Tag Archives: scholarly

Reading the New Testament as History, Literature, and Church Scripture

Posted by expedition44 on

A Review of Joel B. Green, Marianne Meye Thompson, and David J. Downs, Introducing the New Testament

Joel B. Green, Marianne Meye Thompson, and David J. Downs have produced in Introducing the New Testament a substantial and carefully shaped introduction that seeks to hold together three tasks often separated in New Testament studies: reading the New Testament as literature, reading it historically, and reading it as the church’s Scripture.¹ That triadic framework gives the volume both its methodological coherence and its pedagogical strength. Rather than reducing the New Testament to a collection of critical problems or, conversely, flattening it into a devotional anthology, the authors insist that these twenty-seven writings must be heard in their literary particularity, historical situatedness, and canonical function.²

The opening chapter establishes this program with admirable clarity. The New Testament is introduced not simply as a set of ancient Christian documents, but as a collection that, together with the Old Testament, functions normatively within the church’s life.³ At the same time, the authors stress that these writings were not originally composed as a self-conscious anthology called “the New Testament.”⁴ Each text arose as a distinct writing, addressed to concrete communities and historical conditions. That double emphasis is one of the volume’s major virtues. It resists both ecclesial abstraction and historical atomization. The New Testament is neither less than Scripture nor more than first-century writings that must first be understood on their own terms.⁵

The literary angle is handled especially well. The authors rightly stress that the New Testament is not one kind of document but many: Gospels, Acts, letters, and apocalypse.⁶ A reader who approaches Revelation as though it were Philippians, or Romans as though it were Mark, has already begun badly.⁷ Their account of genre as a communicative convention between writers and readers is both theoretically sound and pedagogically effective.⁸ This is not an exercise in literary formalism. It is an exhortation to attend carefully to how texts mean, not merely to what readers want them to say. In this respect, the book aligns with the broader gains of genre criticism and rhetorical criticism while avoiding the excesses of technicality that often burden introductory texts.⁹

That literary attentiveness is not merely asserted in the opening chapter but carried through the book’s structure. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are all treated according to narrative shape and theological contour rather than merely source-critical debate.¹⁰ John, for instance, is read in terms of the Prologue, the Book of Signs, the Book of the Passion, and the Postscript, with the central claim that Jesus’ glory is revealed not only in signs but in his death and resurrection.¹¹ That is a familiar but still fruitful reading, and it keeps the Fourth Gospel’s paradox intact. Glory in John is not peripheral to suffering. It is disclosed through it.¹²

Mark is similarly approached as a dramatic narrative in which Jesus’ teaching, healing, and exorcistic ministry all reveal the kingdom of God while also generating misunderstanding and conflict.¹³ The observation that miracle and teaching in Mark are not separate activities but manifestations of the same revelatory reality is particularly perceptive.¹⁴ It guards against the dissection of Jesus into either ethical teacher or thaumaturge and keeps the Gospel’s theological unity before the reader. Luke, likewise, is treated in relation to Luke-Acts, narrative progression, and the divine reversal that lifts up the lowly.¹⁵ Such emphases reflect sound narrative judgment and show that the authors understand introductions to be formative, not merely descriptive.

The historical framing of the New Testament is another major strength. The authors insist, rightly, that no New Testament document was written for a modern English-speaking audience and that historically responsible reading requires sensitivity to language, geography, social structures, political realities, and inherited conventions of communication.¹⁶ Their distinction between history within the text and history behind the text is especially useful.¹⁷ Both matter. New Testament writings arise from particular communities and conflicts, and their meaning is often inseparable from those settings. The illustration from Philemon is instructive. Detached from its world, the letter becomes almost instantly opaque. Read within the realities of household management, patronage, slavery, and mediation, it regains its force and specificity.¹⁸

The chapter on the world of the New Testament deepens this historical orientation by addressing institutional contexts such as patronage and status. The discussion of Roman patronage is especially important. Augustus and the imperial order are presented not simply as political realities but as nodes in a sacralized network of reciprocity, obligation, and benefaction.¹⁹ That is precisely the kind of background necessary for hearing New Testament language about gospel, peace, lordship, grace, and benefaction with fresh acuity. In this respect, the volume stands in fruitful proximity to socio-rhetorical and anti-imperial readings of the New Testament.²⁰ It does not overstate its case, but neither does it leave the Roman world as neutral scenery.

Paul’s letters are also treated with welcome breadth. Before individual Pauline letters are discussed, the book pauses for chapters on letters in the New Testament and on Paul’s life and mission, including a section on Paul’s apocalyptic worldview.²¹ Structurally, this is a wise decision. It prevents the letters from being reduced to isolated doctrinal units and instead places them within apostolic vocation, mission, and worldview. Ephesians, for example, is read in terms of God’s cosmic purpose, the uniting of Jew and Gentile, and the revelation of divine wisdom to the rulers and authorities.²² That is a strong and properly Pauline reading. The church is not treated as a secondary appendix to salvation but as part of God’s cosmic intention in Christ.²³

Philippians is handled with similar care. The Roman colonial setting, Paul’s imprisonment, the congregation’s internal tensions, and the presence of rival teachers all receive due attention.²⁴ Particularly valuable is the treatment of Euodia and Syntyche as named coworkers whose conflict reveals both the reality of congregational fracture and the active leadership of women in Pauline communities.²⁵ Colossians and Philemon are likewise framed with a commendable eye to both theological breadth and social concreteness. Colossians is praised for its expansive christological vision, while Philemon is interpreted within the harsh realities of Roman slavery and household economics.²⁶ This prevents the letter from becoming sentimental and forces readers to reckon with the social depth of Pauline reconciliation.²⁷

The sections on Hebrews and James are among the most pastorally effective in the volume. Hebrews is rightly identified as something other than a typical Hellenistic letter, more plausibly described as an extended homiletical discourse or “word of exhortation.”²⁸ The discussion of authorship is judicious, rehearsing the older Pauline attribution while acknowledging the stylistic and conceptual reasons most scholars reject it.²⁹ More importantly, Hebrews is not left as an antiquarian puzzle. The authors recognize its strangeness to modern readers, with its tabernacle symbolism, Melchizedek typology, and sacrificial argument, yet they also insist that its portrayal of the people of God as pilgrims on the way to the heavenly city remains enduringly potent wherever discouragement threatens discipleship.³⁰ That is not mere homiletical softening. It is a faithful recognition of Hebrews’ own pastoral burden.

James, for its part, is treated not as Paul’s foil but as a deeply Jewish Christian writing standing near both wisdom tradition and the teaching of Jesus.³¹ The comparison of James with Proverbs, Sirach, Romans, and 1 Peter is pedagogically excellent, and the treatment of “James and Jesus” is especially strong.³² The moral imperatives of James are rightly located in the double commandment of love and in concern for the poor, the impartial use of speech, and resistance to friendship with the world.³³ In an ecclesial climate where faith is often detached from embodied obedience, this section is quietly admonitory in exactly the right way.

Revelation is handled with perhaps the greatest theological precision in the volume. The authors reject sensationalist readings that turn the Apocalypse into a coded chart of modern geopolitical events and instead insist that Revelation must be heard in relation to its genre, first-century setting, and symbolic logic.³⁴ The claim that Revelation is a composite of letter, prophecy, and apocalypse is standard but well stated.³⁵ Their discussion of pseudonymity is also helpful. Jewish apocalypses were often pseudonymous; Revelation is not. John writes under his own name and grounds his authority in his relationship to suffering churches.³⁶

The strongest point in the chapter is the insistence that John’s visions are not encrypted future predictions but disclosures of present reality from the vantage point of God’s sovereignty and the Lamb’s victory.³⁷ Rome is identified as beast and Babylon, not to provide speculative timelines, but to unmask the imperial order as blasphemous, exploitative, and doomed.³⁸ The heavenly throne room scenes rightly function as the theological center of the book, from which all judgment and salvation imagery must be read.³⁹ The emphasis on the Lamb as the slain yet living one through whom God’s purposes in history are enacted is exactly the right center for an introduction to Revelation.⁴⁰

If critique is needed here, it is largely a matter of degree rather than direction. The treatment of Revelation’s Old Testament saturation is sound, especially the observation that John works more by creative reconfiguration than by direct quotation.⁴¹ Yet one could wish for fuller reflection on the theological density of that intertextual practice, especially in relation to temple, exodus, and new creation motifs.⁴² Similarly, although the anti-imperial force of Revelation is well captured, the book could say more about the church’s liturgical participation in the Lamb’s victory as a mode of resistance.⁴³

The final chapter on canon formation is another major contribution. Canon is defined as the body of writings regarded by the Christian community as uniquely normative for its life and thought.⁴⁴ The authors explain that the process of canon formation was lengthy and complex, shaped by both internal and external pressures, by the church’s mission, and by the continued use of Jewish Scripture.⁴⁵ Particularly strong are the sections arguing that the church’s missionary task helped generate stable forms of Jesus tradition and apostolic oversight, and that Christian use of Israel’s Scriptures laid groundwork for the eventual emergence of a distinctively Christian canon.⁴⁶ This is historically responsible and pedagogically clear.

The theological force of canon formation appears most clearly, however, in the earlier section on “The New Testament as the Church’s Scripture.” There the authors insist that the New Testament cannot be read apart from the Old Testament, that its witness is rooted in God’s dealings with Israel, and that its primary significance lies not merely in the historical information it preserves but in its function as Scripture within the church.⁴⁷ That judgment is decisive. It keeps the New Testament from being reduced either to a raw archive for historians or to a collection of proof texts for modern doctrinal combat. It also includes a welcome warning about the misuse of Scripture in the history of the church, including slavery, the persecution of Jews, and other forms of injustice.⁴⁸ That acknowledgment gives the book moral seriousness.

In the end, Introducing the New Testament succeeds because it teaches readers how to read before it teaches them how to take sides. It honors literary form without becoming aestheticist, history without becoming reductionist, and ecclesial normativity without retreating from scholarly responsibility. Its shortcomings are real. One could wish for a fuller integration of apocalyptic theology across Pauline and canonical discussions, a more robust engagement with Second Temple currents at certain points, and a somewhat thicker theological synthesis in a few chapters.⁴⁹ Yet these are critiques made of a strong book whose best instincts deserve to be pressed even further. As an introduction, it is learned, balanced, and deeply serviceable. More importantly, it quietly exhorts the reader to approach the New Testament with patience, humility, and obedience. In a time when the church is tempted either to weaponize Scripture or to neglect it, that is no small achievement.

PURCHASE ON AMAZON

Notes

  1. Joel B. Green, Marianne Meye Thompson, and David J. Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020), 1–11.
  2. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 1–10.
  3. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 1, 8–10.
  4. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 1–2.
  5. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 2–10.
  6. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 2–4.
  7. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 3.
  8. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 4.
  9. Richard A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 239–67.
  10. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, v–ix.
  11. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 163.
  12. Marianne Meye Thompson, John: A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015), 1–21.
  13. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 121.
  14. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 121.
  15. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, vi.
  16. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 5–6.
  17. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 5–7.
  18. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 6; 403–7.
  19. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 48.
  20. Ben Witherington III, New Testament History (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 33–58; Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2011), 15–35.
  21. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, vii–viii.
  22. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 367.
  23. Michael J. Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 1–27.
  24. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 375, 389.
  25. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 389.
  26. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 393, 407.
  27. Jennifer A. Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), 78–103.
  28. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 450.
  29. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 451.
  30. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 449.
  31. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, ix, 481, 488–91.
  32. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 479, 501.
  33. Scot McKnight, The Letter of James (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 34–59.
  34. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 531, 536–37.
  35. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 532.
  36. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 533–34.
  37. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 536–37.
  38. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 534, 539–41.
  39. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 548–49.
  40. Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 1–20.
  41. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 537.
  42. G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 108–52.
  43. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly, 37–64.
  44. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 561.
  45. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 561–65.
  46. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 562–63.
  47. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 8–10.
  48. Green, Thompson, and Downs, Introducing the New Testament, 9–10.
  49. N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 147–338; John H. Walton, The Lost World of Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013), 165–94.

Rest, Hesed, and the Collapse of Babel: A Critical Review of The Sabbath Gospel

Posted by expedition44 on

G. P. Wagenfuhr and Amy J. Erickson

Introduction

In The Sabbath Gospel, G. P. Wagenfuhr and Amy Erickson offer a constructive and, at points, disruptive proposal: that Sabbath is not merely an ethical category within Scripture but the hermeneutical and ontological center of the gospel itself. Their work situates Sabbath within a broader narrative framework that reorders time, reframes divine sovereignty, and reconfigures the nature of salvation. In doing so, they join a growing chorus of scholars who resist reductionist soteriologies and seek to recover the relational, covenantal, and cosmic dimensions of biblical theology.¹

The volume is ambitious. It attempts to relocate theological discourse away from abstract metaphysical starting points and toward the lived, narrative reality of God’s engagement with creation. The authors’ central contention—that Scripture presents a “Sabbath gospel” in contrast to humanly constructed “gospels of rest”—places their work in conversation with Walter Brueggemann’s socio-theological readings of Sabbath, John Walton’s functional ontology of creation, and Gregory Boyd’s cruciform account of divine action.²

Time, Narrative, and the Two Ages

Wagenfuhr and Erickson’s framing of Scripture as a “tale of two times” is one of the book’s most generative contributions. Time, they argue, is not a neutral container but a theologically charged medium shaped by competing sovereignties.³ This resonates strongly with Second Temple Jewish conceptions of “this age” and “the age to come,” as well as with Pauline apocalyptic categories in which time itself is enslaved under hostile powers.⁴

Their claim that time is qualitative rather than merely quantitative aligns with Brueggemann’s insistence that Israel’s calendar reflects a counter-imagination to imperial temporality, particularly in its resistance to endless production and accumulation.⁵ Likewise, their emphasis on time as relational and formative finds support in biblical narrative theology, where identity is shaped not by abstraction but by participation in God’s story.⁶

The authors’ reading of Genesis 1–11 through this lens is particularly compelling. They interpret the movement from Eden to Babel as a transition from divinely ordered time to humanly constructed temporality, a shift marked by increasing autonomy and fragmentation.⁷ This trajectory mirrors Walton’s argument that Genesis is concerned with functional order and sacred space, suggesting that Babel represents not merely disobedience but a misdirected attempt to establish sacred order apart from God’s presence.⁸

Babel, Empire, and the Illusion of Unity

The treatment of Babel stands as one of the book’s strongest exegetical and theological achievements. Rather than reducing the narrative to moralism, Wagenfuhr and Erickson situate it within a broader ANE context of temple-building, cosmic geography, and political consolidation.⁹ The tower is not simply a monument but a symbolic center of power, an attempt to mediate divine presence through human construction.¹⁰

This reading aligns with ancient Near Eastern evidence regarding ziggurats as cosmic axes and with Mircea Eliade’s observations concerning sacred space as the “navel of the world.”¹¹ Yet the authors extend this insight by framing Babel as an archetype of empire—an enduring pattern in which human societies seek unity through uniformity and control.¹²

Here the influence of Jacques Ellul is evident, particularly in the critique of technological and political systems that claim autonomy and inevitability.¹³ The authors’ suggestion that modern appeals to diversity can function as mechanisms of homogenization is both provocative and worthy of further exploration.¹⁴

Importantly, God’s response to Babel is interpreted not as arbitrary punishment but as a redemptive disruption of false unity. The confusion of languages introduces diversity as a safeguard against totalizing systems, anticipating the reconciled plurality of Pentecost.¹⁵ This reading coheres with Acts 2, where linguistic diversity is not abolished but transformed into a medium of communion.¹⁶

Sabbath as Gift and Gospel

At the heart of the book lies its redefinition of the gospel. Against what the authors describe as the “dream-home gospel”—the human impulse to construct environments of stability and control—they present Sabbath as a gift that cannot be produced or possessed.¹⁷ This reframing challenges both secular and ecclesial assumptions, calling into question the ways in which Christian practice can mirror the very systems it seeks to resist.

This emphasis on gift resonates with the broader biblical theme of grace as unmerited favor, as well as with theological traditions that emphasize participation over transaction.¹⁸ The authors’ insistence that the gospel reforms desire rather than merely behavior echoes Augustine’s account of disordered loves and aligns with contemporary discussions of formation and discipleship.¹⁹

Moreover, their portrayal of Sabbath as liberation from systems of exploitation reflects Brueggemann’s characterization of Sabbath as an act of resistance against Pharaoh-like economies.²⁰ In this sense, Sabbath becomes not only a theological concept but a political and social reality, challenging structures that perpetuate inequality and oppression.

Sin as Power and Household

The book’s hamartiology further strengthens its argument. By framing sin as a power that organizes entire “households” of existence, Wagenfuhr and Erickson move beyond individualistic accounts and recover a more holistic biblical perspective.²¹ This approach finds strong support in Pauline theology, where sin is depicted as a reigning force that enslaves humanity.²²

Their description of sin as an economy of death, exploitation, and corruption aligns with Second Temple Jewish literature and with modern theological accounts of systemic evil.²³ It also provides a coherent framework for understanding the relationship between personal sin and structural injustice, a connection often neglected in traditional theology.

Hesed and the Reorientation of Theology

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the work is its critique of classical theological starting points, particularly the emphasis on aseity. Wagenfuhr and Erickson argue that Scripture does not begin with abstract descriptions of God’s essence but with covenantal relationship, encapsulated in the concept of hesed.²⁴

This claim is not without merit. The Hebrew Bible consistently portrays God in terms of faithful action within history, and the repeated covenant formula underscores the relational nature of divine identity.²⁵ Their reading of Exodus 3:14 as a statement of reliability rather than metaphysical being is provocative and finds some support in narrative interpretations of the text.²⁶

Nevertheless, their critique risks oversimplifying the theological tradition. Classical doctrines of divine attributes were developed not to replace relational theology but to articulate it within a coherent metaphysical framework.²⁷ As scholars such as N. T. Wright have argued, the task is not to abandon ontology but to integrate it within the biblical narrative.²⁸

Sovereignty, History, and Divine Action

The authors’ treatment of divine sovereignty reflects a desire to avoid determinism and to preserve the integrity of human agency. Their depiction of God as “invading” history with Sabbath suggests a dynamic interaction between divine and human action.²⁹

While this approach has pastoral and theological appeal, it raises questions regarding the nature of providence and the extent of divine control. The tension between sovereignty and freedom remains unresolved, and further engagement with classical and contemporary discussions would strengthen the argument.³⁰

Christological and Eschatological Considerations

Although Christ is present throughout the work, the book’s primary focus remains on structural and thematic elements. A more explicit integration of Christology would enhance the authors’ proposal, particularly in relation to:

  • the cross as the dismantling of Babel-like systems
  • the resurrection as the inauguration of Sabbath rest
  • the Spirit as the agent of Sabbath participation

These themes are implicit but could be developed more fully in dialogue with New Testament scholarship.³¹

Conclusion

The Sabbath Gospel represents a significant contribution to contemporary theological discourse. Its strengths lie in its:

  • narrative coherence
  • exegetical depth
  • and willingness to challenge entrenched assumptions

By centering Sabbath within the gospel, Wagenfuhr and Erickson invite readers to reconsider not only their theology but their way of life. Their work calls the church to embody a form of existence that resists the logic of Babel and participates in the rest of God.

In an age marked by restlessness, fragmentation, and control, this vision is both timely and necessary. It reminds us that the gospel is not a system to be mastered but a gift to be received—a Sabbath into which we are invited to dwell.

PURCHASE HERE

Notes

  1. Wagenfuhr and Erickson, The Sabbath Gospel, 1–10.
  2. Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance (Louisville: WJK, 2014), 1–20.
  3. Wagenfuhr and Erickson, 85–89.
  4. Gal 1:4; Rom 12:2.
  5. Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance, 25–40.
  6. Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael W. Goheen, The Drama of Scripture (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004).
  7. Wagenfuhr and Erickson, 83–86.
  8. John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009).
  9. Wagenfuhr and Erickson, 83–84.
  10. Ibid.
  11. Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane (New York: Harcourt, 1959).
  12. Wagenfuhr and Erickson, 84–86.
  13. Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society (New York: Vintage, 1964).
  14. Wagenfuhr and Erickson, 84.
  15. Ibid., 86–87.
  16. Acts 2:1–13.
  17. Wagenfuhr and Erickson, 27–30.
  18. Eph 2:8–9.
  19. Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: OUP, 1991).
  20. Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance, 44–60.
  21. Wagenfuhr and Erickson, 87–88.
  22. Rom 5:12–21.
  23. 1 Enoch; Jubilees.
  24. Wagenfuhr and Erickson, 27–28.
  25. Exod 6:7; Lev 26:12.
  26. Exod 3:14.
  27. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae.
  28. N. T. Wright, How God Became King (New York: HarperOne, 2012).
  29. Wagenfuhr and Erickson, 28.
  30. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Remythologizing Theology (Cambridge: CUP, 2010).
  31. Ben Witherington III, Jesus the Sage (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994).

Waters Above, Waters Below: An Exegetical Study of Water in the Bible

Posted by expedition44 on

Water is one of Scripture’s most elastic and theologically charged images. In the Bible it is never merely “background.” It is creation material, boundary marker, threat, judgment, mercy, provision, cleansing, wisdom, Spirit, and eschatological gift. The biblical writers return to water again and again because water sits at the intersection of life and death. It nourishes fields and fills wells, but it also swallows armies and returns ordered creation to chaos. The result is a motif that cannot be flattened into one meaning. Water in the Bible is polyvalent, but it is not random. Across the canon, the motif develops in discernible patterns: waters of chaos, waters restrained, waters crossed, waters provided, waters purifying, and finally waters transformed into the river of life.[1]

A faithful reading should resist both sentimental reduction and wooden literalism. In the Hebrew Bible especially, water is bound to ancient cosmology, covenant memory, liturgical imagination, and temple symbolism. It also sits inside the shared symbolic world of the ancient Near East, where primeval waters often represented the unstable deep from which ordered life had to emerge.[2] Yet Israel’s Scriptures repeatedly subvert that wider world. Genesis does not portray YHWH as one deity among others struggling against an equal rival. The deep is there, but it is already under God’s sovereign presence. The Spirit hovers. The word speaks. Chaos is not God’s competitor. It is raw material beneath divine rule.[3]

Waters of the Deep in Genesis and the Ancient Near East

Genesis 1 begins with darkness over “the deep,” tehom (תְּהוֹם), and the Spirit of God hovering over the waters.[4] Much has been written about the relation between tehom and older ANE watery imagery. At minimum, the comparison helps us see the conceptual world in which Israel spoke about cosmic waters. Mesopotamian and West Semitic traditions often imagined a primordial watery reality, sometimes personified, from which ordered space emerged.[5] The biblical text participates in that larger symbolic world while sharply refusing mythic dualism. There is no theogony in Genesis 1, no divine combat scene, and no uncertainty about the outcome. God does not become sovereign by defeating the waters. He is sovereign before the first fiat.[6]

This matters because Genesis frames creation first as an act of distinction and boundary. The waters are separated, the sea is gathered, dry land appears, and only then do fertility and habitation flourish.[7] The logic is profoundly theological. To create is not only to make matter but to assign place, limit, and vocation. Water is thus linked to the question of order. When it remains unbounded, it threatens inhabitable life; when it is bounded by the Creator, it becomes the condition for fruitfulness.[8] The ANE background sharpens this point. In surrounding cultures, the cosmic sea could signal the unstable margin of reality. In Genesis, those same cosmic associations are absorbed into a monotheistic confession: the waters are not divine, not ultimate, and not free to transgress the speech of God unless he permits it.[9]

The imagery of “waters above” and “waters below” also belongs within that ancient cosmological frame. Psalm 148 can still summon “the waters above the heavens” to praise YHWH because the biblical writers share, at the level of phenomenological cosmology, the older picture of a structured world with waters above the firmament and seas below the land.[10] The interpreter must let the text inhabit its own symbolic universe before domesticating it into modern meteorology.[11] The point is not whether Israel possessed modern hydrology. The point is that Israel confessed the God who rules every level of the cosmos as they understood it. The upper waters, lower waters, springs, seas, rivers, and rains all belong to his kingship.[12]

Water, Chaos, and the Return of Uncreation

Because water is tied to primordial disorder, the flood becomes more than punishment. It is de-creation. Genesis 7 does not merely say that it rained a lot. The “fountains of the great deep” burst forth and the windows of heaven open, as if the separations of Genesis 1 are reversed.[13] Ordered space collapses back toward the watery abyss. This is why flood language in Scripture often carries more than historical memory; it becomes a grammar of undoing. When human violence fills the earth, creation itself seems to retreat toward the deep.[14]

Second Temple literature extends this line of thought. Jubilees retells the flood with intensified cosmic structure, speaking of the opening of the floodgates of heaven and the mouths of the great deep until the whole world is filled with water.[15] 1 Enoch likewise uses abyss imagery to describe terrifying zones of divine judgment and cosmic disorder.[16] These texts do not invent the symbolism; they amplify what is already present in Genesis. The deep is not neutral. It is a place where God’s judgment is revealed against corruption and rebellion.[17]

This also helps explain why drowning imagery in the Psalms can function as more than a metaphor for personal distress. When the psalmist cries, “the waters have come up to my neck,” or asks not to be swallowed by the deep, he is not merely describing emotional overload.[18] He is speaking from within Israel’s symbolic world, where water can signify the collapse of stable life into the anti-world of chaos, shame, abandonment, and death.[19] In Psalm 69, the drowning image is existential, yes, but it is existential because it is cosmological first. To be overwhelmed by the waters is to feel creation itself coming apart around you.[20]

Sea, Empire, and Deliverance Through the Waters

If Genesis and the flood establish water as a symbol of chaos, the exodus reveals another crucial pattern: God saves not only from the waters but through them. Israel’s crossing of the sea is a new creation event. Waters divide. Dry land appears. A people emerges alive on the other side while the imperial power that sought to unmake them is swallowed by the same waters.[21] The sea is thus double-sided. For Pharaoh it is judgment; for Israel it is deliverance. The same element that destroys the oppressor becomes the corridor of covenant freedom for the oppressed.[22]

The prophets and poets draw deeply on this memory. Isaiah can speak of YHWH making a path through the sea and link that memory to future redemption.[23] Psalm 74 and Isaiah 51 also connect watery chaos with dragon imagery, presenting YHWH as the one who masters the sea and breaks the heads of the monsters.[24] These texts do not simply repeat Canaanite combat myths; they repurpose chaotic-sea language to proclaim YHWH’s unrivaled kingship in history. Pharaoh can be described as a dragon in the Nile because empire itself becomes a historical embodiment of the chaotic waters.[25]

In Scripture, chaos is not always private. Sometimes it is political. Sometimes the waters are imperial. Sometimes the flood comes with chariots, brick quotas, propaganda, and bloodshed. Water imagery can therefore operate as anti-empire theology. The God who set limits on the sea is the same God who sets limits on the kingdoms that exalt themselves.[26]

Wells, Springs, and the Gift of Sustained Life

Yet Scripture does not leave water primarily in the register of danger. In the patriarchal narratives, water often appears as the means by which covenant life is sustained in a hostile land. Wells matter because survival matters. Hagar and Ishmael are preserved when God opens Hagar’s eyes to a well in the wilderness.[27] Isaac’s servants find “living water” (mayim chayyim) and their dispute over wells becomes a narrative about conflict, inheritance, and finally divine spaciousness at Rehoboth.[28] Water here is not abstract spirituality. It is the concrete mercy of God in dry places.

That phrase, mayim chayyim, becomes especially important. In its immediate setting it refers to fresh, flowing water rather than stagnant water.[29] But as the canon unfolds, “living water” becomes a bridge image linking practical sustenance, ritual purity, wisdom, and divine presence. The symbolic development works precisely because the physical referent is so vital. Israel does not spiritualize water by abandoning materiality. It moves from material necessity to theological depth.[30]

Pay attention to these patterns: creation waters, wilderness water, patriarchal wells, and later prophetic and wisdom texts belong to one thick symbolic network.[31] Water is often the site where sight itself is restored. Hagar sees the well only after God opens her eyes. That detail deserves more attention than it usually gets. In the Bible, access to life-giving water is often a matter of revelation as much as geography.[32]

Water, Temple, and Purification

Water in the Hebrew Bible is also priestly. Ritual washings, laver imagery, and purity regulations locate water within Israel’s liturgical life.[33] To modern readers, this can seem merely hygienic or ceremonial, but the logic is more profound. Water mediates re-entry into ordered sacred space. If impurity symbolizes a breach, then washing dramatizes restoration. The priestly use of water is thus deeply creational: it marks a return from disorder to fitness for proximity.[34]

This priestly and temple dimension becomes even clearer in later texts. Ezekiel’s temple vision culminates in water flowing from the sanctuary, deepening as it moves, healing the Dead Sea and turning barrenness into life.[35] The image is extraordinary. Water no longer merely supports the sanctuary from outside; it proceeds from the sanctuary as restorative force. Temple and Eden converge. The source of holy presence becomes the source of renewed creation.[36]

Second Temple texts carry this symbolism forward in ways that illuminate the New Testament. Ben Sira associates wisdom and Torah with river imagery, comparing her abundance to the great rivers and presenting instruction as a kind of overflowing life-source.[37] Qumran literature intensifies the purification imagery by pairing washing with the Spirit and truth. The Community Rule can speak of being cleansed by “the Spirit of truth” like waters of purification, signaling that mere external washing without covenant fidelity is insufficient.[38] Archaeological and textual evidence from Qumran also shows that natural water and ritual baths were central to the community’s life, reinforcing the overlap between purity practice and theological identity.[39]

This is one reason John’s baptism lands with such force in the Gospels. It emerges in a Jewish world already saturated with water symbolism: creation, exodus, wilderness, purification, repentance, and eschatological expectation.[40] John is not inventing the importance of water. He is staging Israel’s need for new passage, new cleansing, and new readiness for the kingdom.[41]

Water, Wisdom, and the Word of God

The biblical tradition also links water to instruction. Isaiah 55’s invitation, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters,” is not only about refreshment but about covenant hearing and reception of God’s word.[42] Sirach portrays wisdom as flowing like rivers, and later Jewish tradition repeatedly compares Torah to water because both descend, both purify, both sustain life, and both are available to the thirsty.[43] Some of the material gathered on Sefaria makes this rabbinic instinct explicit: as water revives, Torah revives; as water purifies, Torah purifies.[44]

Water is not only a private devotional symbol; it is tied to obedience, lament, cleansing, and communal life before God.[45] Psalm 119’s streams of water from the eyes are not generic sadness but grief over Torah violation.[46] Tears themselves become a kind of moral water, a protest against disorder in the covenant world. There is something deeply shepherding here. In Scripture, holy grief is not emotional excess. It is fidelity feeling the fracture of creation.[47]

Jesus and the Transformation of the Motif

By the time we come to the New Testament, the water motif is already richly layered. Jesus enters that symbolic world and gathers its threads into himself. He is baptized in the Jordan, walks on the sea, stills the storm, offers living water to the Samaritan woman, speaks of rivers flowing from within believers, and stands within the tradition that identifies divine wisdom and Torah as life-giving provision.[48]

John 4 is especially important. Jesus does not dismiss physical water; he uses the well, the woman, and the thirst of Samaria to reveal a deeper source.[49] The Bible Project’s observation that the passage also carries nuptial overtones is compelling, especially when read against biblical well-scenes and covenant imagery.[50] The one who asks for water is the true bridegroom offering the life of the age to come. In John 7, that offer is explicitly linked to the Spirit.[51] Living water is no longer simply fresh spring water or even wisdom instruction; it is the life of God communicated through the Messiah and the Spirit.

Even Jesus’ mastery of the sea should be read in canonical context. He does not merely perform power. He treads upon what earlier texts associated with the untamed deep.[52] The One through whom all things were made stands over the waters that once threatened the world. In him, the old symbolism reaches its christological center.[53]

Eschatological Waters and the River of Life

The biblical story ends not with the abolition of water but with its transfiguration. Revelation can say that “the sea was no more,” which in context signals the end of chaos, death, and threat rather than a simple hydrological claim.[54] At the same time, Revelation 22 presents the river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.[55] What began as the deep over which the Spirit hovered ends as a river proceeding from the divine throne. The canonical arc is remarkable: chaotic waters are not merely suppressed; life-giving waters are finally universalized.

Second Temple apocalyptic literature helps us feel the force of that transformation. In 4 Ezra the sea can still symbolize the realm from which terrifying empire rises.[56] In Revelation, by contrast, the final city has no need to fear such a sea. The anti-creation element is gone, but the life-giving element remains and expands. The Bible’s final water image is neither flood nor abyss but river, healing, and abundance.[57]

Conclusion

A pastoral reading of water in Scripture must hold both edges together. Water is not sentimental in the Bible. It can drown, judge, and unmake. But neither is it merely threatening. It cleanses, feeds, opens barren futures, and flows from the sanctuary of God into a dead world. In a canonical sense, water becomes one of the Bible’s clearest witnesses to the pattern of creation, fall, redemption, and new creation.

That means many of us misread our lives when we assume the presence of “deep waters” means God has abandoned us. In Scripture, God often does his most decisive work at the edge of the sea, at the mouth of the well, in the wilderness without water, or in the river one must cross. He is the God who orders the deep, divides the sea, opens eyes to wells, washes the unclean, and finally gives the water of life without price.[58]

The set-apart task, then, is not to deny the chaos of the waters but to teach the saints to recognize the One who still hovers over them.

Endnotes

  1. For the broad biblical pattern of water as chaos, salvation, and baptismal imagery, see BibleProject, “Chaotic Waters,” June 25, 2018; BibleProject, “Crossing the Chaotic Waters,” April 16, 2018; and BibleProject, “Chaotic Waters and Baptism,” April 23, 2018.
  2. On cosmic waters and ANE cosmology, see “Ancient Near Eastern Cosmology,” especially the sections on the upper waters, firmament, and separation of heaven and earth.
  3. On Genesis’ presentation of chaotic waters as uncreation under God’s rule, see BibleProject, “Chaotic Waters”; and Ryan Lu, The Deification and Demonization of Tĕhôm, chap. 1.
  4. On tehom and Genesis 1:2, see Sefaria’s presentation of Genesis 1:6–12 and the discussion of watery deep in intertextual comparison with Jubilees.
  5. For ANE parallels involving primordial waters, the cosmic ocean, and later Babylonian imagery, see “Ancient Near Eastern Cosmology” and the Brill essay “A Short History of the Waters Above.”
  6. On the absence of divine combat in Genesis 1 and the text’s monotheistic subversion of mythic patterns, see BibleProject, “A Mountain Rising From the Chaos Waters,” Nov. 4, 2024; and BioLogos, “Deep Space and the Dome of Heaven,” Jan. 13, 2016.
  7. Genesis 1:6–12 in Sefaria explicitly presents creation through separation, gathering, and the appearance of dry land.
  8. BibleProject, “Rivers Flowing Upward,” June 14, 2021, highlights how God transforms the chaos waters into waters full of life potential in Genesis 1–2.
  9. On the firmament as a boundary containing upper waters, see “Firmament”; and BioLogos, “What Are the Waters Above the Firmament?” Feb. 6, 2026.
  10. For the persistence of the “waters above” motif in biblical cosmology, see Skip Moen, “In Its Cultural Context,” Dec. 24, 2014.
  11. Ibid. Moen explicitly argues that Psalm 148’s “waters above the heavens” should be read in ancient cosmological context rather than translated into modern meteorological categories.
  12. On the layered cosmos and divine rule over all realms, see “Ancient Near Eastern Cosmology”; and “Biblical Cosmology.”
  13. On the flood as a reversal of Genesis 1’s separations, see BibleProject, “Why Did God Flood the World?” Nov. 12, 2019.
  14. Ibid.; see also BibleProject, “Crossing the Chaotic Waters.”
  15. Book of Jubilees 5, on the opening of the floodgates of heaven and the fountains of the great deep.
  16. On abyss imagery in 1 Enoch, see The Book of Enoch, CCEL edition; and Britannica, “First Book of Enoch.”
  17. On Enoch and Jubilees as Second Temple witnesses to amplified cosmic and judgment imagery, see Britannica, “The Book of Enoch”; and Britannica, “Dead Sea Scrolls: The Scrolls in Context.”
  18. Skip Moen, “Death by Drowning,” Nov. 17, 2023; and “Let Me Reiterate,” Nov. 28, 2023.
  19. On the deep in biblical lament and its relation to chaos, see Lu, The Deification and Demonization of Tĕhôm; and BibleProject, “Chaotic Waters.”
  20. Moen, “Death by Drowning”; Moen, “Let Me Reiterate.”
  21. BibleProject, “Crossing the Chaotic Waters,” explains the Red Sea crossing as a re-creation moment in which waters divide and dry land appears.
  22. On the same waters saving Israel and judging Egypt, see BibleProject, “Chaotic Waters and Baptism.”
  23. Isaiah’s reuse of exodus-through-water imagery is summarized in BibleProject, “Chaotic Waters and Baptism.”
  24. On dragon and chaos-sea imagery in biblical poetry, see BibleProject, “Dragons in the Bible.”
  25. Ibid. The resource explicitly notes how the biblical authors apply dragon imagery to violent rulers such as Pharaoh.
  26. On sea imagery and empire in apocalyptic and prophetic traditions, see BibleProject, “Dragons in the Bible”; and “Biblical Cosmology.”
  27. Genesis 21:14–20 in Sefaria presents Hagar’s wilderness crisis and God’s opening of her eyes to a well.
  28. Genesis 26:18–22 in Sefaria records Isaac’s rediscovered wells, the finding of “living water,” and the naming of Rehoboth.
  29. On “living water” as fresh, flowing water in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition, see Sefaria sheet “Mayim, Mayim! Ten Wet Jewish Texts.”
  30. For the canonical development of “living water” into later theological usage, compare Genesis well texts in Sefaria with John material in BibleProject, “Jesus Offers Living Water and… Marriage?”
  31. Sefaria Voices sheet, “Water in the Hebrew Bible,” gathers creation, wilderness, and well passages into a sustained interpretive arc.
  32. Genesis 21:19 emphasizes that Hagar sees the well only after God opens her eyes.
  33. On ritual water and Jewish purification practice in the Second Temple world, see “Dead Sea Scrolls Overview,” especially the discussion of Qumran’s water system and mikva’ot.
  34. On water and purification in the Qumran context, see BYU, “From the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QS),” and the Diva-Portal study on 1QS.
  35. Ezekiel’s temple-river imagery is a standard backdrop for later living-water theology; for a concise intertextual treatment, see BibleProject, “Why Water Matters in the Bible.”
  36. On temple, Eden, and life-giving waters in biblical cosmology, see BibleProject, “Rivers Flowing Upward”; and “The Symbolism of Mountains in the Bible.”
  37. Sirach 24 compares wisdom to the great rivers and speaks of instruction in watery terms. See USCCB, Sirach 24; and BibleGateway, Sirach 24 RSV.
  38. On 1QS’s language of the Spirit of truth and waters of purification, see Brill, “The Notion of the Spirit in the Dead Sea Scrolls”; and Diva-Portal, A Synchronic Approach to the Serek ha-Yahad.
  39. On water installations and natural water requirements at Qumran, see “Dead Sea Scrolls Overview.”
  40. On John’s immersion as a Jewish purification practice with moral and eschatological force, see Journal for the Study of the New Testament, “John’s Immersions: Ritual Purification, but from What?” Sept. 26, 2024.
  41. On John’s proximity to wilderness and Qumran-like symbolism, see “John the Baptist, Qumran and the Voice in the Wilderness.”
  42. On Isaiah 55’s invitation as covenantal and not merely physical, see the broader Jewish scriptural tradition comparing Torah and water in Sefaria’s “Mayim, Mayim!” sheet.
  43. Sirach 24 and later Jewish sources explicitly compare wisdom and Torah to rivers and life-giving water.
  44. Sefaria, “Water, Source of Life,” preserves rabbinic analogies between water and Torah, including purification, life, and divine speech.
  45. Skip Moen repeatedly reads water language through Torah, lament, and Hebraic covenant consciousness; see “Continental Divide,” “Let Me Reiterate,” and “Death by Drowning.”
  46. Moen, “Continental Divide,” on Psalm 119:136 and the moral force of tear imagery tied to lawlessness.
  47. Ibid.
  48. On Jesus’ living-water discourse and its relation to Spirit and biblical imagery, see BibleProject, “Jesus Offers Living Water and… Marriage?” and the YouTube summary “Water in the Bible—What Does Water Represent in the Bible.”
  49. BibleProject, “Jesus Offers Living Water and… Marriage?” explicitly frames John 4 within the biblical story of water and covenant life.
  50. Ibid.
  51. On living water as Spirit in Johannine theology, see BibleProject, “Jesus Offers Living Water and… Marriage?” and the YouTube overview “The Symbolism of Water in the Bible: Deep Dive into Biblical Imagery.”
  52. On sea imagery as chaos and Jesus’ authority over it in light of the biblical motif, see BibleProject, “Chaotic Waters”; and “Crossing the Chaotic Waters.”
  53. Ibid.
  54. On “the sea was no more” as theological imagery tied to the end of chaos, see “Biblical Cosmology”; and BibleProject, “Dragons in the Bible.”
  55. On the river of life flowing from the throne as the Bible’s final water image, compare Revelation’s canonical pattern summarized in BibleProject’s water resources.
  56. Britannica dates the central portion of 4 Ezra to around AD 100, and the text famously depicts a terrifying kingdom rising from the sea. See Britannica, “Second Book of Esdras”; and 4 Ezra at Pseudepigrapha.com.
  57. On the contrast between apocalyptic sea-threat and final life-river, compare 4 Ezra’s sea-beast imagery with Revelation’s river-of-life pattern summarized in BibleProject resources.
  58. For the canonical movement from thirst to gift, chaos to life, and exile to restoration, see Sefaria’s “Water in the Hebrew Bible,” BibleProject’s water resources, and the user-provided article “Biblical Meaning of Water: 7 Symbolic Interpretations Explored.”

Bibliography

Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary. 3 vols. New York: W. W. Norton, 2019.

Arnold, Bill T., and Brent A. Strawn, eds. The World around the Old Testament: The People and Places of the Ancient Near East. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016.

Beale, G. K. The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

Brodie, Thomas L. Genesis as Dialogue: A Literary, Historical, and Theological Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Collins, John J. Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.

Collins, John J. The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016.

Day, John. God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Fishbane, Michael. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985.

Gunkel, Hermann. Creation and Chaos in the Primeval Era and the Eschaton: A Religio-Historical Study of Genesis 1 and Revelation 12. Translated by K. William Whitney Jr. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006.

Heiser, Michael S. The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015.

Himmelfarb, Martha. Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.

Hundley, Michael B. Gods in Dwellings: Temples and Divine Presence in the Ancient Near East. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013.

Keel, Othmar. The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms. Translated by Timothy J. Hallett. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997.

Kraus, Hans-Joachim. Psalms 1–59. Translated by Hilton C. Oswald. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.

Kraus, Hans-Joachim. Psalms 60–150. Translated by Hilton C. Oswald. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.

Levenson, Jon D. Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.

Longman, Tremper III. Genesis. Story of God Bible Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016.

Mathews, Kenneth A. Genesis 1–11:26. New American Commentary 1A. Nashville: B&H, 1996.

Midrash Rabbah. Genesis Rabbah. Translated by H. Freedman and Maurice Simon. London: Soncino, 1939.

Milgrom, Jacob. Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible 3. New York: Doubleday, 1991.

Moberly, R. W. L. The Theology of the Book of Genesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Newsom, Carol A. The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran. Leiden: Brill, 2004.

Nickelsburg, George W. E. 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001.

Nickelsburg, George W. E., and James C. VanderKam. 1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 37–82. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012.

Reed, Annette Yoshiko. Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity: The Reception of Enochic Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Smith, Mark S. The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Smith, Mark S. The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010.

Sparks, Kenton L. Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible: A Guide to the Background Literature. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2005.

Stuckenbruck, Loren T. 1 Enoch 91–108. Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007.

Sweeney, Marvin A. I & II Kings: A Commentary. Old Testament Library. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007.

The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Edited by James H. Charlesworth. 2 vols. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983–1985.

VanderKam, James C. Jubilees. 2 vols. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2018.

VanderKam, James C. The Book of Jubilees. Guides to Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001.

Walton, John H. Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018.

Walton, John H. The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009.

Walton, John H., and Tremper Longman III. The Lost World of the Flood: Mythology, Theology, and the Deluge Debate. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2018.

Wenham, Gordon J. Genesis 1–15. Word Biblical Commentary 1. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987.

Wright, N. T. John for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1–10. 2nd ed. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004.