God at Sinai

Rating:
Summary: A Comparitive study in Covenant and Theophany
Review: This book provides great insight into the themes of Covenant and Theophany in the Bible. It is a comparitive study of ancient near eastern cultures and their influence on the Old Testament. Much is to be gleamed from an understanding of the culture of the Bible and this book opens up the ancient world and brings it to life. It gives one a proper understanding of covenant and theophany by defining their literary structure and showing the place they occupied in their original culture. A scholastic triumph and a must have for pastors or teachers.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic scholarship on Covenant and Theophany in the OT
Review: This book was used for a course, Introduction to the Pentateuch, taught at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Dr. Niehaus does a fabulous job presenting the ideas of Covenants and Theophanies (i.e., from two greek words, "theos", God, and "phanew", to manifest or show; thus, meaning "the manifestation of God in reality"). He interacts with much of the previous scholarship done on Old Testament, as well as tries to look at various Ancient Near Eastern cultures, religions, and texts, which are similar to the Bible on this topic. He looks at the literary structure, content, and context for proper understanding of the Old Testament.

Dr. Niehaus focuses on the Sinai/Horeb theophany, and shows its distinctive character and illumination in the history of Israel, as well as pre-Sinai and how their understanding contributes to the ideas at Sinai, and post-Sinai theophanies and how they reflect Sinai, and yet how they differ, and how they are to be understood. Niehaus also does a great job showing what the implications are to the New Testament.

I would highly, highly recommend this for any pastor, teacher, or student of the Bible; it gives a greater understanding of the Old Testament to the reader. Written from an Evangelical perspective, it is a great triumph of (Evangelical) scholarship. I've never understood the Old Testament better!