The Lexham English Septuagint

I was quite excited when I saw that a new English translation of the Septuagint was coming out. I'm always interested in new Septuagint resources. 

 

The Septuagint is an old, Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. Some (or all?) of the manuscripts of the Septuagint that we have today are much older than the Hebrew manuscripts on which most of our English Old Testaments are based so it can be pretty useful in textual criticism and Bible study as well (Some quotations that the Apostles made, from the Septuagint, are significantly different than our current Hebrew Old Testament text).

 

 If an English speaking person says they're quoting from "the Bible", we don't associate "the Bible" as only referring to one particular translation (unless you're KJV only). When we talk about the "Septuagint", it's sort of like saying  "the Greek translation of the Old Testament", it's just a shorter way of saying it.  There were several old, Greek translations of the Bible and we don't know which one is the 'original' one that was around in the Apostles' time and that they would have utilized.  Also, there doesn’t seem to be a reason to think that there was only one Greek translation during the time of the Apostles, there may have been more than one, and good and bad translations, just like we have today with good and bad English translations. Since we don't know exactly which Greek Version(s) the Apostles used, it's good to have a variety of copies of the LXX, the English translation of the Greek translation in my case, since I don't really know Koine Greek.

 

 This  translation is a nice one to add to this list, it is particularly interesting because of the way they give more, unique translations that you may not have otherwise considered.  For instance, in the Psalms, one of the "headers" I'm used to seeing is usually something like,  "To the Chief Musician: A Psalm of David".  In one of the other English LXXs I have, the NETS Bible, it is translated, "Regarding Completion.  A Psalm.  Pertaining to Dauid."   Well, this new translation, has, "For the End: A Psalm of David". When I saw that it was a like a lightbulb turned on.  "For THE END?"  As in, the "End times", "last days", the end of the world? 

 

I mentioned it to one of my sisters (who loves studying and learning koine Greek), and she looked up the word for "end" and it was telos, which is used in some other places in the Bible to refer to the end times (For instance, Matt.  24:13-14).  That sort of put a whole new perspective on the Psalms, not that we didn't think any of them were prophetic before (obviously the Messianic ones were), it's just that, if this view is correct, many of these Psalms are directly said to be speaking about the end times.  Some of them certainly sound eschatological, for instance, "Our God is a place of refuge and strength, a helper when afflictions find us very much.  On account of this, we will not fear when the earth is troubled and the mountains are transferred in the hearts of the seas…Come, see the works of the Lord, which he set as wonders upon the earth.  Removing wars until the ends of the earth, he will crush bow and shatter weapon…." (Psalm 45: 1-10)

 

Another interesting nuance in translation is Amos 9:1. The ASV (Using the Masoretic text) reads:  "I saw the Lord standing beside the altar: and he said, Smite the capitals, that the thresholds may shake…"

 

Brenton's English LXX reads: "I saw the Lord standing on the altar: and he said, Smite the mercy-seat, and the porch shall be shaken"

 

The LEX reads, "I saw the Lord standing by the alter, and he said, 'Strike upon the lid of the Ark of the Covenant and the gateway will be shaken…"

 

That's interesting in that, if it is the Ark of the Covenant, then that would (If I remember correctly)be a later reference to it in the Old Testament, than in the current Hebrew Old Testament we use. I don't remember the Ark of the Covenant being mentioned again after the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar.  Just an interesting thing.

 

You'll notice some significant/interesting differences between this text and the Masoretic.  If you grab a Hebrew based Old Testament and turn to Daniel 11:1-2, I'll quote it from the ASV: "And as for me, in the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood up to confirm and strengthen him. And now will I show thee the truth. Behold, there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall be far richer than they all: and when he is waxed strong through his riches, he shall stir up all against the realm of Greece."And then compare it to this English Septuagint:   "And in the first year of King Cyrus, he spoke to me to strengthen me and to make me act valiantly.  And now I have come to impart the truth to you.  Look, three kings have arisen in Persia, and a fourth will arise…."  That's a rather significant difference as it changes who the coming Kings are.  Are we supposed to count starting from Darius or Cyrus? Makes for some interesting eschatological problems. 

 

One of the main reasons the Septuagint is so interesting is that there are places in the New Testament where, when Christ and the Apostles quote certain texts from the Old Testament and their quotations line up significantly more with the LXX than with the Masoretic text.  And that's where I want to explain a part in this translation that I didn't particularly like. In Psalm 39 (Psalm 40 in a 'regular' Bible) vs 7 is translated, "You did not want sacrifice and offering, but you restored a body to me."  "Restored", instead of, "prepared" or "made" a body for me as English translators often render that word in translating the author of Hebrews' quotation of that verse in 10:5. Now some may point out that it's still better than the Masoretic text  (the Hebrew text recension pretty much all of our Old Testaments are based on now), which doesn't say anything similar. The problem I have is that, to me, "Restored" sounds as though a body was had, taken away or lost, and then given back.  It just seems to carry a different picture from how the author of Hebrews saw/read the text in Hebrews 10 (and the Greek word there seems to be the same as the one in Swete's Greek text for the Psalm).  The author of Hebrews seemed to view that verse as indicating that a body was prepared for Christ to offer it as a sacrifice.  Now I can see a way around it by saying, "well, look at it this way, 'restored' makes it seem as though He'd been given a body back that he'd had before, so maybe it could be referring to the resurrection of Christ."  Ehh…maybe? But again, that's not how the writer of Hebrews seemed to read it. 

 

Anyway, I felt like I had to get that out.  Moving on now.

 

Be sure to read the Introduction to this translation, it's very interesting, telling about the translators'/editors' goal of making your experience in reading this translation like the experience of those originally reading the Greek translation.  So instead of trying to bring the terminology to match today's culture, they "bring today's reader to the ancient culture", so if the language was originally not as gender inclusive as we would be today, they stick with the more gender exclusive language.  If the original Greek translation of the Hebrew was a bit awkward, the English will read awkwardly,   "The English translation should feel idiomatic where the Greek is idiomatic.  It should feel formal where the Greek is formal.  It should feel foreign where the Greek feels foreign.  In other words, it is not only acceptable, it is positively desirable for the LES to feel like a translation, to the extent that the Greek readers would have been aware that they were reading a translation.  Ideally, the translation should be as rough or as smooth as the Greek would have seemed to a Greek reader who knew no Hebrew…"  I really appreciate that.

 

I like the format of this book as well. I don't want to check right now, but I’m pretty sure that all of my other English translations of the LXX have the text laid out in two columns on each page.  This one only has one column of text, so it reads like a regular book.  The cover is very beautiful as well, I was quite impressed just by its looks when I opened up the box. 

 

I really like the LES overall. I own several English translations of the LXX, and I have never really found one that I prefer above the others, rather, I find all of them equally great study and reference resources to have around. This one is a great edition to any collection of Septuagints.

 

Many thanks to the folks at Lexham Press for sending me a free review copy of this book (My review did not have to be favorable).

This book may be purchased at Christianbook.com and at Amazon.com

The Hermeneutics of the Biblical Writers - By Abner Chou

I saw that there was a book on hermeneutics coming out by Abner Chou.  I thought his name sounded familiar, looked it up and remembered that I had listened to a message by him a while back, critiquing the Christocentric hermeneutic and thought that it was pretty good.  Therefore I wanted to see how Chou would tackle hermeneutics overall in a book.

This book, The Hermeneutics of the Biblical Writers: Learning to Interpret Scripture from the Prophets and Apostles is written from the perspective that the Bible has a "built-in hermeneutic".  We don't have to come up with our own. I loved that Chou points out that we don't need to go searching the hermeneutical methods of the nations in the days that the books of the Bible were written, rather we search the Bible to see how the text interprets itself. 

But sadly, overall I did not like the book.  Let me explain why. 

First, I didn't like how the author keeps saying that the prophets were theological geniuses, they were experts in dealing with the Scriptures, they were experts at developing theology. If he just said it a couple of times I could have overlooked it, but he emphasizes it and seems to make it a major fact/point. Something you need to have fully ingrained in your head:   I'll give a few quotations to show you what I mean:

"The prophets were immersed in Scripture.  As a result they used it accurately in various situations and developed it theologically.  They could apply God's Word to their current situation (e.g., covenant disobedience and failure) as well as advance the theological themes and concepts therein via new revelation.  …In sum, the prophets were exegetes who carefully understood the Scripture, as well as theologians who profoundly expounded upon its ramifications."

"The prophets were immense biblical thinkers and writers because they were so accurate in handling the meaning and significance of Scripture.  That is what made them good exegetes and theologians."

"The prophets knew post revelation well enough to incorporate sophisticated theological ideas in their texts…the prophets intentionally positioned their writings for later writers to use."

So when it says that "the Word of the Lord came to Micah" that doesn’t mean that God actually gave direct revelation, it just means that Micah had studied previous revelation enough that he was able to formulate what he thought God would want to say to the Israelites, and therefore, the book of Micah is his own commentary on previous texts? At least that's how statements like the above come across to me.

I can almost see some of this somewhat applying to the Apostles, but not with the prophets. I don't doubt that they knew previous revelation very well, but in their case we know they received DIRECT revelation, the words to speak, and visions to describe, directly from God. The majority of the prophets' revelation was directly from God, not their own study of previous texts.

"knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation. For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit." (2Pe 1:20-21 ASV)  Adam Clark explains this verse in this way "- That is, in any former time, by the will of man - by a man’s own searching, conjecture, or calculation; but holy men of God - persons separated from the world, and devoted to God’s service, spake, moved by the Holy Ghost. So far were they from inventing these prophetic declarations concerning Christ, or any future event, that they were φερομενοι, carried away, out of themselves and out of the whole region, as it were, of human knowledge and conjecture, by the Holy Ghost, who, without their knowing any thing of the matter, dictated to them what to speak, and what to write;"

Clark goes on to point out that it sounds like the prophets didn't really do their 'studying' until after they gave their revelation. They didn't have to understand their own prophecies at all, as the One Who actually gave them understood them perfectly.  The prophets didn't think up all of this stuff, they didn't imagine their own visions connecting them to previous revelation, God showed them visions that corresponded to previous revelation.  They didn't have to study out the previous revelation to come up with their own "Thus sayeth the Lord",  God actually did "say" these things.  God, who knew exactly how everything connected, was the Prophetic Genius giving the prophecies and intentionally positioning them for the later saints to use. 

Second, I didn't like many of the hermeneutics Chou draws from the text. He makes some weird conclusions. For instance, that the prophets intentionally referred back to overall main concepts, for instance, that Daniel's  (God-given) vision of the beasts (chapter 7) being subject to the Son of Man is pointing back to creation and man having dominion over the animals, and that this vision signifies that creation will return to its original order?   That just seemed really, really weird.  Also he talks about the New Testament giving us a hermeneutic of viewing Christ as a new David (going into the wilderness like the Davidic dynasty went into exile, facing same trials as David, born in the same place as David), a new Moses, delivering His people from exile…etc.  I don't see that any of these are absolute hermeneutical principles that one should derive from the new Testament.   I think the point that we should see from all that Christ did is much simpler than all of that. Isn't the main point about Christ being born in Bethlehem, going into the wilderness, coming out of Egypt, was not to fulfill a picture, that of David or of Israel, was  that He was fulfilling direct prophecy about the Messiah, and thus He was the Messiah. 

 And then also that the prophets made sure that they used illustrations the same way earlier prophets did, like when many of them refer to an Eagle, they use an "Eagle motif", remembering how the "Eagle" picture was used in earlier revelation and  going along with that. I'm not sure that that's the point of the illustrations, that they can't be used to picture anything else, they have to somehow be referring back to the original context of the picture's first use. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I’m pretty sure that "yeast", in the New Testament is used as an illustration for various things (without every time being used to refer back to its original use). You can use the same picture to describe vastly different things, and I don't see that it's a hermeneutical necessity to have it refer to the same thing every time it's used. 

There were some good things in this book, but overall I didn't find it as useful as I thought I would.  Chou rightly says that, "We connect the dots they (Apostles and prophets) established; we do not create new dots.  Immense theology is already there, we do not need to (and cannot ) add anything new." I'm just afraid that there were too many dots connected in this book that aren't clearly connected by the Bible itself.

Many thanks to the folks at Kregel Academic for sending me a free review copy of this book (My review did not have to be favorable)!

My Rating:  2 out of 5 Stars

**

This book may be purchased at Amazon.com and Christianbook.com

The Baker Compact Dictionary of Biblical Studies - Tremper Lognman III & Mark L. Strauss

The Baker Compact Dictionary of Biblical Studies is a dictionary that seeks to provide definitions and explanations for words that you will find in many books and articles that delve into the study of the text of the Bible.  It gives definitions and brief overviews of places, scholarly terminology, prominent people whose works are mentioned in theological books.

It was pretty interesting to just sit and read through a lot of the information in the book, to learn a lot of new things and even to glean some extra helpful information about events, people and places that I already knew a few things about.  If I came across something that I've already become acquainted with I felt sort of reluctant to read those parts, thinking something along the lines of, "this is just a dictionary, what more could it tell me about that?" But I was surprised at some of the extra information I gleaned.  For example,  I have done a bit of reading on the "Counsel of Jamnia" but I did not particularly notice before that the book of Ezekiel was one of the books whose canonicity was debated by the Jews.  Or if I had noticed, I don't remember understanding why it's validity was up for debate.  The dictionary explains that it was because in the vision given to Ezekiel of the alter it is depicted as having steps which was something contrary to Mosaic law. Interesting!

 At least  one bit of information I came across was quite shocking.  I was extremely surprised, when I came to the summary of who Gerhard Kittel was (editor of The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament), to find that he had had strong Anti-Semitic viewpoints and supported the Nazis during World War II!

 There is some, in my opinion, pretty useless information in this dictionary, mainly the detailed information about various pagan 'gods' , their 'story' and the attributes attributed to them.  They don't actually have any attributes, so why mention them in detail? And I also didn't like how they mentioned how so many scholars think that The Biblical writers drew inspiration from myths and attributes of other gods, without countering that  viewpoint.  I guess I can sort of see how that could come in handy for someone who wanted to know which authors not to read, but I wish they would have countered them in the notes, instead of letting them stand.

  All I need to know that it is a pagan god and therefore not a god at all.  The Bible doesn’t focus its attack on the mythological attributes of the false gods, rather it deals with the facts.  It points out their ACTUAL attributes of deafness, blindness, dumbness, irresponsiveness and utter lack of existence at all.

Another thing I didn't like , and   was surprised at, was the dogmatism in certain places, like where they state that "The Sumerians invented writing for the first time in human history sometime in the thirty-first century BC."  Oh, really? How do we know that Noah didn't know how to write already and taught it to his descendants? How do we know for sure that people didn't know how to write before the flood?

I was also surprised that they don't list Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley and the like in this dictionary.  That just seemed a little weird, as their works are still pretty popular.

Don't get me wrong, things like the above don't take away from the usefulness of this book.  They do have a lot of information, and,  when dealing with 'grey areas', for the most part the editors of this dictionary seem to use phrases along the lines of "it is believed"  or "some scholars think" when the facts are not certain. And they do give some quick criticisms to a few of the obviously erroneous viewpoints. 

Overall I think that this still  a pretty handy dictionary, for just about anyone.  If you read any linguistic commentaries on the Scripture, or even just a regular commentary, it would be handy to have. 

Many thanks to the folks at Baker Books Blogger for sending me a free review copy of this book!  -  My review did not have to be favorable.

This book may be purchased at Christianbook.com and at Amazon.com

Quote of the Day

Spirituality is…not an individualistic experience of solitude, defined by the amount of time spent in protracted periods of communion alone with God, but  an active obedience to God's commands that practically demonstrates love to others and is integrally involved in Jesus's mission to the world.  Christian spirituality, properly understood is a spirituality of engagement, not withdrawal…There is nothing inherently spiritual about the study of Scripture if that study does not lead to obedient, active application. 

- Andreas Kostenberger

From his book Excellence: The Character of God and the Pursuit of Scholarly Virtue

See more quotes on my quote collection blog:  https://snickerdoodlesquotes.blogspot.com/

The Spurgeon Study Bible

The Spurgeon Study Bible is a very neat idea.  As most people somewhat acquainted with Mr. Spurgeon know, he was not a verse-by-verse through a book of the Bible kind of preacher.  He usually would choose a verse (or portion of verses) for one Sunday and would preach on that and then preach on another (non-related, often from a whole different book)verse the next week. And also, some may also notice that his preaching was not always very exegetical.

That being said, this commentary is a great compilation!  It sort of gives a glimpse of how it would have been if Spurgeon went by a more verse by verse preaching style, and it focuses on snippets from his sermons that are more exegetical.

The version that I have is the brown and tan cloth over board Bible.  It is very nicely bound and seems quite durable.  The spine has some fancy looking ridges on it and the front has Spurgeon's signature printed on the bottom left.

There is a lot of good commentary in this work.  But there are also, of course, places where the commentary is not so great. To give an example, in one place he says,  "I hate that plan of reading the Scriptures in which we are told, when we lay hold of a gracious promise, 'Oh, that is for the Jews.'   Then I also am a Jew, for it is given to me!  Every promise of God's Word belongs to all those who have the faith to grasp it…."  That is a ridiculous, irreverent and, to speak very plainly, quite a selfish statement.  Why does everything have to be about us individually? And it absolutely cannot be applied in a general way.  What if there was a married, childless, ninety year old woman who greatly desires to have children and so she reads Genesis and Matthew,  and grasps hold of the promises given to Sarah and Elizabeth, that they would bear children in their old age,  and applies them to herself in faith?  Is that a reverent interpretation of God's Word?

Anyway, I still think that this is a worthwhile Bible to get.  There is a lot of good commentary in here, and of course, it is filled with pithy statements like, "Let us never think that we have learned a doctrine until we have seen its fruit in our lives." and "Anything is a blessing that makes us pray"

And I was particularly pleased at Spurgeon's conclusions in some places that are more or less controversial today.  For instance, in speaking of the flood's being a universal flood some of the commentary says, "If Moses had meant to describe a partial deluge on only a small part of the earth, he used misleading language.  But if he meant to teach that the deluge was universal, he used the words we might have expected that he would use.  I should think that no person, merely by reading this chapter, would arrive at the conclusion that has been reached by some of our learned men - too learned to hold the simple truth of God. " Wow! That's really stating it plainly.

And then, speaking of 1 Corinthians 9-10 ("What no eye has seen, no ear has heard….") he expresses incredulity at "How frequently verses of Scripture are misquoted!  How frequently do we hear believers describing heaven as a place of which we cannot conceive.  They quote verse 9, and there they stop, not seeing that the marrow of the whole passage lies in verse 10.  The apostle was not talking about heaven at all.  He was only saying that the wisdom of this world is not able to discover the things of God, that the merely carnal mind is not able to know the deep spiritual things of our most holy faith…" Rather, these things "must be revealed by the Spirit of God, as they are to all believers."  I was delighted that he had come to that conclusion as I know that my dad (a pastor) has been frustrated by the same thing.

As one would expect with just about anything written by Spurgeon, there is a lot of quotable stuff in the commentary. Overall, it's exactly what one would expect in a Spurgeon study Bible.

Many thanks to the folks at B&H Publishers for the free review copy of this book (My review did not have to be favorable)!

My Rating:  5 out of 5 Stars

*****

This Bible may be purchased at websites like Christianbook.com and Amazon.com

The Handy Guide to Difficult and Irregular Greek Verbs - Jon C. Laansma and Randall X. Gauthier

Though I'm still a beginner in learning Koine Greek, I still like to snap up any Koine Greek language resource that I can when any becomes available to review - especially since my sisters are more advanced (and more faithful in) in the study of Greek than I am.  I like to find various language resources to use as Christmas presents for them and my dad (a pastor).  In The Handy Guide to Difficult and Irregular Greek Verbs: Aids for Readers of the Greek New Testament is an excellent idea!

Upon receiving the book, I began having doubts as to whether I should actually have requested to review it, I became afraid that it was rather over my head - my fault because I have not kept up with my Koine Greek.  But in studying the book more closely, it proves to have great potential as an extremely valuable resource in New Testament reading, and one that I will definitely give to one of my more advanced family members for Christmas.

This book compiles a list of difficult and irregular Greek verb principal parts, and also has a list of the verbs with their compounds (frequency of NT occurrence of each compound verb also noted). This listing of how many times each individual verb appears in the New Testament makes it easier to better prioritize the verbs that are being committed to memory.   If a verb occurs a lot in the New Testament it makes sense to learn it at the beginning of study rather than at an advanced stage of Greek.  As the authors put explain, "What good is it to know that trecho is glossed I run if what one actually sees while reading is edramen?"(I made an attempt at transliterating the Greek words they mention as I don't want to figure out how to get the Greek font). Laansma and Gauthier look to remedy that problem for Koine Greek learners who are moving out of the beginners stage of Greek and who frequently practice their Greek by actually reading large portions of the New Testament (instead of mere isolated verses).  

I recommend this book highly for those learning Koine Greek!

Many thanks to the folks at Kregel Academic for sending me a free review copy of this book to review (My review did not have to be favorable).

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

*****

This book may be purchased at (among other places) Amazon and Christianbook.com

CSB Reader's Bible

The CSB Reader's Bible is designed to make it easy to sit down and just read each individual book. It is more along the lines of how it would have been read by the early Christians whose Bibles (or sections of the Bible/individual letters) were not divided into chapters and verses until many, many years after the Apostles had died. The text of this "Reader's Bible" is in a single column, like a regular book, instead being placed in two columns.  It has no chapter numbers and no verse numbers.  

This edition is a nice looking grey cloth over board volume, and includes an attached ribbon marker.  The font is a nice size and seems about the size of a regular book's font and is a very readable edition. I do want to note that the pages are very thin and quite flimsy, much like, or exactly like, a regular Bible's pages. I think that the edition would be nicer if the pages were the same thickness as a regular book's.  But perhaps they would have to divide it into several volumes if they did that, and it might be heavier as well.  This one still works very well.

The only real problem I have with this Reader's edition is that, though they do remove the chapter numbers, they leave the chapter breaks and make the first letter of each 'chapter' large (and colored blue). To me that rather defeats the point of removing the chapter numbers.  I don't necessarily mind chapter breaks in the narrative portions, and other portions that require it to make reading easier, though I do wish they would leave them out altogether in the Epistles/letters.  I do wish that they had taken advantage of the reader oriented design and completely revamp the chapter breaks to make the text flow more smoothly than a regular Bible's which have (at least to my mind) some unnatural chapter breaks that disrupt the flow of thought.  For example, here is how a portion of Malachi reads:

"I will have compassion on them as a man has compassion on his son who serves him.  So you will again see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

 CHAPTER BREAK  

For look, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and everyone who commits wickedness will become stubble."

Or as another example, in Acts, where Stephen is brought before the Sanhedrin:  "And all who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at him and saw that his face was like the face on an Angel.

CHAPTER BREAK

'Are these things true?' the high priest asked.  'Brothers and fathers,' he replied, 'listen…."

They could have omitted the chapter breaks, kept the text together and these texts would read much better without interruption. 

But all in all, this is a very nice Reader's Bible.  I really like the idea of going closer to how the text was originally laid out.  It is nice having other Bible editions around without the extra numbering and unnecessary dividing of the text. Again, I am not against chapters and verses, but editions like this truly do make the Bible more 'readable', as it were, and helps one to remember that "context is king".  Rather than viewing the Bible as little chunks of numbered statements that can be divorced from their context, it lends more to one seeing the text as an inspired whole. 

Many thanks to the folks at B&H/Lifeway for sending me a free review copy of this book. (My review did not have to be favorable)

You may purchase this book are Amazon.com and Christianbook.com

Evidence For the Rapture: A Biblical Case For Pretribulationism

(This is my full review - most of the other sites I posted an edited version as the full review could not be posted due to size limits) 
Evidence For the Rapture: A Biblical Case For Pretribulationism - General Editor John Hart is a compilation of several essays by several men in defense of the pretrib rapture.    

I wanted to read this book primarily because it is a topic that our church is examining at the moment (we're in Matthew 24).  We've been wrestling with the concept of the rapture and are actually leaning strongly in a Post-tribulational direction.    My dad, a pastor has held a pretrib rapture stance for all of his life, until recently, and he wants to make sure that there is no compelling exegetical argument that he has not heard defending a pretrib rapture (and he's heard many arguments for it).  I saw that this book was available for me to choose in the reviewing program I'm a part of and so I snatched it up. 

Each chapter of the book deals with various arguments for a pretrib rapture, dealing with texts like 1 and 2nd Thessalonians, Matthew 24,  and Revelation, and topics like the Day of the Lord and the separation of the church and Israel.  Having read the arguments in this book I haven't been convinced that we need to stop heading in the direction of a  posttrib rapture.  I'll give some of my reasoning below:

One of the first arguments given is the "imminence" of the return of Christ. We are told in God's Word that no one knows the day or the hour, not even the Son, but only the Father.  (Mat 24:36)  We are told that His coming will be like a thief in the night (Matt 24:43-44). The author of this particular chapter, dealing with Matthew 24, Robert L. Thomas, argues that verses like these (and others) indicate that this particular coming of Christ will be without any warning.  As to the verses in Matthew 24 that seem to indicate that there will be signs to be looked for that will be indicators of His returning to the earth in a short time (Matt24:33), Thomas explains that he believes that certain parts of Matthew 24 (like 24:4-28) are dealing with the time WITHIN Daniel's 70th week, and are speaking of one being able to realize the nearness of His return to earth (parable of the fig tree "then ye see all these things, know ye that he is nigh") in the 2nd Coming.  Other parts (after vs. 36) are dealing with the BEGINNING of the 70th week of Daniel, which in Thomas' view, also includes Christ's return to gather up His church in the rapture, has NO signs, could begin at any moment, and is inaugurated by the snatching away of the church from the earth.  "…the beginning of the week will catch everyone by surprise."       

But I am not seeing, in the text, how one can, all while keeping the context in tact, separate the coming of the Son of Man into two comings or two "phases" of one coming, as one of the writers put it.  And I don't see any warrant for seeing one of the 'comings' as only a partial return to earth.  The text of Matthew 24 seems to indicate that Christ is speaking about one coming of Christ, and that this coming of Christ will be a return to the earth.  It also indicates there will be certain signs that "He is near" and yet we do not "know the day or the hour".  When you think about it, even at the time when the signs of His nearness are seen we will still not necessarily know the day or the hour of His return.  Yes the Abomination of Desolation marks the middle of the week, but we are given two countdowns at the end of Daniel, both of which seem to count down from the time the abomination of desolation is set up (Daniel 12:11-12).  If we say that Christ is returning immediately at the end of  the three and a half years, do we count down from the very hour and minute that the Abomination is set up? Or are we counting days in general?  Perhaps Christ will come at midnight at the beginning of the day immediately following 3 1/2 years.  Or perhaps  he will come at noon on that day. And what time are we using? If we are in America at the time that this happens then Israel is in a different time zone than we are.  So, do we calculate from the time it is set up in our time? What calendar are we using? Jewish, Gregorian, babylonian?(assuming there will be such a thing at the time).

The essay writers point out that Christ uses the example of a thief breaking into a house, and that He also says that it will be as in the days of Noah.   But It seems that those illustrations are more for demonstrating what it will be like for the unbelievers, those who are not watching.  We know that believers (whom we presume will be watching) will not necessarily be overtaken by that day as a thief (1st Thess 5:4), though it will overtake the unbelievers like one.  As to the  days of Noah, yes unbelievers were ignorant of the day and the hour of the flood and were in the midst of daily activity when it came but a friend recently pointed out to me that Noah ended up knowing the day of the flood before hand. He was told when it would happen seven days before (Gen 7:4).  He did not necessarily know the hour, but he knew the day and was told what to do before that day (go in to the ark). 

This book contains some rather fascinating arguments, some that I had never thought of before.   One such argument, by George A. Gunn, uses John 14:1-3: "Let not your heart be troubled: believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." (Joh 14:1-3)  Gunn essentially makes a case that there must be a pretrib rapture as this prophecy cannot happen at the 2nd coming because at that time Christ will be returning to the earth, not to the dwelling places He prepared for Christians in His Father's house, and it is presumed that Christ will return to the earth to bring Christians to those dwelling places in the Father's house, which is in Heaven. "Since the destination points to a venue in heaven, not earth, the promise cannot point to a postribulation rapture and is most consistent with a pretribulation rapture."  I do not see that this section of Scripture negates a pretrib rapture. I'll give one plausible reason at this moment: what about the New Jerusalem that apparently comes down from Heaven onto the earth? What if the mansions/dwelling places for Christians are in that City?  Then Christ could prepare a place for us, come back to earth in the 2nd Coming and bring the New Jerusalem to earth as well. 

One of the most recurring arguments pretribulatonists use, included in the arguments in this book, is that the church must not experience the wrath of God.  One of the verses used for this position is 1 Th 5:9: "For God appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ".   One of the essay writers, Kevin D. Zuber, uses 1 Thessolonians 5 to argue that since we are not appointed to wrath and since we are not of the "realm of darkness" that unbelievers are in and are children of the light(see 1 Th 5:4-5), therefore we will be raptured out of the world before the wrath of the Lord is dealt out upon the earth.   Here are some of his statements: "Since the rapture will take all living saints to be with the Lord at the same time that the day of the Lord commences, no believer need fear that he will be found in the day of the Lord."    "...neither they nor any saint will enter the day of the Lord".  "Since believers are nonparticipants in the realm of darkness, they have 'the promise of non-participation in "the day of the Lord"".

I do not see that that is what Paul was getting at.  Paul tells the Thessalonians ""For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. When they are saying, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall in no wise escape. "(1Th 5:2-3)  This sudden destruction comes upon UNBELIEVERS (those of the darkness) as a thief in the night.  "But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief: for ye are all sons of light, and sons of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep, as do the rest, but let us watch and be sober."(1Th 5:4-6)  It doesn't even look as though Paul is even hinting that they would not go through the tribulation.  He tells them that they are not in darkness, and that therefore the day shouldn't come as a surprise to the believers, but it doesn't say that God will remove them from the earth at that time.  Believers will not be those saying, "peace and safety", and they will have things to watch for, such as the Abomination of desolation, and must be very careful not to apostatize from the faith (at that time there will be many extremely good deceivers leading people astray - Matt 24:23-24).  If they are in Jerusalem, at the time that it is set u,p then they will obey Christ's command to flee to the mountains.  If they are anywhere else, then perhaps they will hide as well, but no matter where they are in the world, they will not take the mark of the beast.  To unbelievers living at that time these events will be "sudden destruction; and they shall in no wise escape", but to believers living at this time these horrible things are apparently signs of coming redemption for them, and are not "sudden destruction":  "But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads; because your redemption draweth nigh. And he spake to them a parable: Behold the fig tree, and all the trees: when they now shoot forth, ye see it and know of your own selves that the summer is now nigh. Even so ye also, when ye see these things coming to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh. (Luk 21:28-31)   "even so ye also, when ye see all these things, know ye that he is nigh, even at the doors." (Mat 24:33)

When Paul tells the Thessalonians that they are not destined for wrath but for salvation through Christ, we know that this is talking about our soul's salvation from the eternal wrath of God, not the temporary wrath that He will pour out upon the earth at the end.  Zuber argues that Christians will not be on the earth during the temporary wrath of God upon the world.  But we know that this is not the case. It looks as though perhaps millions (or more) of believers (apparently not just Jewish Christians) will be on the earth during that time (Rev 7:9-14, Rev 6:9-11,Rev 12:17, Dan 7:21-27). There will be Christian martyrs during the tribulation, but this does not mean that those martyred are experiencing God's wrath, but rather the wrath of Satan.   If one holds to the view that only those who are in darkness are the ones that live through the tribulation then they would need to believe that those who become believers once the tribulation begins are among those  who are "appointed unto wrath"!  Are the so-called "tribulation saints" living in darkness rather than the light? Are the 144,000 Jewish believers "appointed unto wrath" and "living in darkness"?  I do not see how one can biblically hold that view. 

Related to this is the last essay in this book, by Michael Rydelnik, dealing with the distinction between the church and Israel, and because of this distinction how the church must be gone by the time the tribulation begins because God will be refocusing His attention on Israel.  He says that "The distinction between the church and Israel should yield a belief that the rapture of the church will take place before the tribulation of the end of days (a pretribulation rapture)." Also,  "It is 'a time of trouble for Jacob' (suggesting that the church will have already been removed)."  But we also know that it will be a time of trouble for multitudes of Gentile believers, "After these things I saw, and behold, A GREAT MULTITUDE, WHICH NO MAN COULD NUMBER, out of EVERY nation and of ALL tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands….he said to me, These are they that come out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.  (Rev 7:9, 14 emphasis added, ). One could also make the case that the saints spoken of in Daniel, who are persecuted by the Antichrist, include Gentile believers (Daniel 7:21-27;see also Rev 13:7, 17:6)  That's a HUGE amount of believing Gentiles, which seems to indicate that, though the tribulation will be a time of trouble for Israel, this does not necessitate the church being absent during this time.   

Another of the arguments given in this book is that," Paul routinely described the church ,or the body of Christ, as consisting of all people from all nations on equal footing as join heirs in one new man or spiritual organism….(quotes Galatians 3:28: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female…. " and Eph 2:14) "…Thus national barriers or boundaries no longer positionally divide believers from one another in the church age.  Today, the preeminent servant of God is no longer national, ethnic Israel but rather the church, or the body of Christ, consisting of believers in Jesus from all nations…." the argument goes on making the case that the book of Revelation tells of "a time when national barriers will once again be erected as God will again use national Israel as His special instrument to bless the world…the Pauline concept of the church as a body with no national barriers is also absent from this time period."

When I look at those passages I do not see that it says that God broke down ethnicities, but rather that He included Gentiles, as Gentiles, in the people of God, thus making salvation by grace through faith and available to all people, breaking the wall of hostility between the Jews, who had the God-given law and ordinances to set them apart from the nations/Gentiles.  This fits with passages like Acts 15, where the Apostle Peter is dealing with Jews who insist that Gentiles must keep the law of Moses in order to be saved, "And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, "Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will." (Act 15:7-11)

Yes, in Christ there is no Jew, Greek, male or female, but this apparently does not mean that there are no Jews, Greeks, Males or females in the church, nor does it mean that they cannot have distinct roles.  If this is what being in the church means then females would be allowed to be pastors and to hold authority over men because gender barriers would be broken down, as well as ethnic barriers.  If gender has no relevance in the church then passages like 1 Tim 2:11-15 and Eph 5:22 contradict Galatians 3:28.

It would seem then that the Gentiles and Jews have been brought together in one body, all while staying Jews and Gentiles in the process.  The Jews are saved as Jews and the Gentiles as Gentiles. This fits with what the Scripture tells us of the church,

 "But now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both one, and brake down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; that he might create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace; and might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: and he came and preached peace to you that were far off, and peace to them that were nigh: for through him we both have our access in one Spirit unto the Father. So then ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone; in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.

(Eph 2:13-22)

 "This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel." (Eph 3:6)

Israel appears to exist even during the "times of the Gentiles", and the so-called church age.  Paul speaks about how "he is a Jew who is one inwardly" (Romans 2:29), not merely with the outward qualifications but with the inward "circumcision" of the heart(but still with those outward qualifications).  If there are no Jews in the church then why did Paul use the term?  Yes we have verses like "For they are not all Israel, that are of Israel…" (Rom 9:6), but, and I know most pretrib folks would agree with me in this, members of Israel to whom God has chosen to show mercy, they are Israel (Romans 11:7).  God did not cast off all of Israel, Paul himself pointed out that he himself was an Israelite and that there was, even at that time, a remnant of Israel who believed (Romans 11:5).  The believing remnant of Israel, then and now, is the "the Israel of God" in Galatians 6:16, and, here is where I differ from pretrib rapture people, the "Israel of God" is apparently a part of the church. God is the God of both Jews and Gentiles, not by taking away their ethnic identity but by saving both by faith, thus making it possible to save Jews and Gentiles as Jews and Gentiles.  The church is not a body of indistinguishable parts, but a body made up of many parts with different functions (1Cor 12:14-21).    

 And this fits the picture of the bride of the Lamb, in Revelation 21,  "And there came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls, who were laden with the seven last plagues; and he spake with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God" (vs 9-10) This city has twelve gates with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel and the wall of the city has 12 foundations with the names of the 12 Apostles of the Lamb (see vs. 12-14).

 I do not see that it is biblical to believe that God will set up the "wall of enmity" between Jews and Gentiles again in the future, nor  to think that that believing Gentiles of that time will be made "strangers and aliens" yet again.  Rather it appears more biblical to believe that any believing Gentile at that time will still have "access in one Spirit", with the Jews, to "the Father"(Eph 2:13-22).  They will still be reconciled to God together, as Jews and Gentiles, "in one body through the cross(vs 16)".  This body will still be "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone"(Eph 2:20).  I repeat: that fits with the picture of the bride of the Lamb pictured in Revelation 21: 9-14 which includes the twelve sons of Israel.

 I am still a premilennialist who has strong dispensational leanings, I still believe that God has a plan for Israel, that they will repent when Christ comes again and that He will give them the promised earthly land of Israel in the future and that Christ will reign over them for a thousand years on this earth.  But I think that it is biblical to believe that even that this saved Israel of the future will be a part of Christ's body, the church. The Israel of God is a separate entity from Gentiles who are chosen of God, but they are 'separate' and yet in one body, the church. In other words, I believe that it is biblically consistent to think that the church will be on the earth during the tribulation, and that living believers will be gathered up/raptured with the resurrected saints when Christ comes again to the earth at the end of the tribulation. 

I thought that the writers of this book did a good job at defending their points, they made sense, they just didn't make enough biblical sense to me, for reasons like the ones given above.  I just wasn't convinced. But It was a very interesting and intriguing read, I would recommend it to anyone wanting to study the pretrib rapture position. 

Many thanks to the folks at MoodyNewsroom for sending me a free review copy of this book! (My review did not have to be favorable)

This book may be purchased at (among other websites):  Amazon and Christian Book Distributors

Inductive Bible Study - Richard Alan Fuhr, Jr. and Andreas J. Kostenberger

Looking for a book that will give you good guidelines for studying the Bible well? Inductive Bible Study by Richard Alan Fuhr Jr. and Andreas J. Kostenberger is a good resource on the topic. As the authors of this book explain, God chose to reveal His will to us through His written Word, rather than through personal revelation/new revelation.  He chose that it would be learned progressively with effort rather than instantly without any work on our part. We should revere God's choice method of conveying the knowledge of Him that He wants us to have and His will that is revealed through this collection of holy documents.  Fuhr and Kostenberger take you through a series of steps that will assist you in reverently discovering and handling what God's Word says with accuracy and reverence.

The steps you are taken through range from: comparing English Bible translations, Asking the right questions of the text, using commentaries, word studies, practicing discernment and of course, one of the most important steps of all, recognizing the importance of context and authorial intent.  It is pointed out that, "Those who read the Bible with little awareness of surrounding context often do so because they have been trained (by example) to think through Scripture in terms of devotional nuggets, memorizing verses and reading for inspirational insight rather than interpretive understanding."  Context is emphasized strongly, and related to that, I very much appreciate the cautions about word studies (though they are still encouraged),  where it is made clear that when studying individual words or phrases in a passage, it should be remembered that the meaning of those words will ultimately be discerned through the surrounding context of the phrase, not just their bare lexical meaning, "contextual meaning will always take precedence over lexical meaning."

The authors write very well, are easy to understand and the steps in each section are outlined in charts, which helps with remembering and simplifying what one has learned.  They give illustrations to demonstrate hermeneutical errors, some of which I found sadly amusing. For example, Fuhr talks about a missionary conference that he once attended where the theme verse was Joel 3:14, the verse was used as a reference to people ready to make a decision for Christ, but when one looks at the surrounding context of the verse, the 'decision' referenced in the verse is referring to God's decision to bring judgment on the nations, not salvation! 

They recommend many study resources (look for these in the footnotes as well), and also provide demonstrations of the inductive method by using it on various texts of the Scripture.  Being 'doers of the Word' and not merely 'hearers' of it is also stressed.  They make the interesting argument that, "While the Holy Spirit is certainly capable of providing interpretive insight, we'd suggest that illumination has more to do with appropriation than interpretation."  In other words, the work of the Holy Spirit is more seen in the Christian's personal application of the truths of Scripture to their life than by their coming to the correct conclusion as to the meaning of any given section of Scripture (though this is very important of course).  They do clarify that not all texts of the Scripture are necessarily directed at 'doing', some texts give us more knowledge about the God whom we serve by obedience to His will (by the enablement of the Spirit).  But both are a part of what we glean from our Bible study: knowledge of God and His will, and then living in light of the revealed truth. 

I want to mention two more things, first, ironically I must admit that I disagreed with some of their conclusions on the interpretation of some example texts (I will probably take another look at them), but the authors themselves encourage the reader to not be afraid to disagree with a Bible commentator if one thinks (by means of correct hermeneutics of course) that a they are not interpreting a text correctly.  Also, the authors kept using female pronouns when speaking of any given Bible studier, which terminology was rather tough to get used to (despite being a female myself) and was rather distracting.  I think that using male pronouns would be more in keeping with the Bible's teaching of male headship and of woman being taken from man in the creation rather than vice-versa. it simply seems more biblical to have any given person referred to with masculine pronouns rather than having a male read feminine pronouns and apply them to himself.  I understand that our culture is very concerned about gender inclusiveness, but this book is primarily directed at Christians, most of whom would (or at least should) have already come to grips with the primarily masculine pronouns of the Bible, especially those that, though masculine, refer to both male and females. To me it's like someone using the term "womankind" to refer to both males and females, instead of 'mankind'.  I am just not comfortable with it.

But overall, I really liked this resource, and would recommend it to pretty much Christian looking for an aid to accurately studying the Word of God.

Many thanks to the folks at B&H publishers for sending me a free review copy of this book (My review did not have to be favorable).

My Rating:  *****

Five out of Five Stars

Here are a couple of the websites where this book may be purchased:  Amazon.com and christianbook.com

Greek For Everyone - A. Chadwick Thornhill

Greek for Everyone by A. Chadwick Thornhill presents a unique book on New Testament Greek.  His  stated goal is to have those reading this book learn "Greek in order to become better students of the Scripture rather than students of Greek." The aim of the book is not to "gain reading proficiency but rather are working to establish the ability to use various tools to study the text in Greek".  

And I think that Thornhill accomplishes his goals with this book, he takes you through a basic (though it still seems quite thorough) overview of the various parts of Greek so that you may then use lexicons, parsing guides, and other Greek tools in your Bible study without having to become an expert Greek scholar.

 Thornhill starts out by explaining that one of the most important things to do in acquiring a knowledge of Koine Greek that is useful to Bible study is to remember to keep looking for the 'big picture' in a text/passage.  One of the interesting points he brings out is that "words do not have meaning", they have ranges of meaning and we only find out what exact meaning an individual word has by looking at the words that surround it, and the words that surround those words…etc.  Rows of zeros are used as examples to illustrate this concept. Thornhill states, "More exegetical errors are probably made through haphazard word study than in any of the other steps in the process".  I was very pleased that great emphasis is made of the fact that context is VERY important in Bible study. 

Thornihill then moves on to quick overviews of Greek phrases, clauses, conjunctions, verbs, nominals, cases, participles, etc.  Again, this is mainly so that you will be able to use Greek tools with comprehension in your study without having to memorize the various forms and endings that indicate the word's 'makeup' and thus its meaning and relation to the surrounding words. You will learn what the breakdown that these tools give you means, but mainly so that you know what the lexical aids mean when they break it down for you, not so that you'll break it down yourself.  At the end of many of the overviews he gives you some common Biblical Greek words to memorize and then  a Greek sentence to practice on using a parsing tool or an analytical lexicon. 

All in all, I think that this is an excellent aid for Bible study, and probably more especially a good resource for pastors as well since seminary is SO expensive nowadays (My brother was not able to afford to go to any Seminary, though he had a desire to do so). 

Many thanks to the folks at Baker Books for sending me a complimentary review copy of this book! (My review did not have to be favorable)

Here are a couple of the places where you may purchase this book (other places carry it as well):

Amazon.com  and Christian Book Distributors

Discovering the Septuagint: A Guided Reader

Discovering the Septuagint - A Guided Reader - by Karen Jobes is a very nice resource for those looking for an introduction to the Greek of the LXX (The Septuagint).  There are chapters dealing with selected passages from 9 books of the LXX, in each chapter there is an introduction telling you about that particular book and its translation techniques.   Then follows the  Rahlfs-Hanhart Greek text of an excerpt from that particular book and a brief examination of certain key words and phrases in each verse, notes on vocabulary and syntax. Then comes another excerpt of the Greek text and the notes on the various verses…etc.  After all of the selected texts are done being examined, then comes the NETS (New English Translation of the Septuagint) version of the passage(s) so that one may read the whole thing in English. And then finally, if verses from the chapter are cited in the New Testament, they have a table showing where in the NT the passage is referred to and a small summary of its context in the NT.

I like this study resource pretty well, and I like having an introduction to the language of the LXX.   Again, this is just an introduction to the study of the LXX, not necessarily a study resource, Jobes gives a list of recommended reference works on the LXX at the beginning of the book, as well as selected bibliography at the end of each chapter. 

I especially like that Jobes points out that each book of the LXX "potentially gives us a 'snapshot' of what the Hebrew looked like at the time of its translation".  But she seems rather contradictory when she then goes on to say that, "In places, the Greek translators of the Hebrew Bible used forms of words and interpreted their text in ways (without being able to foresee it, of course) that were more congenial to the message of the New Testament than the corresponding Hebrew texts would have been…"  But if the LXX potentially gives us a look at what the Hebrew text looked like in the days of the Apostles, why not assume that the Hebrew text of that day actually said what the Apostles quoted from the Greek?  Why do we hold our present day Hebrew text  as being the authoritative text with which to judge an older translation of an older Hebrew text?  Why not even consider the thought that perhaps the translation that various Apostles used was actually a literal translation of their Hebrew text rather than a heavily interpretative translation?

Anyway, I do like this resource, and think that it will be quite handy for those looking to be introduced to the Greek of the LXX.  I think it would be really neat if they came out with a book doing basically the same thing with the full text of the LXX…especially if they also included the variants that are found in the various Greek OT manuscripts.  

Many thanks to the folks at Kregel Academic for sending me a free review copy of this book! - My review did not have to be favorable.

One the the websites where this book may be purchased is at Christianbook.com