The Introduction sets out the rationale of the book as a guide to the present state of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible studies. It explains its origins and function in the Society for Old Testament Study (SOTS) and describes the wide range of topics the book covers: not only traditional ones such as the individual books of the Bible and its linguistic and philological background, but also modern disciplines with which biblical scholars nowadays interact, such as archaeology, social science, psychology, and the study of visual aspects of the life of ancient Israel and its environment. There is also a lengthy chapter on reception history, a burgeoning field. There is careful discussion of the contested term ‘Old Testament’ and its increasing replacement, as in the title of this book, by ‘Hebrew Bible’, and a note on the treatment of the divine name YHWH/Yhwh/Yahweh, handled differently by different scholars and not standardized here.
