Abstract
Michael B. Shepherd’s The Textual World of the Bible is an ambitious attempt to discuss the theology of the entire Bible, based on its pattern of simultaneously depicting the past, the present, and the future with its cyclical, type-based view of history and the stress that is frequently laid on the idea of reading Torah to understand events in the present.
Shepherd lays out this idea in the first chapter, pointing out that key events such as creation and the Exodus in the Bible are used in different forms again and again throughout the Bible, often with the same terminology being employed. This cyclical quality to Biblical history is most notable in its account of Israel’s repeated failure to hold to its covenant with God.
In the next chapter, Shepherd discusses the way that Deuteronomy proposes itself as an interpretive key to the Pentateuch at large, a method for interpreting the Pentateuch adopted by the following books of the Former Prophets (Joshua through to Kings). The theme of the Former Prophets is the contrast between the people’s apostasy and God’s faithfulness. The Davidic covenant gives some hope of breaking of the cycle of apostasy, but none of the kings that follow David prove righteous enough actually to do so.
Shepherd then discusses the Writings, in particular noting instances of the reading of the Torah being described as in itself a holy activity. He argues that Ezra, reading and interpreting the Torah to the people in Nehemiah 8:1-8, prefigures the move from a sacrifice and Temple-based religion to a book-based religion (if this is the case, it seems ironic that it was done at the time that the Second Temple itself was built!).
In the final section, on the New Testament, Shepherd argues that the books of the New Testament present themselves as the natural successors to the Torah, providing an end to the cycle of apostasy with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Shepherd’s book often makes a compelling case, but the structure is often bewildering. It often reads more like a fragmentary commentary than a single argument –in particular, the lack of conclusions to the first three chapters makes Shepherd’s argument difficult to follow, and the fourth chapter moves abruptly from an analysis of the New Testament to issues regarding pastoral training in the present day.