The Old Testament Story (9th Edition)

In This Section:

I. Author Bio

II. Author Letter

I. Author Bio

Dr. Mark McEntire began teaching at Belmont in the Fall of 2000. He teaches introductory and advanced courses in Old Testament, as well as Hebrew language courses.  In the summer of 2009, he led the Belmont Study Abroad program in South Africa and Botswana and just returned from leading a study abroad trip to Israel, Turkey, and Greece. 

"I have lived in Africa twice, having left the second time in 1998.  My return to the continent of Africa in 2009 taught me many things, including how much I have changed.  I have become more and more aware of how our cultural and social experiences shape the way we understand the world and the way we read our sacred texts.  Belmont is a great place for me to explore this idea, and to help introduce students the wide variety of ways of reading the Bible.

In the early part of my career, my research and writing was focused on the issue of violence and death in the Bible.  This work produced a number of articles and presentations and two books.

Teaching at Belmont raised my interest in the intersection between the Bible and contemporary culture, and has given me great opportunities to explore this area of interest with the brilliantly creative students I work with here.  One result of this exploration was a book I wrote along with Joel Emerson, a Belmont alumnus, pastor and musician.

Additionally, the exciting world of undergraduate teaching has energized me to work on classroom resources to help students as they learn about the Bible.  It has been a great privilege to work with Dr. John Tullock, who was Professor Emeritus of Religion at Belmont until his recent death, on three previous editions of the introductory textbook, The Old Testament Story. This important part of Dr. Tullock's legacy now continues in its ninth edition. 

I have also produced an introduction to the Pentateuch, designed specifically for use by undergraduate students.  One of the greatest teaching opportunities I have ever had was using the manuscript of this book as a textbook in my course on the Pentateuch while it was still in progress!

My current work brings me back to the primary concentration of my work as a graduate student, the field of Old Testament Theology, but it also gathers together all of these other paths that my teaching, research, and writing have followed over the past two decades. 

I am specifically interested in the way that God is presented as a narrative character in the story that the Old Testament tells.  I have just published an article called ‘The God at the End of the Story:  Are Biblical Theology and Narrative Character Development Compatible?’ 

In fact, I presented this idea in early form to my Old Testament Theology class at Belmont in the Spring 2009 semester and enjoyed the productive interaction with the students in the class.  This experience exemplifies the way that my roles as teacher and scholar are able to nourish each other in the great learning environment that Belmont offers."

Website: http://belmont.academia.edu/MarkMcEntire

 II. Author Letter

Dear Colleague,

2011 is a momentous year for The Old Testament Story. Within days after the completion of the 9th edition, the original author, Dr. John Tullock, passed away. This textbook is an important part of his legacy, and I am proud to guide the project into its fourth decade. John began this project over thirty years ago because, at that time, there was not an introductory textbook on the Old Testament written specifically for undergraduate students. The field has become more crowded in recent years, but The Old Testament Story continues to occupy important territory because of its focus on undergraduate instruction and the careful balance it maintains between a commitment to the Old Testament as scripture for the church and a determination to bring the best of rigorous, critical scholarship to the study of this ancient and beautiful text.

My work on the revisions which produced the 6th, 7th, and 8th editions sought to add new material and perspectives to keep the book up to date with current scholarship, to revise existing material in order to maintain and improve its usefulness, and to adapt the voice of the book so that it could speak most effectively to each new generation of students. While all of these efforts still went into the 9th edition, this is also the first time the book has undergone a major reorganization.

A seismic shift has taken place in the field of biblical studies over the past four decades. New material has been added to The Old Testament Story all along to give proper attention to these sweeping changes, but the book has retained its basic shape throughout these years. At this point, though, the new perspectives of our field have reached a level of maturity such that it is appropriate for them not simply to add onto, but to reorient undergraduate pedagogy.

Perhaps the most important part of this shift for us is the new emphasis on the reading of whole biblical books as carefully crafted works of literature. While it was possible to revise the first six chapters of The Old Testament Story to match this new direction, it was necessary to reorganize chapters seven through twelve to meet this need. The primary change this brought about was the extraction of the material on the prophetic literature from the chapters which treat the narrative of the monarchy, so that it can stand on its own, giving adequate attention to the four great scrolls of the Latter Prophets in their canonical form.

I am delighted that in the fall semester of 2011 I will once again be teaching two sections of "Introduction to the Old Testament" at Belmont University. My interaction with students who are reading this book every day is the most valuable resource in my continuing effort to make it better. I hope that you and your students find this book useful, and if you have any questions about it or ideas about how to improve it, please do not hesitate to contact me at mark.mcentire@belmont.edu.

Sincerely,

Mark McEntire

Belmont University