Comments on: Stirring the Pot: How Should the Books of the OT Be Ordered?

By: How Should the Books of the OT Be Ordered? | For His Renown

How Should the Books of the OT Be Ordered? | For His Renown — Wed, 18 May 2011 04:56:10 +0000

[...] post originally appeared as a guest post at Moore to the Point. Share this:FacebookEmailPrintShareDiggRedditStumbleUpon ← Kingdom [...]

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 23:37:55 +0000

wow. that is alot of information. I dont even know if I could do all that. And thank you so much for lettming me in on all the info.

By: Richard

Richard — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 10:37:26 +0000

I do think that this raises important issues for canonical criticism, i.e. which canon are we going to use and which order. Does the order have an effect in the theological message?

By: ‘Should Bible publishers scrap the current order of the OT and publish Bibles in the old Jewish Tanakh order?’ : Sic et Non

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:18:20 +0000

[...] scrap the current order of the OT and publish Bibles in the old Jewish Tanakh order?’ Jim Hamilton says yes (HT: Greg [...]

By: Lane Keister

Lane Keister — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:02:06 +0000

Jim, thanks for sticking your neck out on this one and actually making a great case for it. There should easily be enough material here for a journal article, and maybe even a book. Why don’t you expand it with lots of historical argumentation, and expanded biblical exegesis as well, supporting your argument? That would be a gap in the literature, as well as completely new territory for today’s scholarship.

By: Should Protestants Go Back to the Hebrew Order of Books In the OT? « Green Baggins

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:59:11 +0000

[...] be clearly seen side by side here. In the same post, Greg references a very stimulating argument by Jim Hamilton (a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) that English Bibles should follow the order [...]

By: Steve Douglas

Steve Douglas — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:56:20 +0000

If you are going to produce one, I’ll buy. Now, how will it be translated? I’m not big on the ESV. The only thing you will need to be careful of is by bringing up this discussion in a larger audience is that it may restart the liberal/Ehrmann argument for opening the canon (including pseudepigrapha/apocrypha and removing canonical books). But I sure wouldn’t mind something like a working literal translation or interlinear for sem use. Great idea, Sir!

By: Summa Curiosita for 1/16/09 « the DEAD THEOLOGIANS SOCIETY

Summa Curiosita for 1/16/09 « the DEAD THEOLOGIANS SOCIETY — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:36:19 +0000

[...] guest-blogging for Russell Moore. James Hamilton gives a thought-provoking post on the right order of the Old Testament [...]

By: What is the “right” order of the Old Testament canon? « Ramblin’ Pastor Man

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:14:51 +0000

[...] It is a little technical, but fascinating.

By: Dan Lowe

Dan Lowe — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:09:54 +0000

I recently listened to a series of lectures by Dr. Miles Van Pelt on Biblical Theology which address this very issue. It provides a helpful introduction to the structure of the Old Testament canon. You can download or stream the lectures for free from the Biblical Training website (found here http://www.biblicaltraining.org/class.php?class=BT201 .)

Grace and peace to you all!

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:05:01 +0000

We teach the children of our church the order of the books with a song (“Come, everybody, let us tell the books of the Bible we love so well: Genesis; Exodus; Leviticus; Numbers, Deu-ter-onomy; Joshua; Judges; Ruth and Samuel; Sa-mu-el; Kings; Kings; Chronicles and Chronicles;… … … and Revelation”).

And now you want us to change it all? Perish the thought!

Seriously, this is a good post. I don’t expect to see it implemented in my lifetime, though. Or my children’s lifetime. Or my grandchildren’s. So I can still teach them the song, right? :-)

By: Jim’s a Stirrin « Stones Cry Out

Jim’s a Stirrin « Stones Cry Out — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:05:31 +0000

[...] “stirring the pot” at Moore to the Point (Russell Moore’s blog).

By: Hamilton Stirring the Pot « The Road To Emmaus

Hamilton Stirring the Pot « The Road To Emmaus — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:35:39 +0000

[...] Stirring the Pot: How Should the Books of the OT Be Ordered? [...]

By: Leslie

Leslie — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:58:56 +0000

I think I’m going to read my yearly Bible reading plan in this order after reading this post :-)

By: New Year’s Goals « Theology for Doxology

New Year’s Goals « Theology for Doxology — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:21:41 +0000

[...] 1.

By: Ross Clark

Ross Clark — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:14:21 +0000

Channing - the you singular/you plural question is not restricted to the New Testament. To use a personal favourite example, in Jer 29, the “you”s there are plural, not singular, which does affect how the passage should be read. There are lots of examples of *informal* English where the singular/plural distinction is maintained; “y’all” (the American South) or “youse” (Scots English).

The KJV got round this by using ‘thou’ as the singular and ‘you’ as the plural; reflecting older English usage, but then ignoring the way in which by that stage, the distinction in the use of those terms was no longer singular/plural but informal/formal (as in many other European languages; as anyone who has had to wrestle with the tu/vous distinction in French will recognise).

By: Ted

Ted — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 05:13:31 +0000

Interesting argument! I think I agree!

To add to the importance of arrangement: Consider the Psalms, which definitely shows evidence of organizing. Hill & Walton contend in their book, “OT Today” that the Psalms were arranged to teach the Davidic covenant and God’s kingdom.

By: Channing Kilgore

Channing Kilgore — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:23:27 +0000

I would like to see it myself. I also would love to see the names of God transliterated (eg. Elohim, YHWH, El Shaddai, etc.). We lose much of the revelatory aspects of God’s names/titles. Also the English translation needs revised to include clarity on the second person plural forms. I am already working on this and Dr. Wellum, Sproul, Lawson and Grudem*(his grad. student said he would be interested in looking at it) have expressed interest in signing the project for their endorsement. The second person plural could be translated as “all of you”. See Luke 22:31,32. Can you tell which is the plural ‘you’ and which is the singular? The first ‘you’ is plural, the rest are singular. This is why we need an update.

By: Be The Fruit » Blog Archive » How should the books of the OT be ordered?

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:42:14 +0000

[...] Dr. Jim Hamilton poses this interesting question in a guest spot over at Moore to the Point in a post that can be read here. [...]

By: TimothyPaulJones

TimothyPaulJones — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:17:21 +0000

@Amanda: The Jewish Publication Society has a modern translation of the Tanakh that follows the ancient tripartite division. The translation itself is a joy to read also–though, obviously, there are some differences that you’ll notice between the JPS Tanakh and, say, the ESV or NASB. I highly recommend reading through the Old Testament in the JPS Tanakh, though.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:45:01 +0000

I personally have benefited immensely from reading through the OT following the divisions of the Law, Prophets, and Writings, though I had to flip around to do so. I found the flow of the text to be more logical, coherent, and cohesive that way, making it a lot easier for me to grasp the themes and continuity of Scripture. However, since my knowledge of Hebrew is rather elementary and my progress through my BHS painstakingly slow, yes, I would absolutely love to have a good English translation that ordered the OT books that way.

By: Dr. Jim Hamilton

Dr. Jim Hamilton — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:12:45 +0000

One reason you can’t order the thing chronologically is that Chronicles starts at the beginning and ends at the end. So where do you put that book? At the beginning or at the end?

I think there was an intentional arrangement of the books of the OT that largely matches the division of the books into the Law, Prophets, and Writings.

Blessings!

jmh

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:50:10 +0000

Why not order it chronologically? Isn’t that how the modern Hebrew bible is arranged?

Ps. You need to come back and visit Kemp. I want to hang out!

By: Dan Diffey

Dan Diffey — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:42:40 +0000

Amen! I have long desired to see this order in English (bound with the NT; there is always the JPS trans., which of course, only contains the OT (or more properly for that trans., the TNK)). The theological implications could be astounding. I hope that this is given more thought in OT and biblical theology (I am actually surprised that it hasn’t received as much attention within the canonical movement). Thank you for your thoughts.

By: Don Simpson

Don Simpson — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:37:46 +0000

In testing topic, one I’ve pondered numerous times as I’ve tried to gain better mastery of the contexts of the OT. I just picked up a copy of Thomas Nelson’s new Chronological Study Bible (NKJV) on Saturday (which divides up the 66 books into 9 epochs - the OT into 7 epochs and NT into 2). I’ve not had much time to delve into it yet but while it takes a slightly different path than a tripartite division mentioned in your post, I think it helps support an argument for a needed re-examination of the existing arrangement of the OT within the Christian biblical canon. Thanks for posting this.

By: Dr. Jim Hamilton

Dr. Jim Hamilton — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:24:28 +0000

Thanks for your note, Marc. I have, and I do think it’s helpful.

Two books that will help you see the ways the books of the OT relate to each other when they’re read from this perspective are:

Paul House, Old Testament Theology

and

Stephen Dempster, Dominion and Dynasty: A Theology of the Hebrew Bible

Enjoy!

JMH

By: Marc Goodwin

Marc Goodwin — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 13:44:21 +0000

This is fascinating to think about. Honestly, I’ve heard about the three-part division of the OT canon before, but I’ve never put much thought into why ours now differs–and more importantly, into whether that rearrangement has somehow muffled the OT’s overall message. Maybe sometime in the near future, I can read through the books of the OT in that order to see if it adds clarity and easier insight into the OT’s teachings…Have you read them through in that order before to see what insights you might glean?