"Christians love the Bible, but they often do not know what to do with the Old Testament," writes Westmont College professor Tremper Longman. Further, he points out that it includes many types of writing—history, prophecy, poetry, wisdom and apocalyptic. In this helpful volume he offers different strategies for understanding each of these important types of writing.
Jesus made a point to tell his disciples that the whole Old Testament anticipated his coming (see especially Luke 24:25-27, 44-45). And so each session includes a special feature called "Anticipating the New Testament." Through this you will begin to discover the links between the two testaments and gain a fuller sense of our unfolding salvation history.
Following the format of the other volumes of the Essenitals series, originally designed by Greg Ogden, author of
Discipleship Essentials, each session includes the following elements:
a memory verse
a Bible study
a reading
"Anticipating the New Testament"
a life application section
Designed to work well on your own, with a partner or triad, or in a small group,
Old Testament Essentials offers a comprehensive overview that will enrich your knowledge and deepen your faith.
"Tremper Longman is for me—and countless others—a treasured 'go-to' resource to uncover the treasures of Old Testament wisdom. This survey will be of huge value to anyone who wants the big picture of the Great Story." —John Ortberg, senior pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church and author of
Who Is This Man?
Frequently asked questions
Yes, you can cancel anytime from the Subscription tab in your account settings on the Perlego website. Your subscription will stay active until the end of your current billing period. Learn how to cancel your subscription.
At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.
Perlego offers two plans: Essential and Complete
Essential is ideal for learners and professionals who enjoy exploring a wide range of subjects. Access the Essential Library with 800,000+ trusted titles and best-sellers across business, personal growth, and the humanities. Includes unlimited reading time and Standard Read Aloud voice.
Complete: Perfect for advanced learners and researchers needing full, unrestricted access. Unlock 1.4M+ books across hundreds of subjects, including academic and specialized titles. The Complete Plan also includes advanced features like Premium Read Aloud and Research Assistant.
Both plans are available with monthly, semester, or annual billing cycles.
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Yes! You can use the Perlego app on both iOS or Android devices to read anytime, anywhere — even offline. Perfect for commutes or when you’re on the go. Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access Old Testament Essentials by III, Tremper Longman,Tremper Longman, III,Tremper Longman III in PDF and/or ePUB format. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
After reading Genesis 1–2, spend some time reflecting on this passage with the following questions in mind before looking at the Reading.
Notice that there are two separate accounts of creation here (Genesis 1:1–2:4a and Genesis 2:4b-25). Please write a brief description of the similarities and differences between the two accounts. What is the main subject of each?
In Genesis 1:2, the earth is described as “formless and empty.” How do you picture that in your imagination?
Fill in the following boxes with what God created on each of the six days. Do you notice any relationship between the boxes for days 1-3 and those for days 4-6?
DAY 1
DAY 2
DAY 3
DAY 4
DAY 5
DAY 6
The psalmist proclaimed:
What are mere mortals that you should think about them,
human beings that you should care for them?
Yet you made them only a little lower than God
and crowned them with glory and honor. (Psalm 8:4-5 NLT)
In the first creation account (Genesis 1:1–2:4a), what are the indicators that human beings are the high point of creation, “a little lower than God”?
How about in the second account (Genesis 2:4b-25)?
All six creation days are said to have an evening and a morning, but the sun, moon and stars are not created until the fourth day. How does this affect your understanding of the creation “days”?
Human beings are said to be created in God’s image. Do your best to explain what it means to be created in the image of God.
What is the significance of Adam being created from the dust of the ground and the breath of God (Genesis 2:7)?
Why did God create Eve?
What is the significance of the fact that Adam and Eve were naked and felt no shame?
Reading: God Creates the Cosmos
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). These opening words of the Bible are foundational and radical. Considered both in their ancient context and today, they are indeed earth-shaking and life-transforming.
After all, we are fascinated by stories of beginnings, and the creation story provides insight on some of the biggest questions we have. Who are we, and where did we come from? What is our place in this big universe? Were we made for a purpose? Why do we yearn for relationship? What is our connection with the rest of the universe? And then there are the biggest questions of all. What about God? Who is he, and can we have a relationship with him?
Let’s first explore Genesis 1–2 in its ancient context. The biblical story of creation was written in the light of these ancient rival claims of creation, not in the light of modern scientific ideas.
There were many rival creation accounts at the time. Take, for instance, the Babylonian story Enuma Elish. In this story a god and a goddess are just there at the beginning. They are primordial, not created. Their names are Apsu, the god of the salt water, and Tiamat, the goddess of the fresh waters. The waters, in other words, were there at the beginning. This idea is also found among the Egyptians, who believed that the waters, represented by the god Nun, were there before anything else. In contrast Genesis teaches that God created the waters. At first there was nothing and then “the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1:2). From nothing to a watery mass to, after six days, an ordered and functional creation.
In the Babylonian account the ordered universe came about through conflict between the creator god and the god of the primordial waters. In the Enuma Elish the mingling of the waters of Tiamat and Apsu brought forth the next generation of gods. These gods disturbed the sleep of Tiamat and Apsu, and Apsu determined to kill his divine children. But before he could carry out his plan, Ea, the god of wisdom, discovered his plot and delivered a preemptive strike. This victory was short-lived, however, since Apsu’s death enraged Tiamat, who was more formidable than Apsu. Ea knew he was no match for her, so he called for a hero to step forward to save the gods from Tiamat and her demonic horde, which was led by the chief demon, Qingu. Marduk volunteered for the dangerous task on condition that if he won, he would become the king of the gods. And he did indeed vanquish Tiamat and became the most important god of the Babylonians. The Canaanites had a similar picture of a conflict between the creator god Baal and the god of the waters, named Yam. In Canaan as well as Babylon, conflict introduces creation.
Back to the Babylonian story, Marduk then took Tiamat’s body and split it in half “like a shellfish.” With the upper half, the god made the heavens, and with the lower the oceans. He then pushed back the lower waters and gave them boundaries, and in this way land was created. After this, Marduk executed Qingu. After this, he took some clay from the ground and mixed it with Qingu’s blood, thus creating human beings.
Those who first heard Genesis 1–2 would have had these rival accounts ringing in their ears when they read how their God, alone and not with other gods, created the world from nothing. The “formless and empty” earth represents the watery mass to be sure, but God did not by conflict turn that watery mass that he created from nothing into an ordered and functional earth, but by his divine decree over six days and then a final seventh on which he rested.
Again, it is important to read the Bible’s depiction of creation against the background of its original setting rather than against modern scientific ideas, though the creation account will have implications for how we understand the science of origins.
The connection with the ancient Near East, however, is a reminder that we are not getting a literal description of how God created but rather an assertion of the statement that God, not the gods of Babylon, Egypt or Canaan, created creation. This understanding is also highlighted by the obviously figurative language used in Genesis 1–2. Let’s begin with the days of creation. On first glance it appears that these are literal twenty-four-hour days. After all, right from day one they are described as having an “evening and morning.” Closer examination, though, shows that the author of Genesis could not have thought of these days as literal days with literal evenings and mornings. After all, such days require a rising and setting sun, a moon as well as stars, and these are not created until the fourth day.
The depiction of the creation week is a literary presentation of the great truth that the biblical God, and no others, created creation. The days have an interesting structure in that the first three days describe the creation of realms that are filled by the inhabitants of those realms in the second set of three days.
DAY 1
DAY 2
DAY 3
light and darkness
sky and waters
land
DAY 4
DAY 5
DAY 6
sun, moon and stars
birds and fish
animals and human beings
A second example of the highly figurative nature of the description of creation in Genesis 1–2, as well as its interaction and critique of pagan notions of creation, is found in the account of the creation of Adam in Genesis 2:7, “the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person” (NLT). Remember that the EnumaElish described the creation of humans from the ground and the blood of a demon god. It is no accident that there are similarities and differences between the Bible and the writings of the ancient Near East; writing like this was a way of denying the Babylonian account that gave such a low view of humanity as connected to the demonic and thus inherently evil. To be created from the breath of God, on the contrary, expresses a profound understanding of the dignity of humanity.
While Genesis 1–2 teaches us little about how God created creation, it wonderfully proclaims important foundational truths about God, ourselves and our relationship to God. Let’s explore some of the leading ideas.
About God
God created creation. Everything that exists exists because of God; everything and everybody else are creatures totally dependent on God. We owe our very lives to God. And, in contrast to ancient Near Eastern ideas of the time, he did this alone by the power of his word and not in conflict or with the assistance of other gods. There is only one God who deserves the worship of his creatures.
The creation account introduces the God of the Bible as one who is both transcendent as well as immanent. That is, he is not a part of creation, which is something that he makes, looks at and pronounces “good.” On the other hand, he is involved in creation. He does not make it and stay uninvolved. This differentiates the biblical God from many other religions: those that say he is other and not involved (deism), and those that say he is a part of creation (pantheism).
Reading Genesis 1–2 in the light of the religions of the ancient Near East also highlights something that to us seems unexceptional but to the people of the ancient Near East would have been shocking and radical. God is neither gendered nor sexual. All the gods of the ancient Near East were either male or female, had sexual relations and bore children. The fact that God is neither male nor female is indicated by the fact that both men and women are created in the “image of God” (more about this later).
In sum then, God is the sovereign, self-sufficient and supreme Creator of all things.
About Humanity
That God created Adam and Eve from whom all humanity descends indicates that everyone owes their life to God. The manner in which God created Adam and Eve inform us about who we are as human beings. The emphasis is on human dignity, especially when Genesis 1–2 is read with rival texts like the Enuma Elish in the background. The creation of Adam from the dust of the ground and the breath of God, rather than the blood of a demon God, speaks to the fact that humans, though creatures like the other animals, have a special relationship with God. Genesis 1 also announces that human beings, male and female, are created in the “image of God” (Genesis 1:27). While clearly indicating humanity’s special place in God’s creation, no precise definition is given of the meaning of this phrase. However, by studying the word image elsewhere in Scripture, we observe its use in connection with human kings who set up images of themselves around their kingdom to represent their power and authority. On analogy, then, human beings represent God’s presence, power and authority in the world. We reflect God’s glory like the moon reflects the light of the sun. These and other features of the creation accounts in Genesis 1–2 emphasize humanity’s dignity as God’s creatures.
As God’s image bearers, human beings were also commissioned to “fill” and “subdue” the earth. They are to “rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (Genesis 1:28). While some have wrongly read this verse as permitting humans to run rampant over the creation for their own benefit, it really is a command to responsibly care for the rest of creation like good rulers should care for and promote the interests of their subjects.
