I was tempted to give this one a star less for its brevity, but I must remind myself often it is my fault for not checking the length and depth of a book before buying it. Granted, living in a non-English speaking country makes it marginally more difficult to do that, but while it may be an excuse for impulse book buying, it is not an excuse for antilibrary building or an adversarial tone in reviewing.

All in all, it is an enjoyable, succint review of Gospel themes in Exodus, focused on Moses’ ministry. It only touches Moses’ life after Exodus, but does that competently. It has the feel of preaching, which is to be expected from a preacher (and US lawyer), sometimes descending into colloquial language and homely illustrations, often offering non sequiturs that would have gone down better in preaching (or better yet, conversation) than in the printed page; most notably the one on ‘household baptisms’, one of the lamest arguments for sprinkling babies but one of the most common in even the most gifted baby-sprinkling preachers, and as we sorely need good preachers and writers, that is a fault we can hardly dwell on much.

On the one hand, the sound Jesus in the Old Testament theology makes it fundamental for people like me who are still getting used to this approach to exegesis that Jesus practiced with his disciples in the road to Emmaus, and recommends the rest of ‘The Gospel according to the Old Testament’ series; on the other, if one can find and face a more substantial approach elsewhere, one may conceivably pass the rest of the series. ( )