From Paradise to the Promised Land

“With theological acumen that comes from being a senior Old Testament scholar, T. Desmond Alexander has provided a tour de force on the Pentateuch in his fourth edition of From Paradise to the Promised Land. Too often Old Testament scholarship focuses on individual verses and chapters, but Alexander brilliantly traces key themes that reverberate throughout the Pentateuch, providing rich theological and exegetical insights along the way. I have used this volume as a textbook, and the fourth edition now includes an up-to-date discussion of pentateuchal scholarship. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the Pentateuch. I highly recommend it!”—Carol M. Kaminski, professor of Old Testament, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

“This is a magnificent volume. I have used T. Desmond Alexander’s textbook on the Pentateuch in my courses for many years. He now offers a carefully revised, expanded, and updated fourth edition that will carry us into the future. He combines the emphases of the previous editions with new ones. In part 1 Alexander walks the reader through the historical, literary, and theological content of the Pentateuch. He shows that, as it now stands, the Pentateuch is a coherent, unified composition. In part 2, he has placed his updated and very well-written review and critique of modern critical approaches to the composition of the Pentateuch at the end of the book—rather than at the beginning, as in the previous editions. This is a good move. Alexander’s discussion in this section sorts out the current plurality of critical positions in a readable way and offers sound, reasonable responses to them.”—Richard E. Averbeck, professor of Old Testament and Semitic languages, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

“T. Desmond Alexander has given us an outstanding study of the Pentateuch that every student and minister of Scripture should read. It is exegetically grounded, thematically organized, and theologically rich. Furthermore, Alexander skillfully navigates through various critical approaches to pentateuchal studies in a way that takes Scripture for what it is: God speaking. In the end, he takes the reader on a beautiful journey that begins in paradise and ends in the promised land and that in the process guides us from Adam to Christ.”—Oren R. Martin, associate professor of Christian theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Boyce College