Abstract
This is a special Bible introduction in that it is written by three scholars who ‘stand in some way within Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestant Christianity’ (p. 2). The authors claim that as ‘one of the greatest strengths’ of the book. Far from a ‘narrow vintage point’, this work represents such collaborative effort of the three different religious backgrounds. They claim that they are not to persuade readers to adopt their own stances but just to show how the Bible has been interpreted and that it has a continuing value in the future.
The first part of the book comprises five chapters introducing the preliminaries. These include discussing what the term ‘Bible’ refers to; basic things such as the language and versions of the Bible; the growth of the Hebrew and the New Testament canon; the use of the Bible in one’s religious life; and overview of different critical approaches to reading the Bible. The rest of the book then covers each biblical corpus of the Tanakh/Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, the Apocrypha, and the New Testament. In each chapter, the key contents of the book are briefly reviewed, with its reception in Jewish and Christian traditions discussed (only for the Old Testament part). The authors do not hide the controversies and debates in their discussions of the individual books. For example, the extreme behaviours of the prophet Ezekiel are explained in terms of his possibly having a mental illness (p. 147). The person Malachi may never have existed, as this last book of the Twelve is thought to have been composed to complete the collection (p. 155).
Compared with other Bible introductions, the survey of the content of the biblical books in this work is very (or perhaps too) concise. Occasional excurses, charts, tables, and black and white photographs/figures are used. I expected the authors to have provided a more thorough treatment of the Apocrypha. But only four books are here selected for review (but no Maccabees). Discussion of the corpus’ relationship to Second Temple Judaism and the New Testament is also scant. After all, this is a Bible introduction only for beginners, more suitable for undergraduate Bible introductory courses in university settings.