The Covenanted Self: Exploration in Law and Covenant

by Walter Brueggemann

These exciting studies on the first five books of the Bible cover a wide range of topics, challenging the reader to confront the issues of faithfulness, responsibility, and justice in an ever-changing world. Brueggemann sets the issues of praise and lament, grace and duty, truth and power in new frames of reference that call for a response. He demonstrates that the Christian reader of the Bible cannot blithely pass over the Pentateuch as simply pre-Christian and without relevance. His creative use of metaphor and imagination invite the reader to encounter freshly in these biblical texts God's call and the work of justice.

Genres: Theology, Biblical Studies, Christian

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 5, 1999

About the author

Walter Brueggemann was an American Christian scholar and theologian who is widely considered an influential Old Testament scholar. His work often focused on the Hebrew prophetic tradition and the sociopolitical imagination of the Church. He argued that the Church must provide a counter-narrative to the dominant forces of consumerism, militarism, and nationalism.

Reviews

[Leah]

The Covenanted Self is the first of a three-book series of Hebrew Bible-focused articles that continues with Texts that Linger, Words that Explode, and concludes with Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope. In a formal sense, "Covenant" in the title mostly refers to the brokered-by-Moses Ten Commandments of the Sinai Covenant between Yahweh and Israel. We first hear the words of the Decalogue in Exodus, and then again in the book of Deuteronomy, where we also read accounts of real people working out life in obedience as dangers to their own freedom and threats to the Lordship of YHWH surround them. And now, as a baptized people, we follow the commandments in our own daily journeys of life together at home, in church, in nearby community, and in the larger world. Whatever the context then or now, there or here, Brueggemann emphasizes how those flexible, dynamic, yet explicit guidelines for just, sustainable, life together within the spirit of the law could not run more counter to the consumerist debtor economy most of us in the West were born into. We need to trust God's promise depends upon grace, but also upon our obedience. The book includes excellent endnotes, an author index, and scripture references.

[Joe Johnson]

This is my second or third time reading this over the years. The first time, I found it a bit dense, but now I’d say it’s Brueggemann at his finest - one of my favorites.

[Lypenner]

I read this book along with Watershed for a once/month book study. Brueggemann's writing is breathtaking and eloquent, inspiring me with whatever he writes about. Each chapter led to deep discussions in our community.

[Jane Vella]

Walter Brueggemann THE COVENANTED SELF

WB 1999

Wow! Walter never fails to delight me. This volume from 1999
is a winner. It is all there, ending with the Hebrew word: DAYENU.
God provides generously.! Loaves abound!