Jeremy Thompson Catholic PhD in Biblical Languages, Programmer, Runner

Well, I had a wonderful time with Christo (my thesis supervisor) and Karyn (a peer at the University of Stellenbosch) after SBL.  But, now back to the important business of blogging.  Today’s Old Testament lectionary reading is from Daniel 7.  Once I get past the narratives at the beginning of Daniel, I very much feel as though I am in over my head.  So, I looked to see what resources I could find online.

On Google Books, there is a free chapter (well almost the whole chapter) from a short monograph on the Book of Daniel written by John Collins.  Collins’ larger commentary on Daniel is often cited as the best reference material for the book; however, the shorter monograph may be a bit more accessible.  The chapter contains an outline of chapter 7 and covers the genre, setting and intention of the individual units.  This was a very helpful resource for me.

Thanks to “Qohelet,” one of my commenters for letting me know about this link.  I would mention that his blog is well-worth checking out if you get a chance.  This is a link to a free PDF Bible the World English Bible version.  This could be very helpful as this is the same  as the audio version of the Old Testament I link to on my free audio Bibles page.  Therefore, you could be listening to and reading the same text.

Dr. Ronald Troxel is Distinguished Lecturer (Biblical Languages and Literature) at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. This is one of the top, if not the top, Hebrew and Semitic Studies programs in the US.  He has posted the syllabi for a number of his courses on his faculty page.  In addition, he has links on these syllabi to a number of his written out lectures.  There is a gold mine of material available here, so take some time and check it out.  Of particular interest, he has some of his lectures up from a course titled “History Telling in the Hebrew Bible.”  This material looks like it is going to be very interesting to read.

I’ve linked to this once before, but for those who missed, it HERE is a link to a helpful resource on the Book of Leviticus by Lauren Stouffer.    When reading through books like Leviticus it can be difficult to keep the festivals and offerings straight.  However, this PDF has some helpful charts.

Bible Briefs are not available for every book of the Old Testament, but these free short introductions are available for Exodus and Leviticus.  The Exodus volume is written by Dr. Murray L. Newman Emeritus professor of Virginia Theological Seminary.   And, the Leviticus volume is written by Prof. Kevin A. Wilson of Lithuania Christian College.  These are high quality short introductions, so don’t fail to check them out.

Interested in other Old Testament book introductions? Click HERE.

Douglas Stuart’s commentary on Exodus is available in limited preview format from Google Books.  You are able to read the entire introduction to the commentary HERE.  This is Douglas Stuart of How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth fame.  He is a prolific author on the Old Testament who is evangelical in his outlook.  If you are interested in many of his other works you might check out his author page at Amazon.com.

HERE is a link to Fretheim’s commentary on Exodus over at Google Books.  It is available in limited preview format.  The entire introduction to the commentary is available there.  He along with Walter Brueggemann are two of my favorite Old Testament theologians.  If you are interested in Fretheim’s other work you might consider checking out his article on Old Testament violence that I have interacted with HERE.

Victor Hamilton’s commentary on Genesis is in two volumes and is in the NICOT (New International Commentary on the Old Testament) series.  One of my favorite things about this series is the easy to use sections text critical notes, though those are not generally available as a part of this free limited preview.  Hamilton’s volume on Genesis 1-17 contains much introductory information for the book as a whole.  The introductory section of this commentary is available for free from Google Books – HERE.

Westermann’s three volume commentary on Genesis is one of the best that I have ever used personally, though I have had to do so through libraries.  Google Books has the introductions to two of these commentaries for free in limited preview.  It is only for the first two volumes, but the introductions are fairly extensive.  Read the introductions HERE (Genesis 1-11) and HERE (Genesis 12-36).

Franz Delitzsch’s commentary on Genesis is out of copyright and has been put online for free at Archive.org.  There is a lot of good stuff on this site, but there is also a lot to weed through.  Delitzsch’s commentary on Genesis is in two volumes with Volume 1 HERE and Volume 2 HERE.  This will be one of the better free commentaries on Genesis that you can download as a whole.