Dr. Trent Butler expounds on the book of Judges as a riddle. The book takes up a dreary theme of failure and disobedience and presents it with irony, satire, and humor. These instances of humor not only enliven the stories, they also provide the keys that he uses to address the scholarly riddles the book so frequently presents.
Dr. Butler observes that Judges is a complex work of literature that cannot be easily reduced to a thesis sentence or to one single purpose statement. The central themes, though, are clear enough. Each story deals in one way or another with a crisis in leadership. The problem of disobedience also shadows leaders and people throughout the book. Political judgments color the way the stories are told, foreshadowing the later division of Israel into two warring kingdoms. Finally, despite the absence of any overt theological statements, the stories all point to the sovereignty of God over God’s people, and the worship that they owe him.
Throughout Dr. Butler presents thorough reviews of the latest scholarship and up-to-date bibliographies to guide readers through the research on the fascinating riddles of Judges.