How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth: Fourth Edition

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Their primary rule is: "a text cannot mean what it never could have meant to its author or [original] readers. Certainly, many bad and harmful interpretations have been made because people have thought a text could mean anything if they can somehow make a case for it.

In clear, simple language, it helps you accurately understand the different parts of the Bible–––their meaning for ancient audiences and their implications for you today–––so you can uncover the inexhaustible worth that is in God’s Word. Fee and Stuart conclude their prolegomena with a substantive overview of language and the issue of historical distance. Discussion of the various translations was perhaps one of the more turbid and opinion laced elements of this work.

Douglas Stuart (PhD Harvard) is senior professor of Old Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Fee (PhD, University of Southern California) is Professor Emeritus of New Testament Studies at Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia.

The fact that the Bible has a human side is our encouragement; it is also our challenge, and the reason that we need to interpret. We cannot claim not to interpret (“it just means what it says so no interpretation is necessary”) because we are all doing it all the time.The authors conclude with a helpful, if not exactly robust, appendix on evaluating and using commentaries, both Old and New Testament, for both the general reader and advanced students. Indicative of this approach is the integration and application of issues relevant to the first century church to current theological conundrums. We need to read our Bibles in light of the historical-grammatical understanding with which the Bible was written. Their interest, as with reading Cicero or Milton, is with the religious ideas of the Jews, Jesus, or the early church. Instead, interpretation should be done with careful examination of what's actually authoritative (rather than simply an example mentioned), taking into consideration the word meanings at the time of the authors, the historical context, and the literary context.

Maybe I would have been happier if the book was a lot shorter, purely a guide on exegesis and hermeneutics, and less focused on the conclusions they have come to as a result of this process. This evinces the overall pattern and approach for interpreting Scripture that should be utilized by all interpreters. If they were going to hear it, it could only have come through events and in language they could have understood.How To Read Your Bible For All Its Worth is strongly academic, yet structured well enough to walk laymen through some progressive comprehension on the basis and basics of biblical interpretation. This is not necessarily a criticism, it just creates some issues with knowing how to implement the guide.