Walton guia o leitor em uma viagem pelo mundo da Bíblia hebraica e faz com que os textos antigos ganhem vida. Nesta obra, John H. Walton, coautor do Comentário histórico-cultural do AT, investiga como os povos vizinhos de Israel pensavam sobre os deuses e seus templos, sobre a formação do universo, sobre os seres humanos e seus governantes e até mesmo sobre sua produção cultural, a fim de desvendar como tudo isso moldou a forma como Israel pensava acerca de si, do mundo e de Deus. Walton vai além do academicismo e mantém um objetivo prático ao longo da obra: ajudar seus leitores a aperfeiçoar a exegese do Antigo Testamento com base em informações do mundo antigo. Com dezenas de ilustrações e quadros com análises comparativas, Pensamento do antigo Oriente Próximo é um recurso indispensável para todos que desejam estudar e expor o texto bíblico fielmente.

Granted, one should not indulge in chronological snobbery (apud CS Lewis) and despise three thousand years of Scriptural exegesis because it did not draw on so much information as is available today; on the contrary, the older the interpreter, the nearer he was to a world which, apart from academic information, is now effectively lost to us.

And yet, this book is fundamental. I cannot imagine one sitting down today to exegete the Bible in good faith while willfully ignoring such useful information. How can we presume to try to interpret Scripture while refraining from understanding the very meaning of the cultural references embedded in it? Yes, we can expose it based on the long, useful body of knowledge accumulated by three thousand years of interpreters, first in the Jewish synagogue and now in the Christian church; but we can only honour both the Bible and its interpreters by making at least an effort to try to understand the meanings of words, idiomatic expressions and, ultimately, the cultural context where God first spoke his Word now written down for us in Scripture.

I will not comment on any specific example; the most interesting ones rely on too much contextual information to write down in this review. But it actually sheds light on many obscure passages for which no analogy in Scripture itself increase our understanding significantly. More than illuminating specific passages, it helps us receive the Bible, specially the Old Testament, as its original hearers understood it.

This book does not indulge in speculation, nor it proposes major reinterpretations as do other titles by the same author. Rather it collects much contextual ancient Egyptian, Anatolian, Levant and Middle Eastern information to both point where Scripture draws on its wider context and where it departs from it; it ends up showing how different Yahweh is from the pagan gods, and how different the religion He inspired in the Bible’s human, inspired authors. It is not light reading, nor a running narrative, yet it truly inspires one to gain better Biblical understanding. ( )

Five years ago I had no more than a casual awareness of John Walton and his work. I had the IVP Bible Background Commentary and had liked the way it pointed at the wider context in which the Bible was written. I also had his Genesis commentary (Life Application) and appreciated his nuanced handling of the creation stories.

Over the past five years, my casual awareness of John Walton has grown into a full fledged admiration of the man and his work. I have had this book for a couple of years and have dipped into it several times when I preached sermons on the old testament. Invariably I never found what I was looking for. I wanted something directly relevant to the understanding of particular texts (like his background commentaries). Recently I tried again and when the section I read, didn't give me anything immediately usable, I turned to page 1 and read through this book from cover to cover. There are usable chunks that I will continue to refer back to in sermon preparation, but in a general way, it also gave me a better understanding of the biblical world.Ancient Near East thought on a number of issues and how the people of Israel was both in continuity and dis-continuity with the world around them.

The book is divided into five parts. Part 1 gives an apology for comparative studies with particular attention to it's value for confessional scholarship.

Part 2 gives summaries of a number of different pieces of literature in the Ancient Near East. There is little analysis in this chapter, just classification of different types of literature and a synopsis of individual stories, myths, documents. Personally I think that this material would have made more sense as an appendix.

Parts 3-5 provide the 'meat of the book. Part three discusses Religion: God, temples and rituals, state and family religions. Part four discusses the cosmos: cosmic geography, cosmogony and cosmology. Part five discusses people: human origins, historiography, divination and omens, cities and kingship, law and wisdom, the future and life after death.

There were a number of insights which I found illuminating and will return to. In particular, Walton's discussion of ontology and metaphysics in the Ancient Near East and the Bible was helpful. Also would return to discussions of rituals, and temples in trying to rap my head around ancient practices. I found his discussion of prophecy and omens in the ANE/and the OT illuminating for understanding the nature of Biblical prophecy and its condemnation of certain practices.

Stylistically, this book fails for an inconsistency in style. In the main, Walton discusses the ANE in the body of the text and how it compares with the Bible in grey boxes within each chapter. Except when he doesn't. Sometimes the grey boxes are discussing the ANE and Israel and the Bible are discussed at length in the main body of the text. Makes it difficult for quick reference. This doesn't fault Walton's content, but he could be more systematic in his organisation of the material.



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Leading evangelical scholar John Walton surveys the cultural context of the ancient Near East, bringing insight to the interpretation of specific Old Testament passages. This new edition of a top-selling textbook has been thoroughly updated and revised throughout to reflect the refined thinking of a mature scholar. It includes over 30 illustrations. Students and pastors who want to deepen their understanding of the Old Testament will find this a helpful and instructive study.