Download here a detailed summary of the first part of Walter Kaiser's "The Promise-Plan of God". In this summary I have rendered the exact sub headings everywhere, in order to make as clear as possible where the reader could find the information in my summary in the original book. Please mind that...
Summary “The Promise-Plan of God” (Walter Kaiser)
(The Old Testament part)
Contents
1. Prolegomena to the Promise: the Pre-Patriarchal Period.....................................................................2
2. The Provisions in the Promise: The Patriarchal Era............................................................................4
3. The People of the Promise: the Mosaic Era........................................................................................7
4. The Place of the Promise: The Pre-Monarchial Era..........................................................................11
5. The King of the Promise: The Davidic Era.......................................................................................15
6. Life in the Promise: The Wisdom Era...............................................................................................18
7. The Day of Promise: Prophets of the Ninth Century BC..................................................................21
8. Servants of the Promise: Prophets of the Eighth Century BC...........................................................23
9. Renewal of the Promise: Prophets of the Seventh Century...............................................................28
10. The Kingdom of the Promise: The Exilic Prophets.........................................................................31
11. The Triumph of the Promise: Postexilic Times...............................................................................33
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,1. Prolegomena to the Promise: the Pre-Patriarchal Period
Genesis (From the beginning to about 2150 BC)
Genesis 1-11
The Structure and Purpose of Genesis
The theology of the whole book of Genesis is centered around the goodness of God in extending his
“blessings” of the promise-plan so generously all the way from creation to the choice of Abraham’s
line to be the means by which God would bless the nations of the world with his gift of the good news.
The hallmark of Genesis 1-11 is to be found in the “blessing” of God as expressed in the Edenic,
Noachic and Abrahamic covenants. The promise-plan of God began using the theme of “blessing” as
one of the terms that signalled the introduction of the promise-plan of God. The pattern of events in
all eleven chapters exhibit the juxtaposition of God’s gift of blessing with humanity’s revolt (the fall,
the flood, the ‘flop’ of the tower of Babel).
The Word of Creation
Creation (bara, ktizo, asah, yasar) was depicted as the result of the dynamic word of God. Word-
creation, however, was more than a method. It emphasizes that creation was in accordance with God’s
knowledge as embodied in his word. Following the mainstream of the history of interpretation the
author states that Genesis 1:1 commits itself to the absolute beginning of everything (instead of a
relative beginning).
The days of creation
There’s elasticity in the author’s use of the word “day”:
1. Daylight;
2. Calendar days;
3. The whole span of creation.
The early church held the majority view that there had been three creative “days” before the calendar
type of days were created on the fourth day.
The image of God
Genesis 2 is meant to be a fleshing out of the main emphasis of the story quickly traced in chapter 1.
Adam and Eve are told to be created in the image of God, which (according to the New Testament)
will include “knowledge”, “righteousness” and “holiness”. God is the prototype of which man and
woman are merely copies.
Word of blessing
The word of creation was followed by a word of blessing. In particular the divine word of blessing at
the Sabbath should be noted: that blessing is the first of three great divine markers:
1. The Sabbath (Genesis 2:3);
2. “It is finished” (John 19:30);
3. “It is done” (Revelation 21:6).
The First Word of Promise: The Seed
To understand the theology of the fall we need to know about two concepts:
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil stood for the possibility of humanity’s rebellion
against the clear word of God.
The serpent is identified with Satan. To the woman, he was a person and not one of the
animals, for she did not express surprise at being addressed by him.
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,Satan’s deception worked and the woman succumbed to the heavy pressure and cunning
argumentation of the temper. The first failure of the three selected by the writer of Genesis for
theological reflection set the scene for a new word of divine blessing. In the midst of dirge of gloom
and rebuke came God’s surprising word of prophetic hope:
Genesis 3:15: And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
In other words, God would supply a person who would care for their sin that had occasioned the fall.
Genealogy
The “blessing” of God’s promise-plan to humankind did continue. The genealogy of the ten most
significant men in the antediluvian period recorded in Genes 5 was one type of evidence of that
blessing. They were “fruitful” and they did “multiply”.
The Second Word of Promise: The God Who Will “Dwell” among Shem
Due to the sin of men God would blot out humanity from the earth. The wickedness forcing the hand
of God however was not an evitable fate allotted to all people now that the fall was a fait accompli.
There had been righteous men during this same time. Thus Noah and his family experienced the
salvation of God while judgement came on the rest of humanity. The divine blessing “Be fruitful and
multiply and fill the earth” was again repeated after the flood, but here God added his special covenant
with nature (Genesis 8:22).
The word of judgement and salvation reached its highest point in the aftermath of the earth’s second
crisis:
Genesis 9:25-27:
25
he [Noah] said,
“Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves
will he be to his brothers.”
26
He also said,
“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Shem!
May Canaan be the slave of Shem.
27
May God extend Japheth’s territory;
may Japheth live in the tents of Shem,
and may Canaan be the slave of Japheth.”
The best option for interpreting Genesis 9:27 is to regard as promising to Shem a special blessing. God
himself would dwell with the Semitic people. The word for “dwell” is related to the later concept of
Mosaic theology of the “Shekinah” glory of God.
The Third Word of Promise: A Blessing to All the Nations
In the third and final crisis of Genesis, the ‘flop’ of the tower of Babel, again the sin-curse theme was
closely matched with a divine grace-blessing theme. Five times in Genesis 12:1-3 (the call of
Abraham), a transitional section between the two time periods of Genesis, the word “blessing” is
repeated.
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, The theological factors found in each crisis were the thoughts, imagination and plans of an evil heart.
But God’s salvific word was equal to every default of earth’s mortals.
Excursus A: Can the Numbers in the Genealogies of Genesis be Used to Calculate
the Date of Adam’s Birth?
Nowhere does the biblical text add up the numbers in Genesis or use them to make a chronological
note as to when Adam was born or the total numbers of years that expired before and after the flood.
There are two theological reasons for including these numbers in the Genesis-account. They display
the corrosive effects on:
1. Immortality; men and women had been built to be immortal, but the corrosive effects of sin
could already be observed in the physical side of life;
2. Child bearing; note the declining years at which these morals were able to bear children.
Even in the two Genesis genealogies there was a built-in warning not to use these numbers for
purposes of gaining a perspective on a chronological extension of time (these warnings concern the
age of Terah, Abraham’s father, and the skipping of generations).
Excursus B: The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men (Genesis 6:1-4)
There are three interpretation options of Genesis 6:1-4:
1. The cosmologically mixed races view (mingling of angels and humans);
But why then did God not flood heaven instead of bringing his judgement on earth?
2. The religiously mixed races view (the godly Sethites and the wordly Cainites);
But why would a religiously mixed race have such dramatic physical results as a race
of “giants”?
3. The sociologically mixed races view (despotic male aristocrats and beautiful female
commoners).
This is the best view. Consider the following evidences:
i. The ancient Targums rendered “the sons of God” as “sons of nobles”;
ii. Symmachus’s Greek translation rendered the same phrase as “the sons of
kings or lords”;
iii. The Hebrew word for “God/gods” (elohiem) is being translated as
“magistrates” or “judges” elsewhere in Scripture;
iv. Discoveries from the Near East have validated the pagan use of a host of
gods’ and goddesses’ names to give more prestige and clout to the authority
and despotism of kings and rulers in that day.
The term “nephilim” (derived from the verb naphal, “to fall”) does not appear to be “giants”, but
something more like “aristocrats”, “princes” or “great men” who ruled. The inclination of their hearts
on down to the populace was increasingly wicked. That’s why the flood had to come.
2. The Provisions in the Promise: The Patriarchal Era
Genesis, Job (About 2100-1800 BC)
Genesis 12-50
In this new era, there is to be a succession of individuals who now serve as God’s appointed means of
extending his word of blessing to all humanity.
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