This book is brilliant. By now most Themelios readers will be familiar with the Counterpoints series from Zondervan. Each contributor presents their argument in 25–30 pages, with those arguments followed by a response of four or five pages each from the other contributors, before a final rejoinder of a few pages. It is a helpful and stimulating format. On this particular volume, Tabb and King have done a great job.

In examining the question of “how should Christians today read the Old Testament in light of Christ?” (p. 16), Tabb and King offer John Goldingay reading the Old Testament apart from the New in his First Testament Priority View, Tremper Longman III arguing for two readings of the Old Testament in his Christotelic View, Havilah Dharamraj presenting a reader-focused Reception-Centered Intertextual View, Jason S. DeRouchie proposing that the Old Testament be read through Jesus via the Redemptive-Historical Christocentric View, and Craig A. Carter advocating reading the Old Testament with the Patristic theologians in the Premodern View.

There is much that I wish to praise in this volume. First, the lineup consists of five excellent scholars who are careful and serious in their work. Even when disagreeing with their conclusions I was appreciative of their serious engagement with the task at hand. There is an admirable attempt to include as much breadth and diversity in approach as possible within a broadly confessional Christian framework. Furthermore, it is particularly pleasing to see scholars outside of the US involved in the project, although more could have been done on that front. Nonetheless, the ensemble is high caliber. Second, the format provides an excellent example of disagreeing with civility—this is especially appreciated and pertinent in our social media driven cancel culture. We need to learn how to disagree respectfully, and for the most part the contributors demonstrated such. Third, in an increasingly biblically illiterate age it is vitally important that Christian leaders fight to reclaim the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. We cannot let the Old Testament become untethered from the New, becoming a book of ancient tales from the Jewish faith. Five Views of Christ in the Old Testament is a promising contribution to that conversation and forces the reader to wrestle with holding the Old and New Testaments together. Fourth, requiring the contributors to work out their methodologies on the same three case studies was extremely helpful. The similarities and differences between approaches were readily evident in the worked case studies of Genesis 22:1–19, Proverbs 8:22–31 and Isaiah 42:1–4.

A single quibble arose while reading the volume: the inclusion of Craig A. Carter as a contributor. I have nothing against him, but I found it curious that the other four contributors specialize in Old Testament while Carter’s expertise is systematic and patristic theology. I later discovered that he is working on a three-volume commentary on Isaiah for the International Theological Commentary series published by T&T Clark, which helps explain his inclusion. Nonetheless, to my mind the volume would work best with five Old Testament scholars providing their views or else five scholars from different disciplines presenting their approaches (i.e., OT scholar, NT scholar, biblical theologian, systematic theologian, and church historian). But that this was my only quibble simply underscores the excellence of the volume.

In sum, Five Views of Christ in the Old Testament is a great introduction to Christological hermeneutics of the Old Testament. Any pastor or seminary student would benefit from reading it and I can easily envisage it forming a basis for class discussion and debate in a seminary course. Tabb and King write in the conclusion: “The goal, however, is not to adopt a particular label, but rather, to develop a faithful and robust approach to Scripture that is self-aware of our presuppositions and methodology” (p. 293). This they achieve with the able help of the contributors.