Book Review: Understanding Scripture

Grudem, Wayne, Collins, C. John, and Schreiner, Thomas R., eds. Understanding Scripture: An overview ofthe Bible’s Origin, Reliability, and Meaning. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

Without question, this is one of the best basic Bible introductions that I have read. Using a series of nineteen essays by eighteen different scholars, the editors have woven together a comprehensive introductory exploration of all the major questions that surround the phenomenon we call the Bible.

Part 1 addresses the issue of Bible interpretation. A sketch of the process of Bible interpretation is provided, showing due sensitivity to the issue of genre, followed by a good summary of the history of interpretation. As is true in the rest of this little volume, the two chapters are just the right length to tease out the major issues without burying the introductory reader in a flood of detail.

Part 2 explores five different reading strategies with which one can approach the text. This is clearly the most devotional part of the book, and the editors have chosen well for the contributors, with names like Packer, Piper, and Powlison. In reading this section, students might be tempted to blow through it and get to chapters with more technical details such as canon, or the use of the Old Testament by the New. But the reader should not forget that the whole point of studying Scripture is to, well, read it, and to read it with ever-increasing understanding. This section might well be where the payoff for the book is located.

Part 3 investigates the issues and problems surrounding the concept of the canon of Scripture. The Old and New Testaments are treated separately, as the canon issues between the two are quite distinct. An excellent chapter on the Apocrypha is also provided.

Part 4 delves into the reliability of the manuscripts and questions of textual criticism. The level of detail is just right for an introductory work, and the two testaments are again dealt with in two separate chapters. Part 5 continues that pattern by devoting a chapter each to archaeology and the Old and New Testaments. Plenty of examples are given, although it would have been nice for a few pictures to have been included in these chapters.

Part 6 was devoted to the biblical languages. This section was either the weakest, or strongest part of the book, depending on the level of detail you are looking for. Peter Williams got into an astonishing amount of detail regarding Hebrew, for a layman’s introductory text. I enjoyed this chapter immensely, I suspect my students got somewhat lost in it. It will certainly give the average man on the street an great appreciation for those who know Hebrew well enough to translate it. David Black took a very different approach with Greek, and dealt with characteristics of Koine, the range of Greek styles in the New Testament, and some basic linguistics. The section concluded with a great chapter on the Septuagint. Peter Gentry handled this section and included in it several pages on translation strategy (functional versus formal equivalence).

This is probably my major criticism of the book. Gentry’s paragraphs on translation strategy should have been expanded into a complete chapter on the history of the English text and the translation rationales behind the myriad modern versions. He did a great job handling the issues, and I wish he’d been asked to contribute a whole chapter on it.

The final part, on Old Testament and New, included a chapter on the history of salvation by Vern Poythress, and a chapter on the New Testament’s use of the Old, by C. John Collins.

This is a terrific lay-level textbook for Bible Introduction. It’s too short (203 pages) and too basic for graduate use, and possibly even for undergraduate use. But in the church, which is where I am using it, it is perfect in terms of its writing level and content complexity. I highly recommend this book for personal or church classroom use.