The Lost World of the Torah by John H. Walton

The Lost World of the Torah by John H. Walton ISBN-13: 9780830852413 Paperback: 256 pages Publisher: IVP Academic Released: Feb. 26, 2019

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Walton and Walton offer in The Lost World of the Torah a restorative vision of the ancient genre of instruction for wisdom that makes up a significant portion of the Old Testament. In the ancient Near East, order was achieved through the wisdom of those who governed society. The objective of torah was to teach the Israelites to be wise about the kind of order needed to receive the blessings of God’s favor and presence with the context of the covenant.


My Review:
The Lost World of the Torah uses very academic language, which didn't serve to clearly communicate the author's ideas. Even the examples didn't clarify things. He argues that the Torah does not contain a legal code but was intended to teach wisdom so that those who made judgments would have a certain sense of what was a good and a bad judgment. After muddling through it, all I can say is that he didn't convince me with his arguments. Here are some examples, as I understand them:

1) The Torah is not comprehensive (covering every type of judgment or civil code needed to run a society), therefore it doesn't contain any actual laws that were intended to be obeyed and used when judging cases. 2) Even though the leaders were supposed to regularly read through the Torah and their rulings may match what is given in the Torah, they aren't actually referring to it since they don't specifically quote that law when making their ruling. (Talk about imposing modern Western standards on a different, ancient culture!) 3) Scholars currently believe that the Code of Hammurabi is a listing of judgments that were intended to show off what a just king he was, so all ancient "they sure look like laws" lists must be the same type of thing rather than an actual list of laws. 4) Because the Hebrew words for "obey" and "keep" [as in, keep my commandments] can be used in a different sense about wisdom sayings, they can't refer to actual keeping of laws even when the wording seems to indicate that.

And so on. The author seemed certain he is right and stated that anyone who disagrees must prove him wrong, but he twisted the clear intent of anything that might be used as proof against him so that he can dismiss it. Not impressed.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.