Revelation is a neglected book within the church. Even Calvin never preached from it. Talbert attempts to make the book more readable and accessible to Christians today. What is troubling is his reliance on extra-biblical apocalyptic literature, especially when it suits his purpose. For example, as to the authorship of the book, Talbert claims that all we can say is that it was written by someone named John (not necessarily the Apostle). He assumes this despite some strong historic evidence pointing to the Apostle. However, he appeals to these sources when defending the cannonicity of the book. By way of another example, when the question of the millennial reign of Christ is addressed, Talbert admits it not based solely upon the text, but because other, extra-biblical, apocalyptic literature. Despite these difficulties, no call them slight discomforts, with the book, Talbert handles the text fairly well. This book would best be used with a solid, orthodox, Reformed commentary.

Professor Talbert aims "to offer aid to those who are scarred by harmful readings of Revelation and to encourage mainstream Christians to deal with Apocalypse in ways other than ignoring it." In my opinion, he succesfully delivers what he promised. This book is concise and easy to read but is not just "preaching to the choir." It is an erudite, well written essay, adjusted to modern biblical exegesis yet accesible to a broad audience.

The reader is alerted in the Preface that this book is a collection of past essays by the author, written for various conferences and collections. Some overlap of subject matter and repetition of thoughts should be expected. The amount of this, however, is not severe.

Perhaps as much as one-half of the book addresses the question of how the biblical text came into being. The idea of a divinely inspired and faithfully handed down original text is quickly dismissed. The author instead advances the now familiar theory that the books of the bible were produced in editorial stages that included two major thrusts: The faithful repetition of important traditions, and the creative reshaping of those traditions in new theological directions. (Pg. 8)

If one wonders why so much attention is given to possible origins of the Bible instead of the Qumran scrolls themselves, the answer becomes apparent as the author strives to demonstrate that the Qumran biblical manuscripts continue this very process of textual evolution.

For this reader the value of the book lies in the chapters that present readings from the Qumran scrolls which are lined up with the same-verse-readings from a wide range of other ancient texts. The Samaritan Pentateuch; the Masoretic Text; the Septuagint; the Hexapla; and the Old Latin translation of the Septuagint all receive comparative attention.

The reader may not always agree with the conclusions of the author, but the easy-to-compare format allows one to quickly grasp a picture of the differences among the texts and to evaluate their import.

However, a reader does need to be forewarned that without a working knowledge of Hebrew, Greek and Latin one is left in a weak position from which to evaluate the conclusions the author draws.

Past generations of scholars used to seek the ur-text of the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew text (specifically the MT) was amended by correcting "corruptions," by translating the Septuagint back into Hebrew with the belief that it represented an earlier text, or some other method.

In _The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of the Bible_ Eugene Ulrich presents a series of essays, once presented as papers for academic conventions, which present the history of the biblical text, starting with the Hebrew texts and progressing to the Greek and Latin texts.

In his essays Ulrich presents three key items: 1) before the Second Revolt (c. 132 CE) there were a pluriformity of texts; 2) until the destruction of the Second Temple, or even until the Second Revolt, the external shape of the "Scriptures" had not been established; and 3) it has too often been assumed that the MT was "the biblical text."

These three items run contrary to what many of us have been taught in years past about the formation of the Hebrew Bible.

Charles Swindoll encourages the reader to get closer to the Holy Spirit yet seems more than cautiously skeptical of any claims of the Spirit's more dramatic manifestations. I found myself more than once starting to get excited about where he was going only to have him cut himself short to redundantly warn readers about getting "fanatical" or joining "cults". While I do agree that Christians should be duly cautious about dramatic experiences, claims, cults, and the plethora of charlatans who have paraded so called "gifts of the Spirit" on Television weighing everything they hear of and experience against the scriptures, I feel his cautions tended to overpower the many excellent points he made about how the Holy Spirit can empower, revitalize, and enable believers.

I commend the fact that Mr. Swindoll was clearly trying to be conscientious by gearing his work to a general audience of believers at all points of the spectrum of belief. Still, the repetitive admonitions gave the impression that he felt most dramatic and/or physical "manifestations" were not to be believed and that most readers of this book were looking for a grand miracle to confirm their weak conviction, rather than a deeper relationship with this integral Person of the trinity.

I feel the point that should have been more stringently stressed is how Christians themselves limit the Holy Spirit's influence and gifts because of feeble faith and a poor diet of God's word. When one is daily in the Bible and prays frequently and fervently seeking God's will in ALL they do, the influence and revitalizing qualities of the Holy Spirit are most poignantly experienced.

This is not to imply that the book has no merit or that there is nothing to be gleaned from it. On the contrary, Mr. Swindoll infuses most of his many excellent points with a healthy smattering of pertinent scripture and tended to lean more on Biblical truths than his own understanding. This is the sort of attentive preaching and teaching we could use much more of.

As usual, Chuck Swindoll hits it out of the park! This book gives us a view of God's Holy Spirit not often taught from the pulpit. He tells us that incredible power is available to the believer to accomplish much for the cause of Christ, but we usually don't trust God to do much more than the mundane in our lives.

"Let's face it - many of us simly do not understand the Holy Spirit. We feel awkward relating to Him..." And, he goes on to teach us how to understand Him and how to comfortably relate to Him. This book is easy to use, taking little time out of the day, and listening to the audio tapes will really give you the complete picture.

When fact and fiction collide we get a book like this one. Lets start with some of the high points.

The book is well written, and I really liked the format. The author lays out each chapter with clear writing, study questions and notes at the end of each chapter, and recommending reading, which is wonderful. The fact portion of the book, namely the comparison of existing Biblical passages, is well presented and lets the reader come to their own conclusions. The author has done his homework when it comes to presenting already well known scholarly theories like the famous, but non-existent, Q documents.

However, it is when the author tries to steer the conclusions with an obvious agenda that the book quickly deteriorates into a poorly reasoned version of the Jesus Seminar theories.

The first 6 chapters are presented well as described above, but the remaining chapters are clearly written with a faulty and biased conclusion already in mind.

For example in chapter 7 in the section "Jesus Tradition" the author inexplicably jumps into theories that are widely disputed by most Biblical scholars, by trying to read into the New Testament Gospels intent that is not supported by any credible evidence. For example he states that "The evolving oral tradition made no distinction between the prophetic word of the lord and the word of the historical man". However, previously in the book he outlines and compares many of the historical sayings and finds little dissimilarity among the different reporters and even goes as far as validating the differences as what one would expect from different viewpoints of historical and factual reporting.

His over-reliance on Gnostic texts and the work of the Jesus Seminar clouds what would otherwise be a pretty good and objective layout of Biblical information.

If you are interested in a comparison of Biblical texts, and considering some interesting questions about them, this book does a decent job of that for the first two thirds. Skip the last third of the book however, as the author quickly demonstrates what happens when fact and fiction collide with poor results and illogical and biased assumptions.

First of all, yes, this book does display some of Dr. Hedrick's biases. But, overall the book is an invaluable resource and introduction of modern Jesus scholarship. If you are a beginner in the field this book will help you hit the ground running. Do keep Dr. Hedrick's biases in mind though, and remember as his title may not suggest, he is a man of faith. Dr. Hedrick does display certain agendas, but when these are looked at in a proper manner, they will help you think critically.

Nice book. Many illustrations.

"The text and photographs in the revised and updated editions reflect the latest happenings in the Holy Land and Middle East." (From the book flap)

This is an excellent resource, explaining the usages of the term "wine" in the Bible. Since the Bible does not contradict itself, and is God's Word, this helps to explain context and usage of the times when it was written. Wine is still a mocker, strong drink a rager. It does not, however, definitively settle all the wine/grape juice debates. I wish someone would put it back into print.

Have you noticed how often studying about the Bible takes you away from studying the Bible itself? This book nicely sends us to the Bible itself. A person wanting to study Moses or David, for example, might read Charles Swindoll's books about these men, and enjoy them, but inevitably reads more "about" the Bible than the Bible itself.

This tool concisely maps the chronological biography of both major and minor Bible characters. If you have been helped by works like Thomas and Gundry's "A Harmony of the Gospels", you will be delighted to find Charles William's Bible Biographical Index a handy resource for both teaching and personal study. Its chronological outlines of the life of Christ, Moses, David and others gives the reader a quick handle on these important lives.

The book also helps carefully distinguish between any two distinct Bible characters who share the same name.

The value of the book is in its summaries of what these individuals did and when. Its conclusions are in the author's own words, which serve then as a type of commentary.

Interpretations are concise and conservative, i.e., not far reaching (not speculative) beyond what the Bible itself affirms.

Even for a non-believer, like myself, a very interesting book of the Bible. Indeed whether or not you are a Christian, surely the King James version of the Bible must rank as one of the glories of English literature.

I was struck when reading the Book of Job about how much I empathised with Job throughout - he gets a very rough deal. A good man, he is basically beset by trials and misfortunes at the hand of God all because Satan contends with God that Job's is a fair-weather faith.

Thereafter, Job bemoans his lot, despite the efforts of four of his friends to convince him that he should accept his misfortunes (for various unconvincing reasons). This goes to the root of a fundamental question of faith - how can we accept the existence of a benevolent deity when our own and others' existence is beset with woes, and when there is so much (unpunished) injustice in the world?

Part of the answer is belief in redress in the next world. The main counter-argument in the Book of Job, however, seems to be that we cannot possibly appreciate God's reasons for doing things - we are not capable of that. Therefore the answer is a stoical acceptance of our lot and faith that God is, overall, doing things for a good reason. This leap of faith is too much for many (see Camus's "The Myth of Sisyphus" for a critique).

In the Book of Job, God does not answer Job's lamentations at all well. Rather, in a bombastic passage at the end, He boasts about his achievements rather than addressing the philosophical problem - His argument is funadamentally that might equals right.

Fascinating.

A pious study and difficult for the modern reader, but it gives the most spiritual interpretation of any commentary, a pity he did not write on the second half of Revelation. Not a light read but worth a serious study.

Another good book by Charles R Swindoll - I have read other books published by him in previous years. This has helped with my journey in the world and my walk in the Christian trail. It helps with dealing with the many trials and issues that pop up in this complex world. It is a good read and text for the journey of today.