I just started a new book today. It’s one that Phill and Colette gave us for Christmas, called Dominion and Dynasty, by Stephen Dempster. It’s part of the New Studies in Biblical Theology series.
What is does is look at the Hebrew Bible as a whole, and tries to see what overall shape the Scriptures have. The “wide-angle lens” approach looks not at the Old Testament as we have it, but rather at the final canonical form of the Hebrew Bible, the one that Jesus most likely had. The focus is on the Tanakh, referring to the Law (Torah), the Prophets (Nevi’im) and the Writings (Ketuvim), the traditional division within the Hebrew Scriptures. This is different to the OT in a number of organisational ways, giving a different order to the books at a number of points (one of the more significant examples is that the Old Testament finishes with a prophetic expectation from Malachi, whereas the Tanakh ends with Chronicles, which has a certain note of expectation that God’s promises to his people will be fulfilled).
So far (I’ve read just over one chapter) it’s been interesting just seeing the groundwork defense of what his thesis is being laid – he has to argue quite strongly against a bunch of modern scholarship just to establish the idea that the Scriptures might be considered a unity. Having just studied for an Old Testament theological exam, I’m looking forward to thinking through again the broad ideas that run through the books when taken together, rather than the atomistic verse-by-verse or chapter-by-chapter we exegetes often get caught up on.