Puzzling Portraits

"The book of Judges poses great problems for biblical readers: how are we to know whether the deeds of its heroes are to be admired or shunned? Puzzling Portraits is a careful and lucid discussion of this issue that builds on the insights of the best modern scholarship. Scholars, preachers, and other readers of Judges will greatly profit from this perceptive work"

--Gordon Wenham, Trinity College, Bristol



"This work introduces the reader to some of the major approaches to reading the Old Testament for ethics and then grounds the gleaned insights in an examination of the story of Gideon in the book of Judges. The combination of theory and exegesis is a fertile one and demonstrates how much a narrative, literary reading has to offer in terms of the Old Testament."

--Craig G. Bartholomew, Redeemer University College



"In Puzzling Portraits, Culp adds solid research to continuing efforts to validate the abiding significance of the Old Testament canon for ethics. As the supervisor of the thesis that is the basis of this publication, it gives me great joy to commend the work of this young scholar to those who desire that the Old Testament remain a light unto their path and a fire in their bones."

--from the Foreword by M. Daniel Carroll R., Denver Seminary