There have been a number of helpful New Testament introductions written for the Evangelical community, including the older volume by Guthrie and the newer work by Carson, Moo and Morris. And there have been many fine NT theologies as well. Volumes by Ladd, Caird and Guthrie, among others, have served the Evangelical community well.

This new volume offers a bit of both worlds: introductory matters, as well as theological concerns. Written for students and lay people, it will serve as a good intermediary text. Advanced students may find it wanting in areas, but it does offer, if in brief form, some of the latest scholarship on the NT.

The three authors all teach interpretation at American seminaries. They have all produced a number of outstanding works on aspects of the NT. Green for example has authored the well received New International Commentary on Luke; Meye Thompson wrote on 1-3 John for the IVP New Testament Commentary Series, and Achtemeier did the Hermeneia commentary on 1 Peter.

This volume is especially good on Jesus and the Gospels. Indeed, along with sections on introductory matters and Acts, it takes up the first half of the book. The remainder of the book offers brief chapters on the other 22 books of the New testament. Each chapter concludes with a short bibliography of recent works, usually half of which are commentaries.

The chapters highlight the usual concerns: matters of authorship and historical setting, theological themes and literary issues. Photos, maps and supplementary text blocks all contribute to a highly usable and informative volume.

The study is neither too technical nor too detailed to be lost on a lay person or beginning student. Yet it is scholarly and up-to-date enough to be of use to more advanced students as well. As with all theological works, there will be some areas of disagreement.

For example, since none of the three authors comes from a Reformed perspective (not that they need to), there are areas in which one might beg to differ. Perhaps the most obvious example of this arises in the chapter on Romans. One passage in which quite a lot of ink has been spilled is Romans 7 and the identity of the "I" who struggles with sin.

While a number of options present themselves, many argue that Paul is describing his own experience as a believer (and by implication that of all other believers). Pick up any 10 good commentaries on Romans, and perhaps as many as half will argue this position Yet in this volume the authors simply dismiss such an interpretation as "impossible".

One would have thought that careful scholars such as Cranfield, Murray, and Dunn, for example, would not embark upon such impossible hermeneutical assignments!

But leaving aside the occasional theological quibble, this volume well serves its purpose as an introductory text on basic NT matters. Others may go into more background detail (such as the volume by Carson, Moo and Morris, or more fully examine the theological or literary aspects (Ladd, or Caird - in addition to his NT Theology, see his invaluable Language and Imagery of the Bible), but this volume will fill a niche and should enjoy a long run with students of the NT.

This book is a bible student's dream come true. It is written in an engaging manner. The scholarship is superb. The book's structure, theological content, and balanced treatment, make it a valuable resource for New Testament Study. At a time when there is a proliferation of books and monographs on biblical subjects, Achtemeier, Green, and Thompson, produce a jewel for the serious student of scripture. This book is destined to become an instant classic.

I had the great pleasure of learning from this book when it was still in manuscript form. For the first time in my long history as a student I found that I understood the text at first reading! The chapters generally present two approaches: the technical (scary!) and the commonsense -- with the latter truly written in a commonsensical fashion. In fact, it is so well written that it is possible to go over the material on one's own. The book is pricey, but it delivers on its promise.

There are a lot of people out there who do statistical analysis but who do not possess the mathematical knowledge underpinning a lot of what they are doing (i.e., linear algebra and some calculus). Most of the time people can get away with using stastical software as a sort of 'black box' and not worry about the math. But there are situations when having the background knowledge is crucial.

This book does an excellent job of facilitating self-study of the math underpinning multivariate statistical analysis ... namely, linear (matrix) algebra and some calculus. Each chapter has a set of questions and ALL of the answers are provided in the book (handy for self-study). The one slight critique of this book I can give is that I wish the book did more on the calculus aspects. However, that is a minor comment and the knowledge that this book imparts of linear algebra to self-learners is extremely valuable.

This book covers a lot of topics - but lacks in-depth explanation on many important stuffs. I tried to reference the book to help me with some Excel automation. However, the 40 Excel pages in the book helps only a little. Not a single word on 'charts', poor presentation on 'Range', no mention of Excel built-in functions... MS user's guide or online help is much better. The coverage on other parts look just like the Excel.

This book shows at a very high-level, what you can do with VBA in all of those MS Office applications.

The only problem with this book is that every piece of information can be gathered from MSDN.

If you are not sure what VBA is, or how you can use other Microsoft Products in you Visual Basic projects, then get this book. It will be a real eye-opener.

This book is a good starting point before you go out and buy that 2 inch thick book on your individual office component. This book does not go into advanced concepts, it is moreover a guide to Office's object model. I felt that it left many important concepts out. The selection of what was important in Excel was sporadically helpful. I started out with this book, but needed additional references to drill into the specifics. I've *never* accessed data the way they say to in Access, nor would I. There is a discussion section in the back with suggestions on how to use the Office suite to solve problems, but no specifics.