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The Blue-Collar Bible Scholar: A Reader’s Guide to the Old Testament — Volume 2: The Prophets and the Writings by Joel Edmund Anderson
A Review Written by a Man Who Now Screams “HISTORICAL CONTEXT!” Whenever Someone Mentions Isaiah
I survived Volume 1. Barely. I emerged from Genesis–II Kings with a rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew, a disturbing familiarity with ancient Near Eastern goat demons, and an irrational emotional attachment to the phrase: “NO KING. NO TEMPLE. NO LAND.”
Then Joel Edmund Anderson released Volume 2: The Prophets and the Writings. I thought: “Great! Psalms! Proverbs! Isaiah! Daniel! This will be the nice part.” HAHAHAHAHAHA. No. By page 40 I had constructed a timeline of the Assyrian Empire across my living-room wall with red yarn. By page 150 I was accusing random strangers of violating the Mosaic Covenant. By Daniel I had overturned a table at a prophecy conference yelling: “THE LITTLE HORN IS ANTIOCHUS IV, GARY!”
And by Song of Solomon… we’ll get there.
FIRST: YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT A PROPHET IS
Anderson begins the Prophets section by identifying what most churchgoers assume prophets did:
- Predict Jesus.
- Predict the End Times.
- Apparently stand on mountains wearing bathrobes.
Then he basically says: “ALMOST ALL OF THAT IS WRONG.” The prophets weren’t primarily Nostradamus with circumcision. They were covenant-enforcement mediators. Their message was essentially: “REMEMBER THE COVENANT?”
Israel: “Yes.”
Prophet: “YOU’RE BREAKING IT.”
Israel: “We disagree.”
Prophet: “ASSYRIA.”
Israel: “What?”
Prophet: “YOU HEARD ME.”
Anderson emphasizes that most Old Testament prophecy concerns events within the prophets’ own historical settings, not events thousands of years later. This immediately destroys approximately 83% of Christian prophecy charts produced between 1970 and 2005. Somewhere, a laminated dispensational timeline just spontaneously combusted.
ISAIAH ENTERS THE CHAT
Everybody knows Isaiah! “For unto us a child is born!” “Behold, the virgin shall conceive!” “By his wounds we are healed!” Fantastic. So naturally Christians open Isaiah and read…about only six chapters. Anderson points out that most Christians know a handful of passages precisely because the New Testament quotes them. But then he commits an act of theological violence. He starts explaining what those passages meant in Isaiah’s historical context.
Christian: “Isaiah 7:14 predicts Jesus!”
Anderson: “Well, first we need to discuss the Syro-Ephraimite Crisis.”
Christian: “The what?”
Anderson: “Ahaz.”
Christian: “Who?”
Anderson: “Tiglath-Pileser III.”
Christian: “I JUST WANTED CHRISTMAS.”
Suddenly Isaiah isn’t a collection of floating Messianic fortune cookies. There’s Assyria. Judah. Ahaz. Hezekiah. Sennacherib. Babylon. Exile. Cyrus. Return. And Isaiah 40’s “way in the wilderness” is first about Israel’s return from Babylon as a Second Exodus, not a random prediction dropped from heaven five centuries early.
Then Anderson drops another grenade: DEUTERO-ISAIAH. Christian bookstore employee: “I’m sorry, what?” Anderson: “Isaiah 40–55.” “There’s only one Isaiah.” “Well—” “THERE IS ONLY ONE ISAIAH.”
Anderson explains that roughly 160 years separate the historical worlds reflected in Isaiah 1–39 and Isaiah 40–66 and argues that later members of the Isaianic prophetic tradition produced those later sections.
JEREMIAH
Jeremiah is what happens when God selects a sensitive young man and says: “Congratulations! Your life’s work is warning people about a catastrophe they absolutely refuse to believe is coming.”
Jeremiah: “How long?”
God: “About forty years.”
Jeremiah: “And then they’ll repent?”
God: “LOL.”
Jeremiah spends his career saying: BABYLON IS COMING.
Judah: “No it isn’t.”
Jeremiah: BABYLON.
Judah: “Stop being negative.”
Jeremiah: NEBUCHADNEZZAR.
Judah: “We declare prosperity!”
Jeremiah: HE HAS SIEGE ENGINES.
Judah: “Jeremiah lacks faith.”
Jeremiah: “HE IS LITERALLY OUTSIDE THE WALL.”
Then Jerusalem falls. Temple burns. People die. Exile.
Jeremiah: “Remember when—”
Everybody: “DON’T.”
THEN EZEKIEL SHOWS UP
If Isaiah is the majestic poet…and Jeremiah is the weeping prophet… Ezekiel is THE GUY YOU DON’T SIT NEXT TO ON THE BUS.
“Hey Ezekiel, how’s the prophetic ministry going?”
“Pretty good. I saw a gigantic celestial throne-chariot covered in eyes.”
“Cool.”
“Then God told me to eat a scroll.”
“Okay.”
“Then I lay on my side for over a year.”
“Right.”
“And cooked food over dung.”
“I’m going to sit over there.”
“And I shaved my head with a sword.”
“PLEASE STOP FOLLOWING ME.”
Ezekiel is biblical prophecy directed by David Lynch: Wheels. Eyes. Cherubim. Temple visions. Symbolic street theater. Dry bones. Divine glory departing Jerusalem. Divine glory returning. And Anderson just calmly walks you through it like: “Yes, yes, enormous supernatural wheels covered in eyeballs. Anyway, notice the Exodus imagery.”
SIR. THE WHEEL HAS EYES.
HOSEA
God: “Hosea.”
Hosea: “Yes?”
God: “I need you to perform a prophetic sign.”
Hosea: “Great! Shall I preach?”
“No.”
“Wear sackcloth?”
“No.”
“Fast?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“MARRIAGE.”
Hosea: “Oh no.”
Thus begins perhaps the most uncomfortable object lesson in biblical history. Israel’s covenant infidelity gets depicted through marital infidelity. It’s painful. It’s disturbing. It’s brilliant. And absolutely nobody volunteers to portray Hosea at Vacation Bible School.
AMOS
Amos is my new favorite angry farmer.
Israel: “Look how prosperous we are!”
Amos: “You’re exploiting poor people.”
Israel: “Look at our beautiful worship!”
Amos: “You’re exploiting poor people.”
Israel: “But our religious festivals—”
Amos: “POOR PEOPLE.”
Israel: “Can we get a different prophet?”
Amos: “ASSYRIA.”
Israel: “Oh, for crying out loud.”
JONAH
Ah yes. The beloved children’s story. A cute prophet. A cute whale. Cute Nineveh. Cute repentance. Cute little plant. NO. Jonah is basically a theological comedy about a prophet who gets angry because: GOD IS TOO MERCIFUL.
God: “Preach to Nineveh.”
Jonah: “No.”
“Why?”
“They’re Assyrians.”
“So?”
“I hate Assyrians.”
“Go.”
“No.”
Jonah boards ship heading the opposite direction. God sends storm.
Sailors: “Why is this happening?”
Jonah: “Probably me.”
Sailors: “WHAT DID YOU DO?”
Jonah: “I am currently fleeing from the God who created the sea.”
Sailors: “YOU GOT ON A BOAT?!”
Jonah gets thrown overboard. Fish eats Jonah. Fish vomits Jonah onto land.
God: “Ready?”
Jonah: “Fine.”
Nineveh repents. God forgives Nineveh.
Jonah: “THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I DIDN’T WANT TO COME.”
He then sits outside Nineveh hoping God will kill everybody anyway. A plant grows. Jonah likes plant. Plant dies.
Jonah: “I WANT TO DIE.”
God: “Jonah, you cared more about a plant than 120,000 human beings.”
Jonah: …
BOOK ENDS. No resolution. No happy ending. Just God leaving Jonah—and the reader—with an enormous theological question. That is some elite-level biblical trolling.
THEN WE REACH THE WRITINGS
Chronicles. Ezra-Nehemiah. Psalms. Proverbs. Job. Ecclesiastes. Lamentations. Ruth. Daniel. Esther. Song of Solomon. In other words: THE OLD TESTAMENT HAS STOPPED PRETENDING TO HAVE A GENRE. History! Poetry! Wisdom! Apocalyptic literature! Erotic poetry! A philosophical debate about suffering! A Jewish woman becoming Persian queen! A Moabite woman seducing a landowner near a pile of grain! WELCOME TO THE KETUVIM. KEEP YOUR ARMS AND LEGS INSIDE THE CANON AT ALL TIMES.
PSALMS
Christian: “I love Psalms. They’re so comforting.”
Psalms: “The Lord is my shepherd.”
Christian: ❤️
Psalms: “Create in me a clean heart.”
Christian:❤️❤️
Psalms: “Blessed is the one who smashes Babylonian infants against rocks.”
Christian: …“BACK TO PSALM 23.”
Anderson’s treatment reminds you that Psalms aren’t inspirational captions for mountain photographs. They’re Israel’s prayer book. Praise. Lament. Anger. Royal psalms. Thanksgiving. Despair. Confidence. Vengeance. Worship.
The whole emotional range of human beings standing before God. Which means biblical spirituality occasionally sounds less like: “Live Laugh Love” and more like: “GOD, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?”
PROVERBS
Proverbs: “Listen to wisdom.” “Control your tongue.” “Don’t be lazy.” “Don’t commit adultery.” “Don’t associate with fools.” “Work hard.” “Be humble.” “Fear YHWH.”
Modern person: “So what’s the key to success?”
Proverbs: “I JUST TOLD YOU FOR THIRTY-ONE CHAPTERS.”
AND THEN…JOB.
Sweet merciful heavens. I was not prepared for Anderson’s summary of Job. The heavenly court gathers. The Satan appears.
God: “Have you considered my servant Job?”
Satan: “He only likes you because you protect him.”
God:“Bet.”
Anderson describes the setup as YHWH making a bet with Satan. Later he escalates this to the immortal sentence: Job never learns that YHWH “decided to shoot craps with Satan over Job’s life!”
I closed the book. Walked around the house. Made coffee. Returned. Read it again. SHOOT CRAPS WITH SATAN. Ladies and gentlemen: Biblical Studies.
JOB’S FRIENDS ARE THE WORST SMALL GROUP IN HISTORY
Job: “My children are dead.”
Eliphaz: “Well, have you considered that you probably deserve this?”
Job: “What?”
Bildad: “God punishes sinners.”
Job: “My children are DEAD.”
Zophar: “Actually, God is probably punishing you less than you deserve.”
Job: “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE.”
They continue doing this for approximately thirty chapters. Anderson describes them as irritating, arrogant and self-righteous, and notes that their speeches gradually transform Job’s despair into bitterness, anger and outright rage. This is also the first recorded example of: Christians explaining someone’s tragedy until they make everything worse.
THEN GOD FINALLY ANSWERS JOB
Job: “I DEMAND AN EXPLANATION.”
God appears in whirlwind.
Job: “Finally.”
God: “WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I MADE THE EARTH?”
Job: “That’s not exactly—”
“CAN YOU CONTROL THE STARS?”
“No.”
“DO YOU COMMAND THE MORNING?”
“No.”
“DO YOU KNOW WHERE SNOW COMES FROM?”
“No.”
“CAN YOU FEED LIONS?”
“No.”
“CAN YOU CONTROL BEHMOTH?”
“No.”
“CAN YOU REEL LEVIATHAN IN LIKE A MARLIN?”
“No.”
God: “Then perhaps reconsider the tone.”
Job: “Understood.”
Anderson’s point is severe: humans don’t possess God’s wisdom and therefore aren’t in a position to demand that God explain why suffering occurs. Job never receives the answer. WE DO. Job doesn’t. That is the point. And that is brutal.
ECCLESIASTES
After Job psychologically pulverizes you, Anderson says: “Ready for Ecclesiastes?” No. TOO BAD. Qoheleth enters. “Everything is meaningless!” Anderson: “Actually, no.” The Hebrew is havel—breath, vapor, something fleeting. Therefore, life isn’t necessarily meaningless. Life is: HERE FOR FIVE MINUTES AND THEN YOU DIE. Oh. Much better. Thank you.
Anderson makes a fascinating connection between havel and Abel, reading Ecclesiastes against Genesis 3–4: Adam, mortality, frustrated toil, wisdom, suffering, and the fleeting nature of human existence.
Qoheleth: “You will die.”
Me: “Okay.”
“Your achievements will be forgotten.”
“Great.”
“Someone stupider than you may inherit everything.”
“Wonderful.”
“You cannot control the future.”
“Excellent.”
“So eat your food.”
“Excuse me?”
“Drink your wine.”
“Okay.”
“Enjoy your spouse.”
“I’m listening.”
“Enjoy your work.”
“Interesting.”
“These are gifts from God.”
And suddenly Ecclesiastes isn’t nihilistic. It’s almost defiantly joyful. YOU CANNOT CONTROL LIFE. Therefore, stop trying to dominate existence and: ENJOY THE DAMN SANDWICH.
RUTH
Oh, Ruth. The sweet little romance. Ruth gleans grain. Boaz is kind. Naomi helps them fall in love. Hallmark Channel presents: A Kinsman for Christmas. Then Anderson arrives. “Let’s talk about Ruth uncovering Boaz’s feet.”
Sunday school teacher: “She uncovered his feet.”
Anderson: “Yes.”
“His literal feet.”
“Well…”
“JOEL.”
Anderson points out that “feet” can function as a Hebrew euphemism for male genitalia and interprets Naomi’s instructions as involving an unmistakable sexual advance.
Sunday school curriculum: RUTH FAITHFULLY FOLLOWED NAOMI’S INSTRUCTIONS.
Anderson: “She basically said, ‘Marry me, and you’ll get this!’”
Vacation Bible School director: “REMOVE HIM FROM THE BUILDING.”
DANIEL
And now we enter the book responsible for more incomprehensible church-basement charts than perhaps any document in human history. Daniel 1–6: Vegetables. Fiery furnace. Nebuchadnezzar goes insane. Handwriting on wall. Lions. Everybody: “Great!”
Daniel 7: BEASTS. Daniel 8: RAMS AND GOATS. Daniel 9: SEVENTY WEEKS. Daniel 10: ANGELIC WARFARE. Daniel 11: KINGS OF NORTH AND SOUTH. American prophecy teacher: “Finally.” He opens PowerPoint: SLIDE 1: THE EUROPEAN UNION. Anderson: “NO.”
The four kingdoms are Babylon, Media, Persia and Greece; the little horn is Antiochus IV; and Daniel 7–12 belongs against the backdrop of the persecution leading to the Maccabean Revolt.
Prophecy teacher: “But what about Russia?” “No.” “China?” “No.” “Microchips?” “No.” “European Union?” “No.” “Barcodes?” “No.” “Henry Kissinger?” “Why would—” “THE TEN HORNS, JOEL.” “ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES.”
ANDERSON EVEN ADMITS NOBODY KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT THE 70 WEEKS MEANS\
This may be the bravest sentence ever written in an evangelical Bible guide: Daniel 9 contains “a strange prophecy about 70 Weeks that no scholar can fully agree on as to what it specifically is about.” Wait. You’re allowed to say: “WE DON’T KNOW”? Someone notify biblical scholarship. For 2,000 years we’ve apparently been allowed to admit uncertainty. This changes everything.
ESTHER
Now we get Persian palace intrigue. Ahasuerus. Vashti. Esther. Mordecai. Haman. Banquets. Plots. Genocide. Counterplots. Gallows. And the greatest narrative reversal imaginable: Haman builds gallows for Mordecai. Haman ends up hanging on them.
Mordecai gets Haman’s position. Esther gets Haman’s estate. The Jews survive. Haman’s sons die. The Jews kill 75,000 enemies. Disney adaptation: CANCELLED.
Also fascinating: God is never explicitly mentioned. And yet providence is everywhere. The whole book basically says: “What an extraordinary series of coincidences.” wink
FINALLY…SONG OF SOLOMON.
Christian bookstore: “We carry every book of the Bible.”
Me: “Great. Let’s discuss Song of Solomon.”
Christian bookstore: “WE CARRY 65 BOOKS OF THE BIBLE.”
Anderson refuses to rescue everyone from the obvious. Is Song of Solomon an allegory of Christ and the Church? It can be read that way. But fundamentally? IT’S EROTIC LOVE POETRY. He calls it a celebration of sensual romantic love and explicitly says that its eroticism should not embarrass Christians—the fact that it’s in Scripture means this kind of love can be celebrated as God’s gift.
Origen: “The breasts represent the Old and New Testaments.”
Anderson: “OR MAYBE THEY’RE BREASTS.”
Origen: …
Bernard of Clairvaux: …
Entire medieval Church: …
Anderson: “I SAID WHAT I SAID.”
THE TRUE GENIUS OF VOLUME 2
Here’s what makes the book work. The Prophets and Writings normally feel like the Old Testament’s junk drawer. You’ve finished the historical narrative and suddenly encounter: Isaiah. Jeremiah. Ezekiel. Twelve smaller prophets. Psalms. Wisdom. Job. Ecclesiastes. Ruth. Daniel. Esther. Erotic poetry. WHAT IS HAPPENING?
Anderson gives you the connective tissue: EXILE. Israel broke the covenant. The prophets warned them. Judgment came. Jerusalem fell. Temple destroyed. King gone. Land lost. People exiled. And the central theological catastrophe becomes: “No King, no Temple, no Land = no People of God.”
But YHWH hasn’t abandoned the covenant. So suddenly everything starts connecting: Isaiah’s New Exodus. Jeremiah’s New Covenant. Ezekiel’s new heart. Dry bones. Return from exile. Rebuilt Temple. Messianic hope. Daniel’s Son of Man. Post-exilic disappointment. The Psalms’ longing. The wisdom tradition’s struggle with life in a broken creation.
And the continuing question: WHEN IS YHWH FINALLY GOING TO FIX THIS? And now the New Testament doesn’t appear out of nowhere. It enters an unfinished story.
FINAL VERDICT
Volume 1 teaches you the Old Testament story. Volume 2 teaches you what Israel did with that story after everything went horribly wrong. That’s what makes this volume so good. Anderson takes some of the most intimidating biblical literature—prophecy, wisdom, poetry and apocalypse—and refuses to make it mysterious merely for the sake of making it mysterious.
Isaiah isn’t a codebook. Daniel isn’t Left Behind: The Prequel. Job isn’t “Everything happens for a reason.” Ecclesiastes isn’t nihilism. Ruth isn’t a sanitized Hallmark romance. Song of Solomon isn’t secretly pretending human beings don’t have sex drives. And the prophets aren’t ancient fortune-tellers staring through a telescope at modern America. They’re part of Israel’s story.
Anderson’s governing principle remains refreshingly simple: the Old Testament was written to real communities in ancient Israel, so you have to understand what these books meant then before determining what they mean now. Read this book and you will never again be able to sit quietly through a badly contextualized sermon.
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Highly recommended. Especially for Christians who have spent twenty years skipping from II Kings directly to Matthew because everything in between looked like a combination of depressing poetry, angry bearded men, incomprehensible beasts, and uncomfortable agricultural metaphors for sex. Which, to be fair… is not entirely inaccurate.
