Christian bishop Irenaeus is most famous for taking this approach.3 And yet long before Irenaeus Jewish interpreters of the Bible summarized their understanding of holy writ in narrative historical form. Such summaries are found both within the OT (e.g. Neh. 9; Pss 105; 106; etc.) and outside it (e.g. Sir. 44–50). Our interest in this book, however, is not in these pre-Christian summaries, but rather in the summaries of Israel’s story composed after the coming of Jesus Christ in the apostolic witness
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