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School in which Student is AttendentFebruary 23, 2014
Advanced Old Testament SurveyIntroduction
I have seen some reports about this book, and most of them were nothing more than rehashing of what we already know about the Old Testament. Some took a favorite chapter or person and centered on it, while others gave a condensed summary of as many chapters as they could, given the space allotted to them. I decided to take another approach, which is to break down the impact that I personally feel the book would have and on whom that impact will have the most effect. The problem with this is that it would take about twelve pages per chapter to fully cover the book, and secondly, many issues would have to be visited and revisited. To avoid this problem I addressed a single positive issue, the readability of the book, and a single negative issue, doctrine issues, and the single issue of implied truth. That being true, let me began with the readability and relevance of the book. When you think of an Old Testament Survey, no matter who it is written by, the first question that comes to mind is, will the literary, historic, and theological issues of the Old Testament be presented in such a way to give a greater understanding of God 's redemptive work toward humanity. In almost every case these issues are attached to a taunt chronological line of events having the literary and theological issues hung from them in much the same way one would hang our delicate washables from a clothes line in the backyard. However, Dr. Elmer Towns addresses these very same issues from a completely different perspective. Rather than draw his attention on the liner events of the Old Testament Dr. Elmer Towns directs his attention on the people who God has used in the Old Testament. The Events are still there, but now theological and literary issues seem to become secondary
References: Towns, E. L. (1996). A Journey through the Old Testament (1 Ed.). Forth Worth Tx: Harcourt Brace Custom Publishers.