Stephen B. Chapman

(Re)reading Ruth

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Biblical Hebrew classes often use Ruth as a primary text. Instructors should also assign (Re)reading Ruth, an outstanding guidebook focused on the distinctive poetics of biblical narrative and the characteristic intertextuality of the biblical writings. (Re)reading Ruth meets the highest standards of critical scholarship, while at the same time clearly and judiciously coaching students to cultivate keener exegetical skills and new habits of reading.”

David

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“The best concise introduction to the biblical figure of David now available. Johnson is a judicious, wise, literarily sensitive interpreter. He situates his treatment expertly within contemporary scholarship and provides insightful questions for further reflection at the end of each chapter, perfect for teaching. Johnson maintains that David is hardly a saint in the Bible’s depiction and nonetheless God’s chosen—helpfully troubling the moralism of our cultural moment.”

Do We Need the New Testament?

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“John Goldingay is incapable of being uninteresting. I smiled approvingly at many passages in this book and grimaced at a few others, all the while deeply grateful for such a passionate dismantling of pernicious but widely held myths about the Old Testament's theological inferiority. If Goldingay does not quite come to grips with what makes the New Testament new, he nevertheless brilliantly illustrates how the Old Testament is already good news on its own.”

Interpreting Prophetic Literature

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Jim Nogalski has produced a tremendously useful exegetical primer for the prophetic books of the Bible (rather than yet another summary of their contents). There is nothing else like it currently in print. Concisely and judiciously, he treats prophetic speech formulas, parallelism, key terms, symbolic acts, literary forms, syntactical connectors, catchwords and major themes. He pays particular attention to the basic challenge of identifying speaker, addressee and context, especially in translation, and provides well-chosen examples. I recommend his book for any introductory course on the Prophets.”

Isaiah

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“McConville showcases the strengths of traditional exegetical practice even as he incorporates newer trends in biblical scholarship. He is refreshingly modest about our ability to contextualize the Isaiah traditions historically, demonstrating how the book itself subordinates historical reference to thematic patterning. His commentary offers a rich tapestry of theological insights on one of the Bible's best-loved, most-influential books. He situates Isaiah skillfully within the overarching witness of the Christian Bible while remaining scrupulously accountable to the biblical text.”

Old Testament Theology

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“A truly exegetical approach! Moberly's signature style is patient, humane, and wise, combining loving attention to representative biblical texts (rather than general 'themes') with probing reflection on what it might mean for twenty-first-century Christians to enter imaginatively into Israel's heritage. The result is at once a deft response to the Old Testament's modern despisers, a sympathetic engagement with Judaism, and a sustained, compelling appeal to reintegrate Old Testament interpretation within the conceptual framework of classical Christianity and the concrete practices of Christian life.”

Reading Scripture Canonically

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Here is an authentic Christian refrain about the Bible, echoing the tradition but transposed into a twenty-first-century key. Gignilliat does ample justice to Scripture's material form and historical situatedness--this is not a screed against historical criticism--yet he pushes beyond source-oriented considerations and reconstructions to grapple with the trinitarian witness of the biblical canon, especially the Old Testament. These are questions that contemporary Christian biblical scholars usually neglect to pursue. May it be otherwise!”

Reading the Old Testament as Christian Scripture

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“A beautifully produced volume, with artwork, diagrams, maps, sidebars, key verses, and discussion questions. This introduction is pitched to Christian undergrads (and perhaps, in some contexts, seminary students), from a broadly Reformed Protestant perspective. It aims to introduce earlier in students’ study of the Bible a range of key insights arising from recent discussions about the biblical canon and the theological interpretation of Scripture. It will have wide appeal and, one hopes, extensive use.”

The Fear of the Lord Is Wisdom

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Israel’s wisdom literature has long been misunderstood as secular and experiential, a foreign import and therefore a human response to the challenges of life rather than a divine word. By building on newer work demonstrating wisdom’s religious roots and revelatory character, Longman masterfully explores the theological particularity of Israel’s wisdom tradition. The result is an excellent introduction for students and the general Christian reader, as well as a fitting culmination of Longman’s career-long engagement with this literature. His book is unusually comprehensive in scope, extending its coverage to the Apocrypha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the New Testament. It concludes with thoughtful reflections on the potential for Israel’s wisdom to contribute significantly to church and society in the twenty-first century.”

The Kingdom of God as Liturgical Empire

Theology

“In this rich theological commentary, Scott Hahn gives a powerful account of Chronicles' inner unity. The church, the sacraments, Marian devotion--these are all shown to have their roots in Chronicles in this profoundly Catholic reading that also offers a bracing rebuke to the long, sad history of Protestant disparagement of ritual, priests, and temple worship in the Bible.”

Worship and Waste

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“The questions ‘What do you think of Christ?’ and ‘How do you read the Old Testament?’ are closely related. In this culminating volume of his trilogy, Stulac movingly models a cruciform interpretive stance for reading the Old Testament, a posture acutely resistant to all forms of self-justification and restless for redemption instead of at ease with affirmation. Nothing could be more countercultural. And more needed.”