Mr. (Dr. Prof.) Bill Arnold's "Encountering the Old Testament" (Chap. 1)

Arnold, Bill and Bryan Beyer. Encountering the Old Testament: A Christian Survey. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999.
http://www.amazon.com/Encountering-Old-Testament-Christian-Biblical/dp/0801031702/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381282178&sr=8-1&keywords=bill+arnold+old+testament

Very basic. (1) What is the Bible? (2) Inspiration. (3) Textual Transmission. (4) Hermeneutics. (5) Objectives. (6) Additional Textbooks. (5) Observations. 

 Outline: What is the Bible?

--Canons, Tests of Canonicity, Formation of the Canon, Order of Books in Hebrew/English Bible

Inspiration: How was the Bible Written?

--Neo-orthodoxy (Barth, Brunner), Dictation Theory, Limited Inspiration Theory, Plenary Verbal Inspiration

Textual Transmission—How Did We Get the Bible?

--Scribal Care in Textual Transmission, Transmission in Original Languages, Translation in Other Languages

Hermeneutics:

--Grammatico-Historical Method, Context, Genre Issue and Interpretive Issues, Scripture Interprets Scripture (analogia fidei)

Objectives:

--Compare test of canonicity, evaluate theories of inspiration, illustrations of textual transmission, interpretative considerations

A Few Additional Texts to review:

Brotzman, Ellis R. Old Testament Textual Criticism: A Practical Introduction. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994. Arnold notes that is an excellent survey and excellent for beginners in the field. Old Testament described as a two-fold “miracle:” (1) that the Old Testament has survived as it has and (2) the remarkable accuracy in textual transmission, e.g. comparison of Dead Sea Scroll texts with the Lenigrad Codex, et. al. http://www.amazon.com/Old-Testament-Textual-Criticism-Introduction/dp/0801010659/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381361922&sr=8-1&keywords=ellis+brotzman+old+testament+textual+criticism

Tov, Emanuel. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis/Assen, Netherlands: Fortress/Van Gorcum, 1992. Extensive and scholarly review to Hebrew Bible—from Qumran, Septuagint, Masoretic Text, as well as Aramaic Targumim, Syriac translations, the Vulgate and others http://www.amazon.com/Textual-Criticism-Hebrew-Bible-Emanuel/dp/B002SQKUV8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1381362175&sr=8-2&keywords=emanuel+tov+textual+criticism

Observations:

The first chapter was a standard, run-of-the-mill set of descriptions. Clear, direct, simple. Quite basic. We revise our earlier view: collegiate level. No, more like a 11th-12th grade text level. But, very serviceable depending on the audience. It is still/maybe serviceable for new joins to a parish—adults.

Mr. Arnolds does a fair job on textual transmission. He calls attention to the scrupulosity of Hebrew rabbis in textual transmission. For example, scribes knew that there were 400, 945 letters in the Torah (Gen.-Dt.). They counted. They also had other check-points for verification, e.g. the middle word in the Torah was Leviticus 10.16 = “searched.”

Other than the book recommendations, this chapter was unremarkable.