This volume provides an excellent overview of the major current scholarly approaches to the Bible. The contributions are written as introductions to these approaches, so the book is ideal for students, ministers, and anyone else interested in learning the questions scholars consider when studying the Bible. Each chapter includes not only a theoretical discussion of the method under consideration, but also concrete examples using specific biblical texts. Each chapter also includes suggested further reading for those who want to explore the methods more deeply. One of this volume's tremendous advantages is that it covers older "historical" methods and newer "literary" methods in a single volume, unlike some other compilations which highlight only one of these broad umbrellas. If you wanted a broad introduction to scholarly biblical interpretation but could only read one book on the subject, this would be one of your best choices.

Steven McKenzie's biography of David is based on the theory that the account in Samuel is an "apologia"--a brief for the defense, and that if you look hard at what the text seems to be defending David against, you can figure out what David actually did.

This is a smart assumption but the suspicious reading it generates results in a biography of David that would make Ken Starr's portrait of Bill Clinton look like a panegyric. The only virtue McKenzie can allow David is that of being an effective guerrilla warrior because, if he hadn't been, he couldn't have reached the throne in the first place. The rest of the story is viewed as pro-David propaganda. If the story tells us that David spared the life of the worthless Nabal and that Nabal subsequently died of natural causes, it means that this is the cover story and that David must have killed him or had him killed.

The problem for the reader comes when you ask if there is any way David could have had any attractive qualities. Given the way McKenzie reads Samuel, the nice things that are said about David must be spin, and the nasty facts reported about David (and there are plenty of them, including his adultery with Bathsheba, his inability to control his sensual and ambitious children, his vindictiveness against political enemies) are facts too well known to be denied. Given McKenzie's method, David simply cannot have done anything right.

The fact is that, like almost every figure in the Bible, David's life exists in the text and only there. There aren't any alternative witnesses to who he was and what he did. The story in the book of Samuel contains all we are ever likely to know about David, and any method that insists on reading past the story to the REAL David is going to come up either with a panegyric or a lampoon, depending on how suspicious a method of reading it adopts.

But the book of Samuel itself is far more complex than any of these simplifying readings. It presents a warrior and a king who was decidedly human--sometimes all too human--and depicts his world with a richness of texture that lawyer's briefs, like McKenzie's, are necessarily going to flatten out. McKenzie's book will be useful if it makes readers turn back to Samuel and read it closely and attentively, but the story it tells is a prosecutorial brief that, seen against its source, seems thin and unconvincing.

I read many books but there is only one book I can read again and again its the bible. So I have read the story of David many times. This book takes it from an different angle. What really was the historical David we will never know! What we have is the greatest piece of writings in the world but when, where and who wrote them we are not sure. In the bible its very hard to determine where fiction and history merge.

The story of David in this book is in a sense quite negative in that David is portrayed as a power hungry person. However to me it made him more real. I certainly have not my sense of grandeur in David. Some of his explanations somehow appear to be pretty weak. But he does present his evidence but that is not the writers fault as much as the lack of historical information.

He does leave us with a bad taste to the writer of the bible who he states "is trying to promote or excuse David". This may be true because we really do not know very much about who the writers were or there motives.

It well written and I would recommend this book to you.

McKenzie has done a remarkable job of writing a biography of a man for whom the only substantial source, the Bible, was written long after the fact with a specific agenda. Through a careful, critical reading of the Biblical accounts of David's life, McKenzie is able to recover a surprising amount of historical information, and his arguments are generally quite sound. Although as he admits himself he is only able to create a "plausible tale," the tale is plausible indeed, and as a very pleasant bonus, the style of the book is very accessible and readable. I'm not familiar with Davidic scholarship, but McKenzie's biography seems to be squarely in the mainstream. It stands both as a splendid book in its own right, and also as an excellent exercise in historical method, when dealing with extremely difficult sources.

This book is not so much a handbook as it is a basic introduction to near eastern languages and literature. It is geared toward beginning/intermediate students of biblical hebrew who want to supplement their studies with comparative methods. This book will give you a small taste of the field without excess detail or jargon. Each chapter focuses on a particular language, providing a brief grammatical survey, an overview of the literature and suggestions for further study. Additional background material would have made the book much more useful-- things like historical timelines, comparison of grammatical paradigm's, more samples of literature, glossary of terms etc. In sum, beginners will find a user-friendly starting point, advanced students are advised to look elsewhere for more practical help.

The subtitle to this volume is: An Introduction to Critical Issues. This would be true is the issues were those of decades past, e.g. the problems of documentary theory. As it is the issues raised are not the current ones. One need look no further than the dirth of footnotes from the 1990's.Or one may note the lack of dialogue with the likes of Lemche, Thompson, Finkelstein, Edelman, etc. One would do better with Knight's _Hebrew Bible and its Modern Interpreters_.

When I first picked up this book, I expected it to be more conservative than it was. But it takes what is termed a "liberal" leaning; that is, for instance, an author will state that a particular prophetic text was written later (after the prophetic fulfillment) because they don't believe in supernatural predictions.

Despite this liberalness, which is why I didn't give the book 5 stars, it does raise some important issues. It is open and honest about the issues and isn't afraid to bring forth the challenge against tradition (which is why I didn't give it less than 4 stars).

Some of the reasoning by certain contributors is in desperate need of challenging because they make statements based on their presuppositions that don't have a basis, at least they don't provide one. Some of the authors speak certain views as "obvious" truth without providing evidence. I must state here that one should NEVER accept what a scholar, or group of scholars, says because he is a scholar. There are just as many scholars on the other side of the fence. So being a scholar does not equate with being right, just with maybe being worthy of a serious ear.

Overall, this is a good book for a serious student of the Bible. There are points within the book that are not refutable, and there are many more that are. But the book causes one to think, something much needed with the once important fundamentalist movement now gone fundamentally unthinking. Today, most lay people have a blind faith concerning the Bible, and fear a critical approach. In the end, their refusal to face realities only leaves them in sometimes rediculous ignorance and embarrasment, except among themselves.

On the other hand, this book, and any other on realistic and honest biblical criticism, should not be read or thrown in the face of those who are not strong in their faith. These issues can do more than simply open one's mind and provide a challenge; rather, for many, such issues would destroy their faith in God completely. Teaching believers in God requires more than just blatant truth; it requires shepherding, and many sheep aren't ready for this type of reality. This book will never make a good gift for someone else!

Thus, this book is a good text for criticism and opens one's eyes to both liberal thought and to realistic, less liberal thought. And, of course, it is not all that could be said on either side of the issues.

In the end, the book is very wrong about most everything, but I challenge thinking Christians to face the issues presented.