An intriguing and, to my mind, compelling, argument that the Hebrew Bible was intentionally compiled as one over-arching Story, with messianic hopes embedded throughout.

It was helpful that I was taking a class on this otherwise I don’t think I would’ve comprehended a word

Good.

4.3 Stars

"Dominion and Dynasty" by Stephen Dempster is a magnificent work of biblical theology that approaches the Old Testament through a canonical lens. Dempster argues that the Old Testament (OT) is a unified whole and that analyzing its original arrangement helps illuminates its central storyline. This story is one of dominion and dynasty: of God establishing a kingdom on earth through Adam, of Adam's rebellion and God's judgment through exile, and the redemption and salvation through a Davidic dynasty who will restore man's dominion and dynasty.

Dempster's book is simply marvelous. His book is filled with page after page of OT connections, typologies, images, and shadows. Dempster is well versed in the message and language of the OT and can communicate effectively how it all connects. As well, Dempster succeeds in proving the central thesis of his book. Dempster demolishes several arguments that disjoint or disconnects the many parts of the OT, and in contrast, show the beauty and harmony of the OT. Of particular benefit to me was Part 2 of Dempster's book with explained the Prophets, Psalms, and Wisdom writings as commentary on the exilic situation of Israel - where we are left at the end of 2 Kings. This brings many of the Prophets, Psalms, and Wisdom writings into a whole new light and has enhanced and illuminated my engagement with this portion of Scripture.

The book's main weakness and I felt like it was a glaring one, is the breakneck speed Dempster works through some dense Old Testament theological topics. There were some paragraphs that after reading I wished that Dempster had rather made them a whole chapter. The book is short at around 230 pages, and I felt that it would not have been a disservice if this book was twice as long to allow Dempster to delve more deeply into some grand OT theological topics.

Overall, I think this is a great book and a must-read for anyone who wants to get a better understanding of the Old Testament. Stephen Dempster has done us a great service by writing a majestic book that offers compelling evidence for the harmony and unity of the Old Testament. Those who read this book will go away in awe of the divinely inspired Scriptures that show us God's mercy and grace in salvation.

A useful piece of work. Dempster follows the canonical order of the Hebrew Bible (whish is different from the order in our Christian Bibles). He treats the books in their canonical context, taking the Old Testament as a whole book. I think he takes a non-standard order both for the books of the Prophets and the books of the Writings, but it doesn't have a great effect on the whole. Still, the book is an illustration of Michael Morales's dictum that "every biblical theology is incomplete." There are many things that Dempster doesn't discuss, but the reader should recognize that he's doing this in the space of 234 pages.

This book is one of the best I have read in a long time. Every person who loves the OT should read it. The author mastered an incredible amount of literature to write this book. A true labor of love! My only critique would be of his reading of the Song of Songs and the conclusion of the book. Other than that it is hard to find something to disagree with.

Really excellent. Maybe my favorite book of 2023.
This book warrants a couple read throughs. There is so much theological richness in each section.
Probably the best OT theology I’ve read (and it’s under 300 pages).

This is an excellent book. If you are trying to understand the sweep of the OT and how it eventually ties into the NT, then this is one of the finest, tried and true Biblical Theologies out there.

Veldig mye godt i denne! Liker hvordan han tvinner hele GT rundt tvillingtema: dominion og dynasty. Guds løfter om et land og en slekt følges og utvikles gjennom historien. Dette er naturligvis også svakheten til boka, i den grad han forsøker å gi en helhetlig GT-bibelteologi basert på to tema. Mange gode oppbyggelige poeng underveis.

This is a very good biblical theology volume reviewing the entire Old Testament through the lens of dominion (geography) and dynasty (genealogy). Dempster has some really good insights.

The impetus behind Dempster’s work is what he regards as too many opposing interpretations in the field of biblical theology. He says that “of the approximately sixty biblical theologies written during the last century, there are almost as many theologies as…theologians” (p. 15). The result is that “the Bible’s theology” has become the “interpreters’ theologies” (p.15). Dempster suggests that the essence of the problem is that individual theologians use different interpretative lenses to study biblical theology, which naturally gives way to competing theologies. Regarding Old Testament theology, the varied approaches have largely ignored studying the Hebrew Bible (a vital term which will be addressed below) as one cohesive literary document. Instead, theologies of the Hebrew Bible have been built using zoom lenses by which theologians have lost “sight of the overall message of the Text…because of all the little texts” (p.27). 
Dempster’s thesis is that when the Hebrew Bible is read and reread with a wide-angle lens, a purposeful pattern becomes apparent in the literary structure. When interpreted through this scholarly approach, the Hebrew Bible is seen as “an interconnected unity rather than a collage of diverse documents” ( p.30). This literary approach, in turn, reveals recurring patterns of creation, exile, and return, which give way to its overarching theological message. With his thesis in tow, Dempster sets out to discover a theology of the Hebrew Bible that is true to the entire text, from Genesis to Chronicles. 
Critical to this approach is studying the Hebrew Bible in what Dempster believes to be its final and correct canonical order, which is arranged significantly different from the Christian Old Testament. His ordering of the canon is based upon a Jewish tradition in a portion of the Talmud titled Baba Bathra 14b (pp.33-34). He argues that this arrangement is a well-structured document with a clear beginning (Genesis-Kings), middle (Jeremiah-Lamentations), and ending (Daniel-Chronicles) through which an overall plot becomes evident. This narrative plotline is built on striking similarities between the bookends of Genesis and Chronicles. These two anchors of the text are saturated with genealogies that point to the Davidic dynasty but are deeply focused on land; the result is a storyline—or theology—of the Hebrew Bible that is centered on the dual themes of “dynasty and dominion—being realized through the Davidic house” (p.49).
This narrative plotline is fueled by God’s relationship with the human race, whom God made in his image at the beginning of the narrative and whom he commanded to fill and subdue the earth as coregents. However, when this relationship fails initially, humans are suppressed by the world instead of subduing it as commanded by God. “The rest of the story recounts the restoration of the relationship through the twin themes of geography (dominion) and genealogy (dynasty)” (p.49). This narrative is interrupted during the middle (Jeremiah-Lamentations) to provide commentary and reflection on the tragedy of it all. The middle section also points forward to the narrative’s resumption—a time of “building and planting”—and toward a future hope when all things will be initially intended (p.50). 
The first chapters of Genesis are the most critical to Dempster’s argument. In the creation account, the reader is aware that humanity is the goal of creation—that is, “the royalty of creation”—to subdue and exercise dominion over the earth (p.59). But the first royal family fails in the Garden of Eden, their geographical home and the “throne room of the universe,” resulting in exile from the land and their throne (p.67). Despite their failure, God promises to restore the lost dominion to its rightful heirs through the seed of Eve, who will eventually crush the seed of the serpent. The woman’s seed is traced from Seth through Noah, Shem, Abram, and eventually to Judah at the end of Genesis, where the text foreshadows an eventual conqueror and ruler from Judah’s seed. 
Eventually, Judah and the other tribes of Israel conquer land and later install King David, a descendent of Judah, on the throne. Before the human dynasty fails and is exiled from both land and throne, the first section of the narrative comes to a close. At this point in the narrative, one could conclude that “From a theological perspective…God is finished with Israel” and the serpent has won (p.154). But again, not all is lost. As the book of Kings closes, a seed of David, Jehoiakim, is given a kingly seat in Babylon. “A Davidide still has a throne”—hope is not lost for dominion and dynasty (p.156). 
Dempster argues that the storyline is suspended in favor of commentary and reflection in the cannon’s middle section (Jeremiah-Lamentations). Essential to this section is the theme of “building and planting.” Despite all that has gone wrong, God’s destruction of the land and exile of the people has a purpose: “to clear away the old for the building of something new” (p.160). Although this section is teeming with oracles of judgment, it also routinely promises that a “new plant growth from David” will one day rule a new kingdom (p.188). Notably, the prophets predict that the future king will be different from before. He will be a “servant-king” who will bring peace instead of war. He will come in obscurity, bringing hope to the hopeless, and his most significant achievement will be “offering himself as an atonement for the sins of many” (p.189) 
According to Dempster, the narrative resumes with Daniel and ends with Chronicles, both of which have important echoes of Genesis. Chronicles echo Genesis in its lengthy genealogies, which focus on David and his descendants (p.226). But Chronicles also has a strong geographical focus centered in Jerusalem and the temple building—a place of God’s presence where people from all the earth can come. Thus, “the world’s hopes are found in genealogy and geography”—dominion and dynasty (p.226). There is hope at the end of the Hebrew canon, hope that will “radiate to the ends of the earth,” one that will be revealed in the sequel (p.227). 
Overall, Dominion and Dynasty is a thorough and thought-provoking study of the literary unity of the Hebrew canon. However, there are times when the thoughtful reader will question whether Dempster has forced the dual themes of dominion and dynasty onto the text. One could argue that his emphasis on the early chapters of Genesis colored the rest of his interpretation, thereby resulting in a biblical theology that is ultimately born by Dempster’s use of a zoom lens on the first three chapters of Genesis. That’s not to say that dominion and dynasty are not evident in the Hebrew canon. They are, but at times his interpretation seems forced rather than naturally flowing from the text. The theme of building and planting in the commentary section and how he connects that with the Davidic dynasty in Jeremiah 1:10 is one possible occurrence. 
Another concern is Dempster’s arrangement of the canonical order and his seemingly arbitrary threefold break of the beginning, middle, and ending. Not all regard the sequence of the books mentioned in Baba Bathra 14b in the Jewish tradition to be the correct order. It’s well worth considering if Dempster’s choice of canon, which has significant differences in the sequence of essential books such as Isaiah-Jeremiah and Ruth-Esther than other Hebrew arrangements, better fits the storyline of dominion and dynasty than other Hebrew or Christian arrangements. Such an exploration is beyond the scope of this work, but one worth asking nonetheless. 
On the whole, however, Dominion and Dynasty provides the reader with a solid overarching view of the Old Testament. The strength of Dempster’s work is that it demonstrates how all the little texts of the Old Testament are interrelated by several constant themes that are woven through the fabric of the canon as if there is, in fact, one divine author who stands behind each human author. What is especially attractive is how Dempster connects the storyline to the New Testament in a brief concluding chapter. Of particular interest is how he sees yet another threefold arrangement of beginning (Gospels-Acts), middle (Letters), and ending (Revelation) in the New Testament canon (p.232). This threefold division develops the plot in the same way as the Hebrew canon: story (beginning), commentary (middle), and resumption of the story (ending). In the final chapter, as short as it is, Dempster makes a compelling argument that the twin themes of dominion and dynasty, realized through the Davidic house, are the overarching plot (theology) of Scripture. 
Regardless if Dempster’s conclusion is correct, Dominion and Dynasty has altered how I will forever approach reading and studying not only the Old Testament but the totality of Scripture. Dempster’s thesis demonstrates the importance of reading the Bible with a wide-angle lens, zooming in when necessary but always keeping in mind the big picture. As a next step, this work compels me to read the Old Testament from beginning to end in the arrangement that Dempster suggests, to locate and decipher any additional overarching themes. Further, this work has impressed upon me the importance of reading and rereading the entire Bible from beginning to end with the purpose of discovering God’s overall story. The lesson gleaned is to never lose sight of the forest for the sake of the trees. 
And that is the strength of Dominion and Dynasty, which was inspired in part because too many theologians have failed to consider the entire canon as one text, with one overarching storyline. At the very least, Dempster has shown that when read as one cohesive document, the Bible reveals an astonishing and purposeful literary structure that we cannot deny. To be sure, the twin themes of dominion and dynasty, traced through the Davidic line, permeate the text. But there may be other themes that are just as prominent, and perhaps there is one theme above all that better fits the entire scope of Scripture. 
This book, then, should be of tremendous value to anyone with a surface-level understanding of the Old Testament, for it spurs the reader to consider how all the minor parts of the canon fit together to form one literary whole. It also forces the reader to think about the Bible from God’s perspective rather than a human one. Dominion and Dynasty also has much value for pastors and teachers of the Bible, for it offers a hermeneutical approach to understanding the Bible’s meta-narrative that should not be ignored. As Dempster notes, reading and interpreting the Bible through a wide-angle literary lens holds much promise for the future of biblical theology. If nothing else, Dominion and Dynasty skillfully demonstrates that using a literary lens in discovering biblical theology is “an imperative of responsible hermeneutics” (p.43).
 
 

Dempster argues convincingly that there exists two main theological themes throughout the OT Scriptures. These themes are geography as dominion and genealogy as dynasty. These themes are inseparably linked together in the Genesis narrative and then built upon by the inspired biblical authors in every single OT book. Dempster’s argument is persuasive because he uses Scripture to interpret Scripture. That is, Dempster observes the intertextual patterns, literary devices, themes, and types located in individual stories to interpret the larger redemptive story spanning the 66 books of the canonical Bible. This book is written for all Christians, both the layperson and the scholar. It is sure to provide the reader with a greater appreciation for the cohesiveness of the Scriptures, the detail and precision with which the inspired authors wrote, and most of all, the fierce and unstoppable love of God that calls many out of darkness and into the light (1 Pet 2:9).