A Pathway of Interpretation: The Old Testament for Pastors and Students

With this slim book, Brueggemann seeks to provide a simplified resource to equip and empower seminarians and pastors to interpret the Old Testament for the contemporary church. The main advantage of this book is its streamlined approach that is targeted to the typical expertise of pastors and seminarians by assuming little or no knowledge of Hebrew or textual criticism. The result is a basic three-step method that allows nonspecialists to do biblical interpretation “on the run” without getting sidetracked into specialized topics or issues. This intent distinguishes this book from many of the currently available exegetical handbooks and resources for Old Testament study, which all too often give focused attention to specialized topics or issues. While important for the scholarly guild, these resources are mostly intended for training for academia and are not necessarily readily accessible or helpful for nonspecialist study of the Old Testament. The core of the book (chs. 3–6) consists of a presentation of a three-step method: rhetorical analysis, key word analysis, and social analysis (ch. 3), followed by an application of this method to a variety of narrative, psalmic, and prophetic passages from the Old Testament. Throughout, Brueggemann shows that the three-step approach is not merely a rigid system but rather provides both structure and flexibility to discern the rhetorical artistry of the text and its claims for contemporary communities of faith. [Full Review]