There’s an idea circulating in the church that the Old Testament is a book of law while the New Testament is a book of grace. This is just plain wrong. However, it has led to (among other reasons) a devaluing of the Old Testament as a source for Christian spirituality. South African biblical scholar Christo Lombaard seeks to rectify this in The Old Testament and Christian Spirituality.

South African scholarship values articles in refereed journals over books. This limits the international reach of South African scholarship since many of the journals published there receive limited exposure. The Society for Biblical Literature is seeking to redress this with their “International Voices in Biblical Studies” series. This book is a collection of previously published articles on a variety of themes connected to Old Testament Spirituality.

The articles collected in this volume cover a diverse range of topics. The lead article, “Old Testament Christian Spirituality,” and the following entry, “Four South African Proposals for a Central Theme to ‘Scriptural Spirituality,’” work together to address the stated theme of this volume. The entries grow more diverse in topic from there.

The strangest entry is a cultural-anthropological study of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. Although the author’s theology doesn’t line up with that of the Creation Museum, he approached the theme park dispassionately, with an outsider’s eye to the peculiarities of North American’s culture.

Old Testament and Christian Spirituality is an informative—if scattered—exploration of the significance of the Old Testament for Christians. If you’re looking to read scholarship from outside the Western church, Lombaard’s volume is well worth picking up.

Lombaard, Christo. The Old Testament and Christian Spirituality: Theoretical and Practical Essays from a South African Perspective. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012. International Voices in Biblical Studies 2.