Old Testament Narratives

Anlezark, Daniel, ed. Old Testament Narratives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2011. Print.

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The book that I found in Skillman is called Old Testament Narratives edited and translated by Daniel Anlezark. I found this book by searching the term “Old Testament” in the catalog search box on the Lafayette College Library website. There were over 400 hits, but I found this book to be most intriguing. The other books around it were not of the same subject matter, so I did not find any other relevant books in the area.

When I flipped through the book, I was surprised to see that a lot of it was in another language. There are 5 Old English poems within the book that have been edited and translated (Genesis A, Genesis B, Exodus, Daniel, and Azarias). They were originally copied at a time when the Anglo-Saxons took an interest in their culture’s poetic tradition in the 10th century. An Anglo-Saxon cowherd named, Cædmon, composed these poems. Each poem is composed as a narrative that gives a different insight to some of the classic Biblical stories and even discusses stories that are not in the Bible (Lucifer’s envy and God’s punishment for him). Creation, Noah, Abraham, the Exodus of the Israelites, and the story of Daniel are some of the narratives throughout the book. The text of Azarias reveals a different perspective to the story of Daniel.

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