Middle East Customs - Essay Example

Waltke. He later went for overseas study in University of Goettingen in Germany between August 1982 to July 1983 where he furthered his education under the supervision of Dr. Rudolph Smend, Dr. Rykle Borger and Dr. Lothar Perlitt. He holds a doctorate degree in Philosophy in Old Testament from Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia which he was awarded in 1988. When he was studying in this University, he wrote a dissertation titled "A Rhetorical Analysis of the Book of Chronicles" under the supervision of John H. Hayes. Cracking Old Testament Codes helps the readers to understand the Old Testament and also enhances the way preachers interprets the Old Testament accordingly.

The book is divided into two sections whereby the first three chapters are said to be an introduction for the reader to understand the concept of literary forms "genres" when we relate it to Old Testament. The Author begins the section with an article titled "Literary Forms of the Old Testament". In this section, the author tries to establish in written communication the reality of such forms which he explains in the Old Testament. According to the author, understanding of "genre" is quite involving as it concerns establishing the form, content and later on the textual unit function.

He urges that there should be ten basic genres in the Old Testament and not the traditional five that are common on hermeneutic in older works. He also urges that for genres to function properly in the text, there are supposed to be ten in number. The author advocates the use of three different genres namely:-NarrativeHistory and,LawMoreover, prophecy is seen as a combination of prose and poetry that has three different genres that include: Oracles of Salvation, Announcements of Judgment and apocalyptic.

Poetry is divided into psalms of lament and psalms of praise while wisdom has two main divisions that include proverbial and non-proverbial wisdom.The second division of the book are the ten chapters that mainly emphasizes on the values and dangers in the interpretive process in literary form perspective. "Genre criticism" is distinguished as it concerns with the final canonical form not the prior sources whether it is oral or in written form as it is commonly known with source criticism to some rhetorical criticism and degree form.

This section has ten chapters and each one of them addresses the ten genre of the Old Testament literature. These chapters are viewed to very useful to the readers as they are very simplified for the reader to grasp the content easily. They are seen to be having very useful instruction and information for the readers. Finally, the last chapter is seen as giving instruction to the preachers to use the knowledge they acquire in these chapters when preparing the sermon. IV. Evaluation. Cracking Old Testament Codes is a valuable book to the reader as the author took time to think about his audience and every