While some have seen critical biblical scholarship as a death knell to the Bible’s capacity to inspire Christian faith and worship, Howard shows that this need not be the case. With a vibrant style of writing, she unlocks the possibility of rich theological reflection in critical contexts. I expect her book will be well received in mainline seminaries and among well-educated laypeople in mainline congregations. She offers a well-reasoned articulation of how critical theories of composition can lead to theologically shaped praxis today. Her aim is to “propose three modes of innovation that can be gleaned from the Old Testament: adapting popular culture, rethinking theological assumptions, and developing a new genre” (p. 3).
Howard’s introduction and first chapter do for progressive Christians what John Walton and Brent Sandy’s Lost World of Scripture does for conservative evangelicals—it expands the layperson’s vision of how texts were produced and what that means for...
