ABSTRACT
Kittel describes the problems which he sees facing Old Testament studies partly negatively, partly positively. In the same breath he passes a similar verdict on a whole part-discipline within Old Testament studies: the introduction to the Old Testament. Old Testament religious history will then become a theological discipline simply of itself. Archaeology is generally reputed to be a considerably more tangible and exact affair than the interpretation of the history and transmission of the hopelessly complicated conglomerate of texts which is what the Old Testament simply is. Finally, the theology of the Old Testament should be treated as the history of Israel's religion, by drawing on all available analogies in related cultural areas, or in similar religious processes whereby ancient Canaan deserves a special place. The glorification of the post-exilic period as the zenith of Israelite literature exceeds the permissible measure of hypotheses and is nothing other than pseudo-scholarship.
