A Compact Guide to the Whole Bible: Learning to Read Scripture's Story

by Robert W. Wall (Editor), David R. Nienhuis (Editor)

This compact, one-semester introduction to the Bible prepares students to begin reading the biblical text as Christian Scripture, focusing on the meaning of Scripture for the church. The editors and contributors--experienced teachers with expertise in different parts of the Bible--orient students to the whole of Scripture so that they may read the biblical text for themselves. The book first explains what Christians believe about Scripture and gives a bird's-eye survey of the whole biblical story. Chapters then introduce the story, arrangement, style, and key ideas of each division of the Old and New Testament, helping readers see how the books of the Bible make a coherent whole.

Genres: School, Christian, Nonfiction, Theology

178 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 10, 2015

About the author

Robert W. Wall (ThD, Dallas Theological Seminary) is Paul T. Walls Professor of Scripture and Wesleyan Studies at Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington.

Reviews

[Jacob]

Finally finished a book that I was supposed to have read for class last semester. 😬 Better late than never!

[Evelyn Lewis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hands down the worst "Christian" book I've ever read. The best thing I can say about it is that it contains some interesting facts about the way the collections of books in the Bible are organized, and that it avoids SOME heresies. Unfortunately, one heresy is enough to ruin your faith, and a lie by omission is still a lie. And this book is full of lies by omission along with the directly stated lies.

"You believe that there is one God, you do well. The demons believe, and shudder." - James 2:19

This book starts off by telling us that the Old Testament is "deeply rooted in historical memory". Well. The major crime in this book's view of scripture is understatement. Reading this book, you'd think that some scribes around the time of Nehemiah patched together an oral tradition and a collection of writing fragments, added copious imagination, and the Holy Spirit's role was to later "canonize" this work by picking it out of a group of non-inspired texts. WRONG. The texts of the Bible were written in their respective time periods by the authors they claim to have been written by and they are DIVINELY INSPIRED and GOD BREATHED in EVERY WORD. They are historically accurate, and just because they may contain METAPHORS doesn't mean they aren't to be taken SERIOUSLY. Stop conflating "literally" and "seriously". If the text is not true in the same sense in which its author meant it to be understood, then it is NOT TRUE. Oddly enough, I think this is something both atheists and Christians would agree on, but somehow these soggy-bread-christians don't get it.

So besides negating the historicity of the Bible, the authors also do everything possible to minimize the actual gospel. Did you know you can write an entire book summarizing the Bible without explaining the gospel? I didn't until now. So they managed to summarize the books of the law without talking about the system of ritual blood sacrifice, or what it means. The prophets? Talking about "God's plan to restore the creation" but they don't discuss what that means in terms of how it was accomplished and how the suffering servant was punished for his people's sin. And when you get to the New Testament??? Does it get any better??? No... Jesus is described as an example for us to follow, like an example of how a Christian ought to behave, and so on, and to their credit they don't mess up the doctrine of the incarnation. But they don't mention why his righteousness is important. That it is IMPUTED to us. Jesus's death is spoken of in vague terms, such as being a "self-sacrifice", but the nature of that sacrifice is never explained.

Above all this book omits any explanation of what salvation means on an individual basis. Everything is collective. It's all about "humanity" and Israel the collective, and the Church as a collective. Repentance is collective. Society collectively sins and needs change. You will not find a call to individual repentance and belief in this book. You won't find an understanding that each of us is guilty before God. You won't find the love of Jesus for the individual. If I had this book, and Wall's class, as my only explanation of Christianity, I would become an atheist.

Just as an example of how the authors have no idea what they're talking about, they claim that the Song of Songs has no reference to God, when God's name is actually used in 8:6.

This book is trash, it's an utter dumpster fire. I hope the next person who is forced to read it enjoys my marginal notes.

[Peter Lippold · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had to read it for a college class. Kind of useful for placing all the different books of the Bible into their respective places. Wording in chapter 10 is awfully hard to understand. It’s like they didn’t have a proofread or something. Just my 2 cents.

Fine book, but you’d be better off just reading the Bible and searching things on google when you get lost.

[Ryan and Sara Wendt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good primer for learning how to read Scripture. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning more about how to read the Bible. The essays in this book offer good insights about learning to read and learn more about the narrative of the Scriptures.

[Britain Campbell]

Read for class. Actually enjoyed it

[Chris Hulshof · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good. This is a 60,000 foot flyover of the whole Bible. Hard to consider it a guide though because of this. I’d say this is more of a genre-related overview of the Bible.

[Mila]

Read for a class. I thought the first couple chapters were helpful groundwork for analyzing scripture.

[Bryce Van Vleet · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really interesting look at the Bible as a cohesive metanarrative. Strongly recommend for any who who struggles to read or understand the Bible!

[emily | pagewraith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the assigned textbook for my introductory theology course in university. It is an easy read, and gives a good overview of the bible, especially for someone who is new to it.