing views thought him to

be. Thus, the text’s image of Yahweh is a multidimensional image

or a collective image. To use Stephen Crites’ ideas17, what we

see in the final text of the Torah is a mature reflection on Israel’s

collective embedded memory of Yahweh, not a false image, but a

composite of many images.

Because “the entire past and memory of the textual community

is kept available and present in concrete and detailed ways,”18

Brueggemann encourages a dialogical reading of the text rather

than a diachronic reading of the text. A diachronic reading is

primarily focussed on events, experiences or circumstances in

Israel’s history. It is this reading of the text which creates

dispute in the postmodern environment. Rather, Brueggemann

encourages us to pursue an intertextual reading. An intertextual 17 Stephen Crites, “The Narrative Quality of Experience,” in Why Narrative? Readings in Narrative Theology, ed. Stanley Hauerwas and L. Gregory Jones (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1997), 76. In referring to embedded memory,Crites says, “I have many insights into this chronicle that I could have had at the time its events occurred. Yet the sophisticated new story I might tell about it would be superimposed on the image-stream of the original chronicle.”18 Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament, 79.

9

reading “generates a realm of discourse, dialogue, and

imagination that provides a world in which to live”19 and leads

the community of the text into a world where “all of reality is

uttered and therefore construed and therefore experienced in a

certain way.”20 He encourages the community of the text not to be

embarrassed about the practise of its own speech, but to hold on

to the ideas found within the text, because “to give up this

practice of its uttered memory is surely to give up its identity

and its life in the world.”21

I believe that Brueggeman’s ideas about narrative and its

application in his theology are heavily influenced by his view of

the postmodern interpretive situation. First, Brueggemann is

concerned with the “many temptations” and “outside pressures”22

faced by the community of the text, and he is urging that

community to continue to rehearse and live out the text amidst

the fluidity of postmodernism. Yet Brueggemann also reminds the

community of the text that there is a “second listening

community.”23 In a postmodern reality, the outside world is 19 Ibid., 78.20 Ibid., 79.21 Ibid.22 Ibid., 80.23 Ibid., 87–88.

10

listening to the dialogue happening within the community of the

text. This ‘second listening community’ is also addressed within

the text in ways that can transform individual people and create

a different shape to the world in which they live, although the

text is mainly for the audience of believers.

Like Brueggemann, Bruce Waltke is primarily concerned with

the interpretive situation within the community that is reading

the text. His concern, however, is related to the ways in which

deconstructionist thinking has invaded the community and

jeopardized its interpretation of the text.24 And, one person he

cites as an example of this form of deconstructionist thinking is

Walter Brueggemann. Before we can discuss Waltke’s concerns

further, we must first consider the way in which he understands

narrative.

In An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic

Approach, Waltke describes narrative as a “representational form

of art.”25 Narrative imitates life just like a painting imitates

a real object. A painting of an apple, for example, represents

something real and tangible, but our impression of that reality

24 Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, 103.25 Ibid., 93.

11

is influenced by the artist who created the painting. Just as the

meaning of the painting is derived from the painter’s point of

view, “the ‘meaning’ of the narrative is determined by how the

narrator tells the story.”26 The world that the narrator creates

stimulates the reader’s imagination, leading him or her into the

exploration of other possible worlds. One example Waltke offers

is Matthew 28:19-20, in which the reader is encouraged to carry

the gospel message into his or her own world, even as Jesus’

disciples were encouraged to take the gospel message into their

world. In the narrator’s world, biographies function as metaphors

or icons27 in which they are an ideal portrait that inspires the

reader to a more ideal construction of their own life.

The narrator speaks from three distinct points of view:

God’s, the human character’s and his own. And, he is presenting

legitimate and real events from the history of Israel. Yet the

narrator is doing far more than just reporting facts, he is also

interpreting these facts for the reader. Although in most cases

the narrator’s point of view is so deeply embedded in the text

that it is difficult to discern, occasionally he speaks by direct

26 Ibid., 94.27 Ibid., 105.

12

statement such as in Genesis 25:34, where the he tells the

reader, “So Esau despised his birthright” or in Genesis 16:6,

where he says, “Sarai mistreated Hagar.”28 Yet in most respects,

the narrator’s creative role is largely limited to emplotment.

Waltke differentiates between story and plot. He says that, “a

story consists of what is outside the text: the people, things,

or events,” whereas plot “refers to the contour of its

representation.” 29 It is in the act of weaving together various

aspects of the story that the narrator shares common ground with

the novelist. He is able to lead the reader in “reflection,

exploration, edification, celebration . . ., cathartic cleansing,

and/or sheer delight”30 by the way in which he organizes the

storyline.

Yet the narrator, for Waltke, is more than just a creative

editor. Waltke elevates his status to that of “prophet-

historian”31 and says that the narrator “always speaks truthfully

and authoritatively because he is a prophet, God's inspired

spokesman.”32 He describes the real author as the historical 28 Ibid., 109.29 Ibid., 94.30 Ibid., 99.31 Ibid., 127.32 Ibid., 101.

13

person who composed the initial narrative, while the implied

author is the narrator who plotted the format of the current text

and wove the various parts together into a whole unit. It seems

that for Waltke, this implied author, or narrator of the text, is

almost like the guardian of the final form of the text, and the

guardian of interpretation for the believing community. The

effect of Waltke’s conclusion reaches deep and wide into his

theological interpretation.

By elevating the narrator to the role of prophet-historian,

he presents an idea that is both brilliant and dangerous at the

same time. It is brilliant because it helps to resolve some of

the tensions over the authority and trustworthiness of the final

form of the text. If the prophet-historian is seen as equal to

the original prophet/writer of the material, then he has the

authority to plot the final form of the text. He has the God-

given authority to leave some material out and ensure that what

is left behind is indeed true and valuable information. The text

that is left behind for the believing community is therefore

authoritative for that community and can be seen as a word from

God, indeed, it can be seen as the word of God. Yet Waltke also

14

uses his concept to effectively silence the voice of historical

criticism. He quotes Powell saying that “the implied author's

point of view can be determined without considering anything

extrinsic to the narrative.”33 In other words, the answers to

exegesis of the text do not lie in the historical Sitz im Leben, but

within the text itself.34 And this is where Waltke’s idea becomes

dangerous. For sure, in Waltke’s estimation the narrator did not

tamper with the original author’s text, yet there is a sense in

which Waltke’s prophet-historian becomes greater than the

original prophet/writer himself. At one point, Waltke says that

“the narrator's perspective always has priority in our

interpretation.”35 Where Brueggemann encouraged the reader to

practise a “dual reading” of the text, a reading which takes into

account both the historical situation of the original writer(s)

and the situation of the later writer(s) in exile36, Waltke seems

to encourages the reader to practise a single reading of the

text, through the interpretive eye of the nascent narrator.

33 Ibid., 100.34 Ibid., 101.35 Ibid., 104.36 Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament, 75.

15

Grasping Waltke’s concept of real author and implied author

is crucial to understanding his view of narrative, and his

contention with Brueggemann. Waltke views any interpretation that

does not take the narrator at face value as a “deconstructionist

reading.”37 In his view, there is a difference between the real

audience and the implied audience. The real audience is the first

audience to whom the original author wrote. The implied audience

is the community of the text, “the believing community”38 and it

is this audience to whom the prophet-historian speaks. As the

implied audience, if the narrator has informed the believing

community of his opinion on a matter, then to search for any

other reading is to deconstruct the text and make it say

something that the narrator did not intend it to say. Brueggemann

frequently dissects the text in a way that Waltke views as

dangerous. For example, at one point in his work, Brueggemann

discusses the possibility that David was an upstart adventurer

who shrewdly utilized Saul for his own benefit. While the

narrator is skewed toward a pro-David stance, Brueggemann writes,

“this skewedness in the direction of David can produce, as a

37 Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, 103.38 Ibid.

16

downside, the sense of the tragic in the story of Saul, who never

really had a chance in Israel's imagination.”39 Waltke responds

in his volume by saying that, “such approaches, which are not

faithful to the text, are excluded from the accredited

hermeneutics of this book.”40 In truth, there is likely a healthy

balance point somewhere between these two theologians. We have

much to learn from the various forms of criticism, but we also

have a text with a final form that needs to be respected.

Waltke concludes his prolegomena on narrative with a

wonderful chapter on intertextuality and poetics. Time will not

permit me to elaborate too much on Waltke’s work in these areas,

but I will pause to give an example or two. Waltke sees

intertextuality as a tool that can help us to discern the

development of doctrinal ideas throughout scripture.41 He cites

the example of Genesis 1 and Isaiah, where Genesis leaves some

questions in the mind of the reader that Isaiah answers later

on.42 In Genesis 1, the text leaves us with two questions. First,

what is the ‘heavenly court’ that verse 26-28 seem to refer to?

39 Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament, 367.40 Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, 103.41 Ibid.42 Ibid., 127–8.

17

Elohim says, “let us create man in our image.” To whom is God

speaking? And second, verses 1-2 leave us with the impression

that there is a dualism between God and matter. That is, it

appears as if God does not create ex nihilo but that matter already

existed and God merely shaped it into its form. Did God really

create everything, including matter? For Waltke, intertextuality

helps us to answer these questions. The exilic community was

obviously asking similar questions and Deutero-Isaiah provided an

answer. We read in Isaiah 45:7 that God says, “I form the light

and create darkness,” therefore there is no cosmic dualism, but a

gap in the Genesis text that Isaiah helps ‘fill in.’ And, we read

in Isaiah 40:13-14 that God did not consult with anyone at

creation, therefore we must understand the ‘us’ in Genesis 1:26-

28 as a royal declaration, in which God is speaking to himself.

Waltke calls these kinds of texts “transformative texts”43

because they transform and/or deepen the meaning of an earlier

text. As I said, there is much more I would like to say about

this section of Waltke’s work, but I must move on to our final

theologian.

43 Ibid., 126–28.18

In his work, Old Testament Theology: Israel`s Gospel, John Goldingay

exhibits a balanced example of the use of narrative for ‘doing

theology.’ Curiously, Goldingay does not spend much time

theorizing about narrative, but, in the style of true narrative,

he shows us what narrative is. Goldingay shows us the essence of the

story of Israel’s gospel in his prolegomena.

It is of the essence of Israel to be a people with a story. . . The people does not adhere to its religion. It exists before it has a land, and then loses it. It breaks its covenant. It is ambivalent about its monarchy. It welcomes other people into its midst and undermines its kinship base. But irreducibly it is a group that has a common story, and the Old Testament story is the one that identifies Israel as Israel.44

And, what is more, Goldingay says, the story of Israel tells us

who we are in relationship to God as we observe God in

relationship to Israel.

For Goldingay, the story of Israel is a linear narrative.

And that is significant for him because it (the narrative)

believes that “certain events in the past were determinative for

the present” of those who wrote and read the story and the

narrative implies that events in the past are vital for “the

44 Goldingay, Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Gospel, 30.19

present and future of the world itself.”45 Thus it is a story

that was relevant for its original audience and is relevant for

its modern audience as well.

Goldingay first shows us narrative theology by speaking

about God’s role in it. God is the principle character in the

narrative. The narrative does not reveal God through “a

collection of timeless statements such as God is love”46 rather

it reveals God by narrating what God has done. When there are

propositional statements in the text, Goldingay points out that

they come only after they have already been described through

narrative. For example, God’s self-description in Exodus 34:6-7

is a “retrospective systematic theological reflection on the

narrative beginning in Exodus 32.”47 Thus the narrative contains

propositions but they are revealed through a narrative that is

primarily descriptive. This linear narrative consists of a series

of events describing what God has done.

God beganGod started overGod promisedGod delivered

45 Ibid., 31.46 Ibid.47 Ibid., 37.

20

God sealedGod gaveGod accommodatedGod wrestledGod preserved.48

God is the primary character in the narrative, but he is not

the only character. Human beings play a vital role, along with

God, in the text. For Goldingay, this means that the story is “in

a broad sense a historical narrative.”49 The events of God,

because they are also the events of humanity, are passed on by

human beings for later generations. Thus, God did in fact bring

Israel out of Egypt and he did seal a relationship with Israel at

Sinai. These are historical events that occurred in real time and

space. Through these events, humanity played its role in

achieving God’s purpose in the world.

God began.Humanity turned its back on God's instructions, and God started over.God promised, and a family grew.Israel cried out, and God delivered.God sealed, and Israel imperilled.God gave, and Israel took.Israel equivocated, and God accommodated.Israel turned away, and God wrestled.God preserved, and Israel turned back.50

48 Ibid., 32.49 Ibid., 34.50 Ibid., 36.

21

Using this visual method, Goldingay illustrates the interplay

within the narrative between the two principle characters, God

and humanity.

Having shown us how narrative works in the story, Goldingay

moves on to briefly discuss some concepts of narrative theory

that are familiar to us from the work of Brueggemann and Waltke.

First, for Goldingay, the narrator is omniscient, in that

sometimes he manifests knowledge about God that is out of the

ordinary. And, at times, the narrator makes a value judgment in

the context of a story. When the narrator does this, Goldingay

says coyly, “I assume they know what they are talking about.”51

But, he points out, the narrator actually tells us very little.

Mostly, he shows rather than tells. Most often, the narrator

seems to tell the story “without implying a judgment” and this

drives us “to do our own reflection on [the] story.”52 Second,

Goldingay points out his belief that narrative is the best method

for discussing complicated theological issues. Issues such as the

interplay between the sovereignty of God and human free will, are

51 Ibid., 38.52 Ibid.

22

best described and understood through narrative. In fact,

narrative is the most attractive way to discuss these issues in

the current postmodern situation. For Goldingay, postmodernism is

not a threat but as an opportunity. In the postmodern age, people

do not need to have all of the answers established in a logical

form. Rather, people recognize that “reality is complex, and the

fact that Scripture is divine revelation does not make it less

so.”53 For Goldingay, this seems to be the blessing of the

postmodern situation because the text itself is complex and

conflated and requires the willingness to embrace a certain

amount of uncertainty, mixed together with faith.

I mentioned earlier that both Brueggemann and Waltke are

primarily concerned with the community of the text. Brueggemann

is concerned that in the postmodern situation the community of

faith will feel pressured from the outside to stop telling its

story and reading its text. Waltke is concerned that the text of

the community is being deconstructed from within its own

community, and sees this deconstruction as negative. Since

Goldingay is not afraid of postmodernism, his primary concern is

53 Ibid., 40.23

not related to it. He believes that “the Old Testament has a

capacity to speak with illumination and power to the lives of

communities and individuals.”54 (A statement which I assume both

Breggemann and Waltke would affirm!) Goldingay’s primary concern

is with “the church's incomplete conversion toward the God of

Israel.”55 And his aim is “to help people watch the first

episodes of the Scriptures.”56 He believes that too many

Christians do not understand, or even respect, the First

Testament, and therefore, they cannot truly understand the New

Testament. His concern is that the church’s understanding of its

own theology is incomplete because it does not understand the

theology of the First Testament scriptures. So his goal is, in

narrative form, to trace the narrated message of Israel’s gospel

so that the church can fully understand it and incorporate that

understanding into its New Testament theology.57

It appears that there is some common ground between

Brueggemann, Waltke and Goldingay. Like Niebuhr, who paved the

way for narrative theology, these three theologians are concerned

54 Ibid., 18.55 Ibid., 22.56 Ibid., 23.57 Ibid., 25.

24

about the sphere of “internal history, the story of what happened

to us, the living memory of the community.58 Yet their concern

for the living memory of the community carries their narrative

theology in three different directions. For Brueggemann, the

living memory of the community is a fluid memory in which the

author(s) of the text creatively imagined the story of Yahweh

based on communal memory. The process of imagination led to a

series of disputes over which conception of Yahweh would have the

final say. The end product is a confluence of Israel’s multiple

experiences with Yahweh and represents a final text based around

Israel’s mature reflection on its communal memories. In this

text, the modern community can see and understand pieces of its

own reflections upon God. For Waltke, the living memory of the

community is ancient memory reflected through the eyes of

prophet-historian(s) who emplotted the final form of the text. In

this text, the modern reader can trace the hand of God’s unique

message, a message that is intended for the implied audience, the

community of believers living in any age. For Goldingay, the

living memory of the community is a misunderstood or forgotten

58 Niebuhr, “The Story of Our Life,” 44.25

memory. If brought to life again, this memory could transform and

deepen the community of the text, and perhaps lead to a full

conversion to the God of Israel. In truth, I believe that the

community of the text would be richer if it embraced all three of

these theologians and heeded their passionate pleas.

26

Bibliography

Brueggemann, Walter. Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997.

Crites, Stephen. “The Narrative Quality of Experience.” In Why Narrative? Readings in Narrative Theology, edited by Stanley Hauerwasand L. Gregory Jones, 65-88. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1997.

Goldingay, John. Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Gospel. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2003.

Niebuhr, H. Richard. “The Story of Our Life.” In Why Narrative? Readings in Narrative Theology, edited by Stanley Hauerwas and L. Gregory Jones, 21-44. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1997.

Rendtorff, Rolf. The Canonical Hebrew Bible: A Theology of the Old Testament. Leiden, the Netherlands: Deo Publishing, 2005.

Waltke, Bruce. An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and ThematicApproach. 1st ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007.

27