Carmen Joy Imes (PhD, Wheaton) is associate professor of Old Testament and program coordinator for Bible and Theology at Prairie College in Alberta, Canada. Today her book Bearing God’s Name: Why Sinai Still Matters releases from IVP. Here we talk about her work.
Welcome! So let’s dive right in. Why did you write this book?
The church today desperately needs to understand what to do with the Old Testament (OT). We vacillate between two extremes—either neglecting the OT entirely or fixating on it in unhelpful ways. With my book I’m trying to address the need for Christians to recover the OT and read it well.
What’s the big idea you want to get across?
We cannot fully understand our vocation as Christians without understanding what happened at Sinai. We tend to think of the OT law as a negative thing that didn’t work, but if we read it in context, …