Old Testament Exegesis Book Summary.

Paper

Presented to

Mrs. Rev. Julius Ndishua

Cameroon Baptist Theological Seminary, Ndu

In

Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirement for the course

Hebrew Exegesis

By

BISONG RANSON TAMFU.

M.DIV III 2881

June 2020
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Book Summary

Stuart, Douglas. Old Testament Exegesis. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press,

2009.

Introduction

An Exegesis is a thorough analytical study of a Biblical passage so as to arrive at a useful

interpretation of the passage. Proper exegesis requires some linguistics, philosophy, textual

criticism, stylistics, grammar and vocabulary, analysis and some sociology. Examples of

resources that are needed in this study include: OT Introductions, OT overviews, OT hndbooks,

bibliographies, a critical edition of the OT, Hebrew-based Concordances and Bible Dictonaries.

Chapter 1: Guide for Full Exegesis

The Text: Before one proceeds with the work of exegesis, they must check and confirm

the limits of their passage. That is, the chosen passage must be a self-contained unit. It would not

be good to cut a narrative, poem or a flow of thought in the middle. Secondly, the researcher has

to compare the various Hebrew versions for the chosen text. That is: the Greek, Syriac, Aramaic,

Latin and Qumran version. Thirdly, there has to be a reconstruction of the text, and in the cases

where there is poetry, the poetry has to be presented in a versified form so as to reflect the

author’s sense of parallelism and rhythm.

The Translation: The researcher has to prepare a tentative translation of the text with the

aid of lexicons and Bible Dictionaries. Next, the Exegete has to revise the translation of the text

as the study progresses, since the meanings of words and phrases become clearer as the study

progresses.
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Grammatical Data: The exegete should analyze the significant grammatical issues. At

this point, it is good to check your grammatical expressions for ambiguity and difficult words,

and also make proper adjustments. Also, there is need to analyze the orthography and

morphology for dates and other affinities. Coming across older dates and morphological features

may give clues about the date and about the Geographical location of the text.

Lexical Data: All the words and concepts that are not obvious need to be explained so

that the text can be properly understood. In doing this, the exegete has to concentrate on the most

important words, concepts and wordings. After this, word or concept studies have to be

undertaken to clarify the concepts in the text, and special semantic features in the text should

also be identified. These are features like irony, anaphora, epiphora, paranomasia and metonymy.

How they affect the meaning has to be underlined.

Form: The researcher needs to identify the general literary type, after which he has to

proceed to the specific literary type, and then the subcategories. Once these are done, there is

need to look for the live setting, analyze the completeness of the form and be alert to partial and

broken forms.

Structure: This section has to do with providing an outline to the passage, looking for

patterns like repetitions and progressions, organizing the discussion of structures according to

descending units of size, evaluating the intentionality of minor patterns, and analyzing the

passage according to the poetic pattern if it is poetic.

Historical context: Research the historical background (the setting, events that led up to

the particular point in the passage and how they affect the meaning of the passage), the social

setting, the historical foreground (the preceding passage and how it affects the present text), the

Geographical setting and the date of writing.

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The Literary context: The exegete should examine the literary function, the placement

(how it fits within the section, book, division, section, testament and Bible), analyze the detail

(what it concentrates on) and also analyze the authorship of the book.

Biblical Context: There should be an analysis of the use of the passage elsewhere in

scripture and an analysis of the passage’s relation to the rest of scripture and the passage’s import

for understanding the rest of scripture.

Theology: Locate the passage theologically (how does it fit into Christian theology),

underline the specific issues raised or solved by the passage and analyze the theological

contributions of the passage.

Application: In order to do an application of the passage, one needs to list the live issues

(what aspects of life the passage is concerned about), Clarify the nature of the application

(informative or directive), clarify the possible areas of application (faith or action), identify the

audience of the application of the application, establish the categories of application, determine

the focus of the application and fix the limits of the application.

Secondary Literature: This has to do with investigating and learning what others have

said about the passage, comparing with readymade work and making necessary adjustments,

applying the discoveries throughout the paper or project and organizing the results in a format

that is easily read and understood by the audience.

Chapter 2: Exegesis and the Original Text

The Text: To confirm the limits of the passage, one can turn either to the Hebrew Text

itself in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and its varied editions or a modern Bible translation.

Comparing the various versions, one can try back translating English translations into Hebrew in

order to see the manuscript it follows or runs contrary to. One can also open the various versions
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and proceed in the analysis, line after line. The text also needs to be reconstructed after this. In

case of significant differences in wordings, look for the original wordings that would best

account for the present divergent wordings. When translating poetry, it is good to list each part of

the couplet or triplet on a line of its own.

Translation: it is always good for the exegete to produce their own translation of the

passage rather than relying on others’ translations. This is because the committees and individual

translations do not always know the Bible in the original language so well as to produce flawless

translations, they work on deadlines, and also, words have different ranges of meanings.

Spending enough time in your work of exegesis may even offer a better translation of the text.

Grammatical Data: It is important to eliminate ambiguity, identify grammatical

specificity, and identify orthography and morphology and so on.

Lexical Data: Considerable subjectivity is involved in deciding which words and phrases

are the most important ones in a passage. This therefore demands familiarity with the passage so

that the choices of words to be studied will be good ones.

Form: Knowing the form of a passage is quite important to exegesis. If one can

accurately categorize a piece of literature, he can accurately compare it to similar passages and

thus appreciate both the ways in which it is typical and the ways in which it is unique. Also, the

text is always related in some way to its function.

Structure: Meaning is conveyed by more than just words and sentences. How the words

and sentences relate to eachother and where they occur within the passage can have a profound

impact on its comprehension. The structure is often the main criterion for deciding whether a

block of material is a single passage or a group of independent passages.

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Historical context: The historical situation out of which or to which a portion of

scripture was written must be understood for it to be meaningful. Some passages are obviously

less historical than others. Knowing the background, social setting, foreground, geographical

setting and date is very important to appreciating the significance of a passage.

Literary Context: The analysis of literary context has different interests from historical

analysis. It is concerned not with the entire historical context from whatever sources it may be

learned, but with the particular way that an inspired author or editor has placed a passage within

an entire block of literature. Often the most important literary context for a passage will be the

book in which the passage itself is found.

Biblical Context: Looking at the passage in the light of the whole of scripture helps the

researcher properly determine its meaning.

Theology: As Christians, the Old Testament is our theological heritage too. What you

believe is informed by its content, corrected by its strictures, and stimulated by its teachings.

Theology is a big and sometimes complicated enterprise, but it cannot be ignored. How a

passage fits within the whole Christian belief system deserves careful attention. From the many

individual passages of the Bible, we see the picture of what God has specifically revealed; from

the whole orb of theology, we have proper perspective for appreciating the truths of the

individual passage.

Application: Without application, exegesis is only an intellectual exercise. Every step of

the process of exegesis should have as its goal right belief and right action. The Scripture fulfills

its inspired purpose not merely in entertaining our brains but also in affecting our very living.

The Bible is so varied that the applications of its various portions will be diverse. But that does

not mean that any given application should not be the result of a rigorous, disciplined enterprise.
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Secondary Literature: it is important to get the articles, books or commentaries

necessary for the work, and specific to the passage. The passage can be looked up in electronic

databases, annual numbers of Old Testament Abstracts and other resources.

Chapter 3: Short Guide for Sermon Exegesis

Text and Translation: Read the passage repeatedly, as this will aid comprehension and

check for significant textual issues by refereeing to the footnotes in the Biblia Hebraica

Stuttgartensia. When this is done, do your own translation, as other translations are sometimes

misleading. If the passage contains some textual or transactional difficulties, let the congregation

know. Also list the various observations from the exegetical work about the things that should be

mentioned in the sermon.

Grammatical and Lexical Data: Here, take note of any grammar that is unusual,

ambiguous or otherwise important to the comprehension of the passage. Also make an

exhaustive list of the terms which you consider important. They can be verbs, nouns, adjectives

and so on. Reduce the list of words to a manageable size for easy study and proceed with a mini-

word study of the main words or concepts.

Form and Structure: identify the genre of the form, whether it is prose, poetry,

narrative, speech lament, dream account or any other one. Also, investigate the live setting of the

forms where necessary (the relations between the forms and real-life situations. Outline the

passage, seeking to discover its natural flow or progression and isolate the unique features and

evaluate their significance.

Literary Historical Context: Examine the background of the passage, identify the

general literary background of the passage using OT introductions and commentaries as

necessary. In the cases of narratives, look at the preceding and proceeding passages. Also,
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describe the literary-historical setting, looking at the placement, function and authorship of the

passage. Look at the social, geographical and archeological concordances as well as actual

chronological concordances. Examine the foreground of the passage (preceding passages).

Biblical/Theological Context: Analyze the use of the passage elsewhere in scripture, the

passage’s relation to the rest of scripture and analyze the passage’s use in theology and its

relation to theology.

Application: At the application, list the live issues in the passage, clarify the possible

nature and area of application, identify the audience and categories of application and extablish

the time focus and limit of the application.

Moving from Exegesis to Sermon: To do this, you need to work from your sermon-use

list. Go through this list and see what ideas can be merged and what type of sermon can emerge.

Do not use the twelve- or six-step exegesis outline as a sermon outline. Also, differentiate

between the speculative and the certain facts of the passage and differentiate between the central

and the peripheral aspects of the text. At this point, stop relying on homiletical commentaries.

Instead, do proper exegesis and study your context too. Lastly, remember that application is the

major concern of the sermon. As a result, always make sure your sermon is properly applied to

your listeners.

Chapter 4: Exegesis Aids and Resources

The Need for textual criticism: The task of textual criticism may seem unappealing,

even annoying; but it is unavoidable. There is no single authoritative version of the OT text in

existence.

The Hebrew text printed in the older BH3, the current standard, BHS , and the

forthcoming/underway BHQ is merely an edited arrangement of the Leningrad Codex, a

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manuscript from the early eleventh century AD, one manuscript among many from ancient and

medieval times. The alternative readings (called variants) are themselves only a selection of the

possible different readings from a great variety of ancient manuscripts of the OT in various

languages, each of which was considered both authoritative and “standard” by some community

of faith at some time in the past. the variants given in the footnotes of the BH editions, along with

the many other variants not mentioned by the rather selective editors of those editions, should be

accorded fair consideration along with the Leningrad Codex.

Examples of resources for textual criticism include: Emanuel Tov, “Textual Criticism

(OT),” in the Anchor Bible Dictionary, 4:393–412 (New York: Doubleday, 1992); Ellis R.

Brotzman, Old Testament Textual Criticism: A Practical Introduction (Grand Rapids: Baker

Academic, 1994).

For the understanding of Maora Notes, one can use: Page H. Kelley, Daniel S. Mynatt,

and Timothy G. Crawford, The Masorah of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Grand Rapids: Wm.

B. Eerdmans, 1998); Christian D. Ginsburg, The Massorah, 4 vols. (repr., New York: Ktav

Publishing House, 1975).

Example of an introduction to the Old Testament: Otto Eissfeldt, The Old Testament: An

Introduction (1965; repr., Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1978).

Bible Terms: Richard N. Soulen and R. Kendall Soulen, Handbook of Biblical Criticism,

3rd ed., rev. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003).

The Versions: In addition to the Masoretic Text (MT)—one manuscript of which is

printed in edited form as the basis of the BH3, BHS, BHQ—there are five other main ancient

versions of the OT in four languages. The Greek OT, Usually called the Septuagint (LXX), The

Qumran scrolls, The Syriac OT, The Aramaic OT, and The Latin OT.
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Relevant website: Emanuel Tov, Electronic Resources Relevant to the Textual Criticism

of Hebrew Scripture, http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol08/Tov2003.html.

Critical Text Editions:

The LXX has two major ones: Alan E. Brooke, Norman McLean, and Henry St. J.

Thackeray, eds., The Old Testament in Greek 3 vols. in 9 (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1906–1940); Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Societatis Litterarum

Gottingensis Editum (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1931–).

Other manuscripts also have their various editions all containing details not perculiar to

their counterparts.

There are many resources that can be used for the work of exegesis, and this book

provides a very good number.