Tremper Longman III on Reading the Torah’s Most Puzzling Passages 

Interview with Tremper Longman III

Lots of Christians avoid swaths of the Old Testament because it feels strange or simply confusing. What benefits come from wrestling with tough texts rather than skipping to the familiar ones? 

The entire Bible is God’s revelation to us; it is the Word of God. Much of the Old Testament is strange or confusing to us because it was written centuries ago (from about 1300 to 300 BC), in an ancient Near Eastern context, and before the incarnation of Christ. 

As the Word of God, it is God’s self-disclosure to his people, so even the tough parts are revelatory. We miss out on learning about God, about ourselves, about the history of redemption if we pick and choose what texts we study. 

But it does take thought and effort. My hope is that my book and the series as a whole will help readers grapple with these difficult texts in their proper context.  

You’ve spent more than forty years studying and teaching the Old Testament. Is there one passage from the Torah that has been particularly puzzling for you?  

Actually, more than one. 

Like I suggested above, grappling with the tough texts of the Old Testament takes time and effort. And also, after wrestling with them, I don’t always come away with a definitive answer, but usually even in the toughest, there is clarity while there remain questions. 
 
No one will be surprised, since many people find this passage difficult, that Genesis 6:1-4 has been particularly puzzling to me. This is the passage that talks about the “sons of God” marrying “the daughters of men.” They have children that are called the Nephilim, and these marriages anger God and help bring on the judgment of the flood. 
 
I won’t give my full understanding here as I do in the book, but the one thing that is clear is that there is a sexual transgression here. But we can’t be dogmatic about the specific nature of the transgression. In the book, I suggest that the most likely interpretation is that the sons of God are angels and the daughters of men are human women, but for more I refer you to the book. 

Did any passage in the Torah still surprise you—or change your mind—as you wrote this volume? 

I will be honest. I’ve been a professor of Old Testament and an author on Old Testament topics for over forty years. In other words, I have been reflecting on these texts for a long time. I may not have changed my mind during the writing of the book, but I have changed my mind on how to understand certain passages over the years.  
 
For one thing, I have come to appreciate that Genesis 1-11 is about history, things that actually happened in the past, but in this section of Scripture God’s acts are being depicted using figurative language. 
 
Did God create humans? Absolutely, according to Genesis 1-2. Did he create the first man by picking up dust and breathing on it? Unlikely. After all, the God of Scripture does not have lungs. The author of Genesis wants to tell us that God created humans, but he is not interested in how. Genesis 2:7 has even more to teach us about God and our relationship with him as I explain in the book.

So much of our difficulty comes from distance—of time, of culture, and of redemptive history. Of those three, which one trips up modern readers the most, and can you give a brief example where understanding the ancient Near Eastern background suddenly makes a confusing text make sense? 

That is a good question. I think all three factors are significant. Indeed, I would say if a reader does not respect the distance, then there is a higher likelihood that the text will be misunderstood and misapplied. 
There are a number where the ancient Near Eastern background helps us make sense of a text, but I will choose just one. God has given Abram (Abraham) promises, one of which is that his descendants will become a great nation. But for that to happen, he needs to have a son, and that does not happen right away or even for over two decades. So in the meantime Abram struggles with his trust that God will actually follow through, and he sometimes tries to manufacture an heir using ancient Near Eastern customs. 

When God comes to reassure him in Genesis 15, Abraham reacts by saying that since God has not given him a son, “Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in my household, will inherit all my wealth. You have given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir” (Gen. 15:2-3). Where is this coming from? 

Well, we know from ancient Near Eastern texts from the general region and time period of Abraham that in the absence of a son, a person could adopt a servant to be his heir. After all, there were no retirement centers at the time, so the idea was that the servant would take care of them in their old age and in return would be their heir.

Tell us something about you that only your friends or family would know. 

Two things. First, I was a lifelong squash player. I played a lot starting back when I was young. For those who aren’t familiar, squash is like racquetball, but played with a different ball and racquet in a larger court with a foot and a half tin at the front of the court that acted like a net in tennis. My father played in college and taught me and it was great exercise, but now that I am in my 70’s, it became too hard on the joints. 
 
So a second thing. I am a passionate Philadelphia sports fan, particularly of the Eagles, but also the Phillies, the Sixers, and the Flyers. I taught in Philadelphia the first half of my career while my three sons were young and we bonded over Philadelphia sports. 

Tremper Longman III is distinguished scholar and professor emeritus of Biblical Studies at Westmont College. He is a senior translator in the Bible Translation Committee for the New Living Translation and the author of more than thirty-five books on how to interpret the Bible. His work has been translated into eighteen languages.