Torah Story, 2nd Edition

[Semper Fidelis]

In the Theology on the Go podcast today they were talking to the author of Torah Story. He just published a 2nd Edition.

Torah Story, Second Edition: An Apprenticeship on the Pentateuch - Kindle edition by Schnittjer, Gary Edward. Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Torah Story, Second Edition: An Apprenticeship on the Pentateuch - Kindle edition by Schnittjer, Gary Edward. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Torah Story, Second Edition: An...

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I hadn't heard of the work before but it sounds like it's part of the OT use of the OT scholarship which is an interesting topic right now.

The discussion is here: https://www.placefortruth.org/blog/torah-story-second-edition-part-1-podcast

What I started reflecting upon is how we often translate Torah to Law but the Hebrew Scriptures were divided up into the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings where Law is how we tend to translate Torah.

That said, the Torah includes more than just the "Laws" as we commonly construe them. It includes Genesis and accounts that writers in the NT refer to as the Gospel being preached to our forefathers in the wilderness. We even know that the Gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham and the Patriarchs in the Torah.

It strikes me that we have a bit of a theological translation issue when the "Law" is referred to in the NT if we always conceive of Christ or the Apostles conceiving Torah as the Mosaic Law itself. I don't know why that just dawned on me today but it does create a hermeneutical issue if you tend to conceive of the use of the word "Law" as always construing the Mosaic Law itself.

I'm hoping @iainduguid might weigh in along with others as this is a fascinating topic.

I think I intuitively conceive the Torah as an entire body of teaching due to Covenant Theology and it strikes me how many traditions read "Law" in a way not understanding its deeper significance when you conceive of the way it was conceived to include the entire body of teaching.

 

[iainduguid]

Hi Rich,
You are correct in your observation that torah has a wider semantic range than simply "law", and that we often miss nuances in our English translations as a result. For example, in Psalm 1, when the Psalmist is meditating day and night on torah, it's not simply God's rules and regulations he is pondering but the whole history of God's faithfulness to his people. Not least because Psalm 1 introduces the Psalter, which is arranged as 5 books in deliberate imitation of the Torah.

However, it's also quite possible to overstress that insight. It's not as if the Psalmist doesn't also love all of God's statutes and rules (Psalm119, anyone?). The law is a great gift by God to his people. In English translation, we are stuck with an either/or, where Hebrew has a both/and. Even the Ten Commandments come to us in an explicitly redemptive context, prefaced by "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt". Law and gospel belong side by side, distinct but neither separated nor confused.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Hi Rich,
You are correct in your observation that torah has a wider semantic range than simply "law", and that we often miss nuances in our English translations as a result. For example, in Psalm 1, when the Psalmist is meditating day and night on torah, it's not simply God's rules and regulations he is pondering but the whole history of God's faithfulness to his people. Not least because Psalm 1 introduces the Psalter, which is arranged as 5 books in deliberate imitation of the Torah.

However, it's also quite possible to overstress that insight. It's not as if the Psalmist doesn't also love all of God's statutes and rules (Psalm119, anyone?). The law is a great gift by God to his people. In English translation, we are stuck with an either/or, where Hebrew has a both/and. Even the Ten Commandments come to us in an explicitly redemptive context, prefaced by "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt". Law and gospel belong side by side, distinct but neither separated nor confused.

Well said. I appreciate your point about not avoiding the statutes and commands. That's important. I think there is a tendency, even for many Reformed believers, to think that the Psalmist is speaking only of statutes and commands where the love includes that but also the recounting of how God is God of His people in a historical way. He is the God Who calls Abraham into the land, the God Who frees, the God Who fights, the God Who rescues...

It seems to me that the Covenant of Grace idea, as it formed, seemed to be a way to encapsulate that idea rather than putting the "Law" outside the realm of God's gracious work.

 

[RamistThomist]

I generally agree with the insight, though some people overplay it to read contradictions with the 3-fold that aren't really there. It's important not to reduce Torah as simply meaning the equivalent of the US Federal Register.

 

[Reformed Covenanter]

At first glance, I thought it was a Toy Story thread.